No Expectations

do your bamboo diapers smell like dirty dish water? read this:

2011-08-05T10:26:00.000-04:00

*note* this post is not for my regular readers. Although, I know you REALLY want to talk about stinky diapers and how to clean them. Really, you do. Skip this post and I'll be back to the regular blah blah blah soon.

If your baby's diapers stink, like really smell dirty when they are wet, but there is no sign of poop, you probably have detergent and/or mineral build up in the diaper fibers. Too much build up can lead to your diapers repelling and well, stinking. Much like you do if you have ammonia build up, you are going to need to strip your diapers. Stripping diapers is easy, but it can be a process. Here are some simple steps to strip detergent/ mineral build up from your diapers:

Take your clean diapers and put them in the washer or tub
Fill it with HOT water-- as hot as you can stand
Allow the diapers to soak for a couple of hours, adding more hot water through a tea kettle or pot of almost boiling water, to the tub, as the water in the tub cools.
Agitate the water every now and then, to allow the water to really penetrate the layers of bamboo
Drain the water and put the diapers in the washer (if they are in the bathtub)
Run a hot water wash without detergent

You do not want to use detergent during this process because it will only add detergent to the build up, and be pretty much pointless.

OR, you can run 3-4 hot water washes with extra rinses without detergent.

At this point, it is helpful to use RLR. RLR is a laundry additive that helps break down minerals and leaves your diapers nice and bright. And let's be honest, it has the most awesome packaging around. Truly. So to use the RLR, you are going to do a regular hot wash, with a little bit of detergent. Just sprinkle the RLR into the washer drum and start your wash cycle. After the wash cycle is done, run another few rinses, or if your diapers were pretty grungy, run a couple of hot washes without detergent. RLR breaks down all of the nasties, but if there are too many nasties in there, RLR will break them down and bring them to the surface of the fibers, but they will need a few more rinses/ washes to fully come out.

Once your diapers are free of detergent/ mineral build up, it is very important to change your wash routine to keep build up from forming again. Like with ammonia, you can do one or a combination of the following:

change your detergent amount (you will most likely need to use less)
get more water into your washer during the wash cycle
add another post-wash rinse

You need to be sure you are using the right detergent for your water type. If you have hard water, you should use a detergent formulated for hard water and/ or add calgon to your wash routine. If you have soft water, you are going to need to use a detergent that is formulated for soft water, so it is easily rinsed out. If you have regular old city water, then you can probably get away with using a cloth diaper safe detergent and playing with the amount you use, and the water levels in the wash cycles to find a good, stink free balance.

I love using RLR about once a month just as maintenance and to help keep any build up at bay. If you have hard water, you can use it more often. Just be sure to do those extra washes/ rinses after you use the RLR, to wash away all the grossness.

If you have any questions or need clarification on something, please let me know! I'm happy to help :)

have ammonia in your bamboo cloth diapers? read this:

2011-08-05T09:53:00.001-04:00

*note* this post is not for my regular readers :) I know you guys are uber tired of me talking about bodily functions and internal organs and poop. So just skip on by this post, and I will get back to your regularly scheduled nonsense soon. This summer has seriously been ridonkulous in the worst way possible.

Ammonia build up can be cause by a couple of things-- allowing urine to dry in the bamboo diapers, bacteria formed when urine and stool mix and too much detergent and/or minerals that build up in the diaper fibers.

Bamboo is a blessing and a curse because it is super absorbent and can work splendidly as an overnight diaper, but because it is so absorbent, it absorbs more than your typical cotton, fleece or microfiber diaper which can make it more difficult for your normal washer and wash routine to get all of that urine out. Allowing the urine, especially in an overnight diaper, to dry completely before wash day is a main factor in ammonia build up.

So you might be wondering, "How will I know if I have ammonia build up?" Oh, you will know. It will start out innocently enough, with maybe a slight smell when you take the diaper off the baby in the morning, or maybe a red spot on their little bum. But soon it will turn into an eye blazing, nose burning, butt blistering problem if you don't take care of it. A slight ammonia smell in the diaper pail is normal. As long as the diaper isn't smelling like ammonia after the baby wets it, you are fine. If the diaper doesn't stink when your baby wets it, it means your washer and wash routine are doing a good job of washing out all of those ammonia crystals, and you really don't need to worry about changing anything. But if the diaper is smelling after the baby has wet it, it is going to be a problem.

If you have ammonia build up, you need to get rid of it. It isn't good for your baby's butt and honestly, it can make cloth diapering a nightmare. First, you will need to strip the diaper. To do that, you can follow the steps below:
(you can do this in your washing machine, if you have a top loader, or in your bath tub)

Take your clean diapers and put them in the washer or tub
Fill it with HOT water-- as hot as you can stand
Allow the diapers to soak for a couple of hours, adding more hot water through a tea kettle or pot of almost boiling water, to the tub, as the water in the tub cools.
Agitate the water every now and then, to allow the water to really penetrate the layers of bamboo

I like to use Bac-Out during this process. If you have Bac-Out, you can add about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of it to the water as you are soaking them. Other people prefer to do a detergent soak with Rockin Green or Funk Rock. I prefer not to do this, as I fear a detergent soak will only lead to detergent build up. People have mentioned using Dawn dish soap to strip your diapers, only do this if your diapers are repelling because of a barrier cream. If you do decide to use a detergent, funk rock, or dawn to strip the diapers, you will need to really rinse them out to get all of the detergent and soap out of there.

After you have soaked your diapers in the hot water, rinse them and transfer them to the washer or drain the washer and do a rinse/ spin cycle and then start a HOT wash with your regular detergent. Wash the diapers, rinse them, and then wash them on hot again, this time without detergent.

By this time, your diapers should be good and stripped. If they smell like ammonia the next time the baby wets them, repeat the process but this time use either the bac-out (if you didn't use it before) or do a detergent soak.

Once you do not have an ammonia smell when your baby wets the diaper, it is time to get proactive to keep that ammonia away. I recommend using a wet pail to combat ammonia (I'll explain that in a minute) but some people are not comfortable using a wet pail, and that is totally fine. You can help keep ammonia at bay by doing one, or a combination of the following:

add another rinse to your pre-wash rinse
add funk rock to your pre-wash rinse
change your detergent amount (you might have to add more, sometimes you need to use less)
get more water into your washer during the wash cycle
add another post wash rinse
add bac-out to your pre-wash rinse
do a 30 minute bac-out soak before after your pre-wash rinse and before your wash cycle
change your detergent. If your detergent isn't getting the diapers clean enough, it isn't going to be able to wash out all of that ammonia and you are going to get build up.

I believe it is really important to rinse at least the overnight diapers, after you take them off the baby. This will wash out most of that urine and help prevent those ammonia crystals from forming. To do this, you can rinse them in a bathtub or with the diaper sprayer. If you chose to rinse them, you can either wring them out and put them in your dry pail, or put them in a wet pail. If you chose to wring them out and put them in a dry pail, you need to be diligent about washing your diapers within a day or so, so bacteria and/or icky mildew doesn't form. If you chose to use a wet pail, this is one of the ways you can do it:

get a bucket or a small (5-10 gallon) garbage can
fill it with cool water, about half way
put 1/8-1/4 cup bac-out in the water, as the bucket is filling (optional)
rinse the diaper and doublers and place them into the pail

On wash day, you can either take the pail to the washing machine and dump the entire contents of the pail into the washer, or you can pull the diapers out and place them in the washer, and then dump the leftover water into the toilet or tub. If you don't have a lot of diapers in the pail, it is easy to dump the water, and then put the diapers into the washer. Then proceed with your normal wash routine. Because our laundry room is really a laundry closet, and I wash a TON of diapers and our wet pail weighs approximately eleventy billion pounds, I keep the pail next to the toilet/ bath tub and then drag the pail to the washer and pull the diapers out, then dump the leftover water into the toilet. I wear gloves while doing this, and while rinsing because I'm not looking for a spot on Dirty Jobs... although... it wouldn't be so bad if Mike Rowe decided to come for a visit...

If your changing area and place to rinse the diapers are far from the laundry area, and you prefer to keep the wet pail by the laundry area, you can rinse the diapers and then transport them to the laundry area using a small bucket, bowl or pail.

If you do not want to rinse your diapers and put them into a dry pail or wet pail, then you can spray them with bac-out after you take them off the baby and place them in the dry pail. The key to preventing ammonia is going to make sure your wash routine is flawless, but in the days of high efficiency/ low water washers, this is not always possible so other means of prevention are necessary.

Please let me know if you have questions or if something isn't clear. I am always happy to help and want to make sure that your cloth diapering experience is a good, frustrating free one.

desperate measures

2011-06-11T22:29:00.001-04:00

I've made it a rule to never complain about my kids, and I try really hard to stick to that. Of course they aren't perfect, but most of the time it isn't their fault when they are driving me crazy and I don't think it is fair to them to announce to the world that they might be making me a little bit batty at the moment. Kids are kids. They need things. They want things. They don't have the capacity to be patient for things. And when you have 4 kids, who all need and want and aren't patient for things, all at the same time, you can get a little batty a little faster than you would like.

M has been gone for 5 weeks. 5 weeks of no contact, except for a short letter here and there. And it isn't like he's sending me a postcard with a picture of some gorgeous beach on it. He sends letters saying someone stole his laundry detergent and he needs me to send him some, and hand drawn pictures of him jumping out of planes. And believe me, I am thankful that I do get to hear from him at all, even if it is about how he probably got some swamp flu from trekking in the mud all day, but I want to *talk* to him.

So it has just been me, and the kids, for 35 straight days now. No reinforcements, no backup, no breaks. And they are generally good kids, except like I said, they just need and want a lot of things, and they need them and want them RIGHT NOW. I'm tired... so, so tired. I just want... sleep. That's it. I'll take 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Maybe even 6.

Last night's plan of paying the big kids 2 coins each if they slept until 7 this morning totally backfired, and both were in my bed at 6:13 this morning, asking if they could have their coins. (Yes, coins. Not nickles or dimes, or even quarters. They just want coins. Any kind of coins. Just to put in their piggy banks. Thank goodness for all of those random Euro coins I keep finding) So tonight, I've gone rogue. The battle is on. I need my sleep and I am going to get it.

A and MJs room has been stocked with a cup of water and a snack bag for each girl, along with a stack of books and some toys they haven't seen in awhile. W and CB's room is stocked with juice and dry cereal, bananas for each of them and a computer with a dvd. This is the one time I am very glad W can read, because when he wakes up he will see the note I have left for him: "DO NOT WAKE YOUR MOTHER UP, UNLESS YOU ARE BLEEDING OR THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE. And here's a dvd for you and CB to watch. REMEMBER,DO NOT WAKE YOUR MOTHER UP AND NO FIGHTING. Love and kisses, Mommy".

7 hours kids. Just, 7 hours... that's all I want... desperate times are calling for desperate measures.

third and fourth

2011-06-02T10:48:00.000-04:00

Before W was born, I was the perfect parent. He wasn't going to be allowed to watch TV or play video games, the computer was going to be off limits and we were going to only have educational toys. He was only going to eat organic and healthy... Fast forward 18 months and he's playing with my cell phone while eating marshmallows while watching Baby Einstein. So I wasn't mother of the year then, for sure. But I was pretty strict about only eating in the high chair and sitting properly on the furniture, no jumping on the bed and only going outside with shoes and shirts on.

Then CB came along and I got a little more lax. We didn't always eat at the table. You could often find her sitting on the back of the couch, eating her snacks. They didn't always wear shoes outside and when it was hot they were shirtless most of the time. They got away with making more of a mess than I would have like and things definitely weren't as controlled as I preferred, but oh well.

Then A and MJ came along. These girls, my third and fourth, get away with so much it isn't even funny. I kind of feel like as long as they aren't bleeding or their arm is bent the wrong way and they aren't in danger, it will be ok. There is so much that just doesn't matter to me anymore.

Sitting on the table? Fine, as long as they are quiet. Eating in the living room? Awesome, just put a blanket down and we will call it a picnic. Wearing 2 different shoes? Perfect, at least they have them on. Cereal for dinner? At least they are eating and I don't have to do dishes. Jumping on the bed? Exercise. It will wear them out before bed. Spill your plate? Fine, I'll clean it up later. No need to freak out or get upset. Things happen. A already knows how the Wii remote works, and mimics the motions as W plays Mario Kart. MJ and CB really enjoy playing Dora games on the computer. Hand eye coordination, right? (Justification is my favorite thing in the entire world)

Either I have become incredibly apathetic or I've relaxed a lot. I don't know. And all of the above really makes me sound like a horrible mother, but I don't think I am a horrible mother. They aren't out of control, they are just... curious... and there are 2 of them. And one of me. They are good kids. They listen, they play nice, the care for each other and their brother and sister, so I think we're doing ok... but my goodness they have changed me. And I am so glad they have.

and the winner is...

2011-05-13T16:12:00.001-04:00

So blogger apparently got hungry and decided to eat the comments that were submitted yesterday. I tried to republish them from my email but only get an error message saying "This comment no longer exists" or something similar. I guess it is trying to hide the evidence of its binge. Thankfully I had saved all of the comment notifications so I published them under my name, in the order they were received.

And the winner is:

Marie! Congrats girl :) I will send the planner to your inbox in a couple of minutes. Thanks for playing, everyone.

new beginnings {and a giveaway--holla!}

2011-05-09T12:30:00.000-04:00

It seems like every few months, particularly once when we get into a good rhythm and routine, something happens to knock us out of our comfort and forces us to revamp and renew. That is the ebb and flow of our lives, I'm not really surprised by it anymore. I guess I have learned to see it coming.

After being laid up for nearly 7 weeks and having help around the clock, I became pretty spoiled and kind of forgot how to juggle being a mom and wife while doing all of those other things I had to do to keep things running. I am now having to retrain myself and figure out the best way to make this house run. So I've started over with organizing and cleaning, making sure that I have my system back in place. Thankfully, I have an awesome "cheat sheet" to help me along: my trusty planner from The Project Girl, Jen Allyson.

I have been using this planner since the beginning of the year, and it is wonderful. It is set up to keep you organized and accountable to yourself, especially if you have housework specific ADD like I do, or if you are just plain busy. Each day has a list of simple "chores" to complete and by the time you are done with the week, your house will be clean. There's really no need to do a huge deep cleaning one day a week or month because you will rotate through all of those tasks through the week, instead of doing it all at once. This makes housework so much more manageable. Knowing you only need to do a few things through the day is a huge relief, unlike the burden of having to spend an entire day cleaning.

And, best of all, it is customizable. So if there is something on there that you just don't do, then you can take it off. And you can add in all of those pesky little things you forget to do, or put off and never get around to... like cleaning the dried up food from under the high chair pads... not that I've ever forgotten to do that before... so you won't forget to get it done.

There is also a space to write in your appointments and/or meals for the week and your shopping list. I love that all of my to-do lists and shopping lists and "what did I have to do again today??" lists can be kept in one place. I have printed my pages out and placed them in a binder, separated by month, but you could do something cute like Jen did and make yours into a book.

I really encourage you to go check out The Project Girl. She has lots of eye candy (and a really cute new baby) and some great ideas for organization and design. And she has some super fun and helpful freebies too, which I have pretty much shamelessly snatched up and added to my "command center" binder.

This is a time of new beginnings for me; it is my second shot at the New Year, even though the year is nearly half over. And I know many of you are coming into a transition time also, be it the end of school for you kids, a new season, husbands coming or going, moving... So as a Happy New Year gift, I am going to give away one of JenAllyson's Awesome Planners to one of my readers. All you have to do is:

leave me a comment on this post with your favorite organization tip or trick
put your first name and a valid email address in the comment, if you don't have it in your profile, so I can get the planner to the winner.
promise that you will only use it for personal use and won't share it with anyone else.

All entries must be received by Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 11:59pm EST and the winner will be chosen by random.org and announced on Friday, May 13... ooooooh! Friday the 13! ZOINKS! You are more than welcome to share this giveaway with your friends, link on your blog and on Facebook, but only one entry per person is allowed. Incomplete and duplicate entries will be not be entered.

Good Luck!

freeeeeeeaky.

2011-04-26T18:28:00.000-04:00

Last night we put the babies to bed and headed outside to finish up our container garden. Now, I'm not positive the container garden will survive more than a couple of weeks because I have absolutely NO clue what I am doing, but we tried, and that is all that matters, right? The big kids were helping us out, filling the pots with dirt and throwing away the trash... and running off to play soccer and put rocks in their "rock collection" which is really a huge pile of cement "rocks" they have thrown in a garbage can. And come to think of it, I really am not quite sure where that garbage can came from... probably the same place the extra soccer ball that magically appeared in our yard came from... unless my kids are kelptos, which is a very likely possibility.

Anyway, at one point as the sun was setting CB looked up in the sky and SCREAMED, "LOOK! AN ALIEN SPACE SHIP!!!!" and then ran around the yard. And we were like, yes, that's probably right so we didn't pay much attention and then she screamed it again and ran around the yard once more. Once she had run back to the porch near us, M asked her how many aliens were on the space ship and she responded, very matter-of-factly, with, "fifty-one." Yeeeeeah. I'm now 100% sure she is from another world.

flow charts and venn diagrams

2011-04-20T19:40:00.002-04:00

I need a series of flow charts and diagrams in order to feed my family. Excel Pro or Power Point or something. I have gotten part of my "diagnosis" from my GI "issues" and am officially allergic to wheat and peanuts, and probably some other stuff, like apples and some veggies, but we don't know what yet. And that kinda really sucks because I'm a big, BIG fan of carbs. Breads, pastas, lots of pasta, noodles, pastries, pasta, cinnamon rolls, pie... all of it are favorites. Did I mention pasta? Yep, love it. And I don't mean that healthy smart pasta either, I mean the wholesome goodness of enriched bleached flour pasta. And bread... again, not whole grain/ multi grain/ bird food bread. I'm talking the kind of bread that is so soft and preserved that you can roll it up into little balls and it will stay that way until you pop it in your mouth.

But alas, there will be no more delicious pasta or bread in my life. And that makes me sad because bread and pasta are the perfect catalyst for pretty much everything. Radishes? Gross. Until you put some Mediterranean yogurt cheese and sea salt on a piece of fresh bread and add the radish to it. Arugula? Disgusting! Until you add some olive oil, shrimp and capers, lemon juice, white wine, artichoke hearts, fresh oregano and parsley with some fresh chopped tomatoes and toss it all with some pasta... AMAZEBALLS. Have some fresh berries and buttermilk and eggs that are about to go bad? Make some French Toast!

Yes, there is rice pasta and wheat free bread but what is the point? The textures are wrong and it just doesn't feel right. And that is really lame for me to say because half of my kids have never even tasted real bread and pasta before. CB just started eating wheat last year. They have to suffice with the "fake" stuff so it should be good enough for me too. But I just can't do it. I don't want to do it.

Feeding my family is difficult enough already and now throwing my allergies into the mix make it even more ridiculous. The only person who can eat "normal" is M. He has no food issues, well, only if there isn't enough hot sauce... then there is a major issue. W can have almost anything but not "raw" dairy, like a glass of milk or regular milk in his cereal. Cooked milk, like cheese and yogurt are ok. But we do have to limit that and the amount of nuts he has. He also doesn't do well at all with processed foods or things that have sugars, preservatives and food dyes in them. So we pretty much keep him on a whole foods diet as much as we can.

CB can have wheat and eggs in moderation and she can have oatmeal too but anything with dairy, soy, beef and nuts are out of the question. She also can't eat apples or pears which eliminates most fruit snacks and juices.

Baby A is officially allergic to soy, barley and grapes (?!?!?) and can't tolerate diary, soy, wheat, oatmeal, eggs, nuts, beef and almost all fruits. Except bananas. Girl loves her bananas.

Baby MJ is not officially allergic to anything but will get a diaper full of blood if she has even a nibble of something with trace dairy, like a McDonald's french fry. She is also extremely symptomatic to everything Baby A is: soy, wheat, nuts, eggs, beef, and pretty much all fruits, but she can have barley and grapes.

They can do potatoes but we can't just get them french fries while we are out because we can't be sure they aren't made with vegetable oil, which is almost always made from soy beans. We can't just order them a chicken breast without a fuss because most are marinated or brushed with oil or butter while cooking. I can't just give them a cracker or a cookie to snack on and almost all toddler geared "snacks" are made with at least one thing they can't have.

W and CB have been eating Wheat Free/ Dairy Free Fig Newmans for years so I figured they would be ok with A and MJ. But, they are made with barley flour. So MJ gets to eat "two cookies" but A can't. I personally really love the allergen free Enjoy Life Snickerdoodle cookies and ordered a huge box for A, but then I saw they are sweetened with grape juice, so that is out. It is hard to bake anything for them. Most substitutions are not agreeable to them so that really isn't an option either.

So obviously, all of this poses a problem. If I want to make pancakes in the morning I'll need to make 3 kinds: one regular (flour, eggs, buttermilk and butter) for M and W, one with oat flour and the rest of the ingredients for me and one allergen free one for the babies and CB. Or I could make 4 kinds and make CBs with wheat flour and a diary substitute. And by the time I'm done cooking, Saturday morning cartoons would have given way to Saturday afternoon golf. And yes, I could make one kind but lets face it, the kind that all of us could eat is really not that tasty and is really super expensive to make once you add up all of the ingredients, so I'd rather make 2 cheaper batches and one expensive "half batch" for the girls.

What I need is a huge venn diagram to assist me. One that will fit nicely between W's drawings of Mario and CB's drawings of Frosting Princesses and a "box of wind". It would be a ridiculously lopsided diagram though-- the circle in the middle with what we could all eat would be, by far, the smallest of them all. As it stands now, the only things we can all eat are:

Starches: rice, quinoa (in moderation), potatoes and corn (in moderation and only in "ground up" form)
Meats: chicken, turkey and salmon
Fruits: bananas and blueberries
Veggies: carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, kale, peas and green beans

Sounds delicious, right? By Tuesday night, we have exhausted most of our options for meals we can all partake of and then I end up cooking 2 to 3 dinners a night. And that isn't including lunch and breakfast because then we get into the fact that we have 3 kinds of "peanut" butters to choose from: natural peanut, almond and sun butter if we want PB&J and the fact that the babies and I can't have bread so we would eat it on a rice cake... yum. Or if we wanted to have, say, a chicken pasta salad I'd have to make 3 kinds, one with everything for M and W, one with everything CB could eat and then one for me and the babies with rice pasta and cheese and dressing on the side so I could add it later for myself.

And then there's the milk situation. In summery: 1% and Soy for M, 2% for me, Rice milk for W, CB and the babies and then Neocate for the babies also to make sure they are getting enough nutrients. 5 kinds of milk, for 6 people. Consumerism at its finest, I tell you.

I guess I should be thankful I'm still on the "tator tot and milkshake" diet-- at least it makes it so I have one less meal to think about.

minor mental meltdown

2011-04-11T10:40:00.000-04:00

I've had the physical meltdown, now I'm fearing I'm experiencing the mental meltdown. I'm tired. And everything is just... jacked. My control freak self has had to give up control of almost everything and in the midst of the chaos, I couldn't, and wouldn't let it bother me. But now that I'm "supposed" to be feeling better it is all starting to drive me a bit batty.

My kids run at 689 MPH. All of them. They never stop and there is always something to be taken care of. And that is the kind of chaos I normally crave. But since I am moving at 3 MPH these days there is no possible way I can keep up. Vortex. Tornado. Whirlpool. Blender. Black hole... Magic Bullet (which by the way is one of the greatest kitchen gadgets ever invented...) That is what I feel like I'm in. Everything is just moving around me while I try to grasp at something, anything, to hold onto.

A few nights ago was a prime example. At approximately 4:37, when dinner should have been cooking and kids should have been playing quietly, hell broke loose. After getting my fourth email in 12 minutes that needed to be answered immediately and dealing with some stuff over the phone I went upstairs to see why A was screaming at MJ and MJ was screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!, only to find that they were just screaming to scream and A had a massive rash all over her torso. And her diaper was a mess. And she was screaming inconsolably, again, as she had done for much of the day.

At the same time CB decided she was going to go ahead and clean herself after using the bathroom, only she did it so thoroughly that she used half a roll of toilet paper. Then W was throwing some kind of fit because I told him he could not do something he REALLY wanted to do and it WASN'T FAIR that I wouldn't let him do it because he WANTED TO and I was a REALLY MEAN MOM. And then little MJ decided she wanted a diaper change too, and to steal her sister's blanket and binkie... and they all wanted to eat RIGHT NOW...

So as I was putting on gloves and fishing wads of soaking wet toilet paper from the toilet I was on the phone with the doctor's office, asking what to do about A, while she wanted to be picked up and was screaming into the phone. And after removing enough toilet paper from the toilet so it would actually flush, I fixed dinner and then squashed an epic battle between brother and sister because sister didn't PRAY BEFORE SHE ATE AND THAT IS NOT OK. YOU ARE ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO PRAY BEFORE YOU EAT. And sister kept insisting she PRAYED IN HER HEAD AND SAID AMEN OUT LOUD but brother kept insisting that was NOT OK because you ONLY PRAY IN YOUR HEAD FOR BREAKFAST AND LUNCH AND YOU PRAY YOUR WHOLE PRAYER OUT LOUD BEFORE DINNER. And how DARE she even take a bite of her food before we all prayed... And between all of that I was trying to get dinner for the MJ Monster and A, who was still crying, while scolding W and asking if he really thought Jesus wanted him to be talking to his sister and mother that way and if he would prefer to have a time out, instead of dinner.

And that is normal life. Any other day it would hardly phase me because it really isn't that bad but I don't have the capacity to deal with it like I should. I don't have the energy or the stamina to be a good mom to 4 very active and inquisitive and adamant children. And I don't have the mental strength to thoughtfully deal with all of the stuff that has been thrown at me in the past month.

I'm so thankful for my health. I know this could be so much worse. I really, really do. And that is why I feel so stupid for feeling run down and sad. But I'm scared of what is to come. If I will ever fully recover. If my body will ever function the way it is supposed to again. If I'm going to have to make some drastic changes to my lifestyle... If I'm going to have to slow down.

I've already slowed down and I hate it. I feel disgusting both mentally and physically. I went from running 15 to 17 miles and strength training 4 to 5 hours a week, to nothing. To literally sitting on my butt for 23 hours a day. And now all I see are large curd cottage cheese thighs and flabby arms. I hate cottage cheese in any form but especially hate it on my thighs. All of my hard work has disappeared and I barely have enough energy to go to the store to pick up a few things. I don't feel strong anymore.

Instead of continuing to drown in an ocean of my tears, I'm going to try to do what those pesky optimists say to do and focus on the good. There is so much good in my life and I really am thankful. I have an amazing husband who has borne so much more of the brunt than he should have had to in the past month... Waking up in the middle of the night with screaming babies, making sure the older 2 were entertained and fed, even taking the babies to the doctor all by himself while still managing to go to work every day and continuing his studies.

I'm thankful for my mom and friend J who were willing to drop everything and come save me with three days notice. Having to learn the schedules and feeding habits of 4 kids who are all allergic to different things and eat at different times, in addition to their sleep schedules, cloth diapers and other daily rituals is hard, hard work. And I'm thankful for my kids who shockingly haven't turned into total buttheads through this whole mess and have coped surprisingly well with all of the changes.

I know it is going to get better. I just want it to be better now. I want to be me again and to have fun and live my life instead of just watching it go by. So I will now go put on my big girl panties, pull up my boot straps and figure out how to make all of this work. And you are totally allowed to tell me to suck it up and shut up because there are plenty of people who have it so much worse than I do... I probably need to hear it.

cleansed

2011-04-07T10:38:00.000-04:00

Six days after my previous visit to the hospital, I started having a weird pain in my gut. I put it in the back of my mind during the morning but as the day wore on, it became more pronounced. By 6 that night I was on google, trying to diagnose myself. Dr. Google said my appendix was most likely exploding, as the pain was in my lower right abdomen, but I didn't have a fever so I was like, "whatever" and took some pain meds and went to bed. The second the pain meds wore off I was awake and crying. I was nauseous and couldn't move because my gut was hurting so bad.

I woke M and he drove me to the ER while my mom stayed home with the kids. Thank goodness it was before the bars closed so there weren't too many people there. Again my blood pressure was incredibly high and I could hardly answer the triage nurse's questions. They got me back in a room and I tried really hard to be gracious and answer everyone's questions. A resident had pulled the short straw and got to come ask me all of the same questions the triage nurse and ER nurse had already asked me. I finally pretty much snapped and told her to READ MY FREAKING CHART because there was NO possible way I was pregnant, this was NOT a miscarriage. And then M took over the question answering duties. Then the resident had to consult with the doctor before they would finally give me anything for the pain. At that point, I was literally on my hands and knees, gripping the head of the bed and grunting like I was in labor, but it was worse than labor because the pain NEVER STOPPED.

The nurse, bless her, finally came in with a serious cocktail of zofran and 2 other amazing medications to take away the pain. Then she made me drink a delicious grapey concoction of contrast solution and sent me off to get a CT scan. CT scans normally suck but this one was awesome. Why? Because it talked and I was so drugged that I really thought it was talking to me. And then, through some mechanical arm, it inserted the contrast solution into my IV and I freaking thought I had been abducted by aliens, or something. I wasn't sure at all what the crap was going on but didn't really care because I felt like I was at Disneyland with all of the meds they had me on.

Sometime later the doctor came back and told me my appendix was fine. And I was like, dude, go back to school because there is NO WAY my appendix is fine. THIS HURTS. And even if it is fine, take it out anyway-- I DON'T WANT IT ANYMORE. And while you're at it, take my tonsils too because I don't want those, either. I wasn't exactly rational... but my appendix was, in fact, fine and not inflamed. However, parts of my colon and intestines were thick and "very inflamed" and that was what was causing the pain. Oh, and they also saw several hematomas on my liver. But that wasn't really a big deal and were normally caused by blunt force like being kicked or a stab wound and may go away later. Oh yeah, don't worry about those... they are probably just from when I got into a shank fight after roller derby a couple of weeks ago. Geeze.

So again, I was sent home, armed with pain meds and told to wait out the pain until I would get a colonoscopy done early the next week. While I was waiting that to get the colonoscopy done I couldn't keep anything I ate in. Well, I should say that I couldn't keep any normal food down. The only things I could stomach were potatoes and milkshakes, and I don't even like milkshakes. So for the better part of a week M would stop by Sonic on his way home from work to get me my daily meal of tator tots and a cherry limeade freeze. When I would try to eat real food I'd get sick. And then I realized that I was really getting sick from wheat. Every single time I ate wheat I would get a headache and that stupid abdominal pain again.

I have been asking my primary care doctor for allergy testing since November because I thought it was causing my eczema and he always refused because he insisted that allergies don't cause eczema. I have also been having daily headaches and that side pain, on a much lesser level, since around November. One of the reasons I went to the GYN in the first place was because I thought that pain was from my ovaries, which they ruled out through ultrasound. I had changed doctors and asked my new doctor for allergy testing, but she, having actually graduated in the same class as med school as my previous doctor, also insisted that I didn't need allergy testing because allergies don't cause eczema... yeah, ok... (I have since changed primary doctors AGAIN and will be asking for more comprehensive testing at my next appointment.)

The GI doctor thought I was probably suffering from a Crohn's flare up, although there is absolutely no history of Crohn's in our family and I have no history of flare ups nearly this bad. They also mentioned various types of colitis and cancer. I personally thought my body was just jacked from all of the toxins I had put in it the previous 2 weeks. I had even said that I wanted to detox from all of the pain meds because I just felt gross, but I didn't exactly want to do that kind of detox. I would have much rather drank some tea and ate some leafy greens. Not not eat for 36 hours and drink some salt solution that tasted like the worst over salted margarita EVER. I could hardly get that nasty stuff down. I did everything you aren't supposed to do and put a ton of ice in it and started chasing it with jello because that was the only way I could kind of get it down. I figured, heck, they give me the same amount as they give to a 250 pound man, so I shouldn't have to drink all of it to make it work, right? And oh my goodness did that stuff ever work. It worked so well that I was detoxed, cleansed AND sanctified.

The day of the colonoscopy we went and checked in. It had been over 36 hours since I had been allowed to have my precious tots and milkshake and I was huuuuuuuuungry and weak. I finally got to see the GI doctor and told him what had been going on and he was like, "Well, hey, I think we should go ahead and do an endoscopy too!" Oh REALLY!! Fun!! My esophagus was feeling left out. I've had things stuck in every other orifice, why not just bat for the cycle?

So after some confusion about the lab losing the pregnancy test I had to take 2 days before (mandatory, even though there was absolutely NO possible way I was pregnant) I signed a waiver saying I wouldn't sue if my imaginary baby was born with 3 arms and a missing toe and they wheeled me back to begin the tests. They both went flawlessly and I was able to take an awesome nap. When the nurse started waking me up I begged her to let me sleep for just 20 more minutes. She said no and shoved an orange Popsicle in my mouth. I don't like orange, I like red.

The GI doc didn't see any sign of Crohn's or cancer but he did biopsy a couple of areas. Now we are doing some blood tests and waiting on all of the results. I hope to have a "plan" soon. At least some kind of diagnosis so I know what direction to take and we can keep all of this from happening again. Food is still not my friend. I can stomach small amounts of some foods, but nothing is tasting or feeling good to me. I wanted to lose some weight before summer but losing it this way is just stupid.

"simple and routine"

2011-04-05T10:47:00.000-04:00

It is hard to believe it has only been three weeks since my surgery. Some days it feels like it has been months. I've debated long and hard whether or not to share what happened and have decided to because so many people have asked. While nothing life threatening or major happened, it was still painful and intense and rocked my world in ways I wasn't sure my world could ever be rocked.

The good news is that I don't have cancer! I DO NOT HAVE CANCER! And that is a huge, huge relief. Even though the chances of me having caner were quite small, there was still a chance. The bad news is... well, things didn't exactly go as according to plan...

The morning of the surgery the anesthesiologist and I decided it would be best to just sedate me and use a local anesthetic instead of putting me completely under, which made me feel a lot better. They did say that if they couldn't sedate me enough they'd have to put me a under, but he was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. Well, that did happen, and they ended up putting me completely under. Then they ended up taking 2 cm of the cervix, instead of 1/2 cm like they said they would. 2 cm is roughly half the cervix. And because of that, there was more bleeding than there was supposed to be, so they had to use sutures and cauterization, instead of just cauterization.

I was only supposed to be in recovery for about an hour, and then I'd be able to go home, except I finally started to come out of the anesthesia about 3 hours after the surgery had started. And when I did, I was in a tremendous amount of pain. I was shaking and moving around the bed but not able to form my words to tell them I was in pain. The nurse thought I was cold, so she gave me a blanket. M came in the recovery area and saw me and knew that was my reaction to pain so he insisted that they give me pain meds; the nurse insisted I was just cold and gave me another blanket. He insisted again, and she asked me what my pain level was. When I told her it was a 6, M replied with, "Her 6 is your 12, give her some drugs". They did, and I promptly had an allergic reaction to them. So they gave me more drugs to reverse the drugs and then gave me some more drugs for the pain. But I was still in pain. Lots of it.

I felt burning and told them, they thought it was from the allergic reaction I had to the pain meds. But it wasn't. This was a horrible different pain but I was too drugged to convey what I was feeling and what I meant. They gave me more morphine and my will to care decreased dramatically and I decided, stupidly, that the pain would go away soon and I'd just go home and tough it out. After routinely popping a vicodin and 800mg motrin every 6 hours until the next day I knew something was definitely wrong and called to ask for a prescription for stronger meds. The doc said no, as he rarely even prescribes motrin for this kind of recovery and told me to come in, because something was definitely not right.

My mom drove me back to the hospital and I slowly made my way to the GYN clinic. I could barely walk and contemplated stealing a walker from an old lady but decided that wouldn't be a good choice. When I got to reception they saw my face and took me directly to a room. My BP was through the roof and I was hurting worse than I ever had before. The doc came in, asked if he could do an internal, took one look at me, turned green and ran out of the room yelling for the head RN and 2 other doctors to get in the room now. They insisted I take some pain meds immediately and then they all proceeded to examine me like I was a medical anomaly.

It turns out that I was not slightly psychotic when I was in recovery screaming in pain. That burning I felt was, in fact, burning and I had suffered from an extremely rare and incredibly painful complication during the surgery. I had an allergic reaction to the surgical prep solution and it caused second and third degree chemical burns everywhere they had used it. Using your awesome powers of deduction, you can figure out where it burned me, given what kind of surgery I had. It hurt. It hurt so bad that I would have so much rather had gone through all 3 labors and 4 births of my kids again, without any pain meds, again.

None of the doctors in the room had ever seen this before. They had only come across it briefly in medical books and only one had actually heard of it through a second hand story from med school about this type of reaction. They didn't exactly know what to do so they left the room and consulted their colleagues, Dr. Web, MD and Dr. Google dot Com. (I'm sure they didn't google, but I know they had to go looking for the solution to my problem.) And because it was my luck, there was nothing they could really do, except medicate me and wait for everything to heal. It wasn't like they could skin graft the area... We all made the decision that it was probably safer for me to go home and be on bedrest than to stay in the hospital. The risk of getting an infection at home was so much less than getting an infection if I stayed in the hospital.

So I went home, armed with vicodin and expecting to just sleep for the next week. I was under strict instructions to take my 1000mg of vicodin every 6 hours, along with my 800mg of motrin and not to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds or to drive, use a credit card or make any kind of important decisions. And then we would just deal with the liver problems at a later date.

I was pretty good about staying in bed. Restless, but too weak and in pain to really get up and do anything. After the second day of pumping myself full of drugs, I was still in just as much pain as I had been before, and I didn't feel good at all. So we made the decision to go to the ER. I was freaked about going there. Could you imagine the look the triage nurse would have given me when I told her what the problem was? "Um, yeah, my hoo-ha is completely burned and I need some pain meds." I'm 99.8% sure she would have excused herself right there and called the cops and social services.

Thankfully, my doc happened to be on call up in Labor and Delivery so after a call to him he told us to just come straight to L&D and he would take care of me there. By the time we got there I was in so much pain I was shaking again. They immediately got to work letting the nurse in training start my IV. And lets just say that didn't go so well, for anyone. After she blew a vein and I promptly proceeded to pass out, she passed off the IV starting duties to another nurse, who blew 2 more of my veins. After M almost decked her and as I was sobbing hysterically (honestly, my pain was at least a 10 out of 10. I was begging to just go home... I couldn't do it anymore) they admitted defeat and called the anesthesiologist in. He shot me up with some lidocaine and put the IV in on the first try and then gave me a fantastic cocktail of morphine and benedryl and I slipped off into night night land.

While I was all, "duuuuuuuuuh", my doctor and his colleague went in and removed all of the dead skin and surgical packing. And even through all of the morphine it still hurt but I felt almost instantly better with everything out of me. Then they admitted me to the surgical unit, sedated me and let me sleep for the better part of the next 15 hours. Again, because the risk of infection was great, I went home the next day to try to heal and rest. Things were going pretty well after that. I even managed to take the babies (my mom drove) to their GI appointment an hour and a half away.

And then less than a week later, I was in pain, again. But this was a different type of pain. A new pain... one that was actually worse... and the fun began again.

(continued soon, because I KNOW you all love hearing about my body ;) )

the nitty gritty

2011-03-15T16:13:00.001-04:00

**Warning: this post includes the words "uterus" and "cervix" multiple times and possibly other words that may make 12 year old boys and immature women uncomfortable and/or giggle uncontrollably. If you are one of those people, click the red "x" at the top of your browser window, now.**

For Christmas this year, M got me a spa day. A complete, 5 item package. Hair, nails, massage, facial, the works. I was so excited! The day of my appointment I got all ready to go, said goodbye to the kids and headed out, blaring my music and singing at the top of my lungs on the way (I am so glad I didn't happen to butt dial anyone on my cell that day). When I checked in at the spa, the bimbo receptionist looked at me and with a super snotty voice said, "Um, we don't take walk-ins". Long story short, when M booked the package and paid for all of it, the bimbo never actually booked my appointments in the computer, so there was no one there to do the services for me. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed. I knew M had put a lot of thought into it and I was looking forward to a nice day, and dang it, I had shaved my legs which is no small deal in the middle of winter.

So out of spite, I literally called my doctor's office and scheduled a Pap smear. Because I would seriously rather have had a Pap done than reschedule with that front desk bimbo who ruined my Christmas present. It had been about 14 months since my last one, so it was time. I called to make the appointment, expecting to get an appointment date a month or so away, but they just so happened to have one for the next morning, at 10am. Less than 20 hours later, there I was, feet in stirrups, getting my Pap done.

For the couple of months before that I had a feeling something wasn't right. I just didn't feel good. I had a weird pain in my ovaries and my uterus HURT, I was tired, had headaches all the time and my periods were horrendous. And right after New Year's I got the call that I dreaded. Of course, the nurse called right before dinner time, on a night when M was running late and the kids were super cranky. All I heard her say, between the babies crying, was "HSIL and follow up testing using a colonoscopy to do a biopsy, as soon as possible". Um, hold up. I don't know what "HSIL" is right now, I will google that later, but I'm 98% sure that a colonoscopy has absolutely nothing to do with a Pap, and I would prefer NOT to have that done, at this time... And she laughed and said, no, a COLPOSCOpy. Not a COLONOSCOpy. Thank goodness.

So after I googled "HSIL" and proceeded to have the most massive panic attack I have ever had, I waited for a call to schedule the colposcopy. And a week turned into 2 weeks and the pain kept getting worse so I requested to get an actual GYN appt to see what was going on. And that doctor decided she wasn't comfortable with my case, so she was going to refer me to the specialty GYN clinic on Post. And that was going to take about 2 weeks. 2 weeks passed and I still hadn't heard from them, so I got ahold of a super secret phone number and called to see what was going on. The woman on the other line told me that they didn't have any room available to see me, so they were going to have to refer me to an OB/GYN off post, and that paper work would take about a week to go through. Ok, so we were 5 weeks past the "highly abnormal" test results and about 4 weeks past when the doctor originally wanted my "as soon as possible" urgent follow up biopsy.

As soon as the referral went through I called the office to set up an appointment and the soonest they could get me in was 4 weeks and 3 days from the time I called. Awesome. So I waited extremely impatiently, in pain, until the appointment day. On the way to the appointment I called to confirm that the appointment was still on, as no one had called me to confirm the day before. I was told, yes, yes, you are still booked, come in. So 20 minutes later I arrived, only to be told that they had to cancel my appointment because the doctor had to leave, but they could reschedule me for 3 weeks later. And that is when the temper tantrum began. I had already waited 9 weeks for this effing appointment. I had JUST talked to them, 20 minutes before, and they said I was still on for the appointment. I had driven 45 minutes to get there, with 3 cranky kids AND I had woken up early to shower and shave my legs and I was NOT going to wait 3 more weeks to get this done. I was NOT.

I called my insurance and told them what had happened and they were not happy at all. They gave me the names of some providers in my network to try to see if any of them could get me in sooner. But the soonest anyone had any "new patient" appointments available was in May. May. MAY. I knew in my gut that I could not wait that long. I knew that even waiting 3 more weeks for this biopsy was going to be too long. So in desperation I called the specialty clinic on Post and got the most wonderfully patient receptionist who was able to decipher what I was saying between sobs. Within 20 minutes her boss had called me back and asked me what was going on and when I told her, she was very upset. She knew I should not have had to wait over 9 weeks to get this appointment and that it just wasn't safe or responsible to wait that long. So she asked if I could go into their clinic at 2:30 the next day and I said YES!

It wasn't that I wanted to have this done. I mean, no one really wants a chunk cut out of their cervix, but I knew it had to be done. So the next day, I went to have the colposcopy done. I had to take the 3 girls with me, as I didn't have time to get anyone to watch them and M didn't have a chance to get time off and that proved to be an extra fun challenge because MJ really didn't want to be put in the stroller. The only way I could get her in the stroller was to give her my iPhone and turn on The Backyardagains (she has a wicked crush on Pablo). Then the doctor, his nurse, and his NP Trainee came in the room.

I'm all for people learning how to do medical procedures, I just don't want to be the one they learn on, especially when they are taking sharp instruments to the inside of my body, without any kind of anesthetic or shot of tequila to take the edge off. But, it was time for the NP to do her FIRST colposcopy!! Oh yay. So with the doctor telling her what to do she started the examination... and they used a lot of big words in concerned voices while looking inquisitively into the microscope thing. And then the NP asked the doctor if she was seeing the right thing (!!) and he was like, I don't know, scoot over so I can take a look... and I was like, dang, I should have sold tickets!

The doctor was really not impressed with what he saw and wanted to biopsy 2 different areas of the cervix. So he handed the NP the long knife thing they use to do the biopsy and started to tell her how to do it (!!) And then she stabbed me in the vagina, which is NOT supposed to happen so I kindly requested that the doctor do it instead. Two samples from the cervix and a stab to the vagina later, I was done. And it hurt, but I knew it was necessary. The doctor told me as I left that he would have the results in a week (the next Friday) and to "have a nice weekend". Yes, yes, me and my wounded cervix will have a fantastic weekend, thanks.

3 days later I got a phone call from the clinic and instead of hitting "accept", I hit "decline". I have never been more upset about making such a stupid mistake. Their office was closed so I couldn't call back to see who had called me and I tried not to worry about what the phone call was about, but I was freaked. The day after, at 8 am, they called back. And you know it is never good when the patient advocate calls you, with her super nice and sweet voice, and tells you that she has some news and asks you if you would rather come in to hear it, or hear it over the phone. I chose to hear it over the phone.

CIN III, Severe Dysplasia. Not cancer, but precancerous. They will have to do a Cold-Knife Conization to remove the abnormal cells, which cover over half of the transition zone. This is the best treatment for these kind of cells and provides for the best sample of tissue to test for cancerous cells deeper than the surface cells. Oh. Joy. Thankfully, this is a fairly common and fairly simple procedure and has a high success rate but it is still not something that I really want to do. It is going to hurt. It is going to require general anesthesia. It is going to take awhile to recover from and it might have some side effects.

The truth is, we want another baby. And I know that disgusts some people (why on earth would I want another child when I already have 4???) and it is hard for others to understand, but I don't feel like our family is complete. And this surgery will make it potentially difficult to get pregnant and carry a pregnancy to term. And that is assuming that the cells are not cancerous and don't come back. So, while minimal on the grand scale of things, this is still a lot to take in and digest.

I am not writing all of this out to gross you out or get the "TMI Queen of the Month Award" or even to be all "pity me, please" but more as a PSA to get your freaking Paps done regularly. I have never, ever, had an abnormal Pap. Never. Less than a year and a half ago I had a normal Pap. This has gone from nothing to "holy crap!!!" quickly and you never know who it is going to hit or when or how fast. Normally these kinds of cells to not grow this fast, and normally only become abnormal and/ or go away on their own over the span of a few years but I happen to be in a special subset of women who's body's react this way.

I'm sure this is payback from my cervix for all of the trauma I have put it through over the past 5 years. "You want to have 4 babies in 3 years?? Fine, but payback will be mine." It is angry. Very, very angry. Your cervix might not be as angry as mine, but it might be hiding a secret. It might not. You never know and the only way to stay on top of this is to get checked regularly. There aren't many obvious symptoms and the only reason I know what is going on is because I got spiteful one day and on a whim made an appointment. Believe me, the last thing you want is to go through this, or worse, go through cancer treatments. Cervical cancer is treatable and has a high cure rate if it is caught early, but don't even let yourself get to that point. It isn't worth it to you and those you love.

**Please, please, do not SPAM me with HPV vaccination info, debates or scolding. I don't need it or want it. I am not interested in engaging in a conversation about it. I'm not an expert on this, and have only started learning about any of this in the past couple of weeks. Please call your doctor if you have questions or concerns or want to discuss the HPV virus and/or vaccination and the side effects. I am also not interested in engaging in discussion about the health care system-- thanks for understanding.**

uber, super reality check

2011-03-14T09:39:00.000-04:00

I am so glad that February was a short month because it was all kinds of dumb. It started out ok but somewhere around the middle of the month it just got stupid after a container of yogurt tried to kill me. Yes, it did. I was famished one night and grabbed a container of yogurt, not realizing it was past its expiration date AND had sat in the warm car for about 2 hours while I drove it home from the store. I didn't think it tasted too funny when I ate it, but it certainly didn't taste good about 4 hours later when I was in a heap on the bathroom floor, using a damp, most likely dirty, towel as a pillow and praying for the rapture to happen immediately.

A few days later, M had LASEK done on his eyes, which was great, except for the unforeseen complication of getting MRSA inside his eye, which lead to the threat of a cornea transplant, should his eye not get better and scar. Because that is just what we needed... a cornea transplant would most likely squash any hopes of him meeting his career goals, so we decided that if he did end up losing his eye, he'd stay home with the kids and wear an eye patch while I went off and joined the Airforce so we could keep our benefits. Neither option is anything we had ever thought put in our "5 year plan" so it was pretty scary having to consider all of those potential possibilities. The kids just thought it was cool that daddy might stay home with them and best of all BE A PIRATE!!

As he was healing up, thanks to heavy doses of steroids and antibiotics, CB woke up one morning with purple pin prick spots under her skin on her face, neck, ears, eyelids and chest. It was the weirdest thing I had ever seen. And because she had been complaining about her legs hurting badly the day before, of course my first thought was LEUKEMIA so I raced her to urgent care right away. The doctor came in and kind of glanced at her and said something about how she was sure it was just a reaction to something and that it would clear up soon with some benedryl, but when I interrupted her and said that I had never seen a PURPLE PIN PRICK rash UNDER THE SKIN as a reaction to some kind of food, she looked up and then proceeded to join me in freaking the freak out. After labs in the office we were sent to do more specific labs at the hospital and then to the pharmacy for more steroids to see if that would help clear it up. Wanna know what a cup full of pee, 6 vials of blood and 2 finger pokes from a distraught 4 year old cost me? $19.99 for a Barbie and horse and another 20 bucks worth of Dollar Spot stuff, and I think I got off cheap. Thankfully, all of the labs were normal and the rash faded after a few days. We still don't know what caused it, but are praying hard that it doesn't come back.

Then MJ decided that sleeping was stupid, as was eating, and that she was going to throw up almost everything she did eat for a few days. Poor little thing was so miserable and pitiful and ended up losing a couple of pounds. And in between all off that, I had a follow up appointment for my whacked out blood pressure and told the doctor that I didn't care what he said, I was going to have a stroke anyway at age 50 if I didn't stop waking up 47 times a night to go to the bathroom and practically passing out every time I stood up. So I got to stop those meds and, shockingly, my blood pressure actually went down!

Unfortunately, my whacked out blood pressure and kids being sick and all of the other garbage of February, piddle in comparison to the fantastically awesome news that March brought. M was sick with a nasty cold, and now all 4 kids are sick, and then there's my issues...

I am still very much in denial about what is going on with me right now. Blood pressure aside, I appear to be healthy but inside my body is a raging time bomb of cells, reproducing at an abnormally fast rate. A time bomb that was silent until a couple of weeks ago when I got the dreaded phone call and heard the words "precancerous" and "needs to be removed immediately".

So, there is your daily dose of happiness and joy. Holy Debbie Downer, I know. I have my pre-op appointment today, where we will discuss the specifics of what is going to happen and how it will impact our lives. I am so, so thankful I don't have cancer and that this was caught early but scared about going under the knife and anesthesia as I've never had to do either.

I really hate it when people are super cryptic about things and say that there is some life altering thing going on in their lives, but won't share exactly what it is... but I am going to be that person today. I'm not begging for prayers or asking people to be worried about me, because I WILL be fine, but both are appreciated if you feel so inclined. I promise to share all of the gory details once I know all of the facts and have a plan in place. Promise. Cross my heart, pinkie swear kind of promise.

vanity, reality, mortailty, and all that

2011-02-09T13:28:00.001-05:00

For the past few months I've noticed my vision has been getting worse. It got to the point where I couldn't drive at night, had trouble driving during the day, was getting headaches all the time, etc... I finally decided it was time to go to the eye doctor after having to ask W what a sign said because I couldn't see it and he was like, OMG. My mom is so dumb, she can't even read a sign. And I was like, no, I can't see the sign. Big difference.

So I went to the eye doctor and after 17 attempts shooting that friggin puff of air in my eye, I saw the doctor. He informed me that I wasn't blind, just worked way too hard to focus and got tired easily. Oh, and I was farsighted. And then he told me I needed to wear glasses full time. And because the prescription was so slight, it wasn't a good idea for me to get contacts. Yippee!

After much deliberation I picked out some glasses, ordered them and went on my way. A week later I went to pick them up and wondered what the heck I was thinking when I picked them out. They were UGLY. And made me look OLD. Like I was in my THIRTIES. And because I am wicked awesome, I chose to get the transition lenses. Oh yes, I did. So I basically got old people glasses. I did not like them but there was no way I was going to buy another pair, I had paid good money to look like I was 35. Not only do I have glasses that age me tremendously, but they have also given me this really cute little patch of eczema under my eye, where the lens rests on my cheek. So I'm really pretty these days.

In the meantime, my regular doctor had become quite concerned with my blood pressure. Apparently it is not normal for a 28 year old to have high blood pressure. So he had me come in for an appointment, all 4 kids in tow, and when I got there he asked me with a straight face why I thought my blood pressure was high. Uuuuuuuum, is that a trick question?

And he requested that I go on blood pressure meds to try to regulate it. So let me get this straight. In the course of one week, I was wearing glasses full time AND going on blood pressure meds. No way. Nooooooooooo way. I am 28 years old! There is no reason why I should have to be on blood pressure meds.

And then he gave me the dreaded speech that included the words, "stroke, death, disabled, brain damage, and heart attack". Whoa Whoa Whoa. Did you not hear me? I am TWENTY EIGHT. Not FIFTY. And he literally said, "Well, if you want to be around when you are fifty, you need to get this under control so take the meds". Did we just discuss my mortality? Holy freaking reality check. I am in decent health, a good weight, I eat right and exercise. It isn't like he can tell me to go change my lifestyle and loose twenty pounds and my BP will go down. However, he did suggest counseling to "learn some coping techniques" and perhaps a parenting class or two, to "pick up some new ideas to help with the kids." Yo. I might have panic attacks in my sleep, but I am not a stress case (compared to all I have to deal with) and I do NOT need parenting classes. You suck! That is why I watch SuperNanny, anyway. Humph.

I begrudgingly took the meds. He tried reassuring me that it was just a simple water pill, that the worst I would feel was perhaps the need to use the restroom a couple more times a day... What he failed to mention was that these freaking pills would make me wake up four times a night to pee, make me sweat like a flipping pig for no reason and then would make me have to pee thirty seven times during the day. Not only that, it is just one more pill I need to take... so now I need one of those pill dispensers with the days of the week on them to keep it all straight. And I can't read the labels to see how much of what I need to take without my glasses. So ok, let me put on my glasses so I can take my pills before bed, then wake up four times in the middle of the night to pee while sweating like Whitney Houston.

I swear, if I stepped on a Wii Fit right now it would say, "Hello Joanna. Your Wii Fit age is 467." And it would groan. And I would cry. I am TWENTY EIGHT YEARS OLD. What the crap is wrong with me? I don't want to have a heart attack when I'm fifty. I have four kids. Four amazing and wonderful kids who need their mama as much as I need them. So I will take the stupid pills and continue to live like I'm in a commercial for a pill for overactive bladder syndrome, minus the gray hair, so I can be here for them. But dang. I don't like getting older. This really kind of sucks.

vocabu-wa huh??

2011-01-25T20:28:00.000-05:00

CB is extremely creative. I don't think her mind ever stops. The first thing she says in the morning is something about the dream she had the night before, which have lately included lots of bubbles and dragons? And the last thing she says before she goes to bed is what she is going to dream about as soon as she falls asleep. In between she is always singing or dressing up or drawing, cooking, making something out of nothing, dancing, "reading", finding the deeper meaning in things... I don't know how she isn't exhausted.

One of her most amazing talents is her way with words. She rhymes like a pro, like a mini- Diva Eminem, and she can string words together that shouldn't be put together by a small child. For instance, a while having a conversation about whether or not her daddy liked kale she said, "Well, I will just question him about it when he arrives home from work this evening." WHAT?!

She has been talking non stop since she was 17 months old. I think I may have mentioned before that when she was 22 months old she was tested as having the vocabulary and comprehension of a four and a half year old, Lord help me. Even now, at almost age 4, her vocabulary is ridonkulous-- much better than mine, I think (clearly, because I use the word "ridonkulous").

But sometimes her creative brain takes over, as does her propensity for the sounds of other languages (Spanish, thanks to Dora and Dutch and Korean thanks to her daddy) and she ends up making up her own words for things, fully expecting us to know what they mean.

Woggly= a combination of wiggly and wobbly
Cribbled= a combination of scribbled and crumbled
PipUp= a sumersault
Habbalay= well, we still aren't exactly sure what that one means...

And then there are her mindbendingly observant thoughts:
"Mommy, lizards are NOT inventions"
"Houses can't jump"
"Remember 14 years ago when I was a pig and I went 'oink oink squeal squeal' and then they cut me up and ATE ME???" (what the....???)

And on and on and on. This is all in addition to the fact that she truly believes she is a princess and nearly every request you make of her will be met with some kind of "what would a princess do" response:
"Mommy, princesses don't eat that."
"Mommy, princesses don't go potty." (neither do astronauts, apparently)
"Mommy, princesses don't lift up their dresses to go to the bathroom, someone does it for them."
"Mommy, princesses ALWAYS wear sparkly earrings so I need some too."
"Mommy, Germany princesses don't wear klompen. Only Dutch princesses wear klompen and I am a German princess because I was born in Germany. I need Germany princess shoes." (which is funny, because she is actually half Dutch, but whatever.)

In fact, she's so wrapped around this princess idea that when she comes to an obstacle, like a piece of paper on the floor in her walking path or a chair she needs to walk around, or perhaps a flight of 3 stairs, she will stop and wait, saying, "Who will saaaaaaaaaaaaaave me???" until someone comes to her rescue. And when you tell her she can, in fact, remove the ginormously heavy and cumbersome scrap of blanket fuzz from her sock, she will counter with a round of, "But I CAN'T. YOU have to do it. It is too HEAVY for me." complete with sad eyes and a stuck out bottom lip.

There is something about this child though, something so brilliant and special. She has this incredible spirit and ability to make everyone smile and she has the most sweet and empathetic heart and always wants to be sure that everyone is ok and if they aren't, she wants to fix it. I'm sure that in addition to those qualities, her creativity and humor are going to take her places. I haven't figured out yet who she is going to be or where she will end up but I am so looking forward to finding out. Although, I'll fully admit to being more than a little bit terrified of the road that takes us there...

how californians play in the snow

2011-01-23T20:15:00.000-05:00

We haven't really been around snow since we left Germany, when we lived in a snow globe. I wasn't really expecting to be around snow this year, especially considering it was 74 degrees, 2 days before Thanksgiving. So when it snowed a good couple of inches the day after Christmas, and then stayed around for awhile, I was really surprised, and completely unprepared.

The kids REALLY wanted to go out and play in the snow, so I dug through all of our boxes and tried to find acceptable clothing for them to wear. I only had one infant snow suit, W's old red and blue one, which went to MJ, as she is the smallest. Who cares if it made her look like a boy?? A got to wear CB's old jacket and 2 pairs of pants, and boots that were 3 sizes too big for her. CB squeezed into the snowsuit W wore 2 years ago-- a size 3T snowsuit and size 7 boots. Except, she wears a 5T and size 9 boots, but at least she was warm... save for the 2 inches of leg where there was a gap between the bottom of her pants and the tops of her boots. And then there was W... poor W. There wasn't anything to hand down to him, so he got to wear some fleece pants from last year with a pair of CB's leggings under, his jacket from last year and some rain boots, under the stipulation that he was not to run, as rain boots don't exactly provide traction on slick ground.

When the kids had woken up that morning, they bounded into our room begging to go tobogganing. Tobogganing would have been fun, except we don't have a toboggan, or really anything to play with in the snow. I told W I would find him a garbage can lid, or a trash bag or even a piece of cardboard and we could rock the snow ghetto style, but he politely refused. After M and I had spent nearly an hour trying to cram everyone into their too small snow clothes and improvised snow boots, they headed outside. The older two really REALLY wanted some toys to play with in the snow, but I didn't have any, so they got to play with our beach toys. Because everyone builds "snow" castles with sand buckets and molds and digs through the snow with sand rakes and sifts, right?

The snow was perfect for playing in. Dry enough for it not to be really cold and wet, but wet enough to stick and make a snowman. And make a snowman we did. Not to be outdone by anyone else on the block, M made a snowman that was 6 feet, 4 inches. But because I was not prepared for snow, I didn't have anything for eyes, or a nose, or a mouth, or buttons, or arms... and because the snow had fallen on cut, dead grass, there were lots of little pieces of grass rolled up into the snowball, which made the snowman look like he had a big hairy butt. So for awhile, we had a naked, hairy snowman. It was gross, I'm not gonna lie.

Thankfully, I had radishes in the fridge. They were left over from Thanksgiving, but whatever. I thought they could be put to good use being used as eyes and buttons, and possibly a mouth so I took them outside, along with one lone wiggly carrot, most likely left over from Thanksgiving too. We carved some holes in the head to put the eyes and mouth in and it was great. Except, the holes we had carved kind of froze and made sockets, and the radishes, because they were round, kind of rolled around in the sockets. Which, really, would have been fine, except the "stem" part of the radish kept wanting to roll to the front which gave our snowman red eyes with glowing white centers, which made us look like the psychos on the street with the demon eyed, hairy butt snowman in the front yard. So we took the radishes out of the eye sockets and shoved some coal in there instead.

Our mammoth snowman lasted for a week or so. One sad morning I came out side to see its head had fallen off and then the rest went pretty quickly, and painlessly. It was fun while it lasted but I am so happy not to have snow anymore. The kids and M loved it and probably would have camped out over night had I let them but the babies weren't so impressed and after about 20 minutes of falling over repeatedly declared it to be cold and dumb and headed inside. I'm just happy I don't have to worry about my pipes freezing and dodging people who don't know that you don't break or accelerate when you are sliding in your car. And I am also very happy that it no longer takes me 2 hours to get everyone dressed when we have to go out.

attack of the slacker blogger

2011-01-19T19:56:00.000-05:00

Wow, a whole month of me not running my mouth, again. I am officially a slacker blogger and you can consider yourself attacked. The past month has FLOWN by-- we were so busy with Christmas then we had contractors here finishing the storage closets. They swore it would only take a day to complete. A day turned into 2, and then a canceled day, and then another work day and then a canceled day... then they finally finished after I told them they had to be done THAT. DAY. because I had to go somewhere and if they didn't finish they were going to have to come out AGAIN the next week to finish and the head honcho was like, "OH NO! I can't do that! I'll be losing money" and I was like, "Dude, you should have, I don't know, COME TO WORK ON THE FLIPPING CLOSETS THOSE 3 DAYS YOU CANCELED ON ME!" Miraculously, the closets were finished 20 minutes before I had to leave, go figure.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, apparently, when you ask for a bid to FINISH a closet, the bid doesn't include finishing the floor. So now I have finished closets (insulated, dry walled and painted w/ trim) but a lovely, custom paint speckled plywood floor in them, instead of something like, I don't know, CARPET?? Whatever. It is easier to slide the ninety five thousand boxes that reside in the closets on the plywood anyway.

So we had all of that and then the next week Mother Nature herself decided to give the state a big ol' "HAPPY NEW YEAR" and snowed down on us with fury and vengeance. And then she decided she wasn't satisfied with making us all stay indoors for a day because we all forget how to drive when it snows so she warmed everything up for a few hours, just so everything could slightly melt, and then dropped the temperature 28 degrees causing a 3 inch thick sheet of ice to cover EVERY THING. And everyone was like, "OH MY GOODNESS!! SAVE THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN!!" Stores sold out of everything, there was mass hysteria and everyone freaked like it was y2K again. And then there were the dudes who were like, "Yo. I gotta JEEP. I can do what I want" and would go blazing down the street, only to realize that when it was time to stop, they couldn't and that the curve that says 25 MPH should really be taken below that during an ice storm. Hunny Pie, a Jeep and 4 wheel drive aren't going to do you any good if your tires are bald and you have no common sense. Idiots.

But now, the snow has melted and everyone is back at work and school. The Christmas decorations have been put away and my closets, despite our lovely custom flooring, are clean and organized, and it only took me 42, 58 quart bins to organize it all. Finally, baby clothes are separated by size and gender instead of being thrown in whatever box they fit in. My "fat" and "skinny" clothes have their own place, all of the random attic crap has been sorted through and put in its proper spot (mostly the garbage). And I have finally done it: I got rid of all of my college text books and research from the papers I may or may not have started 24 hours before they were due. I'm sure somewhere, someone is having a thrill a minute dumpster diving while reading about Presidential Image and Campaign Finance Reform.

I am doing my best to get the rest of my life in order but seeing as how there are currently 250 cookie cutters littering my living room floor, compliments of the babies (who are now 18 months old!!), I don't think I'm getting very far.

this is what happens when you just. can't. stop.

2010-12-21T22:39:00.002-05:00

Sometime before Thanksgiving I became mildly obsessed with yarn. This was quite baffling because a) I can't wear wool, b) I don't knit, or do any kind of crafting with yarn and c) I have NO idea what constitutes a good yarn, what would make for a bad yarn, or even where to GET yarn besides a box store. After doing some self analyzing, I now realize my yarn obsession started when I became slightly obsessed with wool dryer balls, which I didn't even own at the time. Until my awesome friend J made me some and now I am justifiably obsessed and in love with dryer balls. Holy crap, I need a life.

Anyway, the dryer balls inspired me, I believe. I had wanted to do something a bit different for Christmas decorations this year and wanted something fun, something easy and something that I hadn't really seen before. So I bought some yarn and some Styrofoam balls, and started wrapping. And wrapping. And wrapping. I couldn't stop. I went through more yarn than I should have. If you were a cat, and living in my house, you would have been in heaven because there were yarn balls EVERYWHERE. So many yarn balls that my kids started chasing them around the house, while acting like cats. Just what I needed, 4 over grown kittens.

I was so excited to find yarn that matched the colors of both my upstairs and downstairs rooms. I wanted the whole "crazy cat lady house" theme to carry through both floors for continuity, but varied the colors on each floor to provide for some visual interest (I really have no idea what the heck I am talking about right now... just hopin I sound like I do).

So, after 2 weeks of nightly yarn wrapping parties (yes, I am that lame) I finally ran out and here is how it all came together:

yarn ball wreath and the rest of the living room

The mantle

please forgive the super ugly, really noisy and badly colored picture above, and below/

the garland swags with yarn ball embellishments that hang over each large window downstairs

the swag thingamajigs with yarn ball embellishments that hang over the small windows and doorways downstairs

one of the gorgeous nativity scenes up this year and a few yarn ball ornaments on the tree

leading up the stairs

the most used room in the house

new ~~art~~ pieces of fabric cut into shapes and glued onto another piece of fabric

more yarn balls. lots and lotsa yarn balls

In addition to all of this, each of the kids' rooms have a little tree with ornaments to match their decor too. The only rooms that aren't overly done up and grandiose are my bedroom and the upstairs bathroom... and the garage. Even the downstairs bathroom got a helping of Christmas Joy. I'm just not 100% done with it yet (don't tell M!!) so pictures will have to wait.

And that, my friends, is what happens when you can't stop wrapping yarn and hanging garland. I think it is time I put my obsessions to good use and start knitting, or something. I really and truly cannot wait to figure out what I am going to do in the house we are in next year. Although, I'm pretty sure the theme will be "moving boxes and packing tape". Not exactly as pretty as this year's house, but very functional.

deckin my halls with glitter bombs and other fun things

2010-12-20T16:58:00.000-05:00

Back when I was in college I had a dream that we won the war in Iraq by dropping a glitter bomb on the place. A glitter bomb. The war didn't end because everyone was suddenly happy and sparkly after it exploded. Instead, everyone was completely pissed off and irritated that there was glitter in EVERYTHING and they couldn't do anything because the glitter made everything break. And that is what I feel like has happened in my house; a large glitter bomb has exploded and wreaked havoc on our playroom and slowly seeped through all of the crevasses and openings, completely infesting our home. I hate glitter for this very reason-- it is my WMD. But once a year I put aside my disdain and allow the glitter to shine and sparkle and make my kids happy.

I still have some more to do, or want to do, but M has put a moratorium on my decorating. I'm trying to convince him that there is a difference between my next project and "decorating" but he isn't buying it. Bah humbug. Technically, it won't be me doing it... it would be the kids, under my guidance... so it would really be their decorating... we will see if we get around to it...

Yes, that is W's little head sticking out from under the train table. Apparently "GET OUT OF THE PICTURE" means, "run and hide and then stick your head out".

Beaded garland + curling ribbon + Dollar Spot ornaments= wannabe Mardi Gras

Custom stocking holders, painted by me... yes, the "M" is an upside down "W".

The uber cheesy white tree. Love this thing. And the bald spots have been fixed... detailed pictures to come, maybe, if I get a chance.

Pictures colored by the kids and me.

The wreath adorning the banister on the way up to the playroom.

The outside of our house is much less "in your face". I didn't even put up lights. Instead, I used a bunch of fresh garland and grapevines and sprigs of greens and pine cones collected by my wonderful husband and sent by our produce company. I didn't really have a plan for the outside... so I just bought some twine and some ribbon spent a very cold and very windy afternoon stringing garland and making bows. I like how it turned out. I love the organic feel of it and I love the way it smells as you are walking up to the front door. If only the inside smelled that delicious...

Still to come, the upstairs hallway/ laundry room and the living room/ kitchen. I have had SO much fun decorating this house this year. This is the first year we have been "settled" enough to do it and when I haven't been pregnant. Decorating for Christmas can be pretty awesome when you have energy and aren't throwing up ever 3.7 minutes. Who knew?? I'm just dreading taking it all down. It is ok to leave your Christmas decor up until February, right?

the last laugh

2010-12-13T12:36:00.001-05:00

This month has been a whackadoo of a month. Thanksgiving came and went with vengeance. Our turkey may have marked my butt up six ways to Sunday before Thanksgiving, but I got my say and the last laugh on Thanksgiving when I kicked that turkey's butt and made it into something delicious. I've never prepared an entire Thanksgiving meal-- I've never made a Turkey for anything but meat to put in the freezer so a) it never mattered if it was pretty and b) it didn't have to be good because it was most likely going to be soup anyway. I was nervous. You can't just screw up the biggest part of the biggest meal of the year, know what I mean?

Despite all of my planning I didn't really have a menu nailed down until the night before. I did know that I wanted to make everything from scratch. There were not going to be any cans or boxes opened or premade mixes used in my Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted to do it right. Which meant that the chances of it being a horrid epic fail, the kind of fail where in 20 years the people who were there say, "Oh my goodness, remember that one year that Joanna totally screwed up Thanksgiving??" and then everyone proceeds to tell the story AGAIN and laughs hysterically on your behalf. Ugh... so much pressure...

But I did it. I cooked an amazing meal and didn't use any boxes or cans or mixes and I didn't even make anyone sick. We started the morning with pumpkin pancakes, made completely from scratch with warm cinnamon apples and fresh maple whipped cream. Since we were going to be eating, Lord willing, around 4, I didn't want to serve a huge lunch so we had cheese and crackers (ok, so I guess I did open a box!) and salami with cut veggies and dip.

Then it was time to dig in and really eat. We had turkey, herbed mashed potatoes, lemon-nut rice stuffing, pumpkin cornbread, fresh green beans cooked in bacon, shallots, garlic and a little lemon zest, green salad with smokey ranch dressing, cranberry- pear sauce and of course, pumpkin pie made from the pumpkin I roasted and pureed earlier this fall. It was soooooooo good I ate it for breakfast for the next 2 days and put everyone else on pumpkin pie rations so I could have more. I'm mean that way.

Pumpkin Cornbread

Cranberry- Pear Sauce

The whole meal.

Don't laugh at my serving spoons... I'm in desperate need. We are moving up in the world though. For the first time ever, I have a set of 12 plates and a complete set of silverware with 12 pieces for each type of utensil. For the past 6 years we've only had 4 plates, and 4 forks, spoons and knives. Let me tell you how awesome it is not to have to wash the forks between dinner and dessert when we have people over to eat.

While we were all suffering from the meat sweats and turkey coma, we introduced the kids to the awesomeness that is "Elf" and had homemade hot chocolate. It couldn't have been a better day. The day after I started decorating for Christmas and I have finally finished that. This house now looks like Christmas threw up in it. Pictures coming soon, I promise. But here's a sneak peek in the meantime:)

EDITED: Shout out to my sister for making the deliciously scrumptious cornbread and taking the pictures of the food. And for not knowing what her travel plans were and leaving 2 days later than she thought she was, one day due to her thinking she left the day before and the other day due to weather.

gobble gobble

2010-11-16T16:41:00.000-05:00

This morning I went to the gym, came home, put the girls down for a nap, took a shower, got dressed, ate some lunch and then sat down to make my massive shopping list for Thanksgiving. I don't even know where to start with this list. There are items I need for multiple dishes, items I need for only one thing, and trying to keep track of how much of what to buy and when and for what is making me a little crazy. I need like a spread sheet and power point or something because honestly, all of this cross referencing is going to make my brain explode soon. I need me a Monica Geller, STAT!

I began my list by writing out each dish on a post-it note, so I could line everything up and see where I had duplicate ingredients. Green Beans, Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce, Mashed Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts... the babies woke up... quick, write "Turkey" before we forget that altogether... and went upstairs to get the babies.

I got the babies up, changed, and fed, fed CB, got her dressed again, sat down at the computer to respond to an email really fast and to find a receipt for something I needed to return at Old Navy and then loaded everyone in the car to get W. Drove to W's school, got out, talked to a couple of parents, went and waited at the door for W to come out (while all of the other classes were getting out, tons of kids and parents around), repoed W, walked back to the car, went to Old Navy, walked around for awhile, returned what I needed to return, walked back to the car, and came home.

After the kids got settled I walked back to my desk with the intention of finishing my list, but I couldn't find the "Turkey" post-it. I figured maybe one of the babies had swiped it but they didn't have it and the other 2 hadn't been by my desk since we had been home. And then I saw something shiny and got distracted and went to do something else. A few minutes later, W started laughing and yelling TURKEY!! TURKEY!! GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!! Mommy, you're a turkey!! Um, EXCUSE ME?? No way are you going to be rude and call me a turkey. Knock it off! And then he came over to me, told me to turn around, and pulled the "Turkey" post-it off my @$$.

Yes, I had been walking around for the better part of 3 hours with a post-it that says "Turkey" on my butt. In public. At multiple places, during one of the busiest times of the day. Awesome. Now I know why the 6th graders were laughing and saying Turkey while I was waiting for W and why the 8 year old kid at Old Navy started laughing when they passed us from behind.

Why, oh why, didn't anyone tell me I had a turkey sign on my butt?? WHY?!? I bet you $5 that somewhere, there is a facebook status saying "haha, just passed an idiot with a post-it that says TURKEY on her butt!" and best of all, I might end up on peopleofwalmart. I am just very, VERY thankful I wore the jeans that make my butt look good today. Sigh.

we don't fart rainbows and sunshine, we poop sequins.

2010-11-12T15:15:00.000-05:00

Last week W's teacher sent home a turkey cut out on cardstock with instructions to decorate it, as a family. You could use whatever you wanted, but the goal was to make it a family project. Uuuuuuuhhhhhhhh. Yeah. Because I am Mother of the Year, I stalled, and stalled, until the night before it was due. I had planned to use cereal and pasta and some finger paints and way more glue than necessary, but W wanted to make his turkey "fancy" and the babies really weren't into having their hands dipped in paint and pressed onto a piece of cardstock. MJ just looked at her hand like, "this is dumb" and A quickly discovered that orange paint didn't exactly taste like sweet potatoes. So we scrapped that idea and I dug through my massive craft box to find something, anything, we could use to make a turkey "fancy".

Good thing this mama's always got some tulle and sequins on hand and I happened to have some feathers and a couple of googly eyes. We also had a bag of torn construction paper left from a Thanksgiving project we had just done for our Thanksgiving Wall of Fun so we had to use that too. W got to gluing the construction paper while belting out Christmas songs (yo. could we please get done doing this THANKSGIVING turkey before we move on to Christmas??) and because it was a "family project", CB wanted to help too. And she helped by pouring out all of the sequins onto the table and the floor. And then the babies helped by putting the sequins I didn't get to right away in their mouths. It was awesome. And because it was close to dinnertime there were meltdowns and lots of crying from everyone, including me. We aren't really the "family project" kind of family, I guess.

We took a break, ate some dinner, and started in on the project again. This time it was just W and me as we had put the babies to bed and CB was only interested in sticking feathers in her ears, so she got sent to the playroom, far away from the ear drum perforation devices. W pretty much lost interest and told me that I needed to have his "super fancy turkey" done by the time he woke up in the morning, and then went to play. And then I had visions of what life was going to be life in 6 years when it was science fair time.

So it was me, some feathers, some sequins and a lot of glue. Since this was a "family project", W had wanted a picture of his family on the project. He is very literal. I kind of thought it was appropriate. I mean, really, where better to put a picture of a bunch of turkeys than on a turkey? I put the pictures of us on the belly of the turkey and then got to gluing. Soon that turkey started looking less like a turkey and more like a Vegas Showgirl with all of the feathers and sequins I had put on it. It was pretty gaudy, walking on a very fine line to tacky. So gaudy/ boarding on tacky that I half expected it to get up and start a kick line. But W got his wish, it was definitely fancy.

I was kind of embarrassed to have him turn it in, especially because anyone could tell who it belonged to with our big ol mugs pasted to it but he was really proud of it and was excited to show it off. I'm pretty sure I heard it scream, "I'm HEEEEEEEEEEERE!!" when we took it into the classroom. It was for sure the loudest and fluffiest and shiniest turkey of all the turkeys. Fitting, I guess.

I'm still cleaning up pieces of hot glue I pulled off my fingers before they were seared together and itty bitty feathers. Those feathers are nasty little things and infiltrate every crevice they can. Then this morning I realized I didn't do as good of a job cleaning up the spilled sequins as I thought I did. While I was changing MJ's poopy diaper, I noticed something shiny, and then saw another one. Low and behold, there were two silver sequins, in her diaper. The girl won't eat some real foods because of their texture, but she will eat, and swallow, sequins? I have to say though, it is pretty cool to have a real life confetti cannon at your disposal.

I think we will hold off on "family projects" for a little while. At least until we are past the "let's taste everything" stage. We tried. We had good intentions. But I really don't think it is an experience we need to relive for a couple of years.

"loads" of fun

2010-11-01T21:06:00.000-04:00

I guess the "new hot thing" in houses is to have an upstairs laundry room. I'm not impressed by it, in fact I think it is dumb. I know it is great for some people and it cuts down on lugging laundry all over the house, but honestly, my thighs could use the workout I would have gotten having a laundry room on the main floor. There are a few reasons why I can't stand the upstairs laundry room, one of them being I tend to do all of our laundry late at night because I'm cheap and for some reason think that if I do it late at night, it will somehow be cheaper. I don't know if this is true, but I like to think it is... perhaps it comes from years of living through California's Rolling Blackouts.

Doing laundry at night in an upstairs laundry room sucks because it is So. Loud. while you are trying to sleep. Thump thump thump thump rattle thump bang rattle thump bang bang kerchunk kerchunk kerchunk thump thump thump. The Army makes my husband wear these uniforms and PTs that could probably be considered weapons in themselves. The zippers and clasps on those things sound like anvils rolling around in the dryer drum. Annoying. And if either the washer or dryer are slightly off balance, the entire house shakes like you're blasting off into the stratosphere. There's no point in trying to level pictures, you can only hope they will return to their normal position on the next spin cycle.

The other reason I don't like the upstairs laundry room is because it keeps me accountable and I HATE THAT. There's no hiding the massive pile of laundry that needs to be washed or folded. Every time I walk up the stairs it is like having two huge eyes staring me down saying, "HAHA! You thought you had a moment of peace! PSYCH!!" Bite me. And then there's that whole lint and dust thing. I really don't think it is healthy to have your bedrooms be connected to or near the laundry room, with all of the dryer lint flying around. Not to mention the occasional bleach fumes and toxic hazmat quality stank that can come from your husband's workout clothes that have been left in his car for 3 days during the summer... not that that has ever happened in this house...

Our laundry room isn't so much of a "laundry room" as it is a "laundry closet" that happens to reside directly at the top of the stairs. When we chose this house we didn't exactly measure to see if our washer and dryer would actually fit in the laundry closet. I thought it was just a given they would fit, but when you have 6 people in the house including 2 babies who are cloth diapered and a husband who changes his clothes 4 times a day, you need a mammoth size washer and dryer. And laundry closets don't come in mammoth size. I ended up with a laundry closet that had to have the doors opened at all times, because there was no room for them to close. And that meant that every time I walked up the stairs, there were those 2 big eyes staring at me and a plethora of neon colored bottles and boxes with HUGE BOLD brightly colored wordage SCREAMING at me. And that was not going to work.

I needed to do a laundry room makeover, and fast. So I made a plan and dragged M 3 hours away to IKEA and roughly $100 and some sewing and painting time later, I had a pretty awesome laundry closet that I was not scared to look at and that actually made me kind of *gasp* enjoy?? *gasp* doing the 2.5 loads of laundry I do each day.

The baskets were plain wicker looking and kind of yellow and it didn't really work with the yellow of the walls, so I painstakingly painted them using acrylic paint to match the washer and dryer. Then I decided that was kind of boring so I found some cute fabric incorporating the colors of the rest of the house and made some basket liners. Then because there wasn't enough going on, I decided to make some "pictures" for the frames because I couldn't find any prints that I liked. I wasn't sure what I wanted to make but I just kind of went with what came to me. I did the flowers first, using coordinating fabric to the basket liners. Then I decided I needed a tree and who doesn't love owls, right? So I made an owl too. Each piece is individually cut and then hand sewn onto flannel using embrodery floss. It was pretty easy, if I do say so myself. They aren't perfect, but I highly doubt anyone is going to be getting that intimate with my laundry area, except for me so no one will really ever see the flaws.

One thing I knew for sure was that I didn't want to see any plastic bottles or scoops or sprayers. So I bought glass jars and bottles to hold all of the detergents and powders. I use a lot of different types of detergent, depending on what I'm washing. I wasn't comfortable putting the more potent chemicals into the glass so because I rarely use them, I put them under my bathroom sink. The extra powders, dryer sheets and stain sprays reside in the baskets on the top shelf and then tiny basket on the "counter" holds all of the junk that is found in pockets and what has become my secret cash stash.

If we weren't renting this house, I would have gotten a counter top that could be anchored to the wall but this will work for now. It is a table top from IKEA and cost like 30 bucks. I would have also put a wooden shelf above, instead of the wire shelf, but this works. It isn't gorgeous, but since it was already there, I have to use it. It is handy for hanging cloth diapers and other hang dry items though. And for that, I painted a bunch of clothes pins to match the baskets... thank you, insomnia, for giving me that kind of time. The only thing left to get are some wool dryer balls, which I am seriously coveting but can't quite justify getting, just yet. Even though I reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally reeeeeeeaaaaaaaally want some... I must exhibit some kind of self control every now and then.

So there it is, my cute little laundry area. It is kind of excessive although potentially unimpressive comparatively, but it makes me smile and that is really all that matters, dontcha know?

super cheesy goodness with a side of halloween

2010-10-31T11:29:00.000-04:00

Halloween is something new for us, this is the first year we've actually done anything for it. I don't really like the spooky and scary aspect of it, ok, I don't like that part of it at all so I try to keep things light and fun. Last year I cleared out Target's Halloween section the day after Halloween so we'd have plenty of decorations and fun things to look at for years to come.

I bought plates and cups and silly straws and towels... The kids have been using the plates and cups for the past month and the towels, well, they got turned into a dress by CB so who knows where they are. Our new house has a rockin playroom and I really wanted to do that area up for Halloween but wasn't sure what exactly to do. Then I saw this little craft project from parents.com and was inspired. So, 6 black socks, 2 sets of leggings and 2 sets of baby socks from the Dollar Spot, a package of fluff, a bunch of pompoms, a whole lotta pipe cleaners and googly eyes and 16 sticks of hot glue later, I had a wall-o-fun.

W really wanted a "super silly haunted house" so I got some cheesy garland and lights and tried to outline a house. On a side note, can we please talk about those new stupid LED lights they are putting into light strands?? Putting those things up was almost deadly. Those lights are evil! I didn't realize they were the LED lights until I plugged them in and started to hang them up. My eyes started crossing and the headache hit instantly... I don't really care if they reduce energy consumption by 88% or whatever. If they are giving me a migraine and/ or a seizure every time I look at them, the lower energy consumption isn't really going to matter, ya know? I'll pay the extra $3 a month to light the regular ones! I keep having to tell the kids, "DON'T LOOK AT THE LIGHTS! YOU'LL BURN YOUR EYES OUT OF YOUR HEAD!"

If you're looking for aesthetically pleasing pictures of perfectly done little Halloween craft projects, you aren't going to find that here. My pictures are snapshots, at best, and the projects, well, I'll just say the kids helped, even though they didn't, it was all me... but it looks as if a 4 year old did them. And that is fine, it is all in good fun. Good, cheesy, Halloween fun. So cheesy... really, really cheesy.

In keeping with the festive spirit, we took the kids trick-or-treating for the first time. Rather, M took them while I stayed behind with MJ and passed out candy and made sure no one smashed our pumpkins or egged our house. This was the first time I've ever passed out candy and it was definitely interesting. I'm shocked our house wasn't egged or t-peed when we woke up, given the amount of times I told teenage girls to go home and put some clothes on. I asked one girl who was probably 14 if she borrowed her little sister's costume. That thing was so small, I'm pretty sure it was a 4T and she, well, was not. As it got dark I kept seeing how there were all of these kids in pure black, without any kind of illumination or reflective fabric on them, so I broke out the glow sticks I had bought for my kids and started handing them out, thereby turning me into the over paranoid neighborhood safety patrol. I was half tempted to break into M's stash of reflective belts he wears for running and pass those out too. What are these people thinking, sending their kids out in all black on a dark night?? Hello!

I was well prepared for a barrage of greedy kids, but they were for the most part, polite and kind. Except for 1 kid who hit my house twice and was apparently pretty pissed off I only gave him 1 piece of candy the first time, so he decided to raid my candy bowl himself the next time. He was quick too! Little punk pulled like 15 pieces while I was sitting right next to the bowl, only stopping after I told him to get his grimy little paws out of my bowl or I'd take his entire bucket. You steal mine, I steal yours. I'm already that scary cranky old lady that lives down the street and I'm only 28... No, I wouldn't really do that, but seriously? Where are your manners?

Overall, the day was a blast and I loved every second of it. It was the 2 year anniversary of M coming back from Iraq and coincidentally, I made the same exact meal I made the night he came home. We had a great time with some new friends and their little girl and the kids had a blast.

L, here is the recipe for the soup and crisp! :)

Minestrone Soup
1 medium onion
3 cloves of garlic, pressed
1 large carrot, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 large potato, peeled and cubed into bite size pieces (use 2 if you like a thicker soup)
1 zucchini, diced
1 yellow squashed, diced
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried basil
2 bay leaves
1, 28oz can diced tomatoes w/ juice
6 cups chicken stock
1 can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 can great northern white beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 lb green beans, trimmed and cut into bite size pieces
1/2 lb kale, washed and cut into small pieces

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over low heat in a large heavy pan. Add the onions and garlic and let cook until the onions are translucent. Add the carrots and celery and cook for a couple of minutes. Once those get soft, turn the heat to medium add the potatoes, zucchini and squash along with the dried spices and bay leaves and cook for about 5 minutes. Then add the tomatoes and chicken stock and bring to a slow boil. Add the beans and cook, uncovered, for about 20 minutes. When the potatoes are soft, add the green beans and kale and cook for just a couple of minutes, until the green beans are bright green.

Serve with a good crusty bread and Parmesan cheese.

You can add a small pasta, like mini penne or shells and if you do, add about a cup when you add the beans.

Apple Cranberry Crisp

Happy Halloween! Be safe out there and don't forget your glow sticks! And don't dress like a ho, or I'll yell at you.

on becoming a morning person

2010-10-25T20:04:00.000-04:00

I am far from being a morning person. My internal alarm clock doesn't start beeping until 7:30 am and that is only after I've had at least 2 cups of coffee in complete silence, after 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and we all know how realistic that is. So when we moved to our new town, the first thing we made sure of was that we were central to W's school, so I wouldn't have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to get all 4 kids out of the house and to the school by 8am.

Now really, whoever decided school should start at 8am needs to be smacked in the head. That is just cruel and nearly impossible to accomplish when you have 4 kids, 2 of whom are in diapers and 2 of whom can't tie they own shoes or button their own jeans. When we found a house that seemed perfect and was only 7.8 miles from the school, we took it. And then after we moved in we realized that there were 4 schools on the way to W's school, all starting before his school did, and that it could take 14 minutes to drive 3 blocks, and if you got stuck behind a bus, you were even more screwed. So it turned out we do, in fact, have to be up at the butt crack of dawn anyway.

The first few days of school went ok. I was full of optimism and drive and we were able to get out of the house, sit through traffic, a 6 minute long bus stop and then get to school on time. And then that momentum came to a screeching, crashing, slam into a tree halt and it was confirmed to me that being a morning person seriously sucked.

The main problem was that I was waking up when the kids were waking up and didn't have any time to actually wake up and get some nice serum in my veins to deal with the chaos of 4 kids in a calm and sane manner. And the other problem was that we were eating breakfast an hour before we left (if I even got breakfast at all), and then leaving an hour before school started, so by the time we got to school and myself to the gym, everyone was starving and cranky again. That had to change and the only solution was to wake up earlier, which seems counter productive, and stop eating cereal and yogurt for breakfast. We all need a high protein, hot breakfast to keep us full so we don't crash before our day even starts. So in essence, by trying to make my life easier, I've really made it a lot more difficult.

Now I get up at 5, get my coffee, and in a blurry eyed stupor check the email and try to catch up on what all of my West Coast Peeps did while I was asleep and by the time I'm finally waking up, it is 6:30 and the kids are up and asking for seventeen thousand things at once. They got their dad's annoying "morning person" gene so they don't need a 2 hour jumpstart on the day like I do. Once they are up I make breakfast, unload the dishwasher, clean up breakfast, get W's lunch ready, pull the snacks for the girls and get the diaper bag packed. Then I get W and CB dressed, hair and teeth brushed and throw them in the car with some books while I get the babies up, changed, dressed and put in their car seats. Then I get the babies bottles, put everything in the car, and start the stupid drive to school. Drop W off, go to the gym, work out for an hour and a half, shower, pick up the girls, get everyone in the car, and make the dumb drive home. And then I make a second pot of coffee, effectively negating all of the work I have just done at the gym and proceed to pass out on the floor while playing with the babies, only to be woken up by a dirty diaper to the face or a toy stethoscope to the head. It doesn't work.

I just can't get this "morning person" thing down! Even if I don't go to the gym after dropping W off I still find myself falling asleep at 10am while the babies pull all of the DVDs out of the cabinet and CB finds movies to watch on my phone (dang Netflix App). And I'm not talking about taking a little "cat nap", I'm talking full on mascara smeared across the face, ring indentation in the forehead, drool in the ear kind of passing out. If I sleep in later, the chaos abounds. And if I try to make everything a little simpler don't do all that I do in the morning, I end up really far behind during the day and nothing gets done. I already prep everything for breakfast, W's lunch and the girls' snacks at night. I have my gym bag ready to go by morning... but am I never going to be able to start the day with a good attitude and be like, "OH YAY!! I get to wake up and unload the dishwasher!! What a GREAT start to the day!! I am SO blessed." And before you say there aren't really people out there like that, so calm down, there really ARE people out there like that, I've met them. I'm related to them, believe me, they exist.

So tell me, please, what do you do to wake up in the morning? What is your "elixir" that gets you going? How do you manage not to be cranky and be productive before the sun comes up? What is your secret to a good start to the day? I need to know. I need to figure this out. My husband and children thank you in advance.

changes

2010-10-19T09:03:00.001-04:00

It is totally that time of year again-- MY new year. Fall is always my season of change and when life seems to "revamp". 4 years ago I was getting ready to move to Germany, 3 years ago we were getting ready to move back to the States, 2 years ago I had just moved back to Germany and was getting ready for M to come back from Iraq and last year I was finally starting to settle into my new life with 4 kids.

This year is no different, we're settling into a new house, had a slight change in career, the babies are becoming real toddlers (*snif*), we're changing the way we spend our money and the way we eat and live and we're trying to get used to our new routines. While all of that seems kind of mundane and seemingly simple, there has really been a true lifestyle change and it feels kind of drastic at times.

I'm hoping I can get to the point where I feel like I've got it together, soon. But last time I said I felt like I had it together, BOOM!, I got pregnant with twins. Sooooooo, I'm not really thinkin I really ever want to say I've got it together again because I know God would be like, "really?? That's what you think!! Let's see what you do with this" and then BOOM! something else life jarring and altering would happen. But I would like to be able to just sit back and enjoy life, instead of constantly feeling 1 step behind. And we're getting there, we really are, although I have been saying that for over a year now.

I plan on sharing more over the next couple of months, including what is going on here and doing some major series pieces on baby gear, diapering, including a huge diaper review of my all time favorite diapers, reviews on our strollers (which I've been meaning to get to for the past year), what I've been doing around the house and some other things, which may or may not include a wicked awesome giveaway. I know you guys are all super stoked to learn all about cloth diapers and strollers, I really do. There will be some fun stuff thrown in between, I promise :)

PS. Please let me know if any part of the new page design doesn't load for you-- I haven't been able to test it out on IE or Opera yet. I still can't even decide if I like the design or not...

a whole new world

2010-09-22T09:48:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks before we moved we made the 8 hour drive to the new area to find a house to rent and get W into kindergarten. I wanted to be able to move directly into a house instead of having to stay in a hotel for awhile as living the hotel life with 4 young kids seriously blows. On our way up I fell asleep and when I woke up, we were pretty close to the new town.

Everyone had always told me how awesome the area was and how much I was going to love it there because they had loved it so when I woke up and saw the surroundings, I asked Mark why we were lost and where he had taken a wrong turn. And then he gave me the devastating news that we were not in fact lost, but we were right where we were supposed to be. WHAT?! No, seriously. WHAT?! This was not at all what I was expecting.

For real, it was like the city planner had no idea what to do with the area so he was like, "I have a GREAT idea!! Lets give my 18 month old a box of crayons and a piece of paper and we will turn whatever he scribbles down into the road map for the city. Then I'll have my 3 year old play Monopoly and we will use her gameboard as the plan for where we will put our buildings." Because really, only here could it take you 25 minutes and 15 left turns onto side streets to get to a bigger street which will change names 6 times and then turn into a 1 lane gravel road that you have to take to get to the next bigger street. And only here can you find a Holiday Inn Express next to a Korean church that is between a Wendy's and a tobacco shop, which are located in the same strip mall as a day care and a health food store which are a less than a block away from a trailer park straight out of 1973 and brand new apartment complex.

And let us not forget the Super Walmart, which can be found approximately every 2.3 miles. Super Walmart, I'm coming to find, is this area's version of Starbucks. There is one on every corner and it is where everyone congregates. I should have known this was not the place for me when I realized that Super Walmart was the nicest grocery store in the area. Yes, I am a snob. I'll admit it, I'll own it, I'll wear a t-shirt that says it. I hate Walmart. HATE IT. I don't DO Walmart.

We've all seen that website peopleofwalmart.com. Hours of fun. But I was always like, whatever, that is staged, these people don't exist. Oh no. No, no no. They do exist and they ALL live in my town and go to the Walmarts I have to go to. Whenever I go I have to spend the day working up to it. By the time I have the courage to go, it is late and potentially dangerous because here, all of the weirdos come out at 8pm.

When we moved here M made a rule that no one goes out past 8-- he didn't feel it was safe and I was like, Ok, whatever. Holy overreact much. But this time, he was right. One night I had to go to Walmart and it was 8:13. And he told me not to go, just wait, go in the morning, but me being the stubborn freak that I am was like, no, I'll be fine. Seriously, what is the worst that could happen? HA!

Yo. When I got there there was a drunk guy too drunk to open the refrigerated beer case and spent a good 3 minutes cussing the fridge out and banging on the doors before he realized he had to PULL them open, instead of slide them open. That in addition to the load of screaming kids who were pulling juice bottles off the shelves and running around while their parents screamed at them to stop doing that and come back, but who didn't bother to actually GO GET THEM. And everyone was just mean, in bad moods and seriously rude.

It took me nearly 2 hours to navigate through the madness while I tried to decipher if what I was seeing was actually real or not. It was like entering an entirely different world and all the while I contemplated if I should get a permit to carry a concealed weapon. These people were crazy, and not crazy in a legitimate way where you know they need help and feel bad for them, but crazy in a way where you are like, "Hey, didn't I see you on COPS last week? We're you the one beating the crap out of your ex-husband's car with a crowbar? Or were you the one who was calling the cops because you hit on your neighbor's boyfriend and she proceeded to beat the crap out of you? Or were you the one who called the cops because your dealer "stole" 20 bucks from you after your "transaction" and it made you mad and you wanted him arrested, while forgetting you still had drugs on you and got arrested yourself"?

When I finally got to the checkout after waiting the requisite 35 minutes in line, I made small talk with the checker and found she wasn't from "around here" either and thought as highly of the place as I did. And then directly in front of us, in the Customer Service area, we heard a commotion brewing. There was a woman there demanding to see the manager. She was clearly unhappy, evidenced by the fact that every other word she said was a swear word. The manager came up and she proceeded to lay into him with her complaints. He was trying to calm her down but she just kept on, and on, and on, and on, and on... Her chief complaint? "I COME HERE EVERY TUESDAY NIGHT AND WHEN I GET HERE THERE IS NOTHING ON THE SHELVES AND THE AISLES ARE FILLED WITH PALLETS AND BOXES". Um, ok. Well, common sense would tell you that if there was nothing on the shelves and there were boxes and pallets filling the aisles, maybe you should come the next day, after they have restocked the shelves with the contents of the pallets and boxes??? Maybe?? Yeah...

He tried explaining that to her, which made her more mad, then she started laying into him about how they never have what she wants and they used to have what she wants but they don't now and they should know what she wants... and the manager tried telling her that it wasn't that simple and that things weren't how they used to be and things had changed, to which she responded, "YEAH?! WELL MY MONEY HASN'T CHANGED YOU DUMB@$$." Yeah...

So she started moving closer to me, and I'm thinking, no, you don't need to be closer to me, and oh dang, how am I going to get out of here? This situation is escalating and she's getting more mad. Meanwhile my checker is looking on the belt for anything sharp I may have bought so she can use it in her defense. It was time for me to leave and she was showing no signs of letting up and moving closer to me, so I calmly put my hands up and said, "Ma'am, go home. Just, go home. We've all heard your complaints, we understand them, just, go home before you get into trouble. It isn't worth it, just go home." And OH MY GOODNESS did all hell break loose. She came at me and put her fingers in my face and screamed at me like I have never been screamed at before. "YOU GO HOME YOU DUMB B!TC4!! YOU GO HOME! THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY AND I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT!! YOU GO HOME!!!." Yeah...

Well, 1) I'm trying to go home, but you are in my way 2) Did you really just pull the "free country" card with me? I mean really, by doing so you've just given me a full deck to play from, including the "what have you done for our country lately to ensure your freedoms and blah blah blah" card and 3) Are you really saying "free country" in Walmart? The symbol of oppression and everything that ISN'T "free" in America? Yeah, ok. Whatever lady, move along.

But she was relentless and would not stop. Calling me names over and over, following me, screaming at me to go home. I kept calm, told her I was trying to go home and that maybe she should walk out with me and go to her car so she could go home too... it was ridiculous. The entire time the manager had this look in his eyes like "Oh no. We didn't go over this in my training, what do I do??" He ended up having someone stay with the out of control lady while he ushered me out of the store. He was legitimately scared. He asked me where my car was, told me he wasn't going to leave until I had left and I kept assuring him I was fine, that I could take her if she came at me and that he should probably call the cops because the only way she was going to be leaving that night was in handcuffs, or on a gurney after someone tazed her or knocked her out.

Should I have gotten involved? Probably not. But I had to leave, she was right in my way. There was no way I was going to get out of there because she wasn't going anywhere and there was no way I was going to be sticking around to wait for her to be done. And Mr. Manager really had no idea what he was doing so the situation wasn't showing any signs of diffusing. I've worked with plenty of "questionable" people before... but dang. This was an entirely new experience.

So while I didn't get into trouble or really do anything malicious, I can officially say I have been escorted out of Walmart by the manager after getting into an altercation with another customer. I believe I am now a stereotype.

the whirlwind that was this summer

2010-09-17T10:43:00.002-04:00

Oy. Just, Oy. What a summer this has been. I'm pretty sure the kids spent more time sleeping in their carseats and hotel rooms than they did in their own beds. We drove well over 9000 miles this summer, traveled through 15 different states, most of them twice, packed up a house, unpacked another, completed my 11th move in 6 years, W's 9th before he turned 5 (all cross country or across state lines or across the world), I gained 10 pounds, A started walking, MJ figured out how to unscrew bottle caps (not beer caps, I promise), W started kindergarten and CB, well, let's just say she's come a LONG way this summer. And to top it all off, I got escorted out of Walmart by the manager after getting into an altercation with another customer. Yes, yes I did. I can die happy now. I think my life is complete.

This is the first time I've had a chance to sit down at the computer in over 2 weeks. Actually, I don't think I've really sat down at all in the past 3 weeks, except maybe to sleep and I'm not sure that even counts given the number of nights we were sleeping on an air mattress. Thankfully, the house is unpacked and relatively organized, just please, whatever you do, DO NOT open any of the closets. I can't be held liable for anything that may fall on your head. The closets will have to come later, I need a break.

The freezer is full again after a marathon 3 day cooking stint-- 12 dozen turkey and quinoa meatballs (egg, wheat and dairy free), 64 cups of chicken broth, 6 batches of chicken and rice soup, 6 batches of my really awesome chili, 4 whole chickens worth of shredded chicken and a serious amount of homemade spaghetti sauce. That all should last us like, a week. Ok, maybe 5. Dang, this family can eat. And after cooking through 6 pounds of onions and 12 heads of garlic in less than 3 days I can officially say that my house, and my hair, reek.

Now I'm on to making and freezing a bunch of muffins, waffles and pie crust and pureeing and freezing my own pumpkin because we all know how much I love the pumpkin... I plan on going through at LEAST a pound a week of that stuff this fall. Speaking of which, I actually got to taste my first Pumpkin Spice Latte last week. I know, right?? My first?! Yes, my first. I can't believe it has taken me this long. But in my defense, the first year they had them I was on the elimination diet for CB, the second year they had them I was in Germany and last year I was on the elimination diet for the twins so I've never had the chance to try it. But oh my, was that thing delicious. If I wasn't on a mission to not eat out AT ALL for at least a month, I'd probably be partaking of one right now.

Even though we are (mostly) settled, there still isn't much time for rest. I have 9 voice mails to listen to, over 1300 messages in my inbox to go through, a billion facebook messages to respond to and a ton of phone calls to make, and no, I am not exaggerating, at all. Plus, I need to get my butt to the gym to work off my 10 pound love handles so I can fit into my winter clothes once it finally cools down-- I am WAY too cheap to buy new clothes this year. But first I am going to finish my coffee and sit here and savor the silence in the house as W is at school and M has taken all of the girls for a run. This is the first time I have been completely alone in like a decade and I'm going to try to savor it because Lord only knows when that will happen again...

angry birds

2010-08-05T13:09:00.001-04:00

Have you guys played this game? If you haven't, you need to get yourself to the app store and download the free version and once you beat that you need to suck it up and pay the 99 cents for the paid version because, it will CHANGE YOUR LIFE. If you are behind the times and don't have an iPhone then you need to get your butt down to AT&T and get a phone and data plan and before you so much as make a call on that phone, you need to download this game. Or at least get yourself an iTouch.

Good Lord this game is awesome. And addicting. I have lost all of the men in my life to this game. My father, husband, son... all victims of the angry bird. And I may or may not have stayed up until 1:13 am playing it last night, but I really only did it for the sake of my son. I NEEDED to beat the harder levels so he wouldn't get frustrated when he tried. I'm just taking one for the team and doing my part to keep the peace.

Angry Birds is kind of like the most awesome game you've ever played (like Snood or Dr. Mario), but with birds, that you sling shot across the screen and smash into things in hopes of knocking over rocks and blocks and killing pigs. On a scale of 1 to Awesome, Angry Birds is somewhere around The Most Awesomerestness of Awesome. But child please, don't tell me you don't remember what Snood is because that was the single greatest game in the history of games of the early 2000's. That game got me through college. And if they ever make it into an iPhone app, I'm screwed.

You know though, I have to say I'm thankful that there weren't any iPhones or smartphones invented when I was in college because I would have NEVER gotten anything done or paid any attention in class. I hardly paid attention without smart phones, it would have been so UGLY if I had Angry Birds or Face Book or my email right at my finger tips. I don't think I would have graduated. I don't know how kids these days are getting through college with all of the distractions of laptops and phones... kind of makes me nervous for the quality of doctors and lawyers and teachers we are going to have in the next 20 years.

word, say word to the father

2010-08-03T21:28:00.000-04:00

I don't talk about my husband much, and that really is too bad because he is pretty cool. Although, if I did talk about half the stuff I wanted to talk about, I'd have to kill you. I so wish I was kidding. I tend to roll my eyes at him a little more than I should-- don't want him to get an ego, but the truth is, he really deserves to have an ego because he is a better father than I am a mother and a much better husband than I am a wife. That, and he's pretty much GI Joe and could render your husband unconscious with one swift flick of the wrist. Not that I'm bragging or anything.

He has been the one to potty train W and CB, I don't have the patience. He comes home from work and plays with them, takes care of them, does all the diaper changes and most nights does their baths and puts them all to bed and then he does the dishes. Seriously.

W is a very curious child and likes to know everything, much like his father. About 7 months ago W randomly counted to 100, something I certainly never taught him to do. I asked where he learned it and he told me daddy taught him on the way to school. Oh. Then one day he asked me to make a paper airplane, and then informed me that I had failed because I didn't meet the 3 basic components to make it fly: lift, drag and thrust. Well, crap. W and I were reading a couple of days ago and he was explaining the rules to me, what words make what sounds and why, what letters make other letters have certain sounds. Yep, daddy taught him. I just barely learned the I before E rule like 3 years ago and have no idea what the "real" reading rules are. Most days I can't even use effect and affect properly.

I stick M with the kids all the time and I never hear him complain about how hard it is or how much energy it takes, he actually seems to like it. There are very few men on this planet who would be willing to take care of four kids, ages four and under, for a few hours at a time while their wife goes to the gym, or to the grocery store or sleeps. Since I have been down for the count more than I have been useful lately, M has picked up most of my slack. Last Saturday I woke up at 9:30 and the kitchen was spotless and the living room was picked up, all 4 kids were fed and playing and the babies diapers were dry. You know how long it has been since I got to sleep in until 9:30? Like 6 years. It was bliss.

One thing I know for sure is that this man knows what is important and has his priorities right. There are a lot of people out there who could take a lesson or two from him. Because he spends so little time with us through the year, he makes every second count when he's home and that in itself is an amazing example for our kids. Yes, daddy is gone, a lot, but I don't think they will remember the times he's away as much as they will remember the times he is home because he makes sure he smothers them in a thousand kisses and reads to them and never tells them he's too busy to do something with them. Even if he was home all the time I have no doubt in my mind that he would be just as involved in their lives and just as attentive to me. My kids and I are so lucky, and so blessed and I promise you we will never, ever, take that for granted.

now you are family.

2010-07-29T10:21:00.000-04:00

We've been home from the West Coast for about a week and a half now and I must be getting old, or something, because I'm not bouncing back as awesomely as I used to when I did stupid stupid insane ridiculously irresponsible road trips... like the time my friend J and I drove from CA to WA (about 900 miles in my ghetto car that had the bumper duct taped on because I had crashed it into a pole a few weeks earlier) after working a full day, only to get there in the morning, go to a wedding in the afternoon and turn around and leave to drive home that night and then went back to school and work that next day. Yeah, that was dumb. But we were 19 and knew everything so it didn't matter

Man, we flippin rocked that road trip. Good times, "resting" at the rest stop between Shasta and the Oregon border, and then again at the rest stop by the Sacramento airport... because that is a really really safe for 2, 19 year olds to do. Pretty sure that's how horror movies start. But if I'm remembering correctly, this was all during midterms and I still managed to ace an exam 2 days after we got back. AND my car got broken into the day of that midterm and not only did the jerkfaces go through my CD's individually and pick and choose which ones they wanted (apparently they weren't country fans) but they also took my stereo and my text books AND had the nerve to go through and look at the pictures we had taken at the wedding, as it was way back in the day when film was the method of taking pictures and digital cameras were only for the wealthy. The cops ended up taking the pictures into "evidence" so we don't have any pictures from that trip, except for a couple of the shady bathroom we stopped at in the middle of Oregon. That bathroom was seriously so shady I'm pretty sure we got herpes just by opening the door. My goodness, that was a trip.

This last road trip was hardly eventful. We made it home without breaking down (both the car, and our mental states), without any notable events and we only went $8 over our allotted "food, gas, Starbucks and hotel" budget. I was proud. But for some reason, I'm spent. I haven't had the energy to do anything and the suitcases are still in a heap on the floor. I've been rewashing and wearing the same 4 outfits we all wore on the drive home because I am just too lazy to unpack the rest of the clothes. It's not worth the effort...

Soon after we got home I started feeling sick and figured it was just from all of the travel, or maybe the fact that there was a disgusting layer of mold covering everything that we kept in our storage room (including, but not limited to my 4 of my 5 favorite strollers, but that is for a different post) and that it had seeped into our house and my body. Then I started to feel a lump in my neck and jaw area and figured it must be because my quack dentist did a quack crown on my tooth in December and now I needed a quack root canal, but then I got another lump where my leg meets my pelvis, in my groin area (um, that's gross and TMI, I know) so I stopped thinking it was because my quack dentist sucked and I needed a quack root canal. After the third day of zombie-dom and not being able to complete even half of my workout or any household task, I went to the doctor.

She was like, "Oh, you're fine. I don't see anything. I'll just give you some decongestants and you'll be fine." Yeah, I'm not thinking that you're really understanding what I'm saying. There is a GOLF BALL size LUMP in my NECK AREA and GROIN right now-- that aint right. And she was like, "I'm sure there's not a lump in your groin, it's probably just an ingrown hair" Yeah, no. That would be one seriously nasty hair (really that is GROSS! Someone stop me) It's INTERNAL. And she was like, "Well, I'll take a look at it but I really don't think it's anything." And then she felt it, and her eyes got big and she was like, "So I'm gonna order a CBC and a BlahBlahBlah and a WhatchaMaCallIt and a ThingAMaBob and put you on some heavy duty antibiotics and if it isn't better in 10 days, we're going to biopsy that". Hold the phone. My short answer would be, No. My long answer would be, HECK NO. No WAY are you going to biopsy something in my neck. You will have to knock me out cold before that happens. Those are long needles and That. Is. Gross.

Holy "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Knowing me, if they biopsy that crap they'll probably find teeth and a spinal cord

and that it is really my twin that my body has finally decided to expel. Or in my case, triplet because of the additional one. See, multiples really do run in my family.

I'm sure I'm fine and it's my body's way of telling me to SLOW DOWN or it is just some freak infection... even though I don't have a fever or any other "infections symptoms". The one in my neck is feeling a little better so that is a plus, the other one though, is really annoying and I could totally do without. This will certainly be one round of antibiotics I will finish. No way in you know where are they coming at my neck with a needle. No way, no how.

flying with infant twins... alone.

2010-07-17T10:16:00.026-04:00

Ok, boring title, I know. Forgive me as my creative brain seems to be taking a summer ciesta. Jerk. The twins and I flew back from Alaska, reunited with the other ~~hellions~~ children, and are now making the looooooooong @$$ trip back to the East Coast. Awesome. I have officially scarred W for life. Every time he gets in the car he asks if it is going to be a 1 movie drive, or a 2 sleeps drive. Either way he hates it and demands compensation for me ruining his life. A trip into town makes him freak the freak out, espeically if I don't have an arsenol of snacks and things for him to do. Hunny Pie, it's only a 25 minute drive, pretty sure you can survive without a DVD. Now stop kicking your sister before I PULL THIS CAR OVER. I swear...

ANYWAY. Onto the point of this post, I promise. Flying with twins. Yes. Ok, so the key is to be uber organized. Like, more organized than you think you need to be, and over prepare. And then think about how you are going to do what you are going to do before you do it. And then take those scenarios, and blow them out of the water and then run your mind's eye through how you are going to handle your baby's diaper exploding while the other one projectile vomits onto the person next to you while you spill the bottle you prepared 4 seconds ago to calm the poopy butt baby down. What are you going to do when you are all covered in vomit and poop and formula that smells like rotten white cheddar cheese? What are you going to do...? Cry. Pretty much just cry.

Ok, I swear there is a point to this. So really, how do you do this? First, plan your flights for their nap times. If they are napping 2x a day, plan the first flight for their first nap time and then take a layover until their second nap time. Or take a red eye. Chances are good they will fall asleep during takeoff because of the white noise and g-forces and maybe, just MAYBE, you might be able to read a magazine for the first time since before they were born. Maybe.

Second, the diaper bag. Pack only the essentials. Everything else can be improvised. Daytime flights can be a bit more tricky because you have to pack more food, if they are eating solids, but if your kids don't have huge food issues like mine do, that won't be as hard as I make it out to be. So here's what I would pack for a 10 hour day of travel, if I were you:

8 diapers per baby
1 pack of wipes
Changing pad
2 bottles (I like the Playtex Drop Ins for travel because you only need 2 bottles and then can pack the extra liners and extra nipples-- takes up a lot less room)
Formula
Change of clothes for each baby
Bows to match those change of clothes so people don't ask if they are boys (optional)
An extra shirt for you
Baby crackers
Baby food in squeeze containers or plastic containers (if applicable)
Bibs
Spoons (if needed)
Gas drops (or gripe water-- you'll have to pour it into a 3oz container for the flight though)
Infant Tylenol
A magazine for you
A cliff bar or 2 and some candy
DumDum suckers for the babies (sometimes desperation beats out "good mommyhood")
Your wallet
Cell phone
Disinfectant wipes
A flask (kidding... kinda)
Ziploc bags, of all sizes (more on that later)
A sling

Yes, all of that fits in one bag, and fits nicely if you pack it right. Be sure to have all of your liquids put together and on top of all of your other crap so you can pull it out easily to go through security.

Getting ahead of myself. Ok, so you unload the car, and go to check in. Take someone with you for this. It is almost impossible to pull all of your luggage on one of those carts while pushing a double stroller. Don't ask me how I know. When you check in, suck it up and pay the oversize baggage fees, or have a REALLY good sob story that will cause the ticket agent to wave not only the oversize fees but also the fee for an entire bag... not that I've done that... ever...

Your bags are now checked in and it is time to go through security. You are SO going to rock this and look good doing it. You're wearing slip on shoes, don't have anything in your pockets and you have the pacifier clipped to the baby's shirt because once that binkie is in that bin, you can't get it back until they "clear" you. So here's how you do security:

Put the car seats upsidedown on the x-ray belt
Take off your shoes and put them in a bin
Take the liquids out of your bag and put them in a bin
Put all of the blankets and "loose" items in another bin
Put your bag in a bin
Send it aaaaaaaall down the roller things into the x-ray machine.
Push the stroller near the x-ray so the TSA agent can come and get it
Pick up your babies, one in each arm, and walk through the metal detector

Here's where you can get creative. You can either wait for the stroller to be done getting swabbed by the TSA agent while holding the babies or you can ask (very nicely) if they will put the carseats on the ground for you so you can put the babies in them and you can collect your things.

Now keep in mind that I don't have a stroller that holds our infant seats, so you will have to modify what you do to accommodate for your travel system. I pushed the stroller with both babies in it and carried the car seats and diaper bag. If you can, take the infant seats on your trip, if your babies still fit in them. They are so much lighter and easier to carry than a convertible car seat. If they don't fit into the infant seats and you need to take convertible seats, consider buying a PacBack to help you get through the airport.

Anyway, after you gather all of your crap and get the babies situated back in the stroller, go to your gate and get a gate check ticket for your stroller (and extra car seat if you don't have 2 seats for the babies-- try not to ever check a car seat as luggage. Chances are it will be damaged by the time you get to your destination and/ or it may be lost. If you gate check it it is less likely to be damaged or lost and if there's an extra seat on the plane, they will sometimes let you have it for the baby, so you'd be able to use the car seat). Then let the babies out to stretch and move around. Yes, on the floor of the airport. I know, disgusting, but believe me, they will touch dirtier things by the time they are 2. Yes, they will. Make sure you are by the jetway so you can preboard first and be sure to do a round of diaper changes before you get on the plane.

When they call for preboarding, either have 1 baby in a sling and 1 still in the stroller or put both babies in the stroller. After you field all of the, "OH MY GAH! Are you flying ALONE with them?!" questions, make your way down the jetway with confidence and class. You've got this! Once at the bottom, if only one baby has a seat put that baby in the car seat, the other in the sling, if not already in there, and then collapse the stroller. Typically at this point the flight attendants will either be standing at the entrance of the plane, taking bets on how long you are going to last or they will be jumping at the chance to help you because they KNOW there is no way you are going to be able to do all of this by yourself. And they are right. It simply isn't possible to get both babies plus a car seat or 2 plus a diaper bag on the plane and to your seats by yourself. You're good, but you aren't that good.

Now, when you booked your flight you had a few decisions to make besides when you were going to leave and come back. Do you bite the bullet and get a seat for each baby or do you go the cheaper route and only buy 1 ticket for 1 baby and have the other baby be a lap baby. My recommendation is to buy 2 tickets. Not only is it safer for both babies to be in car seats, but if both of them are in seats they are more likely to fall asleep and it will make it so you have an extra place to put the "extra" baby if needed. It just makes life easier, really. It is possible to do just 1 purchased seat for a baby but it will be a challenge and not the best flight you are ever going to take.

Then you have to make the "where do I sit" decision. Now, there are really 3 options: the front of the plane, no, not first class, you aren't THAT classy! I mean after row 6, the middle of the plane and the back of the plane.

Pros for the front of the plane:

you don't have to walk as far when you are boarding and exiting. It is hard to get those infant seats down the aisle!
the bulkhead will provide extra room

Cons for the front of the plane:

you are really far away from the bathroom because you aren't cool enough to use the first class bathroom
people will gawk and make a lot of comments while you are sitting there waiting for the rest of the flight to board and get off the plane
if you are in the bulkhead you can't put your bag under the seat so you have to put it in the overhead bin which can really suck when you need something out of it but can't get out of your seat

Pros for the middle of the plane:

?????
uuuuuuuuuuummmm
you don't have to wait as long for drinks as you would if you were in the back of the plane?

Cons for the middle of the plane:

you are still pretty far from the bathroom
still have gawkers
you get stuck when you get up while the flight attendants are doing the drink service and you have to get back to your seat

Pros for the back of the plane:

the bathroom is RIGHT THERE
the flight attendants are RIGHT THERE and almost always willing to hold a baby while you change the other baby's diaper
the galley is RIGHT THERE if you need water for a bottle
there aren't many people to judge you if you have to change a diaper in your seat, with the baby on your lap. Not that I've ever done that either... ever...

Cons for the back of the plane:

the bathroom is RIGHT THERE and people LOOOOOOOVE to talk to you while they are waiting to pee.
it takes forever to walk to your seat and chances are good your baby might have whiplash from being banged against every other seat on your way there.
you will finally get your complimentary beverage approximately 2.5 minutes before the Captain asks the flight attendants to prepare the cabin for landing.

Once you get to your seat, you are going to buckle the car seats in, get the crying baby out to appease her, ask the flight attendants for water for the bottles, prepare their bottles for take off and pull out your magazine and a snack so you don't have to rummage around your bag later if a baby is asleep in your arms. And then you are going to promise all of the people who are glaring at you and your crying baby that they will not in fact cry for the entire flight. And then you'll wonder why you are trying to satisfy all of these people and realize they can just bite you. Who cares if your baby is crying? BABIES CRY. Oh wait, getting off topic again...

So it is time for take off now and you're getting nervous. Once that door shuts, you're committed. Put the babies back in their seats, give them their bottles, some tylenol if needed, gas meds if necessary, give them their soothie (blanket, binkie, whatever) and then PRAY HARD that your evil plan works and they do fall asleep. If they fall asleep, you're golden for at least an hour. Pat yourself on the back! But then prepare for when they wake up. Have their snacks ready if they are eating solid foods, pull a diaper or 2, the wipes and changing pad out so they are ready to go when needed, and get their toys ready to be played with.

But wait... you didn't pack any toys for them! Why did that stupid girl on that stupid blog not put any toys on that stupid diaper bag packing list?? Oh young Jedi, because you don't need them. Everything you need to entertain your babies is already on the plane. Cups, stir sticks, packets of sugar, plastic spoons, barf bags, those really annoying papers that say "SUBSCRIBE FOR ONLY $.75 AN ISSUE" that fall out of your magazine, your cell phone, club card for Safeway, your bracelet, a baby wipe, the wrapper from your Cliff Bar, a bottle nipple... the possibilities are endless.

And then there are the ziploc bags. Why did you bring those? Not only do those provide a nice, smell proof place to put nasty clothes but they provide for entertainment too. Ask the flight attendant for some ice and a tiny bit of water and put them in one, zip it up and give it to a baby. They will have fun squishing it around. Throw some cherrios in there and let them go nuts, just make sure they don't bite through the plastic. And if that ziploc magic doesn't work, pull out the dumdums and let them lick away. No, I'm not kidding, it really works. Mother of the Year here, people. Mother of the Year.

So the flight is going relatively well but now it's time for a diaper change. Crap. Literally. You pretty much have three options: Change the baby in your lap, which I would not do if it were a poopy diaper, ask a flight attendant to come and sit with the other baby while you go to the bathroom and change the dirty one or put the clean baby in the sling and carry the dirty one to the bathroom. I typically go with option number 3, unless the clean baby is sleeping. Then I go with option number 2 (no pun intended).

After diaper changes, it's time for feeding. Again, no problem, you've prepared well. Bibs are on to minimize the mess and you feed them in their car seats... which, sorry to say, will make a mess no matter how hard you try to prevent it. Just remember, car seat covers are washable. Be sure to follow the manufacturers instructions for care and use. And be sure to make the feeding time fun. If you have ferocious eaters like I do you will have to act fast which can be tricky but smiles and songs seem to help take the edge off of the wait while the other baby gets her bite.

Once the babies are dry and fed they will either fall back asleep or want to play and by then, it's pretty much time to land. If possible, keep them both in their car seats during landing as this is prime time for injury for a lap baby. Because you are smart, you've built in a lot of extra time into your itenerary so there is no need to rush off the plane. You will always get off last. Always. Not only is it the polite thing to do, but it is the practical thing to do because a) the flight attendants will help you off the plane and b) you won't have a big ol line of angry people up your butt while you try to get the stroller set up and the babies put in it.

Now make your way to the poor soul who is going to pick you up and give yourself a HUGE pat on the back because you just rocked the whole flying with twins thing. Congrats!

Ok, I know it doesn't always happen that easily but it really doesn't have to be a huge event. Just remember to be flexible, have a good attitude and don't get upset over stupid stuff and you'll be fine. The nicer and more sane you seem, the more people will be willing to accomodate you and help you out. And if anything, you'll be making memories and that always makes it worth it, right?

nostalgic

2010-07-15T02:51:00.002-04:00

My babies are almost 1. Sigh. One year ago right now I was in early labor, so tired of contractions and thought my babies would never come. Just 1 year ago... It is almost surreal.

I recently came across an email I sent to some doula friends in the weeks before the girls were born and in it I was completely freaking out about pretty much everything, as usual. Reading it brought back all of those feelings of anxiety and stress and anticipation and fear... I can still feel exactly how I felt during that time. I knew life was going to be different but I really had no idea one year ago just how different it was going to be.

These babies have done something to me. Maybe it's the fact that we went through so much hell for 5 months that I can pretty much handle anything at this point... maybe it's because they have forced me to be organized, who knows, but I feel so much better about life now than I ever have before. There are so many things that I used to stress about that just don't matter anymore. I never would have thought these babies would make me sane. Never. Of course the teething and "oh &$*% she ate something with wheat and now she's going to be up all night screaming" days and endless diapers can wear on me but there is really so much joy in my life it is almost nauseating.

A and MJ are such funny babies. Just recently they have really started to interact with each other. They love to play together, even trading toys when they get bored with what they are playing with. The hold hands while they are in the stroller and while they eat, if you put them close enough. Of course, that is between A stealing bites of food off of MJ's plate. MJ really needs to learn to eat faster, before A takes all of it and she ends up being the runt for the rest of her life.

When MJ wants to get A's attention, she will fake cough and then they will have a complete conversation. No clue as to what they are saying... probably something along the lines of, "holy crap, she had to put another one of these ridiculous bows on us AGAIN?! Does she not see they are literally bigger than our heads? This is annoying. That woman has flipped her lid". And then when MJ gets distracted by a shiny object, A will fake cough to get her attention and they will finish out their conversation.

What is most interesting is that they have no interest in other babies, except for each other. If you put them in front of a mirror, they won't look at their own reflection, they will look directly at each other's reflection. If you put just one of them in front of a mirror, she will look at the person holding her, instead of her reflection. But they do love their brother and sister, that's for sure. They are all smiles when W and CB walk in the room. It is so sweet to watch all of them together... I just hope it lasts...

They both are growing leaps and bounds. Just in the past 2 months they have become mobile and quick. While neither of them are very close to walking, they each have their own unique way of getting around. A crawls like she's swimming. She looks just like she's doing the breaststroke. And MJ crawls like she's been shot and is dragging herself to safety. She keeps her left arm under her chest and drags her left leg, propelling herself with her right arm and right leg... maybe we should get that checked...

MJ is definitely the jokester, like we've always known she would be. She plays peek-a-boo and loves to make noise and laugh. She has such a good temperament and is generally willing to just hang out. A is more of the diva princess, for sure. She very much prefers for you to do things for her. She'll crawl all the way down the hallway to get to you and then stop 3 feet from where you are and will sit up and SCREAM until you come and get her. She simply cannot be bothered to crawl the rest of the way. She makes me smile.

It has been a long year. One filled with so many ups and downs, laughter and tears, freak outs and realizations, sleepless nights, character building, humbling experiences, and learning... and yet it seems to have gone by in an instant.

They say it takes a village to raise a child and that is really true for us. We would have not made it through this year with our sanity intact if it weren't for our family and friends who have stood by us and at times literally held us up. Those who came and held my babies so I could take a shower, who stopped by or made me go to lunch so I could have some adult interaction, who took care of W and CB so I could make it through the day with the babies, who just sat and listened when I was at my breaking point and who have come to our rescue in time of need have a huge place in my heart. I don't know where we would have been without all of you.

And to my angel-- the wonderful wonderful woman who so graciously and willingly sacrificed so much by taking everything delicious out of her diet to provide milk for my babies so they could thrive when I couldn't do it: I've told you before what that has meant to me but I really can't say it enough. You helped give my babies life and made them grow. Without you they wouldn't have been as happy or healthy and that is something that is truly invaluable to me. What you did was so selfless and amazing, I only wish I could do something half as wonderful for someone one day. You are a true example of kindness and generosity and we are so blessed to know you. Thank you so much for what you did for us and for my babies. It means the world to me.

So here's to another year-- Happy birthday sweet babies. I love you.

riddle me this:

2010-06-14T01:06:00.000-04:00

I know not everyone is as addicted to coffee as I am, or is as irresponsible as I am to actually go out and buy a $5 cup of coffee on a near daily basis, but I figure there are some people out there who are and will have insight on this very perplexing situation.

A few days ago we went to Starbucks and ordered the following: Grande, Light Ice, Upside Down, Caramel Macchiato. Now yeah, the caramel macchiato is kind of a confusing drink in itself-- I mean, the flavoring is vanilla and not caramel like you'd think it would be, so when you throw the "upside down" in there you are pretty much asking for trouble. But this barista, unlike the one the day before, knew that upside down essentially means you make it in the reverse order that you normally would-- coffee and caramel on the bottom, milk goes in after. The other barista was like, "Um, y'all? So do you like, want the caramel on top? or on the bottom...?" and then she ended up not putting it in at all. Whatever. Some things are just hard for people, ok?

Reminds me of the time way back in the day when I went and ordered a Venti, 2%, Extra Hot, Toffee Nut Latte. And the girl made it with half and half. And when I asked her if she made it with half and half, she told me she made it with 2%. But I saw her make it with half and half and when I said that, she said that half and half is the same thing as 2%. What? How? Because half and half is half whole milk and half non fat, so it's half and half. Um, no. Close, kinda, but no. But good try. 'A' for effort! Now if you would please remake my drink with 2% so it literally does not go straight to my butt and stick to my arteries, I'd appreciate it.

ANYWAY! The upside down thing didn't trip up this barista, the request for light ice did. When he brought our drinks to the counter, they were hot. But we asked for iced drinks. And when I said I had asked for them to be cold he gave me an annoyed sigh and a 'tude and told me that, "around here, 'light ice' means that you want the drink hot with a little bit of room for ice at the top to cool it down." Do what now? First of all, "around here"? Where "around here"? Like, on this block? In this state? Do I look like a tourist and that's why you are saying "around here"? Cause I'm driving a car with Alaska plates... my California accent must have given it away that I'm not from "around here", right?

I've drank coffee in 19 states and 9 countries and I'm pretty sure I've never heard that before. I'm pretty sure that "light ice" universally means "don't put so much freaking ice in my drink that it is coffee flavored water by the time I take 2 sips, por favor". So don't make me look the fool when I clearly asked for an iced drink and you brought me a hot one.

Am I wrong? Baristas and coffee lovers, please correct me if I am and I'll go back to that Starbucks (that is actually located right next door to a sleep clinic-- no lie. Irony.) and apologize to the guy for asking him to correct his mistake. I know it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but let's face it, I don't want to be driving across the country looking like an idiot who doesn't know how to order a drink! I really don't mean to be difficult but if I'm going to drop 5 bucks for a drink, I want to like it and be how I like it. Maybe I should change my tastes and ask for something less complicated? No, I don't "do" regular coffee. Hey, at least I'm not this guy:

seriously

2010-06-09T02:44:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was one of those days where the only proper response to almost every situation was a resounding, "SERIOUSLY?!" Seriously. The twins woke up at 5:15 am, teething something fierce. A is cutting 2 teeth and MJ is cutting 4. Seriously. Cranky babies all day. Seriously.

Then every time the phone rang there was just bad news. It got to the point where we would just look at the phone when it rang, wondering what on earth it could possibly be NOW. M called and told me that it wasn't exactly going to cost the $400 we were told it would to fix the transmission in his car (which busted the day after mine blew, Seriously.) but it was going to cost $3100. SERIOUSLY?! Because we just have that kind of cash laying around. Seriously. Especially after traveling across the country and buying plane tickets to Alaska. Seriously. The fix it place was more than willing to give us financing, at 12%. SERIOUSLY?! Oh yeah, put those papers on the desk and give me the pen. Silly people. I'll pick up a shift or two at Hooters before I pay 12% interest on anything. Seriously!

T's son J, who is 2, was feeling our stress so I decided to take him out for a walk. I noticed an unusually large number of seagulls out, but didn't think much of it, until we started walking and one started squawking and divebombed our heads. Seriously. I thought it was just a fluke so we just kept walking, but no, the thing did it 4 or 5 more times before the light bulb finally went off that something wasn't right, or that this bird had dug through someones trash and took a hit of their left over booze... or pills... or... whatever. As we headed home the thing kept diving for our heads. I was screaming, J thought it was hilarious and was screaming just like I was. I'm sure we looked like a big bunch of freak shows. Seriously. Thank goodness we made it home without the thing taking out a chunk of my hair, or picking J straight up off the ground with its crazy razor sharp talons. Seriously.

After we got home we realized the stupid thing was protecting something and T finally saw the 3 baby seagulls walking across the driveway. The mama had kicked them out of their nest and was teaching them to live on their own, and in the process was keeping everything away by crapping on them or taking off pieces of their ears. Seriously. I am not exaggerating, at all. Seriously. So for a good 2 hours we ran from the porch and back inside trying to avoid getting our eyes gouged out while still watching the baby birds. Seriously. And it was also pretty entertaining to watch as innocent bystanders had the audacity to actually drive into their driveways and get out of their cars, not knowing that they were about to run screaming and crying into their homes as their lives flashed before their eyes. Seriously.

So then M calls back and told me that the transmission in his car breaking might actually be a good thing (??). Seriously?! You are not getting a new car, sorry. Seriously. But no, he assured me it was actually a good thing because we could pay for the transmission by refinancing the van, at an interest rate that was half of the interest we were paying now (the lowest rate in the past 2 years), which meant we could actually be paying less for our monthly payments. SERIOUSLY!? Sign me up! That is a deal I can handle. And I won't have to go work at Hooters! (And for real, don't even start to lecture me about finances and spending and being responsible with money and blah blah blah. SER.I.OUS.LY.)

Deep down I knew the transmission thing was going to work out so I refused to really stress about it. I was pretty much at that "...whatever..." point. I mean, seriously, what are the odds that the transmissions in both of our cars would need to be completely replaced in the same week? SERIOUSLY! We should start playing the lotto and staying inside during thunderstorms so we don't get struck by lightning. Seriously! Do we have little transmission gnomes living in our cars? Did we make the transmission gods mad? How is that even possible? Seriously.

Even though something good came of the crazy day, it was just seriously thing after thing, bad news after bad news, weirdness after weirdness. By 6pm A had found a cookie and was eating that while sucking down a cup of J's soy milk (which she's allergic to), MJ was in the corner sucking on a dum dum and J was doing only God knows what... Seriously, when did I become mother of the year? T and I finally threw all the kids in bed, did the dishes and sat down for a much needed break, only to realize that we hadn't eaten dinner, at all. Seriously. And what sounded delicious at 10pm? Half price day old donuts from Safeway, of course. Seriously! I'm pretty sure the checker thought I was high and had the munchies as the contents of my cart included the following: 6, half price day old donuts, a bag of ruffles, 2 containers of yogurt, a couple of boxes of candy, blueberries, strawberries and a bag of cherries. Seriously. Nothing like a sugar crash to put me right to sleep. Had to counteract that 5pm cup of coffee somehow. Seriously. It was just that kind of day. Seriously.

trippin numero dos

2010-06-06T16:01:00.000-04:00

Well, we made it. As semi promised, my car was ready by 3pm and we had it repacked and on the road by 3:18 on Thursday afternoon. And then we drove... and drove... and drove. We drove from the Arkansas/ Oklahoma boarder, through Oklahoma, North Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and half of California, only stopping for food, gas, and diaper changes. And for a small nap at a well lit and very busy rest stop somewhere in New Mexico.

We drove for 35 hours. 35 non stop hours with 4 kids ages 4 and under. It was... interesting. Someone asked my friend J if it took us so long because we drove 50 MPH the entire time, and no, we didn't. But we did drive about 60 because it was so darn windy through New Mexico, Arizona and So Cal that we couldn't go much faster in a fully loaded van with a stroller strapped to the roof. It was so windy that I got only 13.4 miles per gallon through most of AZ and So Cal. And there was the stopping 30 minutes out of every 3 hours to take care of everyone. 35 hours. THIRTY. FIVE. HOURS.

But we all survived, relatively sane and mentally intact, even with all of the car drama. The kids were amazing and put up with it very well and NO, there was no use of benedryl or other sleep inducing medicine. I don't roll that way, ever. People have asked me how we did it, how we kept them entertained and from throwing things at our heads and the truth is, we didn't have to do much (but I'll save that post for a later date). They are just awesome kids.

Three days after we got "home", the twins and I hopped a plane to Alaska. I'll save the "how the heck do you fly with twins" post for a later date also, but let's sum it up, again, as I have awesome kids. I am so glad I am here, I have missed my friend T like crazy and this is exactly what she needs... what I need too... because it is all about me, after all. I have to say though, it is a little weird to have my family spread out just about as far as you can be within the USA. M is on the East Coast, W and CB are on the West and I'm all the way in Alaska with the twins. I think we should all meet in Hawaii later in the Summer and call it good. Then we will have literally trekked from end to end of the country.

There are so many questions, I know: "Why are you up there?" "What is going on?" "How on earth could you leave your kids for so long?" "Why would you leave your kids for so long?" "How could you take them away from their father for so long?" "Why would you leave your husband for so long, or at all?" "Are you guys separating?" That one is always my favorite. Blah.

I'll answer the first two questions when I can but I will say now that, no, M and I aren't separating and yes, I love W and CB very, very much. I'm ok with being away from them for so long as they are ok with being away from us for so long. I trust them, I trust my parents (who they are staying with), I know they are fine and will survive without me and will be ok without M too. M can't take time off right now and while he misses us tremendously, he knows this is exactly where we all need to be right now and is fine with it.

Dudes, we live a crazy life. It wouldn't be us if it wasn't ridiculous. We'd be all bored and stuff. We'd be... "normal"... and that would be weird. Not that normal is bad, it just isn't what we do. This is what we do. It doesn't make sense to many, or any, and there are very few people who understand this kind of life but it works for us. I'm not going to justify it, or try to explain it because 1) I don't need to and 2) it would probably be a waste of time and 3) did I mention I don't need to? Ok, thanks. Ooooooh, look at me getting all defensive. I just don't want to hear the judgments anymore. So if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all, por favor. Gracias.

trippin

2010-05-27T11:49:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks ago my best friend T called me with news that managed to turn my Y axis 180 degrees and caused my world start spinning in the opposite direction. She's been my partner in crime, my confidant, the devil on my shoulder, the voice of reason in my ear, my medicine, my poison, the source of my sanity and a pillar of strength for the past 9 years-- what was happening had to be a cruel joke, but it wasn't. In that moment, I told her that if there was anything I could do, anything at all, to just say it and I'd be there. Last week we decided that I was going to go to her, so we could just be.

In order to do this, I needed to head back to CA, with the kids, drop the older 2 off with my parents and then take the twins with me to T. No big deal-- this is cake! We just did this trip, we're pros. I called my friend J and asked her if she wanted to take a few days off of work to come out and then drive with me and she said yes. And I reminded her that I had 4 kids and she would be stuck, in a minivan, for 4 days. And she still said yes. That is a good friend, right there

So I got everything in order, started packing, tying up the loose ends and getting ready to be gone for anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months. I took the car in for a check up, making sure they checked the transmission because the car had done something funny when I tried to reverse earlier in the week. They changed the oil, told me everything was fine with the transmission and I told them that was good because the last thing I needed was for the car to blow up on me in the middle of Texas. Everything was going great, and then J's flight got delayed, and she ended up stuck in Dallas for the night, instead of making it to me.

No big deal, slight change of plans. I would just take a little detour and pick her up from the airport after her flight landed on my way out the next morning. We ended up getting on the road 4 hours later than I wanted to, but no worries. All we had to do was be in CA by Saturday, we still had time. At one point we pulled off to fix the straps that were holding down the stroller on the top of the van and I noticed there was a very weird sound coming from my car. I thought we were dragging something underneath, but when I looked, there was nothing there. I turned off the air conditioner and we drove a bit and the noise seemed to disappear, so we went on our way. After stopping for dinner we decided to push for another 120 miles and then called it a night.

The next morning we got up, got dressed and headed out. Everything was going well, despite it being 80 degrees at 8am. Because it was so hot I broke down and turned the AC back on. I noticed the car was a bit "jumpy" but would calm down after a few words of encouragement. We were making really good time and I blew through a tank of gas in record time. Looking back, I should have realized I was getting only 15 miles to the gallon, instead of the normal 21 highway that I normally get. As we pulled off to get gas, the car jumped. And then pretty much refused to accelerate. I managed to make it to a gas station, only to have the car peel out on me as I tried to accelerate into a parking space. At that point, I knew something was really wrong, and my gut told me that if I didn't get the car to a service center, we were going to be stranded within 90 miles. And the thought of being stranded on the side of the road with 4 kids and a busted up car in 90 degree heat gave me a panic attack. 4 kids, 4 carseats, J and me cannot fit in a tow truck! What would we do?

There was a dealership about 15 miles away so I gave the car a little rest, said about a hundred and fifty prayers and slowly headed back onto the freeway. As I pulled into the left turn lane to turn into the dealership, my dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree decorated with warning and check engine lights, and then the car refused to accelerate. We literally coasted into the parking lot. Thank you, Jesus, we made it but Oh. My. Goodness. Are you kidding me? W defines the "middle of nowhere" as "Texas" but we weren't in Texas-- we were in The Middle of Nowhere, America. Stuck. There was no way that car was going anywhere.

The service guy was like, "well, we'll see if we can work it in, but we're really busy..." and I was like, "well, my 4 kids and I are going to have to sit in this waiting room and terrorize all of you until you manage to 'work it in' so you might want to think about doing that sooner rather than later, if you know what I mean." And he was like, "well, last time we saw this kind of problem it took about a week to get the parts." And I was like, "well, that's hilarious because there's no way in heck we are going to be stuck here for a week. I'll rent a car, fly a plane, stowaway on a train car, paddle a boat or find a donkey cart and go get the parts myself before we are stuck here for a week." And he was like, "well, the other dude is going to look at it while I'm at lunch and then we'll go from there" and I was like, "well, ok, cause I don't really want to ride a donkey from here to Dallas to pick a transmission, know what I mean?" and he was like, "yo, I totally do."

So the other dude took it out for a test drive and disappeared for a couple of hours. When he finally made another cameo, he was with the head of the service department, someone who is normally allusive. I knew this wasn't good news. Mr. Allusive didn't beat around the bush, he just gave it to me straight and told me they had ordered me a new transmission, and it would be here the next day. Oy. And then the service dude told me he would personally bust his butt to get it put in as fast as he could, while still doing it correctly, and that we should be on the road again by 3, maaaaaaaybe 4. Oy.

Apparently, when I took the car in to be serviced before I left, they didn't really look at the transmission. Because if they did, they would have seen that it was a mess. The other dude told me that the pan thingy under the transmission was filled with metal and that it was totally messed up. He also said he was pretty sure we had been driving in 1 gear, overdrive, for a very very long time and that he was really surprised we had made it as far as we did. He also said it was a very good thing we had stopped because if we didn't, we would have been stranded within 90 miles. Oy. And believe me, there is NOTHING between here and the next big city, which is well over 90 miles away. We would have been screwed.

After spending almost 6 hours in the dealership, we made our way to the hotel for the night. The dealership was awesome and had contacted some of their advertisers and got us a free hotel room, free food and a $30 van rental. That all managed to take some of the sting off the fact that my van, that only has 25,000 miles on it, is now having the AC fixed for the 4th time (because that, and the defrost also failed again about 300 miles before the transmission did), has had the radiator replaced at 8000 miles and is now getting a new transmission. I really know how to pick a winner of a car!! Ironic, because the Jetta I had before I got married required a new transmission at eight HUNDRED miles, and then 2 more transmissions after that. Everything I touch turns to crap, I swear.

Now I get to decide if I want to call the other service center, the one who told me my car was just fine 4 days ago, and yell at them, or if I just want to file a formal complaint through the car maker, or both. This dealership thinks the other dealership just said they looked at it, but didn't, but still filed the warranty claim to get some cash. They think this because 1) there's no way they could have told me what they did (took the transmission apart and looked at it) in the time they said they did it in (2 hours) and 2) if they had taken it apart, they would have seen some of the problems the dude did right away. Oy. I'm just irritated.

Thankfully, I have the best kids in the entire world and they are pretty much up for anything. They are having their moments but they are doing pretty well, especially for being cooped up in a car and waiting room and hotel room for the better part of 3 days. It could be sooooo much worse. I'm waiting for the call to come get my car, and praying really hard it comes sooner or later and then we are going balls to the wall and driving as far as we possibly can to get through the rest of America and to California before Saturday. Oy.

To be continued... just not sure how yet...

i fell into a burning ring of fire

2010-05-17T10:23:00.003-04:00

This weekend was one I've been looking forward to for awhile. M wanted to do a triathlon so we chose one in a perfect location: the beach. And because he was doing a triathlon, I was like, heck, I'll just do a 5k, why not? Um, because I have 4 kids and no babysitter, that's why not. Thankfully my good friend K was up for doing a 5k too, and decided to do it with me. But, between the 2 of us we have 5 kids, and that didn't really work either. So the plan was to put one of my babies and her baby in one of our joggers* and then to put W and CB in the other**, and then for me to wear the other baby on my back***. It was a flawless plan, except, M and I forgot to put the handlebar to one of the joggers in the car before we left, and didn't realize it until we were 2 hours into the 4 hour drive. Awesome.

I didn't want K to have to push the weight of W and CB in a busted up stroller, so I pushed them, or rather yanked them, with MJ on my back. Pushing a jogger w/ 70 pounds without a handle bar is rough, let me tell you. I was fully expecting to get last place but to our surprise, we finished in 47 minutes and ended up pacing a firefighter doing the 5k in full gear. He was the only person out there who was just as crazy as we were and I have nothing but respect for him because at 7:30 am, it was already 83 degrees out. In all, it was so fun but next time we are going to remember that darn handle bar. I'm pretty sure I could have cut at least 5 minutes off our time if it wasn't so hard to push that thing. K was such a trooper and put up with me slowing down and speeding up every 20 seconds and fielding all of the "OH MY GOD! Are they TWINS?!?" questions while she was pushing her baby and A. It was, selfishly, really nice having someone else deal with that for a day. We drew so much attention it was almost comical, but I guess that is what is to be expected when you are walking around at a 5k looking like this:

(thanks, K, for this picture! It makes me laugh!)

After the we finished the 5k and M finished the triathlon we hit the beach. It was the first time A and MJ had been and A took to it like the beach baby I knew she was. MJ wasn't impressed. She did the same thing CB did as a baby and curled her toes when they hit the sand and refused to touch the stuff, although she did crawl for the first time while in her little shade dome. It was so nice to be on the beach again. M and I both crave the beach so to feel the air and hear the waves, feel the sun and the sand was just what we needed.

The next morning we decided to go back to the beach and started getting the kids ready. Everyone got lathered up with sunscreen and I put it on my face and arms, my back, and got the back of my legs... and then someone started crying and I got distracted and then got distracted doing something else... and then we went to the beach. We spent a couple of hours there until the epic meltdowns began and then decided to leave. Got in the car to make the 4 hour drive home... and my legs started itching, which I thought was from the sandflies biting me... and then they started burning... and 2 hours into the drive I looked like this:

Sun poisioning. We literally watched it spread as we were driving. Chills, fever, nausea, sensitivity to temperature changes, small blister like bumps... it was horrible. And there was nothing I could do about it because we were driving through the middle of freaking nowhere, on a Sunday, in a state where pretty much everything is closed on Sundays in a small town. My only option was to hit up the Dollar General in one town we passed and pray they had some kind of burn relief. Oh, and did they have some. Knock off "aloe". I would have been better off without it, as the 2nd ingredient was alcohol and it was green from Blue #something and Yellow #whatever. Funny enough, I missed rubbing it into a spot on my foot and when I found that spot 30 minutes later, my food was dyed green. Fantastic. My favorite part of that picture is the hilarious white line that goes across the top of my belly-- clearly need to do some more situps and cardio to get rid of that lovely little space where the skin meets when I sit... yo.

Now, the above picture doesn't really show my true pastiness as the color is quite off, but it is bad. Really bad. Just 2 hours earlier on the beach I had looked like this:

Holy Mother. This. Hurts. I always thought people in the movies were being dramatic when they got a bad sunburn and laid on the couch all day with tea bags over their eyes. Puh Lease. It can't hurt that bad! Oh, but it does, folks, it does. And the best part about it is when people stop you in the store or parking lot to tell you just how sunburned you are. REALLY?! So that's why I feel like the fire of a thousand suns is raging through my veins?? THIS IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION!! Thank you SO much for telling me that is why I feel like a billion needles are poking into my legs and belly at once. Helpful!! Seriously, you want to be helpful? Go get me a cold compress and an iced tea. Why do you think I'm here in Target at 8:52 at night, 8 minutes before they close, sprinting through the store like I'm on Supermarket Sweep, desperately trying to find any kind of remedy to get me through the night??

I'm all about the natural remedy and having never had a sunburn this bad since I was, I don't know, 12? I called my friend J, who is the queen of unintentional sunburns, and begged for advice. I had already googled "natural sunburn relief" and came across a site that claimed you already had the ingredients as close as in your fridge and kitchen cabinets. SWEET! That's what I needed... but after they listed the typical aloe, they went into how you can put mustard or white vinegar on your skin and that would help (um, no.) and then they said that Emu oil is great(!) for sunburns. Yes, because I have Emu oil hanging out in my kitchen cabinet. Really, I do. Thankfully J called me back and walked me through the steps of nursing your skin damage back to a somewhat repaired state: lots of water, gatorade, lotion and aloe, ibprofen and for the love of God, don't let anyone touch you. I also picked up some Vit E oil and have been slathering that crap on in ridiculous amounts.

After a very long night I'm getting better-- now it only hurts when I walk or stand and the blood rushes to the skin but I'm still walking like a zombie and leather couches are NOT my friend. As I'm writing this I can hear my Aunt K in my head. She has always warned us about being smart in the sun and I'm hesitant to even post this blog because I know it is going to freak her out something fierce. I am making an appointment w/ a dermatologist to get my skin checked for any sings of abnormality as skin cancer is on both sides of my family. This is not something to mess with. Lord knows I don't want to end up looking like Donatella Versace and I really don't want skin cancer. So mothers, heed my advice. 1) Don't get distracted while putting on sunblock and 2) if you are using birth control pills, read that little insert with all of the side effects. Apparently one of them is increased sensitivity to sun. Things that would have been nice to know YESTERDAY!

*Chariot CX2
**Chariot Cougar2 (full reviews and comparison for both strollers coming soon!)
***Macpac Child Carrier

pseudo-zen

2010-05-07T07:11:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I went to the store to pick up some razors. I hate shopping for razors. It's stressful. There are so many kinds... with lotion strips or without? Do I want 2 blades or 4? Or, WAIT!! Do I need the 5 blade? Holy crap, they make a 6 blade razor now? Seriously? If I had that much hair on my legs that I needed SIX blades, I'm going to be waxing, thanks. And why are they so expensive? 10 bucks for a starter kit and then 16 bucks for 4 replacement heads? No thank you. I'll take my double blade, $4 for 6, cheap walmart brand razors. But those give me razor burn so I really do need to spend the 8 bucks on the triple blades w/ lotion strips. Now, do I want aloe lotion strips or "conditioning" lotion strips?? Oh. My. Goodness. I need a drink. I'm going to close my eyes and point and then get the heck out of here. Oh dang, I didn't want those!

Honestly, I can buy a stroller or even a car faster than I can buy razors. I finally ended up picking a pack and then I looked and there was a seemingly identical pack for $3 less. More stress. What was the difference? It took me a while but then I found the answer: Scented Handles. Seriously? Scented handles? For real? We need scented handles on our razors now? Why? Why on earth do we need scented handles on our razors? Is it to make us feel more at peace? More rested? Transport us away from the misery of shaving our legs, into a tropical paradise filled with cabana boys and pina coladas?

Is it not enough that we go on a virtual trip around the world with all of the other scented products we use in the shower? I personally start off with a shampoo that is supposed to uplift me a take me to a roadside fruit stand with the smell of summertime nectarines. Then I am taken away to Asia with my jasmine scented body soap. After that I take a fun little trip back to the produce stand with my "energizing citrus" shave gel, where at the same time, if I was using said scented handled razors, I would also be taken to the tropical shores of Hawaii with it's "fun, fresh scented handle" and THEN I get out of the shower, head on over to Mexico via my coconut and lime lotion... all while in a room already scented with a candle that is supposed to "ground me" with lavender and chamomile. And that's not to mention the 3 hair products, face soap, moisturizer, and deodorant that I have yet to use...

I guess I didn't realize I needed to get my passport and pop some malaria pills every time I stepped in the shower. So, not only do I get out of the shower smelling like a fruit salad with a hint of lime, now I also need a nap from the jet lag AND I'm going to have to pop a pill for the raging headache I have from all of the "aromatherapy", which is going to transport me somewhere else entirely, if you know what I mean. It's no wonder I'm all kinds of jacked up. It's no wonder all of us are all kinds of jacked up.

I can't help but wonder what the point is of all of this "aromatherapy"? The only thing that "energizes" me are a good cup of coffee or a hard workout. I'm not more grounded, I'm not more at peace and I certainly don't look like those chicks in all of the commercials advertising this crap. A handle on a razor or a bottle of shampoo isn't going to fix our problems.

Yes, it's harmless "fun" and smelling good is a definite plus. So what's the problem with something like scented handles on razors? I just don't see the point. Are we on such a quest to find a happy place that we actually buy into this? I think it's a gimmick, a tale of consumerism and waste, an annoyance and just one more thing thrown in your face, saying that you NEED this in order to have a better life. No people, no. Having a better life begins on the inside. No bottle of lotion is going to help you. A bottle of pills though...? Maybe.

And that has been "deep thoughts by Joanna". Tune in next week for, "why must children's toys be SO FREAKING LOUD?! and what it says about America today".

this is how we do it (insert tune to the awesome 90's song here)

2010-04-27T10:52:00.000-04:00

Besides the "are they twins" question, (no, they are half sisters), the two things I hear the most are, "I don't know how you do it" (my pills are better than yours) and "How do you do it?" The truth is, I'm not sure I have a really good answer for that because, well, I don't really know. It has taken 9 long months to get to where we are today and I'm still trying to figure everything out.

The first 4 months after the twins were born were literally the most challenging and stressful of my entire life. Even though I had a lot of help from our families there was so much going on and too much to adjust to for even the strongest person to be able to cope well.

Being the sole physical parent to 2 preschoolers and newborn twins was brutal. Between the night feedings and wakings and having to pump in the middle of the night, I was getting about 3 hours of sleep a night. Add to that the normal everyday stressors and responsibilities and you pretty much have a recipe for disaster. There's a reason they use sleep deprivation as a form of torture. It messes with your mind and can make you think you are losing it. You see things that aren't there, you hear things that aren't being said and you just plain can't cope.

In addition to the sleep deprivation, I was also dealing with postpartum depression. It was no surprise to me, as I had been through it twice before, but this time I swore it was going to be different. Even before the girls were born I made a promise to myself that I was going to get help. And when I finally worked up the courage to get help at about 12 weeks postpartum, my doctor told me he really didn't think it was "that bad" because I was "functioning" and that I should wait it out a couple more weeks. I told him that was fine, but in the meantime if I happened to drive my car into a phone pole, he would know why. Of course I was "functioning". I didn't have a choice. If I didn't function, no one else would. The babies weren't going to feed themselves, the kids weren't going to take themselves to school... It was then that he took me seriously and helped me get help.

About a week later I ended up having to go on a total elimination diet (again) because both babies stomach issues had gotten so bad and all of the proteins that were passing through my breastmilk were causing them to have severe pain and lots of spitup. That meant I got to cut out dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, corn, beef, caffeine, citrus, nuts and chocolate. I remember pleading with the babies to at least let me have caffeine, if they were going to insist on being up all night. Fair is fair, right? They didn't agree. I had done the elimination diet, for 10 months, with CB, so it was nothing new for me. I was just praying so hard that it would be different this time so it was a big letdown, and a major change, when the last resort became the only option.

It was very hard living in that dark place. I remember laying in bed crying, wanting so desperately to love my babies the way I thought I should. Of course I loved them, but I wanted to really feel it. I wanted to see their beauty, instead of just seeing them as a responsibility. When they were about 13 weeks old I called a photographer and begged her to take the twins' pictures. I just kept thinking about all I was missing out on, how hard it was for me to see who they really were and how guilty I would feel if I couldn't remember their newness and sweet babyhood because I was so wrapped up in my own head. I needed someone to capture those days before they were gone. The day of their photo shoot was literally transforming. I got to spend 4 straight hours with just them, finally getting to see them for who they were, both as a unit and as 2 completely different personalities. I got to focus on their little toes and noses and the fine baby hair on the sides of their heads and really look at their sweet baby lips. I just got to be with them.

And for the first time I started believing it was going to get better, that I could really do this. I could be a mom to 4 kids and love and nurture them and teach them and grow with them, without completely screwing them up. While life was far from being in control and "normal" in any way, shape or form, I started striving for some kind of normalcy. I started getting dressed everyday and going out more, started cooking again and finding things that made me happy. We took some day trips and shopping trips and for the first time, I started to feel in control.

Over the next couple of months my confidence grew, my patience expanded and my sleep hours increased, all leading to a much happier person. I actually decided to make a quick trip with W and A to where we were going to be moving to find a place to rent and see my husband for the first time since he had left to go back to Germany 4 months earlier. Everyone asked me why A and W got to go while MJ and CB stayed back with the grandparents and the answer was simple: A couldn't live without me, MJ couldn't care less if I exsisted. W is a great traveler, CB would much rather stay back and hang out. After we found a place to live the the 4 of us flew back to California and spent 2 weeks getting adjusted to life as a family of 6 and preparing for the next big move.

We moved cross country the day after Christmas. Probably not the best decision but it worked out ok. Taking a 4 day road trip with 4 kids ages 4 and under isn't exactly on the top 10 list of things I want to do again in my lifetime, for sure. When we finally got to our house we realized it wasn't the "great place" we thought it was when we chose it, and over the past few months I have spent well over 55 hours cleaning up the messes and nastiness the previous occupants left behind while fighting the management company to make simple repairs. I don't even want to talk about it, I'll start dry heaving.

Sometime in February I got a headache. Normal pain meds didn't stop it and after about a week I went and saw a doctor. She gave me something stronger and after 2 weeks of that not working I saw another doctor. They did some labs and after 2 more weeks of pain meds not helping and having a constant, raging headache, I finally called the doctor in tears, begging her to fix me. She pulled my labs and asked me why I hadn't come in earlier as my test results, from 2 weeks prior, showed I was extremely dehydrated and severely anemic and was very deficient of a few essential vitamins. The next morning I ended up getting 2 liters of IV fluids, some vitamin shots and a shot of pain meds, and it still didn't help.

About a week later, after much discussion and some tears, it was decided that I needed to stop pumping for the babies because the elimination diet was literally going to kill me if I didn't. I was burning at about 1000 calories a day making milk for the babies and was probably only taking in about 1000 calories a day from the food I was eating. My BMI was officially considered "underweight" and my body fat percentage was off the charts low. Making that decision was so hard. I wanted to give my babies the best I could offer them, but in the end, if I'm not healthy, I'm not going to be any kind of good to them.

By stopping pumping I did gain 3 hours a day to do other things, like clean the house and actually play with the kids. We were finally able to unpack all of the boxes and settle in. I had more freedom to go places and do things and joined the gym, making my gym time part of our daily routine. Pretty stupid on the gym's part, including child care for ALL of my kids for up to 2 hours a day in my monthly fee... they are really losing money on me!

Yeah, sometimes life can be a challenge, like when all 4 kids start screaming at once or when they all decide that they want something from me THAT MOMENT when I've just sat down for the first time all day or when the older 2 decide to jump on the couch that has all of the nice, neat little piles of clothes from the 3 loads of laundry I just folded and sends them all FLYING into the air... deep breaths, mama. Deep breaths. Or when they all take turns waking up all night long... ever had 2 babies teethe at the same time? Or be sick at the same time? Or have 4 kids be sick at the same time? Not so fun. Sometimes even just getting 4 other people dressed and out the door in the morning can be a huge challenge.

But if having 4 kids and dealing with food intolerances and sleepless nights and sensory issues are the worst things that I have to deal with, then rock on! If having a husband who is gone a lot is the hardest part of my life, then boo hoo, cry me a river. At least he's coming home. The truth is, and this might come as a shock to some people, I'm really not anything special. There are millions of other women out there facing challenges that I can't even imagine.

So how do I do this? I guess I just do it. I take it one day at a time and try really hard not to sweat the small stuff. I try to focus on the things that are really important and enjoy the baby laughs and preschooler squabbles. And I don't take myself too seriously. I don't expect perfection and allow myself to mess up. When I mess up, I learn from that experience and move on. We do what makes us happy and keeps us healthy.

We have a system down and it is far from being perfect, but it works. I'm still not "supermom", heck, I'm sitting here typing this instead of doing the dishes and putting away the morning's mess. I make to do lists and try to check things off but my to do list from last Monday still doesn't have any check marks on it. But I'm in a good place. We are in a good place. My kids are happy and for the most part healthy, we have fun and we have dance parities and snack picnics and lots of cuddle time. And at the end of the day, that is really all that matters.

why "mommy and me" can bite me.

2010-04-24T13:00:00.002-04:00

It's no secret that I don't do mom's groups and other things of that nature. It isn't because I'm a recluse or anti social, most of the time, it's just that I don't have the patience or energy to deal with the other moms. I'm know some moms are great and live in reality, but the few who aren't really get to me.

I can't deal with the sense of entitlement, lack of perspective and general BS that those few present. And you know you know the BS type: the ones who somehow manage to wake up early and get dressed, have perfect hair and makeup, make their kids a full hot breakfast from scratch, do the school run, spend an hour at the gym, come home clean their house from top to bottom while managing the responsibilities of being the PTA president and church Bible study leader, have a martini lunch with their gal pals, go to playgroup, spend lots of floor and play time with their baby, wash, dry, iron and fold the laundry, pick the big kids up from school, do arts and crafts time with the kids, do their science fair project for them, make 500 cupcakes complete with gum paste animals for the school bake sale, make a wholesome and organic dinner, clean the kitchen, bathe the kids, knit a sweater for their friend's new baby, be a good wife and "spend time" with her husband, set everything out and make lunches for the next day and still get a full night's sleep, only to wake up and repeat it all again. Yeah, them. There's no way they do all of that. None. I'm not buying it. I think they only say it to make themselves feel better and to make the rest of us little people feel bad about letting our kids watch DVDs and feeding them fast food every once in awhile. And if they do manage to do it all, I'd like to know exactly how and if they are popping their kids Ritalin or not.

I also can't deal with moms who refuse to control their kids and I really can't deal with the moms who think their kids are perfect and can do no wrong and refuse to implement any type of consequence. Honestly, those are the worst behaved kids of the bunch. Am I saying my kids are perfect? No. Absolutely not, of course they have their moments and some days they have quite a few of them. But I make darn sure that I am raising polite and respectful kids who know that there are consequences for their actions. I am raising them to know right from wrong and to be kind to those around them. They know they are not entitled to anything and if they want something, they aren't going to get it, just because they want it. They are quickly learning they are going to have to wait for it and/or earn it because that is how the real world works. And there seems to be a serious lack of this in the rest of society.

Case in point, story time today at the book store. Allow me to paint the picture:

14 kids, ages 7 months to 5 years. Half the kids had attentive parents and were sitting quietly, listening to the stories being read. The other half had parents who didn't give a tiny little rat's butt about what was going on and their kids were climbing and running all over the place, getting in everyone's way and making it so no one could see or hear. One kid even knocked the book out of the reader's hands. One mother was drinking her second latte and reading a magazine. One father was playing games on his cell phone while his wife chatted with her friend. Another was busy doing a game book and the other was practically asleep. And all but 1 of these parents had kids age 2 and under. Why you would not pay attention to your child who is less than 2 years old is beyond me. Am I being judgmental? Quite possibly, but I'm just stating the facts... just setting the scene...

When we got to the book store, there were quite a few kids playing at the train table. W and CB wanted to play but I told them we would wait until the little kids had left. We waited, did story time, and then went back to the train table while all of the other kids were still in the story area. W got the train he wanted to play with, Toby, and put it in line with all of the other trains. Keep in mind, there weren't any other kids around. Within minutes, one of the other kids came over and plopped down right next to W. And when I say next to him, I mean the kid literally sat on W's shoes. This kid was probably a little older than 2, and he was one of the kids who had ruined the story time earlier. The kid wasn't interested in playing with the trains, but was playing with the stuff on the side of the table. Then he suddenly decided he wanted to play with Toby, and he grabbed it from W's train, while W was playing with it, and ran off with it. This, of course, upset W and he voiced his concern that this kid had just jacked his train. And before I could say anything, the kids mother looked at W and said, "Well, you have all of the train cars, there's no reason YOU should have all of the trains, if he wants that one, he can play with it".

Um, what?! Oh no you didn't just reprimand my kid while your kid just jacked something my kid was playing with, without asking. I tried to distract W and explain that we needed to share and blah blah blah. Keep in mind, there was no one else around before this kid came over and the kid wasn't playing with the trains before so of course W had all of the train cars. Yes, the kid is 2, he probably doesn't know the "rules" but his mom sure does. The kid should have asked, or SHE should have asked W if the kid could play with it. If W had known the kid wanted to play with the trains, he would have shared. He's cool like that.

Almost immediately, the kid lost interest in the train car. The mom took the train car from the kid and just held it. And kept holding it. I finally asked her if W could play with the car because her kid wasn't and she set it down. W said thank you. Then he went to rearrange the train cars he was playing with (which was only half of them because he had put some aside for other kids to play with) and as he was picking up Toby, the mother scooped in and GRABBED IT FROM HIS HANDS, saying that her kid wanted to play with it.

OH. NO. YOU. DIDN'T. Someone hold my earrings and call for an ambulance because this chick is gonna need one in about 34 seconds. Seriously?? SERIOUSLY?! You are going to take back the toy you just put down so your kid can play with it, and just stand there holding it, when your kid isn't even nearby or wanting to play with it? And GRAB it from my kid? Literally TAKE it from his hands?!

W got really upset and so did I. He started to cry, I told him very loudly, so she could hear, that it was VERY VERY rude for someone to take the toys someone else was playing with without asking, and she was not right for doing that, hoping she was paying attention and would feel at least somewhat bad. But no, she didn't, and proceeded to defend herself to her husband and then bash my lack of parenting skills. Yes, yes, your kid is perfect and can do no wrong and you are mother of the year, I get it.

I had to leave. What was I supposed to do? It is my responsibility to set a good example for my kids and going off on her or rearranging her face wasn't exactly going to accomplish that. Besides that, I don't really want to spend our spare cash on bail money.

I wish I wouldn't have left. I wish I would have come up with SOMETHING to say to her. Anything. But I couldn't. I was too upset about what she had done. And you know that is a big deal for me because I can pretty much always come up with something to say. All I can say though is homegirl is VERY lucky I don't have any pregnancy hormones coursing through my blood and that the doctor gave me a nice little pill to help control my raging PMDD because she really would have been leaving in an ambulance and I would have been leaving in handcuffs.

So I ask you, my fellow wise and good mothers who control your kids in public and aren't self entitled jerks, what would you have done in this situation? What should I have done? Was I wrong in anyway? Am I just as responsible for the situation as she was? Did I violate some secret train table code I'm not aware of? I'd really like to know because 5 hours later, I'm still really upset about this.

And this is precisely why I don't do the group thing. I just can't handle the stress.

reacquainted

2010-04-11T20:31:00.000-04:00

Since it has been, um, forever, since I have shown my face here, I figured it would be a good idea to get reacquainted with my readers, if there are any left. So here's a brief rundown of who we are, and what makes us tick.

Me: I'm just me. I'm a mom of 4, a woman who happens to be married to someone in the Army, who is just trying to find a balance between what I want to do and what I should be doing. I know a little about a lot and am a jack of all trades but a master at nothing. I love my babies more than anyone should and I love this ridiculous life we live through all of the good and bad.

M: My husband. He's an amazing father and an awesome soldier. He's a tiny bit crazy, but we don't tell him that because he takes it as a compliment and it encourages him to be even more crazy. He works really hard at everything he does and it shows. When he isn't working or playing with the kids, he's in the gym or training for whatever his next big "event" is. He has done a few half marathons and a marathon and currently getting ready for a triathlon. And, he drives a minivan. And makes it look cool.

W: Our 4 year old son. W is a funny kid. He's a nerd. Yes, I said it. The kid is a total nerd and I love him for it. He's already reading kindergarten books and writing and spelling, loves math and science and would be perfectly content if you locked him in a room for hours with an activity book. He is such a wonderful brother to his little sisters and takes really good care of them, when he wants to, which is most of the time. He already carries more responsibility than I would like him to, but he doesn't complain about it. His sisters love him so much and I can always count on him to make them laugh when they are crying. He has a tough side too. He doesn't cry when he falls down or when he gets a shot and is totally intrigued by splinters, yet at the end of the day he will always say, "come cuddle with me in bed, mommy".

CB: Our 3 year old daughter. This girl is my challenge. She is the sweetest little thing you could ever imagine, except for when she's not. She can throw a fit like a 13 year old, but then love on you like none other in the next second. She can make you laugh like crazy and then make you want to pull your hair out. I have a feeling she is going to be some kind of entertainer when she grows up-- she was singing before she could talk and is constantly making up songs and dances for us. Her creativity blows me away as she's always coming up with a story to tell or coloring a beautiful picture. She has Sensory Processing Disorder, SPD, and is Sensory Defensive, which makes life very complicated. The littlest things can throw her off: socks, sleeves, something on her hands, noise or light, textures and temperatures, people touching her and/ or talking to her. She is the only child I know who will ask to go to bed and if we can't find her, the first place we look is in her room because she will most likely have put herself in bed-- it's her coping mechanism. She also has a wide range of food intolerances which have made us all very conscious of what we put in our bodies and taught me how to cook in an entirely different way.

A: One of the twins. A is a momma's girl, no one else will do, except for her brother because he is also W's baby. A and W have some kind of special bond. They have always gravitated towards each other which is funny because they look alike. She isn't very active but loves to observe. And she's a tiny bit of a bully. If she sees something she wants, she's going to get it. She wants what she wants when she wants it and she's not going to stop until she gets it. When you get her going, wow, she really gets going. But she has a sweet side too. She loves to cuddle and be held and has the tiniest little laugh.

MJ: One of the twins. MJ is a daddy's girl and the most laid back baby I've ever seen, which is funny because when they were newborns, she was always the first to cry and much more difficult than A. Now she is completely content and quick to smile and boy does she love to talk. She talks all day and even in her sleep. She makes the most adorable sounds and is extremely expressive. If she doesn't like how something feels or tastes she will wrinkle up her little face. She does the same when she's really happy too. MJ is a go getter and even though she's always been a little smaller than A, she's been the first to roll and sit and the first to cut teeth.

Both babies have the same food intolerances that CB has so food is a big issue in our house. They have spent the better part of their past 9 months spitting up like crazy and being uncomfortable. Any kind of dairy, even a super small amount, will give them bloody diapers so we have to be very careful to keep it completely out of their diet. Because of all their food issues, they are very small. At 9 months, both of them are about 13 pounds. Thankfully, people don't really comment on their weight like they did with W and CB. I think everyone is so fixated on the "twins thing" they don't think to comment on how small they really are.

So much really has happened in the past 5 months, including a cross country move, 7 weeks of me being quite sick and all of the other boring mundane day to day stuff. I'm going to do my best to catch up on the important stuff later. I also plan on boring you with lots and lots of information about cloth diapering, cloth diapering twins, car seats, baby gear, pumping for twins and one of my most favoritest topics: STROLLERS!!

COMING SOON!

2010-04-11T15:59:00.000-04:00

I've had numerous people email me to ask if I am still alive. And I am, I've just been unbelievably out of my mind over the edge insanely busy. We are all doing great and there is too much talk about. So much has happened in the past 5 (!!) months and I can't wait to get back to updating this thing.

I hope to have a new design and some new posts coming in the next week or two. I probably need to go on a major advertising campaign when I get up and running again because I am sure everyone has given up on me. :)

back to the land of the living?

2009-11-03T14:07:00.000-05:00

Maybe? Could there be a light at the end of this newborn twins tunnel? The past 15 weeks have been, well, excruciating, but I feel like we are figuring everything out and that some kind of normalcy may be in our future. Maybe.

I am not good with newborns at all. I crave routine and structure and newborns don't really provide for that, especially 2 of them. I also need sleep, lots of it, and newborn twins certainly do not allow for that to happen. Through the past 15 weeks I've gotten, on average, about 3 hours of sleep a night. I have done every single night feeding alone since M left when the girls were 2 weeks old and yes, I would like a trophy. I used to be really good at sleep deprivation but now, not so much. When I was in college I was so good at sleep deprivation that nearly every paper I wrote in my sleep deprived state would get an A.

Now, instead of spitting out great analysis of political theory, I'm just plain stupid. Like the time I made W a sunbutter and peach salsa sandwich, instead of a sunbutter and apricot jelly sandwich. Or the time I somehow managed to pick up a baby in the middle of the night, changed her diaper (while using their pjs as a wipe, instead of using one of the 40 thousand cloth wipes I have), prepared a bottle and then proceeded to feed it to her, before I woke up and realized that 1) there wass a baby in my arms and 2) that baby was naked and then had to try to figure out how said baby got into my arms and why on earth she was naked. Or then there was the time I looked outside and the concrete duck yard ornament thing was walking around the yard. Yo. Time for a nap! If only that were an option...

The girls are slowly starting to sleep better and become more predictable. They only wake up once around 3am for a feeding and life is so much nicer now that I don't have to pump in the middle of the night. It is my goal to be in bed before midnight every night but there is always so much to do. 4 kids can make a huge mess and even more laundry. I feel as though my entire life revolves around laundry, and food. Food food food. Someone always wants food, or I have pump so the babies can have their food, or I have to think about what kind of food I'm going to eat. It's not as simple as it sounds considering that out of the 5 of us, only W can pretty much eat whatever he wants as I'm back on the wonderful elimination diet for the twins' extremely sensitive stomachs.

So yes, things are looking up for the most part. I am still so far behind that I often wonder if it's even worth trying to catch up. One day I will have it all together again, I hope (and pray) but in the mean time I am just trying to maintain the basics and keep everyone fed and clean. Perhaps one day I will be back to my fun, creative self, instead of being the tired old witch that I have become. Maybe.

long story, the anti climactic finale

2009-09-26T01:21:00.000-04:00

After MJ's volcanic spit up episode, we left for the ER. We got there at 10:06, why I remember that, I don't know. The waiting room was packed-- standing room only. It was like walking into a cesspool of mucus and blood. Thankfully they were great about getting us into triage quickly, but then the waiting game began. They were nice enough to let us wait in an unused triage room until we went to the actual ER area so the babies weren't too exposed to all of the TB and swine flu floating around but it was still very scary to have such small babies being in such close proximity to so much nastiness. We finally got to a "room" about an hour and a half after we got there. I took up residence in the only chair in our little room and proceeded to feed a baby, and then the other, and then the first one again, and then the other... and time kept passing and my butt kept getting more and more numb.

There we were, 2 completely sleep deprived parents, trying desperately to keep the babies happy while staying awake and trying not to be totally pissed off that we had been waiting for what seemed like forever and had yet to even have a doctor poke their head through the curtain. Finally, after 5 hours I got angry and went to see what the heck was going on. Apparently someone decided it would be a great idea to drive their car in front of a train so most of the doctors were called to that trauma and the other doctors were seeing the other patients. 4 day old preemie throwing up blood? Not a priority. As we hit hour 6 of waiting, we decided to we had enough and were going to leave. I didn't want to wait any longer only to have an ER doctor to tell us MJ was fine and to follow up with our pediatrician in the morning. We already had a scheduled appointment with our doc at 10 that morning, so it wasn't even worth waiting anymore.

After getting about an hour of sleep, we took the girls to their appointment. The doctor wasn't really concerned about the blood in MJ's spit up (he figured it was probably blood she had swallowed during the delivery) but she had lost almost a pound from her birth weight and the doctor decided she needed to be admitted to the hospital to get her fluids and put her under the lights for her jaundice. Because our doctors don't have privileges at our hometown hospital, we had to decide if we wanted to go be admitted to a hospital where our doctors had privileges and could do a direct admit, which meant being at a hospital over an hour away from our house, or going back to the hospital where they were born, and where we had just left 6 hours earlier. That meant we would have to go BACK to the ER to be admitted. Not wanting to spend anymore time in the ER, we chose to go to the hospital over an hour away, figuring we'd only be there a couple of days, at the most.

Well, those couple of days ended up being 2 full weeks. The first few days we were there, MJ was put under the lights and was given IV nutrients. On the third day we were there, A was weighed and found that she, too, had dropped a pound from her birth weight, so she was also admitted. Both babies were given feeding tubes through their nose and we proceeded to embark on a strict feeding schedule for them. Every 3 hours they were to be fed, every other time through the feeding tube. They were "allowed" to eat from the bottle for 20 minutes for the feeds that weren't given through the tube. After those 20 minutes, whatever was left would be given through the tube. The idea was to make it so they didn't expend more calories than they were taking in, which was the problem with them actually breastfeeding.

So this meant I got to become best friends with the breast pump. There were 7 pumps on the floor, all named after the Seven Dwarfs. I got Doc, although there were many days that I should have had Grumpy or Sleepy. Every 2 hours I was to pump, and pump and pump. Most days I ended up pumping 1 out of every 2 hours. Lather, rinse, repeat. And with all the pumping came all of the pain. Within 2 days I had a raging case of mastitis that were caused by plugged ducts. And then came the milk blisters that were so bad even the Lactation Consultant cringed when she saw them. I ended up having to drive all the way back to see one of my doctors (not the one who delivered the babies) only to have him tell me that it didn’t look “that bad” and that I should just put Desitin on my breasts and they would heal right up. WHAT?! Worst. Advice. Ever.

I seriously started to feel like I was a vending machine and all I was good for was dispensing milk for the babies. Everyone else seemed to be making all of the decisions for M and me about our kids. It was so frustrating being told what I could and couldn't do with my babies and being told what we were going to do for them and when. We didn't get much input or say in anything, and when we did, and didn't do what they wanted us to do, they would stage an intervention to try to change our minds.

It was a really frustrating feeling. I felt almost detached from my babies, even though they never really left my side, except for the few times I had run to the store. The nurses, God bless them, meant well but there were times I just wanted to scream because I felt they had over stepped their boundaries. Like the time one nurse insisted on taking MJ out of the room without my knowledge while I was sleeping and proceeded to feed her 75mL for 2 feeds, when she had barely taken 55mL per feed on a regular basis. So when the nurse's shift ended, I ended up with an extremely over fed and fussy baby who screamed in pain the entire day.

We did have some amazing nurses though. They quickly became our outlet whether they liked it or not. Since all the babies did all day was literally eat and sleep, M and I didn't really have anything to do. And a bored M and a bored Joanna combined is not a pretty thing. Keep in mind that in the 5 years M and I have been married, we have only lived in the same house for 24 non-consecutive months, the most being 8. And in that time, we rarely, if ever, were in the same room for more than a couple of hours. So to be cooped up in a 12x16 foot room for days on end was not really a good thing for us. Or maybe it was. It was like marriage boot camp because we got to figure out how to live with each other again and when we weren’t driving each other crazy, remember that we really do enjoy each other’s company.

To pass the time, M would do his cross word puzzles (big nerd) and I would eat. And eat, and eat and eat and eat. I swear the second the babies were born I started eating and didn’t stop. I guess I was making up for the previous 9 months where I could hardly eat and when I did, hardly keep anything down. I ate so much in the 2 weeks the babies were in the hospital, it was ridiculous. I ate things I didn’t even like, like chocolate cake (3 times a day), cookies (at least a package a day), muffins and pastries… oh the pastries. They became an obsessive addiction. I HAD to have at least one in the morning, and then one in the afternoon. There was hell to pay if M didn’t make it down to the coffee cart in the lobby to get me a pastry before it closed at 2. Apple, berry, cheese, whatever. I had to have that preservative and saturated fat filled goodness or I was really going to die. And that was on top of the 4 solid meals and umpteen snacks I ate during the day too. The nurses got to the point where they would just go and get me a tray with a sandwich, cake, veggies fruit and soup for my midnight snack before I even asked because they knew I was going to be crying for it in the middle of the night. Let me tell you that I never knew hospital food could taste so good.

Our lives really seemed to revolve around food for those 2 weeks. While I was eating my way to a pastry induced stupor and packing on the pounds, so were the babies. Eventually, both girls got to the point where they were able to take most of their feeds through their bottles. Once they were able to take all of their feeds through their bottles and maintain and gain weight, we were able to take them home. A was discharged first, 10 days after she was admitted. MJ was discharged 2 days later, exactly 14 days after being admitted. They had come such a long way from when we had first got there. They didn’t look skeletal or as fragile. They were still tiny, but not as scary as they were before. It was such a great feeling being able to get out of there and take them home, but I’ll fully admit I was scared too.

M left to go back “home” 2 days after the girls came home from the hospital. W and CB had gotten so used to my parents taking care of them and their dad being around and they had a bit of a hard time transitioning back to life with just mommy, and then adjusting to having 2 little babies who took up everyone’s time and attention. They certainly have had their moments but I can honestly say they are such great kids and have handled this transition time a billion times better than I thought they would. I was seriously prepared to get Super Nanny all up in our business and come regulate but save for a few days, there hasn't really been a need.

The past 7 weeks have essentially been out of control but we have been managing. We are finally getting into a routine and I am getting brave enough to take the babies out by myself, and once I even took all 4 kids out without any help. MJ is suffering from some pretty wicked reflux, which makes getting anything done nearly impossible and is part of the reason it has taken me 3 weeks to get this post done. If she’s awake, chances are good she is screaming and wants to be held. If she’s asleep, chances are good she’ll be up within 20 minutes because she’s choked on stomach acid and needs to be soothed back to sleep. A is typically laid back but has her reflux issues too. Their little personalities are starting to emerge now and it is really interesting to see how much the temperaments they had in the womb are like the temperaments they have now.

Life with twins is interesting, to say the least. These two little babies have brought me to my knees in more ways than one and have taught me more about life and love than I ever imagined they could in these short 10 weeks. I am so incredibly grateful to be blessed with such amazing children and I can’t wait to see where this road leads.

long story, the birth (unmedicated vaginal birth of twins)

2009-08-29T18:58:00.002-04:00

**Disclaimer-- this is long, and contains some stuff that could be considered to be gross by some. So if you get queasy when hearing about birth or internal body parts, or you could never look me in the eye again after hearing about the workings of my internal body parts, you might not want to read this.**

After we left my appointment we went straight to the hospital. It took a bazillion years to find a parking space and of course and when we finally did it was like 17 miles away from the entrance. We off loaded all of the hospital bags and made the hike in, all the while dodging the stares of strangers and trying to ignore their comments. I went to check in at the security desk and the guard kept asking me why I was there. I’m in labor, duh! Since we had left the office the adrenaline had kicked in and I wasn’t feeling any discomfort, or contractions for that matter so I guess I had lost “the look”. We waited about 20 minutes in the waiting room and then were finally sent back to the L&D rooms.

The nurse lead me to my room and I changed into that dumb hospital gown and did the requisite peeing in the cup. Now, asking a woman who is nearly 36 weeks pregnant with twins to pee in a cup is like asking her to do a gold medal worthy gymnastics routine. It is practically impossible to pee in a cup when you are that huge. Pretty much all you can do is put that cup where you think it should go and pray for the best. It is all in God’s hands at that point. The only good thing about the process is that if you do miss, you are going to have to pee again in about 8 seconds so you can try again.

Once that was done I went to the bed and got hooked up to the monitors. There was only one monitor to track a heartbeat, so I asked the nurse to get another one and she was like, Why, are you having twins??? Um, yes. Oh! Well that changes things. Um, yes. We found the babies heartbeats and they looked perfect and then the nurse asked me how far I was progressed at the doctor’s office. When I told her she said he must have been wrong because there was no way I was that far along and looking that good/ happy so she was going to double check. Knock yourself out. When she checked me her eyebrows got really high and she said I was about 6 cms and 100% effaced. Even I was surprised by that because I really wasn’t feeling any pain and my contractions were minor, at best.

It was decided that we would hold off on my IV as long as possible because, well, ew! I didn’t want it but knew it was pretty much non negotiable because I needed IV antibiotics. I knew I could refuse them, but I chose not to. I also knew I could refuse general fluids but chose not to because 1, it was 106 degrees outside and I felt a little dehydrated and 2, should something go wrong and I need an epidural, I wanted the fluids in place so I didn’t have to wait. The nurse was so awesome about everything and truthfully was one of my angels that day. Never once did she ask if I wanted pain meds, she didn’t try to push anything on me, she just trusted me to know what I needed, when I needed it and followed my lead.

The doc on call ended up being my favorite doctor, thankfully. He is the most laid back, chill guy I have ever met. Something about him is creepily calming and comforting. He finally came in about an hour after we got there and the nurse kept trying to convince him that I really was 6 cms. He didn’t believe her so he checked me and found that I was 7 cms at that point. I certainly didn’t feel like I was 7cms. The entire time I was talking and laughing and cracking jokes bad jokes... it was awesome.

The IV antibiotics were started and we all decided to sit back and let my body do what it needed to do. Typically when I’m in labor I want to be up and moving around, changing positions at least every 20 minutes to move things along. This time I didn’t feel any desire to get out of bed. I was perfectly comfortable and content lying in bed. With W’s labor I was forced to be in bed because his heart rate would decelerate so much with every contraction and it was the worst pain I have ever felt. This time I hardly felt any pain. I also had a feeling that if I was up and moving, one or both babies would start having heart decels and I didn’t want to give the doctor any reason to call for a c-section. At one point I did change positions in the bed and baby B’s heart rate dropped dramatically so I immediately moved back and she was fine again.

Close to an hour after the IV was started the doctor came in to check me again. From my looks, no one believed I was in active labor, still. But I was 8 cms so I really was in active labor, well, technically transition. In my previous labors things always got really intense starting at 7 cms. I’d get shaky and start throwing up, hot and cold, cranky and need a lot of support. At that point I would always have to do focused breathing through contractions and it would take a lot of work and concentration to stay one step ahead of the pain. I was anticipating that to happen again so I told M to get the barf bag ready and to put on the iPod so I could get into my labor space. It was almost as if I was disconnected from my labor. I didn’t feel like I was really doing anything. There were about 3 contractions I actually had to close my eyes and deep breathe through, but I honestly wasn’t feeling any pain or much discomfort and that was starting to worry me. Leave it to me to freak out about something so wonderful.

The nurse came in again and asked me how I was feeling, I told her a little bit too good. She told me she wished she had a video camera so she could film me because my labor should be shown to childbirth classes. She had never seen someone that far progressed, being that calm and collected. Even the doctor was a bit confused about if I was actually progressing and I kept hearing the 2 of them talking about what they should do. The doc checked me again and found I was nearly 9cms, less than 30 minutes after he had last checked. All of us were a little concerned that transition was really going to hit out of the blue and we were going to have a “running through the halls to the operating room while I’m pushing “ scenario on our hands. I really didn’t want Baby A to be born in the hallway so we decided to break Baby A’s water and head to the OR. I wanted her bag broken because I really didn’t want to be laboring in the OR for a long time and I knew that once that bag was broken she’d be coming soon.

As we headed to the OR I felt a little bit like a celebrity. All of the nurses were standing around, trying to get a good look. I had apparently been the talk of the nurses station and they wanted to see if it was really true that I was 9 cms and hadn’t made even a groan. It was kind of nice to hear all of their comments at that point because the contractions were getting a lot stronger and I was really starting to feel them. I think most of the discomfort was really from being banged into doors and walls along the way though. Those birthing beds are too darn big to be pushed through the halls. We finally got to the OR and after making sure I didn’t have whiplash I opened my eyes and realized this was actually going to happen. Everything I had stressed over was going to take place in a matter of minutes.

The OR was cold, Lord was it cold. It was scary and sterile and made me want to wear my sunglasses because it was so bright. Up until then everything had been really calm and peaceful, but something about the OR makes everyone stressed out and kind of cranky. Suddenly there were about 4 other people in the room, trying to make sure everything was set up. The nurses were arguing over if they should break down the operating table for the birth now or later, there were other people walking around trying to find things, someone was telling me to move to the operating table while another person was telling me not to. Dudes, just figure it out and let’s get on with the show.

I was finally allowed to move to the operating table (oh joy!) and the contractions immediately started to feel worse but nothing like my typical transition contractions. That table was hard and I had to lay flat on my back, besides a small hard wedge that was placed under my right side. They offered me a pillow but they might as well have put a piece of cardboard under my head because it was so thin. I started to feel pushy so I told the nurse and she told someone else to go get the doctor. The doc was nowhere to be found at that point which really made everyone in the room nervous. They finally found him and he checked me and said I needed another 15 minutes and then it would be go time.

Those next few contractions were definitely the most intense I had all day, but I was still strangely coherent and not really in pain. They were probably the worst because at that point Pitocin had been turned on to keep my uterus contracting after Baby A was born. I never thought I would have agreed to Pitocin but I knew that I would probably not get to put my babies to the breast right after they were born to help keep the uterus contracting and from hemorrhaging so the pit was the right choice. I think I said half a cuss word as I was feeling the baby move all the way down and get in position to be born but that was the most vocal I got. I don’t know if it was actually 15 minutes from when the doc had last checked me or if it was sooner but it wasn’t long before I felt that glorious urge to push, and there was no stopping it.

Baby A was born after a few pushes. No one counted, no one cheered, no one told me how to push, it was perfect. When she was born I remember thinking she was so small and had a great cry, but I didn’t get to actually see her face. She was passed to my nurse who started checking her over, who then had to pass her to the NICU nurses because the doctor needed her help, urgently.

My worst fear had come true. Baby B had flipped breech as soon as her sister was born and she did it fast too. And the kind of breech she was made it impossible for her to be born, even if the doctor was willing to do a breech extraction. He asked for an ultrasound machine, which seemed like it took FOREVER to get there, and then the fun began. Everything I had read about twin births said that the worst pain you would ever feel in your life would take place if you had to have a version to turn the second baby without an epidural. And there I was, facing a version without an epidural. When I made the decision not to have an epidural I was very much aware of the possibility of the pain but I figured I would rather endure 5-10 minutes of intense pain than deal with all of the risks and side effects associated with an epidural through an entire labor.

Somewhere between talking to Baby B and begging her to turn and the doctor beginning the version, I went into some kind of freaky trance. I didn’t feel pain, just a lot of pressure. I spent the next 15 minutes fully aware of everything that was going on, but in a weird way. It was almost like it was happening to someone else and I was just watching.

There were about 5 hands on my belly, some holding the space where baby A had been, others moving the butt and others moving the head. The doctor was holding the ultrasound wand thingamajig with one hand and internally moving the baby while trying to keep her cord from prolapsing with the other. That was quite possibly the weirdest feeling I have ever felt. It was one of those things that made me think, “Is he really doing this? Oh, yeah, his hand really is IN my uterus right now. Ok.” And then he kept asking for longer gloves… Seriously, are you going to reach up there and pull my teeth? If I wanted my teeth pulled I would have gone to my dentist! What do you need longer gloves for?! And then all I could really think about at that point was that he was eventually going to ask for the gloves that dairy farmers use when cows are born. If you grow up where I am from, it is pretty much mandatory that you see a cow being born by the time you are in 5th grade. It's like a right of passage. The picture that always sticks in your head after you see a cow being born is of the farmer with a plastic glove all the way to his shoulder, pulling the baby cow out from inside the mama cow. And that is what I was thinking of the last 5 minutes of the version. What a lovely image to have in my head right before the birth of my daughter, no?

Thankfully, he didn’t need gloves that went up to his shoulder, although the last pair did come up to his elbow. They had moved baby B into position to be born in about 15 minutes. But then, her heart rate dropped. Well, more like plunged and wasn’t showing any signs of recovering. She needed to be born right then, but that wasn’t going to be possible. Little Miss Baby B had moved both hands above her head, and well, babies can’t really come out that way. I will never forget the look in the doctor’s eyes when he looked at me and told me he had to do a c-section. He knew how much I didn’t want one and how freaked out I was about it. I knew that he didn’t want to give me one and had tried everything possible to get Baby B to be born vaginally. There just weren’t any other options.

The anesthesiologist had been waiting outside and practically ran in the room when he heard the words “c-section”. The room erupted into chaos. Monitors were being put all over my chest, people were pulling things from cupboards and drawers and opening the surgical tools, other people were yelling instructions and then having to repeat them because no one was listening. It was nuts. And there I was, laying on that cold cold table with a billion thoughts running through my head. Everything was happening so fast and there was so much to say. I was trying to make sure that Baby A was ok, tell M that he had better not name the babies before I came out of the general anesthesia and that I loved him, tell the doctor to do a double suture when he stitched up my incision just incase we wanted to have another baby in the very distant future so I would have a better chance at having a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), curse at the life insurance company for denying me coverage just 3 weeks earlier for “excessive weight gain over the past year” because I didn’t know if something was going to go wrong or how I was going to react to the anesthesia and there was no way M was going to be able to afford daycare for 4 kids if I suddenly kicked the bucket… and trying not to show that I was completely out of my mind freaked out that this was going to happen. It was a very lonely place to be.

While everyone was prepping for the c-section, the doctor had kept his hand inside my uterus to keep the cord from coming down and the ultrasound wand thing on my belly to continue to monitor the baby. I remember laughing because he thought it was so cool that he could see his fingers on the ultrasound as he was holding Baby B in place. I am so thankful he happened to mention that little discovery because it lightened the mood in the room and took some of the focus off of all of the scary stuff.

The anesthesiologist ordered that the Pitocin be turned off and started mixing his magic potions to put me under. And all of the sudden my doctor told everyone to stop and back off. He saw that Baby B had moved her hands and told me he was going to pull her down and I was going to push her out… quickly. Then chaos erupted again. The doctor ordered for the pit to be turned back on, the anesthesiologist was asking what the heck was going on, I was trying to get my mind out of the fearful state and back into the “let’s get down to business” state, and the nurses were trying to put all of the things they needed for a vaginal birth back in place. No more than 30 seconds and 2 pushes later, Baby B was born, just 17 minutes after her sister. No drugs, no c-section, no noise. It was just as perfect as when Baby A was born.

Now, I’m not one to typically be like, "The doctor saved me” when it comes to birth. I normally can’t stand it when people say that, but this time it was true. He really did save me from something that I did not want and made it so my babies were born safe and healthy and that I was safe and healthy too. I will forever be grateful to him for trying so hard to give me what I needed and respecting me and my knowledge and trusting me and my body to do what it needed to do to birth these babies. Never once did he look down on or question my choices, he never made me feel like an idiot or forced me into anything. He didn't have to do what he did. When she turned breech he could have said game over and not have even tried to flip her, but he didn't. Instead he fought for me and I think he learned a lot along the way, too. As he was leaving the Operating Room he came and shook my hand and told me he didn't think he could do what he just did. I told him I wasn't sure if I should be flattered or frightened, but I knew what he meant. The next morning when he came to check on me and we chatted about the birth. I told him that was the easiest labor I had ever had, or seen, and he said, "Really? Because that was, by far, one of the most harrowing deliveries I have ever done." Oh crap! I didn't think it was that bad. And that right there is the beauty of endorphins.

After Baby B was born and I was cleaned up I finally got to see my precious babies. While the nurses were examining the placentas I had asked them to order a test to see if the babies were identical. Even though they had 2 separate sacs and placentas, there was still a 25% chance they could be identical. But once I saw the babies I told the nurses to scratch that because these babies were in no way identical. I couldn’t believe how different they looked! It was sort of surreal to be holding my babies. I had stressed so much about their pregnancy and delivery and there they were. In the course of 4 hours, the focus of the past 8 months had actually taken place and it was over. When you hold one baby in your arms for the first time it’s a pretty intense feeling but to hold 2? It is indescribable. A combination of wow! and holy crap they are both mine! with a bunch of other ooey gooey mushy stuff thrown in.

During the chaos of the delivery, somehow the bed I had labored in had been lost and my labor room was given away. Apparently while I was in the later stages of labor everyone and their sister decided to go into labor too and all of the rooms filled up. So I got to go recover in the surgical recovery room, on a gurney. At that point I almost asked for an epidural because those gurneys aren’t so comfortable. Thankfully I was on a birth high so I didn't really care. We waited in the recovery room for about an hour while I scarfed down some hospital food and the nurse did her charting. She kept saying over and over that she couldn’t believe I had an unmedicated vaginal birth of twins and that I was a very rare case in that hospital.

The babies were weighed and measured and then we noticed Baby A was turning a not so nice shade of gray so both babies were sent to the nursery to be monitored. Then I was finally moved to my postpartum room. The postpartum floor was completely full so I got to spend the next 2 days on the pediatrics floor. That actually worked to our advantage because we got a private room instead of having to share. The babies were brought back to me after about 3 hours and I finally got to hold them and get a really good look at them. Then the Great Name Debate of 2009 began. It took us almost 36 hours and a few tears to name them, but we finally settled on 2 pretty much perfect names.

W and CB got to meet their sisters the morning after they were born. CB had always been my little tiny baby but when I saw her that morning I couldn’t believe how big she really was. W seemed to have turned from a little kid to a little man over night too. They were both so excited to see their new sisters it was really sweet how they wanted to look at their little toes and hold the babies. Seeing my 4 kids all together for the first time was a little overwhelming, to say the least.

We were discharged almost 48 hours after the girls were born, even though they were born a little early at 35 weeks, 6 days. **NOTE** we now know MJ was actually born late in the 34th week and A was born early in the 35th week-- 2 different conception dates and my original due date was off by over a week** They appeared to be doing fine and they seemed to be breastfeeding well so the on call pediatrician felt ok letting us go, as long as we followed up with our regular pediatrician the next day. The first day and night home were a little overwhelming but we managed, somehow. The next day I noticed MJ was having a little difficulty with some fluid in her stomach and she was spitting up more. Then the second night we were home, while I was feeding her, I heard her stomach rumble and then she had the biggest spit up I had ever seen from a baby that small. M took her to the bathroom to change her and came back out to ask me if she had ever had blood in her spit up before because there was brownish blood all over her little pajamas. And in that moment, my happy little world disappeared and I freaked. Less than an hour later, we were back at the hospital where they were born, heading into the ER.

(more to come…)

long story, part 2

2009-08-21T12:55:00.001-04:00

The second I found out I was having twins, I began mourning the loss of my birth experience. Dramatic? Probably. But would you expect anything less from me? I am a natural birth girl. Medication, needles, scalpels and augmentation are not for me and quite frankly freak me out. I don’t care if you want drugs during birth or would prefer to have a c-section but all of those things are not my cup of tea. I gave birth to W and CB without so much as a Tylenol because I’d rather have the pain of labor than deal with all of the interventions and their side effects.

When you give birth to twins, the chance of you having intervention is extremely high and the chance of you having a c-section is over 50%. Plus, most hospitals require you to deliver in the operating room, on the operating table. Whoever came up with that idea was clearly a man, because they have obviously never had to think about what it would feel like to go through the hardest part of labor flat on their back on a “bed” that feels more like a slab of concrete.

Coming to terms with the possibility that my birth was most likely going to be filled with things I didn’t want was very difficult. I agonized, cried and had panic attacks over it for weeks. After seeking the advice of other (amazing) doulas and doing some serious soul searching, I finally started to feel peace about the possible ways I would birth these babies. That being said, I was very prepared to fight for what I wanted and needed during the birth and I was not planning on being a complacent patient.

I knew that in order to have a birth that somewhat resembled the ideal I had in my head, I would need to have a doctor who was ok and on board with at least some of my desires. Out of the 4 doctors in the practice, 2 were ok with the fact that I didn’t want an epidural or even want the catheter placed but only 1 of those 2 was ok with delivering a breech baby, should baby B turn breech after baby A was born. 1 of the doctors in the practice told me that he required all of his “twin mommies” to have an epidural and if I didn’t get an epidural, he would just go straight to a c-section and wouldn’t even let me labor. Um, WHAT?! First of all, did you just say “mommies”? And second, how the HECK does that make any sense?? Freaking control freak. Then he went on to tell me that there weren’t any risks to having an epidural… Really? Homeboy had no idea who he was talking to. Don’t even try to pull that crap on me. And the other doctor was the doctor that I talked about in my previous post.

I firmly believe that labor is a mind over matter thing. If you are not 100% mentally ready to labor, you will not go into labor and if you do go into labor, it will not be an effective or efficient labor. Every time my contractions would pick up, I would call the office to see who was on call at the hospital that day and if it was one of the 2 who scared the crud out of me, my contractions would stop.

The night before I went into labor started out like any other night. But then M made us dinner, and decided to add some extra red pepper flakes to it. After dinner my stomach started to get upset and I silently started cursing at him for giving me food poisoning. Then it hit me that this could be my body getting ready for labor so I decided to take a walk around the field across the street. We had barely made it down the driveway before I had a contraction. By the time M and I were halfway around the field, I was getting uncomfortable. I made it home as the contractions picked up, as did my upset stomach. A couple of hours later I was feeling better, but the contractions were still happening every 7-10 minutes. I knew that night the “no epidural = straight to c-section” doc was on call, so I decided to go to sleep and prayed hard the contractions would slow down or stop until at least 7 the next morning.

Through the night I was woken up a few times from contractions, but they weren't horrible. Around 7 I got up and got the kids ready for school, got myself dressed and then we left the house. I told M to grab the bags, just in case. I wasn’t feeling too bad, but I felt a lot of cramping. After we dropped the kids off at school we went to get the oil in the van changed. As we were waiting in line I started feeling more cramping. When we finally got to the counter to check the car in, I told the guy we had to have the car done by 10:45 because I had a doctor’s appointment across town at 11:20. I jokingly added that I didn’t think he wanted me to give birth on the shop’s floor. He said no! and promised to have the car done by 10:30.

As we walked (well, I waddled) into the waiting area, this woman turned to me and said the dreaded, “Oh my! You look like you are going to POP!” Without thinking, I bitterly responded, “I do NOT pop.” That should have been my first clue that something was up. The van was done, as promised, at 10:30 so we had some time to kill before my appointment. We went to a bookstore and looked around, got the kids some books and M got some crossword puzzle books because he's a big fat dork. I was feeling more and more tired and crampy and anxious to get to my appointment. I was hungry so I went to Starbucks to get a snack, but took one bite of it and decided that I really didn’t want to eat anything. Obvious clue I was in labor #2.

When we got to the appointment, all of the girls at the front desk exclaimed that I needed to have those babies that day—I guess I had “the look”. I told them that I would give them 20 bucks to go back and convince the doctors that today was the day. I told them they could say I went all “crazy pregnant lady” on them and jumped over the counter and held them at knife point, I didn’t care, I just needed these babies out. The doctor I was seeing that day was the doctor that I had seen in L&D 2 days earlier. When he walked in the room he said he was completely surprised that I was still pregnant and that after we had left the hospital 2 days earlier, he regretted not augmenting my labor because he was sure we were going to show up at L&D that night and he really didn’t want to deliver the twins at 2:30 in the morning. Yeah, you wish dude.

When he finally checked me, I was 5cm and 100% effaced and at a 0 station. For those of you who don’t speak birth, that means I was pretty much halfway to the point at which the babies would be born. It was go time, for real this time. Even though I wasn't feeling like I was in active labor, or even labor for that matter, I had a sneaking suspicion that if we went home instead of going to the hospital, the babies would probably be born in the car on the way to the hospital later that day.

long story, part 1

2009-08-15T18:45:00.001-04:00

I guess you could say that labor really started about 3 weeks before the girls were born. I had an appointment and asked the doctor to check to see if I had dilated at all because I felt different. The doctor told me he was sure I was fine, but checked anyway and was really surprised to find I was 4 cm dilated and about 80% effaced. He sort of freaked out and sent me over to Labor and Delivery to make sure that I wasn't having regular contractions. At the hospital they found I was having contractions but they slowed down after a shot of meds. Just to be on the safe side, I also got a shot of steroids to help the babies lungs mature, should they decide to fall out of my uterus in the coming days. I was allowed to go home, with orders to drastically reduce my activity and "take it easy".

As awesome as bedrest sounds to some people, let me assure you, it was torture. Not because it was boring, but because it was literally painful to lay down and be still for more than 5 minutes at a time. So I did the "take it easy" route. For 2 and a half weeks, there was no change in my cervix, despite full days and nights of contractions every 3-10 minutes. After contractions non stop for no reason for that long, your muscles start to hurt and you start to get tired, and cranky... very, very cranky. By the time I was 35 weeks, I was at the end of my rope. As much as I wanted my babies to stay in and grow, I NEEDED them out and I started really believing that they were never going to come. The frustration I felt was bordering on ridiculous. I knew in my right mind that they babies would come when they were ready, but my irrational mind was convinced that they were NEVER going to come.

2 days before the babies were born I had a routine appointment and the doctor made the mistake of asking me how I was feeling. After I was done laying into him, he checked my cervix and found that I was still 4 cm but 100% effaced and I was contracting. He apparently hadn't read my chart to see that I had been this way for nearly 3 weeks, and freaked out because he thought I was in active labor. He ordered me to go to Labor and Delivery because he was sure I was going to have the babies that day and I needed a round of antibiotics before the babies were born. His eyes just about bugged out of his head when I asked him if I had time to run to the Apple Store to get my computer fixed before we went to the hospital. So we headed over to L&D, not really understanding why we were going.

When we got there, there was a lot of confusion about why we were there. I knew I wasn't in labor but he didn't and I apparently didn't convey the message to him very well. Was I going to be induced? Did he want me to get the antibiotics before I was in labor? Who knew. So we waited for the on call doc from the practice to come in and see me. And low and behold, the on call doc happened to be the baby doctor of the practice. I had only seen him once before but when I first met him I honestly had a lot of reservations about him attending the birth of my twins. I didn't know how much experience he had in doing twin deliveries and I feared that he would just go the "safe" route and scare me into a c-section so he could be in complete control of the delivery, and therefore minimizing the chance of any "surprises" happening.

The doc decided that I was much too happy to be in active labor, even though I was having contractions every 2-6 minutes, so I was to be monitored for a few hours before we decided what to do. At some point I asked him if he would do a breech delivery of Twin B, should she flip after Twin A was born. And I'm pretty sure his exact words were, "Oh HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELL to the NO!" He then informed me that he wouldn't even try to flip her back and if she went breech, he would go straight to a c-section because he was never taught how to do a breech delivery and that he wasn't comfortable with doing a version during labor. Insert the sound of my contractions coming to a screeching halt. Seriously, in that moment, my contractions went to about every 12 minutes. I very much appreciated his honesty and I was also glad to know that my gut feeling was right about his experience and get confirmation that he was not the right doctor to attend the birth of my girls.

A couple of hours later, we decided that I was not in active labor (duh) but that M and I were going to stay in the area for a few more hours just in case the contractions picked up again. As we were leaving, I told M that I was pretty sure the doc was racing home to do a cram session on twin deliveries, while stopping at the church to light a candle and say a prayer that we weren't going to show up at L&D at 2:30 in the morning.

We went to get some lunch after we left the hospital. Let me tell you, the way to get a table quickly when there’s a wait time is to tell the hostess you are actually in labor when she asks you what your due date is. Works every time. The fact that I ate lunch, which was delicious, and managed to keep it down told me that the babies were not going to be born that day. That in itself was both comforting and incredibly anticlimactic at the same time. The next 24 hours were almost blissful. The contractions were few and far between, I was able to sleep well and I actually had a little bit of energy. I guess my body knew what was going to happen in the next day…

short story

2009-08-06T13:58:00.000-04:00

Our baby girls were born nearly 3 weeks ago after a nearly pain free and relatively fast labor. The labor itself was incredibly uneventful, the delivery, however, was a bit harrowing but everything turned out just fine. Baby A, who will now be called "A" in the blog, weighed 5 pounds 13 ounces and was 19 inches long and Baby B, who will be called "MJ" in the blog, weighed 5 pounds 8 ounces and was 18 inches long.

We stayed in the hospital for exactly 48 hours before we were booted. I'm sure they would have kicked us out sooner but because the girls were born at 35 weeks, 6 days, they wanted to observe them for an extra day. They should have kept us longer because less than 2 days later we ended up in a different hospital, over an hour away from home, because MJ had dropped a pound from her birth weight and wouldn't eat. 2 days after MJ was admitted, A was also admitted for the same reason. We ended up staying in the hospital for 2 weeks, until both of them had gained their weight back and could take their feeds completely by mouth, instead of just through the feeding tube or by bottle and feeding tube. Thank goodness I was able to stay with them the entire time because I think I would have lost my mind otherwise.

Now we are trying to get our bearings and figure out life because nothing is the same as it was 3 weeks ago. I haven't even gotten a chance to download the pictures off the camera from when the girls were born. I will post the long story of their birth and everything else that happened after, in the next couple of days. Stay tuned.

locked n loaded

2009-07-04T00:31:00.000-04:00

I have officially reached the point of being done with this pregnancy. Yes, it's early, but my body doesn't seem to think so because it's just rearing to birth these babies. Baby A is locked and loaded and not giving up her coveted "first one out" spot for anything. She's so low that my belly now rests on my lap whenever I sit down. I guess I'm waddling now because a few days ago W came walking into the room like a penguin, with his hands on his hips and hips sticking out, while saying, "Look! I'm walking like mommy!!" Someone needs to teach that kid some manners.

It's gotten to the point where I scare people when I'm in public, especially men. Police officers, construction workers, random guys in the store, the dads who drop their kids off at my kids preschool all seem to freeze when I walk by. Dudes, I promise the babies are not just going to fall out of my body, I'm ok. You aren't going to have to catch anything or see anything gross, I promise. Women just look at me and shake their heads for the most part. I hope most of them are shaking their heads with empathy in their hearts. Although, there was the mother and daughter combo who came around a corner as I was walking by and I saw the daughter's eyes pop out of her head while she whispered (loudly), "OMG! Mom! Did you see her belly?!" To which her mom responded, "Yep, and that is what happens when you have sex, so don't." Let me tell you how happy I am to be a walking advertisement for birth control.

Honestly though, I've really gotten to the passive aggressive point where the comments don't bother me much and I'm starting to have fun with them. My new favorite is when people ask me when I'm due and I stare at them blankly and then act surprised and say, "What? Me? No, I'm not pregnant." and watch em scramble. Or sometimes I'll give them my real due date of 7 weeks from now and laugh on the inside as they desperately try to come up with something to say that won't anger or offend the huge pregnant woman in front of them. For the most part they will say something like, Oh wow! You look fantastic for carrying twins. So, does that mean I would look horrible if I was carrying one baby?

I wish I felt as fantastic as everyone said I looked, really. Ever seen that show on the National Geographic Channel called "The Whale That Exploded"? (Disclaimer: if you haven't seen it, don't. I mean it, don't. You will regret it. It will scar you for life and quite possibly make you lose your appetite for at least a month. And if you are a sushi lover, you'll probably never want to eat sushi again. You will NEVER get the images out of your head, so really, do yourself a favor and DO NOT watch it.) Yeah, I feel like I'm going to explode, like the whale. My uterus is measuring at 43 cms, which in layman's terms means I'm 83 months pregnant. Ok, not really but it feels like it. I can't bend over, I can't get up from the sitting position, my kids have to pull me up when I lay on the couch, which they think is just the funniest thing ever. When I actually get to sleep at night I can't turn over unless I get all the way out of bed and get in again. I want my body back. I want to hold my kids again and carry them around. I miss cuddling them! The only good thing is that since the babies dropped, I can breathe and don't have heartburn anymore. Bright side, there always is one.

I know it is all going to be over soon and I'm really trying hard to savor these last couple of weeks because I will probably never experience something like this again. In fact, this might just be my last entry about this pregnancy, which I'm sure you are all thrilled about. Yay for no more having to hear about Joanna's uterus!! I won't gross you out with the gory details but let's just say that between the position of baby A and all of the contractions and because I am apparently the worst bed rester ever, I'm pretty sure these babies will be here soon. I promise I will update as soon as I possibly can once they are born. Thanks for all of the prayers and support through the course of this pregnancy. It has really meant the world to me.

fyi:

2009-06-18T14:22:00.000-04:00

My uterus, the contents of it and the potential contents of it are not up for discussion, comprende? Contrary to what you may think, it is not polite or even socially acceptable for you to ask a woman, pregnant or not, if she is going to get her tubes tied. It is not nice to ask, "just how many of those are you are planning on popping out?" when talking to a pregnant woman, especially one who is carrying multiples. I'm not going to "pop out" anything, thankyouverymuch. For the record, I'm planning on having approximately 17,000 children, just to spite you.

It is not a good idea to tell a pregnant woman, as she is walking into Starbucks, that caffeine is not good for the baby. Yeah? Well my fist isn't good for your face either. Why, why, why would you purposely put yourself in harm's way? I'll claim self defense when they arrest me for making it so your nose touches your left ear. You were harassing me. For all you know, I am walking into Starbucks because I have a wicked hankering for an overpriced pastry. Don't judge me! Maybe I was up all night with back pain and leg cramps and bathroom trips and my Grande Iced Toffee Nut Latte is the one freaking thing I had to look forward to all day and now you just ruined it. BITE ME.

And as I'm lumbering my not so graceful body out of my van, do not whistle at me. That isn't nice. I know that's not a, "DANG! You are so hot and I want you to have all of my babies", whistle. That whistle was a, "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG! Should I call 911 right now because you look like you are going to DIE?", whistle and it was rude. Now beat it.

When I say I'm huge and look like I'm "ready to pop" because I'm having twins, don't ask me why I want to have twins, or choose to have twins when I already have 2 kids under the age of 4. Don't roll your eyes and tell me that it's better me than you or that I'm going to have my hands full. I know this. I know I am completely blessed to be having these babies, and even with all the pain and grossness of this pregnancy, I wouldn't trade it for the world but I didn't choose to have twins. I didn't ask to have twins. It wasn't like I got down on my knees and prayed to God every night, "Lord, please impregnate me with twins because my life isn't stressful and challenging enough. Please give me twins because I am so completely enamored with the first 8 months of life after my babies are born, breastfeeding issues, sleep deprivation, postpartum depression and all, that I think it would be so awesome to do all of that, times 2." No. That is not how it went. I didn't ask to have twins, didn't choose to have twins, I was blessed with them. It was out of my hands and thank goodness it was because while I would have never chosen this, I am so, SO incredibly happy that we are here right now.

At the same time, don't ask me if they are natural. All babies are natural. Have you ever seen an "unnatural" baby? Let me know if you have, because I'd like to see that too. Yes, of course they are "natural". Do you mean, are they spontaneous? Are you asking how they were conceived? Does it really matter? Thank you for not being like the lady in the waiting room who wanted all of the details about how these babies were conceived, time frames, positioning and more, but I'm still not going to get into it with you. I don't even know you.

I understand that people are interested in pregnancy and want to enjoy it with me, but there is a line that is quickly crossed between genuinely caring and downright rude and judgmental. For the most part, people just jump right over that line and dive head first into the rude and judgmental pool. Yes, I am much more sensitive than I normally am, but really, just keep your mouths shut people. The world, at least my world, will be a much happier place. And as long as mama's happy...

geek squad this!

2009-06-08T17:07:00.004-04:00

Last night I was dorking around on the computer and the wireless internet went dead. Normally when this happens it is because it is windy out or the microwave has been on for awhile or it gets really hot. But it was 10:30 at night, no wind, no one was cooking and it was nice and the device was nice and cool. I went to check the settings and the computer told me that it couldn't find our preferred network, but it wanted to connect me to a different network named "Bruce's Network".

Now, this normally wouldn't make me think twice because I'm used to living in an area that has multiple networks you can steal bandwidth from. But we live in the middle of nowhere. When I say nowhere, I mean the closest neighbor to us nearly a mile away. There's no way we could be picking up anyone's connection, let alone have a full strength signal from them. No one here had messed with any of the settings... I don't think anyone here even knows how to mess with the settings, and there's certainly no "Bruce" here, so something weird was going on. I immediately unplugged the Airport (Mac speak for the wireless router thingamajig) and made my dad go look outside to see if there was some shady person in a car sitting outside our house, trying to jack our connection or hack into our network to get our info or something. Yes, I'm paranoid. He didn't see anyone and I didn't hear any cars and there weren't any signs of a person having been outside our house either. We decided to call it a night and deal with it in the morning.

This morning I woke up and plugged in the Airport, plugged in my computer and still, I was being told to connect to "Bruce's Network". Nope, not going to happen. I don't know who Bruce is or what he wants or where he came from. I called my brother, who is an unofficial Geek, and explained the situation and was informed of the obvious: "That's weird". Yeah, no duh. Thanks, Captain Obvious. So he and I went through all of the obvious steps to try to remedy the situation, but no matter what we did, Bruce wouldn't go away and our network wouldn't appear. After doing a hard reset of the device, we were finally able to get rid of Bruce and make our network appear. And then my brother said, "Wait, wasn't the guy who lived in that house before named Bruce?"

Yes, yes, his name was Bruce, and he died a year or 2 after my parents bought and gutted the house. As far as we know, he didn't ever have internet here. I can't believe that a dude who lived in a house with original 60's green shag carpet, orange counter tops and burlap curtains until the day he sold it would have internet, and wireless internet at that. I also can't believe that the electrical system that was in this house could even support a computer, but that is besides the point.

So unless someone sat outside our house last night, hacked into our wireless settings and changed it to be "Bruce's Network" and then drove off, all in the span of 3 minutes, Bruce is back to visit us. I don't know if he's mad about his house, or just wanted to come say hi, but he's made his presence known. I've lived with ghosts before, but they have never made their names known so this is new territory.

Last night was a full moon and the owls were going nuts all night and one still is even this afternoon, so I'm not sure if he's still hanging out, or if he left, but you can sure as heck bet that I'm going to be watching the kids very closely to see if they start talking to anyone or about anyone new in the house. And I might be sleeping with the kids, with the lights on, for the next couple of nights because the Airport is in my room and that's just a little too creepy, even for me.

fashionistas?

2009-06-02T01:19:00.003-04:00

Ask most 2 and 3 year olds to go pick out their outfit for the day, and you will probably be frightened by the results. Before I had kids, I fully expected to be the mom who had the 3 year old boy who insisted on going out in a green dinosaur t-shirt and bright yellow shorts with his Superman cape and cowboy boots on. Or to have the daughter who wore nothing but tutus and plastic jewelry and striped shirts with polka dotted pants, and 2 different colored socks. I was ok with that thought. I think it is very important for kids to express their individuality and if they want to wear mismatched clothes and accessories, then awesome. But I will draw the line at expressing oneself through tattoos and hair color before the age of 16. After that, we will talk.

But somehow, I ended up with 2 children who have impeccable taste and can coordinate an outfit better than most 30 year old men (and some women) I know. You ask them to go pick out their outfit for the day and they will stand in front of the shelves, carefully choosing their shirts and shorts, making sure the colors match. Once they choose their outfits, they will go through their 19,000,000 pairs of shoes to find the pair that has the same colors as their clothes. Then they go to their bucket of sunglasses and pick out the pair that coordinates the best. CB will even go so far as to pick out a cloth diaper that best matches her outfit, or will pick a shirt and baby legs just to match her cloth diaper. If I pick their outfit out, often they will go back to the room to get a different pair of shoes that they feel matches better, and they are almost always right.

It can get pretty ridiculous at times, especially when they freak out if their sippy cup lid color doesn't coordinate with the color of their cup. They get pretty excited when their plate color matches their cups too. CB will constantly point out when my clothes are matching or not. Although, me matching is very rare these days because so few things actually fit and I stay in tank tops and elastic waist pj pants while we are at home because those are the only things that are even slightly comfortable. I am working hard to be sure she and W don't turn out to be like the 6 year old punk I encountered in the grocery store nearly 2 years ago who so kindly pointed out that my white flip flops didn't match my blue tank top. I am trying to stress that they are not allowed to give fashion advice unless 1) they are married to the person, 2) they are being paid to tell people what to wear or 3) one of their friends is trying to squeeze their size 10 booty into a size 6 jeans.

Truth be told, I'm pretty sure it is all my fault. Ever since they were born I have made sure their outfits have been coordinated, right down to the pacifiers and blankets. People used to laugh their butts off when they noticed that the binkie matched the outfit and jokingly say something about me doing it on purpose and I would say, "Um, yeah I did it on purpose!!" It's not like it is hard to put a blue binkie in the diaper bag. I don't know why I do it, and I know it drives my husband absolutely crazy. So crazy that I'm pretty sure he will go out of his way to make sure the kids' clothes don't match when he dresses them just to spite me. I know he can coordinate clothing too, he just thinks I'm a big fat freak show for caring. What can I say? It makes me feel good to see things in order. The rest of my life might be a complete mess, but if those sunglasses match that shirt, then life is just a little bit better. They are doomed, aren't they?

nature week

2009-05-20T16:02:00.001-04:00

One of the things that seriously sucks about living way out in the middle of nowhere is that during the summer months, nature inevitably finds its way into your home and there is no escape. Our invasion began this week and it came with a vengeance. It all started on one particularly craptacular day, as I was trying to write some papers and birds kept flying themselves into our big sliding glass door. 4 in less than 30 minutes, and that was just the beginning. Because I couldn't concentrate on writing anymore, I went to take the veggie scraps out to the composter. I noticed there were a bunch of files around and then I saw the dead owl laying on the ground. Nice. Once I came back inside, 2 more birds catapulted themselves into the window. The dumb things seriously need to learn how to fly. Our windows aren't even clean (thanks to W and CB) and they are covered by a porch! It isn't like we put runway lights on the ground leading them to fly into the window.

Later that night as I was brushing my teeth, a mouse ran across my foot. It was like the icing on the cake to my craptastic day. Of course, we didn't have any traps because we used them all last year so I couldn't do anything about it, but cry, and sleep in the kids' room cause there was no way in heck I was going to let a mouse have an opportunity to be my bed buddy.

The next day was slightly less eventful, except for the fact that I managed to get bitten by a million microscopic monsters when I took W out to ride his bike. The bites were so bad and itched so horribly that I spent most of the day putting straight ice on my skin to keep from scratching it off. Oh, and one of the dogs managed to catch a bird and eat it.

The day after that, as I was out with the kids, I heard my mom screaming for help in the kitchen. So I ran my pregnant butt into the house, expecting to have to put out a fire or slam a robber over the head with a shovel or mop up a major dishwasher explosion of soap, but instead was greeted by a gutsy little mouse who wanted to play. Fine. You wanna play, I'll play. Game on. The next half hour was spent trying to trap the mouse in the kitchen so I could catch it and figure out what to do with it. Of course, we still hadn't bothered to buy traps, so I had to improvise. That is what we moms do. We figure things out. So out came boxes and buckets and canning jars to block off the space under the cabinets... it was a mess but I was pretty proud of my ingenuity. So proud that I took a picture:

I managed to trap the thing within my barricade but couldn't bend over far enough to throw a bowl over it because he was so fast, and there was NO way I was getting on my hands and knees because 1) I would never be able to get up again and 2) um, no, not getting that close to it, thank you very much. So he got away. Then that mouse either cloned himself or multiplied because the mice kept coming. And the bugs kept biting, and the birds kept dying.

The final count for the week?
1 dead owl
2 dead birds thanks to the dog
4 dead birds for other reasons
1 dead rabbit (we think) thanks to the cat
9 yes NINE mice that have been caught and disposed of
1 random rooster seen in the road
73,468 bug bites on my body

The bug bite count is no exaggeration. Ok, well it may be a little bit exaggerated, but it sure as heck feels like I have that many bites. I'd share a picture, but the pictures wouldn't be very appropriate and I don't want to scare small children. These bites are ALL OVER, horrendous, give me hives and make me itch like I have rolled in poison ivy and then licked someone who had the chicken pox and then rubbed my belly against someone who had shingles. I itch so bad that I sit and cry most of the day and wake up with my skin bleeding because I've been scratching in my sleep. Aren't I hot?? Don't you wanna come sleep next to me? There is nothing that cures the itch, not even the most off the wall folk remedies. Believe me, I've tried just about everything. And this is on top of all of the other itching I've been dealing with from the pregnancy.

I'm really hoping that our Nature Week is over or that we have at least seen the worst of it. I refuse to let the mice put me into preterm labor because I was over exerting myself while throwing bowls at them... or running as fast as possible the other way. Gotta love the country life. Really.

**Side note for those of you wondering: the doctor doesn't think that I have PUPPPS, but I'm beginning to wonder if he's wrong and these bites are really a PUPPPS rash because I am the only person in the house that has them and they aren't on my face or belly button... the only thing isn't convincing me that this is PUPPPS is the itching and bumps only appear after I have been outside and/ or in the sun but the itching and bumps calm down after a few days. I guess only time will tell.**

you win some, you lose some.

2009-05-10T23:03:00.004-04:00

One of my favorite things in life is cooking. I haven't done much, if any, of it for the past 20 weeks or so because I have hated food more than I hate the word "ladies" or "panties" or even more than I dislike Johnny Depp and the voice that does all of the "Leap Frog" toys, but I'm slowly getting back into it. Tonight I decided to make a gumbo for dinner and then brownies for dessert. I figured that because I was making the gumbo from scratch, it would be acceptable to make the brownies from a box. I pick my battles.

I got everything out for the gumbo, chopped the veggies, made the roux, got it all simmering perfectly, and then I started in on the brownies. Not hard, right? Open the box, pour it in a bowl, add a couple of eggs, some oil, and some water. Then I added some mint extract to spice it up a bit and poured the mixture in the pan. And something was wrong. It just didn't look right. It was clumpy and just kinda plopped out of the bowl. How on earth could I mess up boxed brownies? Oh yeah, it is easy when you don't add the water! I thought I had added the water. I distinctly remember filling the measuring cup and then putting the cup in the dishwasher... but whatever happened between the time I filled the cup and put the cup away is lost forever in some space/ time pregnancy black hole continuum, never to be recovered. I have NO idea where I poured the water. It could have been in the gumbo or I might have poured it right down the drain, watered a plant, gave it to a kid... No clue.

Since I had already poured the batter into the baking dish and filled the batter bowl with water to be washed and I didn't want to dirty and wash yet another bowl, I took the lazy man's route and poured some water directly into the baking dish and then mixed it all up before popping it in the oven. And then I forgot to set a timer.

So there I was, making my gumbo, chopping up the chicken and peeling the shrimp when my mother reminded me about the brownies. Oops! Thankfully, I pulled them out in the nick of time. They were certainly different looking but I wasn't sure if the texture was because of the water issue, or because they were actually cooked a bit too long. Only time would tell.

I set those out to cool, added the chicken and sausage to the gumbo, simmered it away and soon, it was time to add the shrimp and eat up. And let me tell you, my gumbo was good. Like, really good. I've made a good gumbo before, but this was hit the spot, I'll take seconds even though I'm not hungry anymore, I'm glad I am supposed to eat 3500 calories and 150 grams of protein a day because I'm going to eat this entire pot, good.

Honestly though, I've never eaten anyone other gumbo so I don't really know if it is that great on the gumbo spectrum. I highly doubt Bobby Flay will be coming to my house and requesting to do a gumbo Throw Down with me... which is really too bad because every time I am pregnant, I seem to develop a mad innocent crush on him (goodness, that sounds so dirty. That is not what I meant, I promise!)... but I do think my gumbo is good, although it might be offensive to those native to the Land of Gumbo and know what REAL gumbo tastes like.

I don't really have an actual recipe for the gumbo. The mixture came after reading numerous recipes and taking the easiest and most delicious sounding parts from each of them. I'll try to write it out somewhat coherently if anyone is interested in trying it.

- 1/4 cup oil
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 2 stalks celery, chopped
- 1 green pepper, chopped
- 3-5 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 smallish tomato, seeded and chopped
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- little bit of salt
- 3 bay leaves
- 6 cups chicken broth (I only use the low sodium kind)
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2 inch to 1 inch pieces
- 1 lb smoked sausage cut into slices and then halved (I like to use smoked turkey sausage but you can use kielbasa or andouille)
- about 24 raw shrimp, peeled and deveined.
- cooked rice (if you are a health nut, which you shouldn't be if you are eating this, use brown rice. I like to use regular white rice and if you are feeling extra daring, go Paula Deen on me and use some buttered rice)

Before you start cooking, send your kids outside with your husband or put them in front of a show or movie that lasts at least 45 minutes with snacks and drinks in hand, pour yourself a beverage and put your bluetooth in your ear so your hands are free and interruptions are kept to a minimum.

Make sure all of the veggies are chopped and ready to go.

In a dutch oven or other heavy sauce pan, combine the oil and flour over medium heat. Stir constantly until the flour and oil are smooth and the color of chocolate (can take 10-15 minutes). Slowly and carefully add the chopped onion, celery, green pepper and garlic. Stir until the veggies are mixed with the roux. Keep stirring until the veggies get a bit soft and the onions begin to get translucent (about 3-5 minutes).

Add the tomatoes, cayenne pepper, thyme, bay leaves and salt, continue to stir for another 2-3 minutes.

Slowly add the chicken broth, while stirring, making sure the veggie/roux mix combines fully with the broth. Bring to a slow boil and then turn the heat down and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Add the chunks of chicken and sausage and continue to simmer for another 45- 60 minutes, stirring occasionally. The broth should be reducing and getting thicker at this point.

When you feel like it is done to your liking, and the rice is ready, add the shrimp and cook until the shrimp is pink. Take the pan off the heat and let it set for a couple of minutes. Stir before serving over rice.

I don't like a lot of salt or heat in my dishes so modify the recipe to fit your sodium limits and heartburn/ reflux threshold. If you want more spice, you can season the chicken before throwing it in the pot. The longer you simmer this, the more flavor it is going to have, but don't go more than 3 total hours because that is just nuts and you will be very hungry by then.

Let me know if any of this doesn't make sense. It is late and I'm high on sudafed and limeaid. If it sucks, or you get a horrific case of food poisoning, don't blame me. It's not my fault you just can't cook. I'm kidding, of course!! I hope this is as good as I think it is.

As for the brownies, well, they aren't my best work. But they are edible and will not go to waste because I'm pretty sure it is illegal in like 5 states to let brownies go to waste, even if they are a bit spongy and dense at the same time. Next time, I won't multi task while cooking. Clearly, my pregnant brain can only handle one task at a time.

side by side

2009-05-04T00:52:00.009-04:00

My lovely friends who have seen my belly pictures have spent the past day trying to convince me that I am not the heifer that I think I am. They have almost convinced me. Almost. Looking at my pictures from this pregnancy, no, I'm not HUGE compared to other moms who carry twins. But compared to my previous pregnancies, dang. Moooooo. Woof.

I never measured larger than 33 weeks with W. He had severe growth restriction in the womb because the little stinker tied a true knot in his cord at 32 weeks and was born the size of a 33 week baby, at 38 weeks. So for me to be measuring 10-12 weeks ahead at 25 weeks makes me bigger than I ever was with my first pregnancy. Thankfully, CB was born at a very healthy 7 pounds, but I carried her so low at the end that I never measured larger than 36 weeks. Plus, she was born 11 days early, so I didn't get much of a chance to measure larger.

Tonight I was a bit bored (yes, I actually had a few seconds to be bored!) so I decided to dig through my old pictures and do some comparisons. It is pretty interesting to see how the same uterus (she said uterus, again!!) can grow so differently with each pregnancy.

So yes, my friends are right. I'm not a complete cow, just very large for what I am used to. Honestly, I have to say that I am (extremely full of myself and) pretty darn proud of my Buddha belly. I kinda like it. It certainly makes for a convenient spot to set my plates when I am eating and that is a definite plus.

still here...

2009-04-26T18:40:00.003-04:00

These past 2 weeks have been pretty rough. I will admit that I pushed myself a little too hard over the past month and now it has come back to bite me in the butt. Lesson learned! I won't do it again.

I spent the better part of the last week in bed because all I wanted to do was throw up (again). My drug peddling doctor requested that I go on some kind of anti nausea medication so I could eat more and I obliged, knowing full well that it wouldn't do anything for me but that I would give it my best effort. After spending Saturday practically in tears from being so nauseous, I broke down and took a magical Zofran on Sunday. And all it did was make me drowsy and give me a headache. So incredibly anti climatic. The way he was talking about the drug made me expect the waters to part and rainbows and sunshine to appear. Instead, I was then nauseous and stoned and that is not a fun, nor attractive, combination. We had gone to church that morning because I thought I would be feeling better which ended up being a very bad decision. Never in my life did I ever think I would have to contemplate just how sacrilegious it would be if 1) I didn't take communion for fear of losing it all over the person in front of me and 2) if I did take communion and then ended up throwing it up all over the person in front of me.

It's no secret that this pregnancy has been extraordinarily difficult, much much more than either of the other 2. From the throwing up and fatigue to the extreme itching and the shots... Oh, the shots. You would think that at 24 weeks this mess would be under control but I fear we are getting back to the level of suckiness that was the first trimester. Although, now I have the added aches and pains of what someone normally experiences in the third trimester too, as my uterus (She said uterus!!) is measuring like it would for someone who was 10-12 weeks farther along than I am, depending on how the babies are positioned. Pretty sure the ground has started to shake under me when I walk...

Last week I went to Motherhood to pick up a couple of shirts. No surprise that mine are getting a bit too short. When I shop, I don't want to be bothered. If I need something, I'll ask, but these chicks at Motherhood literally have a script that they rotate every day to get people to buy more crap, and they accost you the second you walk in the door. The first time I went in, the chick asked me if I had my bag packed. I looked at her like what the heck kind of bag are you talking about? Are you making a joke? I know my purse is huge, it is called a "weekend tote" afterall... When I inquired as to what bag she was talking about, she said, "your hospital bag!" Mama, no. I have 17 more weeks until I hit 40 weeks, I haven't even started thinking about my hospital bag. Blink, blink. Yeah, that'll shut you up. The next time I went in the sales chick asked me if I needed any stretch mark cream. Really? Do they not realize just how insulting that is? I know I am huge. I don't need it reinforced by some 19 year old who has never been pregnant, let alone could possibly understand just what your body goes through when you are pregnant. Besides that, I am so far past stretch mark cream it isn't even funny! I could spread straight Crisco on my belly 3 times a day until these babies are born and it wouldn't make a difference.

I know I am blessed to be pregnant with these baby girls. Despite everything, I thank God everyday that they are healthy and growing and that we haven't had any serious issues. The reality of being 24 weeks pregnant with twins is starting to hit though. Up until this point my thoughts have been focused on trying to get over the shock of being pregnant twins and getting through the pregnancy. Now, my focus is starting to shift and I'm realizing that we are going to have 2 new, very tiny babies sometime in the next 6- 13 weeks. Um, yeah. I got lotsa crap to do (like pack my hospital bag) and not so much time to do it. All I can say is thank goodness for online shopping. And when you see on the news that consumer confidence rose again in May and that retail sales were up, you can thank me personally. I do what I can.

culture shock

2009-04-13T23:52:00.003-04:00

We have been back in the States for a week now. Actually, a week exactly as I am writing this. It has been a whirlwind of a week and I haven't had much of a chance to communicate with the outside world so I will try to catch up now.

The trip over was amazingly smooth. I didn't even feel stressed as we were leaving for the airport. The kids did remarkably well on the flight although poor M got a workout as he rocked CB in the back of the plane for a couple of hours to keep her asleep. W was a champ, as usual, and only took a couple of days to adjust to the time change.

I, however, am having a harder time adjusting to the time difference. It's not the jetlag that is killing me, but the fact that I now wake up after my friends in the States, instead of before them. I am so used to waking up to "yesterday's" emails and messages and not "today's". Not to mention that I don't have to wait until 6pm to call businesses on the West Coast. I have to admit that I've been slacking off because I keep thinking, "I can do it tonight", but by the time tonight rolls around, everything is closed and everyone is sleeping.

We have been quite productive this week though. Highlights include: 2 trips to IKEA (and no fighting), getting my iPhone and trying to figure the darn thing out, a 2 hour drive to get our insurance set up, multiple trips to Target, Whole Foods, the mall, getting about 7 inches cut off my hair and having it colored for the first time in 3 years, a trip to the Aquarium for the kids and a fantastic dinner at the best fish market on earth, taking M back to the airport and saying goodbye to him until he comes back in a couple of months, going to a birthday party and doing more shopping, doing Easter Sunday and then finally unpacking our 8 suitcases today. It is no wonder that I am beat and itch like crazy.

I am not used to this lifestyle. I am not used to all of the shopping and socializing and being busy. In Germany, we live in a quiet little bubble and go out 3 times a week. I can go 2-3 days without talking to anyone but the kids and my husband. Not here. It is NON STOP here. There is always something to do, something to look at, money to spend. I have to say that I am dealing with some serious culture shock! Stupid things, like billboards, are incredibly distracting and frustrating to me now. You don't see billboards in Germany, and if you do, they are small, not 5,000 feet wide and lit with enough lights to light the block. Traffic, and stop lights. Seriously! How many stop lights do there have to be within 4 blocks? And what is up with the people here? Have people just gotten more rude and self centered or am I just really cranky? It is just all too much, too much stuff, too much trash, too many people talking to themselves on their bluetooths...

It is going to take a lot of adjusting to get used to life here again. I've only been gone for 6 months, but it feels different coming back this time. Maybe it is because I know that our time in Germany is up, and we won't be going back. I will really miss living in Germany but I am happy to be back in America, despite my wicked case of culture shock. We just need a chance to get settled and into a routine... and by the time we do that, the twins will be here and EVERYTHING will change, again. Good times!

ooh baby baby

2009-03-26T16:07:00.012-04:00

It is official. I am really officially, noticeably and uncomfortably pregnant. I'm hormonal, itchy like I was attacked by a swarm of Mississippi mosquitoes in the middle of August, irritable like you wouldn't believe and pretty sure that I am driving those who are forced to be around me to drink.

I have all of these good intentions, like I'm going to start eating healthier and exercise a little... maybe actually start doing the prenatal yoga program I did so faithfully from the day I saw 2 pink lines when I was pregnant with W and CB. Unfortunately, good intentions are about as far as I'm going to get. There has to be some kind of nutritional value in onion rings and Dr. Pepper, right? And I'm sure I get plenty of exercise when I walk to and from the car and up and down the stairs (at least it sure feels like I have run a mile and a half after I walk up 15 stairs)... and really, these days, just putting on my shoes requires some serious yoga like action, so I'm good there.

A few nights ago it occurred to me that I am essentially gestating a 2 headed octopus. This came as I had 4 feet in my ribs, a head in my bladder, one in my pelvis and 2 elbows in my kidney, while the other baby was literally punching me in the butt. I know they are fighting for space, but if they could possibly do it without trying to decimate what is left of my internal organs, I'd be a little bit grateful.

These kids are getting big, very big, and it shows. My belly enters the room before I do now and it has gotten to the point where I have to constantly check for crumbs and spillage down the front of my shirts. Before all of the mess would just fall into my lap. Now, with my protruding belly button and mountain of a belly, food has to go through a fun little obstacle course before it can fall in my lap which causes all kinds of awesome stains. Let's just say that Oxyclean spray n wash stuff is really quite amazing.

As of a couple of days ago, both babies were measuring a week ahead and their heads were measuring 2 weeks ahead, hence the uterus that is measuring over 28 weeks. Lord have mercy. I'm gonna need it.

As they have started moving more, I have really gotten to "know" their personalities. We've always known that baby A was the more quiet one, as I've been feeling baby B move for almost 7 weeks now. Baby A has always just taken it slow and has NEVER shown us a face, only a back, or a hand or the top of the head. We've only seen one profile shot of baby A and that was at 12 weeks and most likely a fluke. Baby B, however, is much less shy. This baby is always dominating the ultrasound screen and will gladly give us a show, or the finger, as seen in this lovely shot from the ultrasound we had earlier this week.

Baby B also has a sweet side, thank goodness. We were actually able to get some 3-d pictures for the first time and played a fun little game of peek a boo. I still think that 3-d ultrasound pictures are incredibly freaky looking, almost as freaky looking as regular ultrasound pictures, but this one is pretty cute:

We were incredibly blessed at our last appointment, which sadly was our last appointment here in Germany. My doctor, who is awesome, spent a good 30 minutes checking the babies and letting us get a good look at them, or what we could of baby A, which was mostly a spine. For weeks we have been trying to determine their genders, but haven't been able to get any good shots of the gender region to be able to tell conclusively what they are. This time I begged him to look extra hard. I can only take 1300 pounds of stuff with me to CA and I have about 500 pounds of boy clothes here in Germany. So, I don't want to take boy clothes and then end up not needing them...

And it looks like we won't be needing the boy clothes, which makes my packing a whole lot easier. I can't even believe it. I don't think I will believe it until they are here. I honestly won't be surprised if at least one of them pops out and is a boy. I don't know why, because I don't have any reason to think this way. In all of our ultrasounds, we've never really seen anything that resembles any boy parts, but I still can't believe that there are 2 girls in there. Thankfully, all of CB's baby clothes are still in CA, but 2 girls are going to require a lot more clothes than we have, so I'm going to need to do some serious shopping.

However, I'm not going to go too crazy until I know, for sure, with 100% proof, that we are in fact going to be picking out 2 girl names, paying for 3 weddings, dealing with 3 teenage girls and their hormones, paying for Jujutsu lessons for W to be able to kick some serious wannabe punk rocker/ emo/ jock boyfriend butt, thanking God every day that M is a Ranger and knows fun tactical maneuvers and how to shoot a big gun, and being surrounded by pink and princesses for the next umpteen years.

breaking news

2009-03-19T03:16:00.003-04:00

Well, it seems that we are finally getting what we wanted, just not how we wanted it or when we wanted it or as smoothly as we wanted it, but we rarely ever get what we want in life anyway, right?

We have known our time in Germany was coming to a close for awhile, but we just didn't know when it would be. Originally, we were supposed to stay here until November. Then we were told July, then we were told March and then July again. After we found out we were having twins, we knew we needed to have a concrete moving date because you can't exactly just fly across the world when you are 36 weeks pregnant with twins like you can when you are pregnant with 1 baby. During the height of my all day sickness in late January, we were told that we needed to move back to the States in March, giving me about 3 weeks to get the house ready to be packed and because we have to move again 5 months after we move to the States, we would be moving again about 2 days after my due date. That wasn't going to work. So we moved heaven and earth to try to get a different move date.

After tons of paperwork and way too much drama, we finally did get a different date date, and even the date we wanted. So here is the plan: The kids and I are moving back to the States in about 3 weeks. We will go back to CA and stay with my parents until after the twins are born and after M is done with this next assignment next year.

Before everyone starts speculating and talking, let me explain a few things, just to squash the inevitable rumors:

1) Our marriage is not in trouble. We are just fine, I promise. There's no need to send us inspirational emails or books on marriage. Yes, we are making a choice to be separated, but we aren't separated.

2) We are doing this purely because of logistics. M can't leave Germany until June and by then, I'll either be way too pregnant to move, in any sense of the word, or worst case, I could be holding my 2 precious babies instead of gestating them. I can't fly past the end of April, given my history of preterm labor and (EARMUFFS, boys!) early dilation, so I need to go now. I don't want to spend 2 months alone at M's next assignment with 2 kids, waiting for him to get there, so that is why we are going to CA.

3) CA is our best option for numerous reasons. The kids have a fantastic doctor there, there is a team of specialists who know and understand our history of GI problems should one or both of these babies have the same problems, W loves the preschool there and I'm sure CB will too, and can we say LIVE IN HELP?! Um, yeah. There you go.

4) This decision did not come lightly or on a whim. We have talked about this and agonized over it since the day we found out we were having twins. I am completely at peace with it, as is M. I mean, there are a few things that bother me, like I'll be missing out on Cracker Barrel and Braums, but I will be in the land of In-n-Out and REAL Mexican food (I'm just gonna say it, TexMex is NOT Mexican food, sorry!) We are going to be ok. M can fly in to see us on his long weekends and we will be able to call each other whenever we want to. Now that is a strange idea given the fact that we just went through 15 months of once every 3 week phone calls and once a week emails.

There is so much to do in the next few weeks though. The movers aren't coming until after the kids and I are gone, so I have to have the house organized by what I want in what boxes. I don't want to open up our boxes when we pull them from storage in 10 months and find the bathroom mats in with the kitchen dishes or the extra office supplies packed with the garden hose. And because all of our house hold goods are going into storage for 10 months, I need to have all of the curtains, cushions and mats washed and perfectly folded before they get boxed up. Not to mention that the customs dude is so anal that there can't be a speck of dirt on any shoe, flower pot or outdoor toy that you pack, so all of those have to be cleaned and the holes in the wall have to be filled... and the walls have to be painted... and I need to sort out what we are going to take to CA and what is going to be packed... and go through all of the baby stuff...

As much as I'm going to miss living in Germany, I'm excited to come home. I'm ready to have options where to grocery shop and be able to get my hair and nails done on a regular basis. Ok, that is SO not going to happen with twins coming. What am I thinking? Now comes the really big decision: Do I want an iPhone or a Blackberry???

on the homefront

2009-03-04T07:00:00.007-05:00

CB's birthday was a couple of weeks ago and her present arrived yesterday. I got her the Fisher Price My First Dollhouse and all of the fun accessories. She was so excited when she got it and her eyes lit up like never before. This is really the first time her dad and I have gotten her her "own" toy. She normally just shares everything with W, but she was really ready to play with something else besides trucks and train tracks.

After I had opened up the three thousand packages that came with this thing and had untied the ninety million twisty ties, she immediately went to work setting up the house and putting everything where she thought it should go. Once she had the rooms set up, she put the mom in bed and the dad in the kitchen. She told me the mom was sick and the dad was doing the dishes. Um... oops? 3 months ago I'm pretty sure she would have put the mom in the kitchen because that is where I was all the time, but since I have spent the past 12 weeks laying on my fat butt, she now thinks that moms just lay down all day. I am not setting a very good example, am I?

In my defense, I am getting better. I had a great day yesterday, even made gumbo (from scratch!) for dinner and took the kids outside to play. But then I spent this morning laying on the floor in front of an open door to get some air between crawling to the fridge and microwave to get the kids their breakfast and whatever else their little hearts desired. I did finally get anti nausea meds, BUT, we are pretty sure the instructions say you have to take them with food and you have to chew them-- 2 things that aren't really possible when you want to do nothing but puke your guts out so they aren't really working for me! I'd go for the regular "American" anti nausea meds, but those make me sicker so I guess I have to suck it up and tough it out.

I know I am back to being a slacker. I tend to go in spurts; 3 days of being good about communicating and then a week or more of not. My average time for returning an email this spurt is 10 days and that is really not acceptable but it is what it is. We have so much going on right now, from trying to get the house organized and ready to pack should the Army ever give us a move date to trying to get CB's evaluations for Occupational and Physical Therapy for her sensory issues and her motor skill development done ASAP. The evaluations require me to clean the house like a madwoman because the Therapists come to our house and I don't want them to judge me. W has taken to waking up at exactly 5:13 every morning so by the time the kids go to bed and I have a second to sit and relax and/ or catch up with the people who live in my computer, the fatigue and heartburn kick in and then I just sit and groan all night about how miserable I am. M is so totally in love with me right now, it isn't even funny.

The good news is that I can officially say that the snow is gone and it is warming up! Let's just pray that we don't have one of those "Late winter freak snowstorms" anytime soon.

i live in a snow globe

2009-02-20T08:47:00.005-05:00

It is true. I officially live in a snow globe. A snow globe from hell, that the devil likes to play with when he is bored and needs to get some kicks by torturing the people who live in it. Just when we were seeing signs of spring-- BAM-- we get hit with a 3 week snow storm that will. not. stop. This is not of God. My God would not do this to the people he loves. Godly snow is pretty and melts after a few days, it is inviting and makes you want to go out and play in it. This snow just sucks. It sucks so bad that it won't even stick so you can make a snowman out of it. It just sits there and accumulates.

We do have a few minutes of reprieve here and there but when it isn't snowing, it is freezing. Not like, "oh, it is cold outside" freezing. No, literally FREEZING. 7 degrees, if we are lucky. It is so cold that even the kids refuse to go outside to get in the car. The second I open the door, they simply shake their heads and say no and turn around to get back under their blankets on the couch. "Ice is for penguins, mommy. I am not a penguin." is something I hear on an hourly basis from W. That and, "Snow is for polar bears. I am not a polar bear." He is a smart kid and definitely my beach baby.

I promise you that if this snow lasts much longer, the majority of us stationed here are going to go out of our minds. This should be considered a hardship tour and we should get a heck of a lot more money for living here than we do. I have decided that if you are stationed where we are, you should automatically get Hawaii as your next duty station for a minimum of 3 years. It is really the least they could do for us. My toes are permanently frozen and my skin is so dry that I look like a snake. It is really not attractive and really quite uncomfortable. If I have to be peeling, I'd much rather be peeling from having a sunburn... just sayin.

psa for oprah's guests

2009-02-12T10:03:00.004-05:00

I don't know why Oprah has moved to having her "guests" chat with her via Skype. Has she gone broke? Can she not afford to fly people to her show anymore? I mean, I understand being all "with the times" and stuff, but really? Skype?? It is so annoying to me and I personally can't stand it. The picture quality is horrible, the sound is bad... the only slightly redeeming thing about this new feature of the show is that it can be fun to look at what is in the rooms that the people decide to set up their camera in. People have some pretty weird stuff on their walls... Honestly though, Oprah, is it really necessary to inform us that, "Boaz is joining us today from his kitchen." Um, would there be a giant subzero fridge in any other room? Thanks for making this clear for me. I was wondering what room they were in.

As annoying as all of that is, the number one peeve I have with the overuse of Skype on her show is the position the people place the webcam for their interview. I don't want to look up your nose or at your crotch! DO NOT put your freaking laptop on the coffee table and then sit, most often in a reclined position, on your couch! All I see is stuff that I could have gone my entire life without seeing. It's like someone bending over in front of you of your face while you are sitting down, but way worse. Gross. For real, gross.

How do you not realize that you look a carnival special when the camera is not at the same level as your face? Why not put the laptop on a stack of books and then turn on the camera? Why not put it on a desk and then sit on a low chair? Do you think it is attractive to have the top of your head appear to be 6 inches narrower than your jawline? Do you not see that your hands look like they are 3x the size of your face? It is not aesthetically pleasing!

Here is the PSA of the day: People who join Oprah from their kitchens or living rooms or wherever via Skype, please, for the love of God, position your camera so I don't have to see your family jewels and/or the treasures in your nose. PLEEEEEEEASE! And if you insist on placing your webcam lower than your face, then at least pull your pants down before you sit so there isn't "bunchage" or "pulling" where there really shouldn't be and blow your nose a couple of times before you go live. The rest of the world would greatly appreciate it.

observations

2009-02-04T08:10:00.001-05:00

According to W:

Fish don't talk.

He is a bear, not a horse. Horses have tails and he doesn't have a tail.

The Second Hand on the clock is the one that moves fast. The First Hand is the big one that moves slow. (It took me a couple of seconds to get that one... I had no idea he knew what "first" and "second" even were.)

This kid is really starting to blow my mind. I know kids see the world differently, but it is amazing to actually hear how they see it. This age, despite all of its frustrations, is so much fun! Every day there is something new coming out of his mouth that just amazes me. I love that little brain of his.

hand slapped

2009-01-28T06:31:00.000-05:00

I am a bad blogger. I'm sorry. Yes, it's been 2 weeks since I've posted anything, or responded to emails... or FB messages... or phone calls... I've slapped my hand and promised to do better. But don't hold me to it.

We are all fine and good, I promise. There really isn't anything going on, but we have still been super busy. The kids have been sick with colds and have been out of school for the better part of the last 2 weeks. They got better, went to school for 1 day, and now both of them have colds again. So, they are out of school for the rest of this week too. I felt a little better for a few days, which was nice. I even went 3 days without taking a nap! But it all caught up to me last weekend and I ended up sleeping all day Saturday between gagging and avoiding all food like it was going to kill me and still woke up tired and gagging on Sunday.

So far this week has been more peaceful than last week was. Last week I was at the hospital 4 times: 2 times for shots, one time for an appointment (both babies look good and are measuring right on track) and once because I was an idiot and lost my prescription for my test strips and lancets so I had to get another one. I'm sure the nurses are as tired of me as I am of them. This week I only need to go in twice for shots which is good news because that means I can stay in my PJs on the days I don't have to go out. And that is great news because that means less laundry for me, which is fantastic news because I still have about 6 loads of laundry that have been rotated on and off the bedroom floor and through the wash again for the better part of 6 weeks that needs to be folded and put away.

I just don't have the energy or the strength to do much. I have no shame in letting everyone know that my kids have now have a nanny named Dora, who rotates days
with Blue and Steve and Diego. Occasionally, Pablo or Manny will fill in when needed and George is always a good standby. A mama's got to get help where she can, right?

What I really need is a cook; someone to come make food for me, whatever I want at the exact moment that I want it. If I want food, I want it right then because in 3 minutes, I will be hating food and gagging again. A cook would actually be much more beneficial for my kids and husband. I think the boys are tired of pizza and pasta and I know they are tired of eating the things that I kind of maybe like, on a good day. They can only eat so much chicken, tuna with noodles, and green beans the way I want them-- covered in Cream of Mushroom soup and baked to perfection. And even then I end up scrapping off most of the soup and can only manage a few bites here and there.

I was told last week that I should be eating at least 2700-3500 calories a day, and I need to gain at least 20 pounds in the next 9 weeks, and 40-50 pounds overall. Ha! Riiiiiiiiiight. Right now I'm lucky to be able to take in (and keep down) 1/3 of those recommended calories a day, at best. So if you have any fool proof suggestions for getting those kind of calories down, and keeping them down, please share. Ensure or any kind of "calorie drink" are not an option and neither is anything with sugar. Same goes for red meat, fast food, things that are fried, things that are salty, mayo, things that are thick in texture (yogurt, pudding, jello, smoothies, oatmeal)...

I'm sure women have grown babies on worse than green bean casserole and rice. CB grew off of nothing but Whoppers (no mayo, no cheese) from Burger King while she was in the womb, but her 3rd toes are longer than her 2nd so that is probably not a very good example. Let's just hope for the best with these two.

big fat baby...

2009-01-14T08:30:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago we gad a scare and I ended up spending the morning at the hospital. Everything turned out to be ok, thank goodness. Both babies were fine, but my progesterone levels were pretty low. I didn't know that, until the nurse called me from the waiting room while we were waiting for the ultrasound. When she came to the door of the waiting room, I saw she had a big fat syringe in her hand and I thought, "Dude, sucks to be that person!" and then she called my name. Dude, sucks to be me. I don't exactly do needles. I'm the person who passes out cold when they give me a simple TB test. That's not even really a needle! It's like a little half second poke in the arm. Big whoop. Yeah, not to me. To me, it's the same as when they draw 8 vials of blood from my skinny limp arm.

Now, this needle-phobic gets to get twice weekly injections of progesterone in her butt. I'm not kidding when I say that it takes me a good 2 days to work up the courage to go get them done. They hurt. They hurt bad. It takes anywhere from 60-90 seconds to get the stuff injected, and did I mention that it is actually OIL they are injecting into my butt? I'm not a turkey! I don't need anything injected in my behind for tenderness. I have plenty of that on my own. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the one time in my life that I could get away with wearing one of those obnoxious pairs of track pants with "Juicy" written all over the butt. I swear, if you put me in a warm room, you'd have to come and baste me every 30 minutes because I'd be secreting so much oil that I'd eventually dry out.

I have learned a few tricks on how to cope through the shots, thanks to some amazing friends who have had to go through them before. Really though, I've found the amount of pain comes down to the person who has the unfortunate task of injecting me. Nurse New made me pass out-- it took her almost 2 minutes to get all of the oil into me. Nurse Nice is the best at it, but sadly, she's only been able to give me one. Nurse Tough Love though... she's, well, though. She is a very very pleasant person, until you give her a needle. There's no small talk. Just pull down your pants and let me see your booty. And then poke, shoot, and we're done, and then I cry. I wonder if she would be gentler to me if I brought her chocolates, or even a bottle of wine? The worst part is that she doesn't heat the oil to room temp, so the oil goes in straight out of the fridge. And that is what burns the most. But she says she warms it up, in her hands. Yeah, no, that doesn't work.

Of course, I will do whatever I have to for these babies. There's no denying that and honestly, this is probably just my little introduction to the world of needles during this pregnancy. I have a feeling that by the time these babies are born, I might not be so needle phobic. You get over your fears by immersion, right? Lord help me.

q&a

2009-01-10T14:22:00.002-05:00

I want to take a second to thank everyone for all of the emails and messages. I hope to be able to respond to everyone individually soon, but just thinking about looking at the computer screen causes a Pavlovian response in me, making run for the barf bag. So I will address some of the questions I have been getting, here, in the meantime.

1. Are you really having twins?
- Yes, yes we REALLY are. It isn't a joke, or a ploy to get people to give us presents. There really are 2 babies in my uterus right now.

2. When are you due?
- August, but they will come earlier. I never give exact dates, I don't like the pressure.

3. How did M react?
- Much better than I did, that's for sure. Deep down I think he knew. Probably because I was 2x as sick and about 12x as hormonal. But he was very very happy, excited and levelheaded right from the start. He is a much calmer person than I am.

4. When are you moving, and where?
- NO CLUE. That is our biggest source of stress right now, and as soon as we figure it out, I'll let you know.

5. Was I the last to know about this?
- No, you were not the last to know, I promise. Very few of my friends and family knew. I didn't want to say anything until I felt more comfortable with the pregnancy and had seen 2 healthy babies more than once. I was a complete loser and told everyone on my blog and facebook, all at once. Please forgive me for not emailing you personally, as I said, the computer makes me puke and I'm not really a big fan of puking, so I try not get on the computer too much.

6. How are you feeling?
- Um, lets just say I feel like I did the time my friend A and I ate bad clam chowder and got food poisoning, only I feel that way Every. Single. Day.

7. Do you need anything?
- Yes, the biggest bottle of anti nausea meds you can find, a fat energy bar, a nanny to entertain my kids when I can't (which is most of the time), and a haircut because I am NEVER going to have free time again.

8. Did you want a big family?
- Is 4 kids a lot? Well, too late now, right? I have never had the desire to go all Duggar on everyone, but 4 has always been a good number for me. I just never thought that all 4 would probably be in college at the same time...

9. Do you have names picked out yet?
- ha ha hahahahahahahahahah! No. Not even close. It took us 9 months and 3 days to come up with both W and CB's names and now we have to figure out 3 sets of names (boy/boy, boy/girl, and girl/girl). I don't think we will have them picked out for another 27 months, 9 days.

10. Are you going to find out what you are having?
- I don't know yet. I'd like to be surprised this time, as we knew with both W and CB but finding out would make the naming process a whole lot easier, wouldn't it?

11. Did you have a feeling you were having twins?
- No, I thought I had the flu. I was praying I had the flu at least, because if what I had was morning sickness, then I just needed to take a big fat sleeping pill and sleep for the next 8 weeks.

12. Is the morning sickness really worse with twins?
- Yeah, pretty much everything is intensified when you are pregnant with twins, at least for me. The morning sickness started to get bad the 3 days before we found out about the 2 babies. We were traveling through Salzburg and I felt like I was going to die. But dang it, I did not go all the way to Salzburg just to see the inside of a toilet at the Marriot, so I powered through and we went out exploring. Now it makes me laugh to think about how I was walking in the pouring rain, with a kid on my back, stopping to puke in any bathroom that was open... Yeah, those days are gone. These days, I can hardly pull myself off the couch and being upright makes me dizzy and nauseous. Food makes me sick, not eating makes me sick... It's a big party around here.

13. Have you had any "parking lot incidents" yet?
- Sadly, no. Confronting stupid people in parking lots is my favorite part about being pregnant. For me, pregnancy is like being drunk, although not nearly as fun. I have zero inhibitions and tend to tell people when they are being a moron without really thinking about it, or caring about the consequences and parking lots seem to be my place of choice to do that. This pregnancy though has zapped me of all of my energy and most of my whit. I'm not much fun. But I'll be sure to let you know if I have one! They are the best!

story time!

2009-01-08T14:10:00.007-05:00

Once upon a time, there was this girl named Joanna and she married a dude named M. Well, his name wasn't really "M", but that is besides the point. Anyway, 14 months after they were married, their handsome son was born and 17 months after that, their beautiful daughter came along. Then M left for 15 months. When he came home, Joanna and M decided they wanted to add to their family. 6 weeks later, they found out that Joanna was pregnant. That next week, she went to the doctor and the doctor gave her some frustrating news: there was only a tiny sac, so small infact that he wasn't sure if it was a sac at all. She cried and prayed and anxiously awaited her next appointment.

A week later, M and Joanna packed up the kids and went back to the doctor's office for another ultrasound. And there it was, a beautiful sac, yoke sac and fetal pole. This was amazing news, considering the week before there wasn't much hope. And Joanna was happy and jokingly asked the doctor if there was just one in there. And he said yes. And then 3 seconds later he said, "No, there's 2." And Joanna said "What?" And he said, "There are 2." And she said "What?!" And he said, "There are 2, you are having twins." And she said "WHAT?!" (Well, actually she said something else, but since this is a G rated blog, for the most part, we will just paraphrase what she said.) And then the room started to spin, very fast.

Now Joanna is somewhere around 9 weeks pregnant with twins, sick as a dog and lazy as an old one too. Her pants don't fit, she can't stay awake and cries at the drop of a hat, but she wouldn't change it for the world. The tiny miracles will make their debut sometime this summer and M and Joanna cannot wait. It is going to be an amazing year, people.

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Hey, remember that time I said this about CB's first year?

"I have no idea how we survived. I really, really don't. They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and that scares the crap out of me. I don't know what is in our future that we need to be stronger for."

Call me crazy, but I think this just might be the reason we needed to be stronger, and yes, it scares the crap out of me. There is nothing that can prepare you for the moment when you find out that you are carrying two precious lives in your uterus. It is really quite amazing how much your life can change in the course of one innocent ultrasound. Since I found out we are having twins, I have been having a constant conversation with God, praying that the babies are ok and that they both arrive healthy this summer. The shock has pretty much worn off and has started to turn to excitement, but I am still scared. So if you want to pray, meditate, send good vibes and energy or do whatever it is you do, you can do so with us in mind. So far, this pregnancy has been full of surprises and challenges and it is only the beginning.

shouldn't we have flying cars by now?

2009-01-02T15:43:00.003-05:00

It is freaking 2009, people! Where are the flying cars and personal jet packs? I want a refund. This sucks! When I was in second grade, they made a big deal about us being the class of 2000 and every other week we would have to do some lame art or social studies project and imagine what life would be like in the year 2000. We all made pictures of Reeboks (with the strap-- you can sing it-- low low low low low low low) with rockets and flying cars... the Two Thousands were going to be like the Jetsons. And now here we are. No flying cars, no jet packs. We should at least have robots that do dishes!

In all seriousness, happy 2009!! Like most people, I am happy to leave 2008 behind. Not because of the "economic meltdown", Lord help me if I hear that term one more time, but because I was just ready for something new. Plus, two thousand nine is easier to say than two thousand eight. Eight is not a very sexy number.

Last year brought so many challenges, none of which we need to rehash, and wasn't exactly a fun year. The past 2 months have almost made up for the previous 10 sucking, thankfully. I am so blessed to have my children finally (somewhat) healthy and a wonderful extended family who supports us so much and great friends who I can call on at anytime and don't complain about it and who don't seem to mind if my average turn around time for an email or call back is 4 days.

Most of all, I am blessed to have a fantastic husband who will do anything for our family and who has treated me like a queen even when he is dead tired and needs a break. Since he has come home I haven't really been at my finest because of colds and the flu and eczema so bad that the pads of my fingers were splitting open. So he has taken over most of the household duties, forbidden me from doing the dishes because that seems to be what tears my hands up the most and has cared for the kids in the middle of the night so I can rest. He even went Christmas shopping for me and got me the little things I would never buy for myself, like a bar stool so I can sit my fat butt down when I cook, even though I was lame and only bought him one little stupid gift. Our children are blessed to have a father who will do nothing but read to them and play with them from the second he gets home to the time he gives them a bath and puts them in bed. They are also blessed to have a father that is much more patient than their mother is.

So thank you, honey, for doing what you do and working so hard. Who would have thought that after 54 months of marriage and about 38 months apart that we would be where we are today, and doing just fine. And thank you to those of you who have stuck with me for the past few years. I couldn't have made it through 2008 without you. I hope you will stick around for 2009 too. I can pretty much guarantee that it is going to be one heck of a year.