Mason's Awesome Faux-hawk

This week is Red Ribbon week at school and the kids have a dress-up theme for each day. It's been fun. Monday was sports jersey day, Tuesday was tie-dye (which led to our first attempt at tie-dying a t-shirt. It was messy and fun, and successful!), Wednesday they wore red, and today is crazy hair day.

Mason wanted a mohawk, so I did my best to punk him out good! We used some super-hold gel that felt like elmer's glue and the hair dryer to make it stand up as much as possible. It's a little droopy, but he still looks pretty darn cute!! Now I have to go wash his favorite jammies for pajama day tomorrow. I wonder if I can declare it pajama day for me as well?

Mom, You're Embarrassing Me!

You know when you have kids that one day they're going to find you incredibly embarrassing. Even when they're itty-bitty and think that you hung the moon, you know that the day will come when that will all change. I knew it would happen with Mason, I just didn't think it would happen when he was six! But lately, Mom's not quite as cool as she used to be.

It was brought to my attention a couple of weeks ago when we were coming home from soccer practice. Mason suddenly piped up from the backseat, "Mom, I don't like it when you talk to the other moms at soccer practice." I asked him why. "Because I just don't. It makes me feel weird. You're too loud when you say 'hey' and it makes me kind of feel like I hate you." Ouch. So I asked him what he thought I should be doing. "Nothing. You should just sit there and watch me and not talk to anybody." I told him that just wasn't going to happen. I tried to explain that I get precious little time to talk to other moms, and like it or not, I'll be taking every opportunity I get to have a real conversation. He wasn't thrilled with that, but he didn't say anything more.

Until this Saturday. We were at the soccer fields and this time it was a game. I was cheering for his team- nothing out of the ordinary, just "Go Michael! Good job, Robert," etc. But then I get, "Mom, I don't like it when you cheer." Dang, man, slap a muzzle on me and sit me in the corner why don't you! I had to fight the childish urge to cheer for everyone else, but stay quiet as a mouse when he was on the field- since it's embarrassing and all. (Though I admit to chilidishly responding, "Well, I don't like it when you do cartwheels on the field!) I kept cheering, but only when they did something really great like score a goal. Now, I did jump out of my chair and yell, "YES!!!! Go Mason!!!" when he scored a goal, but that was pure reflex.

The good thing is, even though we're in the beginning stages of finding your parents utterly humiliating, we're still only at the beginning. He still loves us for the most part. He came off the field after scoring two awesome goals and hugged me and sat in my lap. So thankfully, we've got a ways to go before he refuses to acknowledge me in public. But even when he gets to that stage, I'll still be there, cheering him on- even if it embarrasses him to death!

The So-Called "Twin Bond"

Lately I've been pondering the mythical "twin bond"- whether it actually exists and if my boys have it. It's hard to say. I wouldn't say from watching them on a day to day basis that they have some deep, psychological connection. For the most part, they each kind of do their own thing. They have remarkably different temperaments. Will is an outgoing charmer. He's busy and into everything and usually has a smile on his face. Hays is quieter and more self contained. He's moodier than Will, but he can also entertain himself for remarkable periods of time. He'll spend 30 minutes running his Hotwheels up and down the window sill, during which time Will will have dismantled the kitchen, escaped out the back door and hot wired the car.

But just when I think they couldn't be more different, I notice odd connections. Pooping for one. I swear to God, 9 times out of 10 they poop within five minutes of each other. (I don't know if that's a psychological connection or weird coincidence. Probably TMI either way...) And when they're sitting on the couch together, they usually wind up sitting side by side, leaning on each other, even if they start at opposite ends. But while those things certainly don't prove the idea of a twin bond, there's no denying they're connected.

I rarely go anywhere with just one boy, but when I do, he's always looking for his brother. The other day I took Hays to the store with me and left Will and Mason home with Nana. Even though he was very excited about a trip to the store "jus' Haysie and Mama" he still asked "Where Will?" as I was buckling him into the car. As we were walking into the store, he was looking around calling, "Wiiiiiiiilllllll!" And as soon as we left he told me, "Go home see Will!" Now, I don't know if this is due to the fact that they're twins, or just a natural result of being together all the time, but they definitely don't like it when the other one is not around.

Twin bond or just plain old brother bond, it puts a long standing worry to rest. When they were born and then spent the next five months separated, I worried that untold damage was being done to their special twin relationship. I was afraid that they would never have the closeness that twins are supposed to share. But I don't worry about that any more. When I watch them work together to get into something they're not supposed to, I know that regardless of how different they are, they're still two peas in a pod!!

Back to School and other Fall Fun

Can't have Halloween without a tombstone or two!!

Pumpkin gravyard, perhaps?

Lovely pumpkin/leaf/gourd thingie

Our Halloween display!

My very festive fall leaf garland and wreath

The twins finally went back to school this week! It was glorious. They haven't been in two weeks, and I was oh so ready for them to go back. They'd settled in really well at school and had gotten to the point that there were no tears when I left. I wondered if we'd have to start all over after after our two week sabbatical, but luckily that was not the case. They were very excited when I told them Tuesday morning that they were going to school. It went something like this:

Me: Boys, guess what? You get to go to school today!

Twins: Yay, school!! Miss Angie! Miss Diane!

Me: Yes, you get to see Miss Angie and Miss Diane! School is awesome!

Hays: School awesome!!

And it was indeed awesome when they ran into their classroom, hugged their teachers, and said, "Bye mom!" without a single tear!! And I had, for the first time in two weeks, three quiet hours to myself. Of course, I wasted it by coming home and mucking out the playroom, but at least we're down two giant bags of broken toys and junk!

Now we're counting down to Halloween. We've got our front porch decorated, and Mason's got his costume (Mario of Super Mario Brothers). The twins almost have costumes. I decided that I wasn't going to shell out $40 or so for crappy costumes that they'd probably refuse to wear anyway, so I have to make costumes. Will is going to be a fireman. He's wearing a fireman raincoat that was Mason's when he was little and a red plastic fire chief hat that currently resides in the dress-up box in our playroom. Cost for his costume- $0. Hays is going to be a dalmatian. I've got to get a white sweatshirt and sweatpants for him, but I already have black felt to make spots and puppy ears. Cost for his costume- less than $10. That I can live with! Our town has Halloween festivities downtown where all the merchants pass out candy. Since our little guys are a bit too young for trick-or-treating, this daytime celebration is perfect for them. I'm planning to use cardboard to decorate their little wagon like a firetruck and use that to pull them around downtown. We'll see how it works- I don't really have a whole lot of confidence in my artistic ability to pull of anything that even remotely resembles a firetruck, but it's worth a shot.

Mason's True Colors Revealed....

My favorite monster

Seriously, how freaky is this???

We roasted marshmallows Saturday night after we finished decorating the front porch for Halloween. Our neighbors, Charlotte and Diane, came over to roast marshmallows with us. Charlotte brought her very cool, and very realistic, horns. Mason was very excited to wear them, and they really brought out his inner demon!!

Coughing, Coughing, and More Coughing

It's been a looooooong week around here. Will's been getting progressively better. He feels better and has more energy each day. The problem is that he still has a horrible, racking cough that strikes him several times a day. At it's best, it's incredibly annoying. At it's worst, it chokes him to the point that he's gagging and his lips are blue. Obviously, it's scary and upsetting to him, and he just cries, "Mommy, mommy" until it's over. Just imagine how frustrating it is to hold your coughing, gasping baby over and over each day, knowing that there's not a damn thing you can do to help him. It's awful, and it's been happening all hours of the day and night for the last seven days. It's maddening and exhausting.

And as if the coughing fits weren't enough, it's been an endless cycle of medicine and nebulizer treatments (or as we call them, hose noses) I swear, every time I turn around it's time to force another spoonful of antibiotics, or steroids, or cough medicine down his throat. And if I'm not doing that, I'm fighting with him to keep the mask on while I administer yet another hose nose. All of this punctuated by incessant coughing! It's enough to make a mom lose her mind!!!

I just keep telling myself that it won't last forever, and doing it at home beats doing it in the hospital. But it's very little consolation when you're by yourself, day in and day out, trying to be the nurse and the mommy and the cook and the housekeeper. (though from the current state of things, it would appear that the housekeeper took the week off. But hey, something's gotta give!) Hopefully we've only got a few more days of it sounding like the tuberculosis ward around here. I'm not sure I can take it for more than a few more days, so I'm crossing my fingers really hard.

My New Blog

After thinking about it for a while, I started a new blog. It's called "What Cameron's Cooking..." and as the title would lead you to believe, it's all about what I'm cooking on any given day. I love to cook and collect awesome recipes. I especially love to cook for my friends and family. Since many of you are too far away to come for dinner, I'm sharing the recipes I love. So now, not only can you read about all the craziness of daily life, you can feel like you're sitting at our dinner table (minus the twins throwing food at you). There's a handy dandy link to your right, click on it and join us for dinner!

Screw You, Three!

I've been a member of a message board for twin moms since the day I found out I was expecting twins. I came home from that fateful doctors appointment and went online in search of someone to talk me down from the ledge of panic and fear I was standing on. I found a great group of girls that did that and more. Over the last three years we have shared confidences and given advice, and while I have only had the pleasure of meeting one in person, they have truly become soul sisters. I realize that, as with any online community, any of them could actually be creepy guys in a dark basement with pictures of their "kids" coming right out of the frame they bought at Walmart (that would actually explain a lot about one girl, but that's another story for another time). But creepy guy possibilities aside, they're awesome and I love 'em.

I checked in yesterday to see that one had posted a thread asking if anyone had started planning for their twins' upcoming third birthdays. That stopped me in my tracks. Third birthday? THIRD BIRTHDAY?????? How can they be turning three?? And how can they be turning three so soon that we're talking about birthday parties? Three is so old. A three year old is a preschooler. Not a baby, not even a toddler, a preschooler. And Will and Hays are my babies. Two I can handle, even 2 1/2, but three is out of the question.

I am not ready for them to move completely, irrevocably out of the baby stage. Plus, three means that I absolutely have to get them potty trained, and that is a monumental task that I'm not sure I can fully face. We've been dabbling in potty usage, but I have not committed to hardcore potty training. That's okay at two, but unacceptable at three. Plus, three year olds need to know their colors, numbers and ABCs. Mine still insist that everything is red, count "1, 2, 2, 5, 8...." and Will sings "A, B, C, D, D, D, D..." (Hays has a little better handle on the ABCs, but I'm still not sure he's at 3 year old level).

And plus, I'm not ready to let my sweet babies become big boys. I love my cuddly, snuggly boys that still say, "Mommy hold you" every day, and I am not ready to let that go. These guys are the last stop on the baby train for us (unless we win the lottery or science finds a way to guarantee a girl) and I'm not in any big hurry for it to end. Sure, you can do more with big kids, and big kids are really funny and insightful, but babies are SO SWEET!!!!

So I'm boycotting the third birthday. I'm keeping them two, and that's all there is to it. I'm not quite sure yet how I'm going to do that, but I'm going to find a way!

Home Sweet Home

We're home, thank goodness, and Will is MUCH better. We were released around 7:00 Monday evening. Will had had a pretty good day, and his sats were staying in the mid-high 90s even when he was sleeping. He was still feeling pretty crappy and laid around most of the day, but he didn't have any fever and wasn't requiring any oxygen. I spent the whole day praying that we would all be sleeping in our own beds that night!!!

Admittedly, it wasn't a very restful night. I was coughing my brains out, Hays was waking up over and over (the pediatrician thinks Hays and I both had walking pneumonia as well) and we had to give Will nebulizer treatments every four hours. But I'd rather have a sleepless night at home than a sleepless night in the hospital!

Both boys were pretty puny yesterday and spent most of the day lying on the couch watching tv. Will had a bad, bad coughing fit in the morning. It lasted about a half hour and had him turning purple from time to time. I was scared to death that we would be heading right back to St. Mary's, but the pediatrician reassured me that it was to be expected, and that a bigger dose of cough medicine would help. It did, and though he did a fair amount of coughing throughout the day, he stopped turning bluish-purple!

And today, they both seem just about back to their normal, rambunctious selves. They have a little less energy than they usually do, but not much less. They have more than enough to fight, play, and attempt to take the house apart, so I think they're on the mend!

The Funk

The plague has descended upon our house. Hays started getting a cold last weekend, I followed suite a couple of days later, and now Will is in its clutches. It has made for a long, miserable, snotty, whiny week.

It's been fairly impossible to make Hays happy all week. He's normally a pretty laid back, compliant little dude, but not when he's sick. If he's not feeling good, he's a grumpy little bear, and that's certainly been the case this week.
"Hays, do you want to watch a Baby Einstein movie?"
"No!"
"Do you want a snack?"
"No snack!!!"
"Do you want to play outside?"
"No play outside!!!"
It was particularly fun when I had to take them to Publix. I made the dreadful mistake of getting Hays a chocolate chip cookie, instead of the sprinkle cookie he apparently wanted, so he promptly threw it on the floor and screamed "Cooooooooookie" through the rest of the shopping trip. Lovely.

Now, when Will's sick, he doesn't get mean, he gets pitiful. He's actually ten times easier to manage when he's sick because he's too listless to get up to his usual shenanigans. The downside is that Will being sick is terrifying. From the first sniffle, we start worrying if his cold is going to settle into his lungs. The more congested he gets, the more we worry. Once the coughing starts, I'm constantly wondering if it's just a matter of time before we have to head to the emergency room. He had a rough time last night. Lots of bad coughing fits, and we had to get him up twice to give him Albuterol. For now, it's working, and hopefully a strict regimen of steroid breathing treatments twice a day and Albuterol every four hours will get us through this bout of funk without a trip to St. Mary's, but only time will tell. Who knew the common cold could be so freakin' scary?

***UPDATE***
Maybe I should be careful about what I blog, because not two hours after I posted this, we were sitting in the ER. Will woke up this morning with a near-constant cough, and having been through this before, I didn't hesitate to head over to St. Mary's once an Albuterol treatment didn't make a dent in his symptoms. We spent five hours in the ER to get 3 breathing treatments, one RSV test, two chest x-rays, a dose of steroids and an antibiotic shot. I figured they'd send us home after that, because they always have in the past, but no such luck.
He fell asleep for a little while on Matt's chest, and his oxygen sats dropped way low- like 85- and they had to put him on oxygen. Oxygen= at least one night in the hospital. So they finally admitted us after we spent five hours in a tiny curtained cubicle, listening to the woman next to us moan like she was dying.
Once we got to the room, Will was all jacked up on breathing treatments and steroids and spent the next 30 minutes trying to take the room apart. Luckily, he ran out of steam pretty quickly and was relatively content to lay around and snuggle with me. I stayed with him all afternoon and Matt's spending the night with him. Matt can sleep anywhere, so while it won't be a pleasant night, he should be able to get some rest. I, on the other hand, often can't sleep at home in my own bed, so I sure wouldn't sleep at the hospital. And God knows, we both need sleep because tomorrow will be another long day. But I'm still sitting at home dealing with my mom guilt over not staying. Even though his daddy is there and he was dead to the world when I left. Doesn't matter. If I was there, I would feel mom guilt for not being home when Mason and Hays got up. And now that I'm here I feel mom guilt that I'm not at the hospital. You can't win.
But I talked to Matt about an hour ago. Will's passed out cold. He woke up briefly, got some cough medicine and refused to sleep[ without his oxygen mask. We figured he'd fight that thing tooth and nail, but I guess he realized it's a heck of a lot easier to sleep when you can breathe easily. He's surprised me a lot today. I swore up and down to the nurses that he'd yank an IV right out, but he's been perfect with it. Every time he started messing with it, I just had to tell him, "Leave your robot arm alone or you'll hurt it," and he's quit messing with it. I guess that kid knows what he needs. He's always been quite intuitive about what he needs. Don't forget, this is the child that removed his own trach and g-tube. Guess we just have to trust him!!
So now I'm heading to bed, trying to rest up for tomorrow. I know that my future holds a toddler with 'roid rage who's feeling better but is still cooped up in a little hospital room. I've got a backpack of toys ready for him. Pray that his oxygen stats stay up and we bring him home tomorrow. This is one mama hen that does not like having a chick (and her rooster) missing from her nest.

Ouch.....

This is the result of a backyard fall today. School pictures are tomorrow. I hope the photographer is good with photoshop.....

Walking Man

During the last week or so, Mason and I have started walking together in the evenings. It has obvious benefits, such as getting me and our dog off our fat asses to get some exercise, but it's had unanticipated rewards as well. I hadn't planned to make this a mom and Mason activity. He used to start complaining thirty feet into a walk about his feet being tired, being bored etc., so the last thing I expected to hear when I told him I was taking the dog for a walk was, "I think I'll come with you." At first I was wary and gave him lots of warnings like, "we're going all around the neighborhood, even the big hills, and I don't want to hear any complaining!" I was pleasantly surprised when not only did he not complain, he wanted to walk much farther than I had planned!

And that long walk turned out to be an amazing thing. I got 30 minutes to just be with my son. We got to talk with no interruptions. He told me things about school and his friends. I got to take a break from telling him what to do and just enjoy him, and it was awesome. I had this time to appreciate how smart and funny he is, to look at him and truly see him, instead of casting a harried glance as I rush to get everything done. It was really a precious time, and I told him when we got home how much I'd enjoyed his company. I figured it would be a one, maybe two time thing before he tired of it, but so far he's asked every night if we can walk together. And every night has been just as special as the first.

I realize that I am really lucky to have these moments with him. I know that all too soon the day will come that walking with his mom will be the last thing on earth Mason wants to do. But I'm going to relish every bit of it while I can.

Mmmmm, butter......

If you ever come to my house for dinner, you might want to avoid the butter.....

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

It's sort of embarrassing to admit, but Matt and I, until yesterday, had never taken our kids to the zoo. That's such a staple of childhood, and yet, somehow, we'd just never quite made it there. Maybe it was the fear of driving an hour with three kids who potentially might scream the entire way. Maybe it was concern over becoming one of those stories you read about where a parent looks away for two seconds, and next thing you know, a toddler's in the lion cage. (That actually isn't too far-fetched- y'all know how Will is.) Most likely it was the astronomical costs of taking a family of five to the zoo that's kept us away. $65 bucks for tickets alone- keeping in mind that the twins don't even need tickets yet- is enough to make anyone think, "do they really need to see lions and panda bears?" But since my mom was kind enough to buy us tickets, and we have, after all, made it driving 5 hours to the beach every summer without killing anyone, it was time to man up and take the kids to the zoo.
Saturday was perhaps the most perfect weather on earth, and my sister and her husband kindly agreed to meet us to help wrangle the children. And I think everyone actually had a good time. Hays LOVES animals, so he was in hog heaven. He greeted all the creatures enthusiastically, "Hi, famingos! Hi, zebra! Hi, gidaff!" And he really wanted to get close to them. He told the elephant, "I hold you? High five?" Unfortunately the elephant didn't seem too interested in letting Hays hold him. Neither did the meerkats. Luckily, the goats and sheep at the petting zoo were happy enough to have Hays love on them. Good thing since he insisted on kissing each one. Will, on the other hand, was way more interested in the hand washing station. Why pet a goat when you can play in water?
I thought that they would all love the panda bears, and I was sort of right. Hays did indeed love the pandas- the stuffed pandas in the gift shop that is. We passed the store on the way to the panda exhibit and he practically had a conniption fit trying to go in. I promised we'd come back after we saw the real pandas. Well, he took one look at those adorable bears being all cute with their bamboo, and was ready to head back to the gift shop. Sigh. At least I managed to talk him out of the $75 life size panda and convince him that the $8 version was even better.
Mason liked the zoo but he told me it wasn't like he'd dreamed. When I asked what was different, he told me "Well, I thought it would be one big building with lots of animals in different cages." I explained to him how animals are much happier and healthier when they're outdoors in areas that resemble their natural habitat, but he didn't seem too impressed. I'm pretty sure he would have preferred his version. Sure the animals are miserable, but you can see them really well!
All in all, it was a great day. We were whipped by the end of it, but it was worth it. We fulfilled our parental obligations to take our kids to the zoo, and nobody screamed the hour there or back- not even me!

The dreaded meeting with the teacher....

I had a meeting with Mason's teacher yesterday. It didn't come as a big surprise. I had the same meeting in kindergarten, and preschool, and I'm sure I'll have it next year. So what was it about? The same thing it's always about: "Mason is so smart, but he's not focused/doesn't pay attention/doesn't listen/doesn't follow directions. He is so capable but he rushes through his work/makes careless mistakes/ doesn't work to his full potential. Mason is a good kid and a natural leader, but he talks too much/ wants to do things his way/ wants to call the shots."

I've heard it over and over since he was three years old (and I've known most of it since he was about three days old!) We've talked to him, lectured him, punished him, rewarded him, bribed him, begged him...... And we do see improvement, but so much of that is just who Mason is. And I get it, I so get it, because you see, Mason and I are exactly alike. My mother sat through that very same teacher meeting every year of my academic career. She talked, implored, bribed, threatened me every school year of my life, all to no avail. (So you know that while she's sympathetic to my plight, she's also laughing her ass off just a little bit!!)

And because Mason and I are basically two peas in a pod, I know that he's compelled to rush through his work and finish it as quickly as possible, attention to detail be damned! I understand that unless it's something he finds interesting, he's going to do as little as he possibly can to get by so he can move on to other things. And am very familiar with the daydreaming that leads to missed instructions and a confused, "Now, what are we supposed to do????" I've been there. For 32 years now, I've been there. And I'm still a disorganized daydreamer. I still rush headlong into something without paying attention to directions or details. It makes my life harder than it has to be, and it will likely do the same for him.

Even though I completely empathize with Mason, I'll still stay on his butt to pay attention, follow directions, do his best work, etc. That's just what moms do. And no doubt I'll punish him for getting in trouble at school, or getting grades that don't reflect his full potential. But while I'm fussing at him, the schoolgirl inside of me will be saying, "Dude, I totally understand." Hopefully, he'll have an easier time of it than I did. But until he does, I might as well go in on the first day and schedule that conference for right about the second month of school.