Weepy

One of the things that I didn't expect from motherhood is being so weepy about things. I've had to turn off the radio on occasion because every single song will make me sob. It is absolutely amazing to me the amount of love that I have for them. I never expected it.

As I was going through infertility treatments and IVF, I had in the back of my mind that I may never get pregnant. I was coming to terms with that and was actually OK with it. If I would have known then what I know now about how amazing this experience is, I would never have thought that. I suppose my infertility treatments would have been way more stressful, but I would have known for sure that was the path I wanted to take.

Now I just have to live with the fact that I get all teary from songs that I never even expected. It's a good thing, right?

Fussy

Ever have those days where at least one kid is crying the whole time? I think yesterday classifies as that in our house. Miles had to quickly leave right after dinner to meet with a friend and a builder to look at his house. He wanted to get some ideas for our new house. I had all three for the rest of dinner and up to bedtime.

Tyler threw his food, so had to miss the rest of dinner and go up to his room. He banged and cried until I went up to get him. I opened his door and told him he could come down when he was ready. He continued to bang and cry for another 10 minutes until I went up to see what he might want. He had stripped himself down to only his shirt and socks. (This is dangerous as we've learned from the pooh experience.)

Amber has been fussy in the evenings and I really don't know what she wants. Well, I do. She wants me to hold her and walk around with her and play with her. Hard to do at dinner time when I'm trying to make dinner, feed everyone, get their milks in the right cups, make my own plate, inhale a few bites of my own dinner, pick up thrown food, pick up thrown cups, pull dogs off the table, get finished plates into the sink, rinse off plates, pull dogs off tables, pull dogs off high-chair, feed dogs their own kibbles, feed dogs food not eaten, pull dogs off counters, get dishes into dishwasher, hand wash pots and pans and other things that can't go into the dishwasher, stop kids from hitting each other, make sure kids aren't getting into something dangerous, make sure kids only grab one ice cream sandwich from the freezer, clean off hands, clean off table, clean off floor, clean off faces, etc.

Oops, I digress...

So not sure why Amber's been fussy, other than I think she's not napping as much as she should. I have been giving her a little bit of whole cow's milk at dinner. I'm wondering if I'm pushing that and it's bothering her stomach. I guess I'll stop that for awhile and see if she's still fussy.

Cory was pretty good last night, but he gets fussy because he doesn't want to share a toy or someone takes a toy from him. He cries when he can't find DeeDee and he cries when I'm not holding him. I can usually snap him out of it by kneeling down to his level and asking him to use his words. Usually he just wants me to hold him.

So after I got most of the dishes done, we all went downstairs to watch a movie. I can usually do this in the evenings with a high rate of success. Last night was good. We all went down and they picked out Stellaluna. When the boys were settled, I took Amber up to bed. She was very glad to get her bottle and lay down. Went to sleep without a peep.

I went downstairs and Tyler wanted to cuddle in my lap. Cory wanted to sit next to us. Ahh, calm. Miles got home and we went to bed.

When does the fussy slow down? Aren't the boys old enough to stop all the crying?

Mother's Day 2008

My sweet, sweet babies. How much I love you and how much I love being your mom. Each of you are becoming your own person and developing your personalities and how much I love each of you!

Cory

You are such a sweet, cuddly boy. I love our mornings together when I come in your room and you make up words and I say them back to you. You love to giggle at this. Then you roll around and say, "You can't reach me" and I pretend I can't and you giggle, giggle, giggle. Then you want to get dressed and go down and join everyone for breakfast.

You are a smart cookie! You know all your colors and you love to put different thoughts together. I don't know why I am so amazed at your brilliance! I try to encourage you and ask you all sorts of questions. "Hey, I have an idea." and "Don't ya" are two of my favorite sayings right now. You know what a grader, a loader, a dumptruck, a scraper, a roller, a tractor, a combine, a backhoe and a snort are. You correct me when I'm wrong.

You are starting to say, "I can't". This bothers me probably more than it should. I know you can do anything you put your mind to and I don't want to do things for you and ruin your self esteem.

You are a born leader. Everyone likes to follow you. In a new situation, you just jump right in and are in the middle of it in no time. You and your older cousin Kyran like to help Bumpa with the planting of the garden and both of you run around together. You are very careful and make sure that you are safe in the parking lot and around the streets.

You like to cuddle and I love our time together. I love you so much!

Tyler

You are such a gentle soul. You love your brother and you especially love your baby sister. I have to help you learn to be more gentle with her because you like to hold her and want to pick her up. She lets you do it because I think she loves you just as much.

You are a little shy in groups, but once you survey the situation, you are comfortable anywhere. You are a tall, handsome little boy. I worry about your teenage years because you are not afraid of anything. You go all out and are very focused. When you put your mind to it, there is nothing that you can't do.

You are such a good sharer. You like to give Amber toys to play with and you will give her your DeeDee (blanket) if she seems upset. You will give Cory a toy if he's crying about it and you have it. You like to bring things to me and help around the kitchen and the yard.

You are so smart! You know all of your colors and you can count to 8 all by yourself. You love to play Sudoku and you can draw little circles inside all the squares. You are very organized and can line things up very neatly, although you mostly prefer to dump toys all over the room.

You challenge every fiber of patience in me. I hope I can be a good mom for you and guide you in a positive way. Sometimes you don't want anything to do with me, but if I go away, you want me right back. I love our cuddle time together.

You are a quiet leader. You are a quick learner and others follow you just by your very nature. You have a quiet determination and a nack for getting things done.

I love you so much! You are my precious boy.

Amber

At 10 months you are starting to really let us know your opinions. I think you've realized that with both your 2 1/2 year old brothers, you need to start voicing your opinion. You have been such a blessing and so wonderful to take care of.

You love your mommy and get upset every time I leave the room. We have had a wonderful time together and I love having you around. You help keep us grounded. You really don't like to cuddle that much, but you want me right there by your side.

You are very sweet and very independent! You never did very well with us feeding you baby food, you went straight to the solid food your brothers were eating. When you were just born last summer you would cry and I would hold you and bounce you and nothing worked. When I set you down, you were happy.

You are crawling and getting into all sorts of stuff. You love to be in the middle of the action and will often times get close to being run over by a flying dump truck or fire engine.

You are very forgiving of your brothers and will let Tyler poke at you and try to pick you up. Tyler and Cory make you giggle and you love watching them.

You are my precious girl. I love you so much!

Hands Are Not for Hitting

Tyler has been a challenge as he goes through his two's with learning how to express himself, especially when he's upset or angry about something. We went through a biting phase at daycare, a head butting stage for awhile and now hitting. He will hit me, his Daddy or Cory mostly. He doesn't seem to hit other kids at his daycare now, which is good.

I have a really hard time dealing with this. It really hurts my feelings. Usually he'll hit me while I'm taking him up for a time out or taking him to bed. Doing something that he really doesn't want to do.

Last night after we got their pajamas on, brushed their teeth and finished our books, Miles wanted to lay down with Cory and I was taking Tyler to bed. Tyler started kicking and crying and then hitting me saying that he wanted Daddy. After he hit me twice, I told him that I wasn't going to lay down with him and that he'd have to lay in bed by himself. My tactic is to leave him and walk away when he hits. It does seem to help. So I laid him down and left him in his room (locking the door of course). He kicked and screamed and I waited the obligatory 3 minutes. When I went back in, he calmed down and said he was sorry. He then asked for Daddy to lay down with him, so I went to get Miles and he laid down with him.

I know walking away is the right thing to do, it's just so frustrating at the time. I can't wait till he gets out of this phase.

Croup

Well, we didn't go to the Dr., but Amber was sick over the weekend. So much for sleeping through the night! Friday night she woke up at 11pm and had a fever (low grade), about 100.8. I gave her Motrin and it seemed to help, but she woke up several times.

Along with the fever was a barky like cough and difficulty breathing. Saturday was tough for her, she obviously didn't feel very good. Saturday night was better and she slept most of the night. By Sunday she felt better with no fever, so we decided that she could go to daycare on Monday.

When I got to daycare there was a sign on the Infant B room door - 1 confirmed case of croup. I'm pretty sure that's what she had. I looked it up and it is pretty common for her age group and encompasses a large range of upper respiratory inflammation type viruses. Monday she had a great day and was completely over it.

I think about how much easier it is to parent the second (or in our case third) child. If this had happened to one of the twins, I'm sure I would have panicked and gone to the Dr. over the weekend. As it turns out, Amber is fine, viral infection that can't be treated anyway. It is so much better to be more laid back about these things. So much easier on everyone.

Life is Grand

Bathtub Fun

The Kitty

I had a beautiful white kitty before we were married. His name was Romeo and the reason I had him is a long story, but he was a cranky sort and was hard to like, but I did love him and gave him the best care he could have. Some of his hard to live with traits included spraying on furniture and pooping outside his box. (Even if his box were cleaned every day, which I did.)

When I got married, Romeo went to live with my parents. Miles didn't want a cat living in the house. He had grown up with barn kitties that lived outside and didn't come in the house. After awhile Romeo got to be too much for my parents because my mom since had gotten 2 cats of her own. The unfortunate thing about the timing was that mom decided that she couldn't have him when I was 6 months pregnant with the twins. Giving him to a shelter was out of the question since he was an older cat with some health problems. They would not have kept him and he would have felt horribly abandoned. I just could not do that to him. I owed him the kindness and dignity and responsibility for him. He was a living being that couldn't just be discarded. So, we dealt with it and Miles actually cleaned the box every day while I was pregnant.

Romeo lived pretty well. He had his own room, our guest room, and spent most of the time in there. Eventually he would come down in the evenings sometimes to get pet, but most of the time he slept in the sun in that room. At night he would yowl his displeasure about many things, I'm sure. He may have been a little lonely, but I gave him what I could, especially after the twins were born. At this point, Romeo was 13 years old.

I'm giving you this background because the boys never really knew the kitty. They knew he was there and would sometimes go into the room to see if the kitty was there, but they never really paid too much attention.

About six months ago, we finally made the decision to put Romeo down. It was a long, hard decision and one I still question, but at least he left this world well loved and with a lot of dignity.

Tonight while I was laying with Cory at bedtime, Cory started talking about the kitty. He asked me where he went. Since we don't believe in a god, this is a hard story to tell to a 2 year old. I told him that the kitty went to the vet. I'm not so sure that was a good response, because then he said that Grammie has 2 kitties and they don't go to the vet. Well, yes, kitties also go to the vet for their checkups like we go to the Dr. for our checkups.

Then Cory talked about Angie's kitty and that her name is Miss Kitty and that she lives in the garage. He talked about Romeo living in our house and kept asking me where the kitty went.

This is really hard for several reasons. First, I don't want to make things up and not give Cory the chance to know what really happened. Second, he makes me think about Romeo when I'm still missing him and sad that he's gone.

I guess it's also good in a way, since Romeo is loved and asked about even by ones that he didn't even know that well. And I'm amazed at the things that the kids keep inside their heads even when they don't have much speech yet and then bring up months later when you least expect it.

Bye bye Romeo, we love you!