Gross, Mom.

The boys find me to be very annoying at times, and I do my best to be as annoying as possible. Often I will demand that they “pay” me in order to go away and leave them alone.

This afternoon, I was sitting with them on the couch, they were trying to do…something…and I kept asking questions and talking to them and generally being obnoxious. Finally I said “I suppose you’d like it if I went away, right?”

I got the “Duh, Mom” look.

“Well, the only way I’m leaving is if I get a kiss.”

They both rolled their eyes, but Will leaned over and obliged. I got up and sat on the arm of the couch, leaning over Joe. He didn’t seem to think he was obligated and tried to ignore me.

I told him he need to kiss me in order to practice for that day when he was 30 years old and wanted to kiss a GURL for the first time.

You should have heard him groan. “Yuck. I’m NEVER going to want to do THAT.”


p.s.  lest you get the wrong idea (and I’m sure no one did, but still, there are stupid people out there…), the kiss was a very quick peck on the mouth.

Hairy monsters no more

Saturday morning the boys went from this:

dsc09467 Hairy monsters no more

And this:

dsc09469 Hairy monsters no more

To this:

dsc09472 copy Hairy monsters no more

And this:

dsc09480 copy Hairy monsters no more

What a relief. (For those of us that have to look at them anyway.)  This was a compromise between the shaggy they want and the buzz-cut Mom and Dad would prefer.  This can BE messy on top, but look cute (handsome?), because it’s SUPPOSED to be that way.

I’m sure Will and Joe don’t think it was a compromise.   I’m sure they think they lost.

One of these days I know I’m going to completely lose the battle for hair length, but apparently I’m more of a controlling Mom than I thought I was.  I told them that if I was paying for the haircut, and since *I* have to look at them, it was this or a buzzcut. (Bumblebee cut as Colin (age 3) said the other day).

What is it with the really shaggy look right now, anyway?  I think the main reason the boys want theirs long and shaggy is because their cousin’s is long and shaggy.  Don’t get me wrong, their cousin is a good kid, but I wish my boys would have their own opinions, and not always do stuff because Ben does.

They annoyance was assuaged a little bit by the fact that we then took them to a basketball game at Iowa State and shelled out $$ for some basketball jerseys for them.

(And thankfully, the Cyclones WON the game…)

TTFN-

Suzanne

How to tell our twins apart (part 2 of our story)

Carla made a comment on my previous post about twins, that her identical twin boys were in their own sacs with their own placentas.  My very basic understand of the mechanics of multiple births is that there are a number of different variations on the theme (and in a future post, I might talk a little bit more about the things I’ve learned about the genetics of twins).  In our case, though, we were relying on our doctor’s opinion that they were fraternal twins, and I really think that our experiences with them are in line with that opinion  — I know that a lot of people, relatives included, have trouble telling them apart, but honestly:  they really are NOT identical.

I’ve been trying to find pictures that demonstrate the fact that their faces are slightly different shapes, but I’m not coming up with any.

If you can get close enough to them, there are two dead giveaways:

Continue reading

Having twins, part 1

There is still time to guess in yesterday’s contest — I’ll do a random drawing this afternoon (5PM CST).  My favorite answers so far are “fric and frac” and “thing 1 and thing 2″ — both quite appropriate.  I’ll have to do a count of how many of you guessed one way vs. the other.

I think I’ve told you this before, but the boys are NOT identical twins.  They are, in fact, fraternal.  (Two eggs, two sperm, two placentas, two babies.  If they’d been identical, there would have only been one placenta).  I don’t know if you’ll find this boring or interesting, but I thought I’d do some posts about (A) giving birth to twins and (B) parenting twins.  I’ll leave out the gross parts of the birth story, but I’m guessing you’ll have to put up with some gross parts in the parenting twins part of the story.

Continue reading

pixel Having twins, part 1