Heatherisms

Heatherisms are very different from Michaelisms. Michaelisms result from the boy's mouth working faster than his brain...not that is brain is slow, just that his mouth is faster. Heatherisms are the result of careful deliberation.

Heather is one of the greatest thinkers of our time. She has thought about becoming president one day. I think she'll do it, too. One day, while strolling through Washington, D.C. in the sweltering heat of early summer, she asked if we could go visit the White House.....right now. We explained that we could not as we would need reservations to get inside, and further explained that the security was very strict. She announced that when she grows up and becomes president she will allow anyone to come to the White House to visit as long as the took their shoes off so the floors wouldn't get scratched up.

Yesterday she was grilling us again with question after question. This is how she works. In order to get as much information as she possibly can before making her final statement, she interrogates you until you cry out in desperation, "Will this ever end????" This particular discussion revolved around age and growing old.

"Mom, do you know anyone, besides the people in the Bible, who lived to be 200 years old?"

Here we go...."No, I don't. People these days don't live that long."

"How old is the oldest person?"

(sigh) "I think the oldest person so far has lived to be 115 or 116."

"How come we can't live to be 200?"

"I don't think our bones would be able to hold us together anymore."

"Oh." This is usually the end of the questioning. Usually. She thinks for all of 5 seconds and comes up with this final, profound, groundbreaking statement: "When I get to be around 80 years old, when I wake up in the morning and before I go to sleep at night, I will tell myself how old I am that day. That way when I die, I'll know how old I am."

Coulda Been A Booger, But It's.....Goop?

Warning: This post is NOT for the faint of heart. If you don't like great green gobs of gooey grossness, then I suggest you try another blog. However, if the sight of boogers and slobber tickles your funny bone....carry on.

OK so I decided that my kids needed some indoor fun time. It has been brutally cold here in Upstate NY (the unofficial motto is "if you don't like the weather today, move south"). It is difficult for me to say, "Go outside and play." when the wind chill factor makes Mount Washington in New Hampshire look tropical. I prefer my children with pink skin and all digits in tact. I have really been trying to limit the amount of TV and video games they are sucked into, as well. Don't get me wrong, I do love to park myself on the couch and not move for 2-3 hours at a time (hence my inability to lose weight, but I digress), but enough is enough already!


On Saturday, I decided to make Oobleck. For those of you who don't have kids, Oobleck is derived from the Dr. Suess book, "Bartholomew and the Oobleck." It is a simple recipe (see below) and it is by far the coolest stuff ever!
RECIPE:
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup water (you may need a little more)
Mix. It will get hard, but still liquidy at the same time (this is normal). We added food coloring; however, I would strongly urge you to keep it white.

After cleaning up, my son announced that he would now be auditioning as the newest member of the Blue Man Group. Heather's was pink so it really didn't matter.

Oobleck has both liquid and solid properties, which makes it such an oddity; you can roll it into a ball and when you set it down, it returns to liquid form.

My kids had blast with the Oobleck!!

They each had their own tray and they each created their own Oobleckland, complete with Oobleck Mountains, Oobleck cities, and Oobleckians (the residents of said cities). Oh, and since no true patriotic Oobleckland would be complete without national anthems, I was treated to both the Pink Oobleckland National Anthem and the Blue Oobleckland National Anthem, sweetly serenaded by none other than the President of Blue Oobleckland and the Queen of Pink Oobleckland, themselves. They carried on with all this falderal for more than an hour and half. They kept their messes contained to the foil trays (except for the boy and his blue arms) and played semi-quietly (except for the national anthems).

Then the grossness really began.....
On Sunday, I made them Goop. Goop is a little sturdier than Oobleck, which cannot be stored for any length of time. Here's the recipe (to make a decent amount of Goop, I quadrupled this recipe and split it between the twins):
1 T Elmer's Glue (yes, nothing else works as good as Elmer's)
1 T Water
Any amount of food coloring you desire (see below for my kids' favorite color)
Mix these in a medium container.

1 1/2 t Borax
4 T warm water
Mix these in a separate smaller container. Make sure the borax is well dissolved. Then slowly add to the glue mixture. A gooey blob will start to appear in the watery mixture. Use a spoon and stir around. There will be a lot of "water" surrounding the glob that will not mix....this is normal. Take the glob out and work it in your hands until most of the water has dripped off. I let the kids use a foil cookie sheet on the table....if it gets on your wooden table, it may stain.




To add a little extra fun to the mix, we made "snot" colored Goop. Here's a pretty close match: 2 drops of green, 6 drops of yellow, and 1 drop of red.

I knew it was a pretty good match, when my daughter crinkled up her face and squealed with delight and my son gave me his best evil laugh, "MWAAHAHAHAH!"








Today's sensory activities prompted "Grandma's Homemade Snot Cookies" straight from her nose and the boy found some gross colored ear wax.











They also discovered that if they slooooooooowwwwlyyyyyy stretched it, then loosely folded it over on itself several times then squeezed it, it made snap crackle and pop sounds like booger flavored Rice Krispies.
What a day!

Gandalf the Grey vs. Santa Claus?

It is yet another brutally cold day here in the northeast. So what are we doing? Not cleaning the house (which really and truly needs it), nor are we doing crafts with the kids at the dining room table. In fact, we are not doing anything constructive, now that I think about it. We are on our duffs in front of the tube. We are watching one of our all time favorites, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. While we own all three movies, it happens to be on TNT at the moment....which for the life of me, I cannot determine why I haven't gotten up and put the movie in so we don't have to watch the commercials, but I digress. As it has been a while since I have watched this particular movie (they always seem to show The Return of the King...why not show all three from beginning to end?!!), I was thinking back to the first time we rented this movie. The twins were just 3 and so precocious (scroll back down to my previous story of Mike and the dam...you'll get my drift). Let me set the scene....

The lights are all off. The surround sound, in perfect working order, is delighting us with perfect quality down to the last pin drop. The aroma of delicious buttery popcorn permates the air. The house is quiet except for the soft munching of said popcorn. On the screen, Bilbo has just disappeared from his eleventy-first birthday celebration and goes back to the house (love those little houses and the round doors....again, I digress) to pack and finds the evil ring and is wondering what to do with it. Gandalf, with his humble grey robes and matching beard, enters and begins to discuss with Bilbo the power that the ring holds. Bilbo accuses Gandalf of wanting the ring for himself. The lights begin to flicker as Gandalf rises to his full height, and booms, "Bilbo Baggins! Do not take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks! I am not trying to rob you!!"

It is at this moment that Heather looks at me with her big blue eyes and says, "Ooooh, Santa Claus is maaaaaad!"

Needless to say, we had to pause the movie, as Mommy was in a fit of hysterics. Between that and both kids traipsing around on all fours in just their underwear imitating Gollum, I can, without a doubt, say that my kids crack me up.

The Nightly News-- Dilcher Style

This will give you more of an idea of the connection between twins....or at least mine. That connection enables them to feed off one another at the drop of a hat. They are so connected that then can create a show within minutes....seconds, even....of having the idea in their head. Case in point:

About three years ago, as we were just settling in on the couch for another evening in front of the tube, my husband began changing channels to see if the news was on. The TV screen went blank, there was a low hum and a loud pop, and then a burning smell. That nasty melting plastic smell that makes you want to pull the front of your shirt up to cover your nose and breathe out of your mouth. Then the smoke started. We quickly hit the power button and unplugged the smoldering beast to prevent a fire. As the kids and I sat in astonishment that this actually happened to us, my husband picked up the TV and took it out to the curb for the next garbage pickup. I quickly snapped out of my dazed stupor and opened the windows and got out the fan (even though it was only about 30 degrees out) to clear the smoke and the stink. Then we all sat down on the couch and stared at the blank space in the entertainment center where the TV was....now what?

Heather and Michael announced that they would be the entertainment that evening. They began to dance and sing, Vaudevillian style. My husband grabbed the remote and stated that he would rather watch sports. They dropped into football "hike" position and mimed a quick football game. I announced that I would rather watch a love story with lots of kissing. Michael said, "EEEEWWWW!" but he grabbed Heather and put his hand over her mouth and planted a loud mushy wet one as he dipped her. Click. Crocodile Hunter came on. Heather flopped on the floor, gnashing her teeth like a ferocious 16 foot croc, while Mike jumped on her back yelling, "Crikey, you're a grumpy girl!"

But the best of all was the last scenario. I clicked the remote and announced that it was time for the news. Despite the fact that they were exhausted from all this falderal, Mike dropped to his knees behind the coffee table, propped up his hands as if he was reading his notes, put a hand to his ear in order to hear the announcement in his ear bud better and in his most serious "news" voice announced, "There was an explosion at the Dilcher house this evening."

That, my friends, is the epitome of quick thinking.

Michaelisms

This is one of many chapters on my son. He has definitely has had some language mix-ups. He is a very intuitive little boy, however his brain works faster than his mouth sometimes. Other times I wonder where he comes up with such elaborate schemes.

As a newly talking toddler, he would often say "duck-a-doh." It was weeks before we figured out what he was saying. Even Heather was getting in on it. "Duck-a-doh." What does it mean? It was Scott's mom who figured it out. If it hadn't been for her I think we would still be wondering what it meant. She had been babysitting the twins one day and they happened to be watching Blue's Clues. For those of you who do not have young children, Blue's Clues is a children's educational program where Blue (a blue dog) leaves pawprint clues for Steve (her owner) to find and figure out what game she wants to play or what snack she would like. Other household members are animated as well. There's Slippery Soap, Mailbox, Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper and their young child Paprika. In some of the episodes, Blue spins around and magically enters a book or drawing. Steve sings along as she does this, "Blue skidoo, we can too!" And as this is happening, Michael points to the TV and announces, "Duck-a-doh."

In another story about a year later, we were watching the news about the Gulf War. The anchorperson was discussing how the army had blown up the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Michael went all tattletale on the man. "Ooooh, he said a bad word!" It took us a few minutes to explain that, in this case, a dam was a wall that holds back water. His response? "Oh. But we still can't say G** Dammit, right Daddy?

Michael was forever mixing up his words, too. Here are a few examples: Skameeto (mosquito), Skabetti (spaghetti), and most recently, pasberry. And now I give you a final Michaelism for today....the pasberry story. This past summer we traveled to South Carolina; we stopped in Colonial Williamsburg to visit. While there, Michael was working in an activity book with a mad lib in it. The theme of the story was an accident. We added the quirky words (40 boogers were driving in a car....) and Michael read back the story.... "And then a pasberry told the police..."

"Pasberry? What's a pasberry, Mike?"

"I don't know, Mom."

"Spell it."

"p-a-s-s-e-r-b-y"

"Ohhhhh a passerby!"

These are just some of many stories that I will share about my kids. I love to talk about my kids. I am proud of everything they do. They are my heart and soul.

How Do You Do It?

Many people have asked us, "Twins! How do you do it? Twice the diapers and twice the feedings!" My first response was, "Twice the jelly kisses and twice the Mommy hugs (the ones that leave you reeling with aroma of Johnson's No More Tears shampoo and animal crackers)!" But they really wanted to know...how did we do it? Well, let me tell you. We did it the only way we knew how...we just managed. Scott was working second shift at the time. While it was hard on our relationship because we never saw each other, it was a lifesaver with the twins. I would feed the twins at 10:00 and go to bed. Scott would come home and since he was wired from his dispatching job, he would stay up until 1 or 2 am and feed the kiddos. Then he would come to bed, tap me on the shoulder and say, "Tag, you're it....zzzzz." I would get up at 6:00 and feed the kids and put them back down for a nap. I would then head off to work. Scott would get up around 9 and feed them again and then all three of them would take a nap. Since he worked Wednesday through Sunday with Monday and Tuesday off, we only needed a babysitter for 2 hours in the afternoon 3 days a week.

As for the diapers....there were a few "Windex" treatments, but the Diaper Genies were the true lifesavers. You cannot even begin to count how many toxic bombs were diffused in that thing. Once the kids were old enough to stand, I got pretty good at changing diapers as they stood on the changing table admiring themselves in the bathroom mirror.

It was remarkable to see two little chunky babies grow and develop. For two kids who started out so close, sharing a womb technically designed for one, these two could not be any more different. Heather was the planner; the boss, if you will. She was the first one to talk in complete sentences. One day, Scott was on the computer when the dog barked to come in from outside. Heather waddled up to her father and asked, "Daddy, aren't you gonna let the doggy in?" There is rarely a moment even now when she is not talking and planning some fantastical drama that she wants to act out with her brother. Michael was in charge of design and implementation. Even as a small child, teetering around the living room on his stubby little legs, he was designing innovative ways to use his toys. A blue Lego became a car...the red one criss-crossed with a yellow one was an airplane. Today his creations have become more elaborate. Again with the Legos....more and more advanced airplanes-- C-130s, Harriers, an X-Wing fighter...even his own inventions. An old cell phone became Iron Man soaring through the living room and kitchen; a pencil was a rocket ship blasting off to Planet Idontwannadomyhomework.

This all leads to the them scheming and planning elaborate skits or using subterfuge to plan a surprise attack on the poor dog. Picture this scenario: The adults are sitting in the living room watching TV. All of a sudden, it's too quiet; we wonder where the toddlers have gotten to. We hear incoherent whispering....two little voices. We quietly peek around the corner where the front door is. There, lying on the floor across the bottom of the LOCKED front door was Michael. Heather? She was standing on Michael's bottom on her tippy toes trying to UNLOCK the deadbolt. The planner and designer collaborated this elaborate scheme shortly after learning to walk.

What's in a Name?

Scott and I had many a disagreement about names. We had agreed that we didn't want to find out the sexes, even though it would have made planning easier. Since we didn't know if we were having boys, girls, or one of each, we had to choose 4 names. This became more complicated as time went on. We knew we liked the names Heather and Michael....good traditional names (we wanted our kids to be able to find those souvenir license plates and key chains with their names on them, really). Scott had always like the name Thor, however, I did not. "It's a good strong name for strong boy, " he stated.

"What if we have a scrawny little kid?" I argued.

"Given our size (we are both "big-boned") we are not going to have a scrawny little kid."

"Case in point, my parents wanted to name my sister Katherine. They opted not to because the are both "big-boned" and they would have had a "big-boned" child with the nickname Tina or Teeny. (They ended up having a Tina anyway, my sister is quite tall and thin)"

He finally agreed with me and hopped on the internet to research names. Scott has been able to trace his family history back to the Crusades. He was hopeful that he could find family names that we could use for the twins. He came up with some rather interesting choices...Corneilius? There was no way I was naming my son Corneilius! Harold? Nope! Wrong again!

We knew that we wanted to celebrate the heritages of both our families, so we chose the following:
GIRLS: Heather Sophia and Mira Grace
BOYS: Michael Austin and Alexander Bernard
We chose one middle name from each side of the family. Sophia was my aunt's middle name and Grace was Scott's grandmother's name. Austin was Scott's grandfather's middle name and Bernard is my father's name. But what would happen if we had one of each? We decided that both of our families needed to be represented in each name, therefore we came up with Heather Sophia Grace and Michael Austin Bernard.

We should have named them each Mini-Scott and Mini-Lisa. The first time I got a glimpse of my too little ones was in their "toasters" in the NICU. My mother wheeled me in between the two incubators. I looked at Michael and gasped, "That looks like Scott!" I turned in the other direction and looked at Heather and gasped again, "That looks like me!"