Ba-Da-Ba-Ba-Ba...

We've had some lousy/unpredictable weather here the past week, but after enough days of being cooped up due to rain I decided to chance things on Tuesday and took the boys out to the mall.

The mall, by they way, is very exciting and easily rivals the park on their list of favorite things to do. Still, I decided to up the ante since my guys had also been asking on and off the week previous for "french fries!" – and even though I'd already bought some potatoes with the intent of making some oven fries I didn't quite get around to it before this happened instead:

And er... they were lovin' it™. 

I'm not sure if it because it was their first time sampling fast food. 

– Nom...

Or because it was also their first time in a food court. 

– Om nom nom...

I do know that sitting up on the bench and not in a high-chair was a big hit! 

Also, feets!

We had at least one other first that day too...

The closest mall is too far for us all to walk there without putting my guys in the stroller, but that day was the first time I took a chance on letting them walk around somewhat unfettered. They had the choice to hang onto the stroller (or Mommy) or get back in the stroller and they did great. We easily did 1.5 laps around the mall without incident and a good time was had by all. 

– We hangs on tight, everyone! Mommy puts fears into us real good.
I think these faces say it all.

Added bonus: it wore at least one of them out:

– Zzzzz...

I think Nate's expression is mostly the realization that we were home now and that he probably should have taken advantage on the ride back to catch a quick nap: 

– Regrets. I has a few...

You know, like his brother did. Angels couldn't look sweeter than this boy right here:

– I hope you is taking notes angels! 'Dis how it done.

- L.

Dining Out

Since we used up most of our free crayons from our previous venture out into the big world of family-friendly restaurants (which also happened to be our very first venture out into the big world of family-friendly restaurants), it was high time for a Part II adventure.

Unfortunately there isn't much available in our neighborhood that's family friendly that also isn't fast-food, so we revisited the same restaurant due to it's only-game-in-town proximity.

The restaurant? Swiss Chalet.

• • • • • • •

A small caveat: I worked at a Swiss Chalet while going to college. My shifts were for the most part not long enough to get a proper break with a meal, but the couple times they were I found their food landed like lead in my stomach. I've never been a big fan – including the times I've been dragged there by a rabid Swiss Chalet lover as a proper customer.

That said, there are far too many die-hard Swiss Chalet fans to make my dining experience anything other than a personal anecdote. Food preferences aside, I can also say that having worked in a few chain restaurants during my teens and early twenties, no one had it more together regarding food safety than the Chalet. Their standards are impeccable and their food for the most part is simply made and relatively healthy.

There is no accounting for their signature sauce however. I have no idea why people go bananas for it. A customer once commented that it tasted like mothballs and although it was still a few months before I tried it for the first time myself I'd have to agree that his description was fairly spot-on.

It was one of the few items at Swiss Chalet that wasn't made from actual ingredients in the restaurant, but rather came in powdered form in a mysterious bag, which should tell you something.

Seriously, stay away from that stuff.

And thus ends my caveat (which turned out to be not-so-small after all), and on with the dining out experiences...

• • • • • • • 

The first time I took my boys out was early February when Gamma Rita was still in town. We were fully prepared to exit if the experience was met with tears – and although there was a moment of doubt when it came time to get everyone seated in unfamiliar high-chairs, it turned out to be a better-than-expected venture.

Although I think the crayons were a selling point:

And the space where the tables met that was somehow perfectly positioned to shove said crayons down also had its appeal:

Of course there were other distractions which, at the time, we all assumed had to do with other patrons enjoying their lunch and a curious toddler:

It's hard to believe that was only 8 weeks ago when it was still technically winter here (we didn't really have winter this year, but it was February at the time) and also pre-haircuts. It seems like ages ago and I can't believe how much my boys have grown in such a short span of time.

But I digress.

Last night M. and I revisited Swiss Chalet after a play in the park for supper.

The boys weren't as taken with the crayons this time since we have plenty of crayons at home.

Oh. Crayons.

Still, we kept everyone distracted with a trip to the potty while we waited for our meals to arrive. Of course, once said meals arrived, Seth found a distraction of his own:

And unlike our previous visit where I assumed he was being a looky-loo in general, this time the source of his distraction turned out to be rather obvious:

Some might say a little too obvious. 

Hey cutie! Get back here – I not done with you yet!

*sigh*

• • • • • • •

Nate also had a similar reaction to the crayons:

Oh. Crayons.

At least until he discovered the ketchup that was well within his reach:

He admired that bottle as much as it is possible to admire a bottle of ketchup until the food arrived. 

And then he tucked in proper:

I'm fairly certain that his meal was at least 50% ketchup, but since it's technically a vegetable by some standards, we all did our best to look the other way.

- L.

PS. It's been tough on a first-time and last-time Mommy acknowledging that my babies are no longer babies.

Still, when I catch a moment like this it's impossible not to wax nostalgic: 

I'm not entirely sure that there won't always be moments like these that take me back in an instant to when they were barely born. A casual sweep of the eye and I'm right there all over again.

*sniffle*

How I Spent My Birthday – The 2012 Edition

A few days ago Seth came down with a little cough. It was dry and fairly sporadic and he seemed healthy otherwise. As I always do when my boys are getting sick – and because I tend to be in denial about these sorts of things – I wondered at first if he had developed an allergy and debated whether to take him to the pedi straight away or wait and see. I went with the latter and 36 hours later, Nate had the same "allergy", at which point I came out of my denial and admitted we were probably dealing with germs.

The boys went to bed Monday night not sounding too bad and woke up Tuesday morning sounding rather dreadful. I called the pedi's office, but all I got was a recorded message saying the office was closed until January 4th.

Thanks to Gamma Rita, who braved the winter elements on what was easily the coldest day so far this year to scout out clinics in the area, we were able to get an appointment at a walk-in family practice (one that could accommodate a double-stroller – very important!) not too far away.

It turned out to be an unexpected adventure and despite missing out on a proper afternoon nap, I think Nate and Seth actually had a pretty good time. Of course, Gamma Rita insisted that this was in fact another perfectly ordinary day since taking your babies to see the doctor when they are sick is a perfectly ordinary thing to do.

She has a point there.

Here we are waiting for the doctor:

– Oh hi everyone. Is us. We is sick.
– Very sick everyone. Mommy look all worried and bring us to see doctor type person.
– Except we has to wait. Life is full of lots of waiting as it turn out.
– First we wait here on 'dis chair with lots of sick people coughing around us. 

– And then we wait here where we is the only sick people so we cough on each other instead, but that get old fast. Then I get an idea.
– I get same idea. 

– Is called "getting into stuff" idea.
– Try it next time doctor keep you waiting. Is great fun and really help to pass the time.
– Also, doctor love semi-ransacked office.
– Oh, yes. 'Dis was big hit!

Of course you never know who you might run into at the doctor's office. Nate unexpectedly met up with an old friend: 

– Well, hello there. I not expect see you here. You smaller than I remember, but I has been doing lots of growing. 'Dis not be to your advantage as it turn out.

– When no one looking I adjust your spine real good.
– *snap-crackle*

– Hi there bony man. Is nice to finally meet you. You has interesting hands that I can't stop looking at. Also, did you know your elbows bend 'dis way?
– *crackle-pop* 

BANG! THUD! CRASH! 

*many feet scurrying* 

I'm not sure the skeleton will ever be *quite* the same again:

My head. It hurts.

Eventually, we moved the boys to higher ground in an attempt to distract/corral them.

It looked a little shaky at first: 

But then smiles:

And now two boys having a blast... 

... reading the eye-chart with Gamma Rita.  

Even when my babies are sick, alphabets are always a hit.

Eventually the doctor showed up and even though he wasn't their regular doctor, he was great with the boys. They got some take-home tongue depressors (fun!) and hi-fives were handed out all around.

Diagnosis: Influenza. Tylenol for everyone to keep down the fever and antibiotics for Seth. Apparently his heart-murmur makes him more susceptible to a lung infection, which I didn't know until yesterday. I will say he certainly seems a lot sicker than his brother, but that might be due to Seth catching the flu cooties sooner. Either way, I hope they are both on the mend soon and that the rest of us get a pass on getting sick.

So far, so good. Fingers crossed and all that.

- L.

1 Year Later: My Ordinary Day

I am currently swamped with a backlog of photos and videos and stories about the boys, but as I sat at my computer last night contemplating which to choose to post about I realized I had a perfect post for today already waiting.

It was never my intention to wait an entire year to blog about the perfectly ordinary day we had last year on my birthday, but it's funny how things work out sometimes. Here we are, a year later and this may be a better post than it would have been at the time for the hindsight in it. Also, looking through all the photos was a wonderful way to celebrate my birthday eve.

Without further ado, my ordinary (birth)day one year ago...

I took this picture within minutes of waking up (which was at a very reasonable 7:45 AM). I couldn't have asked for better weather that day.

Of course, beautiful weather couldn't top this: 

Or this:

My boys are still pretty happy guys when they wake up, but back then they were especially full of giggles. 

I got everyone set up in Seth's crib with some toys for a bit of pre-breakfast playtime while I went to start the first of four loads of laundry that needed to get done that day:

In case you're thinking I really let the laundry pile up, four loads is a perfectly ordinary amount of laundry when you have 2 babies.

Really. 

Once I had the machines fired up, I went back to check in on everyone...

... and discovered Seth without pants. At the time this was a pretty spectacular thing, but a year later I can safely say this is also a perfectly ordinary event. 

When one has a perpetual case of the skinny like Seth, pants can be a bit of a challenge after all.

The boys had their morning bottles and it was off for playtime in the living room where the boys raided the bookshelves, wreaked havoc and generally had a good time:

I eventually wrangled everyone back to the nursery without too much incident and we had our morning story time:

Then it was time for lunch:

Yes, we were all still in our pajamas at this point, and yes, this was perfectly ordinary. 

The boys ate four bowls of mushy-mash, which a year later looks sort of funny since they have long since been eating whatever I'm eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but this was then. So mushy-mash it was.

Apparently they ate fork-mashed bananas, carrots that look like ketchup for some reason, sweet potatoes and garden veggies (which was mainly sweet potatoes with some lumpy extras like green beans). We used one spoon per bowl since the boys shared a spoon at the time and I optimistically laid out one cloth for clean-up. Obviously this is a bit of fakery since ordinarily I would have needed at least 6 of those cloths at any given meal. ;)

I made myself a fancy sandwich which was most certainly not ordinary at the time:

What was ordinary however is that I made my lunch after the boys were down for their nap since there was no way to eat while spoon-feeding everyone else back then. 

A side note: Although I always waited until the boys were napping to make my lunch, I used to make really crappy lunches for myself – mostly because I was in a hurry to eat. Something I learned a year ago today:

It really doesn't take much longer to make yourself a nice lunch. A few minutes really.

Having nice lunches became ordinary around here because of my ordinary day. Funny, that.

Also ordinary – cleaning up the lunch mess and a day's worth of bottles: 

After the nap, we headed out for a walk to fetch a cake thanks to the nice weather:

Everyone looked a little suspicious for some reason. 

Suppertime pics which I took between supper and dessert:

Dessert at the time for my babies was Mum-Mum biscuits so bibs weren't really required. 

I, on the other hand, had cake: 

And one of my favorite pics from that day, because I can't look at it without hearing this: 

"Hey Mom – your cake's on fire!"

A quick tidy-up in the kitchen, followed by getting the boys ready for bed, followed by some pre-bed playtime. This time we raided the kitchen bookshelf: 

We also made what I considered at the time to be a "big mess" in the nursery:

I'm so glad I hadn't looked at these photos in almost a year because this one gave me a particularly big laugh. This looks downright orderly compared to the level of destruction we are capable of now, but at the time (even though this was quite ordinary) I really thought it was a big deal. 

I thought I was really going to show you all something.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Lastly we've come to the end of my ordinary day where I was as ordinarily exhausted as I always am at the end of all our ordinary days and as eager as I am on a perfectly ordinary basis to see this: 

My perfectly ordinary bed.

The end.

- L.

PS. There is likely a video coming later. I'll update here if/when it happens. : )