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Hi. My name is Rachael and I'm a terrible blogger. I make apparently-empty promises about writing more and say "yes, yes - I will!" when friends tell me then beg me to blog. It's not even that there's a lack of desire - I've just been busy. Really busy. Crazy-stressful-but-oddly-I-mostly-like-it busy. I think. So I'm not making any promises. But I'm here right now and this is what I got....

My lovelies - Belly and The Bug - turned four in October. They are more like me every day, which is both fascinating and horrifying, but each is like a different side of me. Buggy is the linear me. She's very organized and by-the-book and a straight-A student. Belly is the abstract artist me. She's free-form in thinking and behavior and lives for love. I mean, they are uniquely themselves for sure, but more and more, I'm seeing myself reflected back. It's a total trip. I remember a friend saying that having a kid was the most selfish thing he'd ever done. I didn't really understand that at the time, but now I do. I've recreated whole facets of myself, from looks right down to personality. Sometimes they even swear like me. That part is pretty funny (to me, not Dude). It's like I've said to the world, "Isn't it fun I'm here? Well guess what - here are two more of me! Wheeeeeeee!!!!!" The arrogance is astounding.

They're pretty dang cute, though. This was them on Christmas looking very Buggy (left) and very Belly and not very me at all (okay, that's a lie - they look like me)....

A week ago, I packed a hanging bag with only items belonging to me, drove my fast car to the airport, handed my passport to the appropriate TSA people, and boarded a plane to Montreal. How grown up! How fancy free! How.... needed.

You know, I loved camping when I was growing up. My family never had any money, so camping trips were our family vacations. I loved the ride in the family vehicle - making a nest in the back with blankets and pillows and listening to cassette tapes in my walkman. I loved the tent and the being outside and the lack of rules and the fact that my dad had a penchant for packing a gallon of salsa and giant bags of tortilla chips. I really, really loved all of it. As I've gotten older, the shine has worn off a bit. And since I've had kids, I downright dislike it. I don't like all of the logistics involved and the bugs and never being warm enough. I always wish that I was in a hotel or back at home. I've decided that I loved it when I was a kid because I didn't have to do anything but show up (and really, I didn't even have a choice in the matter). Adult camping is laden with responsibility and that just doesn't seem like a vacation to me.

The dunes

The sky reflected in the water

I've been doing a lot of research this week into being a personal chef - who else is doing it in Portland, what they're charging for which services, etc. It's sort of exciting and sort of overwhelming all at the same time. I'm definitely cheaper than the four or so that I found and I also realized that not everybody is professionally trained, which boosted my confidence a bit. I need to set my pricing by portion size. I need beautiful marketing materials. I need to figure out exactly what licensing and insurance I need. I also need to come up with a name for my business. I asked for name suggestions on Facebook, noting that my porn name - Violet Nash - doesn't work. I was trying to be cute, but someone suggested Violet Nosh. I kind of love it. I'm not married to it yet, but I kind of love it. It's food-related, but not specific. Any of you have other suggestions?

So my last post was about the girls in bed this morning. Here's tonight's story....

Screw the fourth. I didn't have an independence day. I had a whole independence weekend! And my oh my it was glorious. Dude took the girls to my mom's for the weekend - leaving Friday afternoon and coming back Monday around 1pm. That whole time, I was fancy free. I got up when I wanted. I made coffee and toast for breakfast. Nobody yelled at me, was rude to me, made unreasonable demands of me. I set out to accomplish absolutely nothing. And that's exactly what I did. Except..... something inside of me snapped. Something strange. If you know me, you know there is pretty much nothing I hate doing more than cleaning. But my house was crazy messy and the toy tornado twins were nowhere in sight. I cleaned up all their kitchen stuff. Then I tackled this big pile that ended up having the kitchen table underneath it. Then I took a break. Then I decided that I wanted to read in the sunroom, but there was too much crap everywhere. So I cleaned it. And then I read on the floor in there. This is how I meandered throughout the whole house and before I knew it, I'd cleaned the entire thing top to bottom. Let me assure you that this is unlike me to the nth degree. But I was sooooo happy to spend the weekend in a clean house. I even entertained some girlfriends on Sunday evening, just like a real grownup - drinks and snacks on the back deck and I didn't have to say, "Please excuse the kid mess. You know how it goes...."

I fed them grasshoppers. Really. I did. Delicious, crunchy grasshoppers at a sushi restaurant. And this isn't the first time (I may have even blogged about it then, but I'm too lazy to go back and research and see if I did). We had the initial grasshoppers when the babes were barely two or something and they don't remember, but last night I asked them if they wanted to try some grasshoppers and they said yes. So I ordered up a few. This particular restaurant fries them whole and puts them on top of sushi rice nigiri-style with a little of that sauce they put on eel. They're actually quite good - crunchy and salty and a little nutty with that delicious sweet sauce. Yum. Anyway, Belly ate hers like it was nothing. Just another piece of sushi. Buggy took a bite and said, "Ummm, I like the rice and the sauce, but I don't think I want to eat the crunchy. It has too many parts in my mouth." Fair enough, but she tried it! And then she went back to eating her salmon nigiri, octopus nigiri, and eel and avocado roll. What would I do if I actually had picky eaters? I guess they'd starve. Here's the Bug's face as she took a bite.... Ha!

Damn. I was a little hesitant about posting my new cooking endeavor the other day because I was afraid I'd jinx it somehow. And I did. The family I've been cooking for went down to one night a week instead of two. The mom said she was feeling really guilty because she was hardly cooking anymore. I guess they've been getting three or four nights of dinner out of the two nights of food I've been cooking for them. I shot myself in the foot with my big portions. Ugh. Last week I made them peanutty noodles with chicken and broccoli, and salad. Tonight, per their request, I'm making pad thai with chicken and shrimp (personally, I would've spaced it out a bit since it's sort of similar to last week's dish, but I aim to please). Needless to say, I'm disappointed with this slight downturn in events.

Hi. My beloved Packers are heading to the Super Bowl. Yes, that's the first order of business on the docket. It fills me with such a ridiculous joy that I can't even put words to it. I. Am. Thrilled. THRILLED! And we're going because we beat the stinky Bears. And one of the biggest Bears fans I know is currently sporting a Facebook profile picture of me in Packer wear with a sign that says "Packers Rule, Bears Drool." It really doesn't get much better than that.

Bet you thought you'd lost me, eh? It ain't that easy, friends. Fact is that I've been busy and moody and playing angry birds and you probably wouldn't have wanted to hear all the bitching that's gone on in my head anyway (damn birds). So here's a recap of the last few months in no particular order....

Not really, but can I blame my flakiness on time travel? That seems like it would be a good excuse. Better, at least, than I'm freaking lazy and tired and uninspired. Sooooo.... yeah. Hi. Here I am.

There's only one hour left of this day and - even though he worked six hours - Dude said this was the best of the three Father's Days that he's had thus far. For starters, we let him sleep in - until nearly 9am! That's about four hours later than a few other mornings this past week. And when he came downstairs, the girls greeted him with resounding declarations of "Happy Father's Day, Daddy!" "Happy Father's Day, Pop!" Oh yes - Belly has decided that she wants to call him Pop. Or Papa. Or sometimes Poppy. It's cute. I handed him his coffee and he admired the art installation that had been hung in the dining room. All week I'd had the girls paint pictures for him and then I added one of my own. I hung everything up on a string with clothespins. There were also cards from each of his daughters and some gift certificates for fun places. But the real focus of today was food - because that is truly the way to Dude's heart.

I'm back in the land of a zillion half-written posts. Instead of scrapping them, I'm going to finish a few. Like this one...

I like camping. Well, in theory. If all goes according to plan. And it doesn't rain. And I'm not overrun with mosquitoes, other campers, cold, a leaky air mattress or animals. Then I like camping.

Dude and I decided that we would introduce the girls to sleeping in the great outdoors Memorial Day weekend and made plans to do a simple one-night excursion into the wilds of Oregon (at a proper campsite in a state park, of course). Dude picked out a destination and told me about it earlier in the week. I said okay. But then I did what I do and that's look into it at the last minute and decide that I wasn't sure it was a good idea. This place looked great if it were just the two of us, but I wasn't sure if our little peeps would really be into hot springs. You know - because they're TWO? Yeah. Oh. And the springs are "clothing optional." It could be low-key or it could be skeezy guys getting woody looking at my children. I didn't really want to find out. So at the very, very, very last chance I had to pull the trigger, I said I wanted to do something else. Because THAT doesn't cause an argument.

Instead, we drove up to Astoria - where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. You may know it better as the place where Goonies was filmed. That's right - Goonies. And we were only a week shy of being there for the big 25th anniversary celebration of its release, complete with a visit from Sean Astin and a performance by Corey Feldman's band. How did I not plan accordingly?? I only half jest. It would've been a hilarious scene. Anyway. We explored this cute, touristy town a bit and then went out to the state park to try to locate a campsite - on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Ha! After some internet digging and phone calls (thanks, trusty iPhone), we found a campground on the Washington side of the river called Cape Disappointment State Park that had tent spots available. Cape Disappointment? I must admit that I did not have high hopes.

But I was wrong! Cape Disappointment was right on the Pacific and we walked to the beach and there were cool tidal pools and amazing driftwood and a beautiful lighthouse. It was PERFECT. Well, except for the fact that it was effing cold and raining the whole time. Oh yes - it rained the whole entire time. Because I love that. Because that doesn't put a damper on, well, everything. The girls loved, loved, loved sleeping in the tent, though. The four of us climbed into one double sleeping bag and stayed toasty warm. And the next morning, after a thoroughly drenching walk to the beach to look at bright orange and purple starfish in the pools, Dude packed up the tent and its contents while I put the girls in the truck, blasting the heat on high, and got dry clothes on everyone.

So basically, it was a sorta sucky experience of which we made the best. I think we'll definitely take the girls camping again, but only if the forecast calls for clear skies and lots and lots of warmth. Nonetheless, here are some pictures:

Sea lions on the docks in Astoria

The back of our truck - loaded for ONE overnight; having kids sure requires a lot of crap

The tent during the only five minutes of sunshine

Giant driftwood teeter-totter

My kids running - with their coats on - into the ocean

Freezing

Dude forgot to warm up the girls' bedtime sippy cups of milk tonight and so had to stall when the appropriate time came. He decided to quell their whiney chants of "Milk! Milk!" with a rousing rendition of Old MacDonald. And that ol' farmer had a monkey... or at least Dude thought he did. Buggy immediately piped up, "NO! MONKEYS DON'T LIVE ON FARMS!" Dude asked where they live and she said, in her best impression of a 14-year-old who thinks her father is an idiot, "Houses." And the she suggested that he sing about flamingoes. Flamingoes live on farms. Duh.

I have four draft posts that have not been completed since the last time I wrote on here. Ugh. All of them are outdated and so here I am starting number five. I will complete and post this tonight. I'm hell-bent.

Back when I was preggo with the twinnies, I learned that there are MOM and POM clubs all over the country. You know, Mothers Of Multiples and Parents Of Multiples? I thought it would be a good idea to join one since I had no idea what I was getting into, but ultimately never did because the websites were too cheesy for me to actually pull the trigger. I didn't want to become one of the MOMs pictured. And I didn't want to feel obligated to have my kids hang out with other multiples. The idea of a bunch of twins and triplets (or oh-my-god quads) hanging out at the park together seemed like a bit of a freak show. My research, however, uncovered that every one of these clubs holds a big resale event twice a year as a fundraiser and HOLY CRAP is it awesome. Last week I joined Portland's MOM chapter because they let members shop the sale before the general public and yesterday was the big day. Unfortunately, I didn't really have options with the girls so I took them with me... which led to meltdown from child #1.

My husband has always had a bit of a warped sense of humor - part of why I love him like I do for sure - but lately I've noticed that he's teaching our girls all sorts of "fun" words and phrases. You know, the kind of stuff that's funny at the time, but I know that I will try to don my invisible cloak the day they decide to break 'em out in front of the sweet old lady in line at the grocery store or to my in-laws. A few terms that are now part of Belly and Bug's vocabulary:

Yes - today was better. And thank god because I was about to leave the children outside the grocery store with little notes pinned to their shirts that said, "FREE (+ the expense of maintenance and upkeep)." You guys were right. We all needed to get the heck out of the house. We went to Swap this morning and then home for nap. I burned a new nap time cd last night that doubled up a few songs in the middle, thus increasing the music time to a full 80 minutes and eliminated the need for me to sneak back in the room to restart the cd. PLUS I largely ignored Belly's cries (instead of calling up on the monitor and telling her to shush) and I think she may have actually fallen back asleep for awhile. Sure, she fussed again and was back to her usual shenanigans, but not for the entire time and not at the same shrill volume that has become her norm. It was... dare I say it... tolerable.

Sorry, but I do. It can't be helped. I'm 35 years old and I cannot be retrained to refrain. It's fact. Tonight the Bug said "dammit" in perfect context, with complete nonchalance at the dinner table. I tried not to laugh as I covered my face in my napkin. Dude did not approve. Dude does not approve of swearing in general, so to hear it from his tiny daughter's mouth is not cute to him. But this little episode actually reminded me of another ditty that I wanted to share from a few weeks back...

Last weekend was, clearly, the big romantic gesture from Dude and I certainly did not expect anything like that again for Valentine's Day. We're usually more of the Valentine's card and a nice dinner kind of folks anyway - not buying into the giant boxes of chocolates, dozens of roses, etc. But Dude informed me earlier in the week that we were going somewhere for a "family Valentine's thing" on Saturday at 5pm. I pried for clues and was told that it was inside and I didn't need to make dinner. Hm. That could pretty much mean dinner anywhere. Fun!