Two birds, one stone

Finnigan was apparently quite anxious to get in the bath tonight. He looooves his bath time.

You'll notice that he's even still wearing his slippers. Inexplicably, he was NOT wearing his diaper.

New house, same old antics...

Here a princess, there a princess...

The girls ditched the boys and went to see Cinderella at the real live theater in Singapore:

They thoroughly enjoyed the show!

Finnigan's first haircut :)

Awww, so cute. We got tired of constantly hearing what a pretty little girl he was, so the baby hair got it's first cut! I'll spiff him all up and post the "after" pic tomorrow. *Sniff* I miss his little baby curls!

I told you so.

Remember two posts ago how I said that every time I frickin' turned around, there was some new destruction the girls had wrought? Yeah. I went to give the baby his bath tonight (more on that later) and found toe prints on the lino floor in BRIGHT. RED. NAILPOLISH.

And then they lied to me about it! How dumb do you have to be?? Seriously! I know it wasn't me, it obviously wasn't Finn, and you have evidence all over your hands. Methinks you're not as sharp as you look.

They both went to bed without dinner, which is something I've never done before. I am at my wits end though, with those two. They're now grounded indefinitly, with no toys, no TV, no colouring stuff, no playing together... Until they grow brains.

I know that nailpolish marks are not a huge deal, in and of themselves, but add that to the sneaking candy, writing on walls, lying, fighting, mess-making, and the fact that they somehow plugged up the bathroom sink, and well - it's enough.

Tomorrow, I put them to work. I am going to break these two - before I go out of my already medicated MIND.

Because my brain is fried, that's why.

How do you forget milk? Seriously?

I went shopping for a few groceries with ALL kids in tow, that's how. I'm amazed I remembered all of them, let alone any grocery items.

Milk is very important though, in The Mommy's household. Milk is what makes the baby go down for his nap.

No milk = no nap.

No brain = no milk.

Furthermore,

No one to watch children = no nipping out to the store.

In summation,

No nap.

No break.

No hope.

No thank you.

That's IT. I've HAD IT.

My last fuse if officially blown. The final straw has broken this camel's back.

I. Can't. Take it. Anymore.

The children have won. There is just too many of them, I'm outnumbered. Every time I turn around there is something fresh to clean/fix/pick up/wash/throw out. My life is a constant dance of a half step forward, half dozen steps back. Just today I finally hung the shelving over Finn's change table so I can organize his diaper items. While I was doing that, someone short and female (I haven't identified which, just yet) scribbled on the wall outside his door. So now I have to go scrub a wall. All the towels are laundered, folded, and put away. But inexplicably the linen closet now smells like a nail salon.

I'm reaching the end of my rapidly fraying rope. I hate doing everything by myself. I can do it, and it's not so much difficult as it is constant, but I am just so tired of doing it. Do you know the the Golden Gate Bridge is always being painted? It takes so long to paint the whole thing, that by the time they are finished, the side they started on needs painting again. That's what my life is like. Individual things occasionally get done (barring constant interruptions, and usually to musical accompaniment of "Mommy? Mama? Mom mom? Mom? Mummy? Ma? Ma? Ma? Mama? Mamamamamamamamamamamamamamamama?") but everything NEVER gets done. All I want is to sit down after the kids go to bed, with a cup of tea and this stupid cat that won't leave me alone, light some candles, and look around at a clean, pretty house.

Honey, sweetie, husband of mine - I fully support your military career and the need it creates for you to be away just now. But it freaking SUCKS.

TAB. The click of death.

I'm just going to come right out and say it. I am an indenter. I like to indent. I first got addicted in high school, and am now forced to leave my favorite five-space mark smattered sporadically throughout everything I write.

However.

The newer-fangled technology around here does not share my predilection for paragraph preposition. I used to be able to hit "tab" and - voila! - have my cursor blinky thing magically placed in the correct position to begin my paragraph. Now, notsomuch. Now when I click tab, my blinky thingy goes... Somewhere. Sometimes it makes my e-mail not go to just my darling husband, but instead to my entire e-mail address book (Sorry. You might want to... Umm... Not open that one. FYI. Thx.) Sometimes it auto-posts my amazingly clever nothingness, leaving some of you apparently scratching your heads and emailing me because the title of the post means nothing and you think I've left you out of something interesting. I haven't, but thanks for reading the entire blog to make sure. :) Sometimes that n'ere do well tab key causes the blinky thing to just disappear altogether. That's fun. I hope it goes somewhere warm on it's vacations.

Isn't this fun? This is the least entertaining post ever. At least I still know where my blinkie thing is. I wonder if it has an official name, like the little plastic dealies on the ends of your shoelaces that nobody knows what they're called. Or most of the junk under the hood of my car.

I digress.

I like to indent, and my computer won't let me. Yes, I realize that I could just MANUALLY hit the space bar five times every time I wanted an indent, and that would achieve the same result - but if you haven't figured out by now that I am far, far too lazy to do that... Well, then you haven't been paying close enough attention. I'd really rather just complain to all of you about it.

GYM: Day 4

Things I've learned thus far at the gym:

1. No, you can NOT claim you "went to the gym" if all you did was go there to sit in the hottub. They won't let me count that on my attendance card. Damn.
2. There is NO WAY TO CHEAT when you have a shadow personal trainer. He'll make you do every last one of those crunches.
3. Elliptical machines are mean. They hate me personally.
4. I have more weight to lose than I thought I did. *pout*. According to my BMI, height/weight/age/blah blah blah, I should lose aproximately 15lbs. Or I can gain 45lbs of muscle, whichever I'd prefer. I'd like to choose secret option C, buy bigger pants and pretend I've lost the weight. Then eat bon-bons.
5. I don't know the technical names of ANY of my own muscles. Luckily, my trainer guy speaks "girl". "The thing next to my other thing" is my quadracep. In other circles, it's my fanbelt. Okie.
6. A few of the machines do not have petite enough settings for someone of my stature. They require assistance. Like sitting on a phonebook. Or a booster seat. I am too wee for the gym.
7. When the dietician lady suggests I sprinkle some nuts on my morning oatmeal for a shot of protein, no - she does not mean I can substitute brown sugar and full-fat creamer.
8. You have two options: Hang your shower towel on a hook that's far away from the shower and walk naked back and forth, or take your towel into the stall with you and negate the purpose of having said towel in the first place. 8b. Big-ass shower towels are heavy when wet, and will aggravate tired, just-worked muscles.
9. There is no known cure for a flat butt. Thanks mom.
10. The people who work at the gym have all met Finnigan. They all know I'm just there to shower in peace.

Time well utilized.

Today I spent an hour cleaning Finnigan's room. Somebody had decided the room had diaper rash and thus needed to be thoroughly powdered. It looked like a flour factory had exploded in a snow storm. Fun times.

Furthermore, why oh WHY can't the one year old can't manage to sort his toys into the appropriate bins? Cars, wooden blocks, plush, construction set, duplo, and misc. How hard is that?

Lol. Ok, so he's one. But in June he'll be two. Then he'd better learn.

;)

What's that buzzing sound?

Because I'm new to they gym, I'm still under "evaluation". At this point, that means that I have to use a heart-rate monitor to see what kind of condition my ticker is in.

Today my resting heart-rate was 143bpm. During my work out it levels out at about 188bpm. For my age and fitness level, it's supposed to top out at 130bpm.

This almost gave my trainer a heart attack.

Hehehehehe.

So I, of course, had to mess with him. I hopped onto the elliptical machine and told him I was going to try to break 200bpm. I got to 204bpm (talking and joking the whole time, not even breathing hard) before he made me get off and sit down.

He's submitting a requisition that the recently-recaliberated machines be tested again. Even though they seem to be reading accurately for everyone else.

I told him it must be reading my IQ instead of my heart-rate.

My new gym nickname? Hummingbird.

Finnigan says:

"Mama cawl... Dada?" as he hands me my phone.

How CUTE is that?!?

(He's also learned to tap his finger on his cheek if he wants a kiss there. He's so cute I might die.)

The Mommy is sick

And The Kids are NOT. This is not good. My kids are phsychotic. I barely have enough energy to keep up with them when I'm healthy, let alone when my throat hurts, my ear canals are swollen, and my lungs are full of something that won't come out. Ew. All I want is someone to tuck me in and bring me some hot tea. Instead I have to clean the kitchen and pack the kids' bags for tomorrow. I can barely make it off the couch.

I never get sick.

Unless The Daddy is deployed.

Lily says:

This all happened while I was driving, so my objective was to shush her as quickly as possible. As you can tell, I failed.

Lily: Mommy, my tummy hurts when I do *this* (bends sideways)

Mommy: You probably just have an air bubble or something baby.

L: What's that?

M: Well, it's a bubble... Made of air.

L: What's inside it?

M ...*facepalm*...

L: ???

M: ...Air?

Rachel says:

(Upon learning - to her dissapointment - that we were having a baked ham for dinner):

"Mom, weeeee don't even LIKE ham! We can't even RESIST it!"

Pictures, round 5

Please don't eat my children:

Funny-looking flat palms:

Then some fluffy palms:

The infamous MerLion:

I've got lots more to show you all, but I am so beyond bored with myself. I have the attention span of a gnat.

Pictures, round 4

Doesn't this picture look like a postcard? I have mad skillz.

Lillian looked at the creature. The creature looked back:

Some interesting lighting:

I have no idea what these are, but aren't they neat?

Pictures, round 3

They sure clean up well...

Considering how they wake up looking: (She's definitly got my hair)

Pictures, round 2

It's Christmas!

The Daddy:

The Baby:

This just made me giggle. Grass growing on the parking stalls. I'm so North American.

Pics, round 1

Sunset (rise?) over Tokyo airport. My internal clock was thoroughly screwed up by this point:

The kids in front of one of many fountains in Singapore:


The view from the living room balcony:

Singapore at night:

Sweet, no???

Ok, so...

• We're moved.
• We went to Singapore, then came back.
• DH is gone on training leaving me here with the kids. Jerk.
• The kids got into the private school, and their uniforms are sooooo cute! (Pics to follow)
• I joined a gym. I even went. Twice.
• I finally got off my lazy butt and got internet service. I got bored just sitting here staring at my laptop, and I was always thinking of crap I wanted to blog about. Now I'm drawing a total blank - hence the bullet points.
• I have a great big kitchen that I LOVE. I have a little bitty bathroom that I HATE.
• Garbage pickup is only every other week. That is stupid. It should be every other day.
• Daytime TV sucks.
• I'm so happy to be back! I'm going to binge on BBC, I feel like I've lost touch with all my friends. Sad.

Dear Husband:

I have commandeered all the t-shirts you left behind to use as nightwear, and there's nothing you can do about it.