Health=Happiness

My Oshy boy had pneumonia for three weeks.

He was miserable. Lethargic, sad, couldn't sleep well, chest x-rays (which he HATED), tons of trips to the pedi and 4 round of antibiotics in two months.

I was miserable. My boy just cried and cried all the time and I felt like a bad mom. I also felt like a crap employee because I rarely worked a full week at work in two months.

Hubby was miserable because I was so angry that my boy was sick.

Ever was miserable because he woke up a lot in the night so we were all up when we should be sleeping.

I KNEW my boy has asthma. KNEW it. Every virus the babies picked up Ever got rid of in 3 days and Ocean had for at least a week and settled in his chest. I have asthma. My grandma has asthma. My cousins have asthma.

I ignored my mommy instincts when the pedi's said he was just getting viruses at the daycare. Finally I put my foot down and went to an Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Specialist.

Osh has asthma and reflux, which aggravates the asthma. I felt bad that I waited so long. I also remembered all the breastfeeding stats about repiratory issues and wondered if I screwed up by only breastfeeding for 6 weeks. The specialist said that is nonsense, asthma is hereditary and no food on earth could prevent it. He said every fourth person in my family will have asthma and looking through the line that is pretty true. He and his nurse assured me I am a great mom, especially for going with my gut and bringing him in. Obviously this put the specialist at the top of my good list.

He takes Qvar in an inhaler twice a day and a reflux med in the morning. The specialist said not to take antibiotics anymore and we have a four step plan that includes other inhalers and breathing treatments and over the counter meds.

My son has been sleeping like an angel. He has been so healthy! He is the happiest boy. I love seeing him like this. I also truly enjoy at least 7 straight hours of sleep a night. Really, that's a pretty sweet side effect.

Moral of the story: Trust your instincts. I should have done this a long time ago and our life has changed quite a bit for the better in the last two weeks.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. The rest and relaxation gods thought I got too spoiled on vaca last week so they decided to make my work life a disaster this week and I was working 11 hours days some days! Suck balls! The good news is that those full nights of sleep made them much more manageable.

Family pics from our fab vaca



We all had wild hair because the place we stayed at was a huge lodge in the middle of nowhere and the water was chlorinated, so it was liking washing your hair in pool water. I should have taken more pics of the babies heads because they looked like fuzzy little chicks every morning.



On the photo front to answer some questions: I have a Canon Rebel XT1i. It is pretty common, you can even buy the newer version (XT3i) at Walmart for around $600.00. It took me awhile to learn to use it correctly. The main thing is lighting and figuring out what time of day, where in the house/outside, etc the light is best. I read the manual to my camera. I also bought an instructional book/DVD combo by Scott Kelby. I also took a two hour class on how to use this type of camera properly. I bought an additional lens that I use most often for the pics you see on here and it is an EF 50mm 1.8. I have Photoshop LightRoom, but 99% of the pics you see on the blog are not edited at all, just straight from the camera! The other thing, when I know someone who is awesome at photography, I always annoy them with lots of questions. :)

We's Back

Do you like it when I talk gangster to you?

Anywho . . . .

We are back from vaca. I noticed that I'm always feeling like a need a vacation but I take vacations pretty frequently. Is that wrong?

The munchkins were SO happy to see me. Even though I felt bad that they were so desperate for me when they saw me, I kind of liked it. Last time we were gone a long time they were just like, weird, do I know you? when they saw us but this time they definitely knew that we were gone and we are their parents and they were thrilled we were back. This didn't allow much room for us to pawn them off on family because they wanted to be with us all the time, but it was really sweet to see them so in love with us.

Ever is growing a lot of hair and I like it. She is a huge flirt and even though I laugh now I don't think I will be laughing in the future.

Ocean is having some tantrum issues and to be honest, it's pretty annoying. I have realized that I am the parent that I have always thought sucks. I know I need to lay the smack down, but whenever I lay the smack down and he starts crying and looking up at me with those huge gorgeous brown peepers I cave in. Ugh . . . .

Sleeping in one bed as family of four is a bad idea. Especially when you have a little violent nugget that will kick her brother's ass in the middle of the night just because he is close to her. And then your heart breaks a little when the sweet boy wakes up in the morning and gives his sissy a pat on the face and smiles at her even though she opened a can of whoop ass on him in the middle of the night and made him cry (she literlly kicked and hit him for touching her).

Ever has a new habit of playing with my arm fat. It makes me uncomfortable at all times, but in public it is especially bad. I don't know what is so amusing about my arm fat, but I really wish she wouldn't draw attention to it. It has to be gross to others. I have never heard anyone say "wow, look how cute that is! That baby is having such a fun time playing with her mommy's fat like play dough. Adorbs!" No. It's gross.

The babies love having screaming contests. Again, so funny, but not funny. I know they are like bebe's kids in public and not everyone finds twin screaming competitions as adorable as their mommy does and I need to make it stop. BUT, the joy on their faces is priceless. They are so stinking cute.

Many of you asked, so I will answer: my grad school application is for Human Resource Management. There is one little glitch in my plan and that is follow through. I know my personal statement and my transcripts will be good but I need three reference letters. The thing is, I didn't really ever bond with my college professor's and I have really only had one main consistent job since I graduated college so that is only one reference. What do I do? Help!

Life Without Kids

As soon as the babies got here, I quickly forgot what life without kids was like. They have spent nights at Grandma's house and went on a vacation with Grandma while hubby and I took a vacation. Last Friday the monkeys headed out of town and we will be meeting up with them soon.

It was SO bizarre being around the house with no kids. BIZARRE.

A list of things I have done just since Friday:

• I've seen 3 movies. The Change-Up (all I mostly thought about during that one is how much cuter my boy/girl twins are), Horrible Bosses (hilarious!! super raunchy though) and Crazy Stupid Love (so good). Three movies in two days.


• I went on a 5 mile fun with a friend.


• I did my Jillian Michael's dvd.


• I woke up early and did cardio before work.


• I went to a friend's house and watched four episodes of the new season of True Blood, the best show ever.


• I packed.


• I laid out.


• I worked on a Facebook page for my photography.


• I applied to grad school.


• I went to a birthday party.


• We went on a double date to the Melting Pot to enjoy chocolate and cocktails.


• I researched getting new boobs.


• I slept A LOT. At least 8 full hours a night.


• I finished reading the second "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" book.


• I worked.


• I certainly did not clean one goddam thing in this house.

Normally I do a 10th of that plus take care of babies and I felt pretty bored. Truly, it was boring at times. Sleeping and working out were pretty awesome though. Babies are better.

Sunday night was spent on the couch with Hubby griping about how much we miss the munchkins and how dumb we were to let them go on vacation before us. I cannot wait to see them and love them and kiss them. We have a flight and then a drive and I know it will be so long in my mind to get to them and I'm sure I will have a meltdown at some point as I always do when things are taking too long. Then it is baby time, for five straight days. Boo yah.

Giving Myself A Little Credit

I think I have bad self esteem.

People always tell me that it's okay that I'm overwhelmed and blah, blah, blah, you have baby twins and you work full time, etc. I have mostly felt that this is lip service to make me feel better and also make me shut up so we can talk about something else. Twins are really common now. Lots of people have them and they make it work. Sure, twin parents have a higher divorce rate and twins are more likely to bring with them some different issues, but really, what is the difference? It's just another baby, right?

I admit that this is tougher than I ever thought it would be. It's also way more awesome than I thought it would be, so I try to sweep the feelings of exhaustion under the rug.

The other morning hubby and Ocean were sleeping, so it was just the Nut and I. We ate breakfast together. We took a shower together (she sat on the ledge and pretended to shave her legs, it was super adorable). She sat in the sink and watched me do my makeup. Yeah, I actually put on make up. We put our things in the car and went to the grocery store. She trailed me walking for awhile and got lots of compliments. I came home and we packed our picnic. It was so nice, and it was so easy.

In a regular day where I had to go to work and I had both of them what took me two easy hours to do would normally take 10 hours of craziness. I then realized that I am not being paid lip service, this is hard.

I don't take it back of course. I cannot imagine any kind of universe without Ocean and Ever, but those two hours showed me that I'm not the lazy, chubby, unmotivated loser that I think I am. It's okay if things take me a long time and they aren't perfect because fitting in a work day+2 babies isn't as easy as I thought it would be (that sounds kind of dumb now that I'm reading that, why did I think that would be so easy?). My house isn't clean, my ass isn't firm, my babies don't know sign language, my cooking to eating out ratio isn't phenomenal but IT'S OKAY. The trade off is that I have the two most gorgeous monkey's EVER. I'm not kidding about this. They are so much fun.

I feel so much guilt about working out when the babies are up because I have been gone from them for nearly nine hours, out of necessity for our livelihood, so I don't work out until they are asleep. That's 9:00 p.m. Who the hell wants to work out at 9 at night? It's normal to not want to do that. Not lazy, normal. I must stop comparing myself to my friends who are so in shape and their houses are so much cleaner because 9 times out of 10, if they're working they have a house cleaner or whatever or they are not working and get 9 extra hours 5 days a week (please don't take this as a SAHM vs. Work thing, it's just math, honestly, I know being a mom is a 24 hour gig for all of us!). I need to just worry about myself and what makes me feel whole, not what others are doing and how skinny they are and how in the hell did they afford that vacation/house/car or the ability to stay home. That is what they can do, I need to be my own standard, not others.

Two measly little hours have opened my eyes quite a bit. I need to quit making myself feel bad. Of course everyone has their opionions, but I don't really care about those. I am the one making ME feel bad. No one else is doing it. So I need to stop that. Easier said than done, but I think I can do it.

I ran 5 miles this morning guilt free (I use the term running loosely, it was a lot of walking). The night before last I planned to work out but was too tired and I was okay with it. Baby steps. My babies are so amazing right now, they are funny and they explore and are well adjusted and growing like weeds so I can't suck at parenting obviously. I got some really positive praise at work so I haven't totally effed that up either. Why have all these nice things happened in a few days, good luck? I actually think it might be due to the attitude change. Weird.

There is just nothing in the world like watching these two lovin' on each other. It's delicious.

Adventure

We decided to take the time this weekend to go on a family adventure. We drove about an hour to the thriving metropolis of Topeka, KS. Driving with Ocean and Ever=horror. They don't like to be contained. I wouldn't really either.

First we stopped at a Children's Discovery Center and we had a fabulous time there! It was air conditioned and it is hotter than hell out right now so that was the first good thing. It wasn't too big, it was just right and had lots of stuff for the nuggets to get into and spread their germs all over. Sorry other parents.

1. Ever laughed as she dumped things out all over the floor that were actually supposed to not be on the floor. In her defense, other kids were doing it. And she looks totally adorbs doing naughty things.

2. Both babies found doggy's, their fave, at the vet station.

3. Ever found something to wear around other than my underwear.

4. They got to paint on a wall. They thought this was amazing. It was so adorable, but then they painted their heads and their shirts. People laughed as we tried to clean them up.

After that we went on our first picnic in the park of all time! The park had tiny picnic tables, just right for Ocean and Ever.

1. Hubby didn't fit in the picnic table so he had to sit on the cooler.

2. There was a little train that runs all through the park. The park was super sweet and old school. The train ride cost $1.25 a person! Can you believe that? So cheap. We rode past a fishing pond, a 103 year old carousel, a rose garden, a huge teeter totter with a whole family on it squealing with delight, and through a dark tunnel. The babes were in awe.

Then we decided to visit the zoo. It was the world's tiniest zoo. Ocean was so in love with the orangutangs (I don't know if this is proper spelling, it's a weird ass word if you ask me) his face was smooshed against the glass and he was chirping his happy squeal. According to Ever, we saw lots of doggy's.

What, this isn't a dog?

It was nice being together.