A Beautiful Weekend

What a great weekend! Despite the fact that my hubby had to work most of the weekend and that the kids had a horrible night on Monday night (I am assuming due to pure exhaustion), we had a funfilled, what seemed like long weekend. This was much needed because let me tell you, Friday was an aweful day!

Kyle did his Barium swallow on Friday. He had to go to St. Joe Hospital on an empty stomach so that he could drink the chalky white stuff while the Drs. watched it go down. What have I learned from this? You can not negotiate with a 13 month old and tell them that they can have McDonalds after if they are good! They took my baby and strapped him to a 6 inch piece of wood with his arms up. Truly, he is very strong and I was just waiting for him to breakthrough and punch the nurse. He actually did very well and everything looked really good.

Following our hospital gig, I returned to work only to find out that we had to let 7 employees go. For reasons I can not explain in my blog, we are now have 7 less employees as we go into 3 weeks of HELL at work. Not fun and sadly one of these people is a direct employee of mine that I have worked and worked with to become the best that he can be!

To top it off, my friend Nick died on Fri. This is a 26 year old kid that I worked with for a couple of years. He had lung cancer and had been in treatment for 2 years. So sad! Amazing guy!

Sooo, a great weekend needed to be in store for us. We started Sat. with a trip to Costo. I was so happy to find out that two kids can fit in the front of the grocery cart. This makes it possible for me to shop with the kids and not have to push the stroller and pull the cart. The result, I bought more!

Sunday the kids and I took off to our cottage on the Saginaw Bay. I had no intentions of swimming or even being able to sit in the sun but fortunately I did both. The boys loved the water and it was super warm. They sat and splashed for 45 minutes while their sister swam and built sand castles. Sun, sun, sun! It felt so good.

Mike was actually off on Mon. so we ventured over to our dear friends house that have a beautiful new swimming pool. (Did I mention that they live 3 miles away?) Another day of swimming, sun, awesome BBQ and a few beverages. Yippee!

The problems started when we got home. Janie was beat. This translates to having night terrors. So, after 2 hours of sleeping she wakes up kicking and screaming and it takes about 20 minutes for her to come out of it. It is not fun and only happens when she is super tired. They boys also had a rough time. They both went to bed fine and then woke up screaming thinking that they did not need to go back to sleep. Finally at midnight, they were all down.

Now it is back to work. I may not be blogging much for the next two weeks as things get crazy at work.

A few pool pics!

Daily Life

My posts seem to be dwindling. This is mostly because I only blog at work and work is so busy right now. Anyway, here is a little catch up on our lives...

The kids are all great. They all have a little something, something right now. You know, the sniffy nose, cough so you can't sleep thing!

Janie is acting her all of six! I was just thinking yesterday that I just let her play outside now. No supervision, just playing on the swing set, the pogo stick or a little bike riding. If I don't hear from her about every 20 minutes, I will look out. She does have to stay in the yard (no street ventures yet)Did I ever think that I would be at this stage? She is so independent and responsible most of the time. Gymnastics continues to be her thing. We are entering the 2-a-week stage. Apparently he coach has "plans" for her and that scares me. I don't want her to become so immersed in one thing that she misses out on others. I guess it is most important that she is enjoying it!

Owen is walking! Yes, walking more than crawling. He appears a bit drunk as he reminds himself to make his feet move. He is so happy to be keeping up with his brother. In fact, I think that he plays on Kyle's sensitivity. When Kyle is having a "moment" (a breakdown usually because he has been told "no"), Owen goes into attack mode. This can mean climbing on his brother, hitting or removing his binky (that really pisses him off).

Kyle is well and pretty much running! He is having a little Barium Swallow performed on Friday so we are not looking forward to that!

The kids are really playing well together and for that I am so grateful. It gives me the ability to pee or fold a load of laundry (this is assuming that they are locked down in the playzone and don't have access to the steps, the toilet or the garbage)

Happy Monday!

Mother's Day

I have several things to write about today including, the boys second b-day (adjusted), my OBGYN and Mother's day. I am choosing to start with Mother's Day before it gets away from me. A friend of mine blogged about this the other day and I was so on the same page as her that I decided I wanted to add to her thoughts.

Bottom line, what is the meaning fo Mother's Day supposed to be? Is it a day to kick back and relax or pamper? Is it a day to realize that your are so lucky to be a mom? Is it a day for your husband to do all of the jobs around the house and caring for the kids? Or, is it simply just a day to make cards for and mothers to be let down?

For the past 5 years (my first Mother's Day was spent in the hospital having just given birth to Janie) my expectations were high and the let down was somewhat huge. Usually my family all comes in to celebrate Mother's Day and Janie's b-day together. This is great and I love my family. However, it means cooking, cleaning, shopping, entertaining and ultimately feeling sorry for myself because I did not receive any of the above. In fact two years ago, I remember sitting and eating brunch at my house and my husband going off on me for some comment that I made, in front of my family nevertheless. Of course I spent the rest of the day crying and super frustrated!

News report - This year was different for me! My family was mostly in Columbus and we could not go because Mike had to work. So, without many expectations, I rose from bed with kiddies and was sent back. I went back to bed until get this - 8:50am. Now I could hear kids crying and laughing and making all kids of noises during this unrestful time but hey, I was just happy with the thought! Truly it has been 1 year since I have slept past 8am and even 7a is super rare. After I got up, we went to breakfast at my favorite Coney Island (my choice because that way I don't have to worry about the mess that the kids make) So we had breakfast and then Janie and I went and had a manicure and pedicure or as she says "medicure and pedicure" This of course was planned by me. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I was surprised with a really cool necklace that I wanted (I purposely left the ad on the table for reference) and a huge card (huge because all others were sold out late Saturday night). So after the mani and pedi, the grocery shopping began followed by laundry, feeding and baths.

Here I am having had a great Mother's day, including time to reflect about how I am the luckiest mom in the world, and I still am making comments about the little things that I would have done differently. It isn't that I am not appreciative, because I am. It is not that I don't think that my husband is the bomb, because he is truly a great partner/team player. It is just that Mom's know best and what seems so simple to us, is just not simple to them! Until next year, I continue to be lucky!

Little Burritos

As we did with Janie, Owen and Kyle were always swaddled up as babies. They did it in the hospital and we did it at home. If they were tired, it was just a matter of re-wrapping them. In fact, the wrapping "like a burrito" as my sister would say helped to serve a great purpose when they could not keep their binkies in. You can just simply tuck it over the pacifier a bit!

Soooo, they are now 13 months old. We probably swaddled Janie for a month or maybe 6 weeks, but 13 months? Come on! These children still think they are in their mamma's tummy. So it goes, every night we "wrap" them up and put them to bed. If they don't go right down, we find ourselves taking a trip up stairs to "re-wrap" them. If they wake up during the night, we usually (there are definite exceptions) just "re-wrap" them. I guess you do what works!

The problem? The blankets are getting too small!

Finding time for everything

The reality is, our lives change! We choose to fall in love, have kids, and go about the chaos of what that all includes. It is not hard to keep your friendships as you can be in touch via phone, e-mail and maybe an occasional drop by visit. My friendships are very near and dear to me. My best friends have gotten me through many rough times - my Dad's death, having children, pregnancy, marital frustration and many, many other things that are not appropriate for this blog. But, I always miss them! Truthfully, I don't have much time for anything but a job, my kids and my husband. Anything else that I do seems to sacrifice these things. Don't get me wrong, I love an occasional outing with a friend for a glass of wine or a little shopping spree but it take what seems like days or even weeks of planning to do these things.

My best friends (from high school) and I started a tradition of going on a trip every year. We have tried to enjoy some fun areas - Chicago, Phoenix, Galveston, Las Vegas and last year we did Columbus (I was ready to pop and couldn't travel far). It has not always been easy coming up with dates, locations, finances, and coverage for children. Many who have had more flexibility have made sacrifices for those of us with kids and hard work schedules. Well, after some discussion via e-mail yesterday, we have come to the conclusion that we will not be taking a Fab 5 trip this year. Kristin and Meredith are prego, Jamie has a 3 mth old and two other kids, I would love to get away but as always have schedule complications and low funds and Tara is free as a bee! So, it will not work to bring us all together. For a while we all lived in different states -AZ, KY, CA, GA and MI. Not that all are back in MI except Mere (CA), it is not easier. We have entered the Mommy stage!

My point is not that I am mad, I am just disappointed. I completely understand that we will go through some hard years trying to make this work until we are all rich, have the kiddos shipped off to college, and take very lavish vacations. The thing is, I enjoy these people so much and our yearly outings are a form of therapy whether we realize that we need it or not. We laugher harder than ever, typically drink a significant amount, cry over the simplest things, and just realize that we have all changed and gone our different directions but ultimately, this is the real deal. This is a friendship that many will not experience in this lifetime!

I could blab on and on about these gals because they truly are the bomb! In the meantime, I will just appreciate any opportunities that we have together.

It's a 6th B-day Party!

For some reason I dread the planning of Janie's b-day party every year. I am not sure if it is because it is a really busy time for me at work, I am not creative or energetic enough to put on the whole hoopla myself with games prizes and a cheerful disposition, or maybe I just procrastinate so long that it always feels like a chore! Nevertheless, it always works out. I have decided that any party not at my house is a great thing. Since Janie is absolutely obsessed with gymnastics, we had a gymnastics party. It was perfect! A few friends, cake and ice cream, paid-for entertainment and no mess! Oh, and I think she enjoyed it also.

The sad and scary part...my baby is 6 years old. Yes, 6! That means that she can now talk back, give opinions, try to boss me around and of course she becomes less and less dependent on me every day.:( It also means that she can help around the house, engage in some great conversations, and do a lot or fun mommy-daughter things.

Here are a few pics of our event yesterday.

One fine day

Our March of Dimes walk was everything I dreamed it would be. We raised over $700 easily! Our best friends and my Mom walked with us. Our family team name was O.K. Twins and we walked very proud of our preemies. There were several kids activities, lots of free food and give aways, and tons of cool people! It was the best and next year I hope to have an even bigger team! Here are some photos.