Baby Fever

Pregnant women are all around me and I just can't help but feel... really happy for them. (Bet you thought I was going to say jealous. Nope. Not yet anyway.) But I can surely relate to their excitement!

My cousin is expecting a little girl the same time my girls were due last year. We're going to have three little girls within a year of each other running around at the lake. Yay!

Another girlfriend is due with her third in the end of August. I lunched with her last week and she's looking awesome! Complete with the glow. There really isn't anything much sexier than the glow of pregnancy.

Our accountant is due in July with her first, trying to plan ahead for quarterly taxes and the likes already. She's so funny about it all! They'd been trying for a long time, so I'm really glad their family is finally starting.

Our electrician and his wife (who happened to be one of our nurses while I was in having my babies) are expecting now, too.

With so many due, it's hard to believe that we have so many friends who have recently had babies, too. Baby fever!

Shyla's little guy was born in late November and he's already almost the same size as Lillian! And Shari's tyke arrived in January and is growing like a weed, too! My girls had better keep on eating to keep up with those fellas!

I've been trying to figure out great baby gifts for all these little ones - unique ones that I've loved where I won't have to worry about duplicates. I have a few in mind for the coming babies, but I won't share my secrets here. : )

This week was a blast with our babies! Lillian's top two teeth are officially through. And the girls have kicked their colds/ear infections. (Unfortunately, I picked up their colds on Monday and have been wiped out! Today is the first day where I haven't woken up from a fever. I'm considering this a change to "on the mend" status.) Breanna is all over the place - she keeps rolling into the dining room and getting her legs stuck in the chair legs. They're both just smiling like crazy and talking up a storm. I love being a mom. Even when I'm hacking and wheezing and exhausted, I love it so much!

I hope all of you readers who are also parents are enjoying your kiddos this weekend. What a great time to stay inside and get silly together!

Spring Fever

I have great news to share! I'm back to the world of self employment for a while. After 9 long months at a company that didn't fit, I'm free to run again! I'm going to refrain from posting the gory details in writing, as I still remember my mom's famous words - Don't burn your bridges. Who knows whom all my readers are? I will simply say that I feel like a million bucks!

My darling husband is convinced that improving my environment will alleviate enough stress that my Bell's Palsy will start to diminish much more quickly. In fact, I think I can see even more of my teeth on my right side. Yay!

I now finally have time to finish ghost-writing that book I'd been working on and had planned on finishing prior to the birth of my babies. Their early arrival threw that whole schedule out of whack, so now the book writers have reason to celebrate with me.

New season, new opportunities, new reasons to smile! Happy spring!

Liberated

I had an awesome day today! The details are private for now, but please join me in a little happy dance!

Mellow is Good

The babies are on the road to recovery, though still hacking up every now and then. Lillian is saying Mama and Up, and Breanna is still stuck on Poke. Though she does say BaBa when she sees a bottle.

We had a lovely weekend at home, relaxing. My folks returned to the US from their vacation, and it was nice to know they were home and safe again. Even though they travel to fairly safe vacation destinations, there's always the fear of the weird stuff that sometimes turns tourists into victims. I sat up late Friday night, sewing adorable velcro hair bows for the girls. Their hair is so fine that barrettes would slide right out, but velcro is a whole different story.

While the babies napped in carseats on Saturday, DH and I drove around and looked at window trim color. We had great conversation, and even hopped out to wade in the mud a little bit. We returned home to the wonderful aroma of porketta in the crock. It was fantastic, although, our skin and breath were pretty "Iron Range-y" - even the next morning after brushing teeth. I've finally found a butcher shop that has real porketta seasonings! (I've tried others, and their version of porketta is just rosemary and pepper. Lots of pepper.)

On Sunday afternoon, DH's folks came over for a visit with their grandbabies and a roast dinner on the grill. We even got in a round of pinochle, which was pretty fun. DH and I didn't win, but we enjoyed playing nonetheless. I'm still learning.

It was a great time to relax.

Little Sickies

It's official - spring has sprung, and so have ear infections. Our poor little darlings are sick - down and dirty sick. Breanna has a double ear infection and Lillian has a single one. And both have terrible deep coughs. And I feel awful for them!

When they started with a little cough, I blamed myself. You see, the girls attended their first parade on Saturday - the downtown St. Patrick's Day parade. The sun was shining, the babies were in snowsuits, and DH and I each snuck a green beer into our coffee mugs to make the outing an official Irish event. (About the only Irish in either of us was the Irish Cream we sipped in a coffee last month.) Anyway, we all enjoyed ourselves.

Since this was the first time we've really had the babies outside for more than a quick run from a vehicle into a building(first time in snowsuits anyway), I figured the winter air must be what brought on the coughs.

The doctor we saw today reassured me that the parade was not the culprit. In fact, when she was going through our records and talking about prescriptions and whatnot, she congratulated us on getting them this far without ear infections until now.

I had no idea it's practically mandatory for infants to get ear infections. I certainly don't remember having any of my own, or even hearing stories about them. But what do I know?

Anyway, my dear sister met me at the clinic because DH is out of town. Thank goodness. The babies kept us both busy, and since our regular physician wasn't in, the one we saw was pretty slow and had lots of questions. The girls are now on antibiotics and will hopefully kick this all really quickly. Keep them in your prayers. And if you're reading this before bed Thursday night, please say a quick prayer for me to get at least a little sleep since I'm single-parenting tonight.

I'm signing out with a yawn. G'night, all.

Poke

In her darling hoarse voice, Breanna has started trying to copy me when I've encouraged her to poke her arms through the cute little sleeves of her cute little clothes. Each morning we put on a onesie and then a shirt, so that's four times I tell her to poke before we even have breakfast. Sometimes, we have pantlegs to get into, too, so that's another two pokes. In the evenings after baths, we poke again into onesies and jammies. I guess she hears it a lot. Tonight after her bath, I was dressing her for bed and when I told her to poke, she looked at me and squeaked a "poke" out. I said "poke" again, and she repeated again.

My darling sister was here to help out, and she, too, heard the "poke." Ladies and gentlemen, we have a talker! Of all the first words! At least it wasn't "toot" or "poop" or "exhausted" or something else we talk a lot about at our house.

(For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that she was looking at me and repeating "Mama" last Saturday morning. She hasn't said it since, so I'm not counting it. It melted my heart nonetheless. But since my DH swears that both girls' first word will be "Dada," I'll keep all this a secret. He was practicing "Dada" with them even when they were still in the womb. Good thing he doesn't read my blog or his heart would be broken.)

Identical? For Sure.

Besides their survival of TTTS, I've only come across a few other instances when I've been certain of my daughters' identical status. Take this morning at 2:11. Both girls woke up crying at the same time. Both felt warm, and the thermometer read 100.6. Exactly the same temperature?

I wondered if it was the thermometer, so I tried a second one. I'm still not quite sure how we've accumulated 4 thermometers. Anyway, the second one said the same thing. So I took my temp (98.1) and then took my DH's (who was asleep and will never be the wiser) and his was 98.7. For the record, I put the thermometer under his armpit, just like I did for myself. No mischief at that time of night.

Our poor little pumpkins have their first chest colds and now fevers to boot. Their hoarse little cries are heartbreaking, and yet a moment later they smile and laugh (and then pout again). They take after their auntie with their adorable Lissy Lip. One thing that I did notice as I was pouring some Pedialyte for Lillian is that when she cries (more of whining than actual crying), you get a good look at her top gums. She's going to sprout those next two teeth any day now. No sign of them on Breanna yet.

I hope they recover quickly - for everyone's sake. DH is heading to his sister's house south of the Twin Cities tomorrow and will be there through Friday to do some remodeling work for her. So, not only do I get to fly solo, but possibly with little sickies. : ( Keep your fingers crossed for me.

For the Sake of a Flake

Many brain cells have disappeared. I fear it's a permanent loss.

Just this past weekend, I was reminded about what a social flake I've become. I nearly blew off a relatively new friend, all for the sake of being absentminded. AP is a fellow writer, as well as a new mom. Her little princess is a little over a year old. We have terrific fun when we visit!

It all started a few weeks ago. We'd made plans to meet out for coffee one Saturday evening several weeks ago, and I didn't remember until the next afternoon. For the first time in my life, I stood someone up. The horror I felt as it dawned on me was unbelievable.

After a heartfelt apology and some well-deserved ribbing, we made new plans to meet up - this time for pie. I joked that if I'm not there by 10 after 8, she'd better give me a call. This time, I put it on my calendar. And in my cell phone. And I told my hubby. Only I'd planned for Saturday. On Friday evening, at 8:10, the phone rang. AP asked if I was still interested in pie, and as I could hear the restaurant noises in the background, it dawned on me. Ugh! I dropped everything and ran to meet her. Sure enough, I later went back to my emails, and clear as a bell, she wrote Friday.

Talk about shame! I might as well just go hide in a cave. My brain cells that disappeared during pregnancy have most certainly decided to stay away for good.

Heavy Breather

Yesterday I killed a spider on the wall for a man that I work with. Although I don't particularly enjoy handling spiders, I'm not afraid to approach them. (Except for the jumping wolf spiders - those are huge and super fast!) As a kid, I was the girl in the neighborhood who kissed a frog on the lips as a dare. He didn't turn into a prince - must have been a she. I once tried to make a garter snake into a necklace. Couldn't get the snake to stay still, though. I may come across as being a little prissy - a girly girl, but at heart, I'm just as tough as the big boys. (And in the case of the spider in the office - I'm tougher.) If you mentioned this to my in-laws, however, they'd swear you're crazy. They think I can't even swat a mosquito. If they only knew...

Anyway, I'm pretty tough, but not macho to the core. Even as a grown-up, there are a couple things that give me the heebie jeebies. Live fish and mud puppies, when it comes to animals. But breathing toilets are the worst. Blechssckk!

I recently noticed that the toilets in our office breathe. That heavy, slow, deep breathing that sends the water level up and down a couple inches. I can't bring myself to use them when they're breathing. I've even cut down my liquid consumption until the hour before lunch, and then I leave the office and find some place to go. Even though my logic swears up and down that the toilet won't suck me it nor will it produce some big slimy sea creature, my imagination can't simmer enough to get me to go.

Years ago when I was living all alone in my new house, I had a toilet that breathed for about a day. I called the plumber to come see what was wrong. When he arrived, he asked what the problem was. so I told him about the breathing. He chuckled and asked what the problem was. I told him it creeped me out. When he realized that there was no functional problem, he laughed harder. He basically said, "Toughen up. That's city water for you." I asked him why it started out of the blue, and he said that it happens because of something with the city water setup. It's more common in the winter, but doesn't hurt anything. He got such a kick out of my "issue" that he didn't charge me for the visit to my house. Thankfully, the breathing stopped the next day and I was able to "go" in my own house again.

So, now I've come out. How about you, dear readers? Does anything give you the willies?

Numbers Overload

All my life, I've preferred letters to numbers. Even in 8th grade, when I made it into a State math contest (I still think that was a fluke.).

As tax time is upon us again, I'm weary of looking at numbers and we're still not done yet. 2006 was complex for us - owning a couple of businesses... going to work for someone else... throw in a couple babies and some massive medical bills and it's a mess.

On top of tax season has been some heavy budget crunching at work. Plus, we've been comparing prices on everything as we prepare to start building the house next month. (Does anyone out there realize what an earth-shaking time this is in terms of buying OSB? Record low prices - yahoo!) Numbers have been floating across my dreams these past few nights. Seriously.

I look forward to the days when I dream of words, letters. Especially the letter "k." It's always been my favorite letter to write.

Mood - What an odd word if you repeat it often enough

As all the locals (and even my out-of-state clients) are talking about the weather, I am going to rebel. No snow talk here. Except to say that I love it. That's it. Done.

Now on to a much more important topic - how to spend my $25 iTunes gift card. Dan won it in a Christmas gift exchange, and kindly passed it along to me. The big question is what to download - Madeleine Peyroux or Norah Jones or Ella Fitzgerald or Hank Williams Sr. or... OutKast? My taste in music varies by mood, as does my taste in reading materials, food, aromas, and textures.

Today is a cotton-wearing, nutmeg-smelling, pasta-eating, Patricia-Cornwell-novel reading day - with Madeleine Peyroux in the background. Unfortunately, since I'll be in the office all day, I won't be indulging in most of these mood-makers until we hunker in tonight. I do have a cotton turtleneck and jeans picked out, though, so that's a start.

How about you? What's your mood today? And if it's a snow day, how are you spending it?

Rawwrrr!

As our girls are trying to talk, Lillian is starting to rawrrrr like a little lion. And she scrunches up her nose and smiles as she does it, exposing those two bottom teeth, melting my heart. Sometimes, she'll even get her "claws" curled up by her face when she does it. But darn it, when she sees the camera come out - she turns on the stone face.

Breanna continues to giggle at everything. Even during our occasional middle-of-the-night visits. Once in a while, she wakes up cold after she's kicked off her quilt and then hollers until I go and warm her up, then get her snuggled back in. Once I pick her up, the crying stops and the giggles start. In the dark. At 2 a.m. What a nut.

By the way, as of Tuesday of this week, fully clothed, Lillian weighed in at 15 lbs., 15 oz. and is 25 5/8" tall. She's finally arrived on the growth chart - at the whopping two percentile. (Mind you, that's not the preemie chart that we use for the first year - it's the full-term baby one, so it's not as bad as it sounds.) Breanna, my oh my, what a big girl. With big warm clothes on, she's 18 lbs., 12 oz. and is 26 5/8" tall. Only an inch taller than Lil, but a little on the fluffy side. She's at the 50th percentile for full-term babies. Wow!

Could there be anything more rewarding than parenting?