It's halloween! I've always enjoyed seeing the kids that trick or treat at our house, but since my son came along, this day has a whole new meaning. I love seeing my son get excited!! I've been telling him this past few days that on Wednesday, Halloween, we will go to our neighbors' houses and say trick ot treat. Then last night, I reminded him that tomorrow is finally Halloween. He said, "no, mommy. We go to neighbors' house on Wednesday!" 

Last year he enjoyed his halloween and sorted all the candies and chocolates, though he didn't know what they were. But this year, he most definitely knows what chocolates are! He will be a fireman tonight, though he has already worn the costume a few times to his schools' harvest festival and his individual class's party on Monday.

Aaah, I can't wait until the girls can fully participate. What fun!

We got to meet a lot of relatives on Saturday at the funeral. My hubby has 3 cousins and it has been about 5 years since we saw them last, when none of us had kids yet. This time, everyone had kids and they are all about the same age, the oldest being 5 years old, and the youngest being 2 months old.

What's amazing is that we heard from a lot of people that for having a toddler and twins, we seem to have it "together" and that we are pretty calm. We didn't quite know how to respond to it, because if you've read my blogs a while ago, I was writing about loosing it when my son.

So what is it to be "together"? I really don't know and I'm very curious. The only thing I could think of what "together" may be, is when I see of of the hubby's cousin. She is older than us by about 3-4 years. When I talked to her (and apparently, when others did as well), she seemed to be not paying as much attention. She wouldn't make eye contact because she was constantly eyeing her 2 1/2 year old daughter like a hawk. You could be in a middle of a sentense with her and she would run off to get to her daughter. Hmmmm. Is she being high-strung? too uptight?

My husband and I each had a baby in our arms and whoever ends up closes to Matty would be the one to keep an eye on him. Besides, nana and papaw were there, so I knew someone was watching Matty.

The cousins also commented on how calm we were in dealing with Matty's allergic reaction. Matty was close by, and when I saw his eyes puffing up, I called out my husband's name (he was in the oppositte side of the room) with a firm loud voice and asked him to wash his face (he was licked repeated by the dogs). After that was done, the hubby left to buy antihistamine and that was the end of the issue.  Though apparently, when the hubby drove to the pharmacy, he was freaking out the whole time thinking that Matty would be in anaphalactic shock by the time he got back.

I am just surprised by us being called calm parents who seem to have it together. We must be good fakers!

On Friday night, we've decided that we would all go to the hubby's uncle's funeral early the next day and come home the same evening. So on Saturday, after an early start, we've managed to head out the door at 7:45am. The drive was supposed to take 3 hours, so that was plenty of time to meet the in-laws for lunch at 11am before heading to the funeral home. Well, my children had other ideas and we didn't make it there until 12:15. Matty had to go, then 1/2 hour later, Jojo was hysterical because she had a blow out, then Katie was upset, and then it was time to breastfeed. It was so frustrating. I told everyone that one more outburst from anyone, I was going to turn right around and go home (by myself!).

Then from about 12:30 until we left at 6:30pm, the girls barely got any sleep. They were very very cranky. It was understandable because this was the most exciting day they've had, meeting a lot of people, getting held by a lot of people, and hearing all sorts of different sounds. By 5pm I couldn't get them to quiet down. Maybe it was because they were being held a lot more than often and they were not used to it? Finally, on the drive home, I told my husband that that  the girls were cranky probably because they had not been together all day long. He agreed. He said that at one point in the afternoon when he stood beside me while he was holding Katie and I was holding Jojo, Katie reached out to touch Jojo. But I moved and turned around so Katie burst out crying. I was busy talking to someone that I had no idea all of these were going on.

Everyone was sleepy by the time we got home at 9:30pm, but I made sure to lay the girls down and turn them towards each other. They caught each other's eyes and they smiled at each other. After a couple of minutes, I put them to bed and they were out for the night.

Amazing. All they needed was together time in order to cope with the stresses of the day. I'm a little disappointed at myself that I didn't figure this out until the very end of the end when they were so exhausted. But we learn.

Matty had trouble too. The hubby's uncle's widow has 2 giant poodles in their house that were running around outside. Matty loves dogs and loves being outside, but unfortunately the dogs loved him a little too much. They licked him all over his face the first time, then they jumped all over him and rubbed against him knocking him down. And more than once, the dogs ambushed him from the bushes. When he got inside, I wiped down his face and he was off and playing again. Not 5 minutes later, I saw him rubbing his eyes and then he had welts all over his face and both his eyes were puffing up fast. I called my husband and he high tailed out of there and bought an antihistamine.

Second lesson learned - travel with antihistamine at all times.

Yesterday I woke up with achy neck. I must have slept on it wrong, I thought. But then throughout the day, all my joints followed suit and I have a nonstop migraine headache. I don't know what is wrong with me since I don't have a cold at all. Just the migraine and achy body.

With my achy body, I went out late last night when the kids went to bed to look for some sort of bodysuit with a cute hood as a costume for the twins. Tonight, there is a halloween party at Matty's school where they use their costume and trick ot treat in each classroom. It's a family event, and I thought how cute if the twins could dress up too. But unfortuantely, I couldn't find any. Can you believe the stores now have Christmas stuff now? I found the kind of clothes I was looking for, only they are cute Santa stuff. I went to Walmart and found a couple of costumes (cow and a horse) but the fabric feels so stiff and scratchy. I don't want to irritate the girls' skin. So I just bought a couple of bear outerwear/jacket suit.

So tonight, my dear Matty is in for a lot of fun. Then tomorrow, daddy is leaving early in the morning to drive 3-4 hours away to attend his uncle's funeral. He is coming home to drive another 3-4 hours come home in the evening since it would not be easy for me to be alone over the weekend.

Then he sprung a surprise on me that he may have to go to Germany for a week for business the weekend after Thanksgiving (the end of November). I urged him to turn it down if it's voluntary since he's been good enough to answer the call for the last 3 years, but he may have no choice. A week with the kids would be difficult for me, so we may have to pack up and stay at the in-laws. They are great people, but I just wish I didn't have to do it.

Well, I'm off to lie down, or something. I don't want to take any medicine to help my headache because I don't want to girls to be affected by it, but I may have to. We'll see.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

My son woke up at about 4:30am this morning because his leg was itchy. He woke up saying "mommy, medicine, medicine!"  After that, I don't think he fell back asleep. Then at 5am, he jumps up out of bed and said "poo! poo!" so off we ran to the bathroom. I was hoping to go back to sleep, but apparently, he thought it was morning and wanted to go play.

He played with the puzzles that his daddy got him yesterday and didn't want to leave for school without finishing them. Unfortunately, daddy didn't have time and had to go so we had to take the puzzles away. So then there was a great big tantrum. Half an hour after they left, I got a call from my husband saying that his drive to the preschool was stressful because Mr. little grouchy cried and screamed the entire way.

It was quiet at last for me after the boys left, but I feel like a zombie. I only got 4 1/2 hours of sleep.

I've been on Minti for quite a while and have known a few people deeply (or as deeply as they would allow, I guess) and some of them I have grown to consider my true friends - I wish  they lived near me! Some of them have been a source of pure inspiration when I most needed to be inspired, and the most inspiring being Marglr. This woman has been through so much in life that would leave most people bitter and hateful, but not her.

She was a source of positivity during the ups and downs of my pregnancy with my twins and lately, she's been the source quite a bit of giggling. Marg, the comments you've been writing lately has just absolutely filled me with a lot of quiet chuckles. I'd be laughing harder, but some people may think I'm insane.

So, which of our Minti friends have had the greatest positive influence on you? Enter a blog about it and let the spotlight shine on them! They deserve to be recognized and thanked.

I took my son on an hour long trek around the neighborhood yesterday and left the girls with their daddy. We got a couple of long pieces of branches as walking sticks and had fun in the backyard. Then we walked down the road. I let him lead and went wherever he wanted, but then we were heading to a busy road down a hill. I tried to tell him that we had to turn around and head back where we came from because it was dangerous to go any farther. We could hear a lot of cars going by, so I told him that we didn't want to get hit by a car and must go the other way (I pointed to the opposite direction).

He then looked at the direction I was pointing at and said, "Mommy, 5 cars over there. We go that way, Mommy, cars all gone!" 

DOH! He could see about 3 cars parked in the house where I wanted us to go, but couldn't see any cars where he wanted to go. Who could argue with that?!

I then had to explain that the 3 cars were not moving, so it was safe to go that way.

aaahhh, oh well. 1 point for him, 0 for me.

A week or so ago, I blogged about my brain turning into mush. Well, I have just found another evidence pointing to this fact.

I've been looking at some of the comments/blogs that I've written in the past week or so and just noticed that I type a completely different word than what I intend to. What's up with that? The only consolation being that at least the word I end up typing at least starts with the same letter as the word I meant to use.

For example: On my previous blog for the day, I meant to say, "I lift her up." but instead type "I light her up".

Yikes! At this rate, I don't think I'll be able to help my children with any of their homeworks when once they go to school. I'll be saying things like, "go ask your daddy".

My girls are using two different sleep positioners (for the flat head). Jojo is using one that has a wedge (slightly inclined for reflux), but the problem is, she somehow scoots all the way down. So multiple times in the middle of the night, I have to light her up.  ( <---- I just noticed this "light her up"? Where is my brain. I meant to say "lift her up")

Katie is using a flat one (she has a special one where I can manipulate her positions to help her flat head) but somehow she kicks up and in the middle of the night, she has a crick on the neck because she's scooted all the way up to the side of the bassinet. So then, I wake up multiple times a night to pull her back down.

Oh, and then I have to reposition my son so that he doesn't end up horizontal to the hubby and I and end up kicking me. Since the girls are sleeping 8 hours at night, my breasts get so rock hard and getting kicked on them isn't the best feeling in the world.

aaahhh, motherhood. What do you ask my hubby is doing during all these? Sound asleep...  If he were still snoring, i would have to add smacking him to the list of things I have to do in the middle of the night. But fortunately, his surgeries have straightened all that out.

I'm currently on hold with my insrance company trying to straighen up something that isn't my responsibility. I went to a different doctor back in April when I was suffering from the flu, because it was the weekend and my doctor's office was closed. I paid my part of the bill, and the insurance paid part of the bill. Now the doctor's office is contacting me saying the insurance hasn't paid the whole thing. I called them and said that I paid my part and that insurance has told me that they have paid theirs. The woman from the billing office then told me that something isn't getting paid and that it will be my responsibility. Yeah, right.

 Just because they can't figure out what was wrong doesn't mean it's my responsibility to pay. I've done medical billing for several years while I was in college to know enough about this. The bottom line is that the doctor's office should really talk to the insurance so that they can figure things out for themselves, but instead of doing their job, they're making me do the work.

So now I'm on the phone with the insurance company, on hold, while they talk to the doctor's office. ARGH! I don't really need to be in the middle of this crap. It's not like I haven't paid my part!

^&#*$&(#*$&)#*$

Like I have nothing better to do than be on the phone all morning long. In the meantime, my girls are crying.

The boys are gone, and I'm trying to get Minti time while the girls are still asleep. I have a baby monitor on, and now hear that the girls are awake (or maybe just one of them).  I'm hearing all sorts of things and sometimes I get an outburst. Someone is definitely trying to amuse herself. Sometimes I swear I could hear words.

My son didn't feel like eating his breakfast this morning, so I tried to shove a waffle in his mouth when he was distracted. He didn't mind it, but he accidentally bit my fingers. I said, "Ouch! You bit me!". He looked puzzled and thought for a second. He pointed a pointer finger at me and said, "You so lucky!".  I don't exactly know what he meant, but I think he must have heard someone say it at school because to me it almost sounded like a scold "You're so lucky, you didn't get hurt too badly!". So funny.

Aaah, it's been a good morning.

ARGH! @#)#)#)#_!+)#$

I had just written a long profound blog (profound at least to me) and it disappeared! I hit save and then it says I need to log in. I hit the back button and had a sigh of relief when my entry was still there. But then I log in and it was all gone.

*(&#)*@_(@+(!!!!

So I've been losing my hair for a couple of months now. Unfortunately this is normal for me after childbirth. With my son, it didn't stop until about 7 months later. So now, there isn't a square inch in my house that isn't covered with hair.

My son hates it so much, I think he is developing hair phobia. He says, "Mommy!! Hair, hair!" when he sees hair on the floor. Sometimes I hear, "aaah, mommy... hair on my arm!" and holds out his arm like it has the plague. And of course he raises a fuss when he sees hair floating on his bath water. At this rate, we'd probably have to put him in some sort of therapy.

My girls also get covered with hair. They're almost bald but you wouldn't know it by the strands of long black hair clinging to their clothes.

When is it going to end! If my vacuum could talk, I think it would have quit the job a long time ago.

Our son said something hillarious yesterday, but my hubby beat me first in blogging about it. So visit MonkeyDad's blog and have a laugh.

Yesterday I brought the girls to the doctor to get their first RSV shot at 9am. It was early, but morning was the best time to do it. They did very well and didn't have any sort of bad reaction.

In the afternoon, I had to take my son in for his flu shot (with the twins in tow). My son did really well and didn't even cry. What a brave little man.

Then we came home, so I could nurse the twins and then after my hubby came home, we decided to go out to a restaurant. That was stressful. Jojo sat with daddy, and Katie and Matty sat with me. Jojo started crying and daddy couldn't get her to stop. So we witched places. Then Katie started crying, and then Jojo started crying. It was getting so loud and stressful. With Matty's naturally loud voice...it was even more stressful. Fortunately, no one seemed to mind (or at least I was oblivious and didn't see those who did mind). The servers were quiet friendly and kept coming by to see the twins.

I'm sure we were getting some negative attention because of the amount of noise coming from our table, but becase we have the twins, we were getting positive attention as well.

The girls had their 4 month well baby check yesterday and got 4 shots, 2 on each leg. Thankfully, my husband was able to take the morning off to help me out. So both the girls could be consoled.

They are growing well, though still below the 30th percentile for weight for their age. Katey is 14 lbs, and Jojo is 12 lbs. The pediatrician isn't concerned about Katey's flathead and said if I really wanted to go the helmet option, that I should at least wait until she is 6 months old and just her off the flat side.

They are getting their 1st RSV shot on Friday morning. I am taking my son that afternoon for a flu shot. At first I thought I should just bring everyone at once, but then I thought that I probably wouldn't be able to handle 2 crying babies and a crying toddler.

My girls have been sleeping 8 hours at night (wow, can you believe it?!) lately, but I have not beeng getting enough myself. Why? Well, it's my husband's fault. He showed me a website with games that you can download for free and play for an hour before it expires (then you have to pay to play it). So I've been playing some games. It turns out, the games last for more than hour if you don't exit from it. BAD!! So I've been sleeping very very late. Bad, bad, bad mommy!!

Well, today was the 3rd day in a row that I've not been getting enough sleep and as evident, I've become accident prone. My left arm is sore from a flu shot this morning and because it's sore, I knew it would be harder for me to lift the twins in and out of the carseat base. So when I did, I put a little extra umph... and what happens? I smacked myself right on the eye.  Then as I got in the backseat to unload them out of the car, I smacked my head. Hard. Almost hard enough to cause myself to pass out.

Oi.

I'm sure everyone can relate that when we, women, start having kids our brain start to detoriate. Well, after 3 kids, mine has melted into a big pile of mush.

Yesterday while in the car for a family outing, my husband was telling me something. By the time he got to the 3rd sentence, I was painfully aware that I had already forgotten the 1st, most important sentence he made - the sentence that told me what the subject was about. So then I had to interrupt him to ask again, and he burst out laughing.

In my defense, I told him that unlike the day before when I had no idea that I even missed every other word of what he was saying, this time, I was aware that my brain brain matter that slowly leaking out of my ears.

I also told him that I'm the way I currently am because I had to give some of my brain matter to our 3 kids, to which he replied, "You ARE aware that you DON'T actually give them part of your brain, right?"

"Yeah! I'm not THAT stupid. YET!" I said.

Class pictures were taken last week at my son's school. The photographer took a couple of poses of the students and here is my son's. Where does the time go? He is definitely all grown up.

The picture on the right was only taken January 2007 and the left was a couple of weeks ago. It's amazing the difference 9 months makes.

My laptop is still dead. The hubby was going to do the system recovery thing, but it was going to erase everything that's in there so we'll hold off on that. His friend from work wants to try something, and if that doesn't work, then we'll go ahead and do a system reboot. It may or may not get the laptop going again, but the hubby wants to go ahead and buy a new laptop. He's the one who earns the money, but I don't think he realizes that money doesn't grow on trees. Go figure.

I gave the girls a bath this morning after I breastfed and hoped that they would go to a sound sleep for a couple of hours. Katie fell asleep for 30 mintues, while Jojo cried and cried. I picked Jojo up and she fell asleep on my arms, so I laid her back to bed. Then Katie woke up and cried and cried. I picked her up and she got really sleepy so I put her back down. Now she's crying again.

Sometimes I complain that they take turns like this, but really I should consider myself lucky. Because on days when they both decide to be cranky at the same time is really really stressful and makes me wish  I had 4 arms and I was deaf.

My little man is battling cold and cough and it's making him feel miserable. I've been giving him some cough medicine, but he hates it and cries. I try and give him words to express himself by telling him, "I know you don't like it. It doesn't taste good, does it. It tastes bad, but it'll help make you feel better."

So now, after give him medicine he says, "Mommy, may-cine tastes good."

"Don't you mean bad? It tastes bad?"

"Yes, mommy. May-cine tastes bad," he says with a sad look.

We have  a cable channel full of educational programs for toddlers, and recently, the show Fireman Sam has been added to the lineup. My son is crazy about it! When I say crazy, I mean crazy. He asks for it all the time. But since it's still pretty new, there are about 5 or so double episodes only, so we've seen each one about 10x, I'd say. But my little man doesn't mind.

The hubby thought it'd be great to get him a Fireman Sam fire truck and searched for it online. Unfortunately, most of the stores who sell these merchandise are in Europe and wouldn't ship to the U.S. One or two would ship here, but for an insane amount of money.

Also, since the Fireman Sam craze began, we've been driving to a Fire house on the way to school and on the way home. He's enjoying that too, so I think we'll be able to just dress him up as a U.S. fireman instead.

When I came down this morning, my hubby said my laptop just crashed and burned. It wouldn't start up. We are now using the Recovery disks but it doesn't seem like that's going to work too. I'm very upset because there are a lot of pictures that I'm losing. The last time I backed up pictures was August, so I have lost a month and a half worth of pictures. Doesn't sound much, but it is. I take pictures almost everyday and of course babies grow up fast in a month!

If it's really really dead, I don't mind.. but I want to take it somewhere to try and recover pictures. Anything else can go up to computer heaven.

Now the hubby and I are thinking of getting a network hard drive - a storage only unit that is beyond crashing and burning.