On Tuesday Angelica was sick (with a cold we gave her!) so I was on my own with the four kids again.

This time around I didn’t rush right home, but stayed out in the playground for over 2 hours.

I figured out how to cover the four kids on my own. Sort of. The trick is to just lower your standards.

Ben’s teacher Ms Sara said, “I don’t know how you do it.”

Well, as you are saying this to me, Aaron is eating dirt, Sam is climbing stairs with no one spotting, Ben is running around without his shoes off, and Jack is climbing on top of the garbage can.

Rare moment when the twins were NOT running in opposite directions.

But nowadays my standards are so low that none of this bothers me. As long as no one is crying, choking, or getting abused by other kids in the park, we’re good.

The Hutchinson Boys join us for a bit.

Or maybe it’s not lowering your standards. Maybe it’s just luck. If nothing goes wrong, you will be okay. The next day Angelica was back and I down to having only 2 kids in the park in the afternoon. I’m glad, because if this happened when all four were around I’m not sure I would have handled it with such good humor…

Jack after stomping in a mud puddle.

I finally got it. How this new form of social media is different from Facebook or Twitter.

Actually I still can’t figure out Twitter. Maybe it’s because I’m not that into music, and the top 50 most followed people on Twitter are almost all musicians. I have an account, but I hardly ever check it because there is nothing interesting on it. And nothing interesting is on it because I haven’t picked interesting enough things to follow.

Now Facebook, Facebook I get. Facebook is about the things that happen in your life. It’s about what you believe in, what you think is funny, or sad or interesting in some way. It’s you, together with your friends both past and present that led you up to this point in life.

If Facebook is about where you’ve been, Pinterest is about where you’d like to go. Doesn’t mean you’ll always get there. It’s like a wish list of who you want to be. It can be practical like recipes or kids crafts, or it can be vacations you want to take, books you want to read, or even a collection of things you find funny.

It’s anything on the internet you find but don’t want to lose again.

It is the bookmark bar you wish you had. And now you can.

Have you tried it yet? Because after my emails and Facebook, the next place I turn is now Pinterest.

Just be careful. It’s highly addictive…

Things have been busy for Adam lately. Since we are interdependent, this means I have been busier too. More time spent on work means less time spent parenting for him, and therefore more for me.

The past couple of days I’ve been pushing the kids along mostly on my own in the morning. It is an incredible feat to get four kids that are so young dressed, fed, ready for school, and pack the lunches each morning. All while trying to keep them from fighting, crying or both. I’m always surprised we aren’t late every day!

When this happens, Adam often apologizes for not being more helpful as he rushes out from where ever he has managed to find a quiet spot in the house to make his work call, read his document or whatever was due yesterday. Then he hurries the older kids in the car, his back laden with backpacks, school projects, and whatever else needs to be brought to school that day.

Although I find it stressful and wish he could help more, I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND that he is doing as much as he can. That he has stretched himself as thin as he possibly can which is pretty thin by anyone’s standards.

And sometimes, when I stand in his shoes, I want to say to myself, “Are you upset about the money I’m making from this job? Or are you upset because I pay for help during the week so your occasional morning with all four kids seems hard?” (It’s all about perspective, isn’t it?)

Adam would never say anything like that to me. Which is very lucky that I’m not earning the money. I don’t think I would make such a kind husband.

Still, all this busyness sometimes makes us forget things. Four kids schedules are a lot to keep up, and when something new is thrown into the mix we get even more overwhelmed then our normal state of overwhelmingness.

Like this morning when Adam came out from the bedroom as I was packing lunches and declared, “I have already billed 3 hours today.”

Then he looked at the clock and said, like he says every morning around the same time, like a line from a cheesy 80s sitcom, “We got to get to school or we are going to be late.”

A vision of Bart Simpson saying “Ai Caramba”, Norm saying, “Afternoon Everybody”, Tattoo yelling, “The Plane, The Plane”, and Larry from Newhart saying, “I’m Larry. This is my brother, Darryl. This is my other brother, Darryl.” all flash through my head briefly.

Then next he says something different. “Wait, isn’t today ‘Muffins with Mommy’ at Ben’s school?”

Crap! That was today? I checked the calendar. Yep, from 8am – 8:30am. I checked the time. 7:47am.

I was half way through cutting a PB&J. I still had my pajamas on. I hadn’t even put in my contacts. There was a twin crying at my feet, wanting to be held.

Adam graciously offered to take the twins to Jack’s school while he dropped them off. I threw on the closest thing I could find and hobbled as quickly as a woman in her 40s wearing a boot could over to Ben’s school.

We made it, just…

Lots of changes have been happening here, and I thought I’d give you a little update…

The warmer weather is a change in itself, seems like everyone is happier now that we can spend more time outdoors in the sunshine. And it’s a keen reminder that summer is just around the corner.

What have we been doing with this warmer weather?

Jack has started soccer and baseball again. A few weeks ago he played against his buddy Angus as they are not on the same team this year. It was very cute to watch Angus running from second to third base while Jack waved as he passed. As 6 year olds, they have started to actually follow the rules. People can get “out”, not everyone gets to run the bases no matter what.

Jack’s soccer team is coached by two soccer enthusiast and as a result they have a killer team this year. Each game is a blow out! Jack is learning a lot, and has even managed to score some goals.

Jack has been better about his big brother status with the younger kids, even Ben.

Jack teaching Ben to Ride a Bike.

Playing at Adam’s Park with Sam.

Ben has started a phase where he talks about wanting to be a girl every day. Some days he won’t answer us unless we call him, “Jackie”, the female version of his idol, Jack. He’s quite a bruiser, so I’m not sure what it all means. I still see him play “Hulk Smash” with his toys, or have the dinosaur obliterate a tower he’s just built, then he’ll go and try to wrestle Jack or Papa to the ground. He’s got a crush on Abby, a girl in his class. We shamelessly use it to get him to go to school every day, “If you don’t go you won’t see Abby, will you?”

We are screwed for next year.

Everything is better with Abby around.

Sam has reached a whole new level of mischief. Anywhere I turn he seems to be. Like climbing up to the top bunk in the bunk beds. Anything new I have around the house he finds instantly and plays with. I found the boot I use for my stress fracture in a plastic play tunnel the other day…

My tupperware drawer.

Aaron is still running a fever. He is on day 5, which I find slightly alarming but I have brought him to the doctor’s office twice and he checks out fine. Poor guy has been a coughing, tired mess this week. Apparently there is a bug going around lately that lasts 7 days, let’s hope it’s that and nothing more serious.

The twins also graduated to big boy car seats this month, they seem to really enjoy them, though I find it challenging to get them in and out of the car now. My new method is to carry them both at the same time, one of each hip, trying to close and open doors without any free hands. It’s quite comical, and if I could I would take a picture of it. But for now you’ll have to settle for a car seat shot…

I haven’t blogged in a while. I realize 4 days blog free are not a lot for most bloggers, but it seems like most days I have something I feel like writing about.

People often ask me where I find the time to write a blog, and I’m not sure how I do it. But somehow I always do, and I do it a lot, so the 4 day silence must mean that I really didn’t have any free time AT ALL. Because with 4 small, active boys, you can be pretty sure that something worth mentioning happened in the past 4 days.

Well, Adam was in New York and he overlapped Angelica’s holiday. So I spent a lot of time with the kids on my own. I was pleased to see I could do it if I needed to, but much more pleased that I don’t have to.

To recap, there were cuts, bumps, scrapes, and even a bout of pink eye. There was fights, wrestling, nagging, warning, and punishing. There was an embarrassing amount of take out and pre-packaged meals. I picked up older kids from school while lugging twins with. At Jack’s school the twins took off running in opposite directions and I was unable to cover them properly. Luckily one of Jack’s classmates, Taylor, watched Sam for me. And at the end of each day, there was the satisfaction of having worked a very full, long day followed by the dread of doing it again tomorrow.

But I’m glad to report we are all doing relatively well. And I’m ready to blog about the actual title of this post – Mother’s Day.

Adam asked me what I wanted from Mother’s Day and I sadly realized all the things I wanted to ask for were unachievable.

1. Time off without guilt. I know this time in our lives is short. The kids are not going to be this young and needy forever. But right now my hours are 5am until 7 or 8pm at night, seven days a week with frequent night wakings. This many kids really needs two people to cover them most of the time. And sometimes even that isn’t enough. Which is why, when Adam offered to watch the kids in the afternoon so I could do something, I refused. I know I find it difficult to watch all of them alone, and I certainly couldn’t relax and feel happy knowing I put someone else through that.

2. Well Behaved Kids. Need I say more about this? Wouldn’t it be great if, on mother’s day they all dressed themselves, wiped their own butts, didn’t argue, didn’t cry, didn’t make a mess? I think I heard Adam say at least 20 times today, “Remember the conversation I had with you yesterday about being a good boy for Mommy today?”

3. A job with holiday. No, not mine, that will come. I wish Adam’s job respected things like holiday, time off, and family. I’ve seen him wake up at 3am to get to work so he’ll be home by 3pm in time for Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve seen him work every holiday we’ve ever been on. On the way to the hospital to deliver Jack we stopped by his office where he handed his secretary a stack of papers. She handed him an even bigger stack back. And today I watched sadly as he struggled to play super mom, super dad and super attorney in order not to let anyone down.   I remember my sister telling me about comedian Ray Romano’s argument with his wife. She used to complain about how much he worked. His reply was, “Go cry in your money bags.” So, I’m aware how awful this sounds, because I totally appreciate every single cent that he gets from that job. It affords us a very nice lifestyle. And for that I’m grateful. It’s just the no time off thing that bothers me.

4. A flat tummy. I know part of this tummy is just extra calories, but before I had kids it seemed like carrying extra pounds looked like I was generally bloated. Now extra pounds looks like I’m incubating another pup. And it would be nice if, for just one month, no one asked me if I was pregnant. You people are going to give me an eating disorder! And by disorder I mean the deserts are going to come out of order, like before I even get to the meal!!!

This is not to say that I didn’t have a great mother’s day. Jack, Ben and Adam all made or bought me great gifts…

Mother’s Day spoils.

I didn’t cook once. And being able to sit meant I could actually converse with my kids. Ben and I sat together at lunch time.

“Do you have a penis?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you pee out of your butt?”

“Uhm, not really.” (I don’t think I need to explain this in detail to a three year old, do I?)

“I don’t have a penis either. I’m a girl, like you.”

Well, I guess if we didn’t have so many spares, this might alarm me. But I’m pretty sure we’ve done our part to carry on the Calisoff name.

I got a pedicure during the twins second nap.

I got to spend time with my adorable kids and perfect husband.

Mother’s Day breakfast at Adam’s park – let the birds clean up the crumbs for once!

And most importantly, I got an opportunity to stop and appreciate the endeavor of motherhood. Because after all, today is a day to honor the practice of motherhood, not just as kids, but as parents too.

So Jack, since you tried your hardest to honor me all day, I finally honored your request to stop picking Ben’s favorite colors (i.e. pink, red and purple) for my toes and answered your appeal for your favorite color instead…

Sunday night we attended Grandpa Bill’s retirement party.

He was retiring from one of his two jobs, the mayor of Riverwoods. It is a suburb about 30 miles north of Chicago. Riverwoods is a unique community. Each lot sold must be at least 1 acre. It keeps the privacy levels up. For many years Grandpa Bill and Bubbie lived in a prairie style Humrich house that backed onto a forest preserve. It was normal to pull into their driveway and see deer standing outside.

Bill is a rare politician in that he is completely unpretentious. In fact, the entire time I’ve known him, I’ve never heard him mention to anyone that he is a Mayor, a position he’s held for 14 years.

He also had a strong sense of principle for this position. Once, without realizing it was a village car, we asked to borrow his SUV to move some bigger furniture. He politely but firmly said no, the car was property of Riverwoods and it would not be right to loan it out. I gained a lot of respect for him that day.

I noticed immediately when we arrived that, besides one other couple, we were the only ones there with kids. The other’s couple’s kid was around eleven. When you surround yourself constantly with families with small children, you forget that this messy, chaotic time in your life is short. The majority of your life is lived in the adult world where there are standards and rules of conduct.

We were greeted with a mix of delight, awe, shock and disgust. Bubbie had already told everyone about Ben’s fall out the window. Which made me a bit insecure. I’m sure everyone was thinking I was a bad mother and curious to watch us with our kids. Well, we did not disappoint.

Sam banged on the table and practiced screaming during Bill’s speech. Ben colored all over the table cloth. And later, when Adam was taking Aaron for a walk to calm him down and I was covering the other three kids, I thought it would be a good idea to change Sam into his jammies at the table. I got quite a few looks for having a naked baby, but nothing was worse then when I pulled off the diaper and realized all too late that it was filled with poo. I may be pretty far gone when it comes to what is acceptable in public, but I know changing poo diapers at the dinner table is a definite no-no.

Bubbie and Bill sold their beautiful Humrich and are moving to Arizona next month.

Yesterday the twins turned one. We decided to celebrate today so I have a long post locked and loaded where I wax poetic about how cute they are. I planned to follow it with the proverbial photo of them covered in their first taste of frosting.

But, instead of the planned celebration, Ben fell out of the window waiting for Bubbie to arrive and half the party went to the emergency room.

When they took Ben he was in hysterics, but Adam smartly thought to undress him and take a look. We didn’t notice anything alarming, but I did find it scary that he was gibbering nonsense and wailing for so long.

I’m happy to report by the time they got checked in he was back to his normal self, ordering Bubbie around and dancing so much he set the heart sensors off and had all the nurses running.

They didn’t even bother to X-ray him. Anyone that happy can’t be seriously hurt.

Cupcakes for breakfast, anyone?