Valentine's Day: No longer a day for lovers

When I was younger (relatively speaking of course), I had a love - hate relationship with Valentine's Day. It was simple really. When I was in a dating relationship, I loved Valentine's Day. It came resplendent with flowers and homemade coupon books (you know the kind, this card entitles you to one homemade dinner, etc. etc.). When I was not in a dating relationship, I espoused the wanton abuses of consumerism and how all of these companies were making a fortune off of poor teenage boys that would no doubt be crucified if they didn't show up to their girlfriend's door with a bouquet of flowers and a Hallmark card.

Now, I see it for what it really is; a form of medieval torture for parents of pre-school and elementary age children. Have YOU recently sat down with a three, soon to be four year old and tried to get them to write their name on 20 different cards? It's great, no really, it's AWESOME. I highly suggest you try it. Especially when you have two three, soon to be four year olds. Just be forewarned, things go much better when accompanied by a glass of Cabernet.

It looked a little something like this:

Twin 1: Mommy, I want the Phineas and Ferb valentines.
Me: No, they're are your older brothers.
Twin 1: Mommy, then can I have the Toy Story 3 valentines?
Me: No, they're your other brothers.
Twin 1: Mommy, why do I have to have brothers?
Me: So you can shell out a ridiculous amount of money when you're older on some serious therapy.
Twin 1: What mommy?
Me: Nothing, just use your Spiderman valentines.

Repeat that same conversation from the opposite twin brother and you have our introduction to Valentine's Day. Then came the actual writing of their names. Or should I say attempted writing of their names. First of all, I don't know any BOYS that can write their names with any accuracy at that age. Girls is another story. After observing my neices and friend's daughters, I am now convinced that girls come out of the womb able to write, draw and speak in long coherent sentences.

We all sat down at the table with each of their Valentines cards, pens and accompanying character tattoos to affix to their finished cards. At first go round, the twin's names looked like something akin to Egyptian hieroglyphics on steroids. My older son, being closer to age seven, whipped through his and was ready to move on to something more interesting than filling out Valentines. I quickly realized that this was going to take awhile as there was no way anyone was going to be able to figure out who these cards were from, much less what gender they were.

Why don't we try writing the first letter of your name? I'll show you how to make the letter and you can copy me. O.K? Both twins solemnly nodded their heads in approval of this obviously excellent solution. Moving slowly, I carefully wrote each letter for them, making sure to explain how I was moving my pen from the top to the bottom to start and then circling around to complete the last part of the letter, per the instructions from their pre-school that was helpfully stapled to the month's newsletter. O.K., now you try. Both boys bent their heads in obvious concentration and happily showed me their finished products. Hieroglyphics again: Minus the steroids, so I guess you can count that as improvement.

Great job guys! Let's try it another way. This time I used little dots to write the letters of their names and had them trace over the dots. That seemed to work, so I alternated between doing the dots for 5 or so cards each and then having them try it on their own. All was going wonderfully according to plan until Twin 2 asked to go to the bathroom.

Sure, no problem.

We finished up the last of the cards, 36 for the twins because even though there were only 16 kids in their class, each boy needed to write his own, plus make some for their teachers. I then reached for the tattoos to put into the cards. Where were the tattoos?

Me: Twin 1, where are the tattoos? I said in a barely contained tone of mounting panic.
Twin 1: I don't know.
Me: Twin 2, Twin 2, what are you doing in the bathroom????
Twin 2: A short pause, nothing.
Me: Get out here NOW!

And behold, there you have it, as Twin 2 rounded the corner out of the bathroom and into our kitchen, he was covered head to toe with Phineas and Ferb tattoos. Yes everyone, that's right, he can't write his name, but he can take toilet paper, wet it and place it on top of a tattoo that he had to peel the covering off of and mark himself with enough tattoos to land himself in some sort of male piercing/tattoo parlor that even Jesse James would be proud of (and I'm NOT talking about the gunslinging bank robber either).

However, the best part of all of this was... they were his older brother's tattoos, not his or his twins. But the best part? Having his older brother discover what happened, because I was surely not going to tell him. Follow that up with bath time and you have one heck of a Valentine's Day memory.

Potty Parties

Probably the biggest highlight from this past year was the success of potty training with the twins. They have both been potty trained since last year and it has definitely made life a lot easier. What we were unprepared for was the regularity of the parties that we would now be invited to participate in on a daily basis in our bathrooms. These parties did not require the customary hats, balloons and invitees bearing gifts, but rather a quick look into the bottom of the toilet bowl to determine what animal, letter, shape du jour our boys poop looked like to them at that moment.

Any family member would regularly get summoned to the bathroom upon hearing, "Mommmmmyyyyyyyy, come look at my pppoooooopppppppppyyyyyyyyyyyy!" Upon said request, we would then be required to look into the toilet bowl and hear our twins interpretion of what their excrement reminded them of. Now that could change any given day based upon their current interest in pop culture. For example, we went through the letters of the alphabet phase. "Look mommy, it's a letter C!" My personal favorite was the highly successful letter S. That one was a real feat to be proud of.

Just to update you, we categorically went through the Cars movie stage, "Mater," was a popular one for awhile. Then we transitioned into carrots, the ever popular "boat, " and of course, lest we forget the "worm." That one was always a crowd pleaser. Perhaps the most original, shall we say "creation" and I use that term loosely, was the stinkbug attacking a "whale." That was a fun day.

Yes everyone, we are absolutely proud of our twins for their accomplishment and even more grateful for the diaper raise (that's what we like to refer to potty training success) but looking into a toilet bowl 2-3 times a day per child can get a little overwhelming, especially after a summer meal of hot dogs and yes, i am definitely going there, CORN.