Trouble makers

The twins are at a fun age. It's so fun to watch them become little people and learn to communicate and especially interact with each other.

And they are going to be the death of me.

(At least I tried to start out positive.  :)   They are really going through such a hard stage right now!  They are so deliberately disobedient, scream, cry and throw tantrums half of the day, and I have absolutely zero control over them. I'm not sure what to do - I'm just trying the survive-until-they-grow-out-of-it tactic right now.  We follow through with consequences - they could spend half their day in time out and it wouldn't phase them. They are totally unaffected by their behavior making me sad or upsetting me (that totally worked on Cash - he will still start crying if he ever sees me crying).  They are just such a different breed than he was. I know that having two of them to think up mischief and make the other think their behavior is ok definitely plays a part, but man I'm hoping they chill out before this baby comes!

They're the type that when I say "don't throw that in the toilet!" will defiantly stand there and do it right in front of me.  I walked in on them the other day reading books so nicely that even though it was time for naps I thought, I'll let them have 5 more minutes because I love it when they get into reading. So five minutes later I go in to a room literally full with piles and piles of pages ripped out of books.  Sigh. And their tantrums and fits are just the kind that are totally unpredictable and completely irrational. Like one time Phoenix dropped a grape in the car and I couldn't reach it and he screamed for the next thirty-seven minutes straight while I was driving. And they seriously think up so much mischief that I wouldn't even imagine! Like standing up on the kitchen tables today while eating breakfast and literally throwing their untouched bowls of cereal off the table. And they are so destructive. Heaven help me.

As another case in point, tonight was our first trip to the ER with any of our boys.  I guess I should count myself lucky that we've made it this long. They had pushed a chair over to the kitchen,  and were having a grand time sharpening all the pencils in the electric pencil sharpener. I came in to check on them and they kept telling me to "go away!"  Knowing that this age is all about the quest for independence I thought I could let them feel like big boys and keep going by themselves. I kept going in to check on them or periodically fill requests for pickles, etc. The activity seemed to wear off, and soon Ashton was over sitting on the floor watching a show with Cash. I heard a sound that I know from frequency is a head hitting our floor so I went out to see if Ashton was ok, and I saw him try to sit up and hit his head again. I was telling him to stop hitting his head on the floor as I went out to him and I picked him up and noticed he seemed a little lethargic. So I sat with him for a minute and then Phoenix came over to me sticking out his tongue with something on it - and carrying a pill bottle of Ibuprofen, but that one was still closed. At that point I yelled for Ryan to come out since right as I was scraping the remnants of a pill out of Phoenix's mouth, Ashton started throwing up and was throwing up a lot and hardly catching his breath so his face was kind of swelling. So everything pretty much broke loose all at once...and then Ryan noticed a bottle of Ambien that was open on the floor.  SERIOUSLY. Of all the medications in our cupboard that was the one they managed to get open??  They had pushed the chair over, climbed up on the counter and gotten in the far cupboards of the kitchen? So pretty soon Phoenix couldn't stand up straight and was falling all over the place and we realized they'd both taken some, although from our estimation it was probably only one pill each, but could have been two or three, although we'd seen Phoenix's reaction of wanting to spit out just one - so hopefully he just had had a half of one before I got it out of his mouth. Ashton had obviously had more.

So I called poison control and they said we should take them to the emergency room. So it took us a while after a few more puking episodes and kids that couldn't move independently, so by the time we actually got to the doctor they were over the worst of it and were just still unsteady and a bit loopy. They didn't have to pump their stomachs or anything and just wanted to keep us for observation for 4 hours.  They got a little more active, but were then just hazardous trying to climb all over things in their drunken state. Their little bit of delirium was actually kind of cute too.  By the time we were done, we had been moved back out to the waiting room just so they could watch the tv and stop going crazy in the one small room - and they were screaming and throwing tantrums and climbing on the furniture and getting into everything we told them not to.  As the nurse came out and was discharging us she said the idea was the effects of the medication should have worn off in 4 hours. Looking at my kids laying on the floor screaming and yelling, I said, "Don't worry - they're exactly back to their normal selves." 

Sadly, I realized my kids are far more tolerable when heavily sedated.  :)

But I realized that thank heavens we didn't have to sit in the ER for four hours with them under normal consciousness or it would have been really unbearable. And boy was I glad Ryan was home uncharacteristically early today. And that it wasn't any worse than it was.

But I do love the interaction between my boys. I'm sure if one of them was a girl it wouldn't be nearly the same. And it warms my heart when I hear Cash say that Phoenix and Ashton are his best friends. I love the things I find them all doing spontaneously together. So to remember that, and just to be thankful that all my boys are home safe and sound tonight and everyone is ok, I'll end with some pictures and forgive all the trouble-making for a few minutes.

And a few good ones to remind me of their cuteness.  :)

    

 

L.A.

A few weeks back Ryan and I took a star-studded trip to California.  Let's start with this, the real reason for the (free) trip to Cali:

(Eh?  How about some of this action?)

(If you happened to miss the old post, you can catch up on the reasons why here.)  Just to clarify, no he was not on Jeopardy as a contestant, he just won an online version and they flew us out there to watch a taping as part of his prize package.

They even let the pregnant wife jump in for a photo. (And I'll say that Alex Trebek still looks pretty darn good after all these years - although not too fake, like he can still move his face :)

So we got to go watch them tape three shows (they tape 5 in a day - ours doesn't even air until next March), and we were total VIPs getting bags full of Jeopardy swag, getting prime seats, etc. Then after the show Ryan got pictures with Alex and then they had him tape a bunch of promos for their contests - just so people could see a real, live winner and be inspired that someday it could be them.  They had him say all sorts of cheesy lines like, "It's so easy!" and then throw a bunch of fake money in the air.  But it was fun. And he looks lovely in makeup.  :)

We spent the first few days in L.A. hanging out with old friends and checking out the California scene.  Here we are a Diddy Reese - an insanely long line to wait for an ice cream sandwich.  The novelty is you choose what two kinds of cookies you want and then what kind of ice cream, but apparently it always has a steady line and is only $1.50.  We felt totally in the hip scene knowing about this place. It was right by UCLA and right by where they've had the Twilight premieres too.  It was so fun seeing my friend Kimber and her husband Chad and their little boy. Wish we didn't live on opposite sides of the country in places we both can't wait to get out of.  :)  

Then we drove out in the middle of the mojave desert to where our other friends live - pretty much a hop, skip and a jump from Death Valley.  Wow, was that place out there or what.  But he is our friend who is a rocket scientist, and well, that's where they do their kind of thing. He and Ryan grew up together and it was fun to see their totally different lifestyle out there.


 

And I was so happy to see mountains and red rocks.

And pimped out, um, industrial vans?

Then it was off to  

Beverly Hills.

We stopped in at trendy Sprinkles cupcakes but unfortunately didn't run into Katie Holmes or Paris Hilton or any of those other Sprinkles-loving celebrities.  But they were tasty. And unfortunately the "secret phrase" for the day had already been used up.  What is it with Californians and their secret phrases for restaurants? Like In-N-Out.

Then Ryan had it in his mind that he really wanted to drive up to the Hollywood sign. Like really drive up to it (you can't, we found out).  But we did get close.  Don't bother though- the houses up there aren't even nice ones and the roads are narrow and windy and crazy - worse than Ireland. And we got a lovely view of L.A. smog.

Then we headed over to the Chinese theater and checked out the Hollywood squares.  It was pretty cool to see some of them that were so old - like Shirley Temple from 1935.   

Luck would also have it that they happened to have the red carpet rolled out while we were there for the Burlesque premiere so we decided to stick around to see what it was like.  Cool, it turns out.  And definitely full of celebrities.  Cher and Christina Aguilera came right over to us, and I even got a high five from Will Farrell.  There were actually a lot of other big names in the film too, like Stanley Tucci, Kristen Bell, and Eric Dane (McDreamy from Grays Anatomy).  

I wasn't quick enough to get good pictures when Cher was right by us, but dang that woman looks good for 64. 

James Marsden was there:

The guy from Sex and the City: 

 Khloe Kardashian:

 Mario Lopez

Cam Gigandet is also in the movie (think James from the first
Twilight.)

There was also Kathy Griffin, a judge from So You Think You Can Dance and a bunch of other people I didn't know the names of or feel like putting pictures up of.  Seriously crazy - I saw more celebrities in one trip to L.A. then I have in all my years living in NY and Miami combined!






We did get into a Tonight Show taping and saw Julianne Moore, Nelly as the musical guest, and the kid that plays Drako from Harry Potter. I was a little scared to see him in person, but he was a really nice kid. Actually the fourth boy in a family too, and look what a star he turned out to be.  It was funny because Leno asked if people were afraid of him in real life because of the character he plays. He said yeah, you get a lot of screaming children, but then he said oddly, you also get like moms that come up and say, "You're my son's favorite!" to which he said, (in his cute British accent), "That's, um, concerning...."  He was pretty funny.

We ate lots of food - besides the best cupcakes, we also ate what were supposed to be the best fries -at this random hot dog shack with seriously the most amazing fry sauce, the best cream puffs....and who knows what else. If I keep traveling and eating my way through this pregnancy the way I am I may surpass my twin weight gain.

And seriously this sign cracked me up.  Who's ever heard of a dress code for a bowling alley?  I guess ritzy L.A. has.  But good grief - fitted attire required?


We also got in one quick trip to the L.A. temple before we left on a red-eye to get home.  Fun trip. And a little exhausting.




A huge thank you to my sister who dropped her plans, had to re-arrange her work schedule and about 4 other people's so that she could come last minute to watch our kids when our other plans didn't work out.  They loved having her here!