May round up. And a crazy idea.

May was awesome but I am TIRED. Recap:

• Completely done with pull ups
• This American Life live show
• The boys turned 6, sniff sniff
• Grandma Roxane visit
• The pool opened
• Road trip to Ohio
• Crappiest weather ever on Mother's Day

This month, I am embarking on an experiment that may fail wildly. I am planning to stop eating any foods that are not natural, eating only real foods. I'm not following any specific plan. No more creamer in my coffee. No more diet cokes at lunch. No white flour, no white sugar, no preservatives. I'm giving it 30 days to see what I think, with the exception of Father's Day.

But I'm not 100% crazy. Green tea still has caffeine and red wine is made from grapes. I will still eat meat, eggs, and dairy as we have local organic sources for those. If anyone is interested, I can post meal plans after the fact.

FINALLY. A blogbook that shows the other side of the blog

Since I started using GoodReads, I try to keep the book reviews here to a minimum unless they tie in with parenting, life, lessons, blogging. Last night I stayed up until 1:30 to finish reading Heaven Is Here, by Stephanie Nielson, the blogger behind NieNie Dialogues, so forgive me as I indulge in my book nerdiness.

For anyone in the blogosphere, NieNie's story is pretty famous. She was/is this awesome stay at home mom who blogged, and then she was in a plane crash with her husband, suffering burns over 80% of her body. On her blog afterward, she would briefly touch on life after the crash and/or the medical stuff, but her focus remained on the positives of life. 

I've tried to read many books from bloggers who got book deals, and the majority of them re-hash stories from their blog. Not this book. This book was about everything NOT on the blog - the crash, the recovery in the hospital, being reunited with her kids after months, and what life is like as a burn patient. The book also detailed how difficult it was, how painful it was, and how emotionally hard it was to give up an old life and accept a new life.

I loved this book for many reasons. The nerd in me loved learning about burn recovery, something that I've always heard is horribly painful but wanted to know why. The blogger in me loved to hear the "other side" of the story - the one I have maintained exists since day one as a blogger. Every blogger crafts their story to share the side they want to share - and there is always more to the story. I loved hearing the "more" to NieNie's story because it felt real to me.

But mostly I loved this book because of the beautiful, inspiring messages. The messages I hope to instill in my kids and the people around me. That what matters MOST is your heart, what is inside you. That what matters most is the people you love, not the things you have. That you can survive any hardship with enough love in your life. That you can find a spouse who you will love so much that you hope you never have to exist a day without them. That every day is an opportunity to find beauty in life.

Read this book.

Putting my money where my mouth is

Nate recently decided he wanted to grow his hair long. Not wanting to deal with long hair in summer, Jon and I asked if he wanted to cut it really short instead. Nate decided he wanted to shave his head. Now let me state for the record I am not a fan of shaved heads. I like preppy haircuts, as evidenced by the last 6 years of the boys' hair as well as my love of Pottery Barn. But if I truly want the boys to feel comfortable expressing themselves, then I needed to put my money where my mouth is.

Before: (forgive the dim lighting in our master bath)



During. Look at that happy happy face.


After.


Verdict? I still don't like it. But it makes him happy. And it will grow back.

Good news? Alex is adamantly against shaving his head.

 Other good news? Jon, who shaved his head the first summer I knew him and I almost died because he has awesome hair, said he finally understood why I hated when he shaved his head because he didn't realize how much he loved Nate's hair until it was gone.

Please make me feel better with a story of where you had to let your kids do something you don't like!

ROAD TRIP!

This weekend, we introduced the boys to one of America's finest traditions - long road trips. Technically, they have been on multiple long road trips (15+ hour trip to Florida, 10+ hour trip to Ohio) but they do not remember those trips. I have a strong feeling they will remember this trip.



The reason for the trip was for my first cousin Trent's graduation. This is the first graduation where I felt truly old since I remember him at the same age as Nate and Alex are now. (Pictured with my grandma, who you all may remember from our trips to Florida.)


The Verhoff side of the family is large, and I often feel sad when I think about Nate and Alex not growing up with tons of family. Not sad enough to have more babies though. Let's meet everyone! We'll go in reverse age order since the youngest, Deb, is the one who had a son graduating.


Then there's my aunt Ang and her family:


Then there's my aunt Rose and her family (missing one kid):


And then my uncle Joe and his family:


And my dad, his wife Vickie, and the boys (not pictured: me and Jon. Doh.):


Did you keep all the names straight? Maybe a group photo would help. Let me point out that we assembled for this photo before we realized someone was missing... twice.


It was great to see everyone, and particularly great to spend time with my grandma. We spent most of the weekend just hanging out with family chatting. Sunday was the big party, and the boys got to play on their first every merry-go-round. I am not exaggerating when I say they played on this thing for 5 hours. They didn't stop playing at this playground except when we made them eat food. Wearing no shoes + dusty rocks = the boys were FILTHY. Happily filthy.


After saying good bye to everyone, Alex fell asleep immediately in the car on the way to the hotel. I carried him to the room where he seemed to wake up for a little bit, and as we unpacked, he fell right back asleep. On hotel carpet. I will not think about the germs. I will not think about the germs.


The party exhausted them so much they quietly watched movies the whole way home, and we made it back in record time. Jon and I even managed to listen to an entire audio book while driving there and back (Divergent! Read it before it becomes a movie like Hunger Games!).  As soon as we walked in the door to our house, Nate said that he wanted to move to Ohio because he had so much fun. And Alex was very sad, missing Trent, who he adores.

How to listen so kids will talk

After a long streak of little travel, Jon has been gone a couple of days every week the last few weeks. Earlier this week he was in California and on Tuesday night, Nate told me he didn't want me to be his mom anymore and he didn't want to live at our house.

My first gut reaction was - you have NO FREAKING IDEA how good you have it buddy!

Instead I decided to listen... which was really hard. I asked him why he didn't want to live at our house, why was he unhappy, why did he think another house would be better. And that is when the Airing of the Grievances a la Festivus started:

• We yell at him when he doesn't listen. 
• He doesn't get to eat whatever he wants. Sometimes I make things he doesn't like. Fresh pineapple came up as an example. He wants to eat mac and cheese every day, even if it makes him unhealthy.
• He doesn't get to do whatever he wants.
• He has to do chores.

I tried to point out that this is what life is like at other kids' houses also.  He said he wanted to go live with J's family, a neighbor kid in Alex's class who lives right around the corner. Alex pointed out that yes, J does get yelled at also, and has to do chores.

The conversation went on ALL NIGHT. At pick up, during dinner, before taekwondo, after taekwondo, at bedtime. I had two reasons for continuing to listen. First, I really felt like we were digging down into the heart of the matter - that he gets really upset by yelling. We talked through how we could prevent yelling in our house. The other reason is that I truly believe Nate is the kind of kid who would pack up his stuff and run away (innocently), and this was my chance to listen.

I'd love to say that by the end of the night, we were all happy and Nate said he was sorry he ever said that. Instead, he finally decided to live with us when I explained to him that Jon and my money had bought everything in the house, and if he wanted to take it, he needed to pay us back. He pointed out some birthday presents from family that he would take and I said, "Well they won't be your family if you leave so you can't take that either."

After the kids went to bed, I texted my handy dandy parenting expert Maria to check in that all of this was normal. She reassured me that it was. When Jon got home the next morning, Nate had decided he wanted to stay, and we now have a plan to help prevent yelling. And I learned a SUPER DUPER valuable lesson about listening that I wanted to share with all of you.

Maria and I agreed it will be at least 25 years until Nate really figures out how good he has it at Casa Case.

I can not handle two of these

One of the things I've learned as a twin mom is messiness is a nature trait, versus a nurture trait. Alex has always been messy. ALWAYS. Remember this 3 year old day care pick up moment?





3 years later, I still don't understand how that level of messiness was possible.

Nate has always been a neat kid. ALWAYS...until the last two weeks when he has decided to write all over his hands and arms with SHARPIE at school every day. He claims it happens when he is coloring "by accident."



At least he confines his messiness to things he cleans up himself.

How to measure progress via summer themes

1st summer = Summer of Newborn Twins

2nd summer = Summer of Fishing Unsteady Toddlers Off the Bottom of the Baby Pool

3rd summer = Summer of Stopping The Boys From Jumping Off the Side of the Baby Pool and Cracking Their Heads Open (VIDEO! of 2 year old twins! and another video!)

4th summer = Summer of Pooping At the Pool (the boys pooped in swim diapers at almost every visit as we potty trained them)

5th summer = Summer the Boys Learned to Swim and Became Fearless in Water 

6th summer = Summer of Jon and Laura Reaping the Rewards and Enjoying Cocktails Poolside While the Boys Exhausted Themselves Swimming All Day

That leads to this year's 2012 summer theme, the 7th summer:

Summer of Nate and Alex Knowing and Playing with All the Neighborhood Kids, then Showering By Themselves and Putting Away Wet Suits and Towels When We Get Home.




Part of my ongoing series, "Twin Parents, It Gets Better."