Can’t help but smile edition:

I have many, many things to be thankful for this year. At the very top of my list are the loves of my life: Jeffrey, Shenzie, and Heaten.

Life is really, really good.

I’ll be over here today. Still busy as a bumble bee just buzzzzing away…..bzzzzzz.

I love music. I love, love, love music. I am not a lover of all music however. For instance, I HATE HATE HATE country. Before kids I would sit for hours listening to new bands, downloading free music (back before it was all illegal), watching videos on TV. While working I would listen to music. While reading I would listen to music. While driving I would BLARE music and scream along. Ahhhhh, how I miss music. These days when the babies are awake the house is already really loud so to add music to the already high noise level drives me crazy. While the babies are sleeping I sit quietly and enjoy the peace and quiet. The only time I listen to music anymore is while grocery shopping (ipod how I love you) and while driving. I am a mean mommy and do not listen to baby music in the car. I just can’t force myself to do it. So I listen to my music (which doesn’t generally involve cussing so I don’t feel too bad).

Last month Jeff came home ranting and raving over Rammstein. The song that comes to mind is Du Hast and I was all like…..ummm, thank you, but no. Seriously, why in the world would I want to listen to music in another language? How would I scream along? How would I even know what they were singing about? So I passed on the musical genius of Rammstein and went on my merry way. Luckily Jeff kept telling me how good they were and I gave them a second chance. Now I am hooked. The first couple of listens I thought, hmmm, this isn’t all that bad. And then I listened more and more and the more I listened the more I appreciated just how great they are. The singer is a poet, so most of the songs are poetry. When you combine poetry with German and heavy music it sounds dark and mean. It is moody and emotional. The songs stay stuck in my head all day.The only downfall is I can’t scream along since I don’t know German. And I figure the babies are getting a little bit of German culture which can’t be a bad thing, right?

By far my favorite song is Rosenrot. The song is so powerful. I love music that evokes emotion….watching the video at times is painful, but I love it.

The babies already appreciate modern technology and music!!

In the past year I have posted almost every day (excluding weekends). This weekend I did not have time to write a post for today and thought to myself….self, no biggie that you didn’t post. I mean really, no biggie. Don’t worry about it, it isn’t the end of the world. And then the thoughts kept coming and coming. So instead of having nothing for today, I give you nonsense. =) I am up to my elbows in editing photos, getting a new Gallery/Shopping Cart setup, and of course we’re all three still sick. So there you have it, my life in a nutshell. Now at least I can stop thinking about how I didn’t post and think instead how you wasted three precious minutes of your life that you’ll never get back reading about absolutely NOTHING!!! Bwahahah!

Flashback Edition:

Once again, amazing how much they’ve changed and grown in one little year. Wonder how they’ll look one year from now?

Last week I babysat my niece Haylee for half of a day. It gave me a sneak peek what life would be like with three children. Granted, Haylee is an ABSOLUTE angel and never cried or fussed once (BIG change from my little Crazies), and all in all it wasn’t that bad (keeping in mind it was only 1/2 day and Haylee is a very easy baby). Jeff would LOVE LOVE LOVE another baby. Me, eh. I’m pretty busy with two and like to have some sort of free time for me which would be LONG GONE with another baby (yes, that sounds selfish :MOM: you’ll just have to live with it!).

The Crazies enjoyed having Haylee over (well, until she took Heaten’s toys and yelled at him). They played peek a boo, read books, had snacks, shared toys, cars, and teeter totters. Shenzie was more into Haylee than Heaten. He prefers bigger kids (like cousin Trever who he LOVES to death). He loves to chase around the big kids and pretend he is one of them. It was so sweet to watch them interact and be so nice and gentle to their cousin.

Enjoy the pictures Sissy, she is adorable.

Eating at the “big kids table”

Peek a Boo

Hugs from Cousin

My favorite. Shenzie was laughing hysterically crawling to get away from Haylee (who wasn’t even chasing her, just strolling along).

His smile is contagious!

It is almost impossible to keep one baby from getting sick when both Mama and the other baby is sick. Especially when they do this:

Of course I love that they are being sweet and kissing and hugging, but could they PLEASE not do it while one is sick and the other isn’t.

And really, wrapping your lips around your sick sisters nose probably isn’t that great of an idea - just an FYI. So now poor Heaten has caught our sickie ickies. Hopefully Daddy can fight it off or I might just crawl into a hole and cry. The cutest sick thing going on around here is the blowing of the nose. Shenzie somewhat knows how to blow, Heaten on the other hand, not so much. When you hold a tissue to his nose and ask him to blow he yells BLOW (which sounds like BOWWWWWW!) It is so funny and cute. The one upside (and it is a VERY little upside) to being sick is the fact that I can’t smell. Which means I can’t taste food which sucks big time, but it also means I can’t smell stink butt!!

My little sickies.

The babies have had their “loveys” Baby Bear and Baby Doggie since they were born. We’ve had our fair share of drama involving them and I won’t be at all sad when they retire to Baby Heaven. We introduced blankies a long time ago in an attempt to move them away from Bear and Doggie to the blankie, but neither baby has really become attached. Heaten cuddles his while sleeping, but the blankies rarely leave the crib. That is, until Elmo in Grouchland happened. Now Heaten wants to carry his blanket around just like Elmo does. But if he really paid attention to the movie and all poor Elmo has to go through to get his blankie back he might change is mind. So maybe, just maybe the blankies will become their new loveys and I can stop stitching up poor Baby Bear who is falling apart, and since we only have one (versus the 4 doggies we rotate) we need to make her last.

And moving on from Sick Land maybe you all could shed some light on the Hand Sanitizer issue. When the babies were in NICU we had to sanitize when we got there, after holding one baby before picking the other baby up, and when we left. We had a complete scrub in when we got there with orange soap and brushes (just like on TV), and then used hand sanitizer for the rest. When the babies came home we bought 3 HUGE bottles of the stuff (two of which are still around).

When the babies got a little older and I would take them out in grocery carts or whatnot I would sanitize their hands and even went as far as spraying down the entire cart, front and back with sanitizer just in case any germs lingered (my mom was SO embarrassed when I did this when out shopping with her). I bought an all natural, no alcohol, safe for children sanitizer (Clean Well). I felt safe using this sanitizer on them since it is all natural made from essential plant oils. As we all know babies/toddlers/kids hands end up in their mouths A LOT so I wasn’t too worried that they would lick their hands after me spraying them with the sanitizer.

A couple of weeks ago I read in my Parenting Magazine that unless the sanitizer contains at least 60% alcohol it is not killing germs. Ut oh. My sanitizer has zero alcohol which means it may not be working.

I found this kids sanitizer at Tar*get that I really like. Instead of leaving your hands dried out and smelling like a hospital it leaves them soft and sweet smelling. The babies love it. They especially love to lick their hands after I apply it which really freaks me out. I do wash their hands in the sink with all natural soap, but for a quick sanitize (and especially now that we are all sick) I use the sanitizer. So my questionis are:

How worried should I be that a little might get ingested?
What do you all use to keep the germies away?
Do you use sanitizer or good old fashioned soap and water? (Which is really a PITA to wash both babies hands all of the time when all they want to do is splash the water everywhere).
What about when you’re out and about - do you sanitize the cart or your kids?

There are a few benefits of having an actual job away from home. Vacation days, holidays, and sick days. Right now I just want to have a sick day. I want to mope on the couch in my pj’s while watching some sappy chick flick. I want to crawl into bed and take a long, peaceful nap. I want to veg out with no worries. All of which are NOT happening. Out of nowhere Shenzie came down with a cold. While I was lucky enough to fight off the last two colds and a stomach virus that plagued our house, my luck has run out. How is it that Shenzie is up and running around, laughing and playing while I feel like death. Horrible sleep added to sinus pressure makes for a VERY grumpy, tired Mama. Add to that one sick child and one crazy child and you’ve got yourself the beginnings of Mama Meltdown. Calgon take me awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

After reading tons of positive reviews about how awesome the Neti Pot is I decided to give it a try. After our very unsuccessful trip to the park (two toddler meltdowns because we had to get off the swings) we hit up Whole Foods. After talking with the Holistic Chick I decided to give the old Neti a try. Now, the thought of salt water running in and out of my nose really grosses me out. And tasting the salt, beyond ick. I was pleasantly (only a little pleasant though) surprised to find that if you do it right you don’t taste the salt at all. Get the wrong angle though, and boy howdy…the icky salt water fills your mouth. Blech! So I followed the directions and low and behold it actually works! While my sinus headache is not completely gone it has decreased and I do feel much clearer in my nose. I will continue to flush, flush, flush, away all of the icky from my head today and hopefully be feeling better for tomorrow and the madness it will surely bring.

For Shenzie we are doing the humidifier combined with a new product I found. PediaCare Gentle Vapors. Super simple, you plug it into the wall and stick a vapor unit into it. Per the box ‘Non-medicated aromatic vapors provide soothing comfort when your child feels under the weather’. It contains eucalyptus, camphor, lavender and chamomile. It smells great and I noticed myself clearing up just from being in there for a bit. I think I may have to get another for our room. It is very inexpensive ($8.00) and comes with 5 vapor packs (refills available). And although this totally sounds like a paid post I really just thought the product was great and wanted to pass along the info. =)

I don’t know if I just got lucky or if I am such a mean Mom that I scared my kids into listening, but either way I am grateful and happy that when the need arises they listen. Any parent knows the dangers of running into the street or running from behind a parked car. The babies are both really good about standing next to me while loading/unloading them. They stay on the side walk and very rarely go into the street without first holding my hand. They listen when I tell them to stay away from Grandma’s pool. They listen when I tell them to only ride their bikes in the driveway. They listen when I ask them to hold my hands while walking into stores, the library, or just out for our daily walk. And luckily they listen when I’m freaked out and yell at them to come over to me at once.

The other day we were at our little grassy park area exploring the rocks and flowers when out of nowhere a HUGE black dog come running straight for us. I see him coming and yell to the babies to come over to me. I must have sounded mean and crazy enough because they both came running over. Well, I suppose it could have been this giant dog coming towards us that made them come to me, but whatever. I prefer to think I have Magic Mom abilities and my kids listen to me. =) Big pet peeve…dogs not on leases (Ha, get it? Pet peeve and I’m talking about pets). Do I crack you up as much as I do myself? Probably not.

Anyway. How am I supposed to know if this giant dog is friendly? So I snatch up both kids and start walking quickly (as quickly as I can when holding 50+ pounds of kid) to the wagon where I have my pepper spray. Now, dog lovers, before you get all in a huff that I would spray this poor innocent dog just imagine a GIANT dog running full force at your tiny two year olds. Sorry but the safety of my children come first and the dog will get sprayed in the face every time. Luckily for this dog his owners (two young boys) come running up. I yell to them is the dog safe and they assured me he was. After they catch up to GIANT dog I put the babies down and get ready to head home. Next thing you know two other GIANT dogs (and by giant dogs I mean big dogs, not the little ankle biters) come running up and once again I’m freaking out and yelling at the babies to stay still so I can guard them all the while trying to grab my pepper spray. The three dogs proceed to get into a fight with barking, biting, and whatever else dog fights entail. The babies are scared and I am pissed. It is AGAINST THE LAW to have your pet off of a leash. The dog owner comes over (this time a grown man) and apologizes for scaring the babies and me. I was not gracious and just walked off. Really I just wanted to yell at him to keep his dogs on their leash. How in the world do I know if they are “so friendly and wouldn’t hurt a flea”. At the moment of giant dogs loping towards us all I can think about is all of those children who have gotten bit (some very seriously) and are disfigured or damaged for life. So dog owners, if your dog is off of his leash and running at me and the babies don’t be surprised when I whip out my pink canister of pepper spray and belt your dog. Sorry. Well, not really, but I’ll say sorry so my sister doesn’t yell at me. =)