Happy Independence Day!

Our country is independent and free - and suddenly, our children are too!!!

There's a little song that we were singing at our house to celebrate the Fourth of July this year. More appropriately, I was singing it. The kids would just dance whenever I'd burst in to tune. The song goes something like this:

"This land is MY land ... this land is MY land ... this toy is MY toy ... your toy's MINE too... and if you touch it - I will hit you - and then I'll bite you on the hand."

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat, another 200 times or so.

If it seems like this song is getting old after a while and you are fighting an urge to pick up a wooden spoon and smack yourself in the head with it, that's perfectly normal.

A 20-month old most definitely doesn't grasp the concept of sharing. And wolf spiders most definitely don't understand that if they continue their mass exodus from the outside world to the inside of our house, they will meet a quick departure from this world courtesy the bottom of my shoe. Needless to say... I've come to doubt my super human powers when it comes to teaching toddlers to share, and teaching scary spiders to stay outside.

The exterminator will be here at 9 AM tomorrow and during the time that we are required to vacate the house ... I am going to go buy every single ball available at Walmart. I'll also be picking up our 18-month 20-month photos ... provided they are ready.

Other than our "sharing challenges" which have been escalating in ferocity the past few days... we had a nice, relaxing weekend.

Kinda sorta.

Uh, no, not really.

I think part of my problem is that I try to plan grandiose things to do... and then feel overwhelmed when we embark on these "grandiose things" and everything goes tipsy turvy because instead of the kids sitting still on a beach blanket and looking at ladybugs ... they are trying to eat the ladybugs and take off running in to tall grass where I just know there is a rattle snake or two, laying in wait.

This morning, we took off for the Annual Fourth of July parade on Coronado Island. This place truly is one of our favorite places in Southern California, and if the average home price wasn't $5 million dollars... we'd move there in a heartbeat. The cost of purchasing a home on Coronado, is purportedly the most expensive place in the country. It's no wonder the cost of living is so high when you see that the Chamber of Commerce "courtesy shuttle" is a $300,000 Ferrari. (Charlie informed me that THIS is the car he wants for his 40th birthday. Let's see ... I've got a little over four months...)

The parade really was a lot of fun. It was absolutely mobbed, but we were able to set up camp on the grassy median of the parade route - and the kids had an exciting time running away from us, taking items out of absolute stranger's coolers, coming extremely close to pulling several bikes over on top of themselves (multiple times), and picking up litter that went directly in to their mouths checking out the sights. They loved the marching bands, horses, and planes that did several fly-by's overhead.

I guess there were marching bands, horses and planes flying overhead. That's what I heard the people around me saying - as I had my eyes constantly darting left and right looking for our children, dressed in red, white and blue. This was no easy task because it turns out the other fifty thousand people lined up along the parade route were also wearing red, white, and blue.

Note to self: neon yellow is a good color for a onesie, and a flashing beacon hat that shoots flares in the air when I call the kids' names could be cute. If I were to INVENT something like this, I might just make the $ needed for Charlie's birthday present. Hmmm...

The parade started at 10 AM, and when we left at noon, it was still in full swing. I've never left a parade early ... but I've also never had the kids up from 7 AM until noon without a nap.

We didn't get home from this outing until 12:30, which wreaked havoc on the kid's sleep schedule. Carolyn caught a cat nap in the stroller on the way back to the car, Elizabeth caught a cat nap on the car ride home, but William who didn't sleep at all - was delirious. He was so tired and cranky, he was actually biting the air.

We fed the kids lunch and then put them down for their nap at 1:45 PM. They slept until 4:30 ... and then we loaded them up ... again ... and headed out to watch fireworks at a local park.

Now, we would have been perfectly fine staying home - but I have these darn expectations I set for myself to always have "fun, fun, FUN!" Poor Charlie, he just goes along for the ride ... knowing perfectly well that our time would be better spent at our house. Watching the Wiggles.

This is kind of how our afternoon went. When we arrived at the park, we did a visual reconnaissance and we identified a few areas we didn't want the kids to go. If I remember correctly, we didn't even say out loud, "The kids can't go over there."

Which leads me to believe that if anyone in our family has super human powers ... it's our children. They are telepathic. Without a doubt.

"Ohhhh ... you DON'T want us to go over here? You mean ... right HERE?!"

Gone, gone, gone are the days that we could put the babies down and they would stay put. As soon as they are out of their strollers - they are off and RUNNING in three different directions. RUNNING. RUNNING. RUNNING.

The only thing that seems to slow them down is a hot barbeque that they would like nothing more than to touch... a stray dog that looks slightly rabid... some child's toy Hummer (of course we don't know them) ... or a road that they will run in to.

If you can think of anything that might be remotely dangerous for a 20-month old toddler to get in to... they'll be in to that, too.

Quite surprisingly, it got very cool at the park. It's been so hot around here, I wasn't expecting the temperature to drop by 25 degrees once the sun went down. Of course I had packed every possible item the babies would need whether it was 100 degrees and blazing sun, or 20 degrees and sideways snow. But we managed to forget sweatshirts for us.

Freezing cold and chasing babies around a dark park laden with hot barbeques, strange dogs, kids swinging baseball bats, and a tall grassy field that is probably full of ticks and snakes. Sounds like a good time, heh?

Once it started to get dark and cool down, I decided to get the kids dressed in their warm pajamas. I finished getting Carolyn ready ... put her off to one side and got to work on Elizabeth, while Charlie held William. I pull off Elizabeth's diaper and she pops up and starts running around. We were in our enclosed tent, so it wasn't like she was going to go too far ... but as I was pulling out her clean PJ's and a new diaper - I notice the small puddle that forms beneath Elizabeth. She then steps squarely in to this puddle while Carolyn crawls over and starts splashing her hands in it.

Oh and by the way ... it wasn't raining.

All that aside - it was a good Fourth of July - in a crazy toddler triplet kind of way. The parade was great. Experiencing fireworks with our babies for the first time was great. And above all, we were reminded how fortunate we are to live in such a great country.

But more and more, Charlie and I are feeling outnumbered and completely BEAT at the end of the day. More and more, Charlie and I are able to polish off an entire bottle of wine when we put the kids to bed at night.

When it dawned on us just how many drinks a week we were consuming in an effort to "unwind", we've decided that for our health, we need to start drinking lemonade instead ... and beat ourselves in the head with a wooden spoon.