Dan's closet

This is Dan's idea of "cleaning out his closet." and he also
threatened to take away my iPhone because he says I use it for evil,
not good. :-)

My Baby Can Read!

Last night I was playing on the floor of our bedroom with Abbie, and she kept trying to crawl under the bed and I couldn’t figure why . I turned my back for a second, and not only had she crawled under the bed, but she came back out with this:



Do you think she was interested in the pictures? Or the articles?

Costco with Papa

As you can see, the girls LOVED the mango mousse on special at Costco
today. They each had three.

Priceless

Making dinner (blueberry pancakes) for the family: $10

Making Oreo Balls for dessert: $10

The look on my mother's face when Noah got naked, turned around, and made his butt talk: Priceless.

Paid for in Full

Eleven months after the fact, we have paid off the last of the hospital bills from the twin’s birth. I guess this means they are officially “ours” as they are now paid for in full. Woo-Hoo!

After we made the last payment to the hospital I asked them to send us a final invoice (indicating that the girls were paid for) that we could keep for our records. I didn’t understand what many of the charges were, but there were some that did make me laugh a little.

Oxygen: Which I don’t EVER remember receiving, but okay ($30).

Lanolin Ointment: The teeny-tiny tube of cream that you’re supposed to use for cracked nipples. You know, the stuff I now use on my lips when I can’t find my chapstick ($4.30).

Rupturing My Membranes (breaking my water): Hardly what I would call a pleasant experience especially at $65/per baby ($130). I believe telling Dan afterwards that it felt like I was being sexually violated. Clearly my definition of "a little pressure" was different from Dr. Feelgood's.

Hemorrhoidal Preparation H pads: For the hemorrhoids I was too embarrassed to tell my doctor about. Guess the secret is out now ($23.50).

The Epidural: Which was HANDS DOWN the best money ever spent! ($700). Interestingly, my epidural with Noah was $1,666.66.

Zolpidem: Otherwise known as Ambien. I don’t remember taking four of them (at $8.20 each), but I do remember waking up in the middle of the night as the nurses were trying to put my shirt back on. Why was I shirtless? Because in my Ambien daze the nurses “woke me up” to pump and I proceeded to pump both breasts at the same time for 20 minutes. This actually requires a fair amount of coordination (all the more impressive given my level of klutziness) and I have no memory of it whatsoever. Except for when the nurses were getting me dressed and putting me back to bed ($32.80).

I think I will put these in the baby books. Because every parent should save the receipt.

A message to all who visit

Feeling nostalgic for the past, I started re-reading some of my blog entries from this time last summer. Ahh. . . .the memories.

Anyway, I also took some time to read the comments that people left. Since most people visit without commenting I don’t always know who is coming to the site and reading. Which is why I don’t reveal certain information about myself. . . like our address, where I work, etc. That said, this blog is public and anyone can visit. This leads me to my following statement.

To the random person who commented on a post I made last summer calling me “fat” and a “whiny bitch,” and who said that I should not have “f***ed my man last fall without protection if I didn’t want to go through it [pregnancy] in the summer,” I have this to say:

F**k you. You have nothing better to do than post nasty comments on a stranger’s blog? I have a beautiful family, tremendous friends, a career, and a life full of joy. I also have something you clearly lack: a sense of humor. Get over yourself.

And bite me.

Eleven months ago tonight. . . .

The girls were born. Where did the time go?!

How did we go from this (Hannah is on the left, Abbie the right):

To this:

Weren't they born just yesterday?

And while we're on the subject, where did this baby go?

In the blink of an eye. . .

Another sign that I don't have to worry about the Ivy League

I think this picture speaks for itself. Hannah seems unfazed that there is a piece of cantaloupe stuck to her head.

While the other kids were playing with blocks. . .

My kids were getting shit faced at 7:30 a.m.

Getting ready to leave in the morning involves making breakfast and lunch for everyone, and we do a lot of back and forth to the refrigerator. So image our surprise when we discovered this:

The thought of preschool has driven Hannah and Abbie to drink. They just crawled up and helped themselves.

Working with the buzz, the preschool teachers thought it would be fun to do this:

Twin Tramp Stamps!

Yes. The gave the girls their very own (temporary) tattoo's. Hannah got a butterfly and Abbie got a Dragonfly. For the record, this is not something I would ever have done on my own. However, in the big scheme of things it's not a big deal and I chose to find the humor in the situation. On the bright side, at least we can tell them apart now!

Commando

Dan took Noah to see the Phoenix Mercury play last night. They had a good time and Noah stood five feet away from Amare Stoudamire and didn’t care because he was focusing on shooting baskets at the Kids Area.

They home from the game around 9:30 p.m. and I wanted to quickly get Noah changed and in bed. As he pulls off his shorts it dawned on me: the kid isn’t wearing any underwear.

Me: “Noah, how come you’re not wearing any underwear?

Noah: “Because Daddy didn’t give me any. Daddy, this is YOUR FAULT” (said while pointing accusingly at Dan).

Dan: “Toby, this is so not my fault. I gave him shorts to wear. He didn’t tell me he needed underwear.”

Here is what I think happened.

Noah came home from camp wearing a bathing suit. In the rush to get ready for the game and get out the door, I asked Dan to give Noah a pair of shorts. Which he did. Except Dan failed to realize that one typically wears underwear with their clothing. . .especially if they are 4.5 and going out in public. So Noah dutifully took off his bathing suit, put on the shorts, and didn’t think to tell his father that he wasn’t wearing underwear. And Dan neglected to ask him because Noah didn’t say anything.

Dan and Noah’s underwear seem to be a reoccurring theme in our household. On more than one occasion Noah has been out in public wearing both boxer shorts AND underwear. How did this happen? Noah often wears boxers as shorts when he sleeps. So when Dan asked him to dress himself, he did. And when Noah came back wearing regular shorts he just assumed that Noah followed directions. It’s 100+ degrees outside and my son is wear three layers of clothing because his father didn’t think it was necessary to “check his work.”

Is this a guy thing? Because honestly, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

It's Always Something. . .

Noah was sick over the weekend. Nothing major, he was lethargic with a low-grade fever that never went above 100 degrees. We though it might be a case of “too much camp.” These kids are so busy and doing so much that they come home exhausted. I tried taking Noah to the local Minute Clinic at CVS thinking that he might have a sinus or ear infection but that didn’t exactly work out as planned. I waited in the lobby for 45 minutes before being ushered into the exam room. The guy didn’t ask out names and after I spent 60 seoconds minutes explaining Noah’s symptoms he signaled “timeout” and asked me what my insurance was. I told him, and he promptly replied, “We don’t take that insurance. Didn’t you see the sign in the lobby?” Clearly not (asshole). Do you think I would have waited here with a sick kid for 45 minutes if I had seen it?

But I digress.

Noah was fine by Monday morning. A little tired, but we sent him to camp anyway with instructions that he was not to go swimming. Monday night we discovered a couple of things:

* A girl in his class was also sick. Lethargic with a low-grade fever.

* A kid in the camp for older kids was diagnosed with Swine Flu.

* And the mother of little boy in Noah’s class posted on Facebook that her son also had the flu and they suspected it was Swine Flu too. Also lethargic with a low-grade fever.

So now I am a little worried.

In the meantime, Noah woke Tuesday morning a little hoarse, half the preschool parents are now freaking out because of a potential Swine Flu outbreak, and Noah decided it would be a good idea to announce on the playground in front of ALL OF THE PRE-K TEACHERS that “he was sick but his mommy gave him Tylenol so he wouldn’t have a fever and so he could still go to camp.”

Fabulous. Now I have the entire Pre-K faculty at the JCC pissed at me because Noah is hoarse, may have the Swine Flu, and his selfish mother drugged him and sent him to school (where he can infect the teachers) so she could go to work and earn a living in order to help pay for his overpriced private preschool experience.

But there is a more important question that needs to be addressed. I realize that Noah is bigger than the other kids. That he looks older. And that his language skills are more developed than most of the other kids. But Noah is still 4 ½. Since when do we believe everything that comes out of a 4 ½ year olds mouth? This is the same kid who thinks that giants can use the earth as a basketball and that they like to dribble.

For the record, we hadn’t given Noah any medicine since Sunday. And a quick trip to the pediatrician’s office confirmed that he had a virus. Not the Swine Flu. As a result, Tuesday night was spent on damage control. Which consisted of me reassuring his teachers (via email/Facebook/and in person) that Noah was f-i-n-e and not contagious.

I need a vacation. And a drink with an umbrella in it wouldn’t hurt either.