I'm A Wuss

Back in the day, before I was a parent myself, I would watch other parent's and think about how many serial killers we would have in the future because parent's would laugh at their kids bad behavior. I would think to myself "what a little wussy, that kid owns that parent."

Well . . . . .

I'm a total wuss. I am a sucker times a million for my nuggets. Yes, I put them in time out when it gets really bad. When Ever is having a Code Red tantrum I lay her on the floor and walk away. I say "no no" sometimes. But unfortunately, I laugh. A lot.

Oshy's face is so delectably adorable when he is being naughty. He turns his head to the side and pouts his lips and then looks at you out of the corner of his eye. Then he smiles and giggles and then I do the ultimate mom sin and laugh too. Only a cold hearted snake wouldn't, right? Hubby doesn't and he gets ticked at me when I do, but it is really hard not to.

The other night the babies' were playing together while Hubby and I were watching TV and they were chit chatting and being so good. Instead of checking on them I took advantage of this and snuggled Hubby on the couch while I could. After about 5 minutes I thought this was too good to be true and they were actually taking a sharpie marker and coloring all over our hard woods. Hubby was horrified. I thought it was cute. Much to my total wussy dismay, I was also dreading taking the sharpie away because I knew it would make them sad and I hate making my nuggets sad.

So there you have it. I'm a wuss parent. My kids my as well be raised by a pack of wolves.

But they sure are adorable, aren't they?

Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving!!

I love a day where not only do I not have to work and I still get paid, but the reason behind it is just to be thankful and eat food. This is probably the best thing that America has ever come up with and I have been looking forward to it for weeks. I am actually going to cook (gasp!) some stuff this week and I have a family art project planned. Being lazy and hanging out with my family is the best.

I am so thankful for:

-My husband. It takes a strong individual to live with me and commit to that for life. Seriously. He's a brave soul and he makes me laugh. He does other good things but they aren't appropriate to share on the internet.

-My family. My mom and dad and siblings and my grandparents. I feel very lucky that my kids hit the extended family jackpot and we are very blessed that way. Aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, great aunts and uncles, it's out of control.

-My friends. I have some really funny and great friends. Some are old and some are new, but they are really nice to have.

- My home. My home is small and old, but it is really special. It's our first home and it keeps us warm and that is pretty awesome.

- My job. Sure, no one really likes to work, but if I have to it's not so bad and there are so many out there who need a job I do feel fortunate. My insurance is great (aside from the no fertilty coverage but for the average person it's nice).

- My internet pals. I TOTALLY would have made fun of this back in the day, but really, I have found so much support and comraderie and good laughs from the message boards I belong to and blogs I read. It's amazing.

- And the most obvious thing . . my beautiful, funny, smart and sweet nuggets!



It seems silly to even say that I'm thankful for them. They overwhelm me sometimes, with good stuff. The English language doesn't hold verbage that is powerful enough to describe how I feel about them, but thankful will do for today.

I read a quote that was placed in a nursery and said "All my smiles begin with you" and I thought that was perfect. They make me smile all the time.


Ever is saying "whoa!!"

I'm not really thankful for the disease I have in me that won't go away so I am at home eating cheez-its and Thera-flu alone on Thanksgiving while my family is out eating good stuff, but hey, I know we can't have it all, right?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Happiness is Overrated

. . . . says Brad Pitt.

"I think happiness is overrated, truthfully. I do,” says the Moneyball star, who has kids Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox and Vivienne with his partner Angelina Jolie. “I think sometimes you’re happy, sometimes you’re not. There’s too much pressure to be happy. I don’t know. I don’t really give a s–t. I know I will be at times and I know I won’t be at times. Satisfied, at peace, those would be more goals for myself.”

Some people think this is negative or a sign that he hates his life, but I happen to agree with him completely.

People are 100% obsessed with feeling happiness all the time or finding the joy in sucky situations. But sometimes life sucks. I think it's important to be thankful for what you have and grateful for your blessings, but happy all the time? No. That seems like some hedonistic goal of a toddler. When you are a grown up you should know that you are not going to be happy all the time. I think you should enjoy your happiness, but feel your pain too. That's being human.

Hubby and I were having a conversation about comparing. I feel like we are so trained to believe we should be happy all the time that we feel guilt when we don't and start comparing. This happens to me in terms of fertility. When I am feeling bummed about the disappointment, money issues, sadness that comes with fertility even after a successful fertility treatment which resulted in the two most attractive human beings on the planet (ha), I feel like I need to stop myself not because I really want to, but because someone else didn't have successful treatments, had to do more IVF's than me, lost a child etc. Hubby said to me "and some people get pregnant with no help, for free, so who cares what other people are doing? Worry about yourself." My therapist also pointed this out to me several years ago. Think about how you feel and live your own feelings.

The other issue with the pursuit of constant happiness is that happiness would not really be that interesting if that's all you felt. It wouldn't be a good feeling, it would just be. Without feeling sad, pissed, discontented, feeling happy wouldn't be that exciting. It's okay to feel a full range of emotions. It's okay to feel like life sucks when you're sad. It makes sense. Forcing happiness on yourself and others is not healthy. I don't think it's very productive to feel guilt for feeling sad just because other people believe one should always be happy.

I am so glad that Brad Pitt said it. I know some people are bashing him for it, but I think he is a rock star for admitting it.

What do you think?

We haven't had a family picture taken in a YEAR, so I choose the windiest day ever and we took family pictures. Woo hoo.

Seriously Thursday

- In the last three weeks we have had two ear infections, one case of croup that sent us to the ER and now each and every one of us were vomitting and crapping our brains out with the stomach flu. Everyone says after the first year of daycare all of our immune systems will be better but seriously 1. I have worked in a daycare for the last 4 years and I brought this home! and 2. the one year mark is in June and I will surely get fired by then.

- My daughter got pee on my jeans yesterday before work and I wore them anyway.

- At my benefits enrollment for this year the reps from the insurance company informed us that they just bought one of our approved urgent cares. Just effin' great. In my opinion, health insurance is not to be trusted. The goal of good health should be good health, not making a buck so there is the first strike for me. Now they are owning doctor's offices? This is no bueno.

- Don't ever eat food at my house. I changed Ever's diaper and then the buzzer went off saying that the oven was ready so I popped some cinnamon rolls (the whole family's current guilty pleasure, twins love them!) in the oven. I noticed a little white something on the cinnamon roll, thought it was frosting then realized I hadn't opened the frosting yet. Butt paste. Yep, we totally ate a butt paste cinnamon roll. It was just a little bit though.

- The hubs sent me this text "just wanted to tell you you're a great mother and you're doing a great job." At first I was like, awe, what a sweetheart, but then I was like "seriously? what do you want?" Ha!

-I've pinned a ton of recipes on Pinterest and have yet to cook a meal. I can't remember when I last cooked.

- Mariah Carey was on the cover of Us magazine looking hot and saying that she did that by hard work. Ha. From one twin mom to the other, I know you don't have time for real hard work and twins will really rough up a dangler so we know you got a tummy tuck! Don't deny it!!!!

- I was changing sheets on the twins' beds and I came down to find a naked Oshy eating a cinnamon roll in the window sill. Seriously . . . I have my hands full with these kids!

- This post from Raven about how to keep a man serioulsy had me peeing my pants yesterday! Basically she says if you want to keep them, you just need to "feed 'em, f$%^ 'em, and shut up." I guess I must be very lucky because I don't do any of those things and we just celebrated 8 years of being together (I'm serious, I don't do ANY of those things, sad I know).

My flickr account won't let me log in so I will hit you up with some old school photos . . . .

Fresh nuggets!

These are classics! Every baby needs a sombrero . . .

Mad babies

People sometimes ask if I would like to have had them be infants just a little while longer. Seriously?!?! NO! Newborn twins are not a joke. But I love looking at these pictures and if I could get in a time machine and just go spend 5 waking hours with my newborn nuggets I would totally do it. They were adorbs . . . .

An In-Between Place

This is an infertility post. It's not funny and it's not about parenting. Weird.

For awhile, being infertile really slipped my mind kind of. I just forgot a little bit. I was way too busy, tired, blessed, overwhelmed with joy having newborn twins and being a new mom to really worry about infertility. If you have been here awhile, I even contemplated giving our frozen baby to someone else (hubby was NOT cool with that idea). I just felt complete.

That has really been wearing away. Hubby and I lost each other for awhile, but have made big strides to get back to where we were before. I am so thankful that we are happy with each other again. The only downfall of being happy and in a great place with hubby is that hubby and I are reminded of all our dreams that we have dreamt up over the last eight years we've been together and those dreams included having three or more kids. Three is what we both really agreed on (although I could definitely do more than that). Hubby said it best: "I love our family. I love our children and they make me so happy. It would just be extra happy to add someone else to our family."

It's so weird to feel so joyous about my children (who are at an amazingly fun age and it just keeps getting better) and yet that nagging feeling like I would really like more of it. The internal struggle is that if Ocean and Ever are my only children that I ever give birth to, I will feel like such a lucky, blessed person. They are beautiful and healthy and smart and I am very in love with them. They have far exceeded my expectations in what being a mommy would be like. Last night Ever and I were snuggling under a blanket watching Sesame Street when she just turned her head around and puckered up for a kiss, so I leaned in and she smooched me and then I cried a few tears of joy because I felt so much love and so lucky.

Oppositely, I am starting to feel sad and jealous when people announce their pregnancies. I feel angry and unsympathetic when people complain to me about being pregnant. I feel like life isn't fair, why can't hubby and I have another baby when other people can do that for free, when they want to? And all of these negative feelings just feel wrong, when the two most amazing things on this planet already belong to me, I should not feel like this. I also feel like a disappointment and a failure for being the weak link who can't get us to where we want to go.

IVF costs $15,000 for one try and we, like many others, have no insurance coverage for any fertility treatment. One try is not guaranteed, we were very lucky with what we got. I don't know that I could go through all of that again. Ocean and Ever are now my number one priority. I can't take away from them and give to something that may not happen and having twins makes it nearly impossible to save money for such an expensive treatment. Besides, money that we have saved we would really like to use to buy a house in a better school district in a few years, not blow it all trying to get pregnant again. I could not do that to my babies.

I've just completed a month of birth control pills and I felt so much better. I didn't have the ups and downs and the issues and the pain and I even dropped a couple pounds without doing anything. It's good to feel better, but sad to know that the only way to feel this way is to be on medication that would prevent us from ever having a natural pregnancy (with our whopping 5% chance of that happening).

So that's my in-between place. Do I accept that life doesn't always happen like we plan it to and move on? Do I not give up and find a way to make our dreams happen?

I can't decide.

In the meantime, the babes and I will just keep having fun together. Due to the stomach bug from Hell that hit Osh and I this week, we got to have a PJ day on Friday. We just hung out all day and had a nice, relaxing time and went from one pair of jammies to the next.

Things I Love Right Now

The nuggets, although insanely wild and testing boundaries, are so much fun right now. Hubby and I just sit in the living room in the evening and watch them and play with them and then talk about how funny or cool all the stuff they did was after they go to bed.

Here are some examples:

- Ever loves singing these days. She sings whenever she is doing something or is bored, like in the car. She even sings a song for Ocean and sings "o-o-oshy, o-o-oshy." She calls out "Oshy" a lot and refers to herself as "shishy" or sissy in our language.

- Ocean has been trying so hard to jump. Ever can get some air, but not Ocean. He tries so hard that he bends down and then jumps up and flings his arms into the sky. He finally got some air on Monday and laughed so hard that he did it.

- I cannot express to you how much I love hearing them call me "mama." It's the best thing in the world. When I go in their rooms to get them they say "mama" so loud. They look at pictures and then point at me and say "mama." I think they know I love it because they will randomly poke me and say "mama" to see my reaction.

- I'm very confident they are both geniuses. I wrote "Ever" on a board and said what does that say and Ocean pointed at Ever. Ocean ran into the room and saw something yellow and said "lellow." I caught Ever taking apart the tower she built and then she arranged the pieces in color order with like colors.

- Dancing is my favorite. Ever loves dancing too, dancing and singing. She gets a silly look on her face, bends her knees, shakes her hips and throws one arm up in the air.

- I hate to admit it, but Ocean getting in trouble is pretty funny. He is testing boundaries right now big time. He will do something naughty and then see if he gets in trouble. When he does he sticks his lip out and then tries to get mad. He doesn't understand that a mama can't take a sweet baby boy face seriously, even though he's trying to be a tough guy by not looking at me or hitting the time out wall.

- Right now their affection is so deliberate and I love it. When they are little babies, let's be honest, an infant will be happy with just about anyone who gives them a warm body and food. But now they give hugs and kisses and rub my back. They put their arms around my neck and nuzzle their heads onto my shoulders. Best.feeling.ever.

I am really loving parenting these days. Even on the days when daycare informs us that Ocean has been in timeout all day for trying to and then successfully biting his sister. Yeah, that happened for real.

You guys are so lucky that I am reproductively challenged and poor, otherwise I would totally end up being the next Michelle Duggar (except with cursing and yelling instead of patience and baby talk).

A couple pics from our trip:



A hayride with Grandma and Grampa. We had lots of fun, although I will say Arizona pumpkin patches have NOTHING on Kansas pumpkin patches.




With their new cousin! He was six days old in this picture and we let my little violent germ buckets hold him. He did survive, although I think Grampa nearly had a heart attack.

Seriously Thursday

-My dog seriously died out of the blue almost two weeks ago and it sucked big ones. Like REALLY sucked. I told hubby we are going to hold puppies tomorrow night after work and he was pissed. Sorry, hubby, we are just going to hold them, we swear!!

- Kim and Kris and getting a divorce. Did anyone seriously not think that was going to happen? And to think I just watched their wedding special this week! I think Kris is kind of a baby and I'm not into baby men at all but Kim needs to grow up big time.

- Seriously . . . the fact that anyone gets pregnant by having sex really astonishes me. It is so far from the reality of my life that I can't even imagine it. And I still want to send mail bombs to everyone who gets pregnant by having sex after they tell me (it's fleeting, but it happens).

-The other morning I looked in the mirror and thought "dang, I look good today." I seriously can't remember the last time that has happened and I really liked it. Perhaps I should stop eating fast food more often. But then again it's fast and easy and that works very well for me.

-The tantrums in my house . . . . seriously . . . .it's out of control. The cool new thing for them to do is to fight with each other over everything. Unfortunately, it's pretty funny sometimes.

- I seriously need help in the hair/make up department. I have been trolling Pinterest but I am just not good at doing these things and I think I need a professional. And the ability to actually pay attention to what they tell me so I can do it when I get home. I would ask my sis who is a make up/hair guru, but she isn't spending Xmas with us like a big huge butthole (ooh yeah, did you see that Weiner, I called you a butthole on the interwebs!). Maybe I can just look like a shlumpa until summer, which may be the next time I see her.

- I seriously hate winter weather. I hate being stuck inside, I hate cold, I hate wearing a coat, but I do enjoy hot chocolate and I love the holidays so that is a plus. Santa is going to have to start collecting items for the twinkles very soon (but I am a major procrastinator, oops, I mean Santa is a slacker).

Here are the naughty twins climbing up a step stool to get crayons and marshmellows

Here is the Oshy that pulled chocolate chips off the counter and is now dumping and throwing them in the living room

Here is a Peanut taking all of the folded laundry off the couch and putting it into piles in the floor while mommy was in the potty

Travel with Toddlers

We have recently just arrived home from a 3 day trip to Phoenix from Kansas by way of a three hour plane ride.

Well . . . . .

Wednesday night/Thursday morning: Ocean was up all night. Until 5:00 a.m. He had been a little sick last week and his ear was red but the specialist would like to keep him off of antibiotics. That did not work out. We went downstairs so hubby could sleep and watched Sesame Street for awhile. I happened to drift off into slumberland for a brief moment and the child emptied my wallet all over the floor, did the same to hubby's, packed a bunch of stuff into his suitcase and took a gigantic crap all over the place. Yay.

7:45 a.m. Thursday: Sadly woke up extremely exhausted and we began getting things together. I procrastinated as usual so had to drop the twins off at daycare, work for a few hours, and franticly pack and sort of clean. I also had to pick up an antibiotic and drugs for Osh because I had a feeling we were about to have a truly hellish experience on the flight.

2:45 p.m. Thursday: Pick up twins from daycare then pick up hubby then go to the airport.

Let me give you a list of things we hauled into the airport:

1. Two carseats
2. Two strollers
3. Two small Sesame Street suitcases filled with toys, blankies, snacks, coloring tools.
4. A diaper bag.
5. A back pack.
6. My purse.

7. Two lunch boxes

Needless to say, hubby was pissed about dragging all this crap through the airport.

4:45 p.m. Board the flight that was sure to be hell. Ocean slept the whole way and Ever was a little angel to my shock and pleasant surprise! Go us!

Everything became a blur once we arrived. Twins were happy to be out of the plane. Ever slept like shit the first night and we relaxed the second day (hubby pretty much slept all day Friday).

The second night was awful, especially because this became the third straight night I had with NO sleep. She couldn't breathe well off and on and had a barking cough. Long story short-we took her to urgent care asap Saturday morning and they were a bunch of asshats. I figured she had croup or maybe bronchitis, but they did a F- xray in which they decided she had severe pnuemonia and an enlarged heart and we should transfer her by ambulance to the ER. Umm . . . the girl was snotty and coughing, but no fever, still eating and drinking so I had a hard time believing this crap so I told them I would take her myself. We went to the ER, were checked in right away, and then proceeded to wait for 2 and a half hours for a doctor. In the end, she did just have croup and an ear infection and she received a very traumatic breathing treatment and snot suction as well as a steroid.

The next day we repeated our travel home except the twins did not sleep. It was 11:00 p.m. our time before they even passed out, but then Ever woke back up when we were in the car. Our house did not have heat on and it was dirty as hell and the sicko's need cleanliness and new sheets and I didn't feel like it so we arrived at my grandparents home to sleep at 12:30 a.m.

I am very tired. I will also not haul my children that far in their toddlerhood for only three nights ever again. That was not smart. The great news is we got to see a fresh new cutie baby which happens to be my nephew (that's probably why he's cute) and the twinkles got to see their grandparents (although after three nights in bed with Grandma Ocean has yet to sleep in his own bed, sigh). This was their fourth flight though, so they are a little jetsetting crew.

Snow White and the Handsome Devil



Hubby made the monkey's their own pumpkin patch!