Not a great start

Croup-y boy

Originally uploaded by goddessinprogress

Well, we’re in Florida. The good thing is that it is well above freezing, and it is not snowing. Hooray for that!

The late-night flight was a gamble. Daniel slept almost the whole flight, which was good, but I had a large, loudly-snoring man on my other side. Less good. Rebecca only barely slept on the plane, so was completely fried by the time we landed.

They slept restlessly, Daniel coughed a lot. I don’t think we endeared ourselves to the condo neighbors at 2AM.

Daniel started to sound sicker and sicker in the morning. Junk-y sounding cough, sometimes seemed to have difficulty breathing. Spiked a fever around noon. We drugged him up and let him take a nap, but decided to take him to a pediatric urgent care place after he woke up.

He was clearly not his usual, happy self. Cranky, didn’t want the doctor to touch him or even really be in the room. Diagnosis: croup. My nurse mother-in-law and med student sister-in-law thought that was a little questionable, that what he had wasn’t quite all that. But anyways, he got a dose of steroids and a nebulizer treatment to soothe things, and directions to stay on Motrin for a few days and just watch to make sure things don’t get worse.

Ah, vacation. How much you want to bet Rebecca gets sick as soon as Daniel starts to improve?

At least it isn’t snowing.

Finished for Friday – My New Blog!

What’s finished this week?  My new home!

I’ve moved, come say hello.  There’s even a giveaway!

www.goddessinprogressblog.com

Almost Halloween

It’s almost Halloween, and I’m hoping not to have a screaming repeat of last year.  But really, the comparison of nearly-3-month-olds to nearly-15-month-olds?  No comparison at all.  This is SO much more fun.  Here they are, modeling the cute Halloween shirts we found at Target.  Later today we might try on the actual costumes… hope they don’t hate them, or at least allow them to stay on long enough for a picture!

Way Back When-esday

Joining in again with Cheryl’s blog-party over at Twinfatuation, and continuing the theme of pre-baby photos.

In fact, this time we have to celebrate this very week four years ago…  Our Halloween wedding in Disney World was a whole extended weekend o’ fun.  As a destination wedding, and because it was on a Sunday, people really made a trip out of it and we had a blast.  I’ll never forget, we arrived and checked in at the Grand Floridian on Wednesday night, and got into our hotel room just in time to turn on the TV and see the Boston Red Sox win the World Series.  Yay for them and all, but did I mention we’re getting married this weekend?!

At the welcome party, Friday night

Friday evening, which was four years ago this very day, we had a little welcome party at a restaurant.  It was fun, but when the party was done, my dad’s family wasn’t.  Oh, how convenient, a Hooters across the way! Off went my dad’s entire side of the family and nearly all of the bridal party. Yes, my first and only time at a Hooters was my wedding weekend.  Wings, anyone?

Wings, anyone?

Saturday was manicures and pedicures for me and my girls, the rehearsal, and the rehearsal dinner.  Much fun was had, M and I were appropriately roasted.  After the rehearsal dinner, we all headed to the bar at the Grand Floridian.  M and I were lucky that the shots of tequila didn’t affect us the next morning.  The most spectacular, though, was one of M’s groomsmen getting hammered and shouting that he was “angry and fertile” while stumbling down the grand staircase at the hotel.  I don’t think we’ve stopped laughing about that one yet.

Making sure we know what to do the next day.

Roast me, baby.

Booze flows freely after the rehearsal dinner.

The morning of the wedding, I booted M out of our room when the hair and makeup ladies showed up, and everything ran right along like clockwork. Maybe another time I’ll give the full run-down of the event, but for today I’m just remembering how fun the run-up was.

Hair done, flowers delivered, ready to go!

Cranky pants

It’s been a cranky-pants kind of… day? week? month?  I don’t know.  As much as I love this age in that the kids really “play” a lot more and are learning neat new things, it’s also a cranky age.  New-ish walkers mean lots of losing balance and smacking heads.  Adventuresome climbers fall off of things.  Uncertain needs and spare communication skills lead to early-stage tantruming.  Nap transition plus weekend illness plus cold autumn rain = lots of screaming in my house.

Add to that today’s finally-rescheduled annual checkup… let me just say THANK GOD M decided to be a wonderful person and take a sick day so I didn’t have to bring the kids with me.  The office called yesterday (and you know I was sure they were calling to cancel when I saw that caller ID) to remind me of the appointment and ask me to come 15 minutes before the appointment.  Fine, I showed up at 11:30 for my 11:45 appointment.  So that I could… tell them nothing at all has changed with regard to insurance, address, etc etc etc.  Great.  Sat and read a magazine, and no one called my name for 35 minutes.  Finally went and got the initial blood pressure check and all of that with the nurse, then back to the waiting room for another 10 minutes.  All so I could have my 5-minute annual exam.  It took longer to check out and schedule next year’s exam (an exercise in futility) than it did to have the actual checkup.  I finally left at nearly 12:45.  Thank god I didn’t have screaming lunch-time kids with me.

And just to continue the rant (in case any of you are still reading), I’m trying to deal with the whole foot surgery issue.  I have it scheduled, but childcare during the weeks following is looking iffy. I can piece a few things together, but it’s minimal and I’m not sure it will be enough.  Enter the latest idea: fly to Chicago with the kids and have it done there, where the whole famn-damily can pitch in.  Good for childcare, not fun to be away from M for several weeks.  Plus, insurance is being a pain in my ass (or foot, rather).

But hey, the sun is briefly peeking out and the kids took at least a brief nap.  We’ll hit the new mall playspace so they can run around, we’ll get a tasty snack.  It’s not all bad.

How to feel more human

I feel frumpy.  Dumpy and frumpy and schlumpy.  Bleh.  There’s plenty of reasons for that.  Weight, clothing, time, energy.  Whatever.  Standard mommy stuff, right?  But one thing stuck out as a downer that I could actually do something about in short order.

Finally, after nearly eight months, I made an appointment to get my hair done.  Ahhhhh.

Literally, my last haircut was shortly before my brother’s wedding.  Since then, it’s just been roots and stringiness and lots of ponytails.  I finally caught myself in the mirror the other day while trying on new glasses (since, um, I lost my last pair six months ago and I’m starting to get headaches).  Oh, it was just so ratty looking.  Got home and finally made the phone call.

Saturday morning, I went to see my dear hairdresser friend Joann, who doesn’t even give me too much of a hard time when I go way too long between cuts and foils.  I felt a little bad leaving right after Rebecca and M’s hospital outing of the night before, but I’m glad I did.  Nearly two hours of just sitting and having no one climbing on me or screaming at me.  It was quite nice.

And, because I’m a blog-aholic, I even took pictures.  Just for you guys.

The "before" - long, straggly, and roots, roots, roots. At least the highlights are a subtle shade. It could have been worse.

Alien phase with lots of tin foil and a rotating heat lamp.

Back at home. More than six inches shorter, layered, and blonde again. Don't I feel sassy? Now I just have to learn how to wear makeup...

Who Knew?

You know how sometimes you try and try and try to teach your kids something?  A word or a particular skill?  And they just aren’t into it.

And then there are the things that they just start doing.  That you had no idea they were capable of.  That you didn’t in any way try to teach them.

File this one under the latter.  Daniel decided yesterday that he was going to have an apple for dinner (and no pasta or anything else, for that matter). What’s funny is that I never gave him an apple. He went and found one in the bags from last weekend’s apple-picking adventure.  He grabbed it, and I saw him carrying it.  “How funny,” I thought.  “Maybe he thinks it’s a ball.”  Um yeah, and then he started eating it.  I didn’t peel it.  I didn’t cut it up.  He just straight-up ate half the damn apple.  That’s what I get for underestimating his mad skillz!

Daddy and Rebecca’s Hospital Adventure

Last night marked our first unscheduled trip to the hospital with one of the kids.  Around 9:30pm, Rebecca woke up crying.  She does that sometimes, but I knew her teeth had been bothering her and she was just having a rough day, and it was definitely no-kidding-around kind of crying. so we decided to go get her.  Immediately, M remarked how warm she felt.  She was bright red and warm to the touch, and the thermometer confirmed a temperature of 103 (all while mid-dose of Motrin for tooth pain), despite the fact that she was almost shivering.

M asked if we should call the doctor, and I said not to bother and just go straight to our local ER. Honestly, if we called the doctor, that’s all they would have told him to do aside from Motrin/Tylenol and lukewarm baths. Might as well go straight there.  There was a brief moment of debate as to which one of us would go, or if both of us would (our friend happened to be visiting from out of town – Hi M.C.! – and offered to stay with the soundly-sleeping Daniel).  I made the quick decision that M should go, helped him pack a little bag, and off they went.

I had a few reasons for wanting M to go.  For one, he’s much more of a worrier than I am. I probably would have been OK with keeping her at home and doing the bath and the Tylenol, but I know he’d just be worried that something serious was wrong.  And if I took her, he’d be equally worried because he wouldn’t know what was going on, since we’ve discovered there’s zero cell phone reception in our hospital.

Plus, I sort of wanted him to have the opportunity to be the Daddy in Charge.  Being the full-time stay-at-home mom, I’m generally the boss when it comes to all things kid.  And while he’s a perfectly capable and certainly devoted Dad, he still tends to ask me what to do in most situations.  I wanted this to be all him, since I obviously trust his judgment and thought it might be good to gain a touch of confidence and experience.

Anyways, after a few hours and a very thorough examination, infections were ruled out and every parent’s favorite vague diagnosis was issued: probably a virus, treat the fever with Motrin and Tylenol, call if the fever stays high even on the meds.  Sleep was (and is) restless, little girl is cranky, mommy and daddy are tired (Daniel’s just peachy, thank you). Rebecca’s first late-night trip to the ER was a pretty uneventful one.

Finished for Friday: Olive’s quilt

OK, in truth, I finished this one last Friday.  But you have to spread these things out.   This one is for this week’s installment of Finished for Friday, hosted by Lit and Laundry!

This quilt is for my sweet little niece, Olive. My very first niece, as a matter of fact!  Anyways, I think all babies should have something homemade.  Especially the babies in your own family.

It’s an incredibly simple pattern, but I love how clean and neat it looks.  Everything lined up and straight.  Organized.  Purposeful.  I have found I really don’t prefer the quilts that claim to be “scrappy” or random.  The ones where the instruction says something like “put the pieces together in a way that looks good.”  It drives me nuts.  I can spend forever looking at it, thinking there’s too much pink over on this side, or too much yellow over there.  It just isn’t enjoyable to me.  I prefer instructions that say to put A next to B next to C.  I have fun picking the fabrics and all of that, but I really want the pattern to just tell me what to do.

The other thing that this made me remember: I love sewing the binding onto quilts. For those non-sewers, that’s the very small outermost border (yellow, in the case of this quilt).  It’s the very last step, and the only bit (in my world) that is in any way done by hand.  Hand-sewing the whole thing would take me forever and I’d lose interest. I’m a machine quilter, all the way. But that last bit of the binding has to be done by hand.  And while it can be tedious, I love the way it really finishes the whole thing.  Both in the sense of being “done,” and also in the sense of pulling it together and making it look complete.  The small, even stitches, the smooth enclosure of the outer raw edges of the fabric, the neat corners.  It’s really satisfying in a total OCD kind of way.

Lest you think I’m a fussy neatnik, though, I also love the way the quilt looks after you send it through the washer and dryer.  Immediately after quilting, it can still look very smooth and neat and almost too nice to use.  But once it’s done and you wash and dry it, it takes on that slightly more wrinkly, textured, friendly look.  And that’s what makes it feel more like a cozy blanket you’d use, instead of something fancy you’d fold neatly on a shelf.

Anyways, this one is Olive’s Christmas present, and I hope all six months of her likes it and keeps it for years to come.

Massachusetts Mama

Moving to Massachusetts was not easy.

Well, alright, that’s not entirely true.  Moving wasn’t hard. I had just graduated college and bought all of my furniture once I got here.  What’s hard about that?  No, the hard part is moving past being one of a few hundred thousand students, past being a “visitor.”  It’s hard to become a Massachusetts resident in the sense of feeling like you can say “I’m from Boston.”

New Englanders can have a reputation for not being as “nice” as other parts of the country.  That’s not entirely fair.  What they are is more private. While people can be nice and friendly and gregarious, you still don’t find a lot of people trying to become friends with the new neighbors. Or, while you might certainly say hello to the neighbor across the street, they aren’t going to invite you over for dinner.  It’s hard to really make friends when you’re not from around here.

At first, it was no big deal.  We still had our college friends. M got his undergrad degree here, so a bunch of his friends were still around.  A college friend of mine moved here the same time I did (and, in the end, married M’s roommate, but that’s another story).  But, as these things go in the years post-college, people moved away.  Friends left town, we moved out to the suburbs.  As a newlywed with no kids in a house in the ‘burbs, I suddenly realized my social circle was very small.  We didn’t really have work friends to hang out with, many of our neighbors were retired couples.

I suspected that having kids would be my big New England icebreaker.  There would be a cute baby to talk about, new groups and activities to join. In an environment where people don’t actively seek out new friends, I’d have a new outlet.  I had no idea how true this would be.

Some things were as I imagined: the new mom groups, music classes, and the like. What I didn’t imagine was how much the “twin thing” would change it all… for the better!  Finding out I was having twins was certainly an unexpected twist, but it turns out I couldn’t be in a better place.

You see, it turns out that Massachusetts has the highest rate of twin births in the entire country.  Add that to a very densely-packed area, and you can hardly turn a corner without seeing another double stroller. Now, I did read an article that suggested this was not so great, and you can see what I thought of that (spit, spit).

Truthfully, if you have twins, Boston is a great place to be. While some people might prefer to feel a little more “special” or unique, I rather like the fact that having twins is not the biggest deal in the world.  I still felt like enough of a traveling circus with the Double Snap N Go, it was nice to also run into people who’d give you a knowing nod.

I was further reminded of the benefits this week at my Moms of Twins Club’s monthly “Cope” meeting.  Half-support group and half-social club, I realized how lucky I was to have twins.  Because, you know what? There’s no “Moms of Singletons” club.  With my MOT club, I get to be in an organization that has an email group/message board for all kinds of parenting advice (not to mention things like referrals for a local plumber), that puts on events for the kids and for the moms, and is generally great for support and resources.  It reminds me a lot of my sorority – a local chapter of a national organization, all women, a big/little sister program… OK, they don’t do formals and my sorority never held a huge tag sale.  But you catch my drift.

Tricky as the social circles can be in Massachusetts, I was right in thinking that having kids would be the break-out that I was looking for.  I had no idea that, by doubling down, a whole new world would open up to me.  Looks like I was destined to be a Massachusetts Mama, after all.