where is the page in the album for “baby’s first second degree burn”?

the mother of the year award is going to have to go to someone else in 2008.  for one thing, i am sneaking chocolate behind my 4 year old daughter’s back as i type this.  but really, i think the real reason i am out of the running would be the fact that i let my baby daughter get second degree burns yesterday on her face, both hands and one leg.  *high fives*

my stupid defense for not putting sunscreen on the twins is that they are not 6 months old for a few more weeks.  all the sunscreen i had said not to put it on a baby younger than 6 months.  so i dressed them in long sleeved pant suits with socks.  we turned their pram away from the sun and with hats in place, babies in the shade, off we went.  gemma had so much sunscreen on, it smelled like i was walking behind a giant pina colada.

at some point a tiny bit of the pants rode up on clover’s leg and there was about 2 inches of fresh ivory baby skin just ripe for the burning.  and her hands, HER HANDS!  who gets sunburn on their hands?  clover does, that is who.

like poor clover needed anything else to be grumpy about.  great job mom.

off to the doctor today.  and then off to buy the blackout curtain for the pram.

i know you, murphy’s law

and i know how you work.  today though, i used you and with a little give and a little take and a splash of really don’t care, i got a photo of all 3 of my kids NOT CRYING with santa.  oh yes i did.

listen to me other mothers, this is how you do it.  go into your children’s rooms.  open a drawer, close your eyes and grab and outfit.  don’t you dare match things.  in fact, by the time you get to the mall, it is best to be missing at least one shoe.  if they have hair, don’t brush it.  heck, if they have teeth, don’t brush those either.  go when the mall is busy and your children are hungry.  try to find something christmassy in only the shops in a  3 store radius from the big guy’s chair.  spend no more than $5 on festive crap that is not to be tried on prior to the photo as to make sure that the cute santa hat for your baby boy is waaaaaay to small for his massive head.  in case of emergency, buy a dog costume for your daughter and just tell her it is a kid sized headband, she will never know.

last but not least, plan a cute card based completely around the fact that all 3 of them will be crying and voila:

note:  i did buy the package with all the prints i need and even though i color corrected this file for them, it is only for the blog.

mentally banging their little spoons

these 2 go at food like little starving beggar monkeys on a side street in bali.  there is not a clean spot on their heads when we are done.  poor kieran sitting on my left, i am surprised i was able to feed him without sticking the spoon in his eye…not even once!  they scream at me if i am too slow with the return and i can just hear them thinking “if i could only control these things at my side…”

since the boy is hard at work on his bottom 2 front teeth, we are expecting many more food adventures in the near future.

our list so far:

rice cereal – for amateurs

apples, pears, apricot…bring it on.

sweet potato, corn and apparently australia’s favorite vegetable, pumpkin.  more please!

up next, carrots.  it is going to get ugly.

tis the season to see the magic in tiny miracles

like the one where your “embarrassed to catch her own reflection watching her” 4 year old gets up in front of a hall full of strangers and strangers’ parents and sings her little heart out.  what a great way to end her first school year in australia.  she will have a new school after the holidays.  we want the 3 kids to be in the same campus and since kieran can’t go to an all girls one, the decision had to be made.  i am sad.  we, gemma and i, were just hitting our stride.  she was making friends and i was making conversation with the other moms mums (don’t get me started) in the parking lot.  it does not happen easily for me, so i’m not sure what we will find on this next part of our journey.  i can only hope the people will be as kind as they have been at this place.

the kids all did such a wonderful job…i was proud of each one of them.  i was also proud of clover who did not lose her mind during the show.  ah heck, i was proud of myself for hand holding the d3 while taking shots at a ridiculously slow shutter speed while also holding the aforementioned non-screaming clover.

now can i just say, it took me way too long to go through the files and get this blogged.  the twins are not at all interested in enabling my internet habit.