My Kid, The Cartoon

Life in our house frequently resembles a bad Saturday-morning cartoon. There is a lot of noise. The plotlines are nonsensical. We have no shortage of comic violence. And everyone has enormous eyes and is wearing some crazy costume.

So of course, when Thomas learned to walk, it came as no surprise that his idea of walking involves stretching his arms out in front of him and lurching about like a Scooby Doo villain. I half expect Maddux to run up, peel off his mask and proclaim "Jinkies, gang! He's not a baby at all! Our 'baby' is really Mr. Skaggs from the jam factory!"

At first it was just a few swoopy lurches at a time, followed by the inevitable plop-and-wail. Now our little cartoon villain races around at top speed, still with the herky-jerky gait and still with the creepy zombie arms stretched out in front -- for no reason, apparently, other than to make me laugh.

Of course, the real Swamp Monster would never pause in mid-lurch, cock his head, and give a proud twelve-toothed beam and then applaud himself for walking. Still, once he gets a little practice under his belt, I won't be surprised if, when Thomas runs, his feet look like crazy wheels.

Zoinks!

Have keyboard, will blog

"No Riding The Baby" is back. It's a Christmas miracle!

Thanks to my possessed keyboard, I haven't been able to type in a month and a half. No typing = no blog. But thanks to some troubleshooting by Chris, my keyboard is working again (for now ...) and I leave you with this while I work at chronicling the happenings of November/December.

It is a photo of our lovely and charming kids getting ready to provide in-flight entertainment on the Nashville-to-Vegas route. Merrrrrry Christmas!

The Odyssey (And Other Things Borrowed From Those Masters of Tragedy, The Greeks)

In Greek mythology, a boy named Icarus puts on a pair of wings made of wax and feathers and, ignoring the warnings of his father, flies too close to the sun. Since wax doesn't hold up terribly well to heat (Daedalus apparently didn't think his invention through too well), poor Icarus falls into the sea when his wings melt away.

I recently undertook an Icarian journey of my own, but substitute a plane for the sun and my kids for wings. The plane hadn't even pulled out of the hangar before the meltdowns began.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was very excited when Chris booked a trip for all five of us to attend my brother's wedding in Tennessee. But I also threw up a little in my mouth, because none of us (even the most patient and perfect, which I am not!) really looks forward with delight to an international trip spanning four travel days and 6,000 miles round-trip.

My mom suggested that we make a few weeks of it, but I looked into it, and they don't offer a Round-Trip-With-Padded-Cell-On-Return-Flight special, so I politely declined the offer to spend an extra week being smothered by insane toddlers on a bouncy air mattress.

Our odyssey begins the Wednesday before the wedding weekend. We were supposed to be packed and ready to go by the time Maddux got out of school, but of course we weren't. When one has three kids, packing up all the "last-minute" things such as toothbrushes and suckies and special toys takes a lot more than your "last minute" between the end of naptime and time to get out the door. Try "last five hours with many interruptions from small children who are hanging, slothlike, from your limbs." So we got out of the house three hours behind schedule, at 7.

It actually worked out well, because the kids slept on the five-and-a-half-hour drive to Spokane instead of what they usually do in the car, which is fight and whine. Or, maybe not. Once we got to the motel, they were bouncing off the walls. If there is one thing worse than sleeping on a lumpy motel mattress, it's trying to sleep on a motel mattress while listening to a wide-awake toddler chatter until 1:30 a.m. about diggers and trains and who poops in their pants or doesn't (turns out, everyone does).

Eventually, I fell asleep wedged -- uncomfortable and completely immobile -- between a toddler and a hotel-crib-hating baby, while listening to the steady snores of my preschooler (but only until 5:30, when she woke up and decided to gallop around the room. Joy.)

After that refreshing 4-hour repose (and let's not forget that the previous night was spent packing) it was time to spend nine hours in various planes and airports. Let me just say that while we saved thousands of dollars by driving to the states and taking a flight with a layover, THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO TRAVEL WITH KIDS. Seriously. Can't emphasize that enough. Quite honestly, any travel time greater than two hours pretty much requires a heaping dose of Valium for everyone involved. It's impossible for me to adequately describe the horror of a full day of flying after a half-day of car travel. I will try anyway, but much like the battlefield, nothing is quite the same as actually being in the trenches.

So, the day began promisingly enough. After drinking enough coffee to kill Juan Valdez himself, we headed to the airport with kids and bags in tow. Check-in and security were surprisingly uneventful, except for a teensy meltdown when James was asked to remove his shoes. The kids were all very well behaved in the airport. You know, like the calm before the storm.

That all changed once the captain turned on the "fasten seatbelt" light. I leaned over to fasten James' for him, but apparently I had neglected to inform him that children need to be properly restrained during flight.

"NNNOOOO SEATBELT!!" he shrieked, to the warm smiles dismay of everyone around us. "I DON'T WANNITTTTT!!! NOOOOO, MOMMMMEEE, NOOOOO!"

And to my immense delight, my little treasure of a boy threw himself on the floor in front of his seat and proceeded to have the most adorable screaming fit ever. Everyone applauded. Oh, I mean glared. I threw up a little in my mouth.

Luckily, after we determined that James was now fulfilling the dual role of ticketed passenger AND lap baby, that flight was uneventful.

That flight.

Fast-forward through a disgusting and slimy lunch at the Las Vegas airport's Sbarro, which was abundant with whining, crying and pizza-throwing by our non-napped baby, and we were on our second flight of the evening, which basically started not long before bedtime (you know about foreshadowing, right? So remember the phrases "non-napped baby" and "not long before bedtime".)

So, as we are holding our now TWO lap babies pre-flight, we foolishly tell our fellow passengers, "They haven't had a nap today and it's bedtime, so with any luck, they will sleep the whole time."

This is the point in our story where, were it sci-fi, current-day Heather builds a time machine and goes back to strangle two-weeks ago Heather, screaming, "WHY? WHY DID YOU SAY THAT??!"

Naturally, Thomas whined and cried the entire time and did not, in fact, fall asleep until he had entertained the entire plane with his imitation of an angry bald eagle for a good half-hour. We were happy to deplane long after everyone else, so that they would have time to decide NOT to rush us en masse.

By the time we got to the hotel, it was 2:30 a.m. Tennessee time and way past bedtime any way you cut it. The kids, thank goodness, all passed out the instant their heads hit their pillows and slept until a ridiculous hour (which, combined with Thomas eating the longest breakfast in the history of breakfast, probably owing to his hatred of Sbarro pizza, resulted in our being late to the rehearsal). Oh, I forgot to mention -- the rehearsal and wedding? A four-hour drive from Nashville, where we landed. The money we saved on airfare might just be spent on psychotherapy.

The three-ish days we spent in Memphis are a blur of wedding awesomeness and kids-in-the-same-bed-as-me awfulness. I will skip over the late-night chatter of James, the early-morning waking of Maddux, and the joys of entertaining a baby in a series of unbabyproofed venues.

Fast-forward to the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I was dreading this night, because no matter how much he may deny it, Dad does wake up at 5 a.m. and make inhuman amounts of maybe-inadvertent-but-maybe-not noise. Every. Living. Day. (Do we know any 4-year-old girls like this? Why yes. We surely do. Wonder where she got that ...) So after securing his promise that he would be as quiet as the proverbial mouse (although, having grown up with pet rodents, I can assure you that they are actually very audible), we agreed to crash in the guest room. Thomas had dibs on the Pack 'N' Play, Maddux called the little couch, and James and I shared the air mattress.

Ahh, James. He of the never-ending nighttime chatter. On this particular night, I can verify that he was awake and talking until 1:30 a.m. Tennessee time. The rest of the night I spent completely awake, as his weight and my weight rolled us into the middle of the air mattress in a sweaty, kicking, drooly heap.

Sunrise in Tennessee comes around 6 a.m. I can tell you this because my watch said 4-something when I first heard Maddux chattering away to her stuffed animals and realized with horror that there were no blackout curtains. WHY DIDN'T I REMEMBER TO WARN THEM ABOUT BLACKOUT CURTAINS? All of the kids would really benefit from falconers' hoods, but Maddux more so than her brothers. As soon as there's a glimmer of light coming into her room, her eyes spring open and she's ready to go, as if she were a walking, talking solar panel (who, unfortunately, keeps a charge long after the sun has set). Naturally, her morning adventures became louder and louder until I sent her downstairs -- the resulting tantrum, of course, being what woke the boys at 6 our time. The saddest part in all of this is that I didn't hear a single bang or crash from my dad the whole morning. Nope. Just from the kids.

This was going to be the most awesome day of travelling yet. I could tell.

We'll just fast-forward here through the first flight, which was pretty much the same story as the second flight of the previous trip. James seatbelt tantrum, Thomas wants to nap but instead cries, Mom bounces everyone on knees and sings "Thomas the Tank Engine" theme song until boys fall asleep just as captain announces descent. Deplane in shame after angry business passengers, having ordered record amounts of in-flight adult drinks, rush off plane to consume Juan-Valdez-killing amounts of coffee and schedule vasectomies. Spend an hour on the tram because a) the kids think it's a Thomas train and b) an hour of riding between two buildings numbly listening to your kids yell "All aboard!" exactly every two minutes beats sitting in chairs having people direct homicidal glares your way.

This brings us to the second flight.

Note to self: Never again schedule a flight after the kids' normal bedtime. Especially after five days on the road. Especially when it's your second flight of the day and you have made your Sbarro-hating baby eat (or rather, throw and complain about) Sbarro again because it is the only restaurant in your stupid terminal.

Imagine the previous plane scenarios I've described, except with Thomas literally climbing on Chris' and my heads and James having even more floor tantrums. Imagine Maddux, for whatever reason, pretending she's at a Jewish wedding -- except substitute the glass with some in-flight Chips Ahoy wafer thingies. Imagine me singing the stupid Thomas train song for more than an hour (oh, lucky, LUCKY people in front of me!). Imagine it not really working. Imagine the most high-pitched eagle screech a baby could possibly make, but imagine it being done into a megaphone -- seriously, that boy has some pipes. And for a good 30 minutes nonstop, at least. What I imagined was Samuel L. Jackson coming at us with a gun, beads of sweat rolling down his face as he commanded "Get these emm-effing kids off this emm-effing plane!"

I'm pretty sure that even the laid-back coastal mom whose two preschoolish-age kids led the rear of the plane in a rousing rendition of "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain" was wishing she hadn't sat in front of the crazy family with a preschooler, a toddler and an almost-toddler. And at the end of the Flight of Horror, instead of heaving a huge sigh of relief, I ended up carrying not one but TWO sleepy boys along with a diaper bag THROUGH THE AIRPORT because, even though you can get one immediately if you are flying OUT, apparently they do not rent out little baggage carts right at the gate. (The baggage cart wouldn't have been for the boys, but rather the baggage that Chris was lugging instead of a boy. Although I'm sure they would have enjoyed that.)

We went to the hotel, James chattered and suffocated me in sweaty, drooly toddler snuggles (how DO they simultaneously snuggle and kick?), baby wailed, Maddux rose early with bells on, blah blah blah. I'm sure you know the drill.

AHHHH, Chris and I thought, Five hours and it's over. (Oh, you poor fools.)

You know how you always forget something on a trip? Well, I remembered everything. Just not enough of everything. Namely, diapers. Also, after four days in a roomy minivan, I forgot how, in the Highlander, our three young and feisty children are all but inches away from each other.

So, with Thomas in a pair of size 5 Diego Easy-Ups, we headed onto the open road to a round of, "Jamesy's touchin' me!" "Maggots poops her pants, HAHAHA!" "CAWW! CA-CAWWWW!" "Thomas scratcheded me!" "DON'T DO DAT, MAGGOTS!!" "CAWWWWWWWWW!!!!"

But it was all OK, because hey, there's the border! Hey, there's that cute little town we passed in the Kootenays. Hey ... what's that smell?

That smell, my friends, is the smell of despair. Changing a diaper in the front seat of a fully-packed car is no easy task. Changing an oversize pair of Easy-Ups on a baby who has eaten too much Sonic and still thinks of diaper changes as a contact sport, in near-freezing temperatures at a mountain gas station? Worse than all the aforementioned plane trips combined.

Eventually we made it home, although we think our sanity may have been lost in transit. Guess that shows us for aiming too high! I'm pretty certain that if Icarus had been travelling with kids, he would have been pretty happy to plunge into the sea and end it all.

Next time: Why we will never fly Southwest again.

Wedding Belles

Every little girl dreams of her wedding day (except for me -- I always dreamed of becoming a 6-foot-tall Russian double agent outfitted in a black PVC minidress, thigh-high boots and a chic ebony bob, but that is neither here nor there). Since Maddux has decided to wait until her sixteenth birthday to tie the knot with Prince Phillip from "Sleeping Beauty," the next-best thing to nuptials of her own is being a flower girl in someone else's wedding. Luckily, Uncle Gary and Aunt Elizabeth gave Maddux the opportunity of a lifetime last week, buying me at least another 11.5 years before I have to worry about sending my baby daughter down the aisle in a white dress.

Ever since Elizabeth asked Maddux to be the flower girl earlier this year, our little princess has been beside herself with anticipation. She practiced swanning about in her dress-up clothes (being sure to lift her skirts daintily whilst going up stairs or curtsying). She rehearsed the strewing of the rose petals in her bedroom with her bridal dress-up set, in the playroom with tiny bits of torn-up construction paper, and at her school playground with leaves. She was so enamored of the hairstyle we planned for the wedding that she begged me to put her hair up "in a Tinkerbell bun" for school one day.

As if being a flower girl wasn't exciting enough, a masked ball was to follow the wedding. Now, if you are a 4-year-old girl who devours princess movies and fairy-tale books like a dragon eats knights, a ball is basically The Most Important Event You Will Ever Attend. Maddux occasionally tells me she wants take walks in the woods in the mornings, because that is when you are most likely to encounter princes. Just THINK of all the prince-meeting opportunities an actual ball presents!

On the day of Gary and Elizabeth's wedding, Maddux got all dolled up in her flower-girl best and sashayed around the opera center (this sashaying, I should add, was done on pretty much zero sleep, so we are all incredibly lucky that her lovely white dress did not wind up going through the fountain out front).

Upon receiving each of the 70,000 compliments she got that night, my little daughter told people, "Thanks. I'm the flower girl, but you can just call me Flower." And right before Maddux headed down the aisle, she told Elizabeth, in her most let's-get-down-to-business voice, "I'm going to go spread rose petals now!"

Maddux very methodically walked down the aisle spreading rose petals, and, upon reaching the end of the red carpet and discovering that there were still flowers left in her little basket, she very conscientiously turned the basket upside down to ensure that the petal-scattering job was done to the fullest extent.

Now, since it was basically bedtime and we all know Maddux needs her sleep, I had but one requirement for my little flower girl. Fidgeting and dancing and looking around were pretty much expected at this point.

"Maddux," I told her the day of the wedding, "Your job is to smile and look pretty. You don't need to say 'hi' to anyone. But no matter what, remember NOT TO PICK YOUR NOSE."

Naturally, during the ceremony, Maddux wiggled around. She fidgeted and hopped from foot to foot. She played with the bridesmaids' feather fans and swung her basket around like she was a helicopter about to take off and tried to engage people in conversation. She waved to all and sundry. (I saw all this thanks to the complimentary baby-sitting. Otherwise I'm sure I would have been shushing and rocking and pacifying two bedtime boys. So thanks, Gary and Elizabeth!)

"That's OK," I told myself, while putting a finger up to my lips and making the universal "Shhhhhh!" sign, which was met with gleeful waving. "At least she is NOT PICKING HER NOSE."

Then she picked her nose.

Luckily, she was the cutest little nose-picking flower girl there ever was. She smiled the whole time and was charming all night long. Hardly anyone noticed that her third knuckle was in her sinus cavity and I'm pretty sure there is no photographic evidence of the gold-mining expedition.

After the bride and groom were married and sent back down the aisle (YAY!) we convened for the masked ball. Maddux was among the first people on the dance floor.

"Do you think you're going to meet a prince?" I asked her.

"No, Mommy, you're so silly," she told me. "Princes don't marry little girls."

But she did want to dance. Until midnight.

I figured after 20 minutes, she'd tire out. After all, it's not as if they have cardio classes for 4-year-olds. (Later it occurred to me that the reason they don't have exercise classes for 4-year-olds is because kids that age have about 10 million times more energy than grown-ups and that they would probably find a Zumba class quite restful.)

Maddux deigned to dance with me for awhile, but quickly deduced that I am a wretched dancer, so she kindly told me, "Mommy, I need to dance by myself. You can go sit down now."

She danced with my brother Gary, which was adorable (brides and grooms are celebrities when you're 4, so he was not sent to sit on the sidelines). Then she danced with a few other people, but sent most of them away.

For a good hour or 90 minutes, she danced in circles with one hand over her head like a ballerina. Everyone stopped trying to cut in after awhile (since she repeatedly insisted she worked better solo), so at the end we only intervened when she twirled too close to the candles.

That night, as we collapsed into bed at the hotel, Maddux sighed, "This was the best day ever!" (I'm sure Gary and Elizabeth agreed.)

Dia de los Muertos

In Latin American culture, the day after Halloween is called Dia de los Muertos, or "Day of the Dead." (Don't think zombies, though -- think a cross between Halloween and Memorial Day.)

I'm thinking in the future, we will dub Nov. 1 "Day of the Dead" at our house, as well. Not because we plan on memorializing our ancestors with a skeleton cake, but because after the hustle and bustle of celebrating Halloween with a house full of small, active kids, we feel a lot like zombies the following day.

First, there are the endless parties. Maddux, being a 4-year-old girl, was delighted to spend three entire days in full princess regalia. (How does this differ from every other three-day period? Besides going out in public and not getting too many stares, not as much as one might think.)

Then there's the Halloween candy, which Chris buys a month ahead "so we don't have to fight the Halloween rush." Of course, three days later, when we've eaten all the candy, we have to repeat this exercise in futility. And three days after that, and three days after that. At some point, the two older kids figure out that there's candy in the house, at which point the candy replenishing must take place every 36 hours.

And this year, SOMEONE (I won't tell you who, to protect Chris' identity) had the fantastic idea of giving the baby an Aero bar.

Now, when you are a not-quite-toddler who is in possession of the world's most ear-piercing eagle screech, and you have finished your very first fun-size candy bar and see that everyone else is devouring candy from a gigantic box of wonder, what are YOU gonna do? If you're a smart baby (Thomas happens to be very savvy for a 1-year-old), you will wave your fat little arms about and employ that horrific scream until the giant waves of sound pummel your parents' brains to jelly and they hand the candy to you with sad, empty zombie eyes.

Therefore, yesterday afternoon, we had to buy YET MORE CANDY for, you know, ACTUAL TRICK-OR-TREATERS. Joy.

So take two parents who have to orchestrate pumpkin carving, school party snacks, costumes and trick-0r-treat plans on top of all the usual parenting stuff; add a trio of already chocolate-addled kids; wrap it all up with a late bedtime and continual pounding (yes, POUNDING!) on the door by horrible pre-teens who don't even live in the neighborhood, and you have a recipe for our very own Day of the Dead. (Did I mention the pounding? I was so mad after the preteen version of the Spanish Inquisition woke up both boys that I turned out the lights, Chris snuffed out the Jack-o'-lantern, and we found ourselves stuck with a gigantic bowl of candy -- to be eaten by our own over-noisy hooligans, no doubt.)

So yeah. Today, we're zombies. (Luckily for the citizens of our fair town, we're too tired to lumber out the door and go cruising for brains.)

Thomas was up at 5 a.m. today with an earache (surely this has nothing to do with the fact that sugar lowers one's immune response!) and naturally, so was Mads. The first thing out of her mouth?

"Mommy, when are we going to have Halloween again?"

Hello, My Name Is:

Heaven help us if my children are ever lost (an unlikely event given that the boys are always in their stroller, and Maddux is required to have one hand on said stroller at all times -- but we mommies do worry!).

I do my best to teach them their vital info and the numbers "9-1-1," but it's definitely a work in progress.

Maddux still identifies the number 9 as a seven. When I ask her what number she should dial if there is a fire, she usually says -- with an air of absolute authority -- "one-three-six" or some other random series of numbers. But at least she knows all of our names and where she lives.

Today, since James is finally talking fairly competently, I decided to quiz him on his personal info.

Me: "What's your name?"

James: "GROCCOLI!" (big smile on his face, no broccoli anywhere to be seen)

Me: "OK, Broccoli, what's your mommy's name?"

James: "BACON!" (Wait, what? We're pronouncing that correctly now? Or only when we're telling the police we were raised by a slab of cured meat?)

Me: "What's your last name, little guy?"

James: "MADDUX!" (laughing uproariously, because being a lost little boy is super fun)

Me: "Where do you live?"

James: "Poppa's truck! AAAHAHAHAHAAA!"

Me: "OK, let's try this again. Your name is James."

James: "GROCCOLI!"

Me: "What is your last name?"

James: "I go downstairs, play diggers and trucks?"

Me: "Not right now. Your last name is Phillips. You live in (name of our town)."

James: "Phillips! I play trains!"

Me: "Yes, your name is James Phillips. Where do you live?"

James: "Nana's house! In da bathroom!"

Me: "You had better hope you never get lost and picked up by the police, kiddo."

Meanwhile, his sister has no trouble telling people her parents' first names. From time to time, if the rude "Mommy-mommy-mommy" chorus isn't doing the trick when she's trying to interrupt adult conversation, Maddux will make herself known by uttering a very polite (but also very forbidden) "Heather." And I'm not entirely sure that her preschool teacher is convinced Chris is her actual father, because Maddux introduced us as "Mommy and Chris." So now her teacher calls us "Mommy and Chris," too, even though I thought I was fairly clear about the fact that Chris is, indeed, my daughter's dad and not a random boyfriend.

As annoying as it is that our sweet-faced preschooler occasionally abuses our names, I like to think she'll remember this information if she ever finds herself lost at the mall. Let's hope if Groccoli ever gets lost, he will have our handy Walking Encyclopedia of Grown-Ups' Real Names along with him for easy reference. Otherwise, we'll see this on the news:

DO YOU KNOW THIS CHILD?
Boy named Broccoli claims he's been living in his
grandfather's truck and his grandmother's bathroom
and working illegally as a digger operator.

Thank You, Helpful Advice Lady

If you've had kids and don't live under a rock, you've met her. She's the mom with the helpful advice. "Helpful" in that it helps you into the psychiatrist's office or the liquor cabinet.

You will first meet her when you are pregnant and beginning to show.

"Oh, you look like you're about to pop any day," she will tell you, when you are, in fact, three and a half months pregnant and still in the throes of morning sickness.

"Get your sleep while you can -- you'll need it," she'll say smugly. Perhaps she got super-awesome sleep when she was pregnant, but most of us find it difficult to sleep with a beach ball full of fighting raccoons strapped to our bellies.

Then there's the doozy she'll come up with once the baby is finally out.

"It doesn't get any easier."

What? WHAT? Are you kidding me? I would take a toddler who sleeps through the night ANY DAY OF THE WEEK before I'd take a brand-new baby (even though I will happily hold your newborn all day long. Give it here!). And I think answering the infinite questions of my preschooler, sassy and obstreperous though she may be, beats cleaning toddler diarrhea off the train table, hands-down. (I did that today. Thanks for that, Thomas.) And you know what? I'm willing to bet that helpful mom probably wouldn't trade her self-sufficient 10-year-old for my preschooler and all the bottom-wiping, toy destruction and surreptitious baby torturing that goes along with a 4-year-old.

In fact, short of teen-age girls, whose parents I imagine experience the constant dread of their getting pregnant and Mom's having to Do It All Over Again While Incredibly Old, I'm pretty sure it does get easier. Sure, there are different problems as kids get older -- criminal mischief, uncomfortable questions, the constant "You're ruining my life" accusations -- but with every year that passes, it's less labor-intensive. I can't imagine that parents of non-disabled teen-agers drop into bed at the end of every day saying "Wow, I don't think I could have taken another hour of that day."

Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps, as Future Me is frantically chasing my car-stealing teen-age boys down the street while holding my daughter's baby under an arm, Helpful Advice Mom will pop out from around some corner with a smug expression on her face and do the "Told Ya So" dance.

But for my sanity's sake, I am going to assume she's wrong about kids never getting easier, just as she was wrong about getting your sleep in while you're pregnant. (For the record, those two comfortable hours of post-baby sleep before you are awakened by frantic squalling beat 12 hours of sleeping with an abdomen full of writhing anacondas. Every time. As blog is my witness, I will never get pregnant again!)

Fight Club

When I had boys, I was prepared for a little roughhousing. After all, even my little princess has been known to jump on couches and assault playmates with very little cause. (What am I saying? Especially my little princess!) But, despite my interests in both gender studies and neuropsychology, and despite the fact that my own siblings and I engaged in spirited sparring matches every time my parents left us unattended, I was not prepared for Fight Club.

With Maddux, the aggression always has a reason. Yes, that reason might be "You have that toy and I want it," but at least she's not getting in fights for the sake of, well, getting in fights. But the boys. Oh, the boys! Where does one even begin?

As soon as Thomas was old enough to grab, he began pulling James' hair and poking his face. We'd be shopping -- Thomas in the seat, James in the basket of the shopping cart. The second I turned to peruse a grocery-store shelf, Thomas' hand would dart out and grab a tuft of hair. James would launch a hair-grabbing attack of his own. As I retrieved my merchandise, back still turned, the boys would be locked in a most vicious hair-pulling contest -- IN COMPLETE SILENCE. The second they sensed me turning to look, however, their hands dropped to their sides and they'd pretend they weren't just trying to scalp one another. Because by now, every guy knows the first rule of Fight Club is "Do not talk about Fight Club."

Now that Thomas is crawling and climbing, the time-out corner has become our new mixed martial arts arena. When James goes to sit in time-out (often voluntarily, for no reason at all, because he's a weird kid like that), Thomas will initiate an impromptu match by climbing on top of James and whacking at him with both arms.

Like UFC, there are no rules. Knee to the groin? Why not! Eye-poking? Totally legal. Head-butting? Awesome! Hitting someone with a magnetic train or other prop? Pretty much required. Naturally, baby-riding -- along with James-riding -- features prominently in their matches. Today, the boys tried to squash each other with a folding Diego chair until they both wound up caught in the legs, squealing to be freed. Yesterday, there was a toe-biting incident.

But heaven forbid that the referee should try to intervene. Both of the boys will cry piteously until they are told they are no longer in time out (they usually weren't to begin with), upon which the pugilists resume their rowdy, giggling death match.

Now, I know some people think it's only nat'ral fer boys to 'rassle. But those people also make mystery liquor in their carburetors and use loaded shotguns as decor. So James gets time-outs for fighting. Which is not good, because the time-out corner is the boys' Fight Club venue.

Me: "You're in time out for fighting!"
James: "WAAAAAAHHH! I be-wanna be-fiiiiighhht!"
Thomas: "GOO GOO GAAAAAAAA!" (Translation: "Awesome. Fight's ON!")

So today I tried using two separate time-out spots, even though you are not supposed to give babies time-outs. Unfortunately, it just resulted in Thomas leaving his spot in a flash, building up momentum and gleefully head-butting a delighted James before I could scoop him up.

So now the hunt is on for a new auxiliary time-out spot. Or maybe two nice little glassed-in timeout spots like the ones I show the kids when we're watching hockey games. On the other hand, having their very own penalty boxes might be incentive to fight, and we all know they don't need that.

So for now, Fight Club has three rules. Do not talk about Fight Club. Do NOT talk about Fight Club. And whoever wears Mom out first is the winner.

One Flu Over the Poo-Poo Nest

Before I begin today's blog, let me just say that this post is not for the faint of heart. (That means you, Chris. Stop reading! I'm serious.) Really, the only people who are going to be able to read this post are those who have become inured to the steady flow of fluids (and solids, and mysterious viscous admixtures of fluids and solids) that goes along with having kids.

Anyway. Where were we before you involuntarily gagged? Oh yes. Poop and barf!

If you have kids, you know how often they get sick. If you have more than one kid, you know that the frequency of the entire family coming down with some wretched illness or another is directly proportional to the number of small children in your house. Three times the kids = three times the illness. And the younger the kids are, the more disgusting the illness -- because no matter how much hand-washing, sanitizer and Lysol you employ, there is a certain amount of fecal-oral contamination endemic to an environment containing children between the ages of 4 months and 4 years. (You know, from the time they're able to find their butt with their hands to the time when they are actually capable of washing said hands for more than two seconds without then running off giggling and sticking their dripping hands INTO THE DIAPER PAIL, JAMES. UGH!)

We have had various forms of combined flu three times in the past six months. So on Wednesday, when I removed Thomas from his high-chair post-breakfast, only to have him grunt out a diaperful of pea soup whilst covering my hair and shirt in a slick of oatmeal vomit, I was not as surprised as the uninitiated might think.

Of course, when you have to choose whom you clean first, and which end, proper decontamination is difficult enough. That's before you factor in the fact that 1-year-old boys love to grab their crotch areas during diaper changes. It's as if their hands and behinds are charged with powerful magnets. Once I had wiped all the vomit off, here's how the diaper change went:

Wipe horrible poopy legs and outside of diaper
Move baby's hands
Wipe slightly poopy baby hands

Open diaper
Move baby's hands
Wipe filthy poopy horrible baby hands

Pin naughty baby hands down with one hand
Give incredibly slimy bum a futile swipe
Move baby's hands (HOW did they get out of my iron grip???)
Wipe filthier, poopier, even more horrible baby hands

Pin naughty baby hands again
Another futile swipe at the Bog of Unbearable Stench with a fresh wipe
MOVE BABY'S HANDS AGAIN?? REALLY, THOMAS??
Wipe baby's hands for the gazillionth time
Snarl at baby to stop grabbing his filthy behind

Wipe as much poop as possible while baby continues reaching for favorite playthings
Wipe baby's hands AS HE IS PUTTING THEM IN THE BLAST ZONE
Cry to self
Cover baby's mostly-clean bottom with diaper while I'm still ahead

Drench baby in hand sanitizer
Wash self in hot, soapy water
Cover self in hand sanitizer
Cry more tears upon seeing the baby has pooped again
Repeat above scenario endlessly
Find self sick with same thing baby has two days later, to no great surprise

And Chris (who is terrified of regular poop diapers, let alone the diarrhea that literally came splooshing out of THE FRONT of the baby's diaper DURING DINNER last night -- ARGHH!) wonders how I always get sick!

Poor Lil' Pumpkin

Ever since she was a wee thing, Maddi has enjoyed picking a pumpkin (or two, or three) every October and loving that gourd with all her little heart until that day, months later, when we discover a dessicated husk floating in mysterious black ooze on the time-out shelf.

James didn't really get the whole pumpkin thing until this year. Actually, he still doesn't get it.

Tonight, as I was refilling juice cups, I heard a cry of "James, that's only for dec-ration!"

Apparently, since we had pumpkin pie last week, James figured that these pumpkin things were for eating. And properly prepared food is for suckers. Thus went James' initiation into the pumpkin club:

Depressing Dressing

Every time the seasons change, dread fills the pit of my stomach. You see, as dear and sweet as James is and as much as I love my little guy, he is an absolute horror to dress.

Last fall, when I began buying long-sleeved shirts for James, he fiddled with the sleeves -- vainly attempting to rend the fabric from his arms -- and, after some angry flailing and breathless screeching, collapsed the floor in an epic tantrum. (Can I use the word "epic" if it happens every second day? Sure I can, because now that all the semi-literate teen-age masses have discovered "epic," it's super cool to use and abuse the word.)

Anyway. Eventually, after about three days of half-hour tantrums, James accepted the fact that he was going to wear long sleeves. (His agreeable attitude, however, did not extend to jackets, sweaters or windbreakers of any kind; he wore his only on the few days when it dipped beneath -20 -- yes, you read that correctly, I said MINUS 20 -- and only after much wrestling and snot and tear production. I was hoping that would change this year. Thus far, my hopes have been dashed.)

Then came spring. Do you think James was happy to go back to shorts and short-sleeved shirts?

The first day I dressed him in short sleeves, he bugged his eyes out, began the all-too-familiar shrieking, and pulled his arms up into his shirt like chicken wings. Then he pushed them back out and began wrenching his sleeves down, trying to get them to cover his wrists. A few weeks later, when I tried shorts, James was so insistent on covering his shins that he accidentally depantsed himself.

Since he'd had the most adorable pair of leather sandals the year before, I'd bought very similar ones (and matching shoes for Thomas, of course) for this past summer. Now, I should have known this was a terrible idea because the only way we can get James to accept new shoes is to arrange for the old ones to mysteriously vanish overnight and be magically replaced by identical shoes in the next size up. But determined to enjoy the adorable sandaly cuteness another year, I brought out the new shoes anyway. James freaked. I balked. He remained in his sneakers for two months, until one day I showed him Thomas' matching sandals. Then he wanted to wear them.

Of course, the sandals and summer shoes turned out to be my undoing. I went through a lot of trouble this spring to get James accustomed to going sockless with his deck shoes and sandals (going without a jacket I can put up with, but socks and sandals I cannot abide!). After a summer without socks, you would think he'd be glad to put on his warm old friends, right? Wrong! Last night, Chris bought James and Thomas a few packs of matching socks -- matching! He can't resist matching, right? Wrong again. James hardly so much as saw the socks before he began waving his arms and crumpling his cute little face into a comically exaggerate frown. "NO SOCKS! NO SOCKS!" he wept, threatening to drown us all in snot.

This morning, after we got James dressed (LONG SLEEVES? NEW JEANS THAT ARE THE SAME BRAND AS MY OLD ONES BUT A DIFFERENT THICKNESS OF FABRIC? NOOOOO! HOW CAN I RIP THESE THINGS OFF ME?!! I'M MEEEEELLLLLTING!!!!), Chris somehow managed to lure James into the laundry room where he attempted to put on the Evil New Feet-Trappers.

"No socks! NO SOCKS!" James wailed, screaming for all the world as if Michael Myers was lumbering toward him with a gleaming butcher knife. In the interest of logistics, Chris strapped James into his carseat and forced James to do the unthinkable -- wear socks in mid-October. James was heartbroken for a good 45 minutes and had another ridiculous sock-related meltdown at the gym for good measure.

Of course, by naptime, he told me proudly, "I wearin' my socks!"

We'll see whether he does tomorrow.

James plots the demise of the inventor of the winter coat

They're Two, They're Four ...

I'll admit it. My kids can be pretty thuggish when the mood strikes. Luckily, the only gang affiliation they currently have is their known ties to the Really Useful Crew, and the only banging is done to each other's heads, with wooden trains.

James sleeps with a few select engines (never mind the fact that they are far from cuddly) and will happily sit at the train table from morning 'til night if given the opportunity. Thomas has finally made the transition from terrorizing the Isle of Sodor with Godzilla-like climbing and swiping to merely causing (mostly) unintentional carnage while actually playing with trains.

Even Maddux, who is ordinarily ensconced in the magical land of princesses and faeries, will drop everything for a showing of "Thomas and the Magic Railroad." (Personally, I keep expecting Mr. Conductor to break into Jack Donaghy's deadpan whisper, or admonish Lady to "Never go with an evil diesel to a second location!")

Unfortunately, the trains of "Thomas and Friends" just happen to have really awesome names, such as James, Thomas and Henry. Sound familiar? Yeah, the first two are my boys' names and the third is what both would have been named had I ever won that argument with Chris.

Now, not being a huge "Thomas The Tank Engine" aficionado before bearing my children, I was not aware that Thomas and James are the names of the fictional Number One and Number Five trains, respectively. However, this is brought to my attention each and every time I introduce my sons to any boy over the age of 3.

The other day, my lovely daughter asked me, somewhat sadly, "Mom, why didn't you name me after a train?"

"Well," I said, not having planned an answer for this particular question, "I actually did not name James and Thomas after trains. I picked those names out because I liked them."

"Oh."

Phew, I thought, glad she dropped that.

"Mommy," Maddux said thoughtfully after a minute or so, "I would like you to call me Lady from now on."

"How about Daisy or Emily?" I ventured, wondering how people would react if I happened to utter an absentminded "C'mon, Lady" at the mall.

"No, Lady is the most beautifullest and special of the girl engines," Maddux said, attempting to flutter her eyelashes like a Disney princess but (thanks to the fact that her eyes roll back completely when she does this) looking more like she was having a mild seizure. Then she threw her hair over her shoulder with a melodramatic hand gesture.

"Alright, Lady, but I will have to call you Maddux when we're not at home."

"That's fine, Mommy."

And off she went to the Isle of Sodor, to roll with her crew.

Touch of Eagle

My grandma once told me the story of the day she met my dad. She was in the hospital recovering from his birth when she heard what sounded like a piglet being slaughtered in the hallway. "Oh, I feel sorry for the mother of THAT baby," she thought to herself. Right before they handed her the squealing baby in question. (And when they put him in the car, I bet he went "Wee-wee-wee-wee," all the way home! Bahahaha!)

The evening after Thomas was born, I called Chris post-nap and told him, "So, you know how our one friend's baby has that really piercing scream that drives you insane?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you're not going to like Thomas very much then. He sounds exactly like an eagle. A really loud eagle."

I'm pretty sure he chalked up my disillusionment to postpartum depression.

At the hospital, Thomas was happy and fed and snoozy. Of course, nobody believed me about his piercing predatory-bird screech.

Then we brought him home.

"CAWWW! CAWWW! CAAAAWWWWWW!!!"

I checked the bassinet to see if my baby had been replaced by a bald eagle. Nope. That sound came from a human child. MY child.

"Honey, did you hear that?" I asked Chris.

"How could I not?" was his reply.

At first, every time Thomas cried, I would check the TV thinking "The Colbert Report" was coming on. The cries were way too loud and impossibly pitched for a human voicebox to produce. Sometimes, rather than waking to feed the baby, I would lie in bed wondering to myself whether he might sprout wings and fly off to hunt for small rodents. Eventually, however, we got used to the bird-of-prey call that signaled our child's awakening and preceded every meal.

But right now, Thomas is cutting three teeth, and our house is constantly filled with the insistent screams of our incredibly loud eagle-baby.

"CAAWWW! CAWWWW!" he shrieks from his aerie crib every morning.

"CAWW, CAWW, CAWWWW!" from the high chair as I prepare his food (maybe I should start serving him a meal more befitting a bird of prey, such as field mice?).

"CAWWWW!" he cries, piercing my very brain, as he cuddles into my arms. Neither Mommy snuggles nor Tylenol muffle the ear-rending eagle calls, though. By the end of the day, I need painkillers of my own for the headache one develops after a full day of caring for an incredibly angry, teething eaglet.

And I feel very sorry indeed for the mother of that baby.

Mouths of Babes

Ever notice how stuff that would be really annoying if done by an adult is totally acceptable if your adorable kids are the ones doing it? One day, my kids will grow up, and when that day comes, I would hope they know better than to say "suliminable" or "strategery." But right now, their mispronunciations and malapropisms are the very essence of cuteness.

For instance, today James uttered these words, "It rained-ed-ing on de sidewalk." Yep, he finally managed to trump Maddi's double past tense by compounding it with present tense. I'm not even sure what that's called, except "darn cute."

Maddux is very conscientious about letting you know something happened in the past. We never hear "James chased me," always, "James chaseded me." And from the bathroom, in the loudest voice possible, this classic is heard at least once a day: "Mommy, I makeded a poop!"

In addition to the endearing grammatical gaffes are the myriad mispronunciations which, I'm ashamed to admit, often go uncorrected because we don't ever, EVER want the kids to learn how those things are really pronounced.

From Maddux (some of these, alas, have gone the way of the dinosaur):

Pobby (potty)
Inwizzle (invisible)
Rincess (recess)
Ghooghy (yogurt)
Bee-nilla
Bee-nana
Vancougar
Girlpants (big-girl underpants)

Courtesy of James:
Cupcakes (pancakes)
Baker (bacon)
Dumb **** (dump truck -- we worked really hard and fixed this one fast!)
Maggots (Maddux)
Bopping (shopping)
Girlpants (big-boy underpants. Sigh.)

So many of these are fading into oblivion (hooray for some, but sad to see others go). It's like I'm losing my little babies! Of course, we still have Thomas, who will doubtless provide us with years of entertainment. (Let's just hope he can say "truck" and that he knows there are two different genders.) One day, of course, he will be expected to know how to pronounce "nuclear" correctly. (Just in case he ever wants to be preznit.) But for now, we're curious to see what he'll come up with.

Tricks Are for Kids

There's nothing cuter than watching a baby wave "bye-bye" or getting a toddler to slap someone a high five. Unfortunately, that kind of thing is beneath my first two. Maddux in particular would master a skill only to abandon it the minute it was polished to perfection. "I'm nobody's circus monkey," she seemed to be saying.

So it came as quite a surprise when Thomas started doing all those adorable little parlor tricks we parents so enjoy. I had all but given up on teaching the usual cute baby tricks to any of my little iconoclasts when, out of nowhere, Thomas began waving "bye-bye" around the seven-month mark. And once he got really good at it, instead of retiring at the peak of his awesomeness, he graciously continued to oblige us by waving each and every time the words "bye-bye" were uttered.

Just for kicks, I decided to teach him high-fives, which I doggedly taught the other kids despite the terrifying flashbacks of Michelle from "Full House." And within a few minutes, Thomas was high-fiving people like the most adorable little circus monkey you ever did see!

So enamored is my wee son of performing adorable tricks for the adoring throngs that his first confirmed words were "Clap, clap, clap!" (Seriously. For the longest time, he only cried "Mama" in his room when he was put down to sleep, which could be chalked up to coincidence.)

At a year old, he's a clapping, waving, high-fiving bundle of eager-to-please cuteness who will happily make semi-appropriate animal noises when we're reading books and will perform any pieces from his repertoire whenever we ask. It's AWESOME!

Of course, when he is older and has more words, he will probably tell us that he was the poor little neglected youngest child. He'll tell us (and his therapist) that he had to stand on his head to get any attention at all. But right now, he's the cutest little circus monkey a parent could ask for!

Someday My Prince Will Come

When I was four, I imagined that I would become a doctor and marry my next-door neighbor, Matthew Marlow. We would live in a white colonial and drive a station wagon with awesome wood-paneled sides (I'm not sure if this is because that was the very height of grown-up coolness in 1981, or if it's because that's what my aunt drove). We'd have a little boy, and then a little girl. From time to time, I attempted to persuade him to wed me in our townhouse complex's big sandbox. Occasionally, he agreed.

My daughter Maddux is slightly more ambitious. No neighbors or suburbs or sensible cars for her. She plans on marrying a prince and living in a castle. Her ride will, naturellement, be a coach.

Her most recent royal fixation is Sleeping Beauty, on whom she insists dressing as for Halloween. But is dressing as a princess enough for our little girl? Nope. 'Fraid not.

"Mommy, after we go trick-or-treating, I want to lie down in my Sleeping Beauty dress," she told me today at breakfast.

"In your bed?" I asked, thinking she was so excited about her costume that she didn't want to take it off. (Silly me! Nothing is ever that simple with Princess Maddux.)

"Yes," she replied, "I'm going to lie in my bed and wait for my prince to wake me with a kiss."

Seriously? Seriously? Is there some kind of home DNA test I can get to make sure they didn't give me the wrong kid?

"Should I put Thomas in your bed and let him give you a big slobbery kiss?" I asked.

"Ewwww, no!"

"How about Daddy, then?"

"No, it has to be a real prince," she insisted.

Great. I will just call up my old buddy Prince William then.

Luckily, her definition of prince is very loose and includes boys who sleep in castle beds or who pretend to be princes with accoutrements found in the preschool dress-up box.

"I think Prince Alex or Prince Mason will come and kiss me," she said after thinking for awhile about it.

I kind of doubt it. I can just imagine calling another mom and saying, "Hey, what's your son doing after Halloween? Maddux wants him to come kiss her and get married immediately afterward, and have two sets of twins." And what little 4-year-old in his right mind would dress up as a prince, climb up in a dollhouse bed and plant a wet one on Sleeping Beauty?

Then again, in a playground in the Denver suburbs, I may still be considered legally married to Matthew Marlow. Twice.

Con Quest

One of the great mysteries of modern time is this: Why doesn't my little boy use the word "please" voluntarily? It's not as if we don't teach the kids manners. As a 1-year-old, Maddux was so frequently admonished to "ask nicely" that she began saying, "Pleeeeeease? Please nice?" whenever she wanted something. (Unfortunately, it is very difficult to turn down such an adorable request and to this day, in the unlikely event her adorable requests are declined, Maddux becomes decidedly less adorable.)

We expected the same irresistibly cute wheedling from James, but he has decided to go for a different approach. Many, many times per day, instead of saying "May I please have some more juice, Mommy?" our dear son stands bolt upright in his high chair, as if he has been stabbed with a hot poker, and screams in the most urgent yelp he can muster. "Juice! Juice! Juice! Jooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooose!!!!!!" His mouth is contorted into this panicky frown and his eyes bulge as if they are going to pop out. It would be hilarious, were it not The Very Height of Rudeness. (He is nearly 3, so things that were funny before -- like his "see-food" display -- are becoming less amusing, if not downright maddening.)

Naturally, for the past year since the inception of the Juice Freakout, I have told him he cannot have juice unless he asks nicely. For months, that just resulted in him throwing his empty cup against the wall and barking "Juice! Juice!" with a hurt and puzzled expression, not connecting "Ask nicely" with the prompt to "Say please" that came right afterward.

But recently, James has not only begun to understand that "Ask nicely" means "Say please," he's somehow come to the conclusion that his good manners are the ultimate con. As he commences his ritual Juice Freakout, I will prompt him, "James, what do we say when we would like something?"

"Chweee???" he will respond sweetly, with a huge toothy smile. And then, as soon as I say "Yes, of course you may have some juice. Thank you for using your good manners!" he throws back his head and lets out this outrageous mad-scientist laugh and says "Ja!!!!!!" (Who knew the kid knew German?) His triumph over tricking us simple folk into doing his bidding by employing manners kind of mitigates my pride over getting him to say "please."

I mean, of course manners are a con game. Instead of ordering someone to give you something, you show them a (sometimes insincere) display of respect and deference, and they feel obligated to do as you ask. It's not as if you're doing anything in return for the favor, other than ego-stroking. But it's a little disturbing that a toddler has that all figured out and points out to me daily how pointless and superficial these longstanding social conventions are. And frankly, I worry about him going out in the world thinking that people (and manners) are little more than a means to an end.

But in the meantime, I congratulate him for using his manners and pour his juice, and try to ignore the crazy, cackling Frau Farbissina impression.

A Farewell to Toes

Today I realized that I would have to start putting socks on my youngest. For the last many months, his feet have been free and naked. At some point this spring, when the mornings were no longer marked by frost and visible breath, I gave up on re-socking and re-shoeing Thomas once he (five minutes after being shod) inevitably tore off those accessories as if they were wrappers and his feet were delicious, juicy hamburgers. Eventually, I stopped putting footwear on him at all.

I know that this puts me on the slippery slope to toting the kids to Wal-Mart with nothing on them but sodden diapers and mystery chocolate. But what's the point of shoes on a crawling baby, really? Sure, they're cute. But he doesn't need them and refuses to wear them, and HIS TOES ARE JUST SO DARN CUTE!!!

Unfortunately, as we live in Canada, this will not work year 'round. We're entering sweater weather and, although he still pulls off his socks -- and pants -- it won't be long before he will realize that the draft he is feeling is related to his lack of footwear.

So, goodbye, cute little toes! As soon as we find Thomas' socks (so, January?) those little feet are going to get covered up every day. And one day, when frost begins creeping up the windowpanes, he will decide to actually keep those shoes on.

Get Pumped

I go to the gym every chance I can get. Please don't hate me.

It's not so I can fit into these skintight pants (after all, my skintight pants are not designed to be skintight -- it's just that I love eating and hate the next size up!) or impress people with my big guns. It's so that I can be clean and sane.

"I don't know how you find time to go to the gym with three kids," other moms often tell me. Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! How the heck else am I supposed to get a shower?

Now for people without kids, I suppose the 15 minutes of dressing and packing for the gym might be a hassle. It might be inconvenient to spend an hour working out and follow that up with a shower in a crowded, sometimes dirty locker room. But consider how inconvenient, crowded and dirty your shower would be with three kids in it. Yeah.

Don't get me wrong; there is a place for screaming and pooping in the shower. It's called Labor and Delivery. It should not be one's daily ritual. Imagine, fellow moms, applying mascara and blow-drying your hair undisturbed by the tugging, whining and brazen lipstick banditry of your little ones. Imagine, if you will, an hour of time in which you are moving your body without 35-pound barnacles encumbering your limbs, in which you are free to wander in thought without interruptions of "Make Jamesy stop lookin' at me!" or "I'm so bored, Mommy," or "Mommy, can we get Timbits?" (Timbits are my great weakness because they are cheap and delicious, and this question is always launched after a stressful day but before I have eaten. My children are very crafty.)

Once we've gotten the kids packed up and driven to the gym and dropped off in the playroom, that 90 minutes of workout and shower is an oasis in a day filled with chaos and noise. Treadmill time isn't just exercise for my body; it's a chance for my mind to put aside, for a few moments, the list of reasons (kept at the ready constantly) that we are not stopping for Timbits or going to EnergyPlex today. For that half-hour, I can focus on exactly how we're going to get through the rest of the day on time and with all the equipment we need.

Weights are a time to problem-solve. Whether it's what to do for Halloween costumes or how to get my hands on a few thou to fly to my brother's wedding, a little pec flying and leg pressing usually helps me push through life's little problems. (Also, being deep in thought helps me avoid seeing my back fat and bat wings in the omnipresent mirrors.)

Using my awesome mommy powers (you know, the same ones that allow me to see what my mischievous daughter is doing from two flights down, and to carry four times my body weight in kid stuff at any given time), I have managed to distill all my hygiene and beauty needs into a short half-hour. I shampoo on odd days and shave on even days, and I have to say that I don't look awful for someone who has 15 minutes to apply makeup, blowdry and style her hair. And that is 15 minutes that you can bet I wouldn't be getting if I showered at home. (At least not without lipstick on the walls and a baby stuck in the toilet.)

Yeah, the gym keeps me in good shape considering my three fairly-recently-born children and my amazing ability to make chips and Timbits vanish in mere seconds. I will tell you that I don't mind seeing my triceps and obliques. But will you ever see me attending a weight-loss seminar at the Lulu store with the Stepford spinners? Probably not. "Eating clean" is all fine and well, but my fitness regimen is driven more by actually being clean.

And now that I've answered the question of why I go to the gym and however do I find time for it (HA!), I have a few questions for the other moms:

1.) How do you NOT have time for a kid-free shower?

2.) Do you get a shower? How do you get a shower? Why can't I get a shower without driving 20 minutes to my gym??!

Bag of Tricks

Four years ago, when I was still a new mom, I had the most perfectly organized diaper bag imaginable. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place.

I had a miniature tin of diaper cream, a tube of lanolin that remained unopened until the day I rediscovered it last year, an adorable nursing-pad cozy which was replenished before each time I left the house, at least a day's worth of diapers (just in case a grocery-shopping trip somehow turned into an overnight stay), a backup outfit, a backup backup outfit, and a pair of pajamas because heaven forbid my child should sleep in her clothes! There was also an emergency can of formula and an empty bottle in case the bottle of expressed milk ran out and I was run over by a truck, because that happens all the time and one wouldn't want the baby to go hungry while the paramedics ran out for formula.

Of course, once Maddux was on solids, I always had a tin of Gerber puffs, several Mum-Mums and often a fresh banana squirrelled away in the side of the bag farthest away from the diapers. I had bottom wipes and face wipes in appropriate sections of the bag. And in one of the front pockets, a giant bottle of sanitizer stood at the ready.

A year passed, and the diaper count went from 12 to five. Once my second child was born, it was five diapers apiece. Things were squashed and moved around so that I could accommodate both my emergency bottle and formula and a sippy cup and a container of cheddar bunnies (which was wont to burst open and fill my once-tidy bag with delightful orangey crumbs).

The emergency pajamas were jettisoned to make room for a onesie and sleeper for James (now out of luck should he soil his outfit -- he'd have to wear jammies to the market). At some point, Maddux' spare outfit was pared down to a spare pair of pants.

The bottom wipes and face wipes were used with such abandon that they frequently ran out, resulting in the occasional face being swiped with a Pampers wipe and bottoms occasionally being washed with antibacterial Wet Ones. The fresh bananas were occasionally allowed to become not-so-fresh. And while there was a place for everything, not everything was in its place.

And then. Then I had a third baby. Like a once-austere neighborhood that's crumbled over time and been overrun by porch furniture and vandals, my diaper bag has gone to the dogs. There are still five baby diapers in there. Somewhere. The last one I pulled out had to be shaken free of mystery crumbs. My attempts to pack Pull-Ups for James are usually hampered by the fact that the diaper bag is full of Happy Toy packaging and empty-but-for-crumbs sandwich bags and won't zip shut. I wind up putting his Pull-Ups on top of the diaper bag, fully intending to clean the bag out at a traffic light, but instead forgetting about them and leaving them in some dusty corner of the car while I go wherever I'm going (where, invariably, James will poop himself).

I still have clothes for each kid. There's a 3-month shirt (no sign of the matching pants) for my burly 1-year-old, a hoodie for James that might possibly fit Thomas, and until last week there was a pair of girls' Pull-Ups in the size that fit Maddux when she was 2. (Please, please do not ask what happened to those Pull-Ups. I plead the fifth. A mother does what she has to when her 2-year-old poops his pants at the gym and refuses to wear a baby diaper.)

There are no wipes. Anywhere. My magical bag, which used to proffer anything and everything a mom could want, has turned on me and now swallows package after package of both bottom-cleaners and Wet Ones quite indiscriminately. What are they used for? No one knows, but Thomas was recently cleaned using a brown paper towel and water.

The sanitizer is a hot commodity when one has three kids, so it is saved only for those special occasions when I can actually, with the naked eye, see germs writhing on their hands. There is no formula, no bottle, no sippy cup. Perishable food has been verboten since the Sandwich Debacle of '08 (we're not sure if the sandwich itself was from '08, but that's when it was discovered). If ever we found ourselves stranded on the side of the road in the country and needed food, we would have to choose between a dusty, unsealed bag of pecans (always a great choice for the under-3 crowd, right?) and the inch or so of aforementioned mystery crumbs. I'm sure that when the cavalry arrived, they would find us shaking out those wadded-up "clean" diapers into our open mouths, trying to figure out whether the crumbs were from Cheerios, Gerber puffs or the Sandwich of Questionable Origins.

And they would click their tongues disapprovingly and think to themselves, "If only she knew how to pack a diaper bag!"

The Crappiest Place on Earth

Once upon a time, there was an independent little girl who grew up wanting to be, among other things, an astronaut, a doctor, a double agent, and president of the United States (although not, one hopes, the latter two at once). Sure, she went through a brief horse-and-ballerina phase, but in general she imagined her adult self as an intelligent and powerful individual who was not defined by her gender or appearance. That little girl grew up, went to university, graduated summa cum laude, worked as a newspaper editor and went back to school to study medicine. Then that little girl had a little girl of her own.

This, friends, is where the story should end happily ever after. But alas, an evil sorcerer named Walt Disney had placed a terrible curse upon our fair heroine. As soon as that new baby girl turned 3, she decided that her life's ambition was to become a Real Princess.

Instead of playing astronaut or drawing pretend anatomy charts, the wee damsel wore dress-up clothes every day, changing in and out of bejeweled satin garments with Cleopatralike frequency. She never tired of watching princess movies, reading princess books, and wearing tiaras to the grocery store (the horror!). When asked what she wants to be, the little girl consistently replied, "A princess." If any other suggestion were offered (including the enticing proposition of ballerinadom), her reply was always, "No, I going to be a Real Princess and live in a castle."

So her mommy became inventive and told her that in order to become a princess, she would have to go to university and meet a prince, since she was not to the castle born. The poor mommy could not have forseen that this would only result in any mention by any person anywhere of the word "university" being met with a very proud, "When I'm grownup, I am going to go to Princess Universary! And become a Real Princess!!!!" (this last sentence being said in a squeaky-excited voice with both shoulders and nose scrunched up). The mother ran into the garden bathroom and wept and wept. Unfortunately, there was no fairy godmother to save her from the curse of Disney.

Just when the downtrodden mommy thought the ridiculousness couldn't get any more ridiculous, her little daughter said this:

"I am going to have a beautiful wedding cake with candles all over it."

Mom: "Sweet pea, wedding cakes don't have candles. Birthday cakes have candles."

Princess Maddux: "Well, I'm going to get married on my sixteenth birthday. My prince will have a young bride." (I am not even kidding. This is an exact quote.)

Mom: "Don't you think you'd rather wait until you're 30?"

Princess Maddux: "No, if I wait that long I will have what (anonymous acquaintance) has -- (stage whisper) wrinkles!!!"

Mom: "I'm even older than 30; do I have wrinkles?"

Princess Maddux: "YES!"

Mom: "Well, I can assure you that I didn't have any wrinkles when I was 25. How about you wait until you're 25, and then you can get married."

Princess Maddux: "Maybe. We'll see."

And so was the mother dispatched (after all, you can't have a good Disney fairy tale with a mom in it!), and Princess Maddux lived happily ever after in her own imaginary kingdom, until she grew up and discovered that, in addition to universities not offering a Princess Studies major, no employers were looking to hire a new princess. She also found out that the only position that falls under the description "singing to animals and dancing in the forest" is that of crazy bag lady. And so she became a contestant on "The Bachelor" and her mother immolated herself in protest at the gates of Disneyland. The End.

No Riding The Baby

As most parents will tell you, it's not uncommon after birthing a child or two to find oneself uttering phrases one previously swore would never pass one's lips. "Because I said so" and "Not while you're living under my roof" come immediately to mind.

However, there are plenty of phrases we never imagined we'd utter at all -- not because of any philosophical objection to them, or the negative emotional connotations based on our own upbringings. It's just that some of the things kids come up with boggle the imagination.

For instance, I never imagined that an occasion would present itself in which I would be forced to say "No riding the baby." And yet, it happens. On a daily basis. (Why IS it that babies are so immensely fun to ride? And why, oddly, do they not seem to mind terribly much that they are holding 30 pounds of bouncing 2-year-old on their backs?)

Since my kids are only 4, 2-and-three-quarters, and 1, I'm sure many more things will come out of my mouth that I never imagined would need to be said. But here are a few tidbits from the not-far-distant past:

"We do not paint with poop!" (Said every naptime and many mornings for a good eight months. One day, it happened three times and I ran out of sheets. *Cry*)

"Hairbrushes do not go in the VCR."

"You cannot climb in the baby's Exersaucer, especially while he is sitting in it."

"We do not use markers on our brothers and sisters."

"We do not use the Barbie bathtub to bring water into our room and pour it everywhere." (We're talking probably a half-hour of repeated trips during naptime; it's lucky the second floor did not collapse after the resulting deluge.)

"Only Mommy is allowed to change the baby's diaper!" (Technically, volunteers are appreciated, but not 3-year-old volunteers who fail to ask first.)

"Who ate the top half of all these yogurt cups?"

"Why are all your barrettes and clips in the toilet?"

And the list goes on, and on, and on. I will grant you that some of these statements have periods at the end of them when, in real life, their utterance was followed by a fair number of exclamation points. The remarkable thing is that I get so many compliments on how well-behaved the kids are, and what fabulous manners they exhibit (except, of course, when we are at the mall past naptime and the mirror-licking commences, always at the fanciest -- and quietest -- stores).

With all the admonitions against using babies in lieu of trikes and human waste as an artistic medium, "Well, I'm not (such-and-such kid's) mom, and you're not doing/getting (X forbidden thing)" doesn't seem so bad anymore.