May I invade your house? How's now for you?

This winter we officially have become Stir Crazy. Or do we have Cabin Fever? Or is it called Winter Madness? What is the name for the mental state of a family trapped by 9 inches of snow in a small house with twin toddlers bent on destruction? What’s that called? Oh, yes! I have it – it’s called Let me get the phone and call someone and invade their house for a while or I’ll go nuts! All the same thing. Jody Wright, President of Motherwear asked me in her monthly email, “Do you feel the walls closing in on you? It is time to Take a Break, to plan some special time for yourself.” What? Leave the terrors unsupervised for ten seconds? My house will be knocked flat.

Twin A has a new nickname- Genghis Khan. I call Twin B Attila; purely out of affection, you understand. Over the weekend Genghis went to the ER, because he got some leaf mold/grass clippings in his eye from the garage, rubbed it really hard and scratched his cornea. I saw the red, bleedy eye and insisted we rush him to the hospital. We got him all fixed up, were given optical anti-biotic drops and reassurances that he would heal. Then, while we were waiting in the examining room to be discharged, he pulled a drawer off its runners, whacked himself in the head and gashed his scalp open. Once the wound stopped bleeding, he was painted with that Derma-Bond skin glue, which has held up quite well, in spite of him picking on it for the past few days. I don’t want to wash it out, because I don’t want him to scar. Then, the next day, he broke a lamp, smashing the bulb in a million tiny pieces all over the dining room, which happens to be room they play in 99% of the time. And would you believe it? My housekeeper neglected to tell me both vacuum cleaners are broken, so the DH had to do emergency repairs on one of them so I could clean up the glass. Try *that* with two curious toddlers in your arms!

(You may be thinking – oh-ho! A housekeeper! She’s leading the easy life. However, things are not what they appear, as the excellent book The Mommy Myth explains better than I can. The long and short of the book is that the mainstream media has forced us parents into a corner of having to make it all look so easy; spotless homes, flawless meals, well behaved (read: silent) children, fabulous figures and wrinkle free faces. However, the efforts of trying to live up to this ideal, an ideal we are beaten with over and over by popular television, tabloid newspapers and magazines, are exhausting and frustrating, because it is practically impossible to achieve. My miniscule attempt at that perfection is having someone come over once a week and scrape a layer of grime and stickiness off my floors and walls. Be that as it may, I still do a lot of cleaning and tidying and the laundry and shopping on my own. I have to! What else can I do when the floor is littered with socks, spoons and sandwich scraps after a meal? Or when the cats track snow and mud across my bed? And who else is going to reassemble the bathroom after twin toddler tubby time? I’m just faking it, like everyone else.)

Baby Genghis also climbs on anything and everything. I don't mind the climbing part, he’s pretty agile, but what he does once he’s up there! When he’s up on the toilet tank he yanks on the wall mirror; when on the kitchen table he likes to fling things from the height; while on the counter tops he turns on the range and reorganizes the cooking utensils, when on the mini bar, he messes with the light switches and the thermostat and, my favorite, when he gets on the TV stand, he fiddles with the stereo. As a result, come into the room and think, “Wow, it’s freakin’ hot in here,” and notice the thermostat is set to 80 degrees. And the stereo? Boy, does it make you jump when the volume is cracked to the max and you click on the radio! The bathroom has been totally cleared of breakables, but we are still debating if we should remove the wall mirror. It’s rather useful to have a mirror in the bathroom, and he uses it as a handhold so he doesn’t fall, so we are leaving it for now. But most other surfaces have been edited. My house, their jungle gym, same thing. The other night I spent a good half hour putting things away; lamps, framed photographs, china ornaments, scented candles, and other tchotchkes. These were things that had been out on the coffee table, then were moved to the top of a cabinet, then to a bookshelf and now must be stored in a box in the cellar in order to save them from the curious paws of Genghis and Attila. Pretty soon the place is going to look like a 16th century monastery after Good King Harry had his way. Attila is not quite as nimble as his brother, but as he watches everything and learns amazingly fast, I have full confidence he too will be adjusting thermostats and smashing light bulbs quite soon.

I am sure most toddlers are destructive little critters in general, and I also know that they are going to climb on anything and everything in their explorations of life. I keep trying to get it into my mother’s skull, that my babies are masters of destructive power and that she needs to do some minimal baby proofing if we are ever to visit. I have suggested she put one of those baby corrals around her larger potted trees, and the bird-cages she has in her house, some of which are on wrought iron stands. When I say bird-cages, in the plural, I really should just type aviary. She has five zebra finches, two lovebirds, a parakeet and a canary. She also has, in addition to the potted trees, avocado plants and shrubs in 50-gallon pots, and orchids and cacti dotted about the house. Some are on stands, some are on low tables and some are on the floor. For the past five months, every time we have been over since the boys started walking, Attila has knocked over the same potted fern and smeared dirt about the place. You would think she’d learn to make some temporary concessions for the sake of her grandsons, who she says she loves…but no. I asked her to put up a baby gate or two, and she said, with this moue of distaste at such a decorating suggestion, “I am not going to have plastic barricades littering my house.” Just so y’all know, my parents’ house isn’t some depressing mansion/mausoleum, or some H and G magazine photo ready Martha Stewart-y 4,000 square ft cottage. It’s pretty humungous and they have some good pieces of furniture and a few rather nice pictures, but they had the same ragged curtains with actual holes in them for eleven years before getting new ones, and there is an enormous water stain on the living room ceiling, that I swear has been there since Reagan was President. My father hadn’t noticed it until I pointed it out, because when he lounges on the settee, his back is to that part of the room. So frankly, no one would notice a few baby gates amongst the stacks of magazines, piles of sofa cushions, shopping bags full of paper, cardboard boxes, piles of clothing, clumps of dog hair, cat toys, millions of books and the general clutter of two people who LOVE to shop and hate to put anything away. Case in point: mother gave father a mini homer-like device for Christmas. You know, the mini beeper dots attach to car keys and eyeglasses and are linked to a base with buttons you press to find your lost object. Well, he oohed and ahhed over this thing, and carefully put it underneath the coffee table until he could attach the beep dots. That was in 2003.

Okay, rant over. The point of this post is this: my darling boys are becoming more creatively destructive by the day, and I need to get them out and about to burn off some energy. Now that the snow has fallen and the wind chill brings the temperature down to the single digits, cabin fever sets in rather quickly for both mother and babies. Our brisk walks don’t sound too nice on two-degree days, even all bundled up. Nor do trips to the museum, because, try as I might, I have not mastered the art of running full speed in two directions at once as they split up and head for the sculpture exhibition. Our best bets have been the life saving playgroups and the groovy guys and gals I have through them. No one is as understanding of a floor covered in macaroni and cheese as another mother of a young child. I addition I have a rather dear neighbor, with two boys of her own, who is always welcoming when I invade with my brood. She usually offers me a spiked hot cocoa when I come by, or she'll just get to the point and ask if I’d like a margarita. At eleven am? Why not? That's another antidote to Cabin Fever, for sure. I usually refuse, I am still nursing, but not always...

I am looking forward to spring even more this year than last. Last winter I was literally stuck in one place with the let’s-nurse-for-twelve-hours-straight-shall-we boys, but now that I have a taste of freedom, my mouth waters for more! Ah, Spring! and romps in the park with my sweet twins. But at this point I’d settle for 35-degree weather, no wind and a little sun so we can go sledding. Unless anyone has a great idea for amusing twin toddlers on a winter's day? I am so very open to suggestions.