Thank Goodness for the Cat!

My two issues for this blog are containment and socks.... how do you keep either of them?

The other day I had to go and change both babies and put them down for a nap.  Since Alex is the clever fellow that learned how to open our makeshift gate I decided to take him down first.  I got him downstairs only to discover a massive poopy diaper that was going to take a little time cleaning up.  No worries, Calista was safe upstairs in the living room, all gated off, and I could hear her playing.  I began my duty of cleaning up Alex's dooty and at the end I happened to notice that it was quiet upstairs.  Then I heard a strange noise.  I grabbed up Alex and ran the bottom of the stairs half expecting to see Calista peering down at me, but she wasn't there.  So I ran back to put Alex back in his crib for safe keeping and hurried upstairs to get Calista.  Imagine my panic when I got to the top of the stairs and found the gate open and no sign of Calista!  I raced through the upstairs looking for her when I heard a squeal of delight from the bathroom.  She had chased Leo into the bathroom and had him cornered.  When I got there Leo just gave me a terrified look as if to say, "Nobody told me those things were going to be mobile!".

Lucky for me Leo lured her into the bathroom and not down the stairs.  Our current protocol for taking care of one baby and leaving the other one upstairs is to put the remaining baby into the jump-a-roo for safe keeping.  That is until our new gates arrive.

After their nap and some lunch I took them on a quick adventure to the bank and then they both got haircuts at Lollilocks.  I just love that place, they are so good with kids.  Both babies did good getting the haircuts, although the stylist attempted to use the shaver on Alex to shape up his hair a bit.... I'm afraid she might have pushed her luck on that one.  He bawled for about 2 minutes until I picked him up out of the chair.  Then he was all smiles and making his new sound Grandma taught him, (running his finger over his lips making a bbbbbbbbb sound).

My other issue I'd like to touch on for this blog is socks.  How in the world do you keep them on their feet?  If they aren't taking their own socks off then they are pulling each other's socks until they pop off.  I bet I spend a good 1/3 of my day just putting socks back on little feet.  You know the commercial with the guy that is dipping his son's feet in the plaster so they are form fitting socks?  Well I'm beginning to think he's actually on to something.

Today was a fairly low key day.  I'm trying them out on more and more solid foods.  This morning they got a tray full of Cheerio's and a jar of baby food bananas.  For a snack they shared a yogurt before nap time and I learned the lesson of not trying to feed them something like yogurt without them being in a high chair.  Calista's hair was plastered to her head with yogurt, not to mention the yogurt bath I was taking with them smearing their mouths all over mommy's sweats and shirt.

When they got up from their nap and we finished up lunch I decided that a bath was in order.  So I turned on Dinosaur Train for Alex to watch in his highchair while I whisked Calista away for a bath.  I think I might have caught her off guard since she wasn't quite as squirmy as usual.  Most of the time it's like trying to dress a grizzly bear in pajama's with feet.  Once she was done I put her in the jump-a-roo and got Alex all bathed.

I did notice today that Alex's rash from the Petechiae is starting to look really bad again.  I've got a phone call into the Dr. to see if they want to do a blood draw sooner to see where his platelet count is.  Judging by the rash I'd be really surprised if it was above 25,000 right now.

After bath time I waited for their hair to dry and then packed them up for a trip to Target.  I bought them some new shoes and returned a toy they got for their birthday that was really cute, but quite working within 5 minutes of use.

The only other eventful thing that happened was yet another baby containment issue this evening.  We have the downstairs set up with the play pen being used as a gate between the couch and the utility room closet.  However the closet doors are not flush with the carpet so Calista has found that she can dig her little fingers into a seam in the cement and get out dirt to eat.  So we took the vacuum to it and got it all cleaned out.  Well tonight I found a little piece of cement in her mouth that had broken off from that seam, it was about half the size of a dime... plenty big enough to choke on.  So we devised another barrier with my crafting table.  I was able to slide it into the side of the utility closet so we can slide it back and forth to the couch.  Now she can't even get to the utility closet.... for a while at least.

Every time we see her pushing on a gate or just staring at it we joke that she's like the raptors in Jurrasic Park.  "You can see she's working the problem"... then when she breaks through the gate... "Clever Girl".

Ok... best and worst.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is constantly putting socks back on their little feet.  I want to give up and just let them play with the socks, but then they crawl over to me and their little feet are so cold.  The sock battle must continue.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is a tray full of Cheerio's that they can feed themselves.  Their independence is going to be a double edge sword I'm sure.  How will it be when they don't need me anymore?  However, them doing things on their own is really a wonderful thing.

Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes... How Do You Measure A Year?

For the Edwards household we measured a Year with a great birthday party for the cubs.  Our little house was busting at the seams with friends and family.  And one thing is for sure, those kids will not go without clothing or toys!  Everyone must really love them as much as we do.

So it's been quite a while since I've written my blog.  Life just got so busy I couldn't keep up with the blogging, caring for twins and running the bead and jewelry store.  But tonight my parents have graciously taken the cubs overnight, so I'm burning the midnight oil and figured I'd try to catch everyone up.

I think the last time I wrote in here was July and so much has happened since then.  Most recently Calista has started walking... or should I say running.  I don't think that girl is going to wait to learn how to walk.  Tonight Ed and I spent a good deal of time looking at even MORE baby gates, (we already have 2), and trying to figure out how to gate off part of the house with stairs, kitty food and litter boxes, yet still make it accessible to the cats.  I think we may have to buy these gates online with the pet doors because no where in Fort Collins did these exist!

Alex is walking with some assistance and he is a mad man crawling now.  And that clever boy has learned how to open up the gate we have in the living room.  Friday I ran downstairs for a moment to throw in a load of laundry and empty the diaper pail.  As I came back to the foot of the stairs I heard a 'pat pat pat'... the sound of little hands on the hardwood floors.  Half way up the stairs I saw Alex staring back at my like, "Whatchya doin Mom?".  Needless to say I dropped the bag of diapers and ran to get him from the top of the stairs!

Each of them have gotten in quite a few teeth, Alex currently has 6 and we think Calista is working on her 5th.  We had a problem for a little while with biting, but I think we now have that under control.  Although one day I was nothing more than a chew toy for every creature in this house I think.  I was on the floor with a baby leaning on each side of me and biting me.  Then when I went to bed our little cat Leo wasn't getting enough attention so he tried to give me a little nibble.  I'd had enough by then and Leo went to the floor.  (Not for long though, he is a cat after all and they do go where they please).

Overall they are very happy little babies, and why wouldn't they be?  They have every toy known to man, Mommy and Grandparents see to that, and they are absolutely loved by everyone in their life.

Medically we have been having a scare with Alex, but I hope (fingers and toes crossed), that he is on the mend.  He has a blood disorder called Petechiae.  It started as a rash back in June/July and I assumed he just had an allergy to the new laundry soap I had bought.  But after much research and the help of a wonderful Dr. from the Youth Clinic we found out it is this disorder of low platelet count.  Our goal was to keep his count above 50,000 (it's generally supposed to be above 100,000 I think).  At the worst time he was getting spontaneous nose bleeds and his count dropped to 13,000.  This finally resulted in a trip to a world renown hematologist at Children's Hospital in Denver where they finally put him on a steroid and his numbers came up a little.  We're still battling this one and will have more results next week when he is completely weened off the steroid and another blood draw is done.  The absolute scariest part of this was when the Dr. told me that he wanted to rule out Leukemia.  He said that it was only a 5% chance, but no mother wants to hear the word Cancer in any form when talking about her child.  I remember that I found it hard to catch my breath after he said it and feeling like I could throw up right there in the office.  However, the tests they ran on Alex at Children's Hospital came back that it is absolutely NOT cancer.... so WHEW!!!!

The cubs are sleeping through the night really well and on a good day they sleep in until almost 9 a.m.  Every once in a while Calista will have a bad dream and wake up crying and I have to cuddle her back to sleep.  I'm usually still awake anyway so it's actually a sweet time.  Last night I heard her start to cry at around 10:30 so I shut down the TV and set my beading project aside.  I don't know what scares that little girl in her bad dreams, but her face is soaked with tears and her arms go up as soon as she sees me for me to pick her up.  So I pick her up and we go over to the rocking chair in their bedroom.  I rock her back and forth and rub her back and stroke her hair.  She in turn lays her head on my shoulder and started to snuggle in, but then pulled herself back for a moment to look me in the face and smile at me.  I don't know if that smile is a 'Mom I'm glad you're here to hold me' or a 'Ha Ha... Made you come in and hold me'.  Either way it's sweet.  I rocked her for about a half an hour until I felt her go limp and I knew she fell back to sleep, all the while listening Alex's steady breathing rhythm.  It was one of those nights that I just could have stayed in there forever holding her, but I knew sooner or later I'd fall asleep and probably drop the little girl.  So I put her in her crib and went off to bed myself.

Alright!  Time for the best and worst of motherhood.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog would have to be hearing the word cancer when a Dr. is talking about your child.  Ever since this day I really take to heart those St. Jude commercials to give thanks for the healthy children in your life.  Even with Alex's illness, we are still so extremely lucky our kids are relatively healthy and my heart just aches for those strong parents that have a child with a terminal illness.

The best part of motherhood for this blog would have to be the silent nights.  And that doesn't mean the nights they sleep all the way through without waking us up (although don't get me wrong, those are nice too).  These are the nights when I can sit in the nursery with them when they are both asleep and I can just watch them.  They'll never know until they have kids of their own how happy it makes me to just watch them sleep.

Excitable Boy

The cubs slept in until almost 9 a.m. today!  And Mommy was right there with them snoozing away.  I guess we all needed it after a restless night.  I went to bed around midnight, then they were up being restless around 3 a.m. and I changed Alex.  Then they were up at 6 a.m. for a feeding, but went back to sleep directly afterward.

By the time they were waking up at 9 a.m. Alex was laying in his crib just a chattering away.  He's trying so hard to form words, he almost has his Mmmmm sound down so I'm hoping he will spit out a momma here soon.  He was chattering so much that as I was changing Calista on the changing table she was craning her neck around to watch him and listen to what he had to say.  Could be that twin talk starting up, in which case they are already ganging up on me and Ed.

Although I love being able to sleep in like that, we did have a busy day ahead of us.  We were going to meet Daddy and Grandma Edwards for lunch.  So that meant I had to get them fed, bathed and dressed in an hour and a half.  Not to mention making sure I have baby food and a diaper bag packed.  But when you've packed them up this many times you become somewhat of a pro at it and I ended up with a little time to spare.

We had lunch at Cafe Athens and it was really nice.  My real reason for wanting to take them out for lunch was to show off the new matching outfits I had made them.  These were the Fourth of July outfits that ended up being finished on the Fifth of July instead.  Hopefully they can wear them for the rest of the summer before they outgrow them.

After lunch we got home, I unloaded the cubs fed them a bottle and they went down for a nap.  I was feeling so tired from getting 3 hour stretches of sleep overnight that Ed suggested I lay down as well.  Right now it's hard for me to lay down or work on a 'fun' project.  We've been cleaning out Ed's mom's house to get it ready for sale which means we have things piled everywhere in this house.  I needed to find them homes and try to get organized before I could really rest.  I did get my old dresser cleaned out and all of my clothing put into my 'new' dresser.  After that I tried to take a little nap.  I managed to close my eyes for about 20 minutes and then Calista woke up.

We went through our normal routine, dinner for the cubs around 4 p.m..  I gave Ed some chores to do around the house when he got home, after he was done with those the two of us had some dinner.  Then off to the nice cool basement with a couple of bottles for the babies.  Now this is where the 'Excitable Boy' comes in.

I few days ago I bought them sippy cups with the handles on them.  Well I think something clicked with Alex holding that and realizing that if he would just hold his own bottle he could control the food coming to his mouth.  Tonight he grabbed hold of his bottle with both hands and then got so excited that he was kicking and flailing his arms about so much that he couldn't keep the nipple in his mouth.  In the end I did have to keep one finger on the bottle to keep it tilted in just the right direction for him to get the formula out.  But all in all, he did a really good job holding it himself.

The worst part of motherhood for today was the babies waking up every 3 hours overnight.  Just when you think you've got that sleeping thing down, they have a restless night and you find yourself tired and unprepared for it.  (Especially if you stay up until midnight like a dummy).

The best part of motherhood for today was listening to Alex and his babbling.  Such different sounds coming out of him, I wonder what it all means?

A Week of Milestones

First I'd like to wish everyone a safe and happy 4th weekend.  We were very low key here for the fourth of July.  The cubs were in bed by 8:15 and Ed followed them directly after by being in bed by 8:30 himself.  This left me up alone until midnight working on the matching Fourth of July outfits that wouldn't be completed until July 5th.  Oh well, I guess they can still wear them and look cute.  I'll see if I can get some pictures of them in these outfits for my next blog.

So our week in review!  Tuesday we saw the emergence of 2 teeth in Calista's mouth.  The two bottom teeth just sort of appeared out of now where.  We learned a game of peek a boo with either baby can cause buckets of squealing laughter that has a tendency to get adults laughing just as hard if not harder.

Wednesday the cubs officially turned 7 months old.  I did my best to get pictures, but both babies were more interested in grabbing for the camera than holding still for a photo shoot.

This week also found them almost sitting up by themselves.  I can set them down on the floor between my legs and they need little or no support from me and are able to keep themselves upright.  The crawling/scooting is also coming along.  So much so that Ed and I now have our baby gates and are all ready for the big crawling moment.

Thursday ended up being my day out and I went to go see The A-Team with Mom and Dad.  It was the 2nd time I'd seen it and the first for them.  I think they enjoyed it and it was better than I expected.  In fact it's one I'll be putting on my Blu Ray wish list when it comes out.

Friday was a shopping adventure with Mom and the cubs.  We were up, fed, bathed, dressed and out the door by about 9 a.m.  Not to bad for twins if I do say so myself.  We stopped at the bank then went for some Mom juice (a.k.a Starbucks), but there was a line for the drive thru clear out to the curb.... so I had to go caffeine free (a fate worse than death!).  Then we met Mom and JoAnn Fabrics.  They had their McCall patterns on sale for $.99 and I'm really starting to have a love/hate relationship with my sewing machine.  I love to try these new patterns, but I hate it when I can't get them right.  But I keep practicing and reminding myself that when all my friends in high school were in Home Ec. I was in Auto Shop.  I think it was probably easier to learn this stuff at a younger age.

Anyway, we toodled around JoAnn's for quite a while and then took the stroller through the shopping mall there in Loveland.  We stopped at a couple of clothing stores, Ross and Marshalls where I found some really cute bath toys for the kids.  Both of them are getting really grabby in the tub, so some bath toys were in order.  These are little sea animals that squirt water when filled up.  The kids hands are not quite big enough to go around them or squeeze water out, but they sure do love looking and grabbing at them while in the tub.

By now it's noon and I was starting to get hungry, so Mom and I decided to head over to Panera for lunch.  Since I hadn't expected to be out that long I hadn't packed any baby food for the kids, whoops!  However, Panera sold some Yogurt in a tube and Mom and I, each holding a baby on our lap, squeezed yogurt into their mouths.  I had Alex and I think he wore more than actually made it into his tummy.  We each tried our soup on them as well, they didn't care too much for Mom's tortilla soup, but my Clam Chowder was a huge hit.  They also had a taste of a yogurt smoothie in both Black Cherry and Mango flavor which they liked.  Luckily I did have a change of clothes for Alex since he was not just damp from food spillage, but the kid was actually gooey from head to toe!  Calista was a little cleaner so she got to stay in her outfit.

After lunch we made a quick run into Staples so I could pick up a few office supplies for DJBeads.com and our shopping day was finally at an end.

Saturday turned into a moving day as we tried to clean out Ed's mom's house so she could get it put on the market.  We made a very small dent in what needs to be done and I'm sure I'll be spending at least 1 day a week over there in the near future.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is being a Mom out and about town and forgetting something like baby food.  When you realize you've done it you have such a DUH moment and think to yourself, 'even if I didn't think we'd be out this long I still should have put some in the bag just to be prepared for the unexpected'.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is the hilarious game of peak a boo we played with the kids this week and how hard it got them both laughing.  If I can I'll get the video posted on Facebook to share with you all.  Should bring a smile to your face.

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).