Perfecting Imperfection

Jerry and I talked a lot about having a third baby before we were surprised with a pregnancy that gave us #3 and #4!  One of the things we talked about was pushing our luck.  We were worried that having more babies would be pushing our luck because the two we had were (and still are) healthy and happy.  They were, for the most part, pretty easy babies and we had them right where we wanted them before I became pregnant again.  Of course, I now know that having them right where you want them only lasts for a very short period of time anyway - so, enjoy it when it happens!

The more I think about the fact that we even considered that we were pushing our luck by having more babies, the more I feel kind of selfish.  However, I totally think that pregnancy #3 gave us the one we are going to have trouble with!

Let me start by saying the D-Listed Blog Party ROCKS!!!

I solemnly swear, with all my heart, that I will visit each blog that came and visited mine...eventually.  :)  All of you who commented that you don't know how I do it - eh, sometimes it takes me longer but I eventually get the job done!

I had a wonderful moment tonight.  A moment where I was able to just enjoy what I was doing - of course at first the 100 things I have to do (finish book club book, visit blogs, do dinner dishes, finish laundry, watch Glee, look at school stuff, fix my BlackBerry, etc.) were running through my head...then I started thinking about the 100 other things I wanted to do tomorrow (clean cobwebs out of corner of kitchen, write some emails, more laundry, finish bedrooms, wash sheets, what's for dinner?).   Then I just stopped.  I actually kinda, almost cried.  Finally, I closed my eyes and took it all in.

Here is my Baby Baby -


He is not a snuggler.  He is lovable and adorable but he just doesn't snuggle.  He's too busy to snuggle.  He's always on the move and when he's tired he just can't seem to get comfortable until you put him in his crib...except for tonight.  Tonight, he actually cried when I put him down!  So, I picked him back up and rocked him a little bit...and he snuggled with me.  My non-snuggler wanted to snuggle with me.  I had a hard time, at first, relaxing.  Then, I started thinking about how very soon he will be like this....


Too big to hold in my arms so easily...too big to rock to sleep.  My twins are the perfect size right now...they will be for a while.  I don't remember a whole lot about Nate and Danika at this age . . . I remember being tired.  I remember rushing it.  I remember thinking, "Oh, it will be so great when they can talk and tell me what they want or what is wrong."  I remember thinking, "Man, I can't wait until they can walk on their own and I don't have to carry them everywhere"  I remember thinking, "Gah!  I just wish they could play by themselves for an hour so I could get something done".

Not this time, though - this time around I'm trying to hold on to every last second I can...I'm trying to suck it in...I'm trying to make sure it's seared into my memory.  I don't want to forget what it's like to hold my baby close to me and snuggle him while he drifts off to sleep.  I want to remember what that feels like.

Which is why I took 30 full minutes out of my evening and did nothing but snuggle my non-snuggler.  I held him a little tighter than I usually would and willed myself to remember that exact feeling....that exact moment.

I'm going to really enjoy this summer.  This summer is the last summer I will have babies..,.next summer I will have toddlers...I plan on stopping and smelling a lot more "roses" than I have before - I don't want to miss a minute...it's already going too fast!

 

I love Peter Krause.  I loved him when he played Nate Fisher in Six Feet Under.  I loved him in The Lost Room ~ which my dad actually had me start watching.  He was good in Dirty Sexy Money, but I wasn’t a fan of the show otherwise.  He’s the reason I started watching Parenthood – and I’m really loving his role in it and the show in general. 

I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to like the show after the pilot.  There was too much drama and not enough comedy.  I was hoping it would have a nice balance – but all the things that started going downhill at first made me nervous that this show was just going to be one more thing that reminds me that life doesn’t always work out the way you plan.  I don’t need a TV show to tell me that things go wrong, the unexpected happens and people with the best of intentions aren’t always able to hold true to their promises.  Life isn’t easy – but I didn’t want a TV show to remind me of that and shove it down my throat.  I’ve warmed up to the show, though. 

There is still more drama than comedy.  There are still a lot of reminders of how life doesn’t always turn out the way we want or the way we planned.  However, there are also more of those, “THIS is what it’s all about” moments.    Like one of the last scene’s last night – the whole family (differences aside) was together supporting Peter’s character and his family as they waited for a really important call about his son being admitted to a special school – he was recently diagnosed with Aspergers.  When the call came – they celebrated together!  It was one of those moments when everyone is happy…those are the kind of moments I want in my TV shows.

Without getting too personal – my extended family isn’t the way I imaged it was going to be when I was growing up.  My sister has been dealt a really bad deal health wise – she and her husband – and it’s made a lot of things out of the question.  For example, I can’t just meet my sister at the mall to let the kids play in the playground for a little bit.  My sister has MS and she is in a wheelchair.  She doesn’t drive.  She walks short distances with a walker.  It’s hard on everyone – especially her.  She has a beautiful 3 year old daughter who loves to play with my kids. (and fight with them…because isn’t that what cousins do?)  That’s just my sister – we won’t even get into what’s going on with other members of both mine and Jerry’s family.

It seems, as of late, that my family just doesn’t have a lot of those, “THIS is what it is about” moments. It’s almost like all of our happy moments are somehow shadowed by the stuff that didn’t work out the way it was suppose to – sorry if that doesn’t make sense, but I’m not going to elaborate because it would take too long and be too upsetting.  It makes me sad.    When that happens, I really have to “force” myself to look at what I have – because I am blessed.  My children are healthy.  My children are amazing. 

Last night I had an “Ah Ha!” moment.  I realized that it’s not about me – as much – anymore.  It’s more about them.  I seriously looked at Jerry and said, “We may not be able to have that – but THEY can!” I feel a little more hopeful.  I feel like I have a new understanding of my purpose.  I will tell you that I kind of scared about it – having any kind of expectations is dangerous business…but I’m excited now, too. 

I started thinking about 4 kids…in 4 years!  4 kids…so close together. . . then I realized maybe God does know what he’s doing.  4 kids that close together just might mean they will be best friends.  They will help each other through things.  They will lean on each other.  They will be there for each other.  They will have lives full of those, “THIS is what it is about” moments together.  They may drive me crazy now – but maybe the fact that they are so close together will really be a tremendous blessing in the future. 

Okay – I’m done rambling.  Head on over to Oh, Sweetlee Me…I actually won this contest!  It came in the mail yesterday!  :)  It’s really pretty!

Oh – and guess what…I’m spending some time with my favorite Canadian TONIGHT!!!

Sooo excited!

PS ~ here he is singing my wedding dance song!  :)

 

 

So ~ Courtney, over at Make Me A Blessing, started using Windows Live Writer and was raving about it.  I decided to give it a try, too…see what all her fuss was about.  I’ll have to play around with it a little bit – but I already like that you can do more with the font and it seems like there is a lot more options. 

I really enjoyed Friday Follow.  However, after the past two Fridays I am drowning in blogs!  I try to follow blogs I will find interesting – and I follow everyone who follows me.  I think I added 10 blogs to my Google Reader on Friday – I’m still not caught up.  I guess I’m going to have to go through and pick the ones I really want to get into and focus on those.  My time is limited – and I feel like I’m all over the place these days!

What do you do?  If you participate in Friday Follow, how do you keep up?  I logged onto my Google Reader after 1 day of not really being able to spend anytime reading and I had over 170 unread posts!  I guess part of my problem is that I like to comment on the blogs that I read – which takes extra time!

The main reason I didn’t get to read many blogs this Friday was that I had my niece, Angelina, here with us for the day.  I wasn’t really worried about her being here – even though she fights with Danika and Danika has a lot of trouble sharing with her.  All three of the “big kids” ended up on our Naughty Step at one point or another…but I do have proof that they can play nice together!

 

Now, they did manage to get EVERY toy out of EVERY box and container in the house.  They even went down to the basement (aka the “Toy Store” in our house – Nate’s name for it since that’s where we store the overflow of toys) and they played down there.  I have yet to actually clean up the havoc they reeked down there – I just haven’t been getting enough sleep to get up the energy.  For some reason the babies weren’t sleeping well.  Thursday and Friday night they were up at insane hours wanting fed and held.  Last night was better, though, so of course I picked last night to catch up on some TV.

We watch quite a few TV series these days.  We didn’t for the first few years we were married – it was too tough to be tied down to sitting in front of the TV at a certain time of the week.  Because of the beauty of DVR, we are hooked on TV again.  Last night we caught up on episodes of – Spartacus Blood and Sand, Community and Parenthood. 

Now – Spartacus is bad TV.  Really bad, actually.  So bad that we can’t help but watch it.  I say at least once per episode that we should stop watching it – but I know we won’t.  We are too curious about what will happen to this man turned gladiator who lost everything and has nothing left to live for . . .

Community just rocks!  It started out kind of slow…but man is it awesome now!  I LOVE Joel McHale and in this week’s episode he takes his clothes off!!  I seriously would have never guessed he was so well defined.  Plus, the whole Abed/Troy friendship cracks me up…they are hysterical.

Parenthood was okay.  I think my biggest problem with this pilot was that there was too much drama and not enough comedy.  The movie was a good mix of drama and comedy – this seemed like one problem after another with only one small piece of comic relief (one that was already shown on the preview).  I will keep watching it, though because Peter Krause is a favorite of mine.  I did cry real tears while watching.  When Peter’s character’s wife confronts him about their son, Max, possibly having Aspergers.  Of course, he is in denial and she looks at him and says, “There is something wrong with our baby.  Please, don’t make me go through this alone.”  Max looks to be about 5 or 6 in the show…maybe a little older.  The fact that she used the word baby was probably a major contributing factor to why I was bawling my eyes out.  It reminded me of that Olympics commercial -  

Made me cry EVERY time!

I have twins. I have twin boys that will be 6 months old in 5 days (I think it's 5...yeah, it's 5).  It's not easy having twins, but I don't really dwell on it much.  If I sit and think about how difficult having twins is it will just be harder - better to shut up and do what I have to do than sit around and whine about it.  The funny thing is, though, having twins doesn't really feel any different that having 2 babies.  That sounds stupid...let me see if I can explain a little more.

Our twins are fraternal twins.  Which means that they are NOT identical.  In fact, if you could have polar opposite twins we would have those.  Dean (who was the first one born and has always been about 2 pounds bigger than his brother) has a lovely olive complexion, dark eyes and fuzzy dark hair.  David (who was the second one born and my tiniest baby) is very fair skinned, blond hair and blue eyes.  Their builds are completely different.  They just look NOTHING alike!

The difference in appearance makes it easy to tell them apart (wow - truly am Mrs. Obvious today).  So...we don't have that "how do you tell them apart" problem people often have with twins.  Although, I've had people ask me that and tell me they wouldn't be able to tell them apart.  To which I respond, "Really - LOOK AT THEM!!!"  Ugh.

We also had our first two children very close together.  They were 14 months apart.  While that isn't the same thing as having twins, it is taking care of two "babies" at the same time.  I think that prepared us for the twins' arrival and all the work involved.  Seriously, it isn't that difficult...okay, sometimes it is - but day-to-day it isn't that bad and I think that is because we had Nate and Danika so close together.  It got us use to all the craziness.

Shortly after the boys were born Jerry and I had a conversation about how different they looked.  He commented, "Geeze, we can't even get twins right.  They aren't REALLY twins.  They are just like brothers."  Umm...NOOOO.  Trust me they ARE twins.  I should know.  But I get his point.  When we go places, once they are older and it's harder to tell, I bet people won't know they are twins...unless we tell them.

I have mixed emotions about this.  On one hand I'm happy because it will be so much easier for them to develop and maintain their own identity.  On the other hand I feel like they are missing out somehow.  I mean they have a twin brother, but they won't be able to play tricks on people like the girls in The Parent Trap did!  Oh, wait...maybe that is a blessing.  Hmmm...

I was going to move these pictures around to fit neatly in my post - but I'm being summoned to the living room to play yet another round of The Ladybug Game....so here are some pics for you to look at!

David and Nate playing on the floor

Dean - happy after his bath with Nate and Danika

Pretty soon we are moving them to their own cribs - I hope they do okay...I think I'll probably cry a little.  *sniff*sniff*

Al Bundy - Seriously, why does he do this?

Just had to take a picture...

This has to be the busiest week we've had in a while and to be honest I'm not all that thrilled about it.  I do like the fact that you can finally start to see some green underneath all of the white as the snow starts to melt, but it means that my week (or so) of hibernation is over.  It's time to go out and deal with the real world, again. 


I worked Monday (the day I'm usually in my pajamas until noon) and yesterday (which was scheduled off but we used it to make up a snow day).  I was suppose to take the twins to the doctor's today for shots...but I canceled because they haven't been feeling all that great and I didn't want to put their immune systems through anything else right now (and because I need a make up day to stay in my pajamas until noon).  We have a man coming to talk to us about a new front door - which would be AWESOME! - tonight.  Tomorrow, it's back to work again.  Friday is dinner up at my mom and dad's (maybe a little time out with friends later in the evening).  Saturday - we have nothing big planned...but Sunday, I'm making The World's Best Lasagna!  Don't ask me how many points it is...I'm making it (and eating it) anyway.  I've been pretty good this week and I'm soooo hungry for it!  It does take all day to make, though. 

Yesterday, we celebrated Clifford - the Big Red Dog's birthday at school.  Here's the picture I took of Nate for a special project we do with all the preschool kiddos.  Every other kid took their picture by Clifford's head...except my son.  My son decided that he wanted his picture with all of Clifford and that he wanted to sit next to Clifford's butt (exact words).  So, here he is - celebrating Clifford's birthday by taking a picture near his butt. 

This morning I started typing a post about how quiet my house was - about how peaceful it sounded.  My "big kids" were up at my parents' house and the "little guys" were still asleep.  I got about half way through the post when Dean woke up...with another fever.  I knew then that the rest of the day - and the post I'd started to write - wasn't going keep going the way it started.  I called the doctor and ended up rushing over there and leaving with a diagnosis of Acute Bronchiolitis/Resp Sync Virus and an Albuterol inhaler.

The rest of the day was kind of shot.  There was me trying to keep a very uncomfortable, cranky baby happy while also trying to do the few things I had on my MUST do list - switch laundry, take out garbage, empty dishwasher.  Then there were trips to the potty with Danika (who is starting to really catch on - but 1/2 the time goes just for the chocolate!)...bottles...medicine...diapers...drinks and snacks.  I was relieved when my parents stopped back down to help with Dean's second dose of Albuterol.  I was able to unload and load the dishwasher and breath for a few minutes while they were here.  Jerry showed up shortly after they left and I was able to just hold my sick baby while he slept for a while.

I started to think about my lost blog post. I jumped on to my Google Reader and read To The Max and Ellen's post...I cried...I decided I HAVE to share it with you.  If you have children...no matter what age...you should watch this.  You will probably cry or at the very least get a little bit choked up.  I'm sorry - but it is the perfect ending to the day I had...The Gift of an Ordinary Day.

In a parallel universe somewhere, I am in the shower after a satisfying day at a job I absolutely love, getting ready to hit the town with friends and have a few too many cocktails and some stimulating adult conversation that will not involve bodily functions or talking animals. In that parallel universe, I am getting ready to dance the night away without a single thought about how early I have to wake up tomorrow because tomorrow is SATURDAY and I never wake up before 11 on a Saturday, in that parallel universe, that is. I'm also still smoking and will probably be smoking close to a pack tonight while dancing and drinking - and not worried about it, in that parallel universe, that is - because it's Friday. In a parallel universe, I will probably pass out from too much of everything tonight around 3 am - but it's no big deal, because (like I said) I'll be sleeping in tomorrow.

In reality, I'm sitting in front of my laptop (having not showered today) with no makeup on, my hair (which is in desperate need of a cut and dye) is pulled up in a bun with those wispy pieces that won't stay put flying away all over the place. I'm waiting for my husband to get home so that I can hear him say, "What did you do all day?" when he sees the state of the house - which I DID clean...but that was like 45 minutes ago and the kids have already trashed it again. So, I will probably not talk to him for at least an hour after he makes the comment. After dinner (which is in the oven already), I will let him clean the kitchen while I sit patiently as my 2 children climb all over me crying and screaming because my lap isn't big enough for both of them at once...at least not anymore. Then, I will fight with them to get them to bed. I will eventually collapse into my own bed only to not be able to fall asleep, even though I know that I will have to wake up at some insanely early hour tomorrow to start the whole process over again.

Sound fun? Of course it does! Much more fun than that parallel universe...I mean who wants to still be doing those things in their 30's? Sometimes I do - sometimes I don't...tonight, I do. I will admit that today is one of those days I miss being single and not a mother. I miss having time to myself. I miss being able to think only about myself. I miss not having to worry about anyone else. I miss having money. I miss talking to adults about things other than my kids. I miss staying out, getting drunk and sleeping in late.

Truth is, I will probably never do those things again. I can't imagine a time when I won't worry about my kids. I can't imagine being able to completely relax ever again. Okay...so I'm being a little over dramatic here, but seriously there are so many things to worry about at every age! Right now I worry about them getting hurt by doing something they didn't know they shouldn't do. Things like diving face first of the couch - which my daughter did on Tuesday night.

Once they get into school I'll have a whole new set of worries. Do they understand what they are learning? Are they smart or stupid? Do other kids like them? Do they have friends? Are other kids nice to them? Are they nice to other kids? Do they listen to the teacher? Are they respectful?

I won't even go on to the worries I'll have as they get even older - okay, maybe a few...Are they doing drugs? Are they hanging out with the right crowd? Are they making smart choices when it comes to sex? Are they wearing their seat belt? Is the driver of the car they are in a good driver? Are they a good driver?

I think that I have officially worked myself into a panic attack.

I'm going to have a glass of wine and eat a bag of Hershey Kisses.

Then when my husband gets home I can tell him I drank a glass of wine and ate a bag of Hershey Kisses today...since he is going to ask anyway.

It's not that I didn't believe my parents when they told me that after 30 you have a lot more little aches and pains. I figured they were right...they usually are. However, I now UNDERSTAND what they meant. Little things that I would bounce back from quicker are starting to nag at me a lot longer. Today it's my hip.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping with Nate - it was a little better than going shopping with both kids...but I still had to threaten and bribe him to keep him in the cart. Before I got into the car I felt my hip "pop". Then it started to annoy me a little. It was just sore. By the end of the night it was stiff and sore...this morning it was stiff, sore, accompanied by shooting pain down my leg. I took some Advil, a hot shower, and am trying one of those WellPatch heat things on it - but nothing seems to really be doing much other than taking the edge off. Argh.

That's when it hit me - my parents were right, again. After 30 things start to linger a little more and be a bit more of a "deal" than before 30. It probably doesn't help that I lug 2 30 + lb. kids around on a daily basis...I mean they can walk down the steps...but why would they when Mama can carry them? Well - I need to get my butt up off this chair and stretch...plus my chocolate milk addict is calling for his latest fix. :)