BLAST FROM THE PAST- April 6, 2005

This is the sequel to my Family Heirlooms post.

I would have written sooner but...

I was a little incapacitated.

I spent a good part of one spring break day paying the price for mopping the floors. The big boys were downstairs, I’m mopping upstairs and when I get ready to go towards The Thing's room, they go running downstairs. I start cleaning up the floor so I can mop and about 5 minutes later I find the fingernail clippers case empty on the floor. I call down to ask Gigio what the babies are doing, thinking it is something with the clippers and he casually answers, "Oh, they’re in the office." The office is kept locked and off limits at all times. Bells go off, and I run to my doom. This is what I find:

The blue stuff on the keyboard is toothpaste. Ironically they used the family heirloom of a gutted knife I was keeping "safe" in there to remember the yogurt incident with to pry up the keys and then smeared the toothpaste all over. Where do they get these ideas from? How do they get and act on them so quickly? Like, " Quick, pry the latch open with the broom handle, get the toothpaste from the bathroom and the knife from the desk drawer: now let's get to work!" Why??? Maybe it was to distract me from the missing nail clippers.

Random Update 10/17

Since I'll be gone this weekend and the work phone service is on the fritz I will update a little ahead of time.
Drum roll please! D1's tooth "fell down" this morning. This is a great relief to us all since he was never going to let it be pulled, or his "blood would come out". E. was obsessed with getting it out since it was hanging by a thread. OCD, all the way. Maybe now she will be able to remember her homework. She actually got a thread tied around it one day but he wouldn't let her or anyone else touch it. I thought, great, a kid with a thread hanging out of his mouth for the next few days. He already strings his action figures together with MY dental floss and they go dangling after him, now we will add a string coming out of his mouth. On the upside, maybe he will hang an action figure on it, and the weight will pull the tooth. But he got it off all by himself 5 minutes later. E. was beside herself. So now he's finally got a hole and he didn't bleed. It already has a tooth growing behind it. Since this happened during rush hour, you will probably all have to wait till next week to see the traditional hole in the mouth shot. That's o.k. because delayed gratification is good for us. That's why the tooth fairy usually takes a week to remember to swap the tooth out for money. At least that's my fancy excuse.
A little P.S. on the last update, about the floor video. The rest of the day was a fantastic one for the floor, bags worth of spaghetti sprung up out of nowhere, and on and on all day. Unfortunately, I was too busy cleaning it up to get the camera back out. I learned something important though. If you want a few quiet hours, just turn on the video recorder. The whole week I could have kept the cameras rolling too. I came home from picking up the boys to find that a cupboard above the counter top holding the washed dishes was dripping sticky ooze. Luckily a lot of it fell into an upturned bowl. Unluckily a lot more didn't. I opened the cupboard to find a broken bottle of papaya syrup. Maybe it was supposed to be refrigerated? Can't figure out how else it exploded unless "The man came in here and broke it and ran away".
Remember Bill Cosby's routine, To Russell My Brother Whom I Slept With? We had it on an old LP and all my siblings pretty much know it by heart. When the boys spit water on the bed and break it they blame it on a man who came in the window and did it and jumped back out laughing. Dad gives them the hellfire for lying lecture and says. Do you want to be burning? Bill- No Dad, no , I don't want to be burning! Dad- Then TELL THE TRUTH Bill- The man came in here, Dad! They were scared to death their dad would get the belt. The belt they had never seen with hooks on it to rip the meat off your skin. That was another generation. This generation is too sophisticated for that. I tried it on D2: Me- If you don't stop that Papi will have to spank you with a belt. D2- (Doesn't even look up) Yeah, right! (Sarcastic tone.) Sigh.
Back to our story... what was it? oh the messes. So yesterday the big boys were playing with the kids on the corner and the little boys were playing in the yard. I was playing, Oh Where Are My Winter Clothes in the shed. I did find more kid clothes. I was trying to finish up when the little boys headed inside. Then I start hearing sirens and they get closer and closer and several fire trucks end up just one block south of us. I check to make sure my boys are in the neighbors and not somehow summoning the trucks. D2 sticks his head out the front door. I ask him if D1 is inside with him. Yes, he assures me and then says something about me being a monster and that he wasn't going to let me eat them, and runs back in laughing. So I go finish throwing the last items into my sack and head into the house, where I find this:
There was a musical backdrop to this from the player songs on our piano, going full blast. (It's widget is spastic, so it's Beethoven's Piano Sonata 14 if it's still not working.) At the end of this chocolate syrup trail I find the boys hiding under their covers. According to them, they are hiding from the monster (me) and I am not supposed to eat them because I am going to be busy licking up the chocolate off the floor. Actually I didn't eat them because I was too busy getting them to mop up the trail which, even though I would do a lot of things for chocolate, I was not willing to lick off my floor because I've seen what's been on that floor. I was reasonably clean, what I call "Clean Dirt" which means the dirt is less than 24 hours old. Before cleaning up the mess, I took pictures and taped it, but I'm such an idiot, I was holding the camera sideways and I don't know how to flip a video. So this time when I get to the end, I find D1 who starts telling me about the "slug" who was stuck and shows me the drain to the sink. I must explain that I already met the "slugs" in the garden and they were actually snails. Don't know what's up with that, because they used to call them "smells". I'm starting to go into plumber mode now though and ask if he's really stuck in there, and D1 says, "No, he climb out." Whew!
"SO where is he?"
"In my bed."
"Oh, thank goodness,"
then my brain kicks in...what am I saying? I escorted the snails outside, but later I found that there were some more, and they got smashed on the bathroom floor which I noticed when they crunched under my feet. See what I mean about licking things off the floor? Never a good idea. Gotta head to bed!
Oh, I guess I should mention first that the fire trucks were there to check out a gas leak.

Next Blast- The Twins' Dayplanner @ 2004

A page from D&D’s day planner-age 2.

( just fill the D's in with any descriptive name:

Demolition & Destruction, Disaster & Diablo...)

TO DO LIST

(Basic Guidelines: Help each other or divide and conquer by distracting mom with one activity while your brother starts the next.)

1. Remove safety plugs from all outlets,

Pull all electrical plugs in the house.

Find all the pens in the house. Jam them in the light sockets.

Bend and break them, spewing ink all over.

Spread the ink around.

2. Dump out all the drawers and cupboards you can get into.

3. Climb into window frames, swing on the blinds.

Open window latches. Bang all the windows with as hard an object as you can find.

4. Climb up dresser drawers, empty dresser drawers,

dissect and slime everything in the dresser drawers.

5. Get into as many electronic items as possible.

Analyze them: see what they will do.

Dismantle them to see why they work and what you can stuff into them.

6. Take a break and play with toys a while, stick cars into door and window jams. Yell “Stuck!”

7. Torture the dog.

8. Whack each other over the head with as many toys as possible.

9. Get brooms or any other long object and clean off the walls and countertops.

10. See how many things you can climb to the top of. Get into dad’s important stuff on top of his dresser

11. Jump on all the beds.

12. Bounce from one sofa to another.

13. Spin in the big chair till you’re ready to barf;

Then pull all the cushions off the sofas;

Dump over and scoot all the other pieces of furniture you can.

14. Rip your clothes off as many times as possible.

Rip your diaper off in time to keep IT dry.

If you can’t do that, fight for your life to keep your diaper on at changing time. Fight for your life to keep your clothes off once you lose the first battle. While your brother fights for his life, yell and hit mom, step into or grab the messy diaper, yell EWWW! Or if need be, take the opportunity to run do a dastardly deed while Mom’s busy alligator wrestling.

15. Undo child safety locks, find all the sharp objects possible and run with them in your mouth.

16. Digest books, literally.

17. Test your lungs. Scream bloody murder.

18. Get boogers out and say “Eeewww!”

19. Get into the q-tips and stick them in all the openings of your body.

20. Bite tips off all the markers you can find. Eat all the crayons.

21. Stop people from reading, writing, talking on the phone , loading the dishwasher, watching TV, cooking or folding laundry by getting in the middle of it.

22. Kitchen Duty: Climb on dishwasher, empty it, sharp knives first! Then get the bottom basket out and push it around the floor. Get into the oven, climb onto the stove, remove all the knobs, spin the fan above, take out the light bulb. Scoot the bench to the kitchen counter, get into as much stuff as possible, mix up a “snack”. Climb on the table, broom in hand. Spin the ceiling fan round and round.

23. Thrash about and try to get out of Mom’s arms as she expels you from the kitchen, scream in her ear. Better yet, do the cheapo fireworks scream together with your brother, sending your mom’s ears into another dimension and summoning the fire department.

24. Pee next to the potty then push it all over the house like a toy car.

25. Rip the blankets and sheets off the beds, shake juice and milk out of bottles and sippy cups onto beds, couches and floors. Spit your juice and food on someone or something. Remember to swallow some too!

26. Play with the toys some more, then spread the pieces around.

27. Pull out dresser drawers or anything else handy to give you height and scoot it to all the doors and gates in the house and break in to rooms and closets.

28. Get out the vacuum, plug it in and turn it on. Suck your brother’s hair or diaper.

29. Give out hugs, kisses, bye byes, sad parting cries and clingy hello’s; beg for kisses on fake owies, share your food and toys, chase each other, push each other around in anything the other can fit into , laugh a lot, smile an impish smile an hour, dance along and sing along to everything. Make a million faces, beg for juice.

30. Pass out with an angelic look on your face and take a nap, just long enough to give you juice till midnight tonight.

31. While your Mom looks over you adoringly, dream of what you’ll do after your nap.

FAMILY HEIRLOOMS

EXHIBIT A : PROOF THAT GUARDIAN ANGELS REALLY DO EXIST

We still own this knife, mutilated in September 2003, to hand down to our posterity. It commemorates son Gigio's first day of Kindergarten. For those who didn't get my e-mails back then, it went something like this...

We came home from school to find Enigma with the babies covered in joint compound; Papi had just fixed a hole in the wall in my room before he left and while Enigma was trying to get the kids next door to quit ringing our doorbell, the babies attacked it. So I set out to clean up the babies, then everywhere they had slimed, then their clothes and lastly to try to fix the hole again. I didn’t do as good a job as Papi, but while everyone attacked me again I did my best and all that only took about 2 hours. After initially displacing his aggression on everyone in the house over his first day of school and threatening to pack up and leave us, Gigio settled down. Then while I fed the babies, Carino the gypsy flew the coop again. A kind neighbor called us and then came behind him with his trike which he had left behind. Finally I got the babies to sleep and got to work on dinner after several interruptions from the remaining 3 kids, so by the time the babies woke and started wailing I was almost done. Then finally they left the kitchen and quieted. I was wondering what had captivated their interest when Thing 1 showed up in the kitchen “talking” and gesturing towards my room, obviously accusing his brother, whom I found eating the patch job off the wall; Enigma left the door open to my room again. SO we cleaned up and got to the table, and after making sure there was nothing toxic in the drywall, I got them to eat real food while I got more practice at patching walls. Then after dinner the boys went downstairs to “play” while I supervised my eldest in her reading, and after 15 minutes of that agony, Carino shows up with a spikey hairdo that smelled fruity, something like some go-gurt we had on hand. Soon after Gigio followed and confirmed that it was indeed yogurt, so after getting both Gigio and Enigma to read, I gave Carino and the babies ANOTHER bath. Then when I sent Carino down to bed, he says he can’t, there’s yogurt on his bed. Silly me, why did I think it was all on his head?? Wishful thinking?? Then I saw the room, which looked like someone had blown up a balloon filled with yogurt in there, it was splashed all over everything. Then as my alter ego, the witchy mom took over and bawled them out, the angel on my shoulder reminded me I didn’t want to really strangle them; should I break down and cry? No, that’s what Gigio wants, to get me back for being so mean, at least that’s his excuse for his messes lately. As I’m yelling and contemplating what to do about this, I notice the night light, with not only yogurt but a black charred looking area around it. Next Enigma came to see what the hullaballoo was all about, all the while secretly hoping I would switch over to the dark side and eliminate her brothers. I start telling her that they must have gotten yogurt between the outlet and the light, and from the looks of things set off a flame, which Gigio refuted, saying they were just sparks at which point I decide to start lecturing on the properties of electricity. That's when Thing 2 walks up with Exhibit A in his hand. All I can say is I thank the Lord above that I still have a house and live children. For some strange reason, the boys had gotten the idea to stick the knife between the socket and the night light. Maybe to clean up the yogurt? I start telling them they could have been electrocuted. Gigio says, "No, Mom, it didn't, it just went, BZZZZZZ! (shaking hand motion with this)" So there you have it. I believe it is impossible to really hurt yourself with 110 volts. Good thing we're in the USA! The boys got grounded from the basement for 2 days and had to sleep with blankets on the hard floor upstairs. They also got grounded from yogurt until they are old enough to buy it themselves.

P.S. the sequel is here now...