You Don't Want to Know What Happens When Our House Gets Dirty

I’ve written before that Abbie has to wear her pajamas to sleep, including naptime. If you need a recap, Abbie has to wear her pajamas to sleep, including naptime.

I’m happy to change her before naps. What’s one more chore as long as her diaper is already being changed, Ian is playing in the toilet, Tory is chewing on an electrical cord, and the dog is threatening to break the living room window barking at malicious wildlife in our backyard?*

The problem is this doubles the usage for her pajamas. I’m not concerned about the extra wear and tear it puts on her pajamas since they should still be strong enough to last the year it takes for her to grow from (X)T to (X+1)T.** My concern is double the usage means double the opportunity for her pajamas to be peed upon while halving my available opportunities to wash them.

Such was the situation yesterday morning, when Abbie woke up with a large wet spot on her pajamas. Her diaper spilled over last night like an awards ceremony spills over its time slot. Abbie only has two pairs of cold-weather pajamas, and pair #1 was already in the laundry room waiting to be washed. Fast action was needed if she was to nap that afternoon. I immediately pretreated the pajamas to prevent visual and odor stains, and set the kids down to breakfast while I threw the pajamas in the washing machine along with the other freshly-sorted clothes that matched their color, temperature, and cycle type.

Just kidding. I threw the pajamas on the floor, set the kids down to breakfast before their screaming drove me insane, and said a prayer that I would get to her pajamas before the dog did.

A couple hours later, the boys went down for their afternoon nap, Abbie sat down in front of the television with a DVD from Sesame Street so it has to have some educational value, and I had a solid 45 minutes of personal time to enjoy spending on laundry. I sorted the backlog of laundry into piles of lights, darks, and peed upons. A couple more dirty pieces were hiding in the boys’ room while they napped, so I waited until after I could fetch them before starting a load of laundry. While in the laundry room, I found pajama pair #1 so it could air out and lose some of its crustiness before her nap just in case I couldn’t/forgot to wash her pajamas before naptime.

When the boys woke, we ate lunch, and then Ellie surprised me by having the rest of the day off. With a winter storm coming, this was my chance to run some errands with adult help before the roads became an icy automobile playground. We ran around the house, finding shoes and coats, getting everyone ready to leave so we could return for naptime. Along the way I picked up pajama pair #1, heaved back to toss them into the kids’ room, and olfactorally remembered why they were in the laundry room in the first place. They had been peed upon.

I didn’t have time to wash and dry a load before naptime. I didn’t want to put a dirty, stinky pair of pajamas back on her. I didn’t want to fight with her to sleep without a beloved pair of two-piece pajamas. So I did the only thing any rational parent would do: I bought her a new pair of pajamas while we were out. Actually, it was a two-pack, so diapers can leak on three pairs of pajamas before I need to worry about laundry.

* Again.
** Although the extra wear and tear could reduce the selling price for those pajamas on the garage sale I swear I’m going to have just as soon as it warms up and I find the free time to sort and attach price stickers to 450,154,189 individual pieces of children’s clothing.

Iowa Weather

Thursday: 40-degree weather melts much of the remaining snow.
Friday: Rain falls all day.
Saturday: Sleet and freezing rain fall all day.
Sunday: Snow falls all day.
Monday: Dig out from the weekend's snowfall.
Tuesday (today): Run errands that couldn't be done during the weekends snowfall.
Wednesday: Rain falls all day.
Thursday: Snow falls all day.
Friday: Start giving serious consideration to moving south.

Moving Mountains

We’re on the happy side of the illness running through the house. Ian is pooping less. Tory is crying less. I’m crying less.

Not that everything is back to normal. Ian still poops a lot. Tory is still cranky. Abbie is still gassy. I haven’t tackled the mountains of chores piling up around the house, though I am starting to feel guilty about ignoring them again, so at least I know things are moving in the right direction.

Most of all, sleep schedules are still off-kilter. Neither boy has outgrown their NICU mentality of taking frequent naps. They’ll probably stop taking naps about the time I put Abbie in preschool, thus depriving me of that childfree time I’ve coveted these past 15 months, though I’m sure they’ll grow back into napping about the time they reach the age where they clean out the garage. For now, though, they both seem to like taking naps first soon after waking. They don’t want a long nap, just something quick after breakfast to help spoil their regular pre-lunch nap. Then, a brief post-lunch snooze will help them fight off their regular afternoon nap. Finally, a little shuteye right after supper can keep them bouncing off the walls until they starting butting against my bedtime.

Ordinarily I keep everyone on a tight schedule to prevent these catastrophic catnaps. I need the boys to take substantive naps so I can enjoy my glorious downtime when I only have to supervise a toddler. Tory has officially been a sick little man, though, and that gives him the right, and ability, to sleep as much as possible. As such, I’ve given up and let him have those post-meal naps. Not that I’ve always had much choice on whether he sleeps.

A few times this past week, I’ve walked out of the kitchen after cleaning up the meal, and found Tory lying on the floor. He’ll be cuddled the with the cow blanket he cleverly threw from his crib during naptime, sleeping on the floor in spite of his siblings rumbling, bumbling, and stumbling around, over, and occasionally on top of him.

Other times, he’s been so cranky, I’ve set him down in his crib out of desperation, and been pleasantly surprised to find him asleep after I emerge from the locked bathroom. Even when in good health, the boys can be cranky after I finish feeding them. I usually placate them by refilling their Tasteeo dish, but that doesn’t work when their stomachs are too upset to eat their first round Tasteeos. So I let the dirty dishes sit for a minute while I carry them, sing to them, and play with them. When he’s still crying after the 60 seconds are up, he goes into his crib. Sometimes I feel guilty about dumping him in his crib instead of dealing with his pain, but the silence as he snoozes helps me realize that I still have two consolable children to deal with.

This puts his schedule off-kilter a bit, but I’ve found that as long as I wake him in time to read to him before naptime, he naps well. The sanity-saver in this illness is everyone naps well. Everyone, including Abbie, has been taking glorious afternoon naps that push three hours in length. I’ve had to wake the kids before their supper turns cold. That’s a nice block of time to tackle a few of those chores that have accumulated recently, like reading blogs. Fortunately, it looks like everyone else’s kids are also sick, so there’s not much new to read.

Ian woke up early from his nap today, though. He slept closer to 45 minutes than three hours. That’s the downside of getting better. If only they could be sick just during naptime.

OscarUpdate

Instead of writing, I'm spending tonight watching the Academy Awards. It's the closest I'm going to get to watching any new movies this year.

SicknessUpdate

Tory’s malady is a mystery. His fever broke a couple days ago. That’s good. He’s still as cranky as ever. That’s bad. When he isn’t screaming, he’s slow and sleepy, and his appetite is about half of normal. A nasty rash is also breaking out on his upper body.

Ian seems to be okay. His appetite is down a little, though maybe it just seems that way since I’m making him finish whatever Tory won’t eat. His diaper deposits are mustard yellow with a unique odor; Ellie swears this means he has rotavirus. I hope all rotavirus cases are that tolerable.

Abbie is cranky and won’t eat most of what I put in front of her. That has nothing to do with her being sick, I’m just saying.

Matt’s stomach is a little grumbly, but otherwise doing fine. He’s slow and sleepy, but that’s his own fault for not getting to bed sooner.

Bonus weather update for Iowa Mom: It rained here most of the day. We stayed a degree or two above freezing all day, and that saved us from disastrous freezing rain. The rain changed to snow around the kids’ bedtime, and now we’re preparing for 5-9 inches. I hear you’re preparing for twice that much snow on top of the freezing rain that fell today. Stay safe.

No Questions Asked

Abbie wears pajamas when she naps. That seems odd to me since I don’t wear pajamas when I nap. When naptime rolls around, I’m too exhausted to care what I’m wearing.

Abbie insists on wearing pajamas to fall asleep, though. If I’ve learned anything about parenting in the last two-plus years, and sometimes I wonder if I have, I’ve learned not to question or fight anything that helps your child fall asleep. The boys want their cow blankets to snuggle with while sleeping, so I make sure each crib has a blanket before leaving the room, and I check the crib first thing to see if it’s been thrown out when I have to walk back in two minutes later to calm a screaming child. Abbie wants burp clothes to snuggle with while sleeping, so she gets three of them. The children want to snuggle with mommy and daddy at night, so they get lots of training on how to fall asleep by themselves because I’m not going down that road.

Part of Abbie’s extensive pre-nap routine involves changing her diaper, and slipping her pajamas on instead of putting her pants back on. That helps me save time by accomplishing two chores at once, and that’s important since I always read one last book a minimum of three times before putting them away.

I generally reuse the same pajamas for every sleep time until given a good reason to change, such as the pajamas retain their shape when taken off the child. Yesterday’s pajamas were a flannel two-piece set that were quite soft and comfortable, but more importantly adorned with Dora the Explorer. Apparently, her overnight diaper leaked and moistened her pajama bottoms. The leak might have soaked her bed, but the strategically snuggled burp cloth under her midsection did its job last night. As a responsible parent, I noticed this leak as soon as the overpowering stench of dried urine wafted near my nose. I suppose some sort of super-responsible parent might have noticed her pajama bottoms were wet when she woke up, but I’m still dealing with a sick and frequently screaming Tory.

Foul odor is reason enough for me to change pajamas, so I threw them into the laundry hamper* and pulled out a fresh pair. This was a very cute one-piece set with flowers and fairies. They did not have Dora, though. Abbie fought me while I tried to slip them on her while declaring “Hee-yaa,” which is how she pronounces “Dora.” That pronunciation ordinarily sounds beautiful after I’ve struggled to pry any word out of her for the past 18-months, but it’s not so great when she’s insisting on wearing a urine-soaked outfit to bed.

I managed to slip the replacement pajamas on her frame with constant reassurances about how cute they are and how she’s a big girl for wearing them. I could not make her leave them on, though, and she unzipped them while I read her second “one last book.”

After wondering just how urine-soaked is too urine-soaked, I remembered another pair of pajamas in her drawer. This was a two-piece outfit like her Dora pajamas, but they were cotton and had flowers instead of Doras (Dori?). I slipped them on her, a task made easier by her nakedness, and hoped for the best.

Abbie pointed to the new flowers on her chest, and deemed them acceptable. We completed the pre-nap routine, and soon she was asleep. Apparently, she just wanted the ease of movement with two-pieces instead of the warmth of a one-piece outfit. Whatever helps her fall asleep.

* That’s what I call the patch of floor just outside their door.

At 84 Hours After the Shot...

Tory is doing better today, provided the ibuprofen is in full effect. We just have to wait a couple hours for the dose to kick in enough for me to set him down without eliciting panicked screams.

Ian is pooping a lot. Otherwise, he’s no more or less cranky than I’d expect from a child with a neon red diaper region.

Abbie is still napping over two hours a day, likely in an effort to stay awake past midnight.

I'm feeling a little achy and my stomach is upset. I'm starting to think that Tory's reaction to his immunization shot is contagious. Hopefully I just need a good night’s sleep, and I’ll wake up refreshed and ready to hold at least one child for five hours of the day.

Confidential to Patty: I don’t think we’re going to make lunch tomorrow.

SleepingUpdate

Tory has slept like a baby today. By that, I mean he falls asleep and wakes up often all day long. He doesn’t seem any better today, and maybe even a little worse.

Ian is less interested in sleeping than usual. I think the shot has thrown his system off a little.

Abbie is napping great. Her naps are so great, she doesn’t want to fall asleep at night.

Matt and Ellie aren’t sleeping enough. Time to fix that.

Shot through the Thigh

The boys had their 15-month checkups yesterday morning. We’ve been through this routine before: Check-in, wait in a tiny room, let the nurse take vitals,* wait some more, talk to the doctor, wait for shots, and go home with screaming children. Sometimes the office spices things up by adding a student doctor between the nurse and the pediatrician, which can be a lot of fun when the student obviously has no interest in pediatrics, is only fulfilling the rotation because it’s required, and is actually a little terrified of children and the awesome, fun-sucking responsibilities accompanying them.

The little variable they threw at us this time was giving the boys one shot each. They’ve had to endure multiple shots at their previous checkups, peaking at a record four each last time. Not that it mattered much to the boys since one prick hurts almost as much as four pricks. A talented nurse can administer all four shots during the same scream, helping the child multitask his wailing into four shots worth of pain management.

Ian received the first shot. I comforted him for a minute while the nurse affixed a bandage over the site, and set him on the ground when his screaming had receded from “panicked.” We repeated the process with Tory, and then gave Ian another bandage after Abbie ripped it off his thigh. She loves stickers, and a body sticker was too enticing to not steal.

With the boys packed into the stroller and Abbie proudly displaying her Daffy Duck bandage on her pant leg, we returned home. We’d had a full morning, and the kids could now look forward to a relaxing day of sneaking snacks while I’m too busy catching up on my morning chores to notice where Abbie is climbing.

I cleaned for a solid 15 minutes after returning home before setting the boys down and preparing lunch. After lunch, I returned to cleaning, working on the dishes that had piled up, and the aquarium that had greened up. About the time I worked up to toilet scrubbing, Tory started screaming. I assumed he was mad about being locked out of the bathroom while I played with toxic chemicals, and ignored him until the bowl was noticeably less offensive.

When I opened the door, he was beyond panicked. I spent the next hour trying to calm him down before naptime with little success. I tried bouncing him, singing to him, taking him outside, playing with toys in front of him, reading to him, shoving aside the book Abbie dropped in my lap so I could continue reading to him, dangling the phone in front of him, and finally setting him in his crib and ignoring him. Nothing, not even the phone, could break his screams for more than a few seconds.

Eventually, a bead toy caught his attention long enough for him to catch his breath. Abbie was nice enough to let him watch while she played with it, and I used that time to finish a couple pre-nap duties. When I returned, Tory was asleep on the floor, passed out from exhaustion.

I set everyone down for a nap, and started work on supper. I fed everyone when they awoke, and kept working on my supper. Tory, who rarely complains as long as he has food in front of him, was screaming before the microwave could warm my spaghetti. Ellie and I took turns holding him so we could eat.

I believe Tory had a nasty reaction to his shot. He gets four shots with no side effect worse than sore thighs, but is floored after taking one shot. He was cranky and feverish for the night. Ellie spent most of the snuggling with him for comfort for maybe the first time since his NICU days. A little ibuprofen helped him sleep last night. We’re hoping he recovers quickly; all that screaming sucks the fun out of parenting.

* Standard measurement statement: Tory is a little under 22.5-pounds, and about 30.5-inches long. Ian is a little over 21-pounds, and about 30-inches long.

Worst Grocery Trip Ever

I took the kids to the grocery store yesterday. Ellie was still out of town, so I was soaring without a net. I knew I could handle it, though, because I only needed a couple of things, like the milk I had a coupon for.

I drove into a parking space, unloaded the stroller, and unloaded Tory into the stroller. As I turned back to the car to fetch Ian, I thwacked my forehead on the edge of the open car door. It hurt a little, but I knew I could handle it. Then I set my head on Tory’s open car seat until the endorphins could kick in.

I should’ve stopped right there, packed everything back in the car, and went back home. I knew I was flying solo with a possible concussion, but I trudged forward. I was already at the store, and that coupon was good for an entire dollar off a gallon of milk.

As we walked through the aisles, we met a free sample lady early in the store. Free sample ladies were my favorite grocery store employees when I was a child, and I knew my kids would enjoy their wares as well. They don’t always have great toddler foods to give away; sometimes they have jerky or pizza or something else Abbie won’t touch. This free sample lady had cherry pie, though. Abbie loves cherries, and she loves sugar, so she should love cherry pie.

She eagerly put a spoonful of bright red filling into her mouth, and just as eagerly pulled it out of her mouth with her fingers. Violating every instinct I have about her tastes, she apparently hates cherry pie. She wiped the atomic red goo off her fingers on whatever surfaces were handy, specifically her shirt and the stroller’s fabric.

I found a napkin to clean her and a garbage can to dispose of her perfectly good cherry pie, and we continued on our way. I picked up a couple more items before finding a checkout lane.

Sometimes Abbie is well behaved in the checkout lane, waiting patiently by the cart for me to do my work. Usually she runs around in search of candy packages to open with her teeth, though, which is exactly what she did yesterday. As I chased her down in the next lane, I noticed that she was only wearing one shoe. I knew she had both shoes on when we left the car because I had to reattach them before pulling her from her seat.

I looked around the lane and found no shoes. I did find Ian pulling his shoes off, though. I juggled unloading my items, paying for my items, keeping Abbie by my side, and reattaching Ian’s shoes. If that didn’t teach my high school aged cashier about the importance of family planning, nothing will.

With grocery sacks in hand, we retraced our path through the store. We walked through dairy, around the crackers, and past the free sample lady without seeing any sign of the lost shoe. Disgusted, I walked everyone back to the car while giving thanks that I had one child who could keep his shoes on.*

On the way back to the car, a couple people commented on how cute everyone was, and how I must have my hands full. I usually take these comments in good humor, but, when I’m already mad at the kids for losing their shoes and I literally have my hands full, I found them irritating.

I stopped at the car to load the kids, intent on escaping before anything else happened. While loading Abbie, someone stopped to alert me “my baby was missing a shoe.” I don’t know if she was referring to Ian or Abbie, but I told her I already knew that. I finished loading everyone, and stepped into the driver’s seat. As I reached for the keys, my hands hit a little slip of paper. It was my milk coupon that I’d forgotten to give to the cashier between juggling the children, though I could also blame the growing lump on my forehead for my oversight.

The drive home was without incident.

* I called the store later that night, and they had her shoe. I’m guessing some well-meaning customer picked it up and turned it into customer service before I had a chance to find it on the ground.

Road Lack of Rules

We went out of town yesterday. The “we” refers to the kids and me. Ellie was already out of town, and she was the entire reason we left home.

Ellie is a working mother, which means she works as hard as any other mother, but is paid for some of her work. Part of her work involves periodically traveling to surrounding areas on weekends, where a weekend is defined as Friday night through Monday morning. Depending on how the rest of her Friday and Monday goes, that can mean she goes almost four days straight without seeing the kids. I’d call that a vacation, but she tells me it’s hard to be away from them for so long. I take her word for it and try to see her on these weekends when possible.

I’ve stayed overnight with her before, which has given me horrific blogging material about minimal sleeping and cranky car rides. Yesterday we made it a daytrip; drive down the morning and back in the evening. That way instead of disrupting a weekend of childcare routines, we seriously disrupted one day of child routines. Our hope is they’ll adjust better with only one day away from routine, though it could just cause a major trauma to cram so much quality parental time into one day. Either way, I get all day Sunday to recuperate.

When the kids woke up, I rushed them through the morning routine to hit the road as early as possible. We made it out the door before the crack of 10am, putting us on target to meet momma for lunch. I hoped the boys would stay on routine and fall asleep an hour down the road, and stay asleep for an hour. They fell asleep before we left town, and woke shortly after leaving the exurbs. A fresh layer of snow on the highways and an emergency stop to fix the DVD player’s monitor slowed as a bit, but we still made it to momma before their hunger pains grew too audible.

Their regular lunch is yogurt and steamed vegetables. Yesterday’s lunch was fried chicken strips with French fries. As long as they never expect to eat like that again, I have no regrets.

I knew the afternoon nap would be difficult. We had an office to lay the kids down to sleep. I set the boys in their Pack ‘N Plays to sleep, but didn’t even try to make Abbie sleep. Since everyone was in the same room, her running around, screaming, and general testing of boundaries would keep the boys awake. Instead, we locked the boys in the office, let Abbie run outside the door, and prayed the boys wouldn’t remember the time we locked them in a strange office all alone.

The boys responded with their greatest nap in weeks, making me wish we had a new office to lock them in every day. Abbie found a drinking fountain, and passed the time by finding new ways to create puddles on the floor.

We picked up pizza for supper. Abbie normally won’t eat pizza, but we brought back a taco pizza so she could make a meal from the nacho chips sprinkled on top. The boys scrounged enough to eat from the cereal and Goldfish I packed, along with the occasional nacho chip Abbie shared, or at least left dangling within their reach.

We, again meaning the kids and me, left shortly after supper, intent on returning home in time for the bedtime routine. A missed afternoon nap left Abbie sleepy in spite of the nacho chips ravaging her system, and she fell asleep in the parking lot. She woke up at the stop sign just outside of town, but she caught enough sleep to stay pleasant for the ride home. Getting to watch the DVD player all the way home helped, and not having to stop to fix the monitor helped us return home sooner.

We returned home with enough time for a bath. The kids were in bed only marginally past their bedtime. They’ve been horrible today, but that’s just the pains of returning to a routine of regular naps and no fried foods. They’ll be pleasant again tomorrow, just in time to remind mamma how much she missed them.

On the Road Again & Again

Abbie didn't nap today. She must know we're going out of town again tomorrow, and is preparing for the no-nap lifestyle on the road. You'd think I'd learn my lesson after last week's sleep-deprived debacle and never venture beyond the metro area, but apparently not.

Garbage Men

I’ve accepted many changes in my life since the kids came. I now survive on six hours of sleep a night for example, or the perpetual wail I accept as background noise.

I don’t know if I can ever accept this childproofing, though. When the kids start playing in the cabinets, I install cabinet locks. When I realize the cabinet locks are too hard to install, I move everything to the top shelves. When I run out of shelving space, I move non-lethal items like towels and pans to the lower shelves. I can accept these changes, especially since I rarely have clean towels and pans to store anyway.

When the boys start knocking over trashcans, I move them onto shelves and behind locked doors. When the boys start digging in the kitchen trashcan, I keep its lid shut. When the boys start opening the lid and knocking over the kitchen trashcan creating a slice of doggie heaven, that’s when I run out of ideas. I need a trashcan in the kitchen, so I can’t hide it behind locked doors. I have no available counter space to elevate a trashcan, and anyway it’s too tall to use when it’s hoisted four feet off the ground.

The closest thing I’ve found to a solution is to place the trashcan on the basement stairs by the kitchen. That way it’s close enough to use without cursing my children’s names every time I walk to it, and it’s locked behind the baby gate and away from grabby little fingers. Of course, it’s not perfect. I have to drop trash a couple feet into the can, which results in a lower field goal percentage. That’s not much of a problem when junking junk mail, but can be a problem when pitching peach pits.

More perilously, the trashcan takes up half of our narrow, thin step. When the stairway was clear, I reconsidered my life insurance policy every time I stepped over the locked baby gate. Now I have less of a target to hit, and sometimes I miss. That’s what happened yesterday around noon. No, I didn’t miss the step and fall down the stairs; even in my sleep-deprived state, I’m smart to grab the railing as I step for balance. I just kicked the trashcan on my way over, sending it flying down the stairs and wishing I hadn’t peeled that orange for breakfast.

I’m not an overly clean person. I rarely scrub the kitchen floors for fear of disrupting the uniform layer of grime that tints my tiles brown and hides my negligence. I can’t tolerate a spilled trashcan, though, and went to work picking up the garbage one tossed Goldfish at a time.

The boys were napping, and I played a DVD for Abbie in the living room while I worked, which meant that the one place I could expect Abbie not to be was in the living room in front of the television. I should’ve responded when I heard a “thunk” from the kitchen, especially since I knew lunchtime was near and Abbie would be searching for snacks. I wanted to finish my filthy job, though, and only have to wash my winter-chapped hands once.

As I re-tossed the last mystery liquid-soaked piece of paper, Ellie called for me with that horrified/disgusted tone. I walked upstairs and found milk covering the floor. Without parental supervision, Abbie chose milk as her snack. When her sippy cup ran dry, she grabbed the gallon of milk to drink from it. Unfortunately, the milk jug doesn’t have EZ Grip Handles, and it fell on the floor, spilling its contents. She must’ve then sucked it dry when it was light enough to lift. While I give her credit for identifying the skim milk in the fridge, she grabbed the gallon jug that I just opened that morning and was almost full. Plus, that was the last of the skim milk.

Without crying, Ellie and I grabbed towels to soak up milk. I then grabbed the scrubbing supplies to clean the floor because few things are more disgusting in texture and odor than dried milk. Before doing any of that, I made sure the fridge lock was engaged. I need to accept that bit of childproofing.

The Fairly Odd Parent

Becky tagged me. I’m supposed to give five odd things about myself. Let’s see…

1. My wife says I should have no trouble thinking of five odd things about myself, yet I’m having trouble.

2. I eat the same lunch almost every day: Eggless egg sandwich, apple, baby carrots. At least I eat different varieties of apples from day to day.

3. I have to read every day of the newspaper, even if I didn’t get to it the day it was delivered. I have four days of newspapers waiting for me to read them right now.

4. I don’t like steak, or large hunks of meat in general. That’s a detriment in Iowa where the rural areas are filled with walking steaks begging to be eaten.

5. I have three kids under the age of 3. Does that count?

Picture People (No Relation to The Picture People, Inc.)

We’re horrible parents. We never had 12-month pictures taken of the boys. While other, responsible parents would’ve had the date at the photographers booked weeks in advance, we were too absorbed in the holidays to bother looking up from our dinners and presents to call for an appointment. I blame their status as second (and third) born children, meaning we already went through 12-month pictures with Abbie.* I also blame society.

Ellie took the initiative to correct our glaring oversight, calling the photographer for 15-month pictures for the boys, 27-month pictures for Abbie, and Valentine’s Day pictures for our relatives. She called the same mall-based department store photography studio we’ve taken our kids to for all previous photographs. We trust their professionals to eternally capture our children’s beauty on film, plus we bought their membership and I didn’t want to waste money on a sitting fee for any other photographer.

Ellie called yesterday morning to arrange the session for the soonest available time, which turned out to be that night. Apparently the 6:30pm Monday shift is ordinarily an open slot. To prepare for the quick turnaround, she rushed home during her lunch break to pick out the nicest clothes in their wardrobe that weren’t in the laundry room or permanently stained by spaghetti sauce. I helped by stuffing them full of supper later that night, and packing them into the car in spite of colons that could blow their post-meal load at any second. We walked into the photography studio a little late at about 6:35, but I think anytime we get the first two digits of the time correct, we’re doing well.

Their last photography appointment was six months ago, when the boys were still mastering the crawl. They could escape back then, but they were slow enough that I had time to pull Abbie’s hands away from the camera before grabbing a boy on his way out the doorway. Now they can walk, forcing me to move faster to catch them, and creating the possibility that they could toddle out of the shot at a moment’s notice.

Fortunately, Abbie no longer seemed interested in grabbing the camera. Instead, she focused her attention on the rubber duck props in the room. The small rubber duck especially captivated her as the photographer would place it on her head, sneeze, and let it fall to the ground with a “kerchoo,” ideally making the children laugh. The boys didn’t care about the trick, but Abbie kept swiping the duck to place on her own head and let fall to the ground with a “kerchoo,” although her speech-delayed sound came out as more of a “eee.”

The photographer requires at least six poses in a session. We collected shots of each child individually, an ensemble shot of the kids, a shot of the boys, and a silly shot of Abbie kissing the duck since we couldn’t get it out of her hands anyway. We opted to keep the parents out of the shots since we didn’t have time to clean up ourselves, and Gymboree doesn’t make clothes in our size** to wear anyway. Plus, while tracking the kids every three months as they age is cute, tracking the parents as the kids age us every three months is depressing.

The kids were remarkably good during the shoot. There was little screaming, though as a dad I could find little behaviors to nitpick. Abbie wouldn’t leave her hands and feet in position. Tory kept trying to wander. Ian refused to smile, not even at the falling duck. The photographer complimented their behavior at the end, and told us she remembered photographing them earlier. That means our twins are memorable to work with, or they screamed hard enough at the last shoot to inflict months-long trauma on the photographer.

After the shoot, I packed up the kids into the stroller to take them to the mall playground, while Ellie sat through the sales pitch where they make sepia-toned portraits sound like a good thing. Except Abbie didn’t want to leave. They had a table with bead toys in the waiting room, and she was too captivated to walk away. I unpacked the boys to let them wander as they desired. They played at the table for a while, huddling in a corner where Abbie tolerated their presence. They wandered to the television and the registers. They climbed on the kid-sized chairs and did a tap dance routine while they held onto the chair back and I marveled at my parenting skills.

When the boys started wandering out the exit, I knew it was time to leave. Ellie was still refusing various portrait collages, so I knew we had plenty of time left at the playground. I told Abbie we had to leave and she grudgingly followed, but not before giving the ducks a final kiss.

* As well as 3-month, 6-month, 9-month, 18-month, and 24-month pictures.
** 25T

No Sleep Till Des Moines

Abbie woke up around 5am Saturday morning, about three hours before her normal wake time. She wasn’t angry, irritated, or even irked by her wakeful state. She simply lied in bed, softly singing to herself for upwards of an hour, irking me by preventing me from falling back to sleep.

On a normal day, her early wake time wouldn’t be a problem. I’d just limp her insomnia-shortened temper through until naptime, and then I’d shut the door, turn off the monitor, and take my own nap to recoup from her cranky screaming. hat may sound like a problem, but I don’t view it that way since at least one of my children is typically cranky and screaming.

Saturday was no ordinary day, though. Saturday was a travel day, the day we were to drive three hours to meet relatives who don’t want to hear screaming and cranky children no matter how emphatically they claim children are a blessing. Saturday morning was the kids’ last chance for a good, crankiness-eradicating sleep until we returned Sunday, and Abbie was singing her way through it.

I should’ve taken her singing as a warning to not make the trip. When I broke my rearview mirror trying to shove a few too many cubic-inches of stuff into the car, I should’ve unpacked everything and sat on my butt at home all weekend, or at least sat on my butt as much as I ever do all weekend. I knew relatives were expecting the kids, though, and dutifully loaded them into the car so they could spread cheer and germs.

A couple years ago, a tired Abbie was no problem during car rides. I planned journeys home to coincide with naptime so she’d sleep in the car. Today she refuses to nap in the car. The boys can still nap in the car, but not for long with Abbie thrashing and screaming periodically in the car seat next to them.

I kept Abbie entertained with a mix of music CD’s and DVD’s. When those failed to placate her about halfway through our three-hour car ride, I spent 90 minutes handing Goldfish one at a time to her from the driver’s seat to her seat directly behind me. Today my shoulder hurts. The boys napped for about 20 minutes during the car ride, about half of their normal nap time. I handed them Tasteeos during that fateful 90 minutes.

You might think they’d be dying for their afternoon nap, but the only people dying were the adults. Abbie refused to calm down, and the boys only took a half-nap, but only after I removed her from their room so they could concentrate on sleeping instead of on their sister’s adventures exploiting childproofing deficiencies in their guest’s house.

You might think they’d be dying to fall asleep that night, but not so much. Abbie refused to calm down again. Her 9:30 bedtime drifted into 10:00, then 10:30, and finally 11:00. Sometime around 11:30, she finally wore out and drifted off to sleep, letting her brothers catch some quality sleep as well.

Everyone slept in the next morning, especially me. Ian woke about 8:30, Tory about 8:45, and Abbie about 9:00. Not surprisingly, the boys were ready for their morning nap by 10:00. I kept them awake until their normal naptime at 11:30 and woke them at 12:30 to keep them on something approaching their regular schedule.

The car ride home went much like the previous day’s ride, except the screaming started sooner. They watched the same DVD three times, with me handing snacks into the back seat virtually the entire ride. Somehow, we made it home without anyone suffering a meltdown, though I can’t say the same thing about the rest of the night at home.

I put everyone down to bed promptly at their regular 9:30 bedtime. The next morning, everyone slept in. There was no 5:00 singing.

On the Road Again

I'm going out of town this weekend, and the only thing I have packed is a couple handfuls of Tasteeos littering the bottom of the diaper bag. No new posts until Monday.

Library Day

In our house, Monday is Speech Therapist day, Tuesday is Different Speech Therapist day, and Wednesday is Library Day. Now that winter is here and Mother Nature covers the ground in snow while I struggle to cover tiny feet with socks, we don’t leave the house much. Some Wednesdays, the only time we leave the house, and therefore the only time the kids do anything blog worthy, is when we go to the library.

I try to find other things to blog about to avoid turning Thursday into Library Blog Post Day. Yesterday, though, the kids surprised me by acting in a way that was so unexpected, so uncharacteristic, so shocking, that I had to share it.

Library Day is the day when I have to wake everyone on time and speed them through breakfast so we can make it out the door by 10am. Story time at the library starts at 10:15, and we don’t want to miss the opening song. Story time features stories,* songs, and rhymes led by an instructor while about two dozen toddlers sit attentively around her.

My three children are not in that group. My three children run around the room generally ignoring the stories while occasionally returning for the rhymes and songs. The boys used to sit attentively, but then they developed the ability to run. I like bringing the kids to story time for the socialization in the hope that by exposing them to other children, they’ll pick up the ability to sit attentively. So far, they only thing they’ve picked up are germs, which may be the origin of their current cold.

Abbie rarely wanders far. She tends to run circles around me, keeping her back to the instructor as much as possible, and looking for ways to climb on my back. She’ll climb down for the rhymes and songs, but she rarely pays attention to the book.

The boys wander far, but always with a purpose. The room’s door has a latch at their level, and they love playing with it, flapping it up and down to hear it click. I sit close to the toddler group, and the boys spend most of the time running back to the door. I hate when they do that partially because the clicking is annoying. It’s no more annoying than the two dozen jabbering children, so mostly I hate them sitting there because someone could open the door and not notice a child sitting 18-inches off the ground as they stride into the room.

I spend my time bouncing Abbie, trying to encourage her to notice the book and the good children, and setting her down in time to catch the boys as they run out of arm’s length. I then sit them on the other side of my body, placing myself between them and the door so they’ll have to take the long way around to return to the latch.

That’s what I was doing yesterday. Bounce. Grab. Reposition. Grab. Bounce. Reposition with one hand while grabbing with the other. The leader led us through a rhyme, and my three children decided to sit attentively watching. When she opened up another story, I expected to return to my repositioning dance, but everyone remained seated. All three children stared directly at the book, and Abbie even interacted by pointing out some things in the story, like the cat that she repeatedly announced with “ihh-eee.” After a minute, she was hanging on my back, but still looking at the book.

I took my minute break to look around the room. I saw a couple dozen toddlers fidgeting while struggling to stay seated. I saw other parents fighting with their children to make them pay attention. I saw my children, who for a brief yet glorious couple of minutes were the best behaved in the room.

Then Ian made a break for the door. I returned to the repositioning dance while gaining optimism that my kids are learning, and maybe, just maybe, getting something from story time besides colds.

* Duh

SpeakingUpdate, February Edition

Every parent has to fret about something in their children’s development. Some parents worry about their children’s awkward walking motion. Some parents worry about their children’s inability to identify a square. Some parents worry that their children will never eat anything green besides M&M’s and maybe a Jolly Rancher since that sour apple flavor is so potent. I get to worry about my children talking.

The boys are almost 15-months-old and not really talking, or even babbling that much. They make sounds that don’t involve screaming, Tory more so than Ian, but most of those sounds are “ma.” That’s great when Ellie walks in the door while I’m feeding them and hears someone say “ma.” I doubt they’re calling her “ma,” though, since their utterances are too inconsistent for me to think of them as words. More likely, they’re trying anything they can do to convince me to stop shoveling oatmeal in their mouths. I’m sure a licensed professional will appropriately fret over them at their next developmental check-ups, but I’m not worrying too much about them. I’ve learned that children will do things when they’re ready no matter how much you fret over them. Plus, I still have Abbie’s speech to fret over.

Abbie is 32 months, and I’ve worried about her speech since she was, oh, about 15 months. A quick scan of this blog’s archives reveals several posts fretting over her lack of speech. In fact, a thorough scan of the archives reveals that I’d occasionally just repost the same entry a couple months later to save time since little would change.

Her speech has improved greatly in the past month, and is now consistent enough for me to consider her speaking. She’s been saying word-like sounds for months now: “ihh” for fish, “muh” for milk, and “ahhhhhhh” for everything else. In the past, though, we had to prompt her to say these words. A typical scenario would place her in the kitchen, obviously whining for something. After turning down milk and fish, I’d ask what she’d want. She’d respond with “ahh” the first time, “ahhhh” the second time after I looked at her puzzled, and “ahhhhhhh” the third time as she ran to her room screaming, slamming the door behind her.

Now she can say words without prompting. Her main word is “mama.” When Ellie walks in the door while I’m feeding them, she will exclaim “mama.” Unlike her brothers, she will excitedly exclaim it every time she walks in the door, regardless of the amount of cereal in her mouth at the time. She’ll say a few other things without prompting, such as “isss” for fish, or “hee-yah” for Dora, or she’ll sign for things like book. She never asks for milk, though, because she knows enough to open the door and pull out her leftover sippy cup.

This limited speech is great, but I’m most encouraged by her repetitive skills. Making Abbie, and now the boys as well, repeat things was a struggle. She never did actions like play “so big,” wave “bye bye” or even clap until much later than normal. We used the “If You’re Happy and You Know It” song to encourage her to mimic us, working through “clap your hands,” to “touch your nose,” and finally to “dust the television.” Even after mastering actions, she rarely repeated words, sticking to a safe few words like “muh” and “ihh.”

She’s now at the point where she’ll try mimicking almost any word, and I couldn’t be happier if she started dusting the television unprompted. When we read, I often encourage her to repeat the last word on a page. If I’m feeling saucy, I might even stay quiet and encourage her to say the last word on the page since she has every book in her library memorized by now. I usually hear a vocal response. Some of her “words” are close to real words, like “rehhhd” or that “yee-sssss” she said once. Some of her “words” are slightly more sophisticated than a grunt, but at least she uses the correct number of syllables.

Her speech is still way behind her peers, some of whom are talking in complete sentences to ask for fish while watching Dora. At least she’s making discernable progress now, the type that assures me that, yes, I will be able to enroll her in preschool in the fall and get her out of the house. Now I just need to wait another 18 months for her brothers to reach the same proficiency.

When Tories Don't Nap

Tory woke from his afternoon nap today at 4:30. That’s an hour before he should.

Despite my several months of child-rearing experience, I never know what to do when they wake up very early from a nap. If I pull him from bed, I risk disrupting his sleep pattern, and likely face a tired and cranky little man for the rest of the night. If I leave him to roll in the crib and hope he falls back asleep, I risk him waking up the other two children who should be napping. Usually, I just keep sitting at my computer and hope things resolve themselves without me having to leave my Diet Coke and a slowly loading ESPN.com.

I tried the wait and hope technique for about five minutes, and listened to his screams grow more insistent as he tried to convince me that he was fully refreshed. His screeches were the only ones coming over the monitor, so I decided to sneak him out of their room before the other two woke and joined him.

I quietly opened the door to their room, just in case a door’s creak would do the job that Tory’s complaints failed to do. The other two were still asleep, Ian on his tummy with his legs curled under him, and Abbie on her back with her blanket pulled over her face. Tory was sitting upright, staring at the door, anticipating his rescue. I walked to his crib, staring at his eyes, dreading the rest of the night.

I don’t know how he can’t be sleepy. He still has a cold, and needs his sleep. Plus, he’s learning the essential life skills, things like walking, talking, and separating objects into “edible” and “non-edible” categories. That must be more exhausting than the monotonous manual labor that wears me down every day. It wore Ian down as he was still sleeping. It wore Abbie down as she napped more than he did today, and Abbie already has already mastered the walking and separating objects skills, though she likes to taste-test things frequently just to be sure.

I pulled him to the computer with me while his siblings continued sleeping. I had to hold him to keep him from wandering into forbidden areas, like the cable abyss behind the computer, which limited my work. I had to type in web addresses with one free hand. I had to bring snacks to my mouth quickly enough that he wouldn’t notice them and knock them on the floor trying to grab them. His presence sapped my concentration, preventing me from writing, so I’d have to throw together a half-baked blog post later in the night.

We had to go out after supper, and I was sure he’d fall asleep in the car. The boys have been doing that recently with their colds; they wake up early with a nose full of snot, and catch up on their sleep by drifting off for five minutes in the car.

We reached our destination without anyone falling asleep. On the way back we had a little man asleep in the back seat within ten minutes. Unfortunately, it was Ian. Tory was still wide-awake, staring at us in hopes that we’d rescue him from his five-point harness, and occasionally complaining to ensure we were still aware of his presence.

As soon as we arrived home, I gave everyone their bedtime milk. Abbie took hers, sucked it down, and went to work on her duck pond toy. Ian took his, quickly dropped it on the ground, and found Abbie’s instead. When he realized it was empty, he dropped it on the ground as well, and went to work on his riding car. Tory took his, realized that he’d have to work to sip milk from the sippy cup, and started screaming. That screaming lasted almost continuously until he went to bed 45 minutes later. Napping may be an essential life skill that he needs to learn.

It's a Good Thing This Is My Hobby and Not My Job

Children need sleep to for good help and even temperament, especially when sick. I have no idea how to make a child sleep, though, especially when sick.

I set them down at the appropriate time, and they wake up when they want. Sometimes they wake up just in time to eat lunch. Sometimes they wake up about the time I drift off into my nap. Recently it’s been closer to the latter, except that I haven’t really been napping. It’s more like getting out of bed in time to set the Super Bowl meal table, or to determine what’s leaking and how concerned I should be that water is dripping from the ceiling.

When the boys wake up early, I have several options. I can let them play under my feet while I try to start supper. I can keep their mouths full with Super Bowl snacks. I can ignore them and hope they fall back asleep, or at least don’t suffer any permanent mental harm.

I can’t write, though, which makes this a long excuse for the recent light posting. Maybe I’ll have time tomorrow as the kids take a good nap. Or maybe the kids will wake early again, and I’ll discover a snack so potent, so attractive that it keeps their attention long enough for me to write.

Yet Another Super Bowl-Related List

The Kids’ Favorite Super Bowl Snacks

9. Buffalo wings – Too much chewing involved in these big hunks of meat. Too much heat, too.
8. Carrot sticks – Raw carrots. Yuck.
7. Cookies – They were store bought, and Abbie refused to eat them. Snob.
6. Little smokies – I’d hoped they would form the cornerstone of a semi-substantive meal, but no luck. The casings were too hard for the kids to chew, and they didn’t like the spices. Abbie did eat a few of them when she was desperate enough, though.
5. Meat, cheese, & cracker tray – The crackers were good. The boys liked the cheese. The meat was pepperoni, and too spicy.
4. Chips – They were good on their own, but it depended on the dip. The cheese-salsa dip was too much. Sour cream was good. The ranch dressing for the Buffalo wings was better. The blue cheese dip was rejected, so it’s good to know they have standards.
3. Chex Mix – It’s salty, buttery cereal. What’s not to love?
2. People Chow – It’s cereal coated in chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar. What’s not to love?
1. Steamed broccoli – I don’t get it either.

I'm Sick

That's right, I'm sick and tired of not getting enough sleep. I've got too much to do before I sit on my butt through the Super Bowl tomorrow. And a baby is currently screaming. Good night.

Sickos

The boys are sick, I guess. I’ve been fortunate with the boys and colds. Some children go through a perpetual state of colds as their immune system acts more like a germ hotel concierge. Some kids enjoy long stretches of good health, and short yet painful stretches of illness. You know when these kids are sick because no one, especially the parents, sleeps when they’re sick.

The boys, and Abbie for that matter, have robust immune systems. They rarely catch colds, which is a blessing since, according to my mother, I attracted germs like dog hair to a Tasteeo. I had multiple operations to insert tubes in my ears, and kept my poor mother awake through the night several times screaming from the pain of infected ears. No wonder I was an only child.

I think this is the second cold the boys have caught in their lifetimes. Much like the first one, it exists within their bodies, specifically their noses, without causing much anguish. Except for a mild increase in crankiness and major increases in snot and drool, I wouldn’t be able to tell they were sick. They’d just go about their daily lives with major sinus pain, and I’d incorrectly attribute every meltdown to an exhaustion of the Tasteeo supply.

Of course, both boys catch the same cold at the same time. I don’t even try to keep their germs separate. There’s too much germ swapping to care about the little things. If I cared, I’d feed them with separate utensils from separate bowls, but it’s not worth the bother. They swap sippy cups. They drool and snot on their cow blankets and throw them into each other’s cribs. They tackle each other and shove their snotty extremities into each other’s mouths and eyes in an infantile version of germ warfare. Miraculously, Abbie hasn’t contracted the cold yet despite their repeated efforts to steal and muckify her lambie blanket.

The worst time to deal with their colds is nighttime. Again, they’re not awful about sleeping through colds, especially since modern cold medicines are so much more powerful and sedative than the ones available when I was a child. They still wake up at night, though.

They’re ordinarily great sleepers. As soon as they give up and fall asleep at night, they stay asleep until morning when they sense that I’m almost ready to step in the shower. Ian had been waking up around midnight for a few nights, though. It wasn’t too big of a deal; I’d walk him around for a minute, just long enough for me to fumble with the acetaminophen bottle in the dark, give him a dose of painkiller in case he had any pain to be killed, and set him back down. He’d roll around for a minute, depositing any extraneous drool on his cow blanket, and drift back to sleep until morning.

Last night Ian slept while Tory took the night waking shift. He popped up around 12:30, I did the acetaminophen dance, and he went back to sleep. At 2:30, he woke up again. This time I went for the diphenhydramine because clearly he needed its drying effects and I needed its tranquilizing effects. He went back to sleep, only to again wake two hours later at 4:30. It had been four hours, so I gave him another dose of acetaminophen, and he again went back to sleep. At 6:30 I ignored his complaints for a minute and he went back to sleep on his own.

That makes four nighttime wakings. He didn’t even do that as a newborn. I know it could’ve been worse, such as one long nighttime waking. My mother can tell you I used to do that.

"Oh, great selection and rock-bottom prices. But where is the love?"

I went grocery shopping yesterday. During the afternoon. With the kids. With no adult assistance.

I’m slowly getting my independence back. I lost all ability to leave the house when Abbie was born. I felt the need to stay home for Abbie’s sake to keep her as close to her routine as possible, and for the world’s sake to keep her from inflicting her fury on everyone else. Around four months, I realized my sanity was suffering, and I needed to leave the house to interact with humans besides the guy screening calls on that radio show I listen to. Eventually I reached the point where I could take Abbie on errands throughout the city, keep her close to her nap schedule, and be fairly confident that, even if she did melt down, I wouldn’t care how many people nearby she ticked off with her screaming because I deserve to leave the house too.

Sometime around 19 months, the twins came home and I stopped leaving the house during the day. I had no chance to safely transport three young children within the two-hour window I had between feedings. Slowly the feedings spread out, the children became more self-sufficient, and I realized the need to leave the house during the day. This time it wasn’t to save my sanity, though; sleep deprivation and extended screaming fits stole that from me long ago. Now I need to frequently leave the house to replenish our Vital Supplies, and I can’t always wait until Ellie is around to help. Three children use a lot of stuff, and the sheer number of trash bags we use to dispose of it requires weekly trips to the store.

At least I would need to run to the store weekly for trash bags if I didn’t buy them in ridiculously large quantities at the warehouse club store. Before kids, I was ambivalent about these stores. Sure, their muffins are tasty, their atmosphere is an enjoyable brand of existentialistic isolation, and buying cookies by the half-stone is always exciting, but I wasn’t saving enough money to cover the cost of membership. Even with Abbie, we were only close to breaking even.

With three kids, though, I was suddenly eager to pay for the privilege of roaming dark, concrete-floored, employee-free aisles. The diaper savings more than paid for the membership, and they offered more for children and the parents who care for them between narcoleptic episodes. They have cheap milk, acceptable produce, and boxes of Goldfish with three bags so that even after the child rips the bag and spills Goldfish all over the floor for the dog to eat she still has two bags to enjoy.

Best of all, the warehouse club has extra large carts that seat two babies in the basket. I can strap them into a cart with plenty of room for 8-pound bags of dog treats, and easily supervise them while keeping them entertained by talking to them and encouraging them to poke each other. The two-seater gives me the freedom to leave the house, and wander the aisles trying to find Abbie, who is also wandering the aisle without the encumbrance of a gigantic cart weighted down with almost 50 pounds of baby and four pounds of raisins. The cart seats two, forcing Abbie to fend for herself. Sometimes she elects to walk. Sometimes she elects to ride in the main basket. Sometimes she elects to hop on the side while I push her and hope I don’t sideswipe a display 300-ounce laundry detergent.

Yesterday she elected to rapidly switch between all three modes. She walked near my side until she realized that she was walking like a chump while her brothers rode. Then she rode in the main basket until she realized that I would only move when she was fully seated. Then she hung onto the cart’s edge until something caught her eye, like a giant box of Goldfish or another gigantic cart approaching at dangerous speeds from the opposite direction, at which point she’d hop down and walk again.

Abbie continued her cycle while I picked up groceries. Once I filled the cart with milk, Goldfish, and other things for her to rip into, that’s when she decided she wanted to stay in the cart. I moved quickly to the checkout lanes, found a cashier moving quickly in spite of the store’s soul-sucking nature, and proceeded out the store before anyone melted down. My sanity was just starting to return, and I didn’t want a screaming fit or three to scare it away again.