"Normal"

Well, today is the first day back of "normal." My life as an actress is once again being replaced my my life as a Mom. Every now and again, these boys let me out of the house to fulfill my crazy addiction. "When I start to play a part, I play a part okay. No longer am I no one when I'm someone in a play."

I spent the last two months being a mom to two boys during the day and Rosalind Hay, the daughter of two dramatic parents, in 1953 Buffalo, New York at night. I ran up and down stairs, kissed a couple of boys, got to experience life as a blond, actually had a "hair guy", wore a few diamonds, made some great friends, and had my first solo stage monologue. I am juxtaposed at the moment between theatrical withdrawal and utter exhaustion.

The boys are very thrilled to have Mommy back, especially the biggest one in the house who was a little weary of solo nighttime duty. I spent four days a week running around Birmingham with pin curls and a scarf on my head getting very strange looks. Alden patted my head yesterday morning and said, "Mommy, you don't have pin curlies anymore!" You know it is bad when your three year old BOY knows what a pin curl is.

Okay, I am tired, now. Really tired. I have made it through a third of the laundry that became piled in the laundry room the last few weeks, have not yet to pick up a cooking utensil, am staring at the fifty thousand pieces of the Godzilla Halloween costume I have to sew, and sort of want to run back to the land of make believe.

Luckily, I have two little people to keep me company. They have become absolutely hilarious. I asked Alden to help me clean the playroom yesterday and he says, "I am sorry I don't have time. It doesn't fit into my schedule." So, maybe I don't have as much help as I thought. When I picked him up from preschool, he wanted to show me his daily artwork. He got it out of his bag and he said, "That was no problemo." I said, "Did you just say, 'No problemo?'" He says, "Ci." Thank you Spanish class!

We have gone through a super-duper Spiderman obsession. I am not sure where we are with that now because we have moved onto Godzilla. He calls Godzilla, Godsur. We have no idea why. So, that is when the $10 off the shelf Spiderman Halloween wish became the $100 made-from-scratch project from hell Godzilla costume by Mom. Not only does Alden have to be Godzilla, but he thinks that Spencer has to be Godsuki. The Godzilla people sidekick (I never knew about this creature). Wish me luck. Seriously.

During the show, we made many trips to Clare's for cheap theatre jewelry. This statue is right outside the store. I mean, surely, he knows this is not a real person. He loves her. We have to stop and sit and chat with her every single time. At least if your friend is made of iron you can always count on them to always be there.

The little guy over here loves food. I mean, he loves food. His trick is that he goes to this drawer and gets out bowls and brings it to you. That means he wants it filled up. His phrase is. "I want." So, the latest and greatest is, "I want a cookie." He will proceed to throw anything that is not a cookie across the floor. We went to get a cupcake this weekend and Spencer started clapping and screaming, " Cupcake! Cupcake! Cupcake!" I really didn't think he had ever had one. I gave him 1/4 of a cookie for dessert the other day. He ran off with it. When I found him, he had stored all of the chocolate chips from said cookie inside his shirt sleeves like some little squirrel. Do I hear Clorox calling?

Here is his other trick. This air vent was viciously attacked by a stiletto heal during a bridal shower at our house a year ago. It is just big enough to drop treasures. Recently, we decided to check it out.

Just a sampling of what we found. We are far from getting rid of any of these items as they are Spencer's favorites. He wants to always have as many pacis as possible. He will have one in his mouth for a while and then do a quick switch to an alternative paci. Perhaps they taste different, who knows. We try to take them away from him, but he has them stashed and knows exactly where to go and get another one. Ball is still his favorite word. He hates that he can't play soccer with his big brother's team. He says, "Please play ball." Heart-breaking. He is addicted to his syringe of reflux medicine that he gets twice a day. He will actually walk over and remove the paci and open his mouth for this fix. No, his trick to try to get rid of the cabinet lock so that he could microwave things (another fave) did not work. It is back where it belongs.

The boys had a super time going fishing. Alden tells everyone that he caught a carp and that it "was THIS big!"

Spiderman fishing rod. They don't make Godsur fishing rods.

All of you Moms and Dads know that you are constantly looking for entertainment for these little people. We have embraced a DuMontier family tradition that is held dear in the heart of all the men of the family. It took us a while to give in, but we are now members of Costco! We eat Costco food and wear Costco clothes and play with Costco toys. We have the weekly Sunday afternoon trip to this fabulous warehouse and who knew how much entertainment there was to be had. Joey loves that we can sometimes feed the kids a whole meal off of free samples, and if that doesn't work, there is always $1.50 pizza.

The best part is that you are able to buy enough food to last through a nuclear attack, drought, or alien invasion. We are so prepared!

More food fun is when Daddy decides that Alden needs to have a nut taste test. Joey eats a lot of nuts. There are like 10 different kinds of nuts in our house and the two older boys spent forever one day ordering them from favorite to least favorite. Surprisingly, pine nuts were the top of Alden's list.

Spencer's other favorite word is "hat." Everything becomes a hat. Plastic bags, buckets, plates, etc. Just a sampling of another form of entertainment around here.

Sometimes you got to post a picture just because it is cute.

I am astounded at how big both of these boys are getting. No stroller!! The only thing harder to believe is that I just posted a picture of my behind on the internet.