Blinded by the White

Yes, again it's been awhile and it seems that I only get to my blog these days when something out of the ordinary happens.  That is not to say that something out of the ordinary doesn't happen everyday, after all, I have twins.

So a quick run down of what has happened since my last blog is in order.  Calista is so ready to crawl!  She has that butt up in the air and almost made it today.  Yesterday she managed to crawl backwards for her daddy.  It's time to baby proof the house, we have our baby gates all ready to cage them in.  Now we just have to go after things like light sockets, power cords and other delightful objects at floor level.

Calista has also gotten very grabby.  If it's within her reach she has it in her hands, and what a grip that little girl has!  Jessica found out the hard way last week when she left a container of baby food within Calista's reach on the highchair table.  All I heard in the office was an "OH NO Calista!".  Later I found out that Calista had grabbed the container and dumped it all over the tray.  Lucky for me I was able to learn from Jessica's mistake and I don't let any baby food close to Calista's reach.

Now Alex wants to crawl just as bad, but he always manages to get himself over onto his back instead.  He's got the pushing down with one of his legs, he just needs to get that other one coordinated and he'll be on his way too.

And when it comes to food, my Alex doesn't mess around.  There's no way he'd risk spilling his food by grabbing it.

Friday we took a trip to Costco for our monthly supply of 424 diapers.  (Yes, that is the amount of diapers that we go through in a month.  However it does not count the diapers that they use when they visit Grandma and Grandpaw, so it's probably a little higher).  Walking through Costco Calista had a fascination with my Starbucks and was very grabby about the cup.  Just like her momma... brought a little tear to my eye.  By the time we left she had chocolate all over her face.

Other events that happened this week was an overnight stay at Grandma and Grandpaw's house on Saturday so that Ed and I could go out for our anniversary.  We had a couple of massages and went out to dinner.  We were going to see a movie, but neither of us were very enthused about what was playing so we just came home and watched our Netflix.

It's so bittersweet when they go to their grandparents house for the night.  On one hand we love the sleep and time to ourselves.  On the other hand, I found myself looking at empty cribs and missing my cubs.

Sunday they came home and mommy and daddy were thrilled to see them.  We got them changed and went directly to the park to swing for a little while.  They were both pretty tired so we didn't stay too long.

And that brings us to today and the story behind the title of this particular blog.  We had a great day today.  Calista woke up around 7 a.m., had some breakfast.  Then Alex woke up at around 8 a.m. and I found again that he had pee'd through everything.  The whole front of him was soaked and he smelled of urine.  So I striped him down, wiped him off with a wipe and put him in a onsie for the time being.  Then he had some breakfast.  After breakfast I was downstairs stripping down his bed, mattress pad included, and throwing it into the wash.  This is the 2nd time he's done this and I'd had enough.  So after bath time we were on our way to Target for 2 back up mattress pads and some night time diapers.  Back home they had a little lunch, a bottle and then took a nice nap for me.

When they woke up they had a bottle and we played on the floor with some new books I bought them at Target.  Calista can grab it and turn the pages by herself... Alex just tries to eat them.

When Ed got home we had our dinner and he went in to clean up the kitchen and make formula while I played with the cubs.  They just love it when I lay down in between their play mats, they can grab at my face and I can tickle them.  But I just had to take it a step further today.  I got a hold of Calista and laid her on my tummy so we were tummy to tummy.  She smiled and giggled, raised herself up on her arms as if to crawl and then BLAM!  A white flood covered my face.  Puke in my eyes, up my nose and all over my mouth.  I'm attempting to yell at Ed without opening my mouth, which ended up sounding a bit like a person yelling with a mouthful of peanut butter.  Ed came running in thinking someone was hurt and all I could say was 'Get me a rag'.  He got Calista off of me, (who by the way was all grins after this), and proceeded to blow mass amounts of baby puke out of my nose.

Yeah, I let him play with the babies after that while I cleaned up the kitchen.

Kitchen now cleaned and time to go downstairs for the night.  I decided to take Alex... (can you blame me?).  Once downstairs Alex and I are in the big blue chair sitting face to face practicing our A's and O's along with our new game, 'Nose/Toes' where I point to his nose and then his toes repeating Nose and Toes.  We are both very low key, but out of no where he pukes all over my.  Yep, Ed is on the couch with Calista laughing at me.

We got them both changed into pj's for the night, this time I took Calista back with me.  Ed had Alex on the couch tickling him and making him giggle so loud I was cracking up at it.  Then Alex puked on the couch, then proceeded to laugh immediately afterwards.

Bet you can't guess what my worst of motherhood for today is?  Baby puke in your orifices!!!

However the best part of motherhood for today is no matter how much they both puke, both of my babies are very happy babies.

A Busy Day That Ended with a Very Tired Little Girl

This morning started out with Calista waking up first.  They both wake up so happy these days, when they lift their heads up from the crib and spot you, you get the most wonderful toothless smile.  I changed Calista and gathered her bath items, bibs and clean burp cloths and headed upstairs for our breakfast.  This morning I decided to try the Peaches and Rice Cereal on them.  For the life of me I don't understand it, while I was pregnant me big craving was peaches.  We couldn't keep enough of them in the house!  But this little girl wants nothing to do with them.  She took a little taste and wrinkled her nose right up at those peaches.  Before I could decide what to feed her next I heard Alex on the monitor, so I went downstairs and gathered him up with bath items as well.

Now Alex ate his peaches and rice cereal.  He wasn't his usual 'shark' about eating them, but he ate them.  I dug out a jar of banana's for Calista and she gobbled them right up.

After breakfast it was bath time.  Since Calista is rolling all over the place these days the only way I can do bath time by myself is to leave her in her highchair or put her in the play pen downstairs while I bath Alex.  I gave Alex a quick bath and got him dressed in his shark shirt.  But before I could get a picture snapped of him in it he puked peaches up all over it.  Then he went down on his play mat in the living room while I grabbed Calista, striped her down and gave her a bath which she really enjoyed.

Then we were all off and running.  First stop was mother's little helper, my friend Starbucks for a nice big cup of 'Go Juice'.  Then off to Grandma and Grandpa's to say good bye to their English friends Mac and Nicol, pick up some patterns that I had left there and see if we could get one of them to go with us to the grocery store to pick up baby food.

At Grandma and Grandpa's they had a quick lunch of green beans on the patio outside.  I'm not sure how it happened, but I think Calista got a little sunburn on her face, just on one side of course.  She's not screaming about it, so it must not be too bad.

After lunch we loaded the kids up in the car and I followed Mom and Nicol the King Soopers in Loveland, where they apparently have an IQ requirement of below 50 to work there.  I was already in a rush since it was 12:30 and Jessica was supposed to be at the house by 1 p.m. to work in at DJBeads.  I left a message on her cell phone that I would be late and started on the power shop.  We had three carts for this little adventure.  Mom had one with no one in it, Nicol had one with Calista in it and I had one with Alex in it and mountains of baby food.  Once up at the checkout stand though I noticed that my carton of milk was leaking all over my bags.  So when I reached the cashier I told her I needed a new milk, she then handed it to the bag boy, Micah who proceeded to argue with me that the milk was not leaking.  I told him that my bags where the milk was sitting were all wet with a white liquid so it must be the milk.  And off he went with the leaking milk.  About this time I find out that Calista is throwing a fit on the other side of the store with Mom and Nicol, so I tell the checker that I'm in a hurry and to just forget the milk.  She says Micah will be back in a minute with it, so we wait.  I tell her again after a few minutes that I really have to go and to forget the milk and she says, 'Oh wait there he is'.  I looked over and if this guy was moving any slower he would've been walking backwards!  And to top it off, he has no carton of milk in his hands.  ARGH!!!  I just want to give this woman my money and walk out the door with my groceries, is that too much to ask?

Finally rung out I get to the parking lot with the three carts, Mom and Nicol and my groceries.  We get Calista in the car and when I go to the other side to put Alex in the jerk parked next to me parked so close that I can't even get my car door open.  So I have to back my car up into the middle of the isle, park it and go and put Alex in.  I don't know what I would've done if Mom and Nicol hadn't been there to watch Alex while I moved the car.

For all you childless people out there, or those that have children older and don't remember, this is my plea.  If you're parking next to a car and you see the car seat bases in the back seat... please remember to give us enough room to get that huge car seat in through our door.  If you don't I can't promise you won't come back to a vehicle side full of dents.

Finally done with our adventure and heading home.  I get in the door and Jessica is back in the office working away on 6,000 4mm Aqua Pearls... bless her nimble little fingers!  I raced through the house changing diapers and getting 2 bottles ready.  Alex got fed first and I figured he would be really tired, but I put him in his crib and he just talked to the walls all afternoon.  Calista got fed and you could see she was really drowsy, so she moaned a little in her sleep, but ended up sleeping almost 4 hours!

Alex on the other hand just wouldn't go to sleep.  I came upstairs to put our new Variety Packs together to ship out and just kept hearing the talking mixed with fussing.  I ended up going downstairs and got on my knees next to Alex's crib and just patted him on his behind and rubbed his back for at least a 1/2 hour.  Only when I heard snoring did I feel ok to leave and go back to work.  But he only slept for about an hour.  Once he was up I gathered him up to go to the post office, Ed got home and took over listening for Calista and Jessica finished up the pearls.  Everyone had a job to do.

At the post office Kari got to see Alex for the first time in about 3 months.  She came out from behind the counter to hold him.  He sent her home with a little reminder of himself with some slobber on her postal uniform.

Back home after that, Ed fed Alex while I wrapped things up in the office with Jessica.  We made our dinner and ate all while Calista slept away.  When she did finally wake up we fed her and made it downstairs by 8 p.m.  I had Calista tonight and she thought it was a ton of fun to yank at my hair.  She was standing up on my lap facing me and proceeded to grab at my hair and pull back as if she were throwing handfuls of confetti.

I was worried that because she slept so long she wouldn't go down at 9 p.m.  But she started dosing in my arms and went right to sleep for me.

After they were both down Ed promised me he'd give me 15 full minutes of folding laundry.  He gave me 3 minutes then started playing with his phone and complained asking how much longer he had.

Once he went to bed I have the house to myself and worked on a little bit of sewing.  I'm making a romper outfit for Calista that is pink with butterfly's all over it.  At this point I have the piece all put together, it's just the finishing touches, (i.e. hemming that I really suck at by the way), that is left to do.

So the worst part of motherhood today was having an idiot park too close to my car so that I can't get a car seat through my back seat door.

The best part of motherhood today is those big toothless grins when the cubs see me first thing in the morning.

First Day at the Park

The past few weeks have been so busy that I've really let my blogging go, so I'm going to do my best to just start fresh with today.

Jessica came to babysit today which meant that I got to get some work done in the office as well as get out for a little while this afternoon.  I spent a luxurious day getting a mani/pedi then went to see the latest Shrek movie.  (Which I can say still wasn't as good and 1 or 2, but better than 3 by a long shot!).

I still made it home by 1 p.m. and walked into a quiet house with the cubs sleeping and Jessica sitting quietly on the couch with her laptop.  Such a pleasant day, yet I knew that I was about ready to go into battle over Alex's medicine.

On their 6 month well baby check up Dr. Hansen bumped Alex's Previcid up to 5 ml's per day.  His current prescription is for 3 ml's per day and had no refills on it.  To top that off, for some reason all of a sudden the insurance company decided they don't want to pay for it anymore.  No reason, just denied.  My mission was to first yell at the Dr.'s office since for two weeks I've been calling them asking to call in the new prescription for 5 ml's which they still haven't done.  Next was to do battle with the insurance company on why they aren't paying for it anymore.  I never made it to the insurance company phone call.  I spent probably an hour between the pharmacy and the pediatricians office just trying to get the new prescription of 5 ml's in place.  Turns out our Dr. Hansen dropped the ball on this one.  He wrote on the sheet he gave us with Alex's height, weight, etc. that he was to take 5 ml's per day, but never changed it on Alex's chart from 3 to 5.

So the Dr.'s office told me to go to the pharmacy and have them call the Dr.'s office and then they could get it straightened out.  Of course it didn't dawn on me until after I hung up that I would have to then fight this battle in a public arena at my local King Soopers with two babies in tow.  Not to mention what a pain it will be to get them all packed up in the stroller just to go in there and do someone elses job so my son can have the medicine he needs.  Also, at this point we are just going to pay for it out of pocket, (which I'm sure is exactly what insurance company's hope for).  So there will be more on this topic and whether I've won or lost my battle.

Now for the rest of the day.....

I did get a large shipment of beads in today for the upcoming Mellow Yellow Variety Pack.  Realizing that I probably should have stayed home and worked on that instead of going out and playing I decided to ask Jessica if she wanted to do some work in the bead store for me tomorrow.  Once she said yes I once again felt a big weight off of me and sat down for 20 minutes to make some earrings.  Ahhhhh, that time is just the best!

Ed got home at 4:30 and Jessica took off.  Ed and I ate a quick dinner and fed the cubs, who by the way are now on stage 2 baby foods and LOVING IT!  The past 3 days or so Alex has started making a weird sound when we feed him and he lunges for the spoon of food.  We say it's like feeding a baby shark...lol.

Once dinner was done Ed got the stroller out of the trunk, we put on our walking shoes and went for their first trip to the park.  The Main Park in Windsor is really well kept with a lot of outdoor toys for kids, and when I drove by it yesterday I saw that it had those swings for babies with the holes for the legs to come through.  Our walk was only about 20 minutes to get there and it was a little on the warm side, but not blistering hot.

Calista was the first one out and her and daddy found a nice piece of grass to chill on.

Alex was a little on the sleepy side so I took him directly to the swing to see how he liked it.  Turns out the swing didn't wake him up too much.  He just swung back and forth looking at the ground the entire time.

I shot some video of him in the swing then it was time to switch so I could get some video of Calista's first ride in a swing as well.

Calista on the other hand loved her swing ride.  Every time she came at me I'd grab her swing and hold her for a second, then let her swing backwards.  The result was adorable baby giggles.  Alex had enough by now though so him and daddy sat in the swing next to us for a little while, then went to that nice patch of grass he had found earlier.

We only stayed for about 20 minutes, but it was such a nice time.  On the way home Alex fell asleep in the stroller, so once we got home Ed took him directly to bed for a quick cat nap.

They got into their jammies and both babies practiced some crawling for a while.  I think Alex is going to be out of here sooner than later, where as Calista is really great at standing on her own and loves to do that.

Calista began to get fussy so Ed laid her down in her crib for a bit and then we both played with Alex for a while, giving him hugs, neck sugars and playing cow attach with the toy moo cow.

We gave them their final bottle at 8:30 at which time Alex fell right to sleep on me.  He was so snugly, I really didn't want to put him in his crib tonight.  Calista was awake, but she seems to be easier than Alex to get to sleep when it's bed time.  You can lay her in her crib and she'll talk for a little while, but then she goes to sleep within 15 minutes I'd say.

With both babies asleep it was time to tackle that mountain of laundry that needed folding, (another thing I probably should have done today instead of playing).  Knowing that Ed would want to go to bed at 9 pm sharp, I asked him to help fold clothes for the next 10 minutes until he went to bed.  We both started working on the laundry basket when he decided to move all the clothing over to one side so he could sit down.  When I asked him what he was doing he told me why stand up when I can do it sitting down.  We were almost to the bottom of the laundry basket and I told him that there was still another load in the dryer and could he please go get that out, which he did.  About 7 minutes had gone by since we started our laundry adventure when Ed says, "Isn't it time we take a break?".  What could I do but stare at him in disbelief and say, "I am always amazed that you have held a job for as long as you have".  He was kidding of course and so was I.  I just thought it was a funny story I would share.

Ok, now for the best and worst.

The worst part of motherhood for today is trying to get medication for your baby that you know they need and running into brick walls left and right.  Makes me just want to scream, "He's a baby and he won't feel good unless he has this! Why are you not making this a high priority that he get his medicine!!!".

The best part of motherhood for today... well I have two actually, one for each baby.  The first was our trip to the park and listening to Calista giggle on the swing.  There is nothing more healing than a babies giggle in my book.  The second is a warm snugly Alex asleep on my shoulder.  I didn't even mind the snoring in my ear, (which I'm just sure he gets from his daddy...lol).

Lazy Day and the Week In Review

Monday Ed and I lazied around the house and played with the cubs all day.  We only had one outing where we went to pick up Alex's medicine and a quick trip to Starbucks.  Other than that we were home bodies.

I did however manage to get myself hooked on the show Lost, after it's off the air of course.  However I think the best way to watch a series like this is through Netflix online through the blu ray player.  I don't have to watch any commercials and I don't have to wait for the next season when they do cliff hangers.

I also was able to finish beading a little wall decoration I had started for Alex.  It's a little Rainbow Truck done in Peyote stitch.  The pattern is available at The Bead Coop for anyone that likes to do beading.  Next up is a pattern I created myself of a little red choo-choo train.  I'll post pictures of that one when it's finished as well.  Now the only issue I have is that Lost is starting to scare the crap out of me and I fear it's going to make me jump and I'll spill all of my tiny little seed beads everywhere.

And don't think that I'm leaving Calista out on this one.  I have patterns in the making for ladybugs, butterfly's, flower and all kinds of garden creatures.  I just need to sit down and finish the patterns for them.

Weds. was Jessica's first day and what a difference!  Ed came home to a couple of happy cubs and a wife that didn't look so frazzled that she was ready to rip his head off.  Just a little break and I'm good as gold.  I also find that I have the energy to play with the kids more when I've had a little bit of a break from them.

On Friday Jessica was back at the house and I felt she was plenty capable to handle the twins on her own, so I took off to go and see a movie.  Went and saw, Get Him To The Greek, which I thought was hysterical!

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is that bitter sweet of leaving your kids with someone else to get a break from them... only to find that you really miss them once you're away from them.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is how happy you are to see your kids again after such a break.

Saint Jessica

Saturday morning we got the call from Julie that her daughter Jessica would be available to babysit for us during the week.  Since she seems to be swooping in to save me, I now call her Saint Jessica... the patron saint of a frazzled mommy.

Sunday, the cubs officially turned six months old.  While Dad and Ed took off to go play golf, Mom and I set out for Estes Park with the twins.  They had a craft show going there, the weather was beautiful so why not.  We got them in the stroller, strapped their fashionable sunglasses onto their heads and away we went.

They were the talk of Estes Park!  Everywhere we went people commented on them and the sunglasses.  One vendor selling stained glass even had to take a picture of them.  We had a bunch of fun, spent a little money with our local crafters, (I'd rather support them than China) and before we knew it the clock said 5 p.m.

We headed back down the mountain and ended up meeting Dad and Ed for Mexican food here in Windsor.  Calista did her standing up on the table and let out several of her high pitched screeches for the other customers.  Again the time seemed to fly and it was well past time to get them fed and off to dream land.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is having time just get away from you.  Where did the day go?

The best part of motherhood for this blog is finding a babysitter you can trust!  What will I do when St. Jessica heads off to college???

Stressed to the Max

I've noticed that the disheveled look of my house seems to be in direct correlation to what kind of day I've had.  Both last Thursday and Friday the house looked like a band of gypsies had set up camp in it.  By now Alex has come down with Ed's cold and he is stuffy, miserable and whiney.  He doesn't take a very good nap these couple of days, and when I do lay him down he fusses so much that he wakes Calista up.  Needless to say mommy is stressed out!  And all you mothers out there know exactly what I'm talking about right now.  You're just at a loss for what else to do for the child, nothing seems to calm them and you have to really try to stay with it mentally so you don't blindly shake the baby.  And once you take a step back from being in this state you feel like a terrible mother.

Both of these days I ended it in tears and by Friday I think Ed saw that I was getting warn down.  We discussed at dinner that priority number one was to find a baby sitter.

In the end all Alex really needed was to sleep to get rid of his cold.  After placing both him and Calista up on the couch with me in front of them in case they tumbled forward, I turned away for a minute and when I looked back the little guy had fallen asleep sitting up.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is feeling like you're loosing your cool.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is when sick baby falls asleep and you know that's the best thing for them.

Finally That Trip To Costco... Never Again By Myself!

Wednesday come hell or high water I had to go to Costco, we weren't going to make it through another night without more diapers.  So repeat the drill from the day before, but this time I made it past Starbucks.  I got to Costco and knew that I immediately had to get Calista changed, so we went straight for the bathroom.  She did it to me again with a poopy diaper, but I got her all cleaned up and left a little gift in the trash for the cleaning lady in Costco.

Luckily the shopping carts at Costco have seats for two babies in them.  So I brought a blanket from home and put that at the base and placed both cubs in the cart.  They aren't sitting up on their own yet, but Calista can hold herself up straight.  Alex on the other hand slouches a bit.  The problem was though that both of their heads were hitting the wires at the back of the shopping cart seat, so I had to pad it with the blanket and a burp cloth.

With that all set we were off on our shopping adventure through Costco.... at lightning speed I might add.  I knew my time was limited before both of them became fussy.  I made it through 3/4 of the store before I had to pick Calista up out of her cart seat and carry her.  At this point I have 2 boxes of diapers, 3 gallons of bleach and lots of other heavy items in my cart, Calista in my right arm over my shoulder, Alex in the cart seat and I have to turn this heavy cart with one arm.  I knew it wasn't just me that found this taxing when I saw the looks of pity on other shoppers faces.  One woman even said she wouldn't have had the nerve to go it alone with one baby, let alone two!  So thinking myself to be a super mom after that comment I decided we were done and it was time to get going.

At the check stand I ran into yet another problem though, I had to put the items on the conveyor belt.  How was I going to do that while holding Calista.  So I told Calista she was just going to have to sit in the cart seat for a little while so I could unload.  I set her in the seat and started to buckle her in when I caught the tender under part of her arm in the buckle and pinched it.  Oh that little girl screamed!!!!  (As would I, that's a tender area!).  The entire Costco warehouse seemed to be staring at me and I went from super mom to 'what an idiot' in about a split second.

I picked Cailsta back up, she was crying, I was crying, the checker looked over at me and I explained to her what I had accidentally done.  Next thing I knew there were two Costco employees unloading my cart for me and entertaining Alex as he went through the check out line.

With my purchases all loaded back up in the cart, Calista in my arms, Alex in the cart seat still, all that was left to do was load it all up in the car.  As I exited Costco though the woman that was behind me stopped and looked at me, then stopped again and asked if I needed any help.  I told her thank you, but I can manage and started making a turn with the cart to go to the car.  She stopped again and said, "Really, please let me at least push your cart for you".  So I said okay and thanked her.  Now in the back of my mind I'm having an argument.... is she a kind person or is she going to take off running with my Alex in the cart?  Too many stories in the news, so you never know.  With caution I told her I would pull on the front part of the cart to help her steer it since it was so heavy and Alex needed to be held upright.

Once at the car she offered to hold Calista and asked how in the world I was going to get the groceries into my car.  I told her that was the easy part, I put Calista in her car seat, then Alex in his leaving both doors open since it was hot out.  Then loaded up the groceries and was done.  I thanked her profusely... and turns out, she was a kind person not a kidnapper.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is doing something really stupid like catching your child's skin in a buckle.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is the kindness of strangers.