What it means to be a Morris (and also to give birth to one)

I'm writing this blog entry primarily for my sister-in-law, Jess, who is in her second trimester with my little niece or nephew as we speak, er, write. I don't think it's fair to let her go into the delivery room without knowing what she's getting herself into. Or already gotten herself into, as you can't undo what's been done to her. Secondarily, I am writing this blog for entertainment value. Tertiarily (Is that a word? It should be.), I am writing this blog for my children to see, someday, what their giant bodies put me through. Seriously, they need to know.

I began thinking about this today because my sister-in-law by proxy, Whitney, gave birth to her first child, Jaxon, today at 2:28 p.m. Congratulations to her! She was induced beginning at six this morning and the labor went smoothly and Jaxon came quickly. Whitney is Jessica's sister. Jess will not be so lucky, as she is not married to a normal human being. She is married to a Morris.

In one of my past lives I carried the last name Morris. I was born with it and had it for many years. The point is, it's in my DNA (In fact, it makes up most of my DNA, I have very few physical attributes that look like my mother; though I love her dearly, I look very little like her.), so ANY babies I have using my own eggs come out, well, there's no other way to put this, gigantic. I'm not talking 8 pounders, here, folks. My brother: 10 pounds, 2 ounces. I was the small one in the family at 8 pounds 14 ounces. Mitchell was 9 pounds 8 ounces at 39 weeks. The twins were 7 lbs even at 35 weeks. The doctor said if they'd gone to 40 weeks, they could have easily reached 10 or 11 pounds a piece. He said there is no way my body would have held them that long, and there's now way I would have been able to deliver Harry vaginally because we Morrises come with another affliction that my sister-in-law has to look forward to.

The Dreaded Morris Dome. We have giant heads. My stepmother, who only had to deliver one Morris (she had it easy, and I can't remember how much my little brother weighed), coined the term after my half-brother was born, I think. Most of us are born with giant heads.

When I was growing up, my giant head caused me a lot of problems. Yes, my head is that big. You probably can't tell just looking at me because I have a lot of hair I use to cover it up. It started when I started playing ball in middle school. Middle school was something different where I came from. It was fourth, fifth and sixth grade, to give you an idea of how old I was. The batting helmets didn't fit. The ball caps I could order with the uniform weren't big enough. It was against regulation, but we had to order, on our own, an adult XL batting helmet and cut the padding out to make it fit on my head. I never asked, but I'm fairly sure my parents had to sign some kind of waiver. Small towns are different, and this was 20 years ago, so who knows. The cap story was different. We couldn't find one in the right color soon enough, so for the first couple of games, I had to wear it sticking straight up off my head. I couldn't go on the field without a cap because it said so in the rules. So I put on the biggest one they had and it didn't even come up past the middle of the top of my head.

I've had three different pediatricians of Mitchell's ask to measure MY head because HIS is so large. I don't know the measurements of my head. I know it's too big to buy a hat out of a store. I don't like wearing hats. So I don't care. The pediatricians were both impressed and terrified at the same time. Two of them told me they'd never seen a skull the size of mine in any medical training they'd ever undergone.

Hank's is much larger than normal, but his doesn't come NEAR Harry's. Harry is a true Morris. His head is in the 103rd percentile, I think, right now. It's stayed above the 100th percentile since he was born. His doctor and nurse have told me they've never seen a head that big stay that big on a baby and they told me to be thankful I didn't have to deliver him. I told them I did deliver one like him a decade ago, and I didn't intend to do it ever again, thank you very much.

You can tell a Morris as soon as it's born. It's long, usually between 21 and 22 inches (My twins were between 18 and 19 because they were early, but that's the size of a normal baby, so again, much bigger than usual.), and it has an enormous head and weighs about the same as a one-month-old baby. The nurses will be surprised, even though you will tell them going in that this WILL NOT BE AN EASY DELIVERY.

They will tell you they've heard it all, but they're professionals and it likely won't be as bad as you think. You'll say, no, but you don't understand, all the babies in our family... And they'll just hush you up. And then you'll just get really smug and say, ok, just wait and see. And before it's all over you'll be screaming in agony and they'll be pulling out the giant salad tongs and that machine that looks like a toilet plunger because you are REFUSING to let them push that baby's head back up inside you so they can perform a C-section because you WARNED them that this was going to happen so now they are going to have to LISTEN to you and get this baby OUT the way they told you it would happen at the beginning, by GOD.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what it means to be a Morris.

What's your sign, baby?

The chairs were arranged at a corner, and we each had one. She was a good looking blonde, tall and thin, and I was immediately drawn to her two best assets. 

Get your minds out of the gutter, you pervs. I was talking about her twins. Her twin boys. The point of this post is being the mother of multiples is kind of like dating. How, you ask? You want to know other mothers of multiples, you want to connect with them, so you can ask for advice, share your troubles and even just have someone at hand to whom you can vent when you children are acting like demons at the same time and you just don't know how you can go on.

I met this woman at the pediatric endocrinologist's (kiddo diabetes doctor) office. I spotted her immediately. There are three steps you go through when you see the doc, and she was a step ahead of me, so I knew we'd have at least 10 minutes to talk, but I wasn't sure how I'd be able to ask for her number. Then we started talking and we just clicked and then we got caught up in the back and forth and ins and outs of the doctor's steps, etc. and we missed the whole part where we asked for contact information. 

I've done that at a bar. When I've met a great guy, gotten too drunk and forgotten to get his contact information. It's a bummer. That's what happened to me Monday. Not with a guy at a bar, but with this chick at the doc's office. I got home, and I was kicking myself. I actually liked this woman. She was nothing like me, but I LIKED her. She had six kids, and she looked fabulous. But she still dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. She was what all of you babycenter type moms would call a crunchy mom. Totally not my type at all, but she was totally ok with me thinking what I thought and went with the flow of the conversation. I LOVE THAT.

The good thing about all of this is that she goes to the same doctor we do. So chances are we'll see her again. Usually you keep the same schedule, and it looked like it was one of her twins, who were a year and a half, that had diabetes, so he must have just been diagnosed. It's highly likely she'll be there next time we are. I'll be sending up little prayers that we'll run into her again. She was totally my kind of person. She had this energy that you don't see in many people. If not her, then please, God, send me someone else like her. She had the same kind of energy that my BFF forever and ever Josie has. And not many people have that. It's unique.

Life can't get worse. It just can't.

Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling great. That doesn't happen very often. My back was only a little bit sore. I felt energized and refreshed after a rare good night's sleep. I was ready to meet the day head on.

My husband and I were getting along great, working together to get the kids ready for school. Mitchell's blood sugar was back down to a normal level after almost a week of being really high. In short, things seemed like they were going great, so I was happy when I told my husband goodbye as he went out the door.

So I was shocked when, 30 seconds later, he came back in and said, "My truck's been stolen!" My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. He said they couldn't have gotten far because he had almost no gas in the car. Of course. We've been that broke.

So I suggested he call the police. I don't even know who you're supposed to call when a vehicle is stolen. 911? We're not in the city, so it would be the Sheriff's office, I suppose.

He made the phone call in the other room. Then he came in and delivered the news.

The car hadn't been stolen. It had been repossessed. I wish I were joking. Of course, I instantly became infuriated with him, assuming he had gone several months without paying the payment and just not telling me.

It's no secret among our friends we've been having money trouble. I quit my job in August because it was costing us money for me to work. Every bit of my paycheck and then some was going into day care, gas and the cost of parking. Yes, I had to pay for my own parking at work, which was the ultimate insult considering how much they paid us.We'd been stuck in a salary freeze for years, so there was no hope of it getting any better any time soon.

After I stopped yelling, he told me we were only a month behind on payments. But because we'd filed for bankruptcy in February, one payment was all it took for them to repossess it. Also because of the bankruptcy, they were unwilling to let us pay to get caught up and get the truck back.

At this point, it was only about 8 a.m. It had been a long couple of hours, but I had to pack the the kids up and go to a doctor's appointment I had scheduled yesterday morning. It was not one I could afford to miss. So I told him to get on the phone and try to figure out how to fix this problem before I got back from the doc.

While I was gone, he found out the only way we could get the truck back was to pay off the loan. The current payoff cost is roughly $9,000. So there's no way that's happening.

We went with an alternate option. Drive Time. They're one of those companies that charge super high interest rates but give you loans even if you've had a recent bankruptcy, which is something we were worried about. They did approve us for a monthly payment amount that was much higher than we needed ,but they wanted a $700 down payment. We were going to be able to pay $500, but even that was stretching it. I got pretty pissy and marched out of there fast... and angry. I'm sure he had to apologize for me. My attitude was awful. But at this point, I'd been dealing with it all day and was beyond completely stressed.

I had been texting my stepmother all day back and forth updating her on what was going on. When  I told her what happened, she called me and told me they would send us the extra money we needed the next day. I was so relieved and thankful. That was just about the kindest thing I could think anyone could do at that point.

I doped myself up and managed to fall asleep around 7:30 last night. I slept through most of the night by re-medicating every time I woke up. This morning, I had to get up and deal with the kids, and I have been so stressed all day. Luckily, my dad wired the money earlier today and all I have to do is go pick it up. But I'm so exhausted from the stress and still have to take Mitchell to his dad's tonight. That's a 3.5-hour round trip I really don't feel like making. I just kind of want to sleep until this nightmare is over.

Wasting money makes me mad, and we were so close to getting that truck paid off. Because of one little error, we lost out on thousands and thousands of dollars. It chaps my ass, to put it not so politely. I'll be glad to make the change to a smaller, more fuel-efficient car for Ro. There's no need for both of us to be driving large, nice cars, and since I'm the one toting the kids around most of the time, it makes sense for me to have the large, nice car. We can use it when we go anywhere as a family, which is what we've already been doing lately anyway.

This is pretty off topic, but this whole ordeal has made me think long and hard about the "Occupy Wall Street" movement that's going on right now. I still don't get it. We are having far more financial problems than most people I know are. But every single one of those problems comes from either a decision we made or just bad luck. A corporation did not give my son Type I diabetes and huge medical bills. A corporation did not ruin my back and cost us even more in medical bills. A corporation did not cause me to have twins, resulting in more bills we weren't expecting. A corporation did not make us purchase two cars that were too much for us to pay for. A corporation did not cause us to run up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt that we could not pay, contributing to our need to file for bankruptcy. 


A lot of our financial downfall came to us because of things that happened that were out of our control, but they were not the fault of corporations or greedy capitalists, either. I don't feel like anyone owes me anything just because these things happened to me. The ONLY thing I disagree with that a corporation has done to me was when I was employed by Hearst, they had a group of us doing the same job as others but making about half the money. They did this because they bought us out from another company and did not want to take on the extra expense of paying us fairly. But that is only one component of an entire system of financial problems that put us where we are.


So I still don't get it. I'm still confused. God, are we in a bad place financially right now. But it's not anyone's fault but our own. What's happening to other people that's so different? Or in these other people's minds, is what happened to us the result of greed of large corporations in some way that I'm not seeing?


Back to the original topic, fingers crossed, we're getting a new/used car tomorrow morning. I'm off to look online now. We'll take all the prayers we can get. We're really trying hard to overhaul our budget and live without some of the luxuries we've gotten used to. I've been selling things right and left. Canceling services and even taking on work that's not appealing just to make money. If anyone else has any moneymaking ideas, send them my way. I'll do almost anything at this point! Except prostitution. I draw the line there. Anyone need a kidney? I have two, and I hear I only need one. For the right price, I'll sell my other one...

From twins to quadruplets. In one day!

It feels like this morning I woke up and my babies doubled themselves. Like tribbles.

Seriously, though, I decided to help out my good friend Steph when she ended up without child care for the day. Her regular day care provider was out at a doctor's appointment, and one of the things I looked forward to with this whole stay-at-home mom gig was the ability to help out my friends in just such a situation.

So when she put a call out on Facebook last night for someone who could watch the kids today, I checked my calendar and then texted her and told her I'd take the kids.

It's been an adventure, and I've loved every second of the half of the day that's already gone by. So far, we've read books, played with cars, sang songs, played on the back porch and taught Emmy how to say everyone's name. Now we're winding down a little bit before lunch. I'm enjoying the heck out of this, and I really wish I had the chance to have one more kid - preferably a little girl. Emmy is potty training and she even went potty for me!

The four kids outside on the porch during play time this morning. From L-R: Harry, Hank, Emmy and Brecker.

It's been a great day.

When twins develop at different rates

I took my twins to the pediatrician for their 18-month checkup last week, and I had to ask the doctor about the younger twin, Hank, and his lack of words. He says between three and five words now, and only two of them are pronounced correctly. He says "bye bye" but he pronounces it "b-baaaooooouuuu". He definitely says "hi" and "uh-oh" correctly. But anything else he says is pronounced in a really odd way.

He's also very quiet and he tends to focus on some things that seem really simple and that he should be able to do while doing something else. Like, he could sit at the coffee table and roll his tractor back and forth for half an hour without moving or paying attention to anything else. That made me worry he was autistic. Among other things that make me worry, including the fact that he has a cousin who has autism, so it's just something that I worry about.

Hank is on the right. Harry and Mitch constantly engage each other in conversation, but Hank doesn't talk to other people very often. He doesn't use words like his brother does. He grunts instead and yells.

I had never really thought about the fact that I might be worrying too much. The pediatrician brought up the fact that the symptoms I was worried about might seem worse than they really are because I'm seeing the other twin  develop not only at a normal rate but at a faster than normal rate. She told me Harry's pretty far ahead of the curve. He's more coordinated than most children his age, has a stronger grasp of language, communicates better and says far more words. Because he is developing faster than normal and Hank is developing slightly more slowly than normal, it seems like Hank is further behind than he is in reality.

I'd never thought about that, so that brought it into a new light and kind of makes me feel better about Hank.

After I got to feeling okay about the news that he was behind, I started thinking about how he would feel later on if it ended up being something lasting. He'll always have his twin to compare himself to. And vice versa if Hank ends up excelling at something Harry stinks at. That would be hard. I wonder how they'll handle it.

Anyway, the plan for now is to have an early childhood interventionist come in to evaluate Hank. Because we have to use a program that helps pay for the intervention (such a funny word for developmental evaluation, but that's what they call it), we have to do it their way. They evaluate every stage of his development, even though it's mostly his speech that is affected. After they do the evaluation, we'll discover if it's something we need to be worried about, or if it's related to his mental development or his hearing.

Our appointment with the interventionist is at the end of October. I'll be posting the results and researching whatever we find out. It looks like the worst-case scenario as of now is either a hearing problem that will require hearing aids or a speech problem that will require the services of a speech pathologist. Our pediatrician indicated that autism was not at all a concern.

Have any of you had trouble with your twins developing at different rates? Maybe the same problem I'm having with one twin being ahead of the curve and the other behind it? How do you handle it? If any of you have older children, has it affected them?

This woman should be stoned to death.

I'm sure by now many of you have heard the story of Lindsey Lowe. She gave birth to full-term twins in her parents' bathroom, both of them being born into the toilet. After the first one was born, she left it in the toilet and covered its mouth and nose with her hand until it stopped breathing.

"Lowe stated that the baby was crying and Lowe did not want her parents to hear and find out about the child," police wrote in the affidavit. "Lowe stated that she put her hand over the child's mouth and she stated that she kept it there until the child was dead, which was a couple of minutes." Lowe said she never checked the sex of the child.

A few minutes later, she gave birth to the second twin and repeated the process.

I am a mother of twins, and I am just shocked, saddened and angry. I'm angry at this woman - not a teenager as one would expect, but an adult woman of 25 years old - for doing such a deplorable thing. Twins are such a blessing. I have lived the time since I first found out I was having twins, nine weeks into my pregnancy, praying that nothing will happen to even ONE of my children, and she intentionally kills both?

Lowe is from the Nashville suburb of Hendersonville and police from that area arrested her after her parents discovered her babies' bodies in the laundry basket she placed them in. She said she thinks she became pregnant in January and never visited a doctor for prenatal care.

This woman works at a pediatric dentist's office. She should love children. I can't imagine why a woman would do such a thing. Why a human being would do such a thing. If my twins were awake, I would hug them really tightly right now.

Should twins share a room?

When I got pregnant with the twins, I never even though about any situation other than having them share a room. I mean, they were going to share everything anyway, so why would they have a problem sharing a room? I planned a double nursery from the get-go.

I thought being this far away from each other, across the room, would make a difference in their ability to sleep.

I never even thought about having the share a crib.

As we speak (or as I write), they are SUPPOSED to be taking a nap. Instead, they are in there talking to each other because they fell asleep in the car on the way home from the mall and I had to wake them up to bring them inside. One at a time. Which meant the first one I brought in couldn't be put down quickly, quietly and in the dark.

I know many people don't have the space to give twins independent rooms, and I understand that those people may think I'm complaining about something insignificant. But it's really beginning to affect their sleep. So much so that I'm considering moving everyone around and giving them each their own rooms.

Then again, they're getting old enough to understand instruction, like, "Be quiet and go to sleep!" They are also old enough to get a leg pop when they throw their stuff out of the crib, which is one of the main things that they do to keep each other awake. They think it's funny and do it to make each other laugh. Whereas they used to go to sleep without any problems, they're now having trouble going to bed and wake each other up throughout the night. They're really bad about taking naps and, again, keep each other awake talking and laughing. 

Another problem we're having is morning routine. My husband and older son can't help but make noise when they wake up. It's inevitable. But because of that, they wake up an hour to an hour and a half earlier than they should and are cranky. Then they're overtired, which keeps them from taking a good nap during the day. And putting them to bed earlier at night to make up for it just doesn't work. I've tried that and they won't go to sleep. 

What would you guys do? Any suggestions from any other twin moms? 

Getting to know my babies.

I've been a mother for 9 years, and during that entire time, I've been a working mother. I took care of my kids, but there was never the amount of closeness I wanted because of how many hours I worked. When Mitchell was small, I worked three jobs. I rarely saw him. As he got older, I worked an average of 50-60 hours a week and just always have. It's what I'm used to.

Last fall, I was working 80 hours a week. Two full-time jobs. I missed so much of the twins' first few months. It was terribly sad. I missed Mitchell's babyhood. I didn't want to miss out on my last kids' babyhood.

So, finally, a few months ago, we made the decision for me to stay home. I've expressed apprehension about this. I'm not the kind of person who does well without someone telling me what to do every second of every day. Partially because I've been working since I was 15. That's a long time for someone my age. I'm almost 30, so that's almost 15 years in the workforce. I was terrified to leave my job.

But I did because... well, for many reasons. My health has been failing, and I wasn't able to make it into the office enough. I wasn't making enough money. We'd been on a salary freeze for four years, and we knew we were in for at least two more. And my salary was so pitiful that it was costing us money for me to work. Not only that, but I was having to work a second job to be able to afford to work my first job. Not cool.

Not only was I never seeing my babies, but I wasn't seeing Mitchell, either. So I figured I'd quit and just work for myself. It's been hard easing into a new routine, and setting up a new routine, but I'm so thankful I've done this. I'm getting to see all their little milestones. Like today, I swear, Harry kept saying "Hey now!" He's saying phrases. He said, "Hi, Mama!" the other day. It's so cute. They're both so cute. I can't get enough of hugging them and squeezing them and playing with them. My only regret is that I ever went back to work in the first place.

I'm getting to spend way more time with Mitch, too. Quality time. We have conversations and snuggle time and it's all so wonderful.

I think it's gonna work out.

This might be funny if it happened to someone else.

This sounds like pure fiction, the story I'm about to tell. They say bad things happen in threes, so I hope the trilogy is complete.

A week ago Friday, in the middle of the night, Hank woke up barely able to breathe. All of us had been having exaggerated allergy symptoms, and it was starting to sound like a tuberculosis ward in my house. I was just going to make appointments at the pediatrician's office and then take myself in to the doctor at a later date, but Hank sounded awful! He was wheezing, and it sounded like his throat was closing up. So Ro sat with him in the bathroom with the hot shower running, we gave him some cough medicine and after a couple of hours he started breathing normally again and went back to sleep.

An hour and a half later, I loaded everyone into the car and headed off to Complete Urgent Care, which is my absolute favorite place to see a doctor on short notice. If you live in NW San Antonio and want to know more about my experiences there, please let me know. I'll take the time to tell you. Anyhow, $250 later (co-pays for office visits and medication all around) we were all diagnosed with bronchitis.

No problem, I thought. Hank was on an inhaler, but mostly we all just had to take cough meds and antibiotics and relax. When I got checked out, my blood pressure and heart rate were really high. Over the weekend, they both just got worse. I felt like I was smoking crack nonstop, and if you've ever done that, while it can be fun, it can also be highly uncomfortable.

So Monday rolls around, and we head back to our favorite emergency clinic. I got 2 EKGs and my heart rate was holding steady at 137 with my blood pressure around 160/110. Seriously, I quit my job. I shouldn't be having stress or anxiety.

But I was diagnosed with extreme anxiety and sent home with Xanax (which is kind of cool, I admit. I mean, how many ER clinics do THAT?) and told to relax. I'd already scheduled a follow-up with my doctor the next day to make sure my heart was ok. Lots of heart disease in my family, and I worry about it.

The next day, my new doc (whom I LOVE! Dr. Mark Smith, if you're looking for a GP) was seriously concerned. He put me on a beta blocker and made an appointment for me to see a cardiologist. Mind you, this is Tuesday and I couldn't see the cardiologist until the following Monday (which ended up being yesterday). He told me to come back the next morning for labs and a checkup to see how the beta blocker was working.

The beta blocker brought my heart rate down but not my bp. And the next morning I almost passed out in his office because I couldn't breathe. He says that's it, go to the ER. Seriously? I have to babies with me and no help. He said if I didn't he was worried about what would happen. So I called the hubs and off we went to Methodist. Great ER. They took me in right away and put me on monitors and found out I have NOT a heart problem but pleurisy, which is an infection in my lungs. I'd only heard of it peripherally because one of my friends had it after having pneumonia.

Luckily, my parents came to the rescue. Wednesday evening, I was released from the ER  and sent home to rest. By Friday, I was in so much pain I could hardly stand it. That, apparently, is common with pleurisy. And they told me to take Advil. Not working. So to distract myself, I decided to go to the store to replace all the Advil I'd taken. And to get some ice cream. Ice cream is essential when you're sick. Plus, I figured the trip would distract me.

I am so not joking here, but right around the corner from my house, I hit a Nissan Xterra. She started to move forward, and when I looked down after I started rolling (a pen rolled under my foot), she slammed on the brakes and I hit her.

Poor Bob. He is my car and my friend. I am not functioning well without him.

As you can see, Bob took a beating. Yes, I name my cars. What's it to you? My friend Emma says I have an unhealthy emotional attachment to my car. She's so right. I have had with every single car I've ever owned. I cry when I trade them in! I feel like I'm abandoning them. Anyway, that's another issue for another time.

Again, my husband races to rescue. I can't decide whether I've done him a favor getting him out of a day and a half of inservice at his school or if it's a bad reflection on him, but whatever the case, I was thankful he took care of me last week.

I was shocked when AllState told me that not only would a rental car be covered the entire time Bob was being fixed but our deductible was only $100. I had to go the weekend without a car because Enterprise was closed, but aside from that, everything has gone smoothly. Bob is already being worked on. They'll give me a time estimate Wednesday or Thursday. I get the rental, which looks like a lunchbox on wheels, for as long as it takes, and I don't have to pay an extra penny for it. Not only that, but the rental is big enough for both car seats, the double stroller and Mitchell and me.

I'm calling him Junior because he kind of looks like Bob's tiny child.

Someone is looking out for me. Just hoping this week goes better than last!

All this free time on my hands.

My two youngest children are still small. My older one is out for summer vacation. My husband is already back at work. This is probably the worst time to evaluate how much work stay-at-home moms have to do, but so far, I'm bored!

Yesterday morning, I took time out to clean the house. It took me a couple of hours, but I managed to deep clean the living room and kitchen and get caught up on the dishes and laundry. I took Mitch to a movie (I wasn't that impressed with this Planet of the Apes movie, by the way. I was expecting a lot more). I caught up on my freelance work. I started putting together the final report for the class I'm taking this summer.

This morning, I'm out of things to do. I'm trying to pace myself, but wow. I've gotten the boys out of bed, fed them, played with them, read to them. Now they're totally into watching Thomas and Friends, and I'm twitching. Maybe I should take up sewing? Knitting? Ice sculpting?

I'll get used to this and adapt. I know I will. It's just... I've never really not had a job. Ever. It's new territory. The closest I came was my senior year in college where my only job was editing a section of my college newspaper and doing some freelance work. I think that year, I did more than 18 hours each semester and we were planning a wedding, though, so I had plenty to do. Plus, we were potty training Mitchell that year, so there was lots of work to do at home. Also, we were planning a move to San Antonio, which meant looking for jobs and doing lots of packing.

There are no projects on my horizon. I need to learn to slow down and enjoy just being here with my kids. Anyone have any tips?

What's wrong with me...

I've gotten questions from a lot of people lately about where I've been, either in the real world or the virtual one. Unfortunately, it's not an exciting answer. I haven't joined the CIA or anything.

I have a disorder called Gastroparesis. I was diagnosed roughly two months ago, and without going into detail, it means that my stomach has stopped working. The actual stomach organ itself has ceased to process what I put into my body. This puts outrageous limits on what I can eat and what will actually give me nutrients if I put it into my body.

I am sick a lot of the time. I'm on some heavy-duty nausea meds that make me drowsy, and it's hard for me to get around. I have no energy and no motivation. I've lost 40 pounds in the last two months, most of which has come off in the last three weeks.

After a stay in the hospital last weekend, I went back to see my doctor, who gave me some new options. I'm on the last kind of medication they can give me. If this doesn't work, we go the surgical route, which means installing an implant into my torso that connects to the part of my brain that tells my stomach what to do. It will, literally, send signals to my brain to tell my stomach to start working properly again. I'm hoping this medicine works. I managed to get to work this morning without any sickness, and that hasn't happened in a while.

This is my last week of work. One of the reasons I'm leaving my job is that I've been so sick lately. I'm thankful that I have a skill that I can use to work from my home. If I didn't, we'd really have a mess on our hands.

So, if I'm not around, it's not simply because I've gone all antisocial. It's because of this. I've been keeping it under wraps for a while because I don't want anyone (except for those who should, like my parents and husband) worrying about me. I'll be fine. Even if I have to have surgery, I'll be ok.

I have a walker!

You heard me right! Or, read me right?

These boys have taken so much longer than their brother did to walk. Hank is still not walking. When they were ten months old, they were able to hold on to our hands and walk with no problem. When that happened, I thought it would be a matter of a few short weeks before they were walking.

By their first birthday, they were walking by holding on to only one hand. They were champs, pros even! I expected them to take off any second.

Then they turned 13 months, and nothing changed. Fourteen months. Fifteen months. Still waiting.

I started to worry something might be wrong with them. We went to a party last weekend, and our friend's 1-year-old son was already walking, and my babies, who were obviously older, were not. It was kind of disheartening. What if they just decided it was easier NEVER to walk?

Then, yesterday, we were all hanging out in the living room (minus Mitchell because he's at his dad's) when Harry stood up in the middle of the room. He's been doing this a while, but he usually just stands up and sits down over and over again. This time, he just stood there a while and then kind of lurched forward a little bit and fell. Then he got right back up. I encouraged him to walk toward me. He looked at me, but I was kind of far away. So then I encouraged him to walk toward his dad.

He took two steps and threw himself at the couch.

I was so proud. I've never been so excited about two little steps.

From there, he just kept going. Today, he was going back and forth in the living room. Right now, he's getting a lot out of it. We all clap and tell him how amazing he is when he's walking. He's not yet using it as his primary means of getting around, but he does it a lot for the claps and hugs and excitement.

Hank is taking it all in. I was hoping if Hank saw Harry do it, Hank would just take off and walk. But it hasn't happened like that. I suppose he'll start when he's ready. In the meantime, I'm just comforted knowing that there's really nothing wrong with them. They just prefer efficiency.

Nap time.

The boys are going through sleep transitions. This means I'm going through sleep transitions, which is frustrating.

In short, Harry needs more sleep than Hank. He takes more after me, so that makes sense. I need lots of sleep. For an adult, I sleep far more than is normal. I'd sleep 16 hours a day, every day, if I were able. I can't function on less than 7 hours a night, and that's pushing it. I need 9 to be in a good mood.

My handy dandy sleep book says they should be sleeping 14 hours a day right now. Twelve hours at night and then one two-hour nap during the day. My book says this should have started at about 12 months.

At 12 months, they were taking two two-hour naps a day and sleeping 12 to 14 hours at night. We were putting them to bed at 6 p.m., and they were sleeping until 7:30 a.m. when we'd let them. That worked fine for me.

At 14 months, it stopped working for them. It was obviously time to go down to one nap a day because they were waking up at 5:30 a.m. We're morning people, but that was too early for us. We needed them to sleep until at least 6 a.m. So I consulted the sleep book and decided we'd go to one nap a day and put them to bed at 7 p.m. instead of 6 p.m.

It was rough. We've just now readjusted, and I'm so frustrated with the fact that Harry seems to need more sleep. Hank wakes up first, but Harry gets sleepy first. Right now, Harry needs sleep so bad, even though Hank could make it the rest of the day without any. They had shots today, and I had to wake them up from their nap to take them to the doctor, so I figured when they got back, they'd need more sleep, but Hank is fighting it and keeping Harry awake.

I'm starting to wonder at what age I should give up keeping them on the exact same schedule. They're becoming such little individuals. On the other hand, I don't want to make it any harder for myself. Sleep is important in my house. I don't want to screw it up.

Hank needs more play.

Harry needs more sleep.

On the verge of a new life. Maybe.

I've written about this subject before. It's a decision every mom has to make. There are so many reasons why women choose to do this or choose not to do this. I never in my life thought I would consider choosing the other side, but here I am, considering changing my whole life.

I am seriously considering being a stay-at-home-mom.

Let me start by saying one of the reasons I chose to do journalism is because I can write at my home and take care of my babies. I have never USED this choice in profession to stay at home with my babies. Well, I've got the last of my babies. We might adopt one in a couple of years if we have the money because I want a girl, and I've always wanted to adopt. And, of course, I can't have any more of my own. But for all intents and purposes, this could be it.

I'm lucky to have a really flexible job and a boss that's stood by my side ALWAYS (even when we went through a short period where he wasn't my boss, he remained my friend), so if I've ever needed to leave work for my kids, it's not a problem. I have an editor who, while he doesn't have any kids, is really good about realizing that I do and working around that.

But recently we've run into a problem. I have bad stomach issues. I won't go into the details, but I have a disease that causes parts of my gastrointestinal system to flare up, but I have always battled through it to be able to work. Now it seems like Harry, my older twin, might have inherited these problems.

The day care refuses to keep him if he throws up or has diarrhea. The stomach problems we have do cause both of these things, but they aren't contagious. That's why I don't understand why it's a problem. But apparently state licensing requirements mandate sending them home if they throw up at all and if they have two consecutive diarrhea episodes. This happens frequently with Harry. It's caused me to deplete my sick days. Not only that, but there are sick days I have to take for myself when I can't power through my own stomach problems.

Because it's a state licensing requirement, all day cares follow this rule.

This caused me a while back to begin thinking about the whole stay-at-home mom deal. I began to think about the money, and when I added up day care costs, gas costs and parking costs (because I work downtown, I have to pay for my own parking, and its' really expensive), we are actually paying money for me to work. So essentially, all these months, I've been working a second job to pay for the costs we incurred from me working a first job.

After that, I began to think about what I would do if I stayed home. I started digging for freelance work and discovered that there's so much more out there than there was since the last time I freelanced, which was roughly five years ago. I've already passed my resume and writing samples around and have been given permission to write for several websites.

Because of my employment now, I can't freelance, but if I quit, it opens me up to doing so much more work. I can be so much more creative in what I pick and choose. And on top of that, I get to be around my babies all day every day. I get to watch them grow up. I no longer have to pray that they don't grow up to choose to engage in sports or extracurriculars that I have no idea how I'm going to make time for. My children can have lives.

Sounds like my decision is made for me, but then the illogical side of my brain jumps in. I've had a job since I was 15 years old. I'll be 29 on Sunday. That's a long time. That's basically half my life. And for someone my age, that's not normal. I'm worried about my self-worth. I'm worried about having the title stay-at-home mom. Not that there's anything wrong with it. It's just that my self-worth has always been tied into what I appear to contribute to my family financially. And staying at home will make me appear to be contributing nothing financially.

Not only that, but I love my job. Love, love, love it. I love the people I work with. We've been together so long we're almost like a family. I can't imagine not doing my job. Or not doing it there. That's a big factor.

I have the rest of the summer to decide. Because Ro's a teacher, we don't have to pay for day care in the summer, so it just makes sense for me to keep working. I'll finally finish my master's this fall (thanks to my buddy Karen talking me into it), so I might teach in the summers from now on if I do quit my job.

So, I don't know what to do. All your thoughts and opinions are so welcome. I need to know what everyone thinks!

I'm coming out of the bad mom closet.

There as some views on motherhood and mommy practices I have that other women just cringe at. I find this fascinating. I think the way I do "mommying" works for my family and for me, and that's all that matters. But every once in a while I get a comment that just shocks me. I'm not way out there in left field or anything, so I get surprised.

I figured I'd put it all down on paper, so to speak, to see what other women think of these things. If you'd like to comment, I welcome your comments. Good or bad! I like to know what other people think. I'll never change what I do, but it's interesting to hear other viewpoints.

I find breastfeeding gross. I've only had one other friend who shares my viewpoint on this. It makes me cringe to see another woman pull out a boob in public. I feel like if you choose to do it, it should be private. When I did it, I kept it very private, and I'm one of the least modest people I know.
I breast fed Mitch for six weeks, and it was just dreadful. It felt gross. I actually wanted to do it and looked forward to the experience before he was born. I was insistent on breast feeding. Then, as soon as I started doing it, I felt disgusting.
It made me sweat. I couldn't stand the way it felt when the milk left my body. My breasts just ached constantly. He had to eat every 15 minutes because he was such a large and hungry baby, and I became engorged. Pumping hurt. Everything in the general area was constantly in pain. I just didn't enjoy it at all. But seriously, the worst part was that it made me sweat. I know I already mentioned it, but it just got worse and worse as time went by. It felt like flu sweat. Like I was sweating out all the toxins in my body, but there were just too many toxins.

I spank. When some people hear this, they picture me beating my children with an aluminum bat. Other people realize what I actually do, which is spank only when the punishment fits the crime. For instance, the last time my 8-year-old was spanked was longer ago than I can remember. This is because spanking worked with him. I'm not saying it works with every child, because it doesn't. Every child is different and responds to different forms of punishment.
The babies are too young to spank. They do, however, get a pop on the hand when they touch stuff and grab stuff they're not supposed to. They get it done immediately with a firm "no" to go along with it. This is reinforcing what the word no means while at the same time giving them a consequence when they do something they're not supposed to do. They then equate touching the cable box, for instance, with getting their hands popped.
My son is a very well-behaved and well-mannered child. I credit my discipline strategy for that. I fully expect never to have to spank him again because the older he gets the less he needs it. For minor infractions, we do "consequences".  We take away his video games and tv time. That works much better than spanking at this point!

I really don't care about germs. My kids can put their mouths on almost anything they want, short of a stranger's skin. Chewing on the shopping cart bar? No biggie.
I don't wash the babies' hands before they eat. They're 1. They have their hands in their mouths every second of every day. What about eating makes it any different? My grandmother freaks out when I do this. It almost makes me laugh, poor woman. She thinks this is such a serious thing.

I think cloth diapering is ridiculous. And I say so readily. Why would you spend the time cloth diapering when there are disposable diapers you can throw away? Poop is so nasty. To me, there are lots of ways you can do your part to help the environment, but my goodness. That's just not one I'll spend time on. We've come a long way over the years. Let's use the efficient things that have been developed. In my mind it's like saying instead of using a sanitary pad you should wad a towel up in your pants.

I find the childbirth experience unnatural and disgusting. I've done it both ways: vaginal birth and c-section. People think I'm crazy when I say the C-section was easier than the vaginal birth, but I wholeheartedly believe that for me, it was. Maybe not for everyone, but for me, yes.
I don't understand women who do this at home. There are women in my life I love and respect who have done this, and I think they're crazy. Why on earth would you NOT want a doctor around when your child is born? What if something is wrong with it? When I say this, women come back with the response that for centuries women did it without doctors. My response is that for centuries, babies died. Now, it's not necessary for babies to die. I know that if you're careful and have someone there who knows what he/she is doing, it cuts down on the risk, but I'm just not a risk taker. And seriously, I have never gotten a sense of euphoria from giving birth. A sense of pain and wanting tons of medication and three fingers of bourbon afterward, yeah, but euphoria? Nope.

These are my confessions. Ha! Take them as you will. I yam who I yam.

More than just a cloth diaper.

When you find yourself with one baby, convenient baby products are a must. But when you have multiples - or multiples and older children along with them - convenient baby products are sometimes a lifesaver and a key to retaining your sanity.

I figured it might be helpful if I shared some hints and the baby products that go along with them.

All of the products I'm listing below have one thing in common: they're great for transition. Babies go through so many transitions so quickly, so when you're dealing with more than one, anything that can make those transitions easier is worth every penny.

Surprisingly, though, most of this stuff does NOT cost a fortune.

So here are my top five fave transitional tips/products from the last 14 and a half months of twin mommyood.

5. Little gPants

Little gPants: The wonder pant! Find them at www.gpant.com or Babies R Us.

• These cloth diaper-like products are not helpful when used as intended. I'm not a cloth diaperer. I understand that it's probably good for the environment and cheaper when done traditionally, but let's be real here, people. I work and have three kids and a house to maintain. There's not time for this stuff. 
• So here's how I use them: They are excellent leak guards and a great way to move to the next size diaper before your babies are big enough for that size. 
• Leak guards: Some babies pee so much in the night that they leak every night. This is just a fact. I was AGONIZING over how to keep them from leaking outside their diapers because they would do it so quickly, and the liquid would cool on their clothes and the cold would wake them in the middle of the night. So I thought about the vinyl covers, but my husband didn't like that idea because he said he thought the wet vinyl would cause rashes. So off to Babies R Us I went looking for a cloth alternative. These were expensive. Like, almost 30 bucks for a two pack. The good part about it, though, is you only need one for each baby if you're using them to protect against leaks instead of as cloth diapers. They have vinyl inserts that you can pop out and rinse, but the majority of the pant is cloth that can quickly be popped into the washer and then dryer and ready again for nighttime. 
• Transitional sizing: Many parents of multiples receive a ton of diapers before the babies are born. They were almost ready for size two - but not quite - when we ran out of the generously given size ones. We were broke, as many parents of multiples are, and needed to use what we had, but the diapers were still so large on them that they wouldn't stay on all the time. Enter Little gPants. They have Velcro adjusters just like diapers, and we already had them to guard against leaks. So we popped on a size two diaper and popped on their Little gPants on top of the diaper and just used it day and night until they got big enough to wear the size twos without the gPants holding them on. 
• I think everyone should own one pair of Little gPants for every baby on hand. They're great! 

5. Nûby Standard Non-Drip Bottle 

I cannot say enough about this product. It is a basic that every mommy should have, but especially mommies of multiples.

• Because of the handles on this product, my babies were able to hold their bottles so much sooner. I know handles have been around forever, but these are the perfect size and are removable, so if your baby doesn't dig handles or you're ready to teach him to hold on without them, they just pop right off.
• These come in two sizes, so stock up. You will need the bigger size later on if you use them with my special instructions, so keep that in mind.
• The Meredith way: These are great for really hungry babies. Again, as with cloth diapering, I know all about how breastfeeding is best, but with multiples, it's just not so easy. So for those of us who prefer a little bit more organized, streamlined and, let's just face it, easier, life, we bottle feed with formula. Now, all three of my babies had to switch to some kind of solid at six weeks old. My 8-year-old was breast fed for six weeks and almost starved to death. At six weeks, we put him on formula, rice cereal and stage 1 baby food. Struggling to feed him all of this when he was that young was difficult. Eight years later, skipping the breastfeeding stage altogether, I was faced with the same problem with two of them at once! So I put a lot of thought into this, and I decided to improvise.
• I used the Nûby bottles because they could hold more. The thing about the nipples with these is that they're not standard, so with a thick mixture like I wanted to create, I couldn't use the nipples that came with them. So I substituted regular nipples as the first step. In the bottle, I put six ounces of formula (the twins were already downing 10+ ounces every three to four hours), I jar of Gerber stage 1 fruit or vegetable and enough rice cereal to create the consistency that seemed right for their appetite at the time. 
• This worked great as long as I cut a small X in the nipple hole. It was a fantastic transition for the boys between bottle feeding and spoon feeding while making sure they got enough food. It also stretched their feedings out at night so that we were able to get more sleep. 
• So, as a product alone, it's fantastic, but after I modified it and used it my own way, it was a terrific transitional feeding tool.

3. OP Baby Boy Two-Piece Flotation Swimsuit

• I love, love, love, love this. Taking a baby swimming is hard, but, damn, the cold water feels good because you are alway so sweaty from lugging around a baby. Or two, in my case. So, we tried out those floaty things with the canopies. Those are great when you have one baby. But try keeping two babies in those things while you're floating around in a public pool. Or three. Or four. Catch my drift (ha!)?
• These are like a take on the arm floatie and life jacket all in one. The bottoms are like regular swim trunks. The top is like a life jacket with sleeves and a zipper up the front, but it has a padded strap that hooks under the crotch area. So the baby doesn't fall down into the life jacket. If you've ever worn a life jacket, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
• Now, you can't let the baby go and float in this, of course, but you can hold the baby next to you with virtually no muscle power needed, which is nice when you're toting those suckers around all the time OUT of the water. This way, you can give your weary muscles a break. And since it's more of a life jacket, you can get the babies closer to you and hold two at once mostly effortlessly. 
• In keeping with the transition theme, of course, the pads can come out of the shirt and the straps can come off if you'd like a regular two piece for your child. And, lastly, taking away the top, the shorts can be worn just as swimming trunks, making this suit last as long as it will fit.

2. Nûby No-Spill Sippy Cup 

• Nûby is a great product. Hands-down it's probably my No. 1 baby feeding product. I'd take a Nûby product over any other one without even looking. 
• The reason I love these particular cups is because they're shaped like the traditional sippy cup but they have a silicone top. So if your baby is teething, this gives them something to chew on. 
• The other great thing about the silicone top is that the baby can suck on it like he/she can suck on a nipple from a bottle. It has the same feeling, so it allows them to transition to a sippy cup more easily, so there doesn't have to be as much attention focused on it from the parent. I remember with my older son, I spent a lot of time coaxing him into drinking out of a hard-topped sippy cup. With these, all I had to do is hand them to the babies, and they took to them immediately. I could turn right back around and keep cleaning/cooking/doing laundry instead of having to teach the babies how to drink out of these. They're worth their weight in gold.

1. 

• This tops any list. For any reason. Ever. If things are going bad, this will go a long way toward fixing it. Every mother should remember this. If out of this particular product, the product below will also work.

Sharing

There were many concerns on my mind when I found out I'd be having twins.

One of the biggest ones was wondering how I was going to give enough love to two babies. Every mother wonders how she will give love to a second baby when she already has one. I already had one, and I was wondering how I was going to give enough love to a second one when I got sucker punched with the revelation that I would be having two more.

So now there had to be enough love for three children when I'd only ever loved one. How on earth could I share?

I very quickly learned, before these boys were even born, that they would be forced to share everything in life. They received every gift addressed not to "Hank" or "Harry" but to "Hank and Harry" or "The Twins".

They got nothing of their own. This quickly inspired a project. They had to share a room, but I would, by God, at least let their beds be their own.

Because there were two more mouths to feed, I couldn't go all out buying stuff for them, which was a disappointment, considering they were likely my last babies. So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought cheap cardboard letters to spell out their names above their beds.

We bought their cribs secondhand, but each one of them had a crib. Each one had his own space in their room. They have been in the same beds since they were born, and I've never been prouder of a cheap, easy project.

I was watching them in the floor this past Saturday eating their snacks. They're now a year and change old and as they sat watching the Backyardigans, handing snacks back and forth to each other, simultaneously pushing their trucks around the floor and rolling a ball back and forth, I had never been prouder.

Hank and Harry, twins extraordinaire

At first I thought I was proud of them. They were sharing so nicely. Then I realized I had to be proud of myself. Those two have never had the chance to be selfish, yet they've also never wanted for anything. I've done a great job providing for them and at the same time limiting myself to the sometimes painful constraints of reality.

Sometimes I am surprised. I have a brother who is almost two years to the day younger than I am. Many people thought we were twins when we were younger. We look amazingly like my twin boys in our childhood photos. We are still amazingly close, so it shocks me how I never could have realized how much more my boys will get out of this relationship than I ever thought they could.

My brother Derick and me. We were two years apart, but lots of people thought we were twins. We have a really strong relationship.

After putting their relationship into context, and remembering my own with my brother, I realized I knew a lot more than I thought I did about how great it is that they can share so much. They will always share. They will share clothes, their room, their food, probably girls (ha!), a car, maybe even their first apartment. They will share joys, losses and they will probably be best friends for their whole lives. While they have to give up some sense of individuality, and I have to give up spoiling them as individuals, they are lucky. I am lucky. Our family is lucky. Above everything else, they share a bond and a love that can probably never be destroyed. Not only am I proud of myself, but when I put it in perspective, I find myself a bit jealous of those two as they carry on in their secret language...

How long could this possibly take?

So the twins aren't walking yet. I honestly don't remember when Mitchell walked, but if you've read any of my postings, you know my life was a little different when he was this age. I wasn't as involved.

My back has only gotten worse, and the results that are coming in are suggesting this could be a much worse problem than we thought. The twins passed 25 pounds a while back, and yesterday I accidentally dropped one of them.

They're walking by holding on to one hand, ever so tentatively, but they seem so stubborn about actually taking those first steps. I think they just realize it's easier to crawl.

Developmentally, I know there's nothing wrong with them, but having this back problem sure does make it hard to get them around when they're not getting around on their own little feet. I love them dearly, but I sure do want them to start walking!

The biggest twin problem yet.

As you all remember, about four months ago I had a giant meltdown when I didn't get any sleep for a couple of days. Anyone would. Not sleeping for that long is not healthy.

Husband and I were not on the same page about how to sleep train the twins. He was in favor of a more gentle mode of training, rocking them to sleep at night and then trying to put them down without waking them. I was in favor of balls to the wall, aggressive, letting them scream it out until they got used to it and fell asleep kind of training.

In an earlier post, you've figured out that I believe marriage is all about compromise. So, through my tears, I managed to explain to him that I was willing to do a modified kind of sleep training as long as he could give some from his end too. So I found a book, by a pediatrician, explaining that it was ok to let babies cry it out.

Long story short, we compromised and it worked. Nothing since has been as difficult. I've been blessed with easy babies.

Also as you all know, the babies turned 1 about a month ago. They are starting to walk. They crawl really fast. They're talking right on schedule; they both have lots of words. They're sleeping 12-13 hours a night. They love to snuggle with us. They understand the word no and are incredibly well-behaved 1-year-olds.

The only problem, the only hang-up, is that we are struggling through the eating part of things.

When they got out of the hospital, they ate like champs. Actually, as soon as they got out of my belly they ate like champs. They gave them two ounces of formula right there in the OR to make sure they ate well. And boy did they ever. They both sucked it down in seconds.

At their one-week checkup, the doctor said they were't gaining weight fast enough, so she had us put them on Gerber Good Start. They ate it like it was the best thing they'd ever tasted and both shot up in weight really quickly. The only problem is by about three weeks, they were seeming hungrier and hungrier.

Most docs won't advise solid foods until six months, based on the American Pediatric Ass.'s guidelines, but all three of my babies had to start rice cereal before they were a month old. We put it directly in the bottle.

With the twins, by three months, they had to have baby food. We tried with a spoon at first, and they just weren't coordinated enough to eat it, so we put it in their bottles with their formula. At first, we only did it with the morning bottle and the night bottle, but as they got older, they needed it constantly. By four and a half months, they were eating it in every bottle. We went on like that, adding as much as we could fit in a bottle, until they were around six or seven months old. Then we just started feeding them baby food outside of the bottles and increased their bottles to eight ounces with rice cereal.

In short, they've always eaten a lot, so when we tried to put them on table food and they started to stall out, it frustrated me. For the last couple of months, we've been fighting to get them to eat. Harry is starting to come around and eat pretty much everything we give him. Hank is more picky. He cries and turns his head and screams.

When he does this, it affects Harry. Harry gets upset, and it keeps Harry from eating. WIth one baby, you can negotiate and find things for one baby to eat. With two, by yourself, you have to make sure they're both in a good mood and eating, or one affects the other.

So I haven't figured this whole thing out yet. I've looked for books about this, like I found a book on getting twins to sleep. If such a book is out there, I surely can't locate it. If any of you knows of such a book, I'd owe you eternally for finding it for me!

If I figure this whole thing out, I will, of course, write about it. If any of you other moms of multiples out there knows what to do, please clue me in! This is a serious cry for help. I'm tired of seeing my babies so frustrated with their eating. And I'm tired of being frustrated about their eating. With one baby, I know it's just a phase, but with two, they just feed off each other, with their attitudes, their likes, their dislikes.

So any tips would be appreciated. And if you're not a mom of multiples, don't tell me it's just a phase and they'll get over it! Please! I'll get mad at you. And I don't like being mad at people.

Are Republicans and Democrats like Husband and Wife?

Early in my current marriage, I remember late nights - we're talking 2 or 3 a.m. - fighting with my husband. We had serious things to fight about, as most married couples do in the beginning.

I won't go into the problems, but they had to be resolved in order to make our relationship work. Our relationship was something we were working on together, to make stable, to make emotionally profitable and to sustain the people within it.

So, obviously, this is an analogy. My marriage is only five years old. The United States government is 235 years old, and the people we have put in charge of making it work are not making it work.

They've had 235 years to bicker, to argue and to get over it, but instead of doing what my husband and I did and working through our problems, they continue to fight.

They continue to fight to the detriment of the people who depend on them. And they don't care. This blows my mind. I figure, as long as they're still getting paid, they don't care. They have no stake in this. Money and pride seem to be the main motivators.

I remember those late nights fighting with my husband. I was RIGHT. And I was going to stay right no matter what the cost. I would be tired to parent effectively in the morning. My head would hurt from the lack of sleep. My throat would hurt from the screaming. My eyes would hurt from the crying. But none of that mattered as long as I was right.

Our country will suffer. People will lose jobs. But gosh darn it as long as the Republicans win, or the Democrats win, it'll all be alright.

In Texas, our educational system is on the verge of collapse. Teachers, who used to have the most job security of all, are wondering how they'll feed their families when they lose their jobs and take pay cuts. Parents of special needs children - I am one, so I know - are having a hard time figuring out how the schools will continue to take care of their children. Parents should be worried enough, seeing the product that is coming out of Texas schools right now, but now they have to worry even more when almost everything is taken from their children.

When this is on the verge of happening in Texas, though, you look at the political agenda right now and have to wonder what the heck people are thinking. They're actually fighting about abortion. They're doing this at the national level, too.

Why?

In my mind, this is like my husband's and my fights early in our marriage. We had big issues on the table, and we had small issues on the table, but all of them were important when we just had to be right.

Is abortion as important as saving our government right now? No, not to me it's not. And I'm guessing to the many federal employees who will lose out on a paycheck starting tomorrow it's not as important either.

We're so far in debt it's ridiculous. My husband and I faced a similar problem recently. My company has been on a salary freeze for four years, and we're now looking at at least two more. The hubs is facing budget cuts next year. And because we didn't expect this, we lived beyond our means for a while, and it caught up with us.

The federal government is in the same predicament. What did we do? Because we're five years in with more experience than when we first got married, we took the small stuff off the list and tackled the big problem. We figured out a way to fix things. We compromised. We each gave a little, as we weren't in agreement on how to fix it. We came to a COMPROMISE.

Has the government done this? No. And because of that, we're looking at a possible shutdown tomorrow.

Maybe that's a good thing. If they're shut down, they can't spend any money, right... ?

My first ever real vacation.

I've had a full-time job with benefits for four years now. This is something in my previous life (the one where I never thought I'd make it through college!) I never thought I'd have.

Year one - in 2008 - I didn't get vacation time. I had to make it through one year of employment before I could get paid vacation time.

Year two - in 2009 - I got part of the regular 10 days because I wasn't employed through the whole year of 2008. That year, however, I spent those vacation days on a cot in the PICU with Mitchell as he worked his way through the initial stages of his diagnosis of Type I diabetes. It was rough. It was not a vacation. I was newly pregnant and suffering from morning sickness, all the while camping out in a very uncomfortable room while my baby was hooked up to machines and unconscious most of the time. I also had to puke in a tiny, tiny bathroom that I wasn't even supposed to be using. They made an exception and turned their heads since I was in my first trimester. Coincidentally, I didn't yet know I was having twins. This was about two weeks before I discovered that little fact.

Year three - in 2010 - I had to use my full 10 days of vacation before I could start my disability pay for maternity leave. So I spent it hugely pregnant in bed, alone, in pain and suffering. Bed rest sounds great, but when you've got two huge babies incubating in your guts, it's not too pleasant.

Enter year four. I am pleased to announce that my kids are healthy, and I'm healthy. I knew this year I would get to spend my vacation however I wanted.

I figured I'd take one week in the spring and one in the fall and take off time from both jobs and just enjoy being home with no responsibilities. There was one thing I had to take care of this week, which is why I decided to take off, but it's been taken care of. So the rest of the time was devoted to me. I thought.

Monday, we had a slight panic over money. Everything turned out okay. It ended up being something that happened on the bank's end, but I had to spend the whole day trying to figure out how to handle it. It stunk.

Tuesday was a little better, but I was still trying to shuffle funds and figure out how to get back on track with the bank's mistake. Then I spent all day designing a budget to help us stay on track. The spreadsheet was awesome, if I might say so myself. Formulas and all. A thing of beauty. Yesterday I slept on and off until noon because I woke up with 102 fever. I was sweating through everything. I made it to the drug store to get NyQuil and load up on Red Box movies, but that was about it. Today, I'm feeling a little better and am hoping to salvage the last two days of vacation.

Though it sounds bogus, this is the best vacation I've ever had. I'm catching up on watching movies, I'm napping, I'm reading, I'm relaxing and I've even gotten all of our laundry done. The best part is not having to worry about work at all. And knowing I have another week to try to do this better in the fall. Vacationing is an art form, and I'm learning how to do it well.

Some day my vacations will be spent at the beach, or on a cruise ship. But for now, I'm enjoying getting this whole relaxing thing right. I was able to enjoy some great snuggles before starting my next to last vacation day this morning.

Me and my mini me

The conclusion of the great e-reader decision.

So a few weeks ago, those of you who were Facebook friends were treated to my innermost thoughts, concerns and genuine grief about a) whether I was ok with using an e-reader at all and b) if I decided to get one which way to go.

I took in numerous pieces of advice.

My friend Katie said she had a Nook and loved how it looked more like a real page. For this reason, she wouldn't get the color one. She wanted it to look as close to a real book as possible. Her husband, Scott, though, uses an iPad for reading, which, she said, she could never do.

Another friend, Carla, said she had a thing about cracking the spine of a new hardback. She only ever buys hardbacks.

Emma said I would miss the smell of a new book.

My mom never weighed in at all, but I've commiserated with her in the past about the dismal future of "real books" because of those stupid e-readers.

What changed my mind -- I was steadfastly against this for so very long -- was the price of a new release e-book. Above anything else, I tend to be very cheap. I only buy new clothes on sale. I only buy generic meds. I buy store brand of everything possible. And, as much as I love reading series, I wait to purchase new releases in my favorite series until they're no longer new releases and I can get them for fifty cents on Amazon.

This causes me great distress. I read a lot. I average anywhere from three to five books a week. So I love Half Price Books and end up reading stuff I don't always want to read because I can get it on the cheap.

I FOUND the price of new e-books because I was looking for something on the Barnes and Noble website and saw the hardback price, the paperback price AND the e-book price. On average, a new release in hardback costs $25 to $30. Maybe as low as $17.99 at Wal Mart if you get lucky. New releases at B&N, for e-books? $12.99!

This, of course, intrigued me, so I looked up e-readers. I immediately discounted most of them, as the reviews included complainst such as, "It doesn't work really well when you're trying to get on Facebook." Stupid. If it's an e-reader, what the heck is anyone doing trying to get on Facebook?

Too much bidness for reading books.

So that left me with a couple of options. I then immediately discounted anything that had a 3G carrier activation required. Not needed. There's WiFi almost anywhere, and you can read books on it without having to connect to the Internet. Also, where would I ever be that I need to read without an Internet connection? For me, nowhere. And if I am, I have the app on my phone.

This is really handy, and I tried it out on my phone before I invested in the actual e-reader. It's a free app.

Knocking that extra cost out brought me down to $250 for the Nook Color, $150 for the black and white Nook and $140 for the Kindle. Then there were some off-brand verisons I was able to find on sale for MUCH cheaper. A couple even came recommended by friends I trust.

The first one to go was the Kindle. The new release e-books were $14.99 compared to B&N's $12.99 price. So if I was going to choose one of the name brands, so to speak, it would be the Nook.

I started digging into the cheaper ones and tested a couple of them out. 

iRex e-reader

Pandigital Novel

Sony e-reader

In the end, the Nook -- black and white because of Katie's suggestion -- won me over. It looked the most like a real page.

So I bought it. I was pretty sure this was going to save me money, and time, when shopping for books. All it has done in reality is allow me to read more books. That being said, I love it. I hear there's a way to rent library books on these things, so I'm going to see if I can make that work. It may not work with the Nook, but if it works with another e-reader, I may invest in one just for that, too.

Also, I'm in the process of cleaning out all the actual books I don't want to keep. There aren't many, as I routinely take boxes to sell to HPB. So this will save us space, as well.

Of course, I'm not even going near this for my childrens' books. They will continue to read real books as long as I have a say in it. Later on in life, when they are established readers and it's become a part of their lives, they can make that decision.