Our Kids

So this weekend has been crazy, we had the mothers of multiples garage sale and I was on the committee so it was a ton of work. Lots of great ladies helping out though and I sold some stuff which is good. Jason was a real trooper slogging it out with the girls who like to give him a hard time:) LOL! Honestly he had it all under control and was having a great time.

Anyhoo, after an early dinner I wanted to get the girls to bed so I was giving them a bath. It was all going well considering I was washing their hair and it makes them grumpy. I had Landis done, was finishing up Lela and thinking how well it was going. So then I settled in on Piper, she commented how the water was getting murky and it was due to the soap. I kept washing and then got her out. Then I went to drain the tub and grabbed a toy near the drain, only to find out it wasn’t a toy at all it was……..doo doo! I shrieked and dropped the poo, snatched the kids out of the water and yelled for Jason!

Nice, not only had I throughly bathed the girls in poo, I had cleaned their faces with poo water, rinsed their hair with poo water and even grabbed a slimy water logged poo roll! Eeck! Disgustamundo.

Jason was a real charmer and helped me get the girls recleaned and he even rescued the poo and deposited it elsewhere and scrubbed the tub. Thank goodness because after standing all day for two days and getting a little too close for comfort with feces I was not in the mood for the cleanup.

You can see from the pictures on the flickr site that we have been busy. We have been trying to soak up all the wonderful weather we can to store away for those hot days that are coming. The girls have been very active lately and really in to playing with each other. They are starting to do things all by themselves but still have those things that they want you to do for them.

Landis is as active as ever thinking that she is 4 too. She runs everywhere and seldom walks. Right now it doesn’t seem that she has a graceful bone in her body. She is like a little Frankenstein hurtling from place to place. She is still putting herself to sleep at night but we have not made any great strides in the nursing department.

We are off to Texas for a month so we will see what that does to the sleep/nurse situation. Last night I got up and went to sleep in the girls room and that worked out for me and I think Jason got a goodly amount of sleep since I only heard Landis wake up once. Girl has got some lungs on her fo’ shizzle.

Oh my I have been awol haven’t I?

I wish I could say we have been gone on a fantastic trip but in reality we have been right here. I guess we have been busy but I don’t know with what. That generally means I need to slow things down.

Part of the awol is due to the Diana Gabaldon series of books! I have been in a book club for a few months now and it reminded me first of all that I can read (lol) and that I like it. So I have been downing those as fast as I can, which isn’t very fast since each book is 600+ pages and a historical drama so there is lots of info. But anyway it is fun and I spend a lot of spare moments reading versus surfing.

The girls are wrapping up their classes, reading ended today and Spanish ends on Wednesday. Apples to Zebras does not end until next week and then we actually will be on a fantastic vacation to visit my folks in San Antonio. Woot!

Just thinking about the trip brings on waves of nausea. But it will be worth it once we get there. We will be gone the month of March and it will be summer here when we get back, lol.

I’ve got a morning helper again! Landis is continuing the fine tradition of helping me put away the dishes in the morning. She’s not quite as consistent as Piper and Lela were, but she does have just as much fun as they did when they used to help me out.

Every other day or so for the past few weeks as I start to put away the dishes, Landis wanders over and starts to take things out of the bottom tray. She’ll Frankenstein-walk the two three steps to the cabinet and hold up the dish and say, “dah!” Cutest thing ever, just cracks me up everytime she does it. I’ll take the dish from her, say “Thank you!” which usually gets me a grin in return, and she’ll shuffle on back to the dishwasher for her next item.

I really love this age that Landis is in… she’s understanding more and more and it’s just great fun seeing how much she does actually know. Lately whenever she sees anyone put their shoes on, she’ll immediately hightail it to the shoe box (with all of the girls’ shoes), grab two of her tiny little soft-soled shoes, and bring them over to whoever is closest. Then she’ll hold them up to you and the second you take them, plop her bum down with her feet out in front of her, pointing at her feet saying “dah!” So cute. And funny because it’s quite rare when she actually picks two shoes of hers that match.

For their part, Piper and Lela have just been fantastic lately, all things considered. They’re getting so big it just amazes me. They’re a ton of fun to talk to, especially if you can get one of those honest, one-on-one moments where it’s as if they open up a window to their soul to you, each in their own special way. It could be just one sentence when they’re upset, or a full on conversation at 7am when everyone else is asleep.

And finally, Otto. I have to mention him because he’s really turning into an awesome dog. He is so great with Landis in particular… she loves to tug on his hair, give him little pats… everything we were hoping would happen when we got Otto. And he just sits there with a “whatever” look on his face… and then he’ll get up, turn too quickly and knock Landis back on her bum. It’s not all perfect, of course

So we go back to the dermo today and I had not planned on going BUT with sick kids a long car ride sounded like just the ticket so I went. We saw Dr. H not the doctor who did the surgery because she is sunning herself on a tropical island. And drum roll please……

The answer is the SAME, we don’t know! Can you freakin’ believe it??????

The pathology came back and said it was a Dysplastic nevus and would need further examination by “experts.” Dr. H did say he was optimistic that she would not need another surgery (you can say that again) but then he said he was an optimistic person (balloon deflating sound). Sigh……

Dr. N is coming back from her Hawaiian vaca next week and should take the pathology results to the Mayo Clinic. We haven’t gotten much info out of those quacks in the last two years on this same issue so I am not holding my breath. It is one of those things where no one knows for sure, they can’t believe that this type of melanoma would show up in a 4 year old (like 1 in a million), but since there is that 1 chance no one wants to say it is for sure NOT what it looks like.

What a Monday…….

On another note Piper was quite dramatic at the appointment but she did really well. We got to see the finger and it looks good, she had the stitches removed and was a champ. The girls are in this phase where they want to see themselves crying and when they do it just sets them off more and there was a mirror in the room so we got to witness quite a bit of drama. All in all she did and is great.

Argh…….

Okay now that I have that off my chest:) I have 3 puny chits at home and I tell ya’ the whining is way up, the nit picking is way up and my personal favorite wiping of the boogers on mommy is waaay up. I don’t know why but I have a thing with boogers, they kind of gross me out. But don’t worry I manage.

I am not sure I am up for a full day of wrangling sick kids, refereeing fights and forcing them to go to reading class. So I think we will just stick close to home and chillax. That mean more TV time than I allow but it will help me keep my sanity. Desperate times, desperate measures and all that:)

Today Lela had her two year check with her cardiologist. The great news is that the hole in her heart has indeed closed itself up! This is excellent news because she won’t have to have surgery to correct a problem that resulted from her premature birth. So YEAH for Lela!

She does have two murmurs that are common among children so he let me know that her ped may hear those especially when she is sick but those will go away with age.

I could not be more thrilled to have that off my list of things to worry about. On another note I truly enjoy spending time alone with Lela outside of the house. I try to spend alone time with them in the house but it never goes well or they seem to be too worried about what the other half is doing so you don’t get to really spend time with them.

I enjoy spending time with Piper too but lately she has been a Daddy’s girl so I am missing out on the opportunity. It is okay though I think she will like me again before she becomes a teen and despises me, LOL!

The girls could not be more different. My friend LRW has identical girls and she was just saying how their very DNA is the same but their personalities are soooo different. More of the same over here.

Piper gets frustrated and she still bites. She is not very covert in her transgressions. She knows it is wrong but she is more likely to inflict some sort of physical pain (but this happens very rarely) than anything else.

Lela on the other hand likes to inflict emotional pain. Today alone she has tormented Piper (probably because she is tired) in her own way. She took one of Piper’s books (during clean up time) and locked it in the bedroom. When it was time to wash our hands she ran to the bathroom and locked the door behind her so that Piper could not wash her hands. If she saw Piper looking sideways at a toy (like the shovel at the park) she ran over and said she had it first and turned her back on an emotionally distraught Piper.

It is interesting to see how they exact their punishment on each other. I am sure it will be even MORE interesting when they are both teenagers. Heaven help me:)