61

I'm remembering my mom today, just a little bit more than usual.

My mom and me in Paris, 1999. We Could. Not. Stop. Eating. Crepes. At the end of our trip we would buy a crepe every chance we had even if we weren't hungry, just because we could. Nutella, or swiss cheese and ham or just plain old "beurre sucre" (butter and sugar). This picture makes me smile every time I look at it. It's like a mugshot. The Crazy Crepe Eaters.
(Photo by Rick Regan)

Today she would have turned 61. Last year I had a lot more time and brain space to write a meaningful post (ah the days of uninterrupted blog writing). Every word of it still rings true today. Except of course for the now four grandchildren she never got to meet.

Gah.

Miss you and love you, Mom. Happy, happy birthday.

A "Room" of My Own and Some Bullets

We did a bit of furniture rearranging this weekend. You can imagine with four kids, two of them babies, our already not spacious house is feeling oh, just a tad crowded. Part of it is all the stuff. Two swings, two bouncy chairs, two car seats. You get the idea.

We turned our old office, which used to be the dining room, into a nursery, which...the babies aren't technically sleeping in yet. That's a post (snore) for another day. In any case, my "writing" desk moved into the living room. We tried two different locations and it just didn't quite work in either one. So in the midst of yet more furniture swapping, Erin floated the idea of putting my desk in the mud room.

"It will be just like that movie!" she said excitedly.

"The Towering Inferno?" I asked, slumping into a puddle of exhaustion on the couch. Because that's what life's been feeling like a little bit lately: major disaster movie.

"No! That one with Diane Keaton, the writer, you know!" she said.

Oh righhhhttttttt.

Yeah, this is totally my new office (see above). HAHAHAHAHA.

And I tried not to take offense that the room where in theory, I'm to do most of my writing is also the room the dog is most likely to poop in.
***
There's so much to cover. I think it's time for a bullet post.

-Lately I vacilate between moments of What's the Big Deal? I Can Totally Do This Four Kid Thing to OH MY GOD WHAT WERE WE THINKING I AM GOING TO LOSE MY MIND. I will say that we laugh a lot. Mostly at the ridiculous absurdity that is our life. One of the best comments anyone ever left on this blog was "If you're going to laugh about it some day you might as well laugh about it now." Yup, that really sums it up.

- Leo is set to start private speech therapy soon, which I'm very excited about. Just getting the time to make the phone call to the insurance company, finding a therapist, gathering the materials, all of this was so daunting in the face of everything that's going on right now. But the paperwork is in, the appointment is made, and I'm breathing a little sigh of relief that we are on this path of something that feels really important.

-To backtrack a little, I spoke with his school district assigned therapist who expressed concern about Leo's speech. Of course this was both validating and depressing. She noted that he's regressed in several speech areas, is unable to make a few letter sounds that he was making as recently as spring. "What happened over the summer?" she asked. "Did he go to summer school?"

YES.

Gee, this summer? Oh, not much happened. Not that I'm blaming the birth of the babies on Leo's speech "regression" or whatever you want to call it, but Speech Therapist certainly poured salt in my guilty mom wounds. It is what it is and we're moving forward. So.

-On a positive note, speech-wise? Guess which word Leo can suddenly say clear as a bell? Ellie. Up until about two days ago, he pronounced it "Eh-yee." Now, he can say the "l" in her name perfectly.

In babies news, I'm pretty sure Lucy noticed Harry for the first time this week. They were getting ready for bed and Lucy was just staring a hole through her big brother. He of course was oblivious, ravenous and wiggly and staring a hole through me, so impatient was he to get his next meal.

Doesn't Harry look about 45 years old here? By the way, The little dot on his nose is a scratch. I'm awful about cutting their little finger nails. Sorry guys.


-Speaking of Harry, in the last week or so he seems to have caught up with Lucy in the smiley/chatty/cooing department. He has a deep little voice (for a baby) and suddenly has a lot to say. Leo and Ellie have always gravitated toward Lucy because she is so smiley and gregarious. Poor Harry's had a bad rep for a while--I think Leo and Ellie hold a bit of a grudge against him for all that newborn screaming in the "early" days . "Put Lucy by me, put Lucy by me!" Ellie commands to me as she climbs into the back of the mini van. Hopefully Harry's new found friendliness will put some marks in his court.

-Lucy, is doing these little "baby push-ups." She's pushing her little head forward from her car seat like she has somewhere to go. "She's trying to get out! She's trying to come to me!" squeals Ellie.

-Ellie loves her classes. She says things like "I'm so excited I get to go to gymnastics/swimming/ballet class" at random times throughout the day. She's also started asking me, on an almost daily basis when she is starting kindergarten (I pointed our neighborhood school out to her on a recent walk). The concept of time to a four-year-old is both annoying and adorable.

-Ellie's big realization this week? That it's a good thing we don't have three babies. Why? Because then I would "need three boobs."

Three boobs. That's one we can definitely laugh about right now.

A Promise

Ellie: "She's gonna be happy when she grows up. Because she's always gonna be my Lucy."

That expression on Lucy's face? Reserved for one person, and one person only.

A Little Whine for Wednesday

Ouch.

It just feels like there is not enough coffee in the world lately. I feel like I've hit some kind of a sleep wall. I can't really figure it out, because the babies aren't sleeping any less than they were before. Suddenly I am just ten times more exhausted than I have been all summer and oops-it's now fall I guess. OK then.

I know it's really blurry but I just couldn't resist. Did someone say fall? Pumpkins?

I keep hearing different things. Six months is the magic mark when the sleep gets better. Or is it four? Since the babies were technically premature, arriving almost a full month early, they're not really almost four months old. Blah blah blah. I know, boring. And it's not like I haven't done this baby/no sleep thing before (although, not with the two babies thing). I know that it gets better. But when you're in the middle of it and your body aches like you have the worst hangover of your life for days and weeks on end? It does not feel like it will get better.

And last night was the season premiere of one of my favorite shows and I (pathetically) looked forward to it a little bit all day. I DVRed it and Erin and I sat down with our little dinner after all the kids were in bed and it felt just a little bit like old times (i.e. pre-babies/aka when I could hope to sort of sleep through the night/finish a sentence without feeling brain dead/wear pants without elastic). And guess what? I couldn't even keep my eyes open. Sleeping for just two hours (which I can usually hope to do once the babies go down for the night between 8 and 9) was more appealing than my favorite show, the show that could almost always put me in a good mood when I needed a little "pick-me-up." Last night? I just found it annoying/like it was trying too hard.

It doesn't help that today dawned especially early. Side note: do the days even begin? They just all seem to blend together lately as days are apt to do when they "end" at 10:30 pm and start up again at 12:30, 2:30, 4:30 (I'm looking at you Harry). But this morning poor Erin had to leave the house at 4:30 (to work an unusually early shift). Leo (in our bed of course) shot up like firecracker when he heard the front door close. "Where's Mama?" he asked, urgently.

And I groaned. I had one baby in my arms in the midst of nursing and the other blessedly (for now) sleeping in the crib. The plan was to get the nursing baby (which one was it, anyway? Like it mattered) back to sleep for at least another hour or two. And I urged Leo to go back to sleep with us. But he would have nothing of it. Thank goodness he managed to amuse himself for the next two hours without me as I crawled back to bed and prayed that he didn't A) escape out of the front or back door (he's recently learned how to use keys in locks, oy) or B) cook himself breakfast ala scrambled eggs on the gas stove (yes, it's been done/attempted by him. Don't ask).

The happy ending here is, my alarm went off at 6:30 and the babies stayed asleep and I went downstairs to find Leo happily playing in the basement and chattering to himself. When he saw me he demanded "Cat in the Hat" and "pizza." I showered him with praise for letting Mommy go back to sleep and I'll let you figure out which request I complied with.

And just in time for all these glorious classes for Ellie, she caught some kind of icky coughing bug that will surely elicit the Bad Mom Stare if we try to go anywhere today. Ellie woke me up in the middle of the night ("I just want my Mommy!" is there anything more pitiful?). I rubbed her back and listened to her seal bark and finally, when I couldn't take it anymore I rifled through the medicine cabinet to find the medication she was prescribed for last year's bout of croup, hoping that it had not turned poisonous in the last fourteen months.

Even when I'm so tired my eyes are watering, it feels good to leave the house. To do something. Yesterday I took Ellie to the mall to get her bangs cut (no more cute short bob for her, she's announced, she wants to "grow pig tails"). We ended up at the mall's indoor playground where we ran into one of Ellie's friends from preschool. Ellie ran around and played and squealed for a good hour and I got to have a bit of adult conversation. But today I think we need to stay in. I'll do my best from keeping Ellie from coughing the plague all over the babies and I'll be putting on another pot of coffee.

Someday, I'm going to miss all of this. This too shall pass, and all of that. But right now? I just need some sleep.

Apple Picking x Six

I'm happy to report that autumn appears to have blown in here seemingly overnight. Chilly mornings, crisp, cool, golden days, the evenings are coming earlier, and with them, dramatic pink skies. There's finally a need for a jacket or gasp, my personal favorite, cordoroys.

And in celebration, we went apple picking.

We went earlier than ever this year and it was perfect. No crowds. The better to manuever this not so graceful beast.

As everyone knows, we don't travel light these days (if you squint, you can see the other three out of six of us up ahead in this shot).



Twin apples!

I was very happy and relieved with how the day went. It was the first outing of the kind we took with the babies, the first semi-complicated excursion and while some accomodations from previous years had to be made (Erin and I tag-teamed hayrides with the big kids and of course there we were feeding bottles in the middle of the apple orchard). But all in all, everything went swimmingly. As all the twin moms have assured me with their unsolicited though sweet comments as they've seen me, babies screaming in the background, harried at Target or exasperated at the playground, it truly is getting easier (and better!). We can and will do things as six that we did as four.

It's a good thing they didn't weigh Leo and Ellie upon entering the farm because they just kept eating apples and would have surely charged us extra. Nearly every time I tried to take a picture, someone was eating. But imagine how ridiculous I felt, chiding them for eating too many apples. Leo kept threatening to eat "One hundred!"

Just can't stop eating apples!

Harry, a bit concerned with the apple consumption.

Wide Open Spaces


Note the apple picking ensemble that Ellie selected. As my mom would have said: "It's a look."

The day's Booty.

"Beebeebee Boo"

As I've mentioned before, Leo's speech can be challenging to understand. And the older he gets, the more frustrated he becomes with his inability to get his point across. Of course, who can blame him?

This morning's frustration?

"Beebeebee Boo"

Whaaaa?

"No Mommy! You know it! Beebeebee Boo!"

There I was, trying to do twelve things at once as I'm apt to in the hour before Leo's bus comes, when the babies are taking their early morning nap (and I feel the clock ticking to get things done while I have the chance): throw a load in the wash, get the dishes into the dishwasher, make the kids breakfasts, Leo's lunch, take out the trash and recycling.

Meanwhile, poor Leo is shouting at me, doing his best to act out "Beebeebee Boo," increasingly furious that I am not comprehending him.

I admit it, I get mad when this happens. Not mad at Leo, of course. Mad at the situation. And yes, mad at Down syndrome. It should not be this hard. Poor guy just wants to tell me something. It shouldn't be this frustrating for me, to get it and it shouldn't be this frustrating for him to simply, you know, communicate. We should just be a mom and seven year old boy having a simple conversation in a kitchen about what the seven year old boy wants/needs. Sure I might get annoyed that he needs something when I'm in the middle of so many tasks, but there wouldn't be that added layer of What On Earth Is He Even Saying?

Finally, hitting the wall and knowing I would not get it at this rate, I fell back on my old stand-by:"Draw a picture of it Leo. Draw a picture of what you want so Mommy can understand it."

Leo threw his head back in irritation but complied, disappearing to the living room to begin his work on the large drawing pad on the coffee table.

He returned with a drawing. A sweet little drawing, which I stared at it, blankly. Still nothing. Ugh.

"Write it Leo. Write the words," I urged.

He stomped back to the living room to write something on the paper, then returned to me.

And so I present to you:

DVD Book.

Of course.

"Beebeebee Boo" was "DVD Book." Leo was referencing the "book": (CD/DVD album) where we keep all the kid DVDs. One of Leo's favorite things to do is go downstairs to the basement playroom and put in his DVD of choice. This morning he wanted to eat his breakfast down there and watch a DVD. Why not? It's Friday, after all.

Look at it. It's perfect. The rectangle is the book. Colored in, because the book is black. The circle is the DVD, complete with a little character on it (he did, after all, end up picking an Elmo DVD).


The only good thing that comes out of these incredibly exasperating "what is Leo saying" exchanges is that when we do finally figure out what he's saying? It's like Christmas morning. Very, very exciting. And we all celebrate.

Preview

It's dawning on Ellie that the babies are not always going to be babies. I've tried to reinforce this from the beginning, that they are not always going to be such attention leeches. They'll be fun! Interactive! Members! Of! Our! Family! I'm probably overly paranoid about resentment, so intent am I to remind them that this intensive newborn phase is purely temporary.

It's already happening. Lucy gazes at Leo and Ellie like they are the second comings. She is in awe of them, it's clear. Harry does too, but he's not quite as fun and responsive yet, so the big kids tend to fawn all over Lucy, for now.

But back to Ellie's realization that the "babies" will not always be so.

"Leo and Ellie and Lucy and Harry, that's FOUR children," she exclaimed from the back of the mini van the other afternoon (where most of our deepest conversations occur). "That's a lot of people! A lot of children!"

I nodded in agreement. No freaking kidding.

"That means there will always be someone to play with!" Ellie continued. "We're going to have so much fun!"

Let's hope!

In Full Swing

Well, school seems to be off to a good start.


Gratuitous photo having nothing to do with school but ohmygoodness look at my boys!


I haven't heard much from Leo's teacher (which, sigh, means I haven't heard much). But yesterday was the first day of assigned homework and Leo did it right off the bus, with no argument (which probably means today will be a fight since I am committing the mom's sin of saying something went well).

When I was working, homework was always hit or miss. The aftercare teachers would usually do it with him, but sometimes they'd forget, or Leo would refuse. And I always felt like #1 Working Mom when I got the end of the week report and there were several gaps in the homework section. So we'll see how it goes since I'm home for now. I'm making him do it right away, and THEN he gets to go outside and play his weird game of torment/reward the dog with a tennis ball (don't ask).

Yesterday was Ellie's first day of ballet/jazz. She's taking it at a local community center rather than at the "dance school" where she went in the spring. I love this center. You know what else I love? Instead of having to pass through the "dance boutique" that taunts little girls with pink tutus and sequined dance dresses (of which she has several, don't worry she is not deprived in this area), I was greeted with a gently worn ballet shoe bin. You toss in your "old," too small ballet shoes and take a "new pair." Love it.

This is the same center where Leo takes swimming and where Ellie will also take tumbling/gymnastics and swimming (which starts today). I'm not sure who had more fun at dance class, Ellie or the babies. Those babies were the bell of the bench outside the dance room. It was the nannies and me (which...hmm...this is a whole new world for me). There were a couple of moms too but it was heavily nanny. In typical form, Harry was fussing and then all out crying at one point. My new friend Anita the Nanny swooped in and took Harry into her arms (with my permission of course). He fell silent immediately and just stared at her with amazement. As did I.

The babies seemed to love all the attention (seriously, I guess it's been a while since they've seen baby twins around there because every few minutes another mom/nanny/community center employee would peek into the stroller and say "I heard there are some twins over here?") Lucy, her usual social self smiled and cooed and "chatted" with anyone who would make eye contact. Harry fussed and slurped his bottle and nursed in his usual sloppy way, spit up all over me and then was happy as can be, grinning and "talking" to his new found audience. Who needs Gymboree when you have the dance class waiting bench?

Ellie, meanwhile could not stop talking about the little stamps she got on her hand (two green stars) at the end of dance class. Excited really does not begin to cover it. For the rest of the day, Ellie would just say, apropos of nothing "I'm so excited I got to go to dance class today" and "I just love my stamps." There was much consternation at bath time about whether the beloved stamps would-gasp-get washed off.

This morning the first words out of her mouth were to Erin: "Mama! I get to go to swim class tomorrow!" That's when Erin informed her that she actually got to go swimming sooner than that, because tomorrow was now today. "I get to go TODAY?!" she squealed.

The unbridled enthusiasm (for the littlest things) of a four-year-old really does put it all into perspective.

Away They Go

No matter that Leo's bus didn't show up (hey, you can't have everything, right?) and I ended up driving him.

Leo is off to second grade, Ellie is back to pre-k.

Love these little people to death, but right now I am humming "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

Happy back to school to all!

She Said It

Ellie and were doing Play-Doh (doing? playing? not sure of the correct verb here) this afternoon. Ellie started yawning.

Me: Ellie, are you tired?

Ellie: Yes. (Continues rolling her purple dough).

Me: Maybe you should take a nap later (sighing longingly). I wish I could take a nap.

Ellie: (Pausing a moment) Oh Mommy (in her most incredulous, four-going-on-fourteen-year-old voice), you can't take a nap! You have TWO BABIES!

That Ellie, wise beyond her years.

Three Months, Three Days

Probably no surprise that I'm late to commemorating the big Three Month Mark.

Three months ago we set out on a journey we shall never forget. We brought THEM home.

Right before this photo was taken a woman stopped dead in her tracks in front of me in the lobby of the hospital and just kept saying "Oh My God, Oh My God." I was like WHAT??? This woman could not take her eyes off the babies. Twins. This was just the beginning and my first introduction into the world's fascination and interest in, dum, dum, dum: TWO BABIES AT ONCE.

Anyway. Three months feels momentous somehow. Maybe because my friend Lisa is teasing me that three months signals an end to what she lovingly calls "newborn hell."

Oh I kid. It hasn't been that bad.

Ahem.

And besides, since we've been here before (sort of, with one baby anyway) I know that it gets better. Tons better. And hey, it's not so bad right now. If only we could drive ten blocks without poor Hair Man falling apart into shrieks of hysteria.

Oh Hair Man (this phrase is probably spoken a dozen times a day, whether he's soiled another bib or showered spit up onto the hardwood floors or just gone bat shi* crazy on a short drive home from Costco. That Harry. He has a hard time. Except when he doesn't. When he smiles at you with his gigantic chocolaty brown eyes, Eyes that are so dark and huge that you can barely see the whites. He adores the changing table (or maybe he just hates wearing pants?). Put him on that table and he dances a little jig and boogies and just comes alive with gleeful smiles. He can chill in his swing for a long time if given the chance. Until he's done. Then he lets you know. Oh does he let you know. But he's also starting to "talk" with that sweet little cooey voice that babies his age have.

I've decided he's just a homebody. He hates the car. Not a huge fan of going places. He does love fresh air and the outdoors. He sure knows how to clear an aisle at Target or Walmart but the minute you take him out of the store and into the parking lot? Silence.

Maybe he just hates shopping.

Then there's Lucy.

Luce. Also known as Pinky Tootenpants (that's Toot-in-pants). Grandpa Rog came up with that moniker. I'll let you guess why.
She's a charmer, that one. She's the quiet one. Little Miss Mellow. Case in point: Thursday was Ellie's annual physical. Since Erin's been home all week on vacation, I saw no reason to drag all fifty children to the pediatrician's office (always a fun time). So we divvied the load. Erin took the boys (stayed home) and I took the girls. We made good time at the doctor's office and since there were tumbleweeds and crickets in the refrigerator, I decided it would be a good afternoon to go to Costco.

I am not kidding you when I say Lucy didn't utter a sound the entire time. It was weird enough being out with one baby (by the way NO ONE paid any attention to us, I felt like such a nobody out and about with just ONE BABY, I mean, how boring!). In addition to the the fact that I felt a little bit like I'd left my right leg at home, I also kept feeling like I forgot someone. Did I leave a baby in the car? On aisle three next to the gigantic jugs of salad dressing?

Lucy is quiet, but she loves to smile. And laugh/giggle/coo. She's just very much "in the world" and she has been for some time. I man this in the way that newborns, when they first arrive seem to spend the first month still gestating. But Lucy, she opened her wide eyes and looked around very early on (for a long time we joked that she didn't blink, that's how wide her gaze is). She's also the smallest and most delicate of any baby we've ever had. She has the teeniest little feet, especially.

Lucy fights sleep in the day, she is that baby who doesn't want to miss a thing.


This picture makes me laugh. It looks like Harry is about twice the size of Lucy. He is a lot bigger. Hmm, I wonder if it's because he eats ALL THE TIME? Perhaps. Hey, he comes by his love of eating honestly. I can't blame the guy. Nor can I resist his Popeye wrists and arms or his thigh-sized cankles, I mean ankles. He's going to be a fun one to feed solid food to. I envision pureeing steaks and whole chickens for him. He's that hungry. In addition to Hair Man, we also affectionately refer to Harry as "Bruiser." Lucy is also known as (probably no surprise here) "Peanut."

Three months. The whole summer. On the one hand, it feels like a long time. Believe me when I say there have been some long days and some even longer nights. But at the same time, these are the last babies we'll have in this house (sniff!), so I know better than to want to rush these precious, arduous, maddening, absurd, yet glorious baby days. I have never been this tired in my life. When I fall into bed at night my body just quivers with exhaustion and winces knowing in two or three hours I'll be up again.

Lucy and Harry, three days old.

It's amazing to stare at these two little people and think that we haven't always known them, that they haven't always been a part of our little family.

And so we've decided to keep them.

New Blog In Town

For another perspective on the crazy herding cats state of our lives, check this out.

I laughed. I cried. I'm thinking you will too.

Goodnight, Irene: Alternatively Titled I Love Electricity

I can now say that five out of six of us have experienced our first hurricane (Erin, a New Orleans native is an old pro). And I'm here to tell you I do not need to do that again for a while.

Sunday morning began early, with the cringe inducing thud of the power going out. We sort of knew it was inevitable, it was just a matter of when and for how long. I was nursing the babies when I heard the tell-tale "thud" around 3 a.m. The little sound machine that sits on our bedroom floor next to the crib stopped, the air conditioner silenced and of course, the lights (bathroom, outside): out.

The rain had started around 2 p.m. Saturday and was relentless, battering, Noah's Ark kind of rain. I let the kids play outside for a little bit before the winds came (figuring we'd likely be trapped in the house for a good 24 hours--see above). They are always up for an occasion that requires rain coats and umbrellas.

The winds didn't come until Sunday morning and oh did they come. But a quick peak at the sump in our basement told the saddest tale of all. No power=no sump pump and the waters were rising. Erin bailed. Then I bailed. It hardly made a dent. Our sweet next-door neighbors texted us to see if we needed anything. For some strange reason their power had been restored while ours had not (even though they're just next to us they're on a different power grid). I told them our tale of woe and they responded immediately: Did we need anything? Ice for the melting fridge? Coffee? Babysitters while we bailed?

Did someone say coffee?

Then Erin then had the brilliant idea to plug our sump pump into the neighbors' house (which is so close we can practically stick our hand in their living room window).

SUCCESS!

But perhaps most brilliant of all was her next idea, which was to plug the DVD player and TV into the neighbors' power so that Leo and Ellie would leave us alone for ten minutes. Let's just say between the bailing and the babies and the trapped in the house for twelve hours with no power? It had been a long morning.

And in case anyone is wondering I do not think Leo or Ellie would last long on the prairie (not that I would either). Around 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon the whole house buzzed with the beautiful sound of the power being restored. I whine endlessly here but really we were the lucky ones. Friends close and far on the east coast suffered so much more than we did, not to mention the poor people in parts of the mid-Atlantic and New England and New York and even parts of New Jersey just a few miles from us.

The next morning the sky was bluer and clearer then I've seen it in a long time. The coffee pot was on and full and wafting its gorgeous scent of Stumptown throughout the house, the dishwasher was churning and all the towels, soiled from the basement antics the day before were clean and gracefully spinning around in the dryer. Truly the calm after the storm.

And the battery back-up for the sump pump? It's on its way.