Christmas

Christmas last year was not anything that I ever imagined it would be.  First of all, we had twins, and that wasn't anything I ever imagined in a realm of possibilities in my life.  Mostly, though Christmas spent in the NICU is sad.  So, I had very high hopes for Christmas this year! I was envisioning all three boys coming downstairs on our faux-Christmas morning (since we would be spending actual Christmas in Wisconsin) in their jammies and our living room floor being covered in oodles of wrapping paper while Brian and I drank coffee and watched the boys play. Well, not so much.  This vision was soon squashed by vomiting one-year-olds. Dang.

So we did Christmas in parts.  In the end, Christmas was wonderful because it was spent with the most important people in my life. Despite the chaos, travel, sickness, stress, etc. yadda yadda, I wouldn't trade it.

                              The first part was with Logan, while the sickies slept off the sickiness.

Checking out Buddy the Elf just "hanging out". 

This kid wasted no time turning on his LeapPad. 

We loaded and charged it up before we wrapped it, so it was ready to rock from the start! 

Clearly, Mommy was way more excited about smelly markers than Logan.

This is his "Oh. Em. Gee" face. He got contstruction jammies. 

Look at the that box lid is getting!

In response to the garbage truck "I always wanted this forever and ever and all the days!". 

The Twinkies are better and ready to open. 

Christmas Take Two!

Grandma and Grandpa's House in Wisconsin. 

This is life with twins. Right here. 

I know, I just snapped photos instead of saving my poor child from his little brother. 

Christmas Take Three! 

Grandma and Grandpa Stone's House!

We had such a great visit. 

Getting ready for Santa! 

These are our best attempts at a photo of all three kids. Really, boys? Really?

Cooper says "It's Christmas!"

Logan following in his mama's footsteps.

Christmas at Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa's House. This will be the last holiday in this house. 

Sad face.

Cousins! (Okay, second-cousins by marriage, but no need to be technical)

What a great holiday, and a very far cry from how we spent Christmas last year! 

Dear Logan

My dearest first born, you were most definitely a labor of love 4 years ago today.  Today you stand tall and confident, you are stubborn and firm.  like your mom. And 4 years ago you were no different.  You put up a fight while being forced into this world, and once here, you proved to be the strong, kind soul we knew you would be.  My labor with you was so hard, but so worth it that I would do it over again a hundred times to know you. You are that worth it.

This past year you have really changed.  You have opened up, learned how to be adventurous and live outside of your comfort zone.  I hope to learn this from you since that is not in my nature, but something I strive to be able to do more. I really think God and the universe gave me three boys to teach me great things about life, love, and strength.

On your "Four Birthday", as you call it, we celebrate you.  We celebrate you as the smart, funny, sweet and beautiful boy you are! You are also the most amazing big brother to Parker and Cooper.  We are all so lucky to have you as part of our family. I love the way you hug, the way you love routine, the way you fall asleep in the most strange positions in your bed. I love how you love chocolate as much as I do. I love the way you remember everything. I love your ache to learn new things, and how you retain knowledge unlike anyone I have met. I love how you love to read and how you belly laugh at the same books nightly. I love how much you love your brothers and your Wrigley.  I love how kindly you care for your stuffed animals, and through this, I know you are following the amazing example that your Dad gives you about the ability to nurture, care and love.  I love how you pick up on words and use them in sentences that make you sound wise beyond your years, and I love how you still say "Smoovie" instead of smoothie.  I love that you love smoothies.  I love all 39 pounds of your strong, healthy body, and I often watch your eyelashes move up and down when you blink revealing the twinkle in your greenish brownish blueish eyes while you are telling me an important story, and I know it's important to you because your stories always are. You have passion when you speak, conviction when you argue, and creativity when you play.  You are sensitive, a trait which you have gotten from both mom and dad, and I know that your kind heart was made for extraordinary work.

You changed my life. You made me a mother.  That is the single most incredible moment of my life. You did that.  You made my life so much better.  Having you started our family. This past year had such hard times and you handled adding two babies to our family with such grace and ease that I found myself looking to you as an example of strength and patience.  I can never thank you enough for the being the big brother you are to Parker and Cooper.  You amaze me.

I love you more than you know. More than you will ever know. until you have a child of your own.

Today you are four.  You are one of the loves of my life and I love you to the moon and back, the moon and back, and the moon and back. Blargy blargy, big dude.

Love, Mommy

And here you were this morning getting ready for school - in the outfit YOU picked out so you could "Look handsome on my four birthday".

Tubes

Yep, I am aware that this post should have been written about two months ago.  I am going to have to play the busy card, okay?

When Logan was little, he was the healthiest guy.  Still is actually, and I just assumed we made that kind of kid.

Not so much.  Not that the twins aren't healthy, they are! But they have typical germ catching abilities.  I am now realizing that Logan had kind of been super-human in his germ-fightingness.

The poor twinkies, being premies, generally have the odds stacked against them in regards to immune systems. These two were also wee-little-lads at birth, which means their parts are also little.  particularly their ears.

At 6 months old, the twinkies spiked fevers which basically was a giant flashing sign above their heads saying "EAR INFECTIONS!".  Surely-do, they both had double ear infections. That is two babies, times two infections, which equals four infected ears. Fast forward a few months and we rinsed and repeated this about 5 or 6 times. So, to be frugal with numbers, that would be about 20 infected ears in just a few months. Welcome to the ENT, boys.

It was evident that these guys would benefit from some ear tubes to help that fluid move and drain. Poor Parker was losing weight, and Cooper was yet to babble, and Brian and I knew that all of these issues were directly related to their ears.  So we found our guys a well-recommended ENT, got Grandma to come watch over big brother, and we headed in early morning in late October with two sweet boys and four infected ears. Yes, again.

Gowned up.

 It was like 5:30 am. I think they were wondering why they weren't in bed, and moreso, why on God's green Earth would I not let them have a boob. (Surgery = no nursing, yikes). 

Parker is ready for some relief. 

Little tagged cankles. 

I had been told by doctors and parents alike that this surgery was easy-peasy. In and out. Bada-bing-bada-boom. And I knew this, but something about passing your baby off to an Anesthesiologist, who administers anesthesia to MY BABY can just be a little bit like a kick in the gut.  But, I knew they were in good hands, and I knew I would see them in mere minutes, and I knew that in the grand scheme of surgeries this was like the paper-cut of surgeries. No big deal. 

And just as they had assured, 10 minutes after Cooper was carried away, he was back in my arms and ready to nurse. 

And about 5 minutes later Parker was back too. 

And not too happy. 

But this was them later that day. Surgery really took a toll on them, huh? 

Not. 

And since then, these boys are eating, babbling, talking, walking, thriving, and can HEAR. 

So anyone questioning the decision about getting tubes - DO IT. We tried all of the natural, holistic, options first. We did everything we were "supposed" to do to minimize ear infection risk. We tried chiropractic.  We were confident in our decision and I am so glad that we were. 

Our next health hurdle is the allergist. Tomorrow. Poor Parker is allergic to this:

Damnit. This has really thrown me a major parenting curveball.  Using the words "anaphylactic" and "my kid" in the same sentence really sucks.  But, I am prepared for tomorrow. We will meet with this guy, and I will inundate him with every question I have and, hopefully, will be able to easy my panic-stricken-mommy-self and instead be armed and confident about being able to handle this.  In the mean time, 

just say no!