Don't let the unnawears catch you unawares

Miana calls underwear "unnawear." I never know what to expect when I open the door to her room in the morning or after a nap. Usually she has every piece of clothing she owns out on the floor and she is wearing something unexpected. One Sunday morning, she came out with her swimming suit on and informed me that she was going swimming with Papa. I love the fact that she always has a plan.

Underwear and potty training don't necessarily go together in her mind. We spent 2 full days wearing underwear and only sitting on the potty once, but just to try it out, not to actually use it. In those 2 days she went through every pair of underwear we own, twice! My favorite is when she came out of her room wearing a plastic diaper cover with nothing under it and told me that she found more underwear.

This morning, I opened the door to let her out of her room and found her standing there in some clean underwear with another pair in her hand. "This is for Tayla," she announced and would not let up until I promised to put them on her. So... here is our underwear morning:

Pass the peas, please

Last night we had peas with dinner. I had a few left over so I put them in the fridge. Tonight, I gave the baby a few of the cold leftovers with her dinner. Miana saw them on Tayla's tray and wanted some. I told her they were just cold ones, but she didn't seem to care and ate few off of the tray. Then Carter came over and saw the peas and asked for some. We had just finished dinner and I was trying to clean up and didn't want to go through the trouble of heating them up. I told him that he could have some tomorrow at lunch. He started to cry. He wanted peas NOW! Miana tried to console him, "They just cold, Carter." He got over his tantrum quickly, I went on cleaning up after dinner. I finished up, turned around to see Carter and Miana huddled over the bag of cold (but not frozen) peas. They were grabbing them out by the handful and stuffing their faces as fast as they could... It reminded me of the last time we had M&Ms at our house. Next time you are at my house, don't be surprised if you hear things like, "If you clean up your room you can have a handful of peas."
I really love my kids!!

I don't even know where to start...

We are trying to refinance the house and I have been horribly stressed out in the last 3 weeks. We had a horrible experience from one lender and had to switch last minute to another. Why does this matter? Because it is a major reason why I need a vacation. Today, I had the overwhelming task of trying to get the house ready for the appraiser to come tomorrow. I've been really busy and had things for each child to do. The boys got home from school and Spencer started crying because I informed him that after homework was finished, he would have to do 2 clean-up jobs. Then, we could go out to play and come in and do 2 more. Apparently, at school they did speed cup stacking and he didn't get a gold medal. He didn't want to tell me that, I was supposed to figure out that's why he was really crying. So, homework took about an hour because he had "had a really hard day." Then, while he was cleaning up, Carter and I finished his homework and he went out to play. I needed to find some paint and while I was in the basement looking for it, Carter (almost 6 years old) came back downstairs to ask me if he could go to the park with some friends. Here's the conversation:
Me: Is an adult going?
C: Yes, Mr. B-- is coming
Me: Really? So it's okay if I call them and check?
He got the look which tells me he is lying and and I asked if he had lied to me, he admitted it, I told him that he could not go out to play at all and that he needed to go upstairs and wait for me to come up so we could discuss punishment. I was downstairs about 3-4 more minutes, came up and the phone started to ring.
Man on Phone: Ma'am, this is Deputy Randolph. Everything is fine, I just have your little one here and he said he had your permission to come up to the park by himself.
Me: No, actually, he just got in trouble and was told not to leave the house. He is absolutely not allowed to go to the park by himself.
Deputy: Oh, well, he was walking very quickly. Do you want to come and get him?
Me: Yes, I'll be right there.
Luckily, Denise had just stopped by to check in on me and agreed to stay with the girls. I threw on my sandals and ran up the street to the park. There I saw 2 police cars, one with it's lights going, parked on the side of the road.
I wasn't sure what to do or say. I got down on Carter's eye level. Asked him all of the "are you allowed" questions, made sure he knew all the right answers, and then turned and thanked the 2 deputies. Deputy Randolph explained that they were sitting in the parking lot and saw this small boy come walking as fast as he could up the street and cross it all by himself. Carter really is petite and doesn't really look like he is 6 (almost). The deputy looked at Carter and told him that he is too little to be able to see all the cars coming and that he really needs to have a grown up help him cross the street. I had Carter say thank you and shake hands with the 2 deputies and I thanked them and we left. As we walked home, I talked to Carter about crossing the street, I talked to him about being obedient, and we talked about consequences. He was not happy that lying, disobeying, and getting stopped by the police all carried punishments. He has pretty much cried and whined all afternoon about not being able to go outside to play. I told him that he shouldn't choose the first day in the 50s to be the day he gets in trouble. Too bad for him, tomorrow is supposed to be in the 60s... he'll be inside doing extra chores!
I really need a vacation... alone... well, maybe Dave can come...