April Fools Heads Up

Ok, so tomorrow is the Big Day, where people with a cruel or warped sense of humor (like me) like to trick the unsuspecting masses with April Fools jokes. Want to play along?

Here's a few of my favorites:

My aunt is married to a very miserly and greedy man who is ALWAYS pinching pennies and obsessing about money. He'll actually yell from the computer desk: Fae, what did you buy at Target on January 25 for $7.81?

I mean, COME ON!

So one year, she decided to get him good. A few days before April 1, she had taken a (FAKE) phone call in his vicinity, where she knew he would be listening and had a (FAKE) conversation with the "Publisher's Clearing House folks". When she "hung up", she rolled her eyes and said "Well. That was probably a hoax." And then explained to her husband that "someone" from "Publisher's Clearing House" wanted to make a house call on Saturday [which happened to be April 1], and could they please be home, and they should also be "prepared, you know like look nice and have the house clean and the grass cut etc". All the while she told him this, she rolled her eyes and made it seem like she wasn't buying it for a minute.

Well, my uncle was all excited, and the more Fae tried to down play it, the more he was convinced it was real. So he worked like a MADMAN for 2 days, cleaning and landscaping, and driving himself into a tizzy. On Saturday, he was up and dressed and cleaning and re-cleaning the house, picking up every crumb. She let him go on like this ALL DAY before finally saying "Um, honey? APRIL FOOLS!"

(He is still very. mad.)

Here's another one:

A few years ago, when I was pregnant with Marin, a good friend of mine had a new baby. A couple of weeks before April 1, she had her [INFAMOUS] 6 week check up and got the go-ahead for s-e-x.

So, I took a pregnancy test for her (oh, yes I did), and we put it in a Ziploc baggie, and she took it home. The next morning, she showed it to her husband. She said "I don't know how we are going to do this! Karin is only 8 weeks old!" He was all "MAN! I've got to sit down! I didn't see this coming! But we ARE going to do it! It'll be fine! It's just, MAN!, I didn't see this coming."

Well she let him go on like this for quite a few minutes before saying, slyly "April Fools!"

That is when the color finally returned to his face.

Finally:

About 2 years before I got pregnant with Kate and Joan, we called my parents on April 1 and told them I was pregnant... with TWINS.

Two years later I WAS pregnant with twins.

So be careful what you put out into the universe, what comes around goes around, etc.

And if you do something good this year, please share! I've got nothing up my sleeve, so far anyway.

Garage Sale

So I have a new motto: In my way, in the trash... unless you are worth 25 cents, then into the garage sale pile.

I am ruthless, you guys. I am throwing out SO MUCH crap, and throwing an equal amount of crap into the "garage sale" corner of the attic. I went through the girls' room and got a huge bag of garbage and a huge bag of garage sale stuff. Behind their back.

So this will scar them, surely, to have toys practically ripped from their distracted grasp and tossed out/sold, but my question is HOW MUCH it will scar them. Are we talking years in therapy, or becoming a hoarder a la Oprah show style? Or is it more simply that they'll save all of their college texts JUST IN CASE and have a lifetime of bad dreams where they are looking for something but never find it?

Because I cannot involve them in the sorting process, NO WAY. I've already tried it. The results were them trying to put their old ripped torn art work from preschool in the sale pile and sobbing over the Dora doll that sings "feliz navidad" that they have NEVER ONCE EVEN TOUCHED. If given their druthers, they would keep everything, plus cruise all the neighborhood garage sales and haul home all of their discarded junk.

So most days you can find me sneaking up to the attic with an armload of confiscated CRAP, hoping they won't find it under all the other household stuff in the pile. If they do, whoo-boy, am I going to be in trouble!

(I've never actually had a garage sale, opting to dropping off loads to the Neighborhood Service Center instead. But this time we have waaaaay too much stuff. Any tips on garage sale do's and don'ts?)

Finding Peace

Everyday I think about whether or not I want to have another child. Some days I don't feel done having a baby in the house. I love babies, love being pregnant, love the mystery of how our family will change shape. I love the breastfeeding, the cuddling, all of those "firsts". The lack of sleep, while definitely on the sucktatude scale, does not bother me as much as it does other moms. (You: *raised eyebrow*. You: *thinking about how this blog in nearly always about how tired I am* You: *checking to see if you are reading Marie Green, or someone entirely different* Me: It's sort of like labor ok? I forget just how much it sucks.)

So then, on the other hand, I don't know if I want FOUR kids. Three kids is a lot- A LOT- of kids, and I feel like adding another might just put me over the edge. I don't want to be one of those moms who is just barely hanging on, barely managing to get through each day. It's not about what I can or cannot "handle"- it's about enjoying my life and being a happy person.

(It's not about having a boy either. Even if I were 100% sure that our next baby would be a girl, I would still be thinking about it every day, as undecided as I am now.)

Also? There's that little tiny fear that we will finally decide to go for it.... and then have twins again. THIS WOULD NOT BE FUNNY, so don't even chuckle a little bit to yourself.

Would anyone ever invite us over for dinner if we had FOUR kids?

Since I Last Posted

Marin is weaned.

I've fell in love with Once, and have listened to the soundtrack 8457 times.

I re-read The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and loved it even more this time.

I made a new friend.

I went to IKEA twice, with Pammy (hi!) and six kids. Oh, Smaaland, how we love you.

I've played Uno with Kate and Joan about 60 times a day. And I enjoyed it.

I broke (or something) a toe. It sucked.

I watched Gone Baby Gone and am still pondering the moral question at the end of the film.

I bought all the stuff to make mango salsa, even thought I don't know what goes IN mango salsa, and have yet to look up a recipe.

I discovered that the Liz Claiborne outlet store nearby is now a Clearance store, and bought a bag fullllll of clothes for, like, two dollars.

We cooked a ham dinner and had some good friends over for Easter... and had a relaxing and lovely day.

My mom visited from South Dakota, and she spoiled the girls as usual. We had a good time, but when she left this morning, I took a long, long nap.

Marin learned how to sing Twinkle Twinkle, which nearly kills me every. time.

A friend lost her baby.

We had one 50 degree day, and handful of upper 30 and lower 40 degree days, and then it snowed several inches over the weekend. Today is cold and feels like January.

We had a "White Easter" (see above). My kids still wore sandals (with white lacy socks) to church. And a sundress. With a white sweater over the top.

Marin's language has exploded, and she now repeats EVERYTHING we say.

We had unprotected... marital congress on day 7 of my cycle. You can't get pregnant on day 7, right? (This question is for you, all you mucus checkers.)

Barrier methods suck.

So does pull and pray.

(We did neither on Day 7.)

I became a delegate to the MN state convention. Go Obama!

Al Franken called me. In person. Twice.

We put a bed up in Marin's room, though she will continue to sleep in her crib for probably another year or so. But now we have a place to get away from each other when one of us (AHEM. The Snorey McSnorten in our house is MALE) is snorting the night away.

We went to a fab Greek restaurant (no, not here in Tiny Town, sillies- you can't even get kalamata olives here in Tiny Town), and David (aka: Mr. Meat-n-Potatoes Without Even Any Ketchup or Salt) enjoyed his meal.

We (ha, ha, that was funny. Ok DAVID) made our first snowman of the season.

David and I are talking of a small getaway to celebrate Marin being weaned. It might be to DC, and Marin might come with us, and David might stay home with the older two. *sigh*

I became a facebook addict.