Happy Valentine's Day... Stupid Cupid.

Drumroll please..... It's Valentine's Day. February 14th. I remember those days well sitting in elementary school counting out cartoon valentines at the end of the day to see how many I got. Junior high and high school got the carnation sales and the anticipation of seeing flowers delivered every period. Strange, how college was a bit of a blur and I can't recall the rites for that stage of romance...(blush).  Your twenties alternate between being preparing furiously to celebrate an uber-romantic evening with the love of your night or wearning all black and having a sassy girls' night out in defiance of the whole tradition.

I learned gradually as I got older to drastically lower my expectations of Valentine's Day. Single or not, somehow, it always lead to disappointment. I was never swept off my feet. Flowers never showed at my workplace (Or was it I managed to avoid being on the schedule so as to not vomit on a colleague's roses?). There were no surprise-cooked-just-for-me candlelit dinners. Lowering one's expectations worked well. I could enjoy a splash of color in the ol' wardrobe again and perhaps even hum a chorus or two of  "My Funny Valentine" walking by two twenty-somethings on their way to the last dinner of their relationship.

2007.  I may have been single on February 14th that year, but I was certainly looking forward to February 18th. I had a blind date scheduled. Meeting a gentleman at nice cozy tavern in Fells Point known for it's simple good food. I was terrified. The girl would be showing up with the green headband. Yeah, I know. Cliched at it's finest.  It was fun dinner, full of great conversation and laughter. He was tall, handsome, smart and gave me butterflies like no other. Clearly there had to be a catch. Especially when I ended the date early for my 4 am alarm for work the next day. I hoped, but had no idea if I would ever see him again. (yeah, you men are weird like that...).

2011. He's still here, snoring next to me on a nightly basis. I call him my dear husband. We have three gorgeous boys. We may bicker over who is going clean the cat box, change the next dirty diaper, put gasoline in the cars or fold the laundry; but he's my funny Valentine and we do it together. See what lowering your expectations for awhile can do? Land you the lottery.

Stupid Cupid, always picking on me.

WooHoo! It's National Marriage Week.

Valentine's Day is fast approaching. But even more importantly, did you know the week leading up to Valentine's Day is National Marriage Week? Apparently it's an annual celebration/focus on marriage from February 7-14. I am actually all for this, celebrating all types of marriages. I think, perhaps, it shouldn't just be a week. It should be 52 weeks, given the divorce rate in our country.

Marriage, after all, is hard work. Any married person can attest to that. It's easy for us to lose track of each other and nurturing of the marriage. There's work, there's the kids. There's house maintenance. There's chores. There's the never-ending laundry. There is the me time. And yet somehow, we rarely make time for the we time.  Oh sure, once every couple months one might call the babysitter and go out on a date, and typically start out the conversation with "Isn't this great? We really need to get out by ourselves more often..." and by the end of the evening have digressed to talking about the kids exclusively.

We have been working to get our married groove back since the birth of the twins. We instituted our Top Chef Sundays which has been quite successful thus far, as we have found we really enjoy cooking for each other again. I do my best to try to hang out for at least a half hour or so at night when the kids go down once or twice a week. (it's not easy). And Keith tries to come to bed early once or twice a week to keep me happy. We are also back to attempting to remember the little things and the small courtesies that are so easy to forget and take for granted.

With a little luck, it will be National Marriage Week all 52 weeks of the year in this home. And hopefully Valentine's Day everyday. I wish nothing but the same for EVERY married or united person out there.

Flashlight Tag, Anyone?

My two year old can work my iPhone. He can work that sucker independently, make phone calls to China, send texts, download apps, randomly FaceTime his dad, pick out games in the "Liam games" folder. He can also break into the settings and jack my phone up to the point where I have to call my husband, the Apple junkie, also known as tech support; to help me piece it back together. I am pretty sure at age two, I still was blissfully unaware a telephone existed.

He can also find the XBox controller and ask my husband to play games while he watches enthralled. Reason number 852 as to why I didn't want a video gaming system in the house. He can independently program the DVR remote and accurately change television channels.  I am not telling you this to brag about my two year old's genius level of intelligence. Oh no. Not one bit. These little nuances of my child bother me. Bother me A. LOT.  As a child, I ran around outside from morning til night, riding bikes, playing, swimming, exploring. Just playing outside.  There was none of this Nick Jr crap on the TV to entertain us. None of this "it's preschool on TV, 24 hours a day". Are you kidding me? Put the remote control down before someone get hurt.  The average young person spends SEVEN hours a day on the computer or in front of the TV.  That's insane. Now that it's winter, I try to fill my toddler's day with coloring, playdoh, book reading and other activities that feed the brain. When we actually get snow - it's time to pack up and go play in it!

The average young child spends fifty percent less time outdoors that we did as children. Fifty percent less time. Holy cow. But I guess all that TV watching and social networking and tweeting and gaming is so taxing on a young person's soul. My husband and I personally can't wait to introduce our son to a tiny tricycle this summer and get him to have the same love for bike riding that we had as kids. It was one of the criteria we had in house hunting - it had to be a good bike riding neighborhood.  During spring, summer and fall, we make it mandatory that we are outside for a good portion of the day and set up an inflatable kiddie pool to beat the heat so that there are no excuses.

1 in 3 young children are now overweight or obese. I fight every day to make sure my children don't fall into that trap. I fight everyday to make sure myself and my husband don't fall into that trap. Rock on Michelle Obama. You can tell this middle American family what to eat any day of the week. We're listening.

It really DOES take a village....

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My three sons

My three sons. I love fiercely in a way only a mother possibly could. And they all couldn't be more different from each other. Even the twins are starting to give us glimpses of the personalities they are beginning to adopt as they approach their first birthday.

My two year old. He's headstrong. Hugely opinionated. Knows what he wants and often stands his ground until we decide if fighting the battle is going to matter come Tuesday or not. We usually discover upon checking him when we retire for the night he's changed his pajamas into something he's decided is much more suitable. He has very strong opinions on food. Very strong. Just this morning he declared the munchkins he and I picked out as "yucky" and then asked me to hold his munchkin when we stopped at the corner store for milk - but not to eat it - and then proceeded to pick out a small package of Oreos and bring them to the counter. Where I was then told I could eat the yucky Munchkin. So today I learned Oreos for breakfast good, Munchkins bad. Good thing he actually likes oatmeal on a regular basis. He likes to tackle tasks himself. He's very observant, paying close attention to us even when we are unaware. We recently discovered he is capable of setting up the baby gates properly all by himself.

Our ten month old twins. Twin A had a lengthy six week NICU stay. He is methodical and deliberate and progressing on his own time. He puts a lot of thought into every action he takes. He is capable of sitting and entertaining himself with toys and playing quietly. He doesn't cry unless there is a clear reason for it such as being tired, hungry, an excessively wet diaper or overly bored with a toy, super frustrated with tummy time. He has made up all his weight easily, wearing 12 month clothing. He is a champion at teething and starting to work at finger foods and likes the taste of softer Mommy and Daddy foods.

Twin B had a two week NICU stay. He has caught up to his age developmentally. He cannot sit still for a second now that he is crawling and cruising. He needs attention constantly and is a high maintenance child. He despises naps, I suspect because it means he may miss household action. He cries and fusses to hear his own voice. We anticipate he will be a chatterbox when he starts talking. He is the smallest of the three boys, having not tolerated the milk based formula. Now that his formula is switched, we foresee him catching up to his brothers. He is quick to pull toys away from his brother if he likes what he sees.  He has the most million dollar smile of the three and has since day one.

Fact is they are our sweet boys, different as can be. We cherish their personalities and foster them to be their own person as long as they grow up to be good people and make smart decisions in life.

Rolling with the differences

They say the first child is always the experimental child. After all, you spend more time preparing to get your driver's license (and you have to pass a test!) than you spend preparing to become a parent. If you were as clueless as my husband and I  when we took our oldest home, then you know the kid is nearing three on what amounts to a wing and a prayer. It never ceases to astound us the differences that stack up when child number two (or in our case two and three) arrives on the scene.

Child number 1 (#1) learned the hard way to cry it out in a dark room so that Mommy and Daddy could resume sleeping as soon as human(e)ly possible. He's a great sleeper now.

Children number 2 and 3 (#2/3) are nearing ten months of age and still get rocked to sleep every night, then to be placed in their cribs with soft music and a nightlight. Needless to say.... not such great sleepers. God forbid they cry it out.

#1 could tumble and barely had time to start quivering his chin before he was scooped up and consoled.

#2/3 mean you listen to the thud and hold your breath waiting for the cry.... No crying, no problem.

#1 has the most beautiful head of curly hair. We swore that we would be the parents to let it grow and grow until he rebels as a teenager by actually cutting his hair.

#2/3 mean prior to one year of age, we are already plotting the first haircut.

#1 could only watch kid-friendly, educational type shows. Think select Nick Jr, Sprout and PBS.

#2/3 have worked it so their older brother now runs around declaring "TBS. Very Funny. "

#1 got a bath every single night of his infancy.

#2/3 mean three kids. three baths. three times a week. Unless they get super dirty.

#1 started going on outings before he was a week old. He happily traveled the East Coast with Mommy and Daddy.

#2/3 mean we barricaded the door for a good six months before we felt brave enough to run to the corner store with all three.

#1 got homemade gourmet baby food until he started eating what Mommy and Daddy ate for dinner.

#2/3 got three batches made before we through in the towel and called our dear friend Gerber to help with the mealtimes.

But what everyone gets is two parents who love them all more than anything in the world, as imperfect as we are. Sure, we stumble from time to time, laughing about how our poor kids got stuck with amateurs. But who of us doesn't feel their way through parenting, learning as they go?  We have a older child who loves his younger brothers and will tell us how he needs to play with "his babies." We have three children who laugh constantly. They are thriving.

Oh, and the drop-off on pictures between kids? Not a chance. Picture taking still going strong.

My Own Personal Quickfire

Like many couples with small children, my husband and I are constantly seeking ways to find time during the day and/or week to have a moment when it is a little less about the kids and a little more about the marriage. After all, it is our relationship that became the springboard for marriage and children to begin with. We also firmly believe a happy Mommy and Daddy make for happy parents and thus, happier children.  But it's easy to forget and get caught up in the needs of two infants and a toddler, taking care of them day in and day out and suddenly, January has rushed by in a frozen blur of bottles, diapers and all the Playdough creations you can imagine.

So, my husband and I have taken it upon ourselves lately to actively make time for each other. But even the whole concept of "I won't go to bed and just stay up chatting during Animation Domination" can get stale real quick. Just as his keeping me company during a Real Housewives marathon puts him to sleep in five seconds.  And while Date Night is a crucial concept,  neither of us is convinced upping it to weekly would have the same effect; that just means once a week we pay someone to watch our kids while we leave the house to talk about them.  So, that leaves us with the question: what's a couple to do? Enter the weekly Quickfire cooking challenge.

For those of you who might be Bravo junkies like myself, then you surely must be familiar with the Emmy-winning Top Chef by now. A wickedly addicting cooking competition that never fails to make my mouth water and give me cooking envy.  It's also the only Bravo show to date my husband has ever watched with me. One week ago, we opted to break the household budget and purchase both the Top Chef cookbook and the Top Chef Quickfire cookbook. We decided that every Sunday, one of us would pick a recipe, starting with the Quickfire book  and cook for the other. It's a move that allows us to focus on the other in a way that takes us back to cooking in the pre-marriage days. Picking a surprise recipe, gathering ingredients, eagerly anticipating our spouse's reaction. And most importantly, not having to worry if the recipe is kid-friendly or not! Come to think of it, when was the last time holidays and birthdays aside, we really devoted time on a regular basis to planning things for our spouse?

This Sunday is the first day, and my husband is cooking for me. I can't wait to see how he does with his first Quickfire challenge. Padma be damned, he's already won in my book.