How Mommy Puts the "F" in Effort

I feel like I'm in one of those dreams where you're running and you don't get anywhere. I'm so tired tonight. I think the crud is catching up with me--I've been ignoring it for a week and a half and I'm running out of steam. Add to that the wind from the massive cold front moving in and it's allergy city here. Bleh.
I guess it is supposed to be in the 50s as a high tomorrow (and it was in the mid 80s today, so wow). Thankfully it will be back up again by the weekend for Halloween and Laney's birthday party. I've been madly dashing about to get a party together by Sunday. I finally got off my duff and decided to do something. It's last minute again. I don't know what my problem is that I can't decide on things in advance. I'm vowing to do better next year. In honor of that resolution, I've picked both a date and a theme for the twins birthday in June. June 12th. Cowboys.
The post title is partially the result of the failure to plan ahead for Laney's birthday and partially due to me running around here this morning after getting up late, realizing that my kitchen floor is a biohazard, having Kenna break a kitchen chair by jumping on it until it fell over while I'm wiping G's crappy butt with dried out wipes because that's all I have left, getting dressed at the couch because all the clean clothes are piled there and then--the piece de resistance! opening the closet door to discover the I'm Special Bag and it's completely blank poster that was supposed to be done for school today. It's Laney's special week and her mother f**cked it up. Then my inlaws showed up.
So. It was Grandparent day at preschool today and Ollie and Don went. Laney thought that was pretty awesome. Hopefully there will not be a problem with her being special on Thursday.
In the win column for the week, I have to mention that I'm steadily making progress on cleaning the garage and I single handedly got my husband's metal Marine Corp footlocker to the top of my garage shelving. It's really heavy, but after much huffing and puffing and failed attempts to lift it to the top of the shelving while standing on a step ladder, I finally had an epiphany: take it apart, lift all the parts up there and then reassemble. While I was at it, I stuffed the contents of another box of Marine crap in there and cut down on the clutter. Ha ha!! Why the top of the shelves for a giant heavy item? Well, our shelves have difficult to change shelves and the top shelf had exactly the right amount of height to the ceiling. So I saved the good storage space for something we might need access to--like the extra diapers and ideally, more wipes. So, you might be asking yourself, "self, what is she doing cleaning the garage when her house is obviously going to hell?" and my answer is "hell if I know".

Oh Crap Croup

We haven't passed the most pleasant of days here. Laney woke up with croup at about midnight and I was freaked out. I moved her into my bed and set up the humidifier but it wasn't a restful night. We were up by 6 again (after yesterday's slap in the head wake up call from her). Kenna woke up with a fever today too, so no one was feeling well. I'm not feeling all that healthy myself. Sigh. So it was a very long day. We got into the doctor early and went to Walmart to buy juice and tylenol.
There are days when doing things all alone is really hard and today was definitely one of them. We're all winding down to go to bed now though and then hopefully I'll be able to tackle the giant mess that is my house. I'm debating about taking Laney to dance tomorrow. Probably should skip it, but we'll see how tonight goes. Laney got a dose of steroids at the doctor but had another attack of croup with afternoon during nap time.
I had sad news last night. My uncle Ray died yesterday of a heart attack. It was a suprise to the family. I feel strange about it. He was very reclusive, so I haven't actually seen him since I was about 20. Still, it's sad.
Can't wait to get the kids in bed and be done for the night. I'm exhausted.

Sicko at the Door

We've had little visitors in the night all week. The babies have been waking up a lot and getting in bed with mommy for a little while (i.e. until they start yelling "hi" at me or rolling over to smack Charles in the face, then it's back to the crib) and Laney has been consistently showing up in the wee hours of the morning and kneeing me in the gut on her way to burrow into the center of the bed. So last night Charles locked the door. This morning we woke up to a sick little girl laying outside our room. I knew I should have left the door open (award for crappy mommy goes to...). Laney was sick all day. The kind of sick where she climbs into your bed and stays there until after lunch sipping juice and sleeping. She seems to be feeling better though so hopefully she's on the mend. I on the other hand am feeling sort of sore throaty so hopefully that is just allergies and not the plague.
Went to my Zumba class today and it was so fun. Then I went out to lunch and to the mall. Where I wandered around with a breast pump under my arm for about 20 minutes. I'm cool like that. Later I was thinking about it and I guess a breast pump is a relatively personal item to be hauling around with you in public. But the truth is, I was at the mall in my sweaty stretch pants following an exercise class. I basically have no shame anymore. I just don't care. The breast pump was a craigslist thing. I've been trying to clean out the garage and it's been satisfying but kind of a pain to do all the meeting/wheeling/dealing. I've got two high chairs to go and I'm fini. I posted a car seat for $10 and got one hit this week. I'm meeting her tomorrow to sell it. But I posted picts of it today and I've got like 7 emails about it. Who knew? Technically, the car seat is supposed to go in the trash because you can't donate them to charity or whatever since they may not be safe anymore or something. BS if you ask me.
Tomorrow I need to get on the stick and get some Halloween stuff out of the way. Like costumes. I originally planned for Laney to be Little Bo Peep and the babies to be sheep, but she wants to be a princess. So possibly I can find a dragon outfit for G and the girls will be princesses. Who knows?

Tang

For those of you not on Facebook, had an adventurous day today. The kids took the Costco sized Tang from the pantry and were cooking with it in their kitchen when I discovered them. Tang everywhere. They looked like ompaloompas and the Tang was piled like sand all over the living room carpet. I wigged out. The Tang vacuumed up mostly but it is starting to come up as a stain now. A huge orange stain.
The kids are doing a lot of playing together now and it's both cute and terrifying. They played out in the backyard together this afternoon and worked out how to use the garden hose. Sand and water was everywhere.
Putting Laney to bed tonight I was thinking about the new "why"stage that we are in. We read Olivia and had an in-depth discussion about Degas, his reasons for painting ballerinas, Jackson Pollock, painting, where Olivia's art supplies are stored, where they should be stored, etc. We had a similar discussion in the car on Monday on the way home from the zoo related to Barack Obama, where he lives, what his job is, how old you have to be to be president, which of her cousins could be president etc. Laney is a big Obama fan and is determined to visit him. She also has a rock collecting campaign in his honor. I'm not sure why. Maybe because rock and Barack sound similar? Not sure but we have been collecting "Rocks for Barack" for a number of months now.
Now off to sweep up the sand that got tracked all over my house and watch a NetFlicks movie, since we just joined.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Big happy birthday to my dad today! I wish I could be there with him to celebrate. But we're thinking of him! Love you dad.

I went to bed last night thinking about my blog. Specifically, I was trying to remember what Laney was like at 15 months. During any particular time you think "I'll always remember this" but the truth is you don't. And if you're pregnant with twins and/or recently had them you remember even less. That's where the blog comes in. If I had kept a journal or blog then I would be able to look back so much easier. So I've decided to be more dedicated to the blog again so that I have a better memory, so to speak.

Griffin was having a major hissy fit this morning for no apparent reason. Perhaps he's hungry. He's a sweet loving baby most of the time but can get into these little crying jags. Laney and Kenna are having an "argument" across the table right now. They are telling each other "no" and K thinks this is a hilarious game. Laney just told me "Kenna is growing her hair mom!". I guess it's a news flash for her. K does have visible hair now.

We're going to the zoo today with our meetup playgroup. Speaking of which, I saw Mary--the founder of the group who went back to work--at Trinity dance this weekend. I didn't see her daughter Logan though. I'm sure she was there in a tutu somewhere. I was there without a child because I took an exercise/dance class called Zumba and it was AWESOME!! I had so much fun. I'm going to have to get home DVDs or something. It's an aerobics class that combines a bunch of different dance types--belly dancing, african, merengue etc.
Laney took her last official swim in the pool yesterday. It was too cold but she was determined. I have to find another place to swim this winter, which is hard to do weirdly enough because there aren't very many indoor pools or heated pools here. I'm not super psyched about having to get in with her. She doesn't mind cold water but I really do.
Well, I'd better get cracking if I am going to get all my kids dressed and ready to go by 8:15!

Weekend

It's kind of boring in Tucson land. My birthday was last Thursday and it about 80% sucked. I won't go in to details but I spent a good part of the day feeling sorry for myself. The bright side of the day was going out for pizza and gelato (mmm. gelato). On Saturday we went to Debbie and David's for bbq since we haven't seen them since David got home. They were going to Washington DC on Sunday and hopefully will have a great time. Tim and Carol are fun to visit though so I'm sure it will be awesome. Ricky has a new love interest but I didn't get the details.
Kids have been grouchy and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the change in the weather. I put jeans on Saturday after going out in the morning and freezing. It was only about 65! The twins are learning new words and trying to talk more every day though most of it requires serious mommy translation skills to figure out.
I took a photography class sponsored by Tucson Moms on Saturday too and that was interesting. Dealing with f stops makes my brain ache though.