Leaving Our Mark Across Colorado

Tuesday morning found the Edwards clan up early feeding babies and getting ready for the drive back home.  First things first, of course our little Calista had to get her poopy mess out of the way.  After Ed changed that diaper he held it up and said, "We should hide this in this room somewhere".  He is quite the character isn't he?  But without hiding it, that room was pretty ripe.  I went down to get a little of the free breakfast, biscuits and gravy, and when I walked back into the room I was just about knocked over from the smell.

We got ourselves put together and Ed loaded up the car.  Each time he walked back into the room he would make a face about the smell and then chuckle a little.  I found a way to entertain the cubs while we got ready with pillows and cartoons.

Ed didn't want the freebie breakfast from Holiday Inn, so we took the cubs over to Denny's.  They were just the hit of Canon City... as if no one in that town had ever seen twins before!  Everyone stared at them and one older lady actually came over to the table and asked to hold Calista so I could eat.  I'm a little leery of strangers holding my babies, so I thanked her and told her we were fine.  Ed ate his breakfast and I picked at a breakfast burrito, I wasn't that hungry since I had the biscuits and gravy at the hotel.  But while we were eating Calista all of a sudden discovered her tongue.  I had her in some little overalls with a kitty on them and she kept putting her tongue out to taste the overall and the buckles that held them up.  So I took a dab of sour cream on my finger and put it on that protruding tongue.  She seemed to like that so I tried the same with some ketchup.  Alex just fell asleep in his car seat.

Done with breakfast it was time to hit the open road again.  About the time we were hitting the winding road between Canon City and Colorado Springs I started not feeling so well.  At first I thought it was a bladder or kidney infection because I was having so much pain all up the right side of my back (and I had a small sign of blood in my urine the week before... I know, TMI).  So I told Ed that when we got back I was going to see if I could get into a Dr.  By the time we passed the military base I was in sad shape.  I pulled into the first gas station I could find and headed for the bathroom.  When I came back out I just wasn't up to driving anymore and handed the keys to Ed, very unusual for me... I always do the driving.

As we pulled away I told Ed that I smelled poop and figured it must be Alex's turn for a poopy diaper.  But by now we were back on the highway so we figured we'd just get it next stop.  We didn't make it too far before we had to pull over again, but it wasn't at a gas station.  Ed had to pull over on the side of I-25 so I could puke out the door.  He merged back onto the freeway and this time we made it to Castle Rock when I had him pull over again.  This time we made it to a gas station, well kind of.  We stopped at a Conoco station and I made a bee line for the bathroom while he put Alex in the driver's seat and got his diaper changed.  There were no changing stations in the bathrooms so this was our only option.  I was in the bathroom forever, not really queasy, but just not feeling good.  I heard someone trying the door and knew I couldn't stay in there forever so I left there.  I got sat down in the car again, shut my door and immediately opened it back up again and threw up all over their parking lot.  The only thing I can figure is that it was some kind of food poisoning either from the Holiday Inn or Denny's in Canon City.  After that I started to improve.

Back on the road again!  Ed informed me that Alex wasn't poopy, but I still smelled it.  A little ways up the road again we're looking for a place to pull over and check diapers and feed babies.  We found Larkspur and drove through the town to find the one gas station they had.  Yet another Conoco with no changing station.  We got out the bottles and Ed started feeding Alex while I put Calista on the passenger's seat to get her changed.  Alas I found the poopy baby.  It had leaked out the side of her overall outfit and gotten on the car seat.  So I'm attempting to get her outfit completely changed, looking at the temperature it's 40 degrees out and my poor girl is butt naked.  Which means I need to move quickly, however I'm hunched over trying to get her changed in the passenger seat of our car.  Ed and I were both so frustrated that these places don't have a changing station we decide to teach them a lesson and throw the poopy diaper away inside their establishment.  I walked in, there were about 3 tables there for people to sit down and eat and at the first table was a family of 4 eating lunch.  Right by the door was a waste basket and that's where I threw that smelly poopy diaper!  I walked back out to the car and Ed and I had a knowing laugh between us.

Back in the car I started feeding Calista who is now in her jammies and without thinking about the consequences the poopy overalls are now in the diaper bag.  Ed has finished feeding Alex and we have the heat going full blast trying to warm up the car.  That's when we heard Alex grunt then Frrrpttttt and we knew.  So Ed went and got the diaper bag back out and Alex got changed in the driver's seat of the car and into his jammies he went.  And where did that smelly poopy diaper go?  Yep same place and another satisfied chuckle between mommy and daddy.

Finally everyone is fed, changed and ready to go home.  We made it the rest of the way home without having to stop again for peeing, pooping or puking.

I think the twins would've slept all the way through had I not had to stop so often to get sick.  In the end though between the four of us, three of us left our mark on most of Colorado this day.  And Ed, who is usually so proud to do these disgusting things, didn't do anything but drive and stop at every exit along the way.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is idiots that own gas stations that don't put a changing station into their bathrooms.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is getting revenge on those gas stations by throwing out the poopy diapers in waste baskets that are next to where they are feeding people.  If they had any sense they'd realize that if I was able to change my child in a bathroom with a changing station I would throw the smelly diaper away in the bathroom.  But apparently common sense aludes them.

Babies First Road Trip

The start of this road trip was entirely dependent on what time the cubs woke up.  Our plan was when they woke up, get them fed, get them bathed and head out the door.  We had quite a drive in front of us to our first destination, Colorado Springs.  Once they did wake up we went into full swing.  Both babies were fed, bathed and dressed and we all made it out the door by about 10:45.  Record time if you ask me for getting twins ready.

We stopped off to top off the gas tank and get the ever important cup of Starbucks before we hit the open road.  Our timing seemed to be close to perfect, there wasn't much traffic and taking the E470 toll route is so worth the money!  We slipped by all of the mess of driving through Denver.

The twins were really good on our drive.  As babies do, they slept for most of the way.  We were going to stop in Monument to feed them, but since they were still being quiet we decided to just push on through to Colorado Springs.

Our first stop, time to meet their Great Aunt Lisa, my cousin Sara and I think this is right, their second cousin Jack.

Last time I saw Jack he was about 7 months old and I was just amazed at how big he's gotten!  He was really bashful around us, but he seemed to have a good time playing with his blocks and cars and such.  I don't know if he was too sure about these new little babies in HIS grandma's house, so he sort of kept his distance from them.  I hope that a year or two down the road the three of them will find great play mates with each other when we visit.

Auntie Lisa couldn't get enough of the little ones and always had one or the other, (sometimes both), on her lap.  She's already talking about coming out to our place next so she can get another 'twin fix'.  We had lots of hands to hold a baby or two in this house.

Calista decided that she wanted to show off her talking to her new found relatives and began her screeching.  It's a new sound she discovered and really sounds a lot like a Raptor from the movie Jurassic Park.  It had us all laughing at her.  Alex was a quiet little man for the most part, he did a few of his Ooooo's, but mainly just took everything in.

Our next stop was Canon City to meet their Great Grandma Conley.  We arrived in Canon City and got checked into our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express, and then headed out to Great Grandma's house.  I did try to take Ed on a quick detour to show him the house my Grandpa Crites had lived in.  I knew that they had torn it down and rebuilt on the land, but I couldn't remember what street it was on.  So we just headed over to Great Grandma's house.

When we got there the cubs were still in really good spirits and full of smiles and giggles.  Great Grandma was amazed at how calm and happy our little cubs were.  We had a nice visit and Great Grandma got to hold both Alex and Calista (although we forgot to get a picture of her holding Alex).

By about 8 p.m. though they were getting pretty fussy and it was time to get them fed and put to bed for the night. We packed them up and went back to our hotel.  As Ed and I were carrying the cubs into the room a biker in the room next to us was just coming out of his room. He saw the two car seats and you could just see the look of pain on his face.  Made me chuckle though.

Now we had requested two cribs when I checked us in and was told that they only had one crib. And that crib was a JOKE! It looked like it came from a 1950's hospital ward with the mattress almost sitting on the floor. I'm calling it the back breaker. The other item they had was a play pen... each was an additional $10. I paid for the one crib and we figured we'd just put one cub in bed with us.  The other thing we discovered was that there was no fridge in the room.  This meant making formula on the fly in the night.  But we also had to go find some cooling system to keep Alex's medicine cold.  We ended up with a bucket of ice.

When I walked into the room I smelled smoke, but it wasn't over powering.  The entire hotel was supposed to be non-smoking.  We got the cubs fed, changed into some jammies and settled in for the night.  I went in to use the bathroom and was just about knocked over by the over powering smell of stale smoke.  It smelled like someone had left a dirty ashtray in there for a week.  So I put on some pajama bottoms and went to the lobby to complain.  I've read too many things about second hand smoke being linked to SIDS to want it anywhere near my babies.  The desk clerk did come up with some deodorizer and that seemed to clear up the smell in the bathroom.

At last we were all ready to go to sleep for the night.  We had Calista in the bed with us and poor little Alex in that old old crib.  But in the middle of the night we switched them up just to keep things fair.

Everyone else went to sleep rather easily, I however couldn't sleep because I kept thinking about that smoke and is it going to get my baby.  I think I fell asleep by midnight and they had us back up at 3 a.m.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is staying awake all night listening up for your baby breathing, afraid of SIDS.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is having my cubs meet family members.

My First Mother's Day

Ahhhh... I finally get to celebrate this one! I waited so long to be able to celebrate this day and wanted it for so long and it's finally arrived. No longer would I get depressed on Mother's Day and want to crawl into a dark hole.


The day started bright and early, which was good because I had a day packed for myself. Alex had me up at 6:30 a.m. wanting to be fed. I had him downstairs in our big blue chair feeding him when I watched his little face turn bright red, a grunt and then you guessed it. For my very first Mother's Day my son shit on me. This is something that I hope to re-tell through the years to come until he's sick to death of the story and thoroughly embarrassed. I walked by the bedroom and yelled in to Ed that I needed him to get up and finish cleaning up Alex so I could go take a shower. He got Alex all cleaned up and then my little boy drifted back off to sleep, as if to say, "My work here is done".
Ed was going to make me breakfast in bed, but after that fiasco I was up, showered and dressed anyway. So he came looking for me with a plate of food and found me in the back bathroom doing my hair. He was somewhat disappointed I think because I wasn't waiting in bed for my breakfast... but it's the thought that counts.

Around 9 a.m. I set out for my Mother's Day off. Funny, I'm celebrating being a mother by not spending most of the day with my kids. First stop was a manicure and pedicure. Lucky I got in there early enough because the place really started to fill up after I got there. After that I raced over to the theater to meet my Mom for a movie. We saw How To Train Your Dragon and both of us really enjoyed it.

After our movie it was time to come back to the house to rescue Ed and Dad from being alone with the twins. They took off to go pick up Ed's Mom and Mom and I got the twins dressed and a little bite for them to eat before we left. We all met at Cafe Athens for our Mother's Day meal, man is that place tasty! Our only complaint was that it was too warm in there. Otherwise we had good food and a good time. The cubs behaved beautifully!

Once our meal was done Ed and Dad left to take Jo back to her place while Mom and I headed home with the twins. We then kicked into high gear getting ready for our trip and attempting to get our hotel room booked. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, but I would assume by now my family wouldn't expect anything less from me.

Even with the poopy morning, I had a wonderful Mother's Day.

And now a special note to my mother for this day. Thank you for all the help you give us, for shaping me into the person I am today and for your love and patience. You wrote on my card that I am doing an amazing job. I must give credit where credit is due; I couldn't be amazing without you. I had to learn it somewhere. I love you very much.

Now the worst part of motherhood for this day, although I did laugh about it (and still do laugh about it), it would have to be getting crapped on in the early morning hours when you were planning on going back to bed.

The best part of motherhood for this day was finally getting to celebrate it.

A Quiet Saturday

Saturday was so quiet, this will be a Twin Time Blogger Lite edition.

Ed and I were in a hurry to get as many chores done as possible Saturday.  We had Mother's Day on Sunday that was booked up and then we were planning the cubs first road trip to Colorado Springs to visit their Great Aunt Lisa, Cousin Sara and Cousin Jack.  Then on to Canon City to meet their Great Grandma Conley.

Ed had the yard to mow, I had laundry to get done and we still had to get gifts wrapped and cards signed.  Luckily the cubs were able to entertain themselves for a bit while we got these things done.

By late afternoon though I had to call Ed in to come and help me feed them since both were crying for food.  So he didn't quite get the lawn all raked up, but at least the grass was cut.

We were able to eat our dinner quickly and had a relaxing evening.

The worst part of motherhood for Saturday was attempting to pack for the babies, trying to figure out what all we would need, am I over packing? Am I under packing?

The best part of motherhood for Saturday was sitting on the floor playing with both the twins on their play mats.

A Puddle in my Bra

Friday found me feeling a whole lot better and in better spirits to take care of the twins.  They awoke at 7 a.m. and we all had our breakfast and some play time.  I find if I really wear them out in the mornings they'll take a nice long nap in the afternoons.  And I needed them to be worn out and napping on this day since I had a housekeeper coming in at noon.  I found a terrific lady to clean my house, she's dirt cheap, brings her own cleaning supplies and does the most fantastic job of deep cleaning.  And I find it improves my mood a great deal to be in a clean house rather than sitting with a baby on my lap that I can't place down to get it done myself.

Calista played herself to sleep by about 11:30 and I just had Alex to wear down now.  He was on my lap and I was pretending like I was eating his neck, both of them just love that.  He was giggling and smiling away as I held him directly in front on me with my shirt gapping a little below him.  That's when he smiled and spewed a mouthful of puke directly down my cleavage.  I reached for the burp cloth to wipe him up first, then set him down to try and fix myself.  As I looked down my shirt I found a puddle of puke swishing around in my bra.  So I fastened Alex in his chair and went on the hunt for a new shirt, bra and wash cloth to clean myself up with.  There are many disgusting things that come with motherhood... sticky boobs has to be up there in the top ten I'd say.  After that incident though I was able to get him down.

Lizbeth showed up a little after noon and I was just getting Alex down, so the timing was perfect.  She cleaned the house from top to bottom while the kids slept and I got some work done.  All in all it was a really good day.  Ed got home around 4 p.m. and I headed off to the post office.  Since I got so much work done when Mom was here and during their nap time I decided to bag working in the bead store after that.

Alex was pretty fussy and ended up falling asleep in his play pen for a short time after his dinner.  And since Calista was in good spirits I decided I'd go ahead and get her bath out of the way.  That little girl loves her bath time!  She's somewhat startled when we first put her in her bath seat, but then when she unstiffens her body she gets a great big smile.

Alex woke up and was still really fussy, but he had to have a bath.  Once in the tub with daddy he calmed down though and I gave Calista a bottle during that time.  Then daddy and the twins played a game he invented called 'Frog Attack'.  It's a little stuffed frog that Ed uses to attack them, both the kids tend to grab onto the frogs arms and legs with this game and try to rip it apart.... (oh dear am I going to have some destructive children?).  Then it was time for the last feeding of the night, but Calista decided she wanted to sleep instead, so I put her to bed reluctantly.  I knew if she wasn't going to eat then we would be up in another hour to feed her.  Alex was still a little fussy man and we never could figure out why other than he was just getting over tired.  But we tried to put him to bed and he fussed so much that he woke Calista up.  So at this point Alex is down, but Calista is awake.  We fed Calista her left over bottle and down she went again, this time for the night.

By 9 p.m. mommy and daddy were able to climb into our clean bed in our clean bedroom for the night.  It was just heaven!  I had bought a new book on Amazon that had just come in, Making The Rounds With Oscar about the cat in the Rhode Island nursing home that goes in to comfort patients right before they die, as if he can predict death, and I was going to lay in bed and actually read!  It really is the little things in life for me.  I read 5 chapters until my eyes wouldn't focus anymore, how relaxing.

I also tried something new with Calista and her waking up in the middle of the night.  To date our routine had been she fusses, we go and give her some homeopathic teething medicine and a shot of tylenol and try to get her back to sleep.  None of that has worked and we always end up bringing her back to bed with us and I nurse her to sleep.  Last night though I gave her the teething meds, tylenol and then put her on her tummy to sleep.  She went right out.  I came back to bed and we set the alarm on my cell phone for 15 minutes and when that went off I kicked Ed, (he told me to), and he got up and put her back on her back to sleep.  And just like that, she slept through the night!

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is sticky puky boobs.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is that moment when the children area all tucked in and the entire house is quiet and you get a little mommy time to do something like read a book.

He Just Had To Share That Bug With Me

Alex is still sleeping through the night, so I think he has his sleeping down for good now.  Calista though is still waking up in the middle of the night with her teeth bothering her.  They both seem to wake around 4 or 5 in the morning, Ed and I feed them and they are really good about going right back to sleep.  Even if we put them down wide awake, they fall back to sleep.  Seems like they are both waking up around 9 a.m. these days, sometimes a little earlier.  But they are sleeping in long enough for mommy to get a shower and breakfast done.

Wednesday was a nice quiet day around here. The kids and I played on the floor for most of the day with play mats and rattles.

Ed took the day off to play golf, but he was up and out of here at the butt crack of dawn.  (Something that golfers and fisherman do that I never could wrap my head around.... getting up that early to go relax?  Why not just stay in bed and relax?  But that's just me).

Ed and I also made a deal so that I can keep a steady schedule at the bead store.  He gets home at 4:30 or so and I come back to the store and work with the door closed until 5:30.  It's just an hour, but if I can combine that with the 3 hours the cubs nap in the afternoon then it's at least a half day of work done.

However today I wanted to get out of the house instead.  When he got home around 4 p.m. I jetted out the door to the post office and then off to Target for a little shopping.  We needed mother's day cards and I wanted to replace the towel bars in my bathroom downstairs.  The current bars keep falling down, plus I wanted to get some nice decorative ones.  I got the mother's day gifts and cards, along with a huge supply of batteries for all the swings and chairs we have around here for the cubs.  Everyone should be proud of me, I passed by the infants clothing but didn't buy any.  However I did buy them a new toy.  Picked up some dinner at Cafe Athens in Fort Collins, (a wonderful place if you like Greek food!), then headed home.

Calista and Alex with their new toy

We got the twins bathed and dressed in their jammies for the night and headed downstairs to watch American Idol.  I'm not sure what it is, but Calista just loves Simon on American Idol!  She can be really fussy, and as soon as she hears him talking she clams up and all her attention goes to him on the TV.  Maybe it's the accent?

They went to sleep pretty easily and it was a normal night, I was asleep by 10 p.m..  That is until midnight when Alex's tummy bug hit me.  I was trying to decide if I took an anti nausea pill, if it would stay down or not.  I did get it down so that stopped the puking... but I still had the other unpleasant part of Alex's tummy bug.  At 2 a.m. Calista was up with her itchy teeth, then at 4 a.m. Alex was up wanting to be fed.  At 6 a.m. I was trying to figure out how I was going to take care of these two babies if I was stuck in the bathroom sick?  What else could I do, I called and woke my Mom up to see if she could come over.  Thankfully she did.  I had Ed go in late to work so he could help me in the morning, then Mom got here around 10 or so.  By about 9 a.m. I was feeling better, just sort of listless so I called to tell my Mom there was no hurry... but she had already left.

Alex however is starting to feel much better by now.  No more soupy poopy for him!

The other big event this week was starting Calista back up on some cereal.  They were both so fussy on it before I took them off of it and wanted to try later... it's later now.  She is doing great with it.  The first couple of bites she has to figure out what to do when the spoon come to her mouth.  But after that she opens up wide for that spoon.  It is a messy business getting that cereal into her, especially when she grabbed the spoon full of food from me.  Luckily I kept a wet wash cloth close by for periodical wipe ups.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is when the kids get sick, you get sick.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is watching how fast your children catch on to something, like eating with a spoon like a big girl.

Quick Trip to the Dr..... yeah right!

Monday found Alex still with a case of the soupy poopy's so it was time to take him to the Dr.  I was pretty sure it was just a stomach bug that they probably couldn't do anything for anyway, but better safe than sorry.

Now for you parents of singles a trip to the Dr. is not that big of a deal.  However any of you parents with multiples know the first thing you think of is, 'How shall I do this?  Put them in the stroller? Lug them up in their car seats?'.  There is no easy way... that is unless you have wonderful parents like mine that you can call at a moment's notice and ask if you can drop Calista off at their house so you can take Alex to the Dr.  And that is just what I did.

So the entire day was spent in the car it seemed, dropping one baby off, taking the other baby to the Dr., going back to pick up the first baby. 

Alex weighed in at 14.1 pounds and just as I suspected, he has a tummy bug.  There is nothing they can do for it and we just have to watch to make sure it doesn't go on for more than a couple of weeks.  And then the greatest news was that Calista, Ed and myself are probably going to come down with it as well, possibly Mom and Dad too.  But what are ya gonna do?  Kids get sick.

Tuesday was supposed to be a nice day off for Ed to go play golf and Mom was going to come over to help with the twins so I could get some work done.  I was really looking forward to getting some of these beads put away and up on the DJBeads site.  Then the entire day got shot to hell in about an hour.  It started with a weather forecast of 80 mph winds for Northern Colorado, there went Ed's golf game, which also meant my afternoon of help was gone too.  Next was a call from the assisted living facility that Ed's mom had fallen again.  In the next 2 hours we got yet another phone call that she had fallen again, that's 3 times in less than a week.  Amazingly enough she still had not broken anything!

The rest of the morning was a frenzy of phone calls to and from assisted living, paramedics and emergency rooms.  Her blood sugar was down to 31 and she was very close to a coma.  Long story short, turns out the assisted living facility 'accidentally' gave her a sleeping pill at 9 a.m. the day of the first fall and she was too groggy to eat and just never quite recovered from that.  They have since fired the person that gave her the incorrect meds.

Mom had called and heard it in my voice that I was in the dumps.  I guess I had the blues due to feeling rather isolated and just really wanting to get some work done and not being able to do that.  So they offered to come and get the cubs so I could work for the afternoon.  All in all, I really only ended up with about 2 hours of time to work, but it was enough to get me over the hump of my blues.  It also helped that I had a good chat with my buddy Sandy in the morning.  That broke the isolated feeling.

Since Mom and Dad took the cubs I said that I would make dinner and bring it up when we picked them up.  When Ed got home it was a race to get everything prepared and out the door with it.  But we managed to do it and only be a 1/2 hour late.  Since we didn't have the cubs with us we really had no excuse other than poor planning on our part.  We had a nice dinner with them and the cubs were very entertained with all their family around.

Alex with his new toy that Grandma & Grandpa bought them

We did get a late start out the door though, it was after 8 p.m. when we left.  Ed and I learned a very valuable lesson that night, never feed one baby and not the other.  We had fed Alex before we left and Calista didn't seem very interested in food, that is until we got her in the car.  That's when Ed got to take his first ride in the screaming express.  We made it just a little ways out of Berthoud when I finally pulled onto a little county road and found a little pull in to breast feed her.  She got a little something in her tummy and then she was fine the rest of the ride home.

The worst part of motherhood for this blog is that trying to plan out a day is near impossible.

The best part of motherhood for this blog is still having enough breast milk to feed a screaming child in a pinch.