Crazy busy

Every time someone asks me how I am I usually respond "good, and tired".  If I ever wondered why Matt and I seem to be tired all the time I think I got my answer today.  We cram a lot of activity into every day.  We both took today off because I had an ultrasound and doctors appointment.  We also cleaned the house, got the basement cleaned out (including have the rubbish company pick it all up), coordinated getting the gutters cleaned, had our cable fixed, did multiple loads of laundry, haircut, bank, dry cleaner and lunch.  All between dropping off the kids at daycare and my early afternoon appt.  I think we need a vacation day from our vacation day.

The next few weeks promise to be busy - my company picnic, father's day, classmate birthday parties, family functions and now dr's appts every two weeks.  So, we'll do our best to keep the blog updated but if there is a lapse....forgive us:)

Bobo update:  The ultrasound showed Bobo weighing approximately 4lbs and 13oz.  At 31 weeks he/she is measuring between 33 and 34 so it appears our soon to be addition is following a similar growth curve to Erin in these last few months.  My c-section date has been set for well into my 39th week - we're in discussions with the OB to move it up a week to try to limit the chance for PIH to set in again.

The company picnic is tomorrow so hopefully we'll have some fun pictures to upload in the next few days!

Why you don't curse in front of children

Scene: Saturday morning, Matt and I in the kitchen, kids at the dining room table.

Matt emptying a pitcher of iced tea into the sink as we cleaned out the fridge...spills some on the floor..."Oh Sh*t".

Immediately following from the 3 year old peanut gallery "Oh sh*t, who made that mess?!"

No, she hasn't said it again and yes we're equally mortified and laughing.

Pregnancy Updates

I had an entire post written and saved as a draft in my e-mail. And of course, when I finally get a chance to post this, e-mail is down!

So, I'll summarize. It's been a wild and stressful week but hopefully things are settling down. On Tuesday afternoon I worked from home because of some construction at our office (another post in and of itself). A few monster contractions and bouts of lightheadedness had Matt insisting I call the doctor by dinner time. What I thought would be a quick trip the dr's office turned into being sent to the hospital for monitoring and then finding out that one of the tests that indicates the potential for pre-term labor came back positive - no one was more shocked than I was - I spent the previous two hours in monitoring complaining that nothing was really going on and I could go home. Ummmm....ok, so maybe the google school of medicine really isn't that accurate. I played lets make a deal with the OB and was released to go home on modified rest and given the high rate of false positives with this test we agreed to a 36 hour re-check.

The re-check on Thursday was good, no further signs of pre-term labor but they decided that this was probably a good indicator that it was time to go to every two week visits given that we're starting to enter the time where my PIH begins (30-34 weeks, and I'm 29 weeks). I think my team at work is officially in panic mode now that they realize 4 of our 6 projects are due at the same time I'm likely to get pulled!

All in all, good news - blood pressure is stable, any signs of pre-term labor have evaporated and we're actually starting to make progress on names. Of course Erin insists that her new sibling be named Elmo. Mo for short. Yes, we do watch a lot of Sesame Street in this house.

Matt, not one to be left out of the limelight decided he needed a day off of work and promptly dropped a laptop on his foot Friday. Our family doctor was afraid of a fracture but x-rays proved no fracture. Given the amount of pain he's still in (doesn't help when the kids step on it), it's likely a nice, deep bone contusion. So, you've basically got two slightly movement restricted people chasing three toddlers around non stop - it would probably make a great you tube hit!

More Pics

Photo Overload

Erin - "I'm not a baby"

Wow. She’s 3.

When I was single and didn’t have kids, I used to just nod my head and say “Mmm Hmm” when people talked about how quickly their kids grew up. Really, a year is a year isn’t it?

And then we had kids.

Erin turned 3 two weeks ago and had a wonderful week of birthday celebrations including a kids party at Little Gym, a family party at home and another celebration at school. While she enjoyed all of these celebrations, Matt and I just looked on in awe. She’s 3 years old and a total wonder to us. This may be old school to everyone else but to watch her:

Be kind and compassionate to other kids
Bond so tightly with her sisters
Know all of her letters by sight
Spell her name, Mommy, Daddy and add new words to her spelling list each day
Write her name
Draw faces – really – with eyes, nose and mouth!
Remember parties and events that took place over a year ago.
Start “reading” us books by spelling out the words and associating them with the colors or pictures on the page
Sing silly made up songs
Try out sarcasm and irony
Tell us “And That’s Why” to any question we ask her
Share with her sisters

Is completely amazing to us. It’s so hard to believe that this walking, talking little person was just a baby in our arms yesterday – or so it seems. Now she tells us “I’m not a baby, I’m a big girl” to which I always correct her – she is a big girl, but she’s our baby! Pictures to follow....

Tantrums Galore

(Editorial Note - I've had this draft saved for a week or so in my e-mail, so adding it now. A bigger post with pics from Erin's birthday will follow this weekend)

Most of the folks we know with small children have smiled at Erin’s two year old tantrums and said “Wait until 3, then you’ll really see tantrums”. Well, we figured Erin was so verbal and ahead of the curve that the tantrums really couldn’t get any worse than they were. Hah.

Apparently Erin is still ahead of the curve because just weeks before her 3rd birthday she began the three year old tantrums. A snapshot of a night a few weeks ago:

Mom/Dad -“Erin, it’s time to go to bed”
Erin -“I don’t want to go to bed, I want to go downstairs and watch TV”
Mom/Dad- “The TV isn’t on downstairs”
Erin – “Then I want to go in your room and put the TV on”
Commence screaming, and 35 minutes of procrastinating and crying before finally being bribed to bed with promises of her upcoming birthday party.

Fast forward to the next morning
Mom/Dad – “Erin, what color shirt today?”
Erin – “Pink”
Mom takes out a pink shirt.
Commence screaming – “NO, I want the blue one and blue socks. Dark Blue Socks. WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

Rinse, lather, repeat with the cup we chose to put her milk in, the pony tail holder for her hair and the shoes we went to put on her feet.

Then add in Sarah and Sloane realizing that they are almost 2 and should really start ramping up to keep up with their sister. Sarah’s using her new language explosion and putting it to good use “No, Miiiiinnnnnnnnnneee”, “No doggie – DOWN”, and the perpetual top 10 hit “Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine”. Sloane saves her tantrums for either 10pm or 2am – leaving her parents very tired recently.

All kidding aside, they are actually fairly well behaved – at least in public places. We’re lucky that they all play very well together and for the most part have learned the art of not killing each other. Adding baby Bobo to the mix is sure to change the dynamic but we think that they are all so in love with babies that she/he will be quite fawned over. In fact, it seems like Sloane is the only child to figure out that something’s going on – she regularly points to my abdomen, pats her own and smiles and says “Baby”.

This is the cold that never ends...

Do you remember that really annoying children's song from the 70's - this is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend? Yeah, sorry - I probably just put the tune in your head for the rest of the day.

Well, the H. household seems to have picked up the cold that never ends. There is a version of it going around at my work and I think at daycare also. Matt spent the weekend about two weeks ago coughing and sneezing and promptly got over it after a day or two. Sloane got it next - 2 days of pink eye, followed by a minor cold. Then Sarah sneezed for a few days. Erin and I have had it now for what feels like a century but is probably more like 8-10 days. Matt has picked it back up and Sloane and Sarah just started runny noses again. I never thought I'd wish these symptoms were caused by allergies..but I'm getting there.

Speaking of doctors, we met with the allergist about Erin's peanut allergy tonight and are taking the recommended approach. Obviously that includes keeping her away from all nut products. What he recommended from there is that we test her again in about 10 months to see if her sensitivity to peanuts is decreasing. If it does that at any point we'll challenge her to see if she's outgrowing the allergy.

No random pictures this post because I'm on the laptop, but more to follow.

So it only took a month....

For me to figure out how to upload photos from the camera to our new mac.  In the interim, we've had the big ultrasound....twice and all seems to be progressing well.  We couldn't resist finding out if we were going to have four girls or three girls and a boy.  But we know there are those of you that don't want to know so we'll refrain from posting the news on the blog.  We'll take turns calling baby Bobo he or she, so don't read anything into pronouns.

Yes, we're calling the baby Bobo for now.  Erin was Cashew before she was born, Sloane and Sarah were Shooter and Lefty.  This name hearkens back to the days when I shared books with my friend Vijay and we were reading about bobo's at the same time (Bourgeois Bohemians).  I vehemently denied Matt and I fell into the bobo category.  Low and behold when we started looking at names in the embarrassingly named Cool Names for Babies, virtually all of the names we liked were labeled as bobo names.  Hence, baby Bobo for now.  We're not even close on names but have lots of people offering ideas.  The new game at my office to IM me options at random points during the day.... Honestly, we really do get a lot of work done in between.

The kids are all doing really well.   Sarah and Sloane are both talking up a storm.  It's just so strange to hear them running around and actually using words.  They are m turning into toddlers.  Erin is starting to identify letters and how they turn into words.  She can spell an amazing amount of words for a child who's not yet 3.  Once again, she's going to outsmart us before the year is out.    I'll be better about updating the blog, really....until the next post here is a picture overload:

 

I can eat butter..

But not peanut butter. That's what Erin will tell you if you offer her something with butter. And unfortunately she's right. We found out that the awful reaction she had last month was indeed to a peanut m&m she had somehow gotten at school. We had her tested and she came back positive for a peanut allergy. I'm glad we found this out now and that no major catastrophe occured. We now know to carry an epi-pen with us wherever we go and her school has gone peanut free so it's no longer a concern there. We're already used to reading food labels due to the egg allergy, so it's one more ingredient for us to be cautious of.

Easter was a hit in the H. household. The Easter Bunny called Mom on the phone (can you tell Erin is still traumitized from Santa and the thought of these mythical characters in her house?!) to have her come pick up their baskets. He brought candy, books, paint and the beloved Abby Cadabby as well as some trucks and little people. We were able to spend some time with Lisa & Bob and the kids before heading to Grandma and Pop-Pops for dinner and the kids had a blast.

Now you know when it goes that smoothly there's always a small bump, right? We brought all of the girls home Easter night after dinner. They played with their toys and we noticed that Sloane was getting a bit hoarse. Fast forward to 11pm with a case of full blown croup. We called the after hours line for our doctor to make sure and didn't have to go past the nurse practitioner at all - one listen over the phone and she confirmed it.

When we woke up on Monday Erin seemed a bit off, and Sarah was just being a major crab so Matt and Grandma took all three to the doctor where they were promptly diagnosed with strep and in Sloane's case - a virus. See what these girls will do to get a few extra days off of school?

In other news, Sarah and Sloane are finally starting to talk. Both love to call "PopPop", point out apples, call for their beloved Bo (see previous post on Erin's Bobby and X2) and woof like dogs.

Easter pics will follow shortly when I figure out how to upload pics to the new MAC.....

Memories of the Jersey Shore

Growing up in NJ, I've spent a lot of time down the shore. Family vacations as a kid and many, many day and/or night trips in my late teens and early twenties. I can't count the number of orders of boardwalk fries Nancy and I split or how many slices of pizza all of us ate sitting on overturned lifeguard canoes after the lifeguards left for the day. We knew which bars to go to, where the best food was and the games you were mostly likely to win on the boardwalk.

As all of us got older, we got married, had kids. Some of us still live in NJ, some are spread out across the country and we've lost touch with some others. I have to say, the beach memories were relegated to the back of my mind for no reason other than time.

Then this past weekend, we had the opportunity to visit the shore on a mild winter day. We took the kids to the aquarium with our good friends and had a fantastic time. The boardwalk fries and pizza still taste as good as they did 15 years ago. The boardwalk looks exactly the same. And now I get to share it with my husband, who didn't grow up with it, and my kids.

6 Weeks Worth of Updates

Wow. I keep saying I have to update the blog, but even I didn't realize it hadn't been updated since Christmas. I can only use the busy line so many times, so I'll take it on the chin here - the blog was neglected simply because I kept forgetting or getting sidetracked. I'll try to provide six weeks worth of updates in a page or less.

Sarah finally has her new glasses. Shortly before Christmas, we noticed Sarah's eye crossing when she was tired. We'd noticed this before and talked to the eye doctor about it and we were told it was an optical illusion but that she was far sighted. This time I went prepared with pictures only to be told, no pictures necessary - this time the eye doctor saw it. Sarah definitely digs her new specs, although she's already figured out how to take them off and throw them when she's mad. And we thought she was the placid one.

Even more exciting than the glasses - she WALKS! As promised by every physical therapist who diagnosed Sarah with equal parts motor delay and stubborness - right after Christmas she simply got up and walked across the room at day care. No first steps for this one - rather first rooms. She's progressed to running very quickly and if you stop over during feeding time at the zoo you'll see all three kids running and shrieking as they do laps through the kitchen, family room and dining room.

Sloane, not one to be pushed aside by her sister's achievements has started talking. She's a girl after Matt's own heart, talking with a Boston accent - it's a baaalll - not a ball. We're just waiting for us to tell us to pahk the cahr in hahvard square. In the past week she's added Moo, Duck, Bye Bye, a very funky form of quack and a new name for the beloved Bob - Bobo. She's also the child that is going to end up getting DYFS called on us. Matt would argue that she gets this from me, but I'm not so sure - this child never stops moving unless she's going to sleep or banging into something. Unfortunately, the latter happens pretty often. On our day care sign in sheet it asks daily for any new boo boos - Sloane always has something interesting to report - a new scratch from a battle with her sister or a bruise from a battle with the kitchen wall.

Erin is growing us so fast we can barely keep up and document it. She had Matt convinced that she was reading the other night as she recited "We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one" word for word and pointing to the right pages for each phrase. After switching up the pages a bit it became quite clear she's memorizing, not reading.....yet. She does manage to outwit us at least once a week, so by the time she's three we may simply give up and admit she's smarter than both of us.

We did have a scary incident last week where she had a terrible reaction, wheezing, asthma, hives but we don't know to what. We are now being more vigilant about carrying the epi-pen and taking her back to the allergist next week.

In Matt's news, he's carrying a 4.0 in Grad school and just started his second semester. I on the other hand still am finishing up my capstone project proposal. Matt will be well into his PhD before I ever get my Masters.

To close, some gratuitious pics of the kids. Messy faces and all :)

Santa was here and is back at the North Pole

Most kids love the idea of Santa - a jolly man who brings presents and leaves them under the tree. Erin, however, sees this idea as a bit warped - and who can blame her - a very large man in an odd red suit comes to your house when you are sleeping, can get in when the doors are locked and knows if you've been bad? Suffice it to say, Erin was quite traumatized by the idea of Santa and didn't sleep in her bed for at least two weeks prior to Christmas. We took her to the mall today to show her that Santa has indeed gone home to the North Pole and she got a jump in her step I haven't seen for the month of December.

That isn't to say she and her sisters didn't enjoy the bountiful giving this year:

They even let us dress them alike for the day:

We shared a wonderful Christmas weekend with family, and wish you and yours a wonderful holiday too!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I know, I know - a serious lag in posts. And no pictures to even compensate since I'm typing this from the laptop and all of our pics are on the desktop. The past few weeks have just been a whirlwind of holiday activity and the blog fell to the wayside.

Thanksgiving was wonderful, and Erin is actually starting to get the idea of being thankful. We hear on a regular basis "Thank you God for (insert name here)" and she goes through the entire list of herself, Mom, Dad, sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles and occasionally a school friend also.

Sarah is still receiving weekly physical therapy through EI and is making great process. Her EI therapist, H. feels she is within a few weeks of walking! We also take her every 4-6 weeks to a private physical therapist for independent evaluation and a little boost and M., her PT there told me recently that if she could give Sarah a diagnosis it would be stubborn. It definitely fits - she walks behind toys across the room, can climb in and out of riding toys and crawls like a speed demon. It's become pretty obvious to all of us that she'll walk when she's ready and only then.

Sloane is her wild child self. Her favorite words appear to be no, go and more. We've decided that unlike Erin, who learned mostly nouns to start (Mom, Dad, Dog), Sloane's are all commands. She loves to command everyone around her to do her bidding. And much to her delight, most people do!

Definitely more pictures to come...

As Thanksgiving approaches...

Believe it or not, we're hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year! Sure, I've never cooked a turkey before, but how hard can it be? Don't worry - my parents will be in attendance, which means I can't go too far down the wrong path when it comes to the turkey. Much to Matt's chagrin we will not be trying a turducken.

As we get closer to Thanksgiving, I 've been trying to figure out how to explain the significance of the holiday to Erin. There are great, creative ideas I've seen like a Thanksgiving tree and placemats but I think these might be a bit over the head of a 2.5 year old. Instead, I think we're going to focus on giving thanks for something each night. We may get thanks for things like her Brown Bear book or her big girl bed, but that's okay. I'll be right next to her - giving thanks for my beautiful family. I feel like I have the best husband and the three most wonderful little girls possible.

My list of things to be thankful for is longer than ever before.... What's on your list?

A little bit of Halloween, a little bit of Karma

So, the theme was clearly Disney this year. Halloween was a blast for all of us - with our good friends joining us, we had a fun night of pizza, trick or treating and ice cream (believe it or not, they didn't eat any of the candy that night!)

And karma...I've always believed in karma but it doesn't always happen that you get to see the full effect. For those that remember the horrendous experience we had last year with day care, you'll be pleased to know that karma just kicked in.

We ran into an acquaintance from the day care from hell and she informed us that the day care director who so kindly gave us one week to find new day care was unceremoniously dumped from her job (or so it seems). For those that don't know the full backstory, it boils down to this - the first bottle of the first day the girls were there alone was given to the wrong child. (I had attended with them for 3 days to transition the girls in and to explain Sarah's allergy and the importance of checking the labels, etc) When we had the nerve to get upset, the teacher in question actually had the gall to tell us "Oh see, nothing is wrong with her" - this while Sarah's doctor was warning us we might need to head to the emergency room. Keep in mind, this is the same teacher who let Erin's little "friend" bite her 7 times in a 3 week span.

Yes, we know everything worked out for us in the end, and it opened our eyes to the bigger issues of the daycare from hell. Alas, I can't deny it's nice to see karma make it's way around...

One of the top 10 funniest web videos I've seen

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?video=200710302288282

What we see around us

A good friend of mine recently commented to me that it seemed like the world was going to he** in a handbasket. Given that by profession, she's a motivational speaker, I was shocked that I was the voice of optimism in this conversation.

Within the past week, we've talked to our good friend out in San Diego and watched California burn via news broadcasts. We received a call tonight that a family member was robbed in front of their house - in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. Matt has all but stopped watching the news and asks me why I watch it when I comment on how depressing it is.

Yet in the course of all of this, I'm reminded that each generation has gone through times when it seems like the world is going to he** in a handbasket and that we quickly lose sight of that.

I've always called myself a realist, almost to the point of cynicism and yet it seems easier now for me to see that each of these events stand on their own and that it just reminds us to focus on the here and now and try to make the world a little bit better for our kids. Those are my deep thoughts for a late Friday night with three stomach buggy children... rather than thinking the sky is falling, just take this as a push to give an extra hug and kiss to your kids before you put them to bed. And remember that they are the reason that the world, your world continues to brighten. And how can you not laugh when your oldest is eating popcorn in front of a metal gorilla?!

Ear Infections, Viruses, Oh My

The blog has been neglected with good reason. Two of the three are actively sporting ear infections, and the one who escaped an ear infection has a cold instead. After a very long night last night with Sarah and Sloane fighting approximately every 30 minutes for 8 hours about who was sleeping where in the bed, they are both off at school and I'm the one home recovering!

More funny pictures will be uploaded later today.

Going to the Farmery

First, a confession. With two working parents, our kids spend a percentage of their time shopping with us. The only way to get our grocery shopping done is to get one of those lovely carts with the car in front, settle a dispute of which two kids get to sit in there and put the third up in the cart facing us. So Erin is very, very familiar with the grocery store.

Now we live in the Garden State, right? So you would think she would be equally as familiar with farms, etc? Apparently not. With last weekend's beautiful weather we decided to go apple picking. When we informed Erin we'd be going to pick apples she said "Oh, at the grocery?" Well, no not quite. So we tried to explain the concept of an orchard to her by using a farm as analogy. The result? If you ask Erin where we got all of the apples she'd reply "At the farmery".

The first set of pictures is from the "farmery".

Since that was such a hit, we decided the next day to take the kids and meet up with friends at a farm with a corn maze. It was a lot of fun for everyone other than the angry cow pictured below. Yes, I used the zoom lens for this one because she really did appear to be quite annoyed by the gaggle of kids on the other side of the fence. Seriously, it was a lot of fun. And I dare say I even matured a bit - I much more appreciate the farms and what they have to offer than when I was a teen growing up in that town and dealing with the smell of cow manure and sheep farms on the highway!