Sick

Poor Julie.  Not quite sure what's going on.  Back in December, she had a low fever and some congestion that, overnight, turned into pneumonia.  But her x-ray didn't look too bad, and she was acting fine.  Just breathing really hard and fast.  A recheck right after the new year gave her a clean bill of health.

And the Monday after her Friday re-check?  We were back at the doctor.  It was the same thing - a low fever that, overnight, turned into something resembling asthma.  After another round of antibiotics and a few days on the nebulizer, we had her lungs re-checked, and she was good to go again.

This is from the day I spent at home with her.  See how sick and miserable she looks?

And I was home with her again today.  This time, her fever is higher (102), but it's like her cold turns into asthma-like breathing.  And again, she's acting just fine.

And, of course, mom doesn't get a day off.  I was trying to work from home, and this one was sure making it difficult.  Because being at home means that I should be petting her.  With two hands.  At any time she demands.

Yes, this.  She literally laid on the table between me and the computer.

Outside

The weather has been gorgeous lately.  Have I mentioned that I love October?  On top of that, Greg's parents were with us for the last week, and they've had the girls outside running around for most of the week.  Even on the days early last week when it was cold and overcast, the girls wanted to be outside.  It's so hard to come home from work and have them ask, "can we go outside?" and only be able to think about all of the things I have to do inside before I can go to bed.  It makes me resent cooking dinner even more.  I mean, I want a healthy meal on the table, and I want us to eat dinner together.  But more and more, it seems like the girls aren't even hungry for dinner, or don't want what we're having.  And then it's like we're cooking for the two of us.  Anyhow, rant over.  Just something I am really struggling with right now.

Fall is coming.

The pulled out the water table that we have converted into a rice table.  That means rice goes everywhere.  We try to clean up as much of as it we can.  Emma's insisted on sweeping up her own mess.

Unfortunately, she doesn't quite have down the technique for pouring it back in the bucket, so half of it ends up on the ground again.

Luckily, Papa moved in to help.  Because, um, I thought it was funny and kept taking pictures.

I can't help it.  I love the glare and sunspots.  The is the former water table, and the remains of a bag of rice from Costco.

We had to move the seats up a couple of notches on their balance bikes.  I can't believe they're getting so big!

 
Becca at the rice table.  Safety first.

They also like to play with their $1 butterfly nets from Christmas Tree Shop.  I got these when we visited my parents last summer.  We just got a Christmas Tree Shop here a few months ago.  I took the girls there once, and when they asked where we were going, I told them "the junk store."  So, now, that's what they call it.  :)  They tell Greg, "We went to the junk store!"

Emma collecting leaves

 Grandma helping Julie catch some leaves while Emma does something with a broom.  Which reminds me that Emma is saying that she wants to be a witch for Halloween.  Actually, a "big bad witch that's going to eat up Becca fairy."

Do Over

If ever there was a day (well, in recent memory) that required a do over, I think it was today.

It started with waking up late.

I took the girls into daycare, and pretty much wanted to cry by the time I left.  Emma and Julie did not want to go.  I was trying to push them in the room with one hand and close the door with the other.  I left to the sound of both of them wailing.

I checked my phone in the parking lot and had a message from my boss.  Someone (pretty high up) was looking for a file that I forgot to send out last week.  She had left me a message on Friday afternoon (I left early for the consignment sale) and started sending desperate messages and calling my boss at 7:45 on Monday morning.

When I got in to work, I ran in to my boss.  Not sure if he was looking for me, or if it was an accident.  Either way, I told him I'd send the file right away.

Walked into my cubicle.

And remembered that my computer was still at home.

Awesome.

So, I race frantically back home and try to log on from home to send the file.  But, due to a firewall upgrade last week, my messages wouldn't send.

And then I raced back to work to finally send it.

I had a meeting this afternoon.  For two hours.  Where the person I was meeting with didn't know what she needed.  Perhaps the most unproductive meeting in recent memory.

I sent a text message to a coworker instead of Greg with my Target list.  Luckily there wasn't anything too embarrassing on it.

And, my house still smells like burned brusslels sprouts from dinner last night.

Ladies and the Animals

It had been a rough week at work...  One of those where it just seemed like everyone was driving me crazy.  In hind sight, of course, it wasn't really that bad.  But by the time Thursday rolled around, and I had no meetings scheduled for Friday, so I decided enough was enough.  I took a vacation day on Friday, and surprised the girls with a trip to the "big" zoo.

One of my other deciding factors was the weather.  It was supposed to be perfect.  And I have been here long enough to know that there aren't many "perfect" (meaning bearable) weekends once summer finally hits.  It's been so nice spending time outside the past few weeks, so I really wanted to take advantage of it.

 We made it out without buying this guy.

I was trying to get a picture of them on the elephant statue, but they were too busy looking at the real elephants.  You know how they like animal statues.

I almost think we could have skipped the animal entirely and just played in this rock garden for hours on end.

It was feeding time at the giraffe exhibit.  They've got a feeding platform, and you can buy (of course) giraffe food.  I believe giraffe food was lettuce.  The giraffes come right up to the platform, which was pretty awesome for taking pictures.  But not awesome if you prefer animal statues (and stuffed animals) to real ones.

Julie checking out the turtles.

The zoo is right along the river, and immediately on the other side of the river is the botanical gardens.  They're connected by this bridge, and a free tram runs between the two.  (It's a deceptively short distance on the zoo map, but oh my goodness, I'm so glad we didn't walk.  Huge hills.)  Anyhow, they loved riding the tram.  We got up to the botanical gardens and I asked if they wanted to walk around; no, they wanted to get right back on the tram and go back to the zoo.

Earlier in the day, we had passed the pony rides.  I asked if anyone wanted to go on a pony ride; Julie and Becca piped up.  I gave them a little while to think about it, and we came back.

I should preface this all by saying that there's a horse farm on the way into our neighborhood, so they see the horses all the time.  And when we go by, they're always saying "When I grow up, I'm going to ride on a horse!"  or "I want a horse at my house."

So, Julie and Becca still wanted to ride.  Emma was a no-go.  We got up to the front of the line, and they put the helmets on.  All of a sudden, Emma wanted to ride.  She put a helmet on.

Becca got on the pony with no fear at all.  Started going.

When it was their turn to get on, Julie and Emma said "I don't want to ride a pony!"  Even after Becca got back safe and sound, I was still giving them a chance to change their minds.  But no.  Just Becca rode the pony, and she loved it!

They were all also kinda infatuated with the milking-the-fake-cow thing.  Should I admit that I was kind of relieved when other kids came up and I told them they couldn't have any more turns?

More statues.

Oh, the smirk.

They were itching to get on the carousel all day.

Ice cream, of course.  And then a little playing on the playground.  And I know that it's sacrilege to complain about ice cream, but by this point, it's HOT out.  All the tables out the ice cream shop are full.  And they really overfilled the ice cream cups.  So, we had to walk for a while to find somewhere to sit, and by then, everything's melted so much that it's already running over the (overfilled) cups.  Sigh.  I'd be happier with less ice cream and fewer clothes to try to get stains out of.  Well, this time.

 

I told them we had to leave once they had ice cream, but I'm soft.  They talked me into one more ride on this little train.  Crazy girls.  But you'll notice the big chocolate ice cream stain on Emma's shirt.

Our last stop was supposed to be the flamingoes, but somehow in our wanderings, we had missed the penguins.  We walked in there right at feeding time, which was pretty cool to watch.  The girls loved it, too.  On the way out of the penguin house, there was this little dinosaur statue.  I didn't get a chance to figure out its relevance to penguins, since my kids were fighting with each other to get on it.

A long, but fun, ladies' 'venture day.

The Grind.

I'm behind.  On everything.  I started class again twice a week for 5 weeks, as of last week.  It doesn't sound like a lot when I type it out, but it has taken its toll already.

And, of course, it's been crazy at home, too.

(How many times do I tell this one to put her shirt/dress down?)

The good news is that I'm keeping up with Project Life, and even caught up after getting pretty far behind when we went out of town.  

Drama

We found out on the 10th that our nanny is no longer going to be able to keep the girls anymore.  Her childcare fell through.

Talk about freaking out.   I was exhausted from 12 hrs on my feet at the consignment sale that night, and yet still couldn't fall asleep.  Running through scenarios in my head.  Trying to figure out how to program the On Demand to play 8 hours of Mickey Mouse Club House so I could work from home for a short time if necessary.

The benefit of this happening in conjunction with my first term on the sale committee (and thus spending WAY too many hours there that weekend) was that I had lots of friends to talk to about day cares, etc.  By Monday, I had come up with a plan...  I wanted to put them in the Montessori school.  And I had no back up.

A bunch of people asked if I'd try to find another nanny, and the answer to that was easy - - no.  I don't want to go through that process.  One of the main reasons we went with it when we did was that the opportunity was pretty much thrown in our laps.  We knew her, she knew us, she had babysat for us, etc. But I don't want to go through the process of finding someone from a pool of strangers.  Even when we hired the nanny, we were kind of ambivalent - - there are a lot of benefits to staying home, and there are a lot of benefits to them being in a group setting.

So, by no means was I upset about them going back to daycare.  I was mostly freaking out about finding spots for 3 three-year-olds at the same place at the same time.  The Montessori school had been highly recommended, by co-workers and people that they used to be in daycare with.

So, I held my breath and called first thing on Monday morning.

And had to leave a message.

I swear, that was the longest morning ever.

But they finally called back and said that they would have three spots.

Exhale.

Greg and I went in to look at it on Wednesday of last week, and put down a deposit.

And then I felt like I could breathe again.

In the mean time, the nanny said she could stay an additional two weeks, but Montessori could only hold our spots until March 5.  So that will be their first day.

We always knew that, with a nanny, there was a possibility that at some point, we'd have to scramble to  find a place for them.  But I just wasn't prepared for it to actually happen.

Last Tuesday, in pictures

I've been trying to purge pictures that I know I'm not going to use.  I used to keep everything, but my computer (and external hard drive) are almost full, so I'm trying to get better about choosing what to keep.

Flipping through photos from last Tuesday, now that it's down to 5 photos, tells an interesting story.

First of all, I love the lids on McDonalds coffee.  Beyond the "Caution: I'm hot," I love the way the lid looks like someone yawning.  I stopped to get coffee on my way to take my APICS exam.  I didn't stop at the McDonalds closest to the house, because it's a nightmare to get back out of.  But, by waiting until I got to the next McDonalds, the coffee was too hot to drink before I went into the exam.  So I went in uncaffeinated.

The book, sitting on the car seat next to me.  I fell asleep on the couch the night before with the books, and, well, didn't quite make it through all of the chapters.  So I sat in the car before I went in and flipped through the last 2 chapters.  And yay, I passed!  3 more to go.

The radio station that's nearly tolerable, if it weren't for all of the "female-hormone-replacement-weight-loss-digestive-advantage" ads.  Seriously.  This is my demographic now.

Conductor Julie guarding her "happy birthday."  I just like the look on her face.

Becca cleaning up after "monkey had a accident."  She's got a sponge, and is wearing an oven mitt.  Love.

And that, my friends, is what a Tuesday is like in my life.

Today

Today was one of the craziest days I've had at work.  Non-stop meetings that I was only partially prepared for because I just ran out of time.  Never even checked voicemail because it would have just added to the list of things that weren't going to get done.  I'm totally counting on Friday to catch my breath.  Well, at work at least.

Our nanny had a sick kid, so Greg stayed home with the girls today.  So what got me through an otherwise grueling day?  Messages and pictures from Greg.

9:09 am.  Life cereal = squares as of this morning.
9:10 am.  Emma is calling you on my power supply to ask if she can have another trick (unwrap the velcro cord wrap on my mouse cable).
10:19 am.  Taking an Olivia break.  I had 2 doctors checking me over.

11:12 am.

11:57 am.  J said "here daddy, here's your purse.  I put balls in it for you."

12:00 pm.  Having lunch.  Turkey and cheese.  E requested I hold the turkey on hers.

12:18 pm.  E said "daddy a butterfly!"  Yeah lunchtime for spider too.  {We have a resident spider in the corner of one of our kitchen windows (outside!).  It's fascinating, really, to see her catch moths, wasps, etc and wrap them up in her spider silk.  Luckily the girls haven't figured out what's going on yet.}

12:38 pm.  R in daddys steel toe shoes.

1:57 pm.  Bouncing off the walls.  Going to go for a walk or something.
2:35 pm.  Heading to the zoo with my little monkeys.  Who will probably fall asleep on the way and be very grumpy when we get there.
3:22 pm.  At playground because of the monkeys.  {Girls are terrified of the screaming monkeys at the zoo.  You can hear them from the parking lot.}


Love my family, and my husband, for helping me get through this day with a smile on my face.

Ladies Day

Last week, I took a day off from work and we had a ladies day.  In the morning, we went to a moms of multiples play date at Krispy Kreme.

making their cheese faces

Then, like everyone does on a good Ladies Day, we went to Target.  For new toothbrushes.  Julie picked out "Tigger the Tiger" and Emma and Becca picked princess (sigh) toothbrushes.  

It was way past nap time by that point, but I decided to push it and went into JoAnn's.  Oh, what a bad idea.  They were AWFUL.  Running all over the store screaming.  And I only have two hands.  They were quite a spectacle.  I tried to ignore it, I tried threatening ("Do you want to go out to lunch or not?"), I tried dragging Becca toward the front of the store with Julie following screaming only to get to the front of the store and find out I had no idea where Emma was.  It was bad.  So bad that the lady in front of us in line to checkout let us go ahead of her.  And then, at the checkout, Emma runs out the door.  I almost lost it.  Luckily, she ran right back in the entrance door and back around to the registers.  But oh was I mad.  In the end, I knew they were tired.  I knew they needed a nap.  Lesson learned.

We did go out to lunch, and then headed home.  They were asleep in the car within about 10 minutes.

Random notes from the past few weeks

When we went to the zoo in Atlanta, we were driving through the middle of Atlanta, probably the first time a girls have seen a city.  Or a building more than 3 or 4 stories.  Looking at the skyscrapers, Julie said, "Look at the sandcastles!"

Julie likes to be in charge of dealing things out.  She still talks about the time that she went to the doctor and got three lollipops and gave them to her "stisters."  There was something she had once where she made Emma and Becca sit on the couch before she would give them whatever she was giving out.  That one likes the power.

The girls have been helping to set the table for dinner lately.  They love it!  We let them do pretty much everything, and I know I'm jinxing myself, but we haven't broken any dishes yet.

At some point recently, the girls picked up "No paws on the table," which is what we say to Dusty and Lefty when they're just stretching up and their paws happen to land on the table.  Dusty has also been hanging around the table a lot lately, and she will sometimes just stretch up and put her paws on one of our legs.  When the girls started yelling at her, to distinguish between what's ok and what's not, Greg was trying to explain that what Dusty was doing was ok.  He must've said, "Paws on daddy are ok."  Because now, all the time, whenever someone says "No paws on the table," someone else ALWAYS follows up with "Paws on Daddy ok."

We had to take Julie to the doctor a few weeks ago because when she woke up one morning, both of her eyelids were hugely swollen.  Her eyes weren't swollen shut or anything, but something definitely wasn't right.  They'd been playing outside a bunch the day before, and she had two mosquito bites on her face, so the doctor thought it was from the mosquito bites.  She was still red and swollen after two doses of benadryl, though, so we called back and got her on some antibiotics.  It was just weird.   She's actually had something similar before, but I think it was just one eye last time.  Just swells up.  Not pink eye or anything.  Somehow her eyes just seem to get infected.

My kids thing eggs are the coolest thing ever.  Whenever we have to crack a raw one, they all want to gather round and watch, and they'll scream and squeal.

I'm in class again, trying to satisfy a work objective.  Oh how I do not miss being in class.  It's only 9 evenings, and we're more than halfway through, but I wish I hadn't left this until November.  There's too much that's more fun to do this time of year.

I've never been much of a texter, but it's just become really convenient the past few months.  Random, I know.

A day with my ladies

Our nanny had asked for a vacation day last Friday, so I figured it would be a good day to spend some time with my ladies.  I had planned on taking them to the zoo, and we actually ended up meeting up with some other moms of multiples.

The girls, surprisingly to me, were afraid of more of the animals this time that they were the last time.  The didn't want to get up on the little ledges throughout the zoo, except where the animals were really far away.  The liked the elephants, the huge tortoises, the giraffes (until they got too close), and the flamingoes.  They were afraid of the lemurs, the lions, all of the different kinds of monkeys, and the pig.

But they loved the playground.

And the lion water fountain.

And about half way through the zoo, they started asking for the bear.

After we made it through the zoo, we had a "pick-uh-nick" just outside of the zoo.  The girls love a good "pick-uh-nick."  And the bonus was that they all fell asleep in the car on the way home, and took a good solid 2 hour nap.

After they got up, we went to Costco.  If you haven't been there lately, the beginnings of the Christmas "stuff" is up.  The girls have been obsessed with the snowman and Christmas trees since they saw them with Greg last time.  We had to go see the snowman no fewer than 3 times.

In all, it was a great day with my girls.  I feel guilty for not always enjoying my time with them ... when they are getting on my nerves, when they're not listening.  There were times I got frustrated today (I swear, if I have to tell them to put their shoes on one more time...) but it was manageable.  I don't know if that means that I'm growing up, or that they are.  But it was wonderful.