Four men in a tub

My sister always has her kiddos looking so cute, especially dressed up for mass. Around here, though, I'm lucky if no one has a streak of snot on their face, let alone being dressed cute. As we were headed to church this weekend, I was doing a last inspection of the boys. Every single little boy shoe was on the wrong foot! That's SIX shoes! How would I ever manage hair bows and ruffley socks?

Andrew has become very vocal lately. He loves to have conversations. If you ask him a question, he will look at you and respond with some sort of vocalization. It's like he really is telling you a story. He's so funny when it comes to sleeping. He's terrible at sleeping alone. His best naps are when he's all swaddled up and laying on the couch - in the middle of all of the action in the house. It's also hard for him to fall asleep at night alone. I usually have to lay him down in the co-sleeper and sit next to him on the bed. I can read or watch TV, or even chat quietly with Scott. Andrew doesn't mind, as long as he's not alone. Sometimes, if he wiggles a little hand out of the swaddle, he likes to hold hands. It's so sweet, I don't even mind being tethered to his bedside.

The twins go through stages of naughtiness. Lately, it's been getting into things. I found a big black streak on my carpet and realized that they had gotten into my mascara. Any tips on how to get that out? Joe traced his hand on his bedsheets with a pen, and the twins marked all over my pillow case with a pen. I also found pen marks on the fridge and several walls. This morning, Patrick wanted some juice. He brought the pitcher to me from the kitchen to the basement. The only problem was that he spilled a little bit of juice on every stair step along the way. He was really proud of himself for carrying the heavy pitcher such a long way, too. What a sticky mess!

We are working on potty-training the twins. I know it will happen eventually, but we still seem a long way off. No one has ever gone #2 on the toilet, so do I start them in underwear right away and just chance the big messes? Pull-ups are nice, but they treat them like diapers. It's not helpful in training, it's just more expensive than diapers! When Joe was potty training, we just had to bite the bullet and put on training undies and plastic pants. There were several yucky incidents, but he learned eventually. I am just dreading the "several times two" yucky incidents that the twins will have. My predictions are that Patrick will potty-train first. He's usually dry for the whole day if we remember to ask him about going potty often.

In other news about Joe, school is going just okay for him. He's been doing some, um, ... socially unacceptable things. He's hit and kicked kids, even a teacher once, and landed in the principal's office twice already. Scott and I are, of course, mortified. The teachers, etc, all assure us that it's perfectly normal (even though it's not normal behavior for Joe!) at that age. Most of the kids in his class were in 3-yr-old kindergarten and most were or are in daycare, too. They all had experience in a classroom setting before and have already gotten used to the rules of the game. Joe's just a little behind in that area, apparently, or that's what everyone tells us. All incidents happened after 10:00, which is when kids' attention spans and behavior break down for the day. We're taking it day by day now with an incentive program for him.