Thursday, May 31, 2007

Stump..


Working at a hospital, I see a lot of medical terms. Sometimes I wonder why they don't just simplify some of their jargon, so that maybe the rest of the world can understand what they're talking about. However, this order for a test passed my desks moments ago, "ultrasound left lower extremity. Diagnosis: ulcer left stump"

Stump?? Isn't there another word that more professionally describes an amputees leg? A word that didn't sound so.. rude?? It just seemed very bizarre to me that a doctor couldn't come up with a better word to describe this disability...

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Potty Training Update..

My youngest son is almost officially, all the way potty trained.. and boy is he proud of himself! As he should be, it's a big deal! I'm very excited that he's finally doing his business on the potty! It has been a bit tricky this week going anywhere.. but of course I can't be a recluse.. I have to get out.. things to do.. pick flowers..visit old people.. ya know.. So, today when we were at my mother in laws, he had to go.. but he said he would wait til he got home. He refuses to pee on the toilet, only on his little potty at home, which he places wherever he likes.. But it's becoming apparent that he isn't going to be able to hold it, and I remember one other place he will pee.. Outside. So we run out to the back yard, strip him down, and there he goes..
Now, this kid has a bladder of steel, much like his brother. He has had days that he hasn't gone til lunch time.. I don't ever remember having a bladder like that! So, I think we're in the clear til we get home.. well, it's not even 20 minutes later, and he's running around like he's got to go again.. and I tell him he's going to have to use the toilet (which by the way is new, and one of those high standing ones for older people who can't squat like they used to..) So, I run him into the bathroom, where he sees this gy-normous toilet, and just pisses right there.. all over her bathroom floor, his shorts, and shoes.. oh well.. accidents happen.. So, I guess outside would have been a better place to go, since it worked before.. I don't know why I try to control that boy! Sorry buddy!

Lily of the Valley..


I went flower picking this morning.. my favorite flower of all time is the lily of the valley.. A friend of mine has parents with a huge patch of them hidden away on the side of the road.. After visiting the mom at work, and asking if I could pick some, I drove the kids out there, parked them on the side of the road and picked a huge amount of them. I should have been there last week, as they are on their last leg, but I don't care.. they are beautiful, and smell delicious!

After dropping a bouquet off at my mother in laws (such a kiss ass..after all these years!) I came home and started making bags.. My son's teachers (all 4 of them- including the aides) are each getting one for their "end of the year, thank you for being so nice to my kid" gift. I love getting to be creative.. ahhh.. and it's beautiful out, and the girls are having a LONG nap! Damn, it's a good day!

I'm such a fruit!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Spring in New England..


I'm waiting for the non stop rain.. that's what we've been used to this time of year in New England.. but we're enjoying the new stroller that my mom got the babies.. they are loving the outside! It's great!

Friday, May 25, 2007

My sister ROCKS!!!

I found out today (albeit it was mistake I found out) that my sister got me an early birthday present.. I got a phone call today from Mark at Proactive Genetics.. to ask about my zygosity testing order.. (to see if my twins were identical or fraternal). Poor schmuck didn't realize that he had just ruined a surprise from my beloved twin sister.. She bought the d.n.a. testing for my girls to find out if they are in fact identical or fraternal. I was soooo touched that her and her husband did this for us! I would have eventually gotten to this.. once we had some extra money (in maybe about 20 years..) But she totally beat me to the punch, so by the time my birthday rolls around next month, I'll know what kind of twins my babies are..
This may not seem like a big deal to anyone, but if you're a twin, or a parent of twins.. it's something you want to know. If only for the simple reason that everyone constantly asks you what they are.. If you're comfortable lying, then great, but if you can't then this is the way to go.. Thank you thank you thank you.. for being a sister that rocks!!
The 3 Piggy Opera was so much fun. My son did such a great job, as did all of his classmates. It only lasted a half hour (perfect amount of time) The girls sat on my lap through the whole production, and were just mesmerized. It was great.
This morning, I dragged the girls and my youngest to Kohls.. they were having yet another sale, and I needed my fat girl shorts (aka capris). I also got my husband some "rock style" shorts (they're plaid) I don't know if he'll like them, but I think he'll look pretty cute in them..
My mom took my youngest son to the beach this afternoon. They left in her little convertible v.w. and he looked really cute in the backseat with his hat pulled down over his face.. Oh, and big news on him.. he's pretty much potty trained! Yea! I was trying to be patient, and letting him do it on his own time, but jeez, he's 4, and I said enough is enough.. I told him he was going on the potty, and that was it. I can't believe it worked! I'm very proud of him!!
Anyway, both the girls are napping, so I need to do some much needed cleaning.. Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Another night out, and the 3 piggy opera

Last night went a lot better with the girls, and this morning I woke up rather refreshed.. thank goodness..
Tonight I am meeting a friend of mine for dinner in Portsmouth. I feel like I'm cheating because I just went out.. like I don't yet deserve another night away from the kiddo's.. although clearly, if we were to keep track on who goes out more.. my dear husband would win hands down.. He was happy to see me off tonight..with the girls screaming about my departure, and the boys rolling around on the floor, and poor mr. fern just starring blankly.. left alone to watch the season finale of American Idol alone..
Tomorrow night I have the night off from work, and we're all going to see my first grader in his class play "The 3 Piggy Opera" I can't wait. He's the pig in the straw house.. and he has a solo!! They did a production of it today for the rest of the school, and he got off the bus this afternoon in almost all of the face paint for the play, but smudged terribly. At first glance, my heart sank, as it looked like my little man had been in his first fist fight.. But alas it was just his pig makeup.. Anyway, I'm off to enjoy a quiet night without my family.. ahhhh... that sounds so nice!!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Tired..


It's been a while since I had such a sleepless night.. when I had to walk around my house with an inconsolable baby.. It's been quite a while.. I'm hoping it's going to be a while before it happens again.. I can't handle my day when I wake up and my eyes hurt from being open.. ugh...

Monday, May 21, 2007

My Weekend..

I had a great weekend..even though it rained, and was miserable out.. it didn't damper much.. I went to dinner with my bestest girlfriends in Portsmouth.. Ctale's birthday celebration.. we went to The Flatbread Pizza Company, my first time, and it was delicious! We usually go to really swanky places, but since I've been so poor, I had to bow out of something really expensive, for something more casual. And it was great.. Ctale told us her engagement story.. which made me wish mine was a little more like hers.. ahhh.. Lnotes is bursting with baby!! Due in only a couple of weeks! My sister is in her 2nd trimester with the twins, and looks great! She's not even in maternity clothes yet! douche bag.. I was in them at 8 weeks! Perhaps she'll avoid the "twin skin" too (the attractive shape your belly takes after birthing two at once!) And our two friends without blogs were wonderful as well.. It's always good to see the girls!

My husband and I saw a house on Sunday.. it was gross.. another house we dont' like..we've seen plenty of those.. no one has been to see our house in a few weeks.. but I don't care.. I still don't want to sell it!

I mowed my lawn today. My husband came home while I was finishing it up.. gave me a few pointers, and then waited for me to finish, so he could mow it again. Yes, we have time for things like re-mowing an already mowed lawn. Whatever!

A good friend of mine called me yesterday. He currently lives in Montpelier VT, but he's moving to Ogunquit ME on June 1st! I'm very excited about that! He's a lot of fun.. unfortunately, I used to be a lot of fun, but with 4 kids, the amount of fun, and the intensity of the fun has somewhat diminished.. Oh well.

I offered to work more hours this summer at my job.. I'm not sure if I'm going to like that or not.. but with my husband being off for the summer, one of us has to be bringing in some money. He's got a few landscaping jobs, but nothing that's going to keep him busy very long. I'll hopefully hear back from my boss relatively soon.

Ok, gotta get some shit done.. can't wait to get to bed tonight..like most nights.. Later.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

I found a long lost relative yesterday.. My dear cousin.. one that I haven't seen in almost 9 years.. He was a huge part of my life growing up.. his parents lived with us for some time back in "the day" and he's been like a brother to me.. a brother that has all of his teeth, and that doesn't have a gazillion children, like my very own blood brother (ick)
I don't know why I hadn't found him sooner.. Life happens, and people lose touch.. His father and my mother are siblings.. they haven't spoken in over 17 years (the lovely dysfunction that is my family) But we have always remained in contact.. however, I don't know what happened in the past 9 years for us not to communicate, but that isn't as important as the fact that I know where he is now, I have his email address, and he is going to get so sick of me!
He's married.. and lives in Micronesia (a place I had never heard of) It's far far away, near the Philippines.. He's currently in the Peace Corps and has been for several years. Him and his wife are trying to have a baby..
He was just in NH visiting, but didn't know where I was, or how to contact me. I think we've both just grown accustomed to our own lives, and how much easier it was to be a part of the isolation of our extended families rather than to step on any ones toes.. It's been ugly in our family over the years.. but like he said, it's our parents bullshit, not ours!
Happy to have him back in my life! And he had better stay there this time! :)

Monday, May 14, 2007

Cankle Update...

I saw the orthopedist today.. a young man, probably late 20's early 30's.. he seemed a tad surprised when he came in and saw me.. His first words "I thought I read something about you having 4 kids??" Yea, that's right.. hard to believe, right? Such a young thing?? So pretty.. Hah!

Anyway, after a few xrays, and questions, and him touching my foot (which, btw, I hated.. nothing grosses me out more than someone touching my feet, your feet, or anyones feet..) He determined that I've got high arches and for that reason, my ankle turns out, and over the years (and pregnancies) it has put a lot of pressure on my tendon, in turn giving me tendonitis.. I'm now wearing an insert in my shoes (which I hate.. it's almost summer, and I can't wear my comfy flip flops..instead, hot smelly sweaty sneaks!) Yuck..

I have to go back in 6 weeks to see if it's improved.. It already feels better, more stable I guess. So, lets see if I wear sneakers til the end of June! doubt it!

The Agent Tour..

My realtor is having an agent tour of our house tomorrow. She's got about 15 agents from different real estate companies coming over to see our place, in the hopes that they might know someone who wants to buy it.. When should I tell her that I don't think I want to move? ugh.. I guess if we could find a house in our town, I might want to sell it.. but honestly, the thought of going to another town, and a new school.. and my mom living in our basement, it gives me the shits! (not really, but you know what I'm saying right?)

We'll just have to see how it goes I guess.. no use shitting over a house that isn't even sold yet!

Thursday, May 10, 2007

No appointment needed (apparently it won't matter anyway)

This morning we had our 3rd speech therapy appointment at the house. I love the woman who comes over. She's got a really down to earth personality, she's funny, smart, and my son adores her...she's also mother to four kids, 2 of whom are twins! So, there.. I like her.

There's just one thing.. that kind of irks me.. She is consistently late. All 3 of our appointments, which have been scheduled at 9, she has called about 10 minutes after 9, and says she'll be there in 5 minutes.. Another 20 minutes, and she's usually here.. I appreciate the phone call, but what I would appreciate even more is if she was here when she was supposed to be! Right?

Anyway, the weather is beautiful today.. although a bit toasty for my taste. I have discovered the girls absolutely love to be outside. They sit ever so happily on their blanket, with their basket of toys, and let me wander around weeding in my flower beds.. I love it! They don't seem to be bothered by any bugs, like my boys are.. Here's a picture of them soaking up the sun and the fresh air.. and hats are not an option as they will not keep them on!

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

What's that smell??




One of the babies (the one on the left here) is always making this face, like someone just farted.. it's pretty funny!

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

My Cankle..

I don't know what I did, but something is wrong with my right ankle.. it's swollen, a tad bruised, and just basically hurts. I'm heading to my doctor's this morning to see what's up. I don't have time for stupid shit like this.. but my mom is coming over to watch the kids, so even if I'm only going to my doctor's.. I'm still getting a break from the never ending task of mother to a gazillion kids.. two of whom are crawling all over the place.. and starting to pull themselves up onto our very dangerous, very sharp edged coffee table.. it's nerve racking!
Yesterday my youngest son (a.k.a. my emergency room enthusiast) thought it would be funny to get into the girls backpack.. it was pretty funny, that is however, until he tried getting out of it and landed chin first into the above mentioned coffee table. No blood thank god. But plenty of tears, plenty of blaming me for letting it happen, and a nasty nasty bruise under his chin.. Poor dub.
Anyhoo, off to the doctor's I go.. fun fun..

Monday, May 07, 2007

Opening Day..


Here is how we spent our weekend. My oldest son had his first baseball game.. This was about as into it as he got... I have other pictures of him sitting on the field.. let's just say I don't think he's going to be the athlete in the family!
It was his 7th birthday on Saturday, we started out our day by taking him to breakfast at his favorite bakery. Then the rest of the day was spent getting ready for our open house, and more baseball opening day events. It was crazy! We had a small birthday party for him yesterday, with a few friends from school.. that went surprisingly well. With the exception of my youngest son, who's birthday is next Sunday, everyone was very well behaved. My poor toddler, having to sit through gift opening and not be getting a bunch himself. It was unbearable! I gave him the only gift I had gotten for him so far, a pair of spider man sandals.. he seemed pretty happy with those.. he's a tough nut let me tell you!

Friday, May 04, 2007

My husband took my son to work with him yesterday. I was happy he went, and much to my own surprise, I missed him! Although I didn't get to miss him too long because my husband called me right after he got to work and asked me to come for lunch, and maybe take him home with me, apparently he was the only teacher that brought his kid to work.
He had a great time with his dad, and loved getting to see all the kids that he teaches. When I got there with the girls, he couldn't wait to tell me everything he did.. he brought home things he painted in my husbands art class, and some rather phallic looking clay sculpture. We spent the rest of the day visiting with my mother in law.. which was very nice, right up until the last minute, when I was packing the kids up in the car, and we somehow got on to the subject of racism.. I can not for the life of me remember how we stumbled upon this topic, but it was about 2 seconds into it that I wished we hadn't. I love my mother in law, she's a great grandmother, but man does she have some pretty fucked up views on race. Let me first say, she's 76.. which doesn't excuse her from her racist views, but I think a lot of racism is going to die along with these people.. not saying that it won't always be here.. because of course it will be, but maybe eventually it won't be as prevalent as it is today. Anyway, she's against interracial dating.. she feels bad for the children of those relationships.. And those Japanese! They are just so rude, you wouldn't believe how rude they were to her and her husband when she was at Universal Studios. OMG. I was trying to keep my mouth from dropping to the floor, and only said that she should remember that whoever was rude to her wasn't the ENTIRE race, and one shouldn't be so stereotypical about things like that... and that love knows no color.. and what if a twin had been rude to her one day, would she say that all twins were rude?? I was trying to make it easy for her to understand how insane she sounded.. I don't know if it worked.. I know she was embarrassed by what she had said when she asked me not to tell anyone she felt that way.. ok. I won't tell.. Especially my children..
I guess the funniest thing about this, and not funny in a ha-ha sort of way, is the fact that her husband, is 100% Portuguese, and she's almost 100% Irish. Wouldn't that fall into the definition of an interracial couple? I mean, half of her 6 children are fair skinned, and the others are darker.. hmm.. I don't think anyone ever felt bad for her kids..

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Enough complaining..

I've got to stop complaining.. especially to my sister. It's always a big "wahh.. poor me.. I'm so tired.." And here she is trying to be pregnant with her very own set of twins.. and all I'm doing is giving her an earful of how hard it is. But really.. it's not that hard.. sure there's two, but when you think about it, in the long run, it's going to be easier. You're finishing your family, and getting all the hard baby stuff out of the way at once! Right?
I do intend on being honest with her.. she knows that it's been hard, but I don't think I talk enough with her about how wonderful it is too. How much fun I'm having with my girls (and my boys of course!) She was meant to have a big family, if she stops at only 3 kids, I must say, I'm going to be a bit disappointed. (haha) My sister is the type of woman, who has amazing patience. If you see her upset, you know that something is wrong, really wrong. She just never gets riled. She was the peace maker in our family, a position that she probably didn't want, especially in a family that had more issues than Newsweek! But she was always calm, and collected, thoughtful and considerate. That's just her.
So, from now on I'm going to try to keep my dumb mouth shut, and quit my complaining.. I want her to enjoy her pregnancy, and look forward to the birth of her twins.. Not be freaked out by all my horror stories!

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Open House #2

My realtor wants to have another open house this weekend. Our last open house was a total disaster, with not one single soul coming to see our cute little condex.. I just emailed her though, and asked if we could get a sign out in front of the house advertising for it. I hate the thought of busting my hump cleaning all week, for no one to show up. Anyway, should be a fun week now that I've got my plans made for me.. UGH!