Today I tried to clean out my minivan while letting the twins play with chalk on the driveway. Yes I really thought that while I threw books, toys, 19238417234 cheerios and stale donut holes out of our car, they'd sit there and have a grand time.

(CUE all the experienced moms laughing knowing exactly what’s about to happen)

Rookie mistake.

As soon as Mr. Hanks jumped in the car and started helping me clean (ie. eating the 19238417234 cheerios) the girls followed suit and started jumping in and licking up the cheerios like a dog as well. After all, they really do think that they’re dogs sometimes. Which is ok, because Mr. Hanks thinks he’s human. It’s a trade off. Anyways, after an hour of wrangling the three of them… with the last straw being the HUGE bag full of trash (and I confess some fresh dog poo that I had just picked up out of our yard) being dumped BACK INTO MY VAN while I was cleaning the twins seats (which is a whole nother ball game)… I finally got smart and buckled them in, brought out snacks, and turned a movie on.

Mom wins. Twins win. Mr. Hanks wins (bc air conditioning… duh). And alas our DISGUSTING van was clean (really... it was SO gross) so a HUGE win for my uber clean and organized husband.

But I feel like this summarizes all of my parenting experiences. Try to do something new or enter a new parenting stage and the beginning is a HUGE COLASSAL STRUGGLE... BUT eventually we figure out a way to confine the twins, er, I mean we find a way that works for our family. The three's definitely started out this way. The last 2 months we were all struggle bussing it with empty promises of never going out in public again and boarding school, and then somewhere, somehow, we found our footing. Nothing magical happened… rather it just eventually clicked or we moved onto the next stage. And this happens with every new stage... EVERY TIME. I'm all... WOE IS ME WE'LL NEVER SURVIVE and then BAM I'm all like THIS IS THE BEST STAGE EVER. (I just don't know where the girls get their dramatics from).

ALAS... in celebration of it finally clicking (kind of)… I wanted to document a few of our fav things about the twins during this stage because had you asked me a few weeks ago what my favorite things were I would've looked at you with crazy eyes and yelled, "THERE ARE NO GOOD THINGS," while sipping a venti red eye and reminiscing about the good ole days when I slept and peed by myself.

So while I'm in a good mood... here we go...

Noel refers to herself as “Foel” despite being able to say the word “No!” quite fluently and frequently. And Felicity refers to Noel as "O-el." SWOON.
Felicity loves apple juice and Foel loves orange juice. And they love to argue about which one they’re getting, despite the fact that I give them their favorite almost every time.
Our nap time routine includes at least 25 minutes (minimum) of me telling them to “not get out of your bed,” “no you cannot ‘sleep’ with sissy,” and “DO NOT GET TRAPPED UNDER THE FITTED SHEET AGAIN.”
They love bossing Mr. Hanks around as if he’s their brother. “No Hanks, Stop that. Come COME Hanks.” Also, dressing him up is a recent fav pastime.
They’re bossy in the car and know the routes to the YMCA and Target. Not sure what it says about me when my kids get mad at me while on our way to church and start yelling, “No mama, THAT WAY. Go that way to target!!!” #targetaddictprobs
They love to listen to music, or mooozick, as they pronounce it.
They talk a lot, but still use their baby jabber and twin talk. Just today Noel kept repeating some phrase that I had NO CLUE WHAT IT WAS and Felicity repeated it at me all like come on woman don’t you understand her?! Felicity got so frustrated with my lack of understanding Noel that she huffed off saying the phrase on repeat and brought a toy over to Noel and said it again while looking at me like… idiot.
Speaking of attitude… Noel has mastered the pout and Felicity has mastered the temper tantrum. Like they’re pro’s at it. I think the 2’s were a practice round for 3’s. During their 2’s, they learned HOW to do it (increase in quantity), there 3’s are for learning WHEN to do it at the best time to get maximum results (increase in quality). Bless it, I think they’re learning strategy.
Noel has learned that she’s funny.
Felicity has found her voice.
Their love for each other and care for our family is astounding. One second I think they’re about to strangle the other, but as soon as one of them falls or gets hurt… the other one is right there asking, “Oel, you ok?” or “Licity, you ok?” Or if the other one sneezes they’re quick to sweetly say, “Bless you sissy!”
On that same note, they’ve learned what makes the other one happy and will bring it to them whenever they’re sad/in trouble/mad/etc.
Teaching them things is FUN during this stage because they love learning new things. Whereas teaching them things during the 2’s gave me heart palpitations and hives (only a slight exaggeration).
They love seeing the moon at night... and they get confused when it's cloudy at night and they can't find it. We hear "Where'd the moon go Mama?" 2379 times on a 5 minute car ride on these nights.
They refer to Cinderella as “Tanglerella” & they refer to Tangled as “Tangled” soooooo…. I’m not really sure what happened there but we just go with it.
They still say “Hold you?” instead of “Hold me?”
Did I mention that they’re bossy? Felicity tells us all the time when brushing her hair, “EASY DADDY!” or when putting an item on her plate she wants us to put it in a specific spot and says, “PUT IT RIGHT THERE.” I keep telling them that we don’t negotiate with terrorists… but they don’t seem to care.
They are DADDY’S girls for sure, but when something scares or hurts them, they want their mama. So we both win.
Speaking of Daddy… They love to stand on the porch and cheer him on as he leaves for work in the morning.
They love planes & helicopters. Oh, and BTW... helicopter is pronounced “Helicocker.” And yes, we laugh. EVERY TIME.

WHEW. If there are any of you who actually read that whole list and you aren’t a relative… wow. I applaud you. It might seem like a lot… but I know myself well enough to know that I will forget some of these things one day if I never write them down. So alas… the forever long blog post.

Alright. That’s all for now. Here’s to the girls being 3 and surviving and ENJOYING all that this year will entail!

Much love,

Three's