Coming Home

Maria and I get home every night to relieve Fabiola (our fabulous nanny) at 6PM. The kids go to bed by 7:30PM. You would think that 90 minutes isn't really all that much time to spend with your kids each day. But let me assure you, Hudson and Mercer can fit A LOT into 90 minutes. Here's a blow-by-blow account of what happened last night.

6:00 H&M come running up to the car as I get out, wanting to get in the car and play. (Their new favorite game is "Drive" where they sit in the van and pretend to go on adventures. The bad news is you literally have to pry their fingers off the steering wheel to get them out of the car, and generally a meltdown ensues. The upside is it entertains them while we're unloading the van, so drive away, I say!) I spend five minutes convincing them that all the excitement is INSIDE the house and we should move that way, post haste. Eventually, they comply.

6:05 H&M sit on the bed and proceed to rifle through my entire purse, emptying the wallet, taking out lipstick, and spilling the entire contents on the bed. As fast as I can put things back in the purse, they take them out again. When I manage to pry something out of one's hand, the other grabs something new and leaps away. Through the grace of God I'm able to get everything back. I've only been home five minutes and I've already said "no" about 72,000 times.

6:10 H&M decide that they will start flinging themselves with wild abandon on the bed pillows. I foresee stitches in someone's future and wisely grab Mercer while Maria grabs Huddy and we get them down off the bed.

6:15 I hold Mercer while rifling through the freezer for dinner ideas. Their basic meal plan consists of chicken sticks, fish sticks, veggie meatballs, mini pizzas, fruit, Tater Tots and french fries. I ask Mercer what she wants and she chooses Tater Tots, so I start those, along with a medley of chicken and meatballs. Mercer proceeds to grab a frozen tot from the bag and pop it in her mouth, running away before I can catch her.

6:17 Mercer walks back in to the kitchen with a giant frozen tot in her mouth, which I ask her to spit out in the trash can. She complies. I suddenly realize as I've just made my daughter a bulimic.

6:18 Now Mercer thinks spitting in the trash can is fun. She grabs another piece of frozen food (this time pre-cooked chicken) and puts it in her mouth and runs away. She is back 10 seconds later, spitting it out in the trash can. I am nonplussed. I have two-year-old twins.

6:19 Meanwhile, Huddy is getting in trouble by Maria. I hear, "Do you want a time out?" Not sure what's happening, but I imagine there are some shenanigans and/or tomfoolery going on in the next room.

6:20 Maria tries to figure out how to turn on Sesame Street. VOD isn't working, so we settle for Sprout. I put the food down in front of the kids and try to get them to eat. They couldn't be less interested. They are crawling all over Maria, wanting to play.

6:22 Maria asks Mercer if she just wants to drink her milk instead. Mercer says yes, so I go and get her a bottle. She cuddles up on Maria and drinks the bottle.

6:28 Hudson climbs into a swivel chair in the living room, and Mercer starts to twirl him around. They think this is brilliant fun and Maria and I make up a song on the fly about Huddy going around and around. He wants to stand up on the chair. We tell him to sit on his bum. He stands. We tell him to sit. He stands. We tell him to get down. He doesn't. We pull him off. He begins to cry. Mercer sits in the chair. He cries harder. We put Huddy in the chair with Mercer. He flips out. We take him down. Maria sits don with Mercer. He cries harder. We decide this is the worst idea in the history of the world and pull the plug to start bath time.

6:30 Normally Mercer loves bath time but tonight decides she wants nothing to do with it. Huddy, who has been pitching a fit, is back to normal in 20 seconds. Huddy gets in and Maria starts to bathe him. Mercer runs to the next room and climbs up on the guest bed, naked, and proceeds to play with the pillows. I go grab my camera, hoping to salvage something from this time, and get her mind off the upcoming bath. She's completely riled up and I foresee another meltdown in our future.

6:35 I tell Mercer "one more minute" so she knows she's going to have to get in the bath pretty soon. She immediately counters "one more minute" back. She negotiates EVERYTHING these days and it cracks me up.

6:37 I put Mercer in the bathtub with Huddy and miraculously, she doesn't pitch a fit. She's suddenly in a brilliant mood and even shows Mommy how she knows how to look up when she's getting her hair washed so the water doesn't get in her face. Huddy is playing with his boat, telling stories. He hasn't stopped talking since we got home. (Except for the crying jag, of course.)

6:45 Bath time is over and the kids are in their towels, marching to their room. The next battle of the evening is getting them into diapers and their jammies, because they would MUCH rather be naked. My strategy tonight is: justdoitreallyfastandmaybeshewontevennoticeshesgettingadiaperon. It works. She allows the diaper without a wrestling match. Then we have to put a diaper on the doll. Mercer starts climbing the wall unit to try and get the Desitin to put on her baby. Both kids are total monkeys these days, climbing everything.

6:50 Maria and Huddy come in the bedroom and get on his diaper and jammies in two minutes flat. Maria is superior to me in every way.

6:55 Mercer puts her doll in the stroller and proceeds to take her around the house. I sit there in their room, alone, listening to her play and Mommy and Huddy in the kitchen talking and nearly start to cry I am so happy.

7:00 Mercer comes back in and I tell her it's time to put on her jammies. She runs out of the room again.

7:02 She is back. She decides she wants to wear the jammies that her bear has on (we dressed the bear in a pair of Mercer's jammies last week) so I undress the bear, including it's diaper. Mercer then makes me pretend to change the bear's diaper and then FINALLY let's me put the jammies on her. She runs away.

7:07 We join Huddy and Maria in the family room for bottles and Sesame Street. Slowly, slowly, they start to wind down. Huddy cuddles up with Mommy. Mercer cuddles up with me.

7:20 Bottles are done, bellies are full. Time for bed. Hudson immediately starts throwing himself against the couch in protest. (He's very dramatic -- you gotta love it!) Maria asks if he wants to take his choo choo to bed with him. She goes and digs it out of a toy box, proceeding to have another toy drop on her foot in the meantime. Of course.

7:22 I grab Mercer and her blanket; Maria grabs Huddy and his choo choo, and we head to the bedroom.

7:25 We turn on the white noise, turn off the lights and put the kids in their cribs. We go through their favorite ritual, where we use our hands as hand puppets and ask the kids for cookies, milk, crackers, etc. I have no idea why they love this, but they do. We stroke their hair, we kiss their heads, we say goodnight.

7:30 We pull the door behind us and give each other a hug. We made it. 90 minutes. We are the luckiest mommies in the world.