Mommy feels like poo

A great picture Gamma took this morning at her house...Owen eating Dylan's arm....


Who takes care of Mommy when Mommy is sick? Daddy...not by taking care of me directly, but by taking care of me indirectly by cooking all meals this past weekend and occupying our toddler. Thankfully, Owen and Dylan were pretty decent to me this weekend while Daddy and Ethan were out running errands and taking care of the yard. Owen fell asleep on me on Saturday, which was pure heaven (and later that day I napped with Ethan in our bed, while Andy napped with the babies downstairs....Owen on him that time). But pleasant or not, it's still work, and I still feel like crap. Last week I truly believe it was allergies, this week it is definitely something more evil and sinister, something that appears like allergies, but cannot be treated by Benadryl, Wall-itin, Target's "allergy relief medication", or Mucinex-D, or any combination of the above....and is accompanied by an unrelenting, dry and unproductive cough. Ugh.

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Andy just interrupted this blog post by asking me if I wanted to see something really cute outside. I put Ethan to bed so he could get a start on fertilizing our yard while it's still light out. He found a baby bunny. It was sitting, shivering, under one of the drain spouts. He had found the nest....I had seen some fur around the area from our living room window the other day. We figure the fur that was off to the side of the hole was probably meant to plug up the hole to the underground nest. Andy picked the baby up, with gloves, and guided it back into the nest...we saw at least 2 other babies in there. I hope that his picking it up doesn't make Mommy Bunny abandon it, but what were the alternatives?!...I wouldn't have slept a wink knowing little nutbrown hair was freezing in our backyard.

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"Two"....."two" is my nemesis. Not Ethan. But his body-snatcher who I call "two." Ethan is there one minute, and "two" the next. This afternoon, he was gazing adoringly at his baby brudders, and said "I love Owen....and I love Dylan...and Mommy...and Daddy...and Gramma Nana...and Gamma Leslie...." and on and on. If you are reading this, you were probably on the list. And Cec and Chris, after he said he loved you, he said "They live in Boston, we will go see them in an airplane," But then, "two" swoops in.....and a car falls from his Learning Tower and "Maaaaaah, I NEEEDDD that car.....you can geeeeet my caaaaaar, Mommmmmmaaayyy!"

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Ethan's very into saying "I can't" lately. Which breaks my heart. It's about everything....I can't drink my milk, I can't come over there, I can't jump. I signed him up for some gymnastics classes that run for the next 5 weeks (the first week was last Friday) on Friday mornings that he'll go to with Gamma. Last week, Gamma told me he didn't want to take his shoes off and was shy at first. He doesn't jump. Ethan is used to jumping into the leaves....so he kinda equates "jumping" with "falling". Tonight, Andy and I tried to practice some of his gymnastics stuff with him. He was very quick to tell us he couldn't do that "crab-man" walk, and he couldn't jump...but he warmed up to it after a bit of us looking like idiots crab-walking around the living room and bending our knees and swinging our arms to jump up. He did really great with the jumping...hopefully he'll be more interested in next week's class because he is very physical and I think he would really enjoy it. I hope this isn't swimming lessons all over again!!

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Ethan has been much better about his eating lately. Eating meat is not an issue anymore. He will eat chicken, for sure, and he even ate some pork chops the other day. I've seen him take a bite of a hamburger. Progress. Vegetables are still somewhat of an issue...he's a fruit guy. He used to love corn, not so much anymore. For dinner tonight we had cheese ravioli, garlic bread, and green beans. He didn't want to eat any green beans, so he couldn't have dessert....Andy had bought a strawberry shortcake as an impulse buy because he went grocery shopping while he was hungry on Sunday...so far, I've been able to resist!...While getting into pajamas tonight, Andy and Ethan had a talk. I went into Ethan's room, ready to read him books, but they weren't there. I found them in the kitchen, eating leftover green beans from the tupperware. Ethan was eating them by the handfuls. I don't know how he got him to eat them, but turns out...he loves green beans! I told him I liked them too, and they are even better when they are warm, and he said "We could cook them!"

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The babies are still eating like champs with 8-9 oz bottles during the day, but I haven't noticed much of an increase in the time between feedings....they still eat about every 3-4 hours. We do rice cereal at night, before bedtime. I think it's growing on them, it's not as much of a struggle anymore. The trick is to time that last feeding of rice cereal and bottle before they start passing out from exhaustion....not always so easy! I can't seem to keep these babies up past 6/6:30. They still sleep until about 6:30/7am, but I would love to just have a bit more time with them in the evening. I know, Dr W says this is every working-out-of-the-home parent's mistake....keeping the babies up later so that you can have more time with them, and you only end up messing up their sleep cycle to everybody's disadvantage. But....I don't have enough time with them!!! Gamma and Liz are getting them to sleep really well during the day...there have been lots of naps in the cribs lately which is great!!

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Owen moves around in his crib at night in a mysterious kind of way. Last night, I went to close Ethan's door after he'd fallen asleep and heard some peeping in the babies' room and knew it was Owen (because mom's can tell the difference...seriously). The video camera is still pointed on the crib where they slept together, which is where Dylan sleeps now, so I couldn't check on Owen by turning on the monitor. When I went up to bed a little bit later, I just had to check. I couldn't go to sleep without knowing that he was okay. So, I opened the door and peeked in, and I didn't see him in his crib. My heart stopped beating for a second. I came all the way in the room...and then I saw him. I had placed him in the middle of the crib, the long way, when I put him to bed....and he had somehow moved himself up to the very top of the crib, smack up against the short, top side of the crib....and somehow, the blankets I had placed over him were still in the very same place as they had been when I placed him the long way.....weeeeeiiiiiird. He was fast asleep, but I needed to move him to make myself feel better....so I did...and he didn't even peep. Wake-up came at 6:45am....I love these babies.

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4.5 months later....I fit into some of my "normal"-size work pants....not all of them, even though they are all the same size, and primarily from the same store. I fit into one "normal"-size pair of jeans. The other pair of jeans I wear is the pair that Andy bought me in early February that I was super excited to wear because I could fit into them and they had a zipper....AND a button!! Now, I can pull them off without UNbuttoning or UNzippering....I have yet to get on that damned treadmill, but I will. It's hard to be betwixt sizes.