Out of the mouth of Maddie

"My mouth feels like a desert island."

-- Maddie, walking into our room this morning to request a drink, STAT.

DNA is a powerful thing

My argument that Mike's DNA is responsible for the collective kookiness of our three children took a hit last weekend, courtesy of my nephew Liam.

Since I saw him last, Liam (along with identical twin Dylan) is walking and starting to talk. Both are obsessed with brooms, mops, and the vacuum cleaner, which means I was extremely tempted to bring one of them home with me. Heather and Kevin don't really need two copies of the same kid, right?? Liam also has a talent I have not seen before. He drinks from a bottle like this:

He manages to empty the bottle without tipping it up. When this picture was taken, we were trying to encourage Liam to mellow out with his pre-nap bottle. He wasn't having any of it until he picked up his black camouflage hoodie and positioned it on my head. Once he was satisfied it was going to stay there, he got serious about drinking his milk. After a few minutes, when the milk coma appeared to be kicking in, I removed the hoodie. Liam stopped drinking, gave me the eye, and said, "Hat." I put the hoodie back on my head, Liam smirked and resumed drinking, and I kept my 'hat' in place until Liam was escorted to his crib.

Maybe Mike's family and Kevin's happen to carry similarly impish genetic traits. Yeah, that's it.

Holiday letter 2010: A Year Too Real

Our annual Christmas greeting probably arrived after December 25 to most of the houses on our list. We decided that if it leaves the house before Christmas, it isn't late. And since I just found the pile that we planned to hand-deliver to our immediate neighbors (because it seemed lame to stamp and mail something to people who live across the street), I guess tardiness is not our only problem. Perhaps we'll be a leaner operation in 2011.

2010 has not been cheap. We’ve extracted snow-damaged trees, teeth and a dying heat pump -- and thus the biggest extractions of all have been from our bank account. The time came to consider extra sources of income. Thus, we plan to sell offer ourselves to the Bravo network as a Real Housewives franchise. Fortunately, we already have many of the elements of a successful Housewives installment:

• Stunning exterior shots: Pix submitted from January 2010 should astound, along the lines of, “I had no idea that much snow could fall in DC.”
• Midlife crisis: With a milestone birthday on the summer horizon, the lead Housewife engages in some ‘life’s too short’ decision-making: Leaving initially promising job that devolved into Dilbert cartoon. Instead of adding 'updating resume' and 'fielding complaints about supervisor' to required minute-by-minute timetracker, Housewife opts for less controversial terminology and calls them 'treatment planning' instead.
• Background spouse: The husband appears sporadically because he's working insane hours on a year-long project (and proposing his own Bravo spin off, tentatively titled Pimp My Computer, Million-Dollar Upgrade, or Mike’s Workstation Takeover).
• Dramatic phone conversations: Housewives love to advance the plot while gripping an iPhone. One call from the oldest Housewife-in-training’s school went like this: “She was having a rough morning, and then she pulled out two of her teeth, and she’s been doing much better since then.” Housewives offspring are often filmed as they attempt to find direction; future seasons could portray Leah learning to extract her own wisdom teeth.
• Road trip: Housewife and family take the show on the road to Duck, NC, to commune with sister-Housewives of LA, Stuttgart, and Sarasota. Possible crossover with Top Chef: Dabbling in Donuts.
• Facial-enhancing surgery: Numbing the jawline for a root canal immobilizes the facial muscles at least as well as Botox and is covered by dental insurance. Members of the greater Crofton community clearly find the resulting smile compelling, as they can’t turn their eyes away from its lopsided charm.
• Bling: The sparkly green and purple, handpicked by Housewife-in-training Lauren to adorn the hardware on the roof of her mouth, cost more than the lead Housewife’s engagement ring.
• Drugs: Housewife-in-training Lauren mellow during dental sedation, Leah whacked out on anesthesia.
• Frequent flashing of credit cards. Three trees removed, one a/c unit replaced, four root canals, a couple of new crowns, a few fillings, two extraction procedures, and a mouthful of hardware -- plenty of opportunities to act like we’re rolling in dough.
• Comic relief: Dentist finds it hilarious when lead Housewife suggests he offer a ‘buy two, get one free’ root canal special.
• Product placement: Leah finds motivation through repeated trips to Five Guys.
• Fast cars and fast women: Road to lead Housewife’s new job is apparently equipped with speed cameras. More uses for credit card.
• Tenuous grip on reality: Housewife-in-training Maddie wants a laptop for Christmas.

And, no matter how lackluster the ratings, our fans know we'll be back for another season.

Best wishes for a happier, cheaper 2011!

Mike, Alison, Leah, Lauren and Maddie Hamilton

Feliz Navidad

All three kids were greeted by this season's hot toy: Pillow pets. Santa had mixed emotions about those, but the excitement from the kids was contagious and they are still in use.

Lauren and Maddie exchanged joke gifts for the first time this year. We teased tomboy Maddie for weeks about asking Santa Claus for a pink flowered dress, so Lauren decided she really wanted to buy her one. So our last-minute shopping this year took place at Goodwill.

Since we didn't want Maddie to feel victimized, Mike convinced her that Lauren needed a joke gift. Maddie picked out a 40 oz. bag of Hershey kisses. Both kids were completely thrilled with their senses of humor, so the two joke gifts were the first ones opened.

Phineas and Ferb barely left Leah's hands in the week after Christmas.

My sister Heather paid homage to my impressive accumulation of frequent-driller miles at the dentist's office by giving me a new set of teeth.

Maddie was (and still is) very proud of her monogrammed sweater vest.

We ended the day with Christmas crackers, a Cocks family tradition that feels like a necessity. It's not really Christmas without those paper crowns. Since my parents were with us, we knew crackers were a must.

Back in time, part 3: Halloween

This year, Mike's mother (aka Mimi) joined us for Halloween. She bravely endured parades and parties at two schools, an orgy of pumpkin-carving and a day trip to Hersheypark in the Dark. We taught her that the best person to hang out with at Hershey is Lauren, who will give any free chocolate that comes her way to the nearest family member. Crazy kid still claims she doesn't like chocolate. I shouldn't complain, since it means more for me, but I feel that I have failed to instill in her one of life's great coping skills.

Mimi enjoyed taking pictures of the fall foliage, which looks a bit different from the October scenery in Texas. Fortunately, she carries a nice camera with her. Ours went on the fritz shortly before she arrived. For those who are keeping score at home, it was our second camera casualty of the year. Camera #1 disappeared from Mike's pocket during an April trip to Hershey. Camera #3 is holding up so far.

I spent an afternoon carving Phineas, Ferb, and Agent P into our pumpkins.

Leah was quite excited about her Hello Kitty costume. She was Mickey Mouse for three years running before I made her pick something else last year (baseball player). We'll see if she tries to bring this one back in 2011.

Maddie and Lauren were Woody and Jessie, to the delight of a preschooler down the street and her toddler brother. The little boy was determined to follow Maddie all over the neighborhood. Maddie was initially a bit wigged out by having a groupie, particularly one that called her Wee-Wee (Woody was a little beyond his skill level at the time). Then she realized having a fan club was actually pretty cool. It gave us another way to yank her chain, too -- if we need to take a little of the wind out of her sails, we pull out the Wee-Wee moniker.

And finally, we got some great pix of my nephew from my sister in Germany. He is his mother's son:

This is the child of the sister who gave each of her bridesmaids a Hot Diggity Dogger, which is now Leah's favorite kitchen appliance. As far as she's concerned, if a hot dog is not cooked at Five Guys, it needs to be prepared in the Dogger.

Back in time, part 2: Pimp my light fixture

Lauren apparently is underwhelmed by the dining room decor. I'm wondering if she could beef up her college fund with an eBay store devoted to recycled My Little Ponies.

(For those who are unfamiliar with My Little Ponies, they have a magnet in one of their front feet. So far Lauren has not divulged how it occurred to her to try them out on the chandelier in the first place.)

Back in time: Fall 2010

Call this the real-world equivalent of doing your holiday break homework the day before school resumes. Instead of opening a math book, I am updating the family blog, which has been neglected in much the same way my academics were relegated to the back burner in favor of all things Christmas. Our real lives resume tomorrow, making me miss college and the monthlong breaks we got at Christmas. But I digress.

Over Labor Day weekend (yep, we're going that far back), we took the kids on a pirate cruise around Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

Pirate costumes were mandatory, even for the adults.

The kids had many opportunities to fire water cannons at enemy pirates.

And they ended the day with booty from the treasure chest, which they liked all the more because it was called 'booty.'

Kids loved it, Mike and I were intrigued by the Bring Your Own Grog adult cruises. Who's with us?

Better than half the stuff on TV

Me (doing some online shopping): I need to get my wallet.

Maddie (following me, using voiceover tones): Who will be safe? Who will live? Who will die?

Me: (blank stare)

Maddie: I was just trying to add some excitement to this adventure.

Compliments of the season

This is for all of you who remember Leah's past obsession with a certain holiday tune. I created this card at great risk to myself, since Leah's beginning to develop a new obsession with watching herself on the video. Happy holidays, and let's hope we're not in for Feliz Navidad: The Sequel.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Compliments of the season

This is for all of you who remember Leah's past obsession with a certain holiday tune. I created this card at great risk to myself, since Leah's beginning to develop a new obsession with watching herself on the video. Happy holidays, and let's hope we're not in for Feliz Navidad: The Sequel.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Her platform: A remote control in the hand of every child

"I'm Miss Hawaii."

That's how Leah greeted me one evening last week, wearing the following ensemble:

Apparently pageant rules require all Miss Hawaii contestants to be Texas Longhorns fans. And wear their mother's blue loafers.

Well, that's a relief

"At least we know she's never going to be a burglar."

-- Mike, after Maddie's morning exuberance woke us up more effectively than our alarm clock did.

Fantasy Football 2010: It's On!

With half an hour to go to our draft, unsurprisingly, Mike is perusing the preseason stats and I'm searching for the perfect team name and logo. Perhaps that is why he is the defending league champion and I barely made the playoffs.

This year's team will be referencing The Hangover. I've christened us Not Up In Here! (One of my fave throwaway lines from the movie.) My main reason for boring our handful of blog readers with a fantasy post is that I need a url for my team's logo.

Guess I'd better pick some players now, huh? I hear Ben Roethlisberger is set to have a great season!

iTwins

Amid the 'night before' excitement surrounding the first day of school, I helped Lauren and Maddie make their own 'iCarly' video. I don't think I'll be recruited for freelance camera work anytime soon.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

"Timing is Everything"

It's Leah's new favorite phrase.

If I give her a schedule for the day, she tells me, "Timing is everything."

If I tell her that we can't go to the pool now, but we can go in another hour, she responds, "Timing is everything." It's her mantra for the summer.

The other night, I was an unwilling -- OK, very angry -- referee between Lauren and Maddie, who were overtired and cranky as they put away some laundry. Before long, they were in a screaming match over the exact placement of the laundry basket, which they were supposed to be emptying. Having briefly imagined one or both was being maimed or killed, you can imagine my delight when I walked in their room and saw that the household was at a standstill because one of them wanted to move the laundry basket about six inches closer to the bedroom door. Or something like that. I refused to listen to tearful pleas about the latitude and longitude of the basket, placed it on a random spot, and told them rather forcefully that the basket was not moving from that spot. Maddie continued to voice her dissenting opinion (I think letting an argument go is simply not in that child's DNA), Lauren was in tears, and I was thinking how much cheaper it would have been to stop at one child. I gave them both the evil eye before letting them know, at full volume, "I. Don't. Care."

Apparently all the drama drew Leah to the scene, unnoticed until that moment. While the other two were either reeling from the evil eye or drawing breath for Round 12, Leah said, "I don't care either, Mommy."

She not only preaches it, she practices it: Timing is everything.

Summer vacation slideshow

Continuing the proud tradition of prompt uploading, here is a slide show Heather compiled of pix from our vacation in Duck, NC. Both sets of twins celebrated birthdays during the trip (one with slightly more significance than the other), so 'Twins Day' is prominently featured.

Vacation photos: The twins' parasailing adventure

My plan was to take Leah parasailing during our Outer Banks vacation. She has never been a particularly fearful kid, and she loves wind, so I thought cruising above the beaches would be fifteen minutes of sensory bliss. I also imagined the twins, who have fairly active imaginations, would want nothing to do with it.

And of course, the opposite happened: Leah nixed parasailing (I'm still convinced she would have loved it once she'd gotten up there, but I had no desire to argue with her on the deck of a moving boat) and the twins were all over the idea. So their Uncle Kevin and I took them instead.

Ready for takeoff. Strapping into the harness got Maddie a little nervous.

Up she goes: Once she was airborne, Maddie's fear was replaced by excitement. She gave us a big "Oh, YEAH!" as soon as we left the deck. Lauren wore a 'What have I done?' expression for the first five minutes or so, but once she realized the harnesses were going to hold us, she relaxed and enjoyed the views.


The optional 'toe dip' dipped a little more than our feet. It's an inexact science.

You can't see her behind the harness, but Lauren's smile was definitely back. The $40 photo package was worth it, I think, since we already lost one camera this year on a rollercoaster at Hershey Park.

Triumphant landing. Good time was had by all. The twins are still enjoying telling everyone on the birthday party circuit that they went parasailing this summer.

We ♥ Smartasses

Many of you know that our Lauren has selective mutism. Thanks mostly to an amazing therapist, the verb may be close to becoming "had" as she talked almost completely freely to everybody on our recent vacation with Alison's family.

The whole odyssey started three years ago, when Lauren seldom spoke to us from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Somehow, we got on the subject of that summer at dinner tonight. Just having Lauren be able to talk about this was unthinkable until recently. Everybody shared their memories, and I wrapped it up by saying "and Lauren hasn't had any problems talking to us since then."

Then she got that sparkle in her eyes and said, with flawless timing, "Until now."

And she shut up for about three seconds. Never has a laugh felt so good.