My Nature

This might come as a surprise but...

I'm A LOT!

Just a lot of, well, everything.  

I do everything at full-speed and 100%. 

Except the laundry. 

I hate the laundry. 

I really, really hate it. 

But I digress...

I put 100% into everything I do. Could be knitting, painting, cake, business, friendships, love life, motherhood...whatever. I push myself all the time. 

I don't just accept a challenge, I tackle it. 

I'm a fighter and I always get back up. 

I just can't stay down. 

When I was diagnosed with cancer there was only one way for me to handle it. The same way I handle everything else: full steam ahead, gloves up, no hesitation. 

From lump to chemo, I knew I would fight. I was not going to let that bitch win!

I've been competitive my entire life, I hate to be doubted and I love to prove people wrong!

My mom knew this and used to tell my swim coaches that the best way to motivate me was to tell me they didn't think I could do something. 

That was how I set the 50M butterfly record in high school and the diving record in college. 

I come from a family who works hard, doesn't give up and doesn't shy away from confrontation. 

I was raised by very strong-minded people, but it's also my nature. 

Dictionary.com defines nature as: the basic or inherent features of something especially when seen as characteristic of it. 

I think that Aesop demonstrated nature best in the fable The Scorpion and the Frog: 

Drawing by Michael Morgenstern

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too." 

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp, "Why?

Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..." 

Many times in my life, I have cut my nose off to spite my face because I speak my mind. 

One of the things I also do 100% is talk...even when I know I shouldn't. 

It's my nature. 

But, my nature keeps me from quitting...I just don't.  

While it is my nature, my drive also comes from my parents. Dad was a sailor. In all the years we sailed I think we dropped out of two races. One was because we hit something and ripped the rudder off the stern of the boat and the other was total lack of wind, the crew was threatening mutiny and a keg party awaited us. 

Dad was a smart man who knew when to cut his losses! 

While we were never a horse family, the philosophy of "getting back on the horse" was practiced. Failure wasn't really a failure unless you gave up trying.

When I was in high school I was practicing for the summer Tri-County diving championships and was temporarily distracted...in mid air...and landed flat on my back in the water...in front of everyone!  

I was crying hysterically, was going to give up and go home but mom wouldn't let me. Through gritted teeth she told me to stop whining and get back on the board. 

Yeah, my back hurt...like hell actually...but my pride was hurt worse and the only way to get over that was to get back up there and show it who's boss! 

I did get back on the board, I did execute the perfect dive and I did win Tri-County that year! 

Everyone will fall down and make mistakes and everyone will fail at some point in their lives. Life is not a cake-walk. It's hard, messy and can be painful.

When I was a kid if I said something wasn't fair dad would always reply, "No one ever said life was fair." 

He was right. It's not. 

But, it can be filled with a myriad of blessings and lessons that will make us better and stronger. 

You can live in the negative or you can see the opportunity. 

Your choice. 

Failing at something is different from being a failure. 

Failing is an opportunity to improve and correct, failure is a mindset. 

Failure, to me, is the equivalent of being a victim. 

I am not a cancer victim, I am in the process of becoming a cancer survivor. 

There is a difference. 

Besides, it's my nature. 

Robotic Box Checker

I thought I was going to get my drains out last week.

I was wrong. 

Unbeknownst to me, the total drainage per side needs to be below 30 cc per day for two days consecutively. Not knowing this, I arrived at the surgeon's office only to be informed, rather snippily by the nurse, that I was not going to be having them removed that day, the next day or probably not until the following week.

When I questioned why she said that I was draining more than 30cc's for the day. When I replied that I didn't know that she said, "I asked you when you called this morning." 

Technically she did. However, she did not ask, "Are you under 30cc's for the day?" What she asked was, "Are you under 30cc's?" I replied that when I emptied the drain that morning it was less than 20cc's. 

She got nippy. I got snippy right back and said, "You'll have to excuse me. This is the first time I've had my boobs cut off so I have no idea how things are supposed to work."

Then I had a massive meltdown... and the nurse got a lot nicer.

But, I still spent the day in bed crying. I was devastated. 

The drains hurt. 

I mentioned previously that the drain on the right was killing me. It was super painful and as it healed it got worse. Add suction pain to the drain pain and I was completely miserable. Seriously, it felt like my skin was being sucked into my chest. 

Sleeping has been nearly impossible which has contributed to my deteriorating emotional state and increased depression. Two antidepressants a day did little to help me. 

Don't get me wrong, I could and did, push through most days but all it would take was a pin to drop and I was off and blubbering again. 

I'm not the worst at asking for help but I'm not the best either. 

Fortunately for us, people have been better at helping than I have been at asking. 

Dinner has been delivered every other night by an army of friends and neighbors. The kids have had transportation provided and extra play time at friend's houses so I could rest and my staff has been UNBELIEVABLE! 

Honestly, I couldn't ask for better employees! I want to go into detail about these women but I will save that for another day and give them the full post they deserve. 

Fast forward to this week and my drains were removed on Wednesday...finally. 

We arrived at the surgeon's office and checked in. 

The nurse (same one) came around the corner and told Glenn that he couldn't come in. I responded with another  massive meltdown...like snot bubble, hyperventilate meltdown. 

Persistent pain is exhausting. I was worn out and clearly incapable of controlling my emotions.

Fortunately she relented, let him come with me and my drains were removed. 

The left one was uncomfortable but the right (the one that's hurt the whole time) hurt like hell! The nurse had to stop halfway through removing it so I could take a break. 

She also removed the steri-strips from the surgery and it looks so good! The incision is still a little wrinkly but it's flattening out a little each day. 

I did apologize for being such a nut job in the waiting room. She told me it was ok and went on to explain that since she was in the room alone she was afraid of having my husband pass out (something that has happened with spouses before) and she would not be able to take care of him and pull the drains at the same time. 

She told me I didn't need to apologize but I did again anyway. I do feel badly. 

Without the drains in, both my demeaner and my range of motion are improving. I'm not crying at everything and I even helped on some of the cakes this week! 

Maybe I'll even be able to fold the massive pile of clean laundry that has accumulated in the house. 

Yippee. <snark>

Glenn washes and dries but doesn't fold. 

After lunch we met with my oncologist, Dr. Tedeschi at Penn Medicine. 

Before the doctor came in a technician came to take my weight, temp, oxygen level etc. then began asking the barrage of general questions. The best one was, "Are you experiencing pain?" Glenn snorted, I laughed and said, "I just had my drains removed, so today is probably not the day to ask." She looked at me like a deer in headlights and asked, "So you have pain?" I replied, "Yeah, yeah I have pain." 

Then she asked...

Wait for it...

...

"Where?"

"Where they cut my boobs off!" I snarked. 

Really?!

C'mon people! I understand that these are trained individuals but seriously, can we bring back common sense?! They are not just trained but over-trained an incapable or not allowed to think for themselves. 

It was like speaking with a robotic box-checker. 

The Oncologist was a different story! I really like her. She is smart, funny, compassionate and has common sense! 

She didn't brush my concerns aside about having two businesses and needing to be as available as possible. When discussing the chemo schedule and possible side effects she made the suggestion of Fridays for infusion. This way if I have a negative reaction to the chemo my down days would be Sunday and Monday when the store is closed anyway and I wouldn't have to worry about finding someone to cover my hours. If it goes well and I feel up to it, I can have the infusion in the morning and then work in the afternoon! 

If I don't have any reaction to the chemo, I can switch my infusion days to Tuesdays in Kennett Square vs Friday's in West Chester. The difference in drive time is about 25 minutes each direction so being able to move to Kennett Square would be fantastic! 

Dr. Tedeschi did say that I would probably lose my hair. I replied, "Well, a summer without shaving can't be all bad right?!" She looked me in the eyes, smiled and said, "I like you. We're going to get along really well." 

I know for some losing their hair can be very traumatic. Truth be told? I'm sort of looking forward to not having hair. I've had a life-long love/hate relationship with the stuff. It is extremely frizzy. I once even had a hairdresser refer to it as fuzzy! Not having to deal with it at all might be a welcomed change for a few months. 

Now onto the chemo regimen....

I will be having Taxol + Herceptin infused via a port once a week for 12 weeks and then just the Herceptin once every three weeks for the remainder of the year. 

Many people are familiar with the chemo cocktail of ACTH. This stands for chemotherapy medicines Adriamycin, Cytoxan (chemical name: cyclophosphamide), and Taxotere (chemical name: docetaxel), plus Herceptin.

ACT is much more harsh than just the Taxol and comes with so many more side effects. I am feeling very lucky. Studies have shown that, in patients with clear nodes and a mass less than 2 cm, there is no benefit in receiving the ACT with H and that Taxol plus Herceptin is just as effective. Had the mass been larger or the nodes hadn't been clear my treatment would be the ACTH. 

Chemo will start on June 25. 

When we walked through the door after the appointments on Wednesday the boys greated us with, "Did they take them out?" I pulled my shirt up to show them that the tubes were indeed gone. They both cheered enthusiastically and for the first time in almost two weeks I got to fully hug my kids. 

Something I hope to be doing for many, many, many years to come. 

Whirlwind

Life is flying by in a blur.

I had no idea that having children would make the hands on a clock spin like my ceiling fan on high!

There is always too much laundry, never enough hours in the day and as soon as I finish making one meal it's time to start prepping for another.

Most of the time I don't really mind. Honestly, I'm pretty much a procrastinator when it comes to cleaning the house so if time runs out and I haven't had a chance to dust the funiture or scrub the toilets I'm not overly concerned.

The laundry however is my nemesis.

Seriously...Does the crap breed in the dark on the floor in the basement?

Even with the best intentions, I can never seem to get it washed dried and folded fast enough and most times it makes it as far as the "laundry chair" in the family room. David's clothes are on the left arm, Daniel's clothes are on the right arm, their dad and I share the top of the back of the chair and pajamas and underwear are on the end table.

This has been the way I've done it since the kids were born.

Why screw with a good thing, right?

If you are here visiting and the chair is cleaned off it just means that I was expecting you.

My previous babysitter stopped over with her mom one afternoon and, noticing that the "laundry chair" was indeed living up to it's name, stated that she'd never see the chair without clothes on it.

Her mother gasped...I laughed.

It was true!

There are things in life that are more important than whether or not the laundry is put away.

Homeschooling my kids this year would be one of them.

If I could afford it, the kids would be in preschool. Unfortunately, I can't, so they aren't.

After doing some research, which thanks to Google is crazy easy, I decided that homeschooling for preschool won't be terribly hard so I'm trying.

David's Solar System

David is totally into it. He loves learning. He is my type "A"  kid who loves to figure stuff out and will choose to watch educational shows on his Kindle Junior. He knows names of dinosaurs that I can neither pronounce nor even knew about when I was a kid and recently grasped the concept that the sun is the center of the Solar System.

X is for x-ray

Daniel on the other hand loves to sound out the letters to make words but hates to do his writing exercises so much that he discovered that writing Dan is faster than Daniel so all of his stuff has Dan on it now. 

"Dan" isn't the best at following directions and tends to be a "color wherever the heck he wants to rather than inside the lines" kind of kid. However, he loves numbers and is going to be an amazing mathematician.

Well, as soon as he figures out that "eleventeen" is not actually a number. 

Our days are crazy, stressful, happy, frustrating and in general just a bit of a whirlwind. My house is not spotless, but my kids are happy and smart.

There will be plenty of time when the kids are older, and don't want anything to do with me, to clean the house.

These years will be over before I know it and life will take on a different level of crazy. Being present with my kids is so much more important than whether or not the toilets are clean.

Besides, I can dust tomorrow!

Sharing

I married a man whose idea of cooking was to buy prepackaged food at Wegmans and heat it up in the microwave.

Not that there is really anything wrong with that. But it's not cooking...it's reheating.

Two years ago I started a part-time job as a Dyson Demonstrator working weekends to help make ends meet.

It was a great gig. Not really hard, sometimes boring, but for the most part it was fun and I really enjoyed doing the job. I also had one of the best managers a person could ask for. She's no longer my manager, but I do get to call her friend.

While I was working that job I often did not get home before 7 o'clock in the evening on Saturdays and Sundays.

The guy who couldn't cook would wait for me to get home to cook dinner.

Needless to say, evenings with the children were a nightmare as they were hangry (hungry+angry) and I would become increasingly cranky at having to work on my feet all day and then have to cook dinner when I walked through the door.

I finally told him that it wasn't fair that I was put in this position and initially remedied it by bringing Costco pizza home with me.

He finally relented and started to learn to cook. Initially we ate a lot of grilled food. I seriously don't understand how someone can say they can't cook but can handle preparing food over an open flame but I digress... Hubby grows sweet corn in the summer and grilled corn with chicken or burgers and hot dogs were a staple.

Eventually his confidence increased and he began to get more creative. He even used Italian dressing and breadcrumbs on the chicken before grilling it and I have to say it was delicious!

As the summer came to a close he had to move his weekend cooking operation indoors.

We ate burned chicken.

Our kids are not very picky but even they wouldn't eat it.

I did not criticize but offered a couple of suggestions which he took like a man.

While all of this "learning to cook" stuff was going hubby also decided to teach himself how to bake bread. No one, least of all hubby, knows why he was suddenly obsessed with this idea.

He could barely cook chicken without making it black so please, by all means, take up one of the most difficult culinary skills of all!

What's next croissants? Oy vey!

If you've known me for anytime you'd know how much pride I take in both my kitchen and my cooking skills. I've invested countless hours in reading recipes and testing out techniques. I used to watch the cooking channel as if I were in school cramming for the final!

I turned my love of cakes into a full-time successful business that was bringing in pretty good money.

MY Kitchen was my empire! I was ruler.

The fact that I wasn't in it on Saturdays and Sundays made it no less mine!

I had lost all control.

He was putting things where they didn't belong.

I couldn't find the strainer.

Tools were not in the proper drawers.

I COULDN'T FIND MY STUFF!!!

I was pissed!

While lecturing the boys on sharing I was having a hissy fit because he hadn't put my measuring cups back in the right spot!

Hmmmmm.

Crap!

Now who needs to share?

I won't say that hubby has mastered the bread making but we no longer eat store-bought bread. All sandwich bread is home-made. He made a Challah at Christmas that was beyond amazing.

Christmas was just downright weird. It's the first time in my life I've ever given a man kitchen stuff. Pot holders, rolling pins and a peeler attachment for the Kitchen Aid.

It was like being in some alternate universe!

Seriously though, he's become an incredible cook who isn't afraid to try new things.

He has taught himself the art of canning. We have jars of applesauce, vegetable soup, turkey vegetable soup, pumpkin (home grown thank you very much), sauerkraut and the most amazing apple butter I've ever tasted.

As a result of his increased skill level (and his unwillingness to commit to memory the location of where things have been in the four years that we've lived in this house) we rearranged the kitchen...together!

I'm happy to report that we are still happily married :)

Having closed the cake business I no longer needed to have a number of items at my fingertips.

So we spent a weekend cleaning out and reorganizing the kitchen. He now has access to the mixers, the canning stuff and the measuring cups. I moved stuff that I hadn't used in a while and the cake stuff has been moved to the basement rather than upstairs where it was taking up precious cabinet space.

We even rearranged the furniture in the kitchen to open up the floor plan and the tops of the cabinets are now adorned with the fruits of hubby's canning efforts.

It's not just my kitchen anymore but I'm ok with that.

Hubby and I have always made a great team and balance each other out in fantastic ways: he is calm where I am haywire; he is quiet and I am well, not; I am an extrovert and he is an introvert. He is the yin to my yang but it works. It's us.

I have learned to share my kitchen and my stuff. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. In fact it's been a lot of fun.

Now if I could just get him obsessed with the laundry...

I Want It All...Just Not Right Now

Two and a half is an amazing age!

The rate that our boys learn is astounding. 

Their verbal skills leave our mouths hanging open on a daily basis and their memories are incredible! 

Days fly by in a blur and no matter what I do I never have enough time. 

This was much worse when I had a full time cake assistant. 

Since I started the cake business, I've dreamt of becoming a household name and having a booming cake business. I wanted to have this amazing reputation and be sought after for every major event that could be enhanced with a specialty cake.

I did it! 

With Ismael's help we were completing eight orders a week that consisted of anything from 19 dozen cupcakes and multiple tiered cakes with oodles of flowers to carved cakes made to look like cartoon characters or trucks. 

I attended networking events as often as I could. Invested in being the sponsor at the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce monthly Network at Noon Luncheon and provided cupcakes and cake pops for the WSFS Bank After Hours Business Card Exchange and the Hotties for Humanities fundraising nights. We were booming! 

My dream had come true!

Woohoo!!! 

I was miserable...

I was paying my assistant to make cakes, I was paying a teenager to watch my kids, I was working 2-3 times harder than ever and I making less. 

My kids couldn't understand why I wasn't available. The house was always a mess, I was cranky and sleep deprived and my hubby was taking the brunt of my lousy attitude.

It was obvious to everyone that I had overdone it, and despite my very big mouth, bitten off more than I could chew. So I decided to go back to what I was doing before: 2-3 orders a week and more time for the family. 

I'd like to say that my house is spotless, it is not. But the laundry is finished and put away. The kitchen is clean and the beds have been made.

More importantly, my family is happy.

I'm no longer cranky all the time and, despite being an insomniac, have actually gotten some rest.

The orders are still coming in just not as fast, and that's ok.

I am a little bummed about the timing of all of this. But at the same time, this is the second time I've slowed things down and the business is still coming in.

The good news is that I didn't fail! I quit my full-time marketing position to invest in my cake business and it was and is still succeeding it was just growing faster than I could keep up with right now.

I love to be the supermom who can do it all: full-time domestic engineer who oversees the family finances while raising twin boys and running a cake business.

I want it all!

But, sometimes I want to sleep too. 

Right Side Out

Holy crap what a summer that was!

I set a new record for orders with my business, managed to keep the house relatively clean and even took a family vacation.

The importance of vacations, whether you travel or do the "staycation" thing just can't be emphasized enough. We were all pretty well strung out and desperately in need of time away from everything that had become our life.

So the first week of August we packed the car with the double stroller, double pack-n-plays and a couple of coolers of food, suitcases, toys, etc. and ventured out to my sister-in-law's boyfriend's house at the beach. The drive there was completely uneventful and perfectly timed, by you-know-who, to coincide with the twins' nap time.

Upon arrival we emptied the contents of the car, changed diapers - on the kids ;) - and began the sweep thru the house to move all breakable and valuable items above four feet. We were fairly successful with the exception of the Ficus tree that had these wonderful smooth rocks in the bottom of it. Beautiful yes but I spent the next five days in fear of one of those beautiful rocks being launched thru the sliding glass door.

The kids, having slept very well, and in a new exciting house were completely wired.

Haywire would actually be a much more accurate description.

Hubby is a really laid back kind of guy who is not the least controlling when it comes to the kids. Not that he allows bad behavior but was much less concerned about the concept of a rock thru a window or a child falling down the four steps to the back lawn.

While sitting and chatting over beers with his nephew, the Engineer knocked over hubby's beer and before he could get to it, it emptied nearly all of it's contents through the back deck. He was much less calm and I was suddenly transported to a frat house as hubby yelled, "Dude!" and the Engineer yelled, "Dude!" right back.

It seems that the Stuntman and the Engineer had switched roles for the week and I was a little out of sorts trying to wrap my brain around that idea. Fortunately, we had my SIL on hand to help out. She was completely amazing and my in-laws even came down for a day or two.

We took complete advantage of the extra hands and had our third date since the boys came into our lives. The sushi was amazing and we even took a walk on the beach while devouring some really yummy ice cream and holding hands.

Funny how the things that used to be important have changed.

I no longer need the shiny stuff that will eventually sit in my jewelry box. What I treasure most now are the calm moments where we can just lean into each other, not speaking but saying volumes about how much we love one another.

Priceless.

We fell into a wonderful pattern of slow mornings followed by a swim in the pool or a trip to the beach, nap time and another trip to the beach or back to the pool.

Naps are totally underrated!

While the boys napped hubby and I zonked out on the back deck under the awning in wonderfully cool breezes each day.

We had our own bedroom as did the boys. The two rooms were connected by a bathroom arrangement that had a sink and toilet on one end and a sink on the other with the tub/shower in the middle. The shower had one of those hand held shower head things with a hose that you could use just as a shower head or pull down and use as a handheld. It was a great arrangement and the boys like to be able to play with the shower head during bath times or just run back and forth between the rooms.

We've recently started the potting training phase of being parents. I'm a little perplexed as how to do this with twins as what one wants so does the other. It's not easy to strip (they like to take their pants off completely) two kids simultaneously and get them onto potties while keeping track of bodily fluids.

Hubby, in a rare show of machismo, doesn't like the idea of them sitting down to pee and decided that it would be good to have them stand on their training potties (they have lids) to pee into the toilet. In an effort to encourage them to do this, he doesn't close the door when peeing so they can see how it's "supposed" to be done. Yeah right...

At bath time he undresses the boys on the downstairs changing table and sends them up the stairs naked. They come into the bathroom climb up onto the kid potty and try to pee...sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Sometimes they try so hard they poop instead...isn't this fun!

Anyway...

As we were packing to leave the beach, hubby was peeing when I hear one of the boys say, "hose." I giggled and said, "No sweetie, that's daddy's willy." Hubby replied with a laugh, "Thanks for the compliment, but I'm pretty sure he was talking about the shower head."

Oops! HA!

The boys get more and more verbal every day and we constantly have to work on watching what we say.

Hubby seems lost on the the whole spell it out thing.

Multiple times now, after I've gone thru the trouble of spelling out something that I don't want them to hear like Jello, pudding or Fruit (they love the Welch's fruit bites) he has said what I dutifully have spelled out.

He thinks it's funny. At that point they're his to deal with.

Hubby's dishwasher usage has improved slightly, but he is still very challenged in the the department of laundry. He was the kind of guy who just threw it all in without even separating the lights from the darks, trying to get him to turn the boys clothes right-side-out has been a frustrating challenge.

I have no less than six loads of laundry to do each week. Most of the time it's not a huge deal but when the boys shirts are inside out I can't see what needs to be pretreated and I have to stop what I'm doing, turn them right-side-out and then pretreat.

Knit picky? Maybe...but she who does the laundry makes the rules.

One or two are not a big deal but depending on the day, the activity level and type they may go thru as many as three shirts in a day. Times two and that can be six shirts in a day and that adds up very quickly.

They are no longer at the age where we have to worry about them rolling off the changing table. Pulling off the shirts, turning it right-side-out and dropping it in the laundry takes a nano second.

The other night I picked up the clothes from next to the changing table to throw down the stairs and saw that the boys' shirts were inside out. I walked into the kitchen, handed each of the shirts to hubby and waited while he turned them right-side-out.

He laughed...I did not.

Mornings, Midnights and Mayhem

I am not a morning person.

If I could sleep until 7:30 every morning I would be a happy girl. Most mornings however, at least one of my boys is awake at 6 am or 5:30, 5:00, 4:30, 7:00, 7:30...you get the point.

There doesn't seem to be any real consistent time that he sleeps until. And, before you go analyzing it, there isn't any particular reason either. This is the child that can go 5-6 hours on a 20 minute power nap. The fact that I ever even get to sleep until 6 is often a miracle.

My favorite mornings are the ones where both boys are awake and "talking" to each other across the room.

I love waking up to giggles.

I truly believe that there is no better way to wake up in the morning than to happy, giggling babies. This used to be the exception but lately it has been the rule. There is just no way to have a bad day when your kids wake you up like that.

I wish the nights were as wonderful. Unfortunately, one of my boys has been having night terrors.

Despite my repeated attempts to clarify the difference between nightmares and night terrors to my mother she insists that it has something to do with the way we play with the boys.

The boys love, love, LOVE to be tossed around. One of them in particular really gets a kick out of being swung by his ankles, upside down and dropped on his back onto the bed or sofa. He gets the biggest smile and laughs out loud.

Truly a LOL - not the I'm smiling to myself LOL that we associate with Facebook.

The higher the better. If we can toss him onto the bed and make him bounce he gets even happier.

He is our wild child.

The other one likes to bounce but prefers to be on the bed on his back and have one of us bounce the bed. He thinks it's hysterical. He is also the one that is capable of entertaining himself for long periods of time with no other human interaction. He will sit and turn pages of books as if he is reading or study a pair of plastic toy pliers like he is looking for a way to improve them. He will be the head of engineering.

The daredevil is happiest on a lap. He loves people and doesn't care who they are. He will go to anyone and be happy as a clam in their arms. He is very stubborn, throws temper tantrums when told "No", smiles at everyone in the stores and already likes to be the center of attention. He will be the head of marketing.

Night terrors, as you may know, have no similarity to nightmares other than sharing the word "night."  It is a sleep disruption, not related to dreaming. When we pass from one sleep stage to another it is usually a seamless transition that we don't notice because, well...we're asleep.

Kids with night terrors are disturbed by the transition.

You know when you're falling asleep and suddenly get the sensation that you're falling from a cliff? That's the same thing that happens to cause the night terror. They never wake up they just thrash and cry and sometimes scream. It can last anywhere from a couple of minutes to half and hour and there is really nothing anyone can do about it other than keep the child from hurting themselves when thrashing around.

In doing research I discovered that children don't often experience these until about 18 months. Mine are 11 months. We are ahead of the curve, so to speak.

Lucky us.

The good news is that he's been having these about an hour and a half after he's been asleep - and I am still awake. Dealing with an incoherent, unresponsive child is difficult enough. Doing so from a sound sleep is harder. I usually pick him up and sit in the rocker until he settles down and goes back to sleep. I wait a few extra minutes to make sure that he's really under and then put him back in his crib. Fortunately, once the episode is over he's usually down for the night.

If all goes well I wake to giggling.

We usually start the day upstairs in the master bedroom. I bunch up the comforter from our bed and have the boys lie down on it to have their morning bottles while I hang out in the rocking recliner sipping my coffee. The boys will play with each other for about 30-45 minutes while I read my email and then we venture downstairs for morning snack and more playtime.

Most days are pretty good. But... I'm sure you've heard of Controlled Chaos? Well, I live in Managed Mayhem.

They have learned to divide and conquer. If I catch them doing something that requires the word "no" and I have to head over to them they will crawl in opposite directions.

Smart little buggers!

I usually grab whoever is the closest and, if need be, put them in the playpen or at the very least, move them to the playroom. The head of engineering will usually busy himself with whatever I put in front of him. The head of marketing will decide that he needs a new plan and will head in another direction.

In addition to crawling the boys have begun to climb. I do know that there is little we can do to prevent this from happening. Oh sure, we've installed the baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. The basement door is now closed all of the time and we have locks on the cabinets with dangerous or breakable stuff in them.

However, my kitchen island is actually a commercial prep table with a shelf on the bottom of it that has been cleaned off of all baking items. Recently the boys have begun to climb on it. I use it as an easy place to store toys when I'm cleaning. Now, I am constantly trying to keep them from climbing on that shelf and the lower shelf of our end table.

We also have a stone fireplace and a rather large hearth.

The other day I was working at the kitchen table and looked up to find both boys on the hearth holding onto stone the fireplace as if they were about to begin a rock-climbing exercise.

A week ago, the boys were in the playroom which is located in the front of the house next to the stairs. They like to rattle the gate at the bottom of the stairs and I thought to myself that I hadn't heard the gate so I went to make sure that it was closed.

It wasn't.

I turned the corner and the head of marketing, who was 2/3 of the way up the stairs, turned and reached for me. He cartwheeled and as his feet came up over his head I caught his ankles. He was not injured and surprisingly I did not suffer a heart attack. I keep the gate closed almost all of the time now.

Between snacks, playtime, meals, naps, picking up toys and laundry my days fly by. Things I thought I would be able to finish in a day - take two, sometimes three, days to complete and of course I frequently forget what I was doing before I was interrupted by the heads of engineering and marketing to settle a dispute...or change a diaper.

The house frequently looks like FAO Schwartz puked in it. I pick up the toys two to three times a day. Not because I am some sort of anal-retentive neat freak but because I like to keep my ankles in whatever working order they have left.

We have the bottom shelf of the island in the kitchen, a cabinet in our entertainment center and the bottom shelf of the diaper changing table for toy storage. And if I am in a rush I just grab everything and toss it into the playpen. Thinking about this now, I'm surprised that I don't do that more often.

Some days I feel like all I do is follow the kids around the house saying, "No" or "Aah, aah, aah?" And, you know all those sayings that we swore we would never, ever say to our kids when we were younger? Yup, I'm there and they're only 11 months old.

I find myself actually saying things like, "Nobody wants to hear that noise, get your finger out of your brother's ear, and today was the first time I actually uttered the words: stop fighting."

I hate to admit it...But I sounded just like my mother.

Three

That’s the number of attempts it takes me to accomplish just about anything. For instance: This morning I needed to get the power cord for my laptop out of the office upstairs so that I could work at the kitchen table while the boys played in the creatively named “playroom.”

As I headed up the stairs I noticed a dirty onsie by the changing table, which reminded me that I had forgotten to switch the laundry over in the basement. I took the dirty onsie downstairs, started the next load of laundry and headed upstairs to fold the stuff from the dryer. I got to the top of the stairs and realized that the stuff I needed to fold was sitting on top of the dryer...where I'd left it. Oh hell! Down  I went again to get the dry clothes, which I always fold in the living room.

I don’t like the basement. It’s not finished and I am afraid of spiders – that’s a story for another post – anyway…I finished folding the laundry and remembered that I still needed my power cord so I headed up the stairs again. I have no flipping idea what I did while I was up there but I definitely did not get the power cord. 

When I got back to the kitchen I opened my computer only to discover that it was dead.

I needed the power cord. 

Three tries and load of laundry later, I have my power cord and I am writing. 

I can’t even blame the kids, they were playing all by themselves and being the wonderful, amazing, perfect little cherubs that they are.

Now if I could only remember what I was going to work on! 

Wash, Dry, Fold, Repeat

My entire life my mother has complained about the laundry. All aspects of laundry: sorting, folding, the stuff that has to be hung, things that can't be dried in the dryer, etc. none of it has escaped the wrath of mom. It seems to be her nemesis.

She still complains about doing the laundry.

She lives alone.

Well mom, in the words of Bill Clinton, "I feel your pain." Wash, dry, fold, repeat. That seems to be the purpose of my life these days and the boys are only 8 months old. This morning I began the first of six loads for the day. I could probably whittle it down to three if I didn't care what color things came out but, the fact is, I do.

So I sort. Whites, darks, reds, blues and greens. If I have enough khaki/beige then I make another pile. Towels don't fit into any category other than, towels. Sheets are also their own category. I have tried many, many different stain sticks/pretreatments. The Oxyclean Stain Stick is my favorite for removing some of the more disgusting things that the kids have blapped down their fronts.

After my husband and I were married and finally living together - it took 8 months to consolidate households - it took me another month just to get his socks white. I was tempted to just go buy him new ones and look like a "laundry guru" but I didn't want the pressure.

Before we were together he didn't sort.

He still doesn't sort.

I do the laundry. I hate the way he does laundry. He doesn't sort, he folds wrong and he doesn't put it away. Well to be fair, he did put it away when I was recuperating from the c-section (but those days are but a small, small blip on a distant radar screen). He knows that if it sits out long enough it either gets used or it miraculously ends up in his dresser. We have never discussed his unwillingness to put his laundry away and honestly, it's one of those things that really, in the big scheme of things, is not that important.

We have a pretty traditional household. I cook, clean, do laundry and am primary care giver to the kids. I work but I work from home so I'm here almost all of the time. Hubby has a job that takes him all over the place, usually about 1000 miles of driving per week. On a good week he is home before 6 every evening. He does the "hubby jobs" that include lawn care, trash removal, construction items, etc. He helps clean up from dinner and will help with just about anything around the house as long as it's not laundry.

The other night as were were getting into bed we were joking about the division of household chores. It's not something that we have ever discussed. We just fell into certain roles and that's they way it's always been. I was teasing him about how long the grass had gotten (he's sort of become OCD about the lawn) and he mentioned that I was welcome to mow the lawn. I said sure as long as he was willing to do the laundry. He replied, "But you hate the way I do laundry."

"Yeah, well, you've never seen me mow the lawn."