A lesson in humility, a lesson in oversharing

Humility:
One should not publicly call themselves a "badass" on their blog because they ran a half marathon with strep and also say that strep isn't that bad or else they will get the most painful case of strep they can imagine right before a beach vacation. I'm talking unable to sleep, barely able to eat strep.

Oversharing:
Even if you think a nasty smelly algae and bacteria-laden lake you traversed might be important medical information to communicate concerning your potential strep infection, your doctor and nurse will look at you like you are completely insane and wonder why any normal person would voluntarily do this.

Another one for the Summer Fun List

As we close down summer, we have been knocking off items from our Summer Fun List. The boys had wanted a lemonade stand all summer but Jon and I did not want to sit outside in 100+ degree heat. With temperatures *only* in the lows 90s, we decided Sunday afternoon to have a lemonade (and sweet tea) stand.




A lemonade stand is such an iconic American childhood experience huh? We are lucky to live in a neighborhood where people walk to the pool so we got quite a bit of traffic in the two hours the stand was open.




The funniest part of the stand is the boys would never fill anyone's cups very full. We had to remind them to fill up the cups. Afterward Jon pointed out we never give the boys full cups at home due to many many MANY spilled cups of milk, so why would they know most people get full cups? So sad yet so hilarious.

The boys learned a lot of lessons in their first lemonade stand:

• People like pink lemonade more than regular lemonade even though they taste the same.
  
• Tipping is quite common. So common that they tipped me and Jon for helping them with the stand.
• Drinking the product may cut into your profits but nothing tastes better on a hot day than a cold glass of lemonade.
  

Warrior Dash #3

With the changes in our life recently, I feel I've lost a little bit of my mojo. My Mondo Mojo, if you will. Life has had two focuses (focii?) - photography and kindergarten. Getting away from it all to a girls' weekend was exactly what I needed to help me remember to have more fun.

I met Kara (next to me, in black) for the first time the night before the Dash and she was everything I thought and more. I have the most awesome blogfriends ever. She fit in easily with my group of real friends, and it was a treat for Irene to meet my Raleigh friends.




When I looked through all the pictures of the day, everyone is laughing and smiling. It was that kind of day. (Sorry Kim, you had your eyes closed in this awesome shot!).




I also had a blast chatting with Stacey, and we agreed to see each other again soon with normal clothes. And makeup. And not sweaty.




This was definitely the hardest Warrior Dash I've done. I think they took some of the feedback from the first year and made the obstacles harder. I took my waterproof point and shoot on the run for some action shots. I call this "Germaphobe Kim In A Dumpster, Not When Pigs Fly, But NOW."




I think Katie laughed the ENTIRE RACE.




I'd say my favorite moment of the entire day was the lake crossing. The lake crossing of the PA dash was my least favorite obstacle because it was SO COLD. NC topped it with the NASTIEST LAKE EVER. It REEKED. Right after I took this picture I cannon balled into it and splashed everyone. I'm pretty sure we all got hepatitis and flesh eating bacteria.




I NEVER GET TIRED OF POST-WD GROUP PHOTOS. Seriously badass.




Thank you everyone for making this a great day. Biggest thanks goes to Irene (and Matt) for letting us giggling girls stay at your house. Irene and I always seem to forget to take pictures when we see each other. Why take pictures like this:




When you can take pictures like this?

Dealing with the hurricane like a warrior!

Today I am driving to Charlotte to meet up with:

Irene (college friend)
Monika (local friend)
Heather (local friend)
Kim (local friend)
Katie (local friend)
Kara (Babycenter friend, internet weirdo)
Stacey (internet weirdo and triplet sister to Mommy Esq and A)
Amanda (internet weirdo)

to do Warrior Dash Carolinas. There were many times I thought Hurricane Irene would stop this effort but it moved far enough east overnight that it's safe for me to leave Raleigh. To celebrate, I thought I would update my Warrior Dash look with a hat Jon brought me from Sweden.




This picture seals the deal:

1. I should never ever wear hats.
2. I am cutting my hair shorter. No long hair for me.
   
3. Never try to duplicate an original. IT CAN NOT BE DONE.

A conversation in our house, part two

At the dinner table last night.

Nate: "Are we allowed to get dessert when we buy lunch?"

Laura: "Did you buy dessert?"

Nate: "I bought an ice cream sandwich with my mac and cheese."

Time to put a restriction on their lunch money accounts.

PS. Both boys wanted to try riding bikes with no training wheels last night. As the MUCH shorter parent, all responsibility fell to me. They both managed to balance for a little bit but it was mostly Laura sprinting while hunching and holding a bike seat in humid summer weather. Will they ever know all we do for them???

PPS. I signed the boys up for fall basketball yesterday and they asked if the boys would be considered "short, medium, or tall" kids. I said, "SHRIMPIES!"

I'm surprised to write this too

One night this week at the pool, the boys played 100% with other kids from the neighborhood and 0% with us.

Jon and I just sat sweating by the side of the pool.

Not sure I like this development. At least it happened late in the pool season when our weather is a little cooler.

Yes, another post about having twins in kindergarten

What we are quickly learning about kindergarten at our school is the different have classrooms have the same learning material and homework but they assign it on different days/weeks.

At Meet the Teacher, Jon had to fill out a special paper to hang in Alex's cubby with a message from his parent. During the first week of school, the first homework for Nate was a special paper the parents had to fill out to hang in Nate's cubby with a special message.

Jon was gone so I filled out Nate's paper with the message, "You are our favorite boys with blue eyes!" (This is a special saying in our family.)

When Jon got home, I told him all about "my" homework. Jon said, "I had to fill the same thing out for Alex. And I wrote 'You are our favorite boy with brown eyes.'"

TCBW, not to be confused with TCBY

Since Jon was in Denmark and Sweden last week, we had cleared our entire weekend calendar expecting him to be jetlagged and exhausted. Through some major miracle, he was not exhausted so it was a massive Taking Care of Business Weekend. Recycling cardboard, yard work, and knocking out things off the to-do list.

(And pool time and cocktails and more pool time and silly string fights and BBQ)

One very important order of business: hanging some standout mounts on our stairs. What are standout mounts? HUGE PHOTOS mounted on lightweight formboard.




I love walking up and down my stairs now.




You want a 4x6 print? I see your 4x6 and raise you to a 16x20.




What I love most about this space is the room to grow. I will certainly be adding more standouts over the years. Something tells me at our beach trip in two weeks, I'm going to get some beach photos I would like to place here:



So freaking happy with this space.

This is so much more important than kindergarten

I have talked too much about kindergarten. Let's get back to the truly important topic: MY HAIR. I have two dilemmas and need objective advice. I am no longer allowed to ask Jon for hair advice as I have used up our relationship's quota of talking about my hair in just 11 short years.

Dilemma 1: I made the decision to grow my hair long one more time in my 30s then cut it short forever. The thing is, I like it short. I love it low maintenance.

Long long long term readers might remember the last time I decided to grow out my hair WHILE I WAS PREGNANT. Dumb mistake. I had no idea how much I would be vomiting. I happily chopped it all off a few weeks later. Then I decided to grow it out again a couple of years later .... and that led to THE MULLET.

I'm just at the point where it is about to get ugly for a few months so I need you, objective readers, to tell me what to do. Grow it out or rock the short hair? (I'm thinking short.)




Dilemma 2: I need my curly girls on this one. When I grew up in the 80s, there were no hair products for white curly girls. NONE. I shopped in the black hair section and tried every product. Then someone invented mousse and it saved my life. I still check out the black hair section for new products all.the.time.

In the last 20 years, I have spent approximately $572,283 trying to find the perfect hair product combination for curly thick white girl hair. Name it, I've tried it. I recently found a new hair product that says on the bottle "FOR WHITE GIRLS TOO!" I tried it and WOW. My hair is soft. There is no frizz. The curls are perfect.

Problem? It smells like gheri curl. (Which I have used, and it made my hair so soft and so frizz free.) (If you have ever used gheri curl you know the smell.)

For reals. DO I USE IT????? Look at how shiny and soft and frizz free my curls look. But eau de gheri curl??



Thoughts? (Alex took this picture of me.)

In other AMAZING NEWS, Nate's leisure dive made Dive of the Day today. Whether it is small dreams or big dreams, follow your passion people. What an awesome way for the Cases to celebrate World Photography Day!

On the kindergarten transition

Let me preface this by saying the boys love kindergarten. They are doing fantastic and come home having learned so much each day. But this whole sleep transition, WHOA. It has been really really hard. I feel like a rookie. The boys are insanely crazily hyper and I'm not sure if it's from being overtired or not getting enough exercise at school. So one night I'll make sure they get exercise and it works. The next night, they fall apart.

The problem is also compounded by Jon being gone. This week has been particularly difficult because he's in Europe and we've only been able to talk twice. Usually if he's gone, I can talk to him about everything and we come up with a plan together. Not this week.

I'm not writing about any of this to complain about my life. I just want to keep it really refreshingly real. I never want my blog to be a place where everything is hunky dory and perfect, because I think it sets an unrealistic expectation of parenting to other parents. I also feel this strong need to be HEARD right now. And as a rookie with TWO kids going through this at the same time, I need advice.

What has been getting me through is photography. Last night the boys helped me with some of my photography homework.




We played a game where the boys took the little camera and each got to take four pictures of whatever they wanted. It turned into this crazy game where they chased each other through the house trying to snap photos of each other. They laughed and giggled and had a blast. We all laughed.




Then suddenly out of nowhere, one kid did something really rude so I told him to go to time out. He stuck out his tongue and spit at me, so I sent him immediately to bed for the night. That is what this entire week has been like. Everything great one minute, everything terrible the next, with no warning. Rationally I know this is what every other sleep transition has been like, but this is the first one where they can TALK to tell me their feelings yet they can't seem to articulate that they are tired or have too much energy. Me = rookie all over again.

I know this will pass. And I will keep trying everything in my parenting arsenal, the biggest weapons of course being tons of love, attention, and hugs for them.

Superhero photo class

I mentioned a few weeks ago I am taking Andrea Scher's Superhero Photo class. Because of the craziness of kindergarten and Jon traveling and the business, I haven't had as much time to dedicate to the class. I have a long list of photos I still need to take for homework. This has been SO FUN and reminded me why I love photography.

Here are photos I've taken for homework, ones I haven't already posted here.

My toes match the crepe myrtles by the pool (PS I hate feet pictures so this was a stretch for me):



A lego battle:




Some beach fun during the magic hour (taken with point and shoot, you don't need fancy camera for this class!):




Me after a long day (yes my camera and lens is BIG):




And me, what I usually look like. Taken while my kids played at the playground.




I think one of my strengths as a photographer is taking candids so I've always focused on candids. This class has really made me think more about staged shots to get the photo I want.

This week I realized the boys are not getting enough exercise at kindergarten so I took them for dinner at the pool last night, with the caveat they help me with practicing leisure dive shot. What's a leisure dive? When you dive into a pool leisurely. I call this "Children look like angels when they're sleeping" dive:




I really really REALLY want to get a photo featured on LeisureDive.com. So I'm putting it out there. From local people: I need models. From non-local people: we need ideas. Check out Leisure Dive (seriously you will die laughing!) and give us some creative ideas for dives. Best creative idea not already featured on Leisure Dive will win a prize from me.

This is definitely happening peoples!

A conversation in our house, last Thursday

Note: this would have been the FIFTH day of kindergarten.

Alex: Nate's class got to sit super close to mine at lunch!

Nate: It was me then another girl then Alex. We played "cheers" with our chocolate milk!

Laura: WHAT WHAT WHAT???? Chocolate milk?

Alex: They ran out of regular milk today so I had chocolate milk.

Nate: Not me, I have chocolate milk every day.

Laura: YOU DO???????????????????????????????????????

(I could not stop laughing. Then we talked about picking special milk one day a week.)

Sometimes I rock this single mom thing... kind of

We were very very sad to drop Jon off at the airport for a week in Europe on Sunday morning. It was drizzling all morning and the forecast was rain all day so I took the boys out to do as much fun stuff as possible before the torrential rain started. We played at two parks (long story), got fresh Krispy Kremes, and went out to lunch.

The torrential rain never came and instead the afternoon was sunny but not oppressively hot. I had some seamless paper that had gotten dirty so I decided to use it up. First I required a photo from the boys:




Then I let them paint like crazy.




I thought they would get about 30 minutes of entertainment out of this, but instead they painted and chatted for two hours. I helped them paint quite a bit as well and wow is that fun. I missed out taking all those nerd classes in high school instead of art classes!




By the end of the afternoon, they decided to work on painting together. Sibling moments like this make all the fights bearable.




At the end of the day, we had two four foot high pieces of artwork the boys insisted we needed to display in the house. I had no idea how to break their hearts on that one. Around 10:30PM an insane thunderstorm rolled through, killing power to the whole neighborhood and completely soaking their artwork. Problem solved?

My week, InstaFriday style

For the first time, I'm participating in InstaFriday at Life Rearranged. So here is our week, (mostly) from Instagram.

Sunday morning I took Alex to the pool, just me and him. Best morning date ever. CANNON BALL! (Please ignore the muscles on his sides, that means he's a boy and not a baby and I'm not ready for that.)




Monday the PTA sent home a huge packet of information and Comic Sans was displayed in every shade. Then as a twin mom, I got a bonus packet of the same information the next day in the same terrible font. Twins = double the font trouble.




Tuesday unfortunately brought a lot of sadness as my friend Heather's mom passed away. I could write a whole post but I will just say - Call your mom today. Say hi.

I ordered some flowers from a group of us. Flower money goes SO MUCH farther in NC than it ever did in Chicago or San Francisco.




On Tuesday afternoon I watched Jon walk the boys home from the bus stop from my office window.




Wednesday I spent a lot of quality time on twitter while watching my favorite dancer rock the stage. I voted 100 times. Team Melanie 4eva.




Thursday I made the unfortunate mistake of blogging about how GREAT our kindergarten transition was going. Thursday was the FIRST TIME the boys have EVER gone four days in a row with no nap and they were COMPLETELY INSANE. They haven't been that insane since they dropped to one nap. And since I was solo parenting, I made the wise decision to enhance my dinner of Trader Joe's fishsticks with some pimento cheese and guacamole.




Don't worry, I've been getting some morning runs in to make sure I can eat as much pimento cheese and guacamole as I want. This greenway is 0.2 miles from my front doorstep. I love the nature of NC. Except I could do without the noseeums and mosquitoes.




Friday evening I will toast Jon returning home and probably enjoy some cocktails on the screened porch (see previously: noseeums and mosquitoes) because we are having a break in the hot weather (only 87 today!!!).

In the meantime, when people ask my secret for getting two kids to smile and laugh for photos? You have to be SILLY.

It's been a long time since I posted a kitchen table video huh Lindsay? I NEVER get tired of hearing my kids laugh.



Go check out some other InstaFridays!

Yes I know, another kindergarten post

This one is to give hope to all the day care people going through what we went through.

For over 3 years, we would put the boys to bed at 7:30 and not hear a peep the rest of the night. Jon and I were able to get stuff done and relax. Roughly 18-24 months ago, the boys were ready to give up their nap. BUT they were in day care, where they still had a two hour nap. TWO HOURS of nap they did not need.

We then had 18-24 months of evening hell. We moved bedtime back to 8PM but it was not unusual to get cries for help at 9, 9:30, 10, even 10:30. And it wasn't the boys' fault - they were not tired. When Jon traveled, I would often have days where I was "on" for 16 straight hours. Some nights I put a movie on for them at 7:30 to get 90 minutes of quiet time to get stuff done. Some nights were my worst parenting nights, where I was yelling at someone or unclogging a toilet at 11PM.

It sucked sucked sucked SUCKED. It is the only thing we did not like about being in group day care, but you take the bad with the good.

As much as we looked forward to no more day care payments, we looked forward to no more naps MORE. And after a week of kindergarten, I can say IT IS HEAVEN AGAIN to shut their bedroom doors at 7:30 and not hear a peep.

Like I said on Monday morning, this whole week has been a huge BREATHING OUT.

My love language is the 6th language, Excel

This week the PTA volunteer information got sent home with the boys. My first impression is that it is incredibly organized (love). They have each volunteer opportunity broken into committees (love), and on the school PTA website there is an Excel spreadsheet with all 32 committees listed on it (love).

There is a column to let you know when the event happens (love).
There is a column to let you know if this is a one time or ongoing commitment (love).
There is a column to let you know if this is something you need to do at school or something you can do from home. (PERFECT for working parents. Love. Lovey LOVE.)

Is it wrong to swoon over organization? If so, I don't want to be right.


PS. Alex loves school too. He is quietly enthusiastic, but still talking a mile a minute for him.
PPS. Monday has been downgraded to Nate's second best day ever. Tuesday was his new best day of his life.

Nate's opinion of kindergarten

As soon as Nate got off the school bus yesterday he screamed, "I had the best day of my entire life today!!!!"

Upside: no worries about him liking kindergarten.

Downside: we could have saved quite a bit of money the last five years. Birthday parties. Beach trips. Christmas presents. Trips to places like Legoland. Summer Fun List.

Breathing out

When Jon and I got married, we finished all the preparations and planning three weeks in advance. Then we just had to sit around and wait to get married. It was a cranky three weeks, waiting for the big thing looming in front of us.

That's how kindergarten has felt. The prep work has been done (both emotional and physical) and we've just been waiting for day care to end and school to start.

After dropping the boys at their classrooms, we attended kindergarten kickoff this morning (the 7th kindergarten event, if you're counting). It feels like a big ball of anxiety has been lifted out of our house. All of us are ready to start working on getting into our kindergarten groove - bus drop offs, bus pick ups, packing lunches, homework. Bring it.

PS. First order of business with the day care money we no longer pay? We ordered Nate new bedroom furniture. We live LARGE peoples.

Last day of day care

Waaaaaaaayyyyy back, on August 7 2006, it was the boys' first day of day care.


Today, almost five years to the day, is the boys' last day of day care.




Over the years, I have gotten random emails from strangers in the area asking if my boys are happy at their school and where they go. I've never replied to them because HELLO I am not telling strangers where my babies are! But now that my babies are leaving, I can safely tell you they have been loved at Preston Children's Academy and have loved being there.

(Don't be fooled by the pretentious name, it is a regular old day care.)

We can't thank all of the staff and teachers at Preston enough for the love and care Nate and Alex received the last five years. Since day one, we've never been a number in a big day care machine. We have always been part of a family. They've watched the kids grow from teeny tiny babies into little boys. We learned so much about child care and parenting from everyone there.

While I could go on and on about everything we have loved about Preston, I do have to give a shout out to the pre-K teachers for such amazing kindergarten prep. I believe the main reason we had such success this week with kindergarten entry is because of what they learned at Preston this last year. While we are excited about the transition to public school, it is mixed with sad emotions at saying good bye to so many friends.

Thank you Preston for five amazing years!

PS. NO MORE DAY CARE PAYMENTS EVER.

You might think I'm insane when I post this picture. Or a genius.

In addition to working at my software job and working on my photography business, I am also working with Jon to get the second floor of our house decorated. We've hit the 6 month mark in our house and the guest room is still "the art store" with tons of frames not on the walls. Alex's room is almost complete so I will post photos of that soon.

In the new house, I knew I wanted to do BIG photos. I used to think an 8x10 was a BIG photo until I read this amazing post a couple of years ago about why bigger is better (with photos on walls).

When you walk up the stairs to our second floor, immediately to the right is my office. There is a huge wall I thought would be perfect for a photo grouping. And I went BIG. Six 16x20 canvases.



I can not tell you how happy this wall makes me every time I see it.

How kindergarten went

The first day of kindergarten was a blazing success for both boys! Jon and I were nervous wrecks all day, waiting for the bus to return home at 4 to hear how it went. We agreed 99.99% of our worry was about Alex. He was much more anxious about the first day while Nate was packing things he wanted to give his new friends and teacher.

The bus arrived and they told us everything they loved about school. Lots of new friends. Fun new things to learn in the classroom. They even got to see each other in the cafeteria and at recess.

By far the best part was they didn't have a single fight all night. Alex hugged Nate repeatedly and it didn't turn into WWE. As we walked to the pool, they talked about their new friends and Alex said, "But Nate, you and me are best friends, right?" Nate said, "Oh yeah, we're best friends." I think separation is going to be a GREAT thing for them!

(To make matters even more confusing for you, kindergartens here do staggered entry. They go one day the first week to get comfortable with kindergarten, then Friday we go to meet the teacher, drop off supplies, and ask any last questions. Monday they start full time. In the meantime, they're back at day care the rest of the week.)

First day of kindergarten

When the boys were newborns, everyone told me the days of parenting are long but the years are short. I had no idea how true that was until today. Our little baby Alex....




Somehow got on a school bus for his first day of kindergarten.




The toughest part about being a first time parent to twins is that every milestone is a first... AND a last. Today our other little baby Nate...




Also got on a school bus for his first day of kindergarten.




I didn't cry before their first day because I was too concerned with both of their nerves. I didn't cry while taking photos on our front porch, the one we hope to be in on their last day of high school.




I didn't even cry when they got on the bus because look at those happy faces in the front row (where the kids are so tiny, three kids fit in a seat).




Instead the tears came as I sat down to write this as I thought about how quickly the last five years have gone. I've been in this space, documenting our lives together partly as a way to stay present in the moment. Despite my efforts, time has been cruel and it has passed entirely too quickly. Suddenly we have two kindergarteners. The baby years are over, forever.

At the same time I am also excited. I am excited they will make new friends who they might have their entire lives. I am excited they will get to be by themselves for the first time. I am excited at their independence, how they just climbed on the bus without even looking back. I am excited as they start a new phase in their lives.

This parenting thing is hard. And wonderful. And joyful. And amazing.

Happy first day of kindergarten, my babies.