Christmas Joy and Travel Hell

The girls had their first Christmas!!! For the most part, they didn't notice it....They were a little overwhelmed by the concept of opening presents so we didn't open too many. But they enjoyed the food, they loved the LeapFrog table they got from Gram and Sam and the piano they got from my mother and Papa Chris. They enjoyed Christmas mass but only because we bounced to the choir music : )

The next morning we had a 6:55 am flight out of OAK to SLC. OAK after Christmas is always a disaster and every year I figure they'll figure it out. Well they didn't. We arrived an hour and a half early only to find a 2 hour baggage check in line (I'm NOT joking) followed by a 40 minute security line. We bribed a guy to check our bags in which gave us just enough time to get to the plane in time to watch it take off. Total nightmare. (but our bags made it...even worse!) So now we have to fly out of SJC through Reno the NEXT DAY. I honestly can't believe we are actually going to do this! And I am starting to feel sick. But we keep saying that we love to travel and we want to learn to do it with kids, so I guess we're going for it...

More pics of Xmas to come...

(ps. I fell into the same terrible habit of saving as draft all these entries and now i'm trying to catch up... it always sucks when I do this because I can't remember the things I originally wanted to write about...NY resolution to stop doing this!)

December

Second doctor trip in a week. Dylan has an ear infection and bronchialitis. It has been a real bummer to have the girls be so sick the two weeks leading up to Christmas. At least they are so little that they don't really know that they are missing Christmas.

It has been a rather "hectic" holiday season for several reasons--sickness, works has been getting busier, and the girls have not been sleeping. All in all, I would say this has been a lesson in how NOT to handle the holiday season. Luckily this year can kind of be a 'trial run.' Next year I am determined to set aside time to really help c&d experience the holidays--from baking cookies to going to see xmas lights to buying ornaments.

Holy Sh%t!

We're a family of four!! This fact never ceases to amaze me.

99% of the time it makes me giddy with happiness. 1% of the time I look at things that say "The Dodsons" and I feel like June Cleaver. I know you aren't supposed to admit this as a mother, but every once in a while I look back wistfully on things I used to be able to do. I think it might be the rain...it makes me really miss Paris. (And I know, this sounds obnoxious) Anyway, my theory is that if I didn't miss some of it, I must have had a lame ass life before, so the fact that I now miss some of it is only a good thing! And besides, I wouldn't trade ANY of my life right now for all the shoes in Paris : )

Things I love

Things I love:
Dylan
---How wiry she is... there isn't a person who has held her who hasn't said something like "she is so strong for such a little thing" or "man she is a mover."
---How she sticks her tongue out at herself when I put the car seat in the car and she sees herself in the mirror I put up to view them.
---How she gets so excited to see Andrew that if I'm holding her she tries to literally move my head out of the way to get to him (she hasn't quite figured out that it is attached to my body).
---That she makes the most bizarre, gutteral noises when excited.
---That she often lays on her back and thrusts her pelvis upward continuously, enough to kinda freak Andrew out and make him sing "Do the Humpty Dance..."

--How when she eats she often moves her bib around to be more of a cape, so we call her "Super D!"
Charlotte
---That she always wants to be held, but once held she wants to use you as her lookout, to enable her to see all things new and interesting.
---That when she sees her lion animal blanket it is as if she is seeing her long lost best friend. She rolls on top of it onto our stomach and rocks her little butt back and forth in excitement.
---How her smile is more of a nose crinkle that lifts up her mouth.
---How her crawl reminds me of Kaiser Sose.
---How, when she eats, she gets a bit of a pirate's sneer her face--Andrew calls it the "arrrrrrgh" face.

Both of them

---Their two front teeth(s). They are coming in and you could drive cruise ships in between them. They might as well have $$ signs on them because they signal a LOT of orthodontia bills. --That they get so excited when I take them into the bakery they almost screech.

--How, when we turn music on, they start shaking their heads and kicking their legs back and forth....REALLY quickly.

--That sometimes when I'm breastfeeding them they reach out and hold each other's hands. (sorry for the visual)

---That often when I carry one into a room that the other is already in, they get huge grins on their faces. They are smiling not at me, but at each other. It is worth every stress over already having two 529s.

My husband.

--I feel kinda weird writing about him. I can gush over my kids but somehow I feel like I'm not supposed to gush over my husband. I swear I'm not saying this to make up for something bad I did (he doesn't read this blog anyway). But seriously, he kicks ass on so many levels that sometimes I can't believe he married me. I am constantly amazed by his ability to manage his work, family, friends, etc. He is so good at prioritizing---both in terms of what he needs to get done but also what is important. If anything, sometimes I think he handles it so well that those of us closest to him don't realize how much he's got going on and we don't support him enough. Sometimes I want to kill him, but mostly I want to thank whomever I'm supposed to thank for sending him to me.

And to make matters worse...

I keep getting the cutest cards from people...I turn them over to see where they ordered them, and they MADE them OR used OFOTO (and they look freakin' great!!) They made these beautiful cards w/ great pictures, and I can't even manage to figure out how to use my printer. I am so screwed.

What the hell was I thinking...

We never send out christmas cards....a lot of effort and Andrew always balks at the cost... but now that we actually have munchkins to show off I told Andrew there was no way I wasn't sending out cards this year.

So I found some I liked, but they were a little pricey. Andrew keeps saying "Ofoto, just do ofoto"... and my answer of course was "All my friends send these beautiful cards, not ofoto." And Andrew's answer is always "Have you seen where your friends live? We're in a slightly different income bracket." So a few weeks ago I'm in paper source and I run into Ashley...the mother of Frances and Olivia....she's putting together her own cards. The materials are beautiful and the cost is minimal given how great they look. I think to myself "She has twins AND she's a doctor full time. If she can do it, I can do it."

Should have considered two things. 1). I SUCK AT ART, PROJECTS, CRAFTS, ETC. It falls right after cooking for me. and 2) My computer is broken therefore printing all these things will be a huge pain because my current loaner doesn't hook up to the printer.

And even worse, I don't have a great picture to use. The best I have is one of the 4 of us, and I really just wanted one of the girls but I don't have a one in which they are both smiling.

So if you think you'll be getting a card from me this year, don't hold your breath. Maybe around Valentine's Day. : )

(Pictures are of the girls getting themselves in "tight spots" too... Dylan halfway under the changing table and charlotte underneath the ottoman...but laughing because i'm standing right over her).

Sick Again...

Both girls are sick again, this time with a typical cold. Their noses keep them from sleeping which doesn't help them get better. It is hard to be a little munchkin and sick. Dylan in particular acts like I am subjecting her to cruel and unusual punishment when I try to blow/wipe her nose. It has also been raining a lot which really cramps our style (though they don't mind the rain shield on the stroller).

Charlotte is crawling! It is more of an under-the-wire navy seal maneuver, with the right side strongly favored, but it moves her forward so it counts! I know that A) it is a great sign developmentally, and B) neurologically it is better for her to crawl. So yeah! Of course, our lives are about to COMPLETELY change.

Above is a pic of Charlotte, Olivia, Dylan, and Frances. This is at Frances and Olivia's first birthday party. Frances and Olivia had an even tougher time than the munchkins did making it into this world, so to celebrate their birthday was so much fun! Ashley and Andrew are friends of a college friend of mine (his wife and Ashley went to Georgia together) and they introduced us. They are great and I really love being able to swap suggestions/ideas/stories with Ashley. Ashley and Andrew are both residents at UCSF too, and thus my idols because they are managing everything so well. Their daughters are going to be so proud of their mother the doctor. (Sometimes I envy this... need to figure out what I need to do to make my daughters proud of what I do on a daily basis). Anyway, their party was great and I love seeing the girls together (I think they might be soul sisters...Dylan and Frances are both smaller and always on the move, where as Olivia and Charlotte are a little more chill. D and F were tinier at birth but O and C struggled a little more at birth). I also love that C & D don't look like fly-weights when they hang with Olivia and Frances!

It's Official

The munchkins clearly see Cardinal Red, not blue.

(ps. This was part of the Yankee Swap gift I put together for Parthenon's holiday party. It is a "surviving Andrew" kit..includes this framed pic, a Duke Sucks t-shirt,and a bottle of Grey Goose. Since they see more of him than I do I thought they needed it.... : ))

HP SUCKS

THEY...SENT...THE...WRONG...FREAKIN'...HARDDRIVE.

In other lovely news, we have taken the 'wedges' away from the ladies...what this means is that they now roll around the bed, screech across the cribs at each other, and generally crack themselves up instead of sleeping. Yesterday I went in to find Charlotte on her tummy, pulling down the bumper so she could see out through the slats of the bed, giggling. Dylan, on the other side of the room, is chirping away as she tries to throw one of her little legs over the side of the crib.

Thus the cribs are going to be lowered this weekend (which is why I've gotten VERY little sleep the past two nights, because the rolling around wakes them and then I'm convinced they will flip themselves out of the bed). Going to keep the bumpers in as long as possible....I might even try to discourage them from trying to pull themselves up. Why you ask? Because those bumpers are damn cute, and they weren't cheap! Taking them down will be like the end of an era (retro girl, at it again i know). So maybe stunting their development is worth keeping those cute little things up longer. At least I got gender neutral so I can trot them out again for subsequent munchkins regardless!

And just to give you an idea of how tired i've been lately, yesterday I broke down and took the girls to Whole Foods for the first time (taking them to grocery stores is not an easy task, but we have NO food). As I walked in (I should say steered the snap n go in) and started to go down my list I sort of absentmindedly grabbed one of the orange samples they had out... (i know, samples are germ centers, but i'm a snacker so I get over the germs). Oh, but not this time...because I realized after putting it in my mouth that I had grabbed from the wrong bowl...I had grabbed from the already eaten slices!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BLECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I need more sleep. Really, I do.

Back to work. I'm actually cranking all day today on work things, and I have to admit that I'm really enjoying being 'working molly' for a full day (of course, this version of working molly hasn't even brushed her teeth yet, but whatever).

Exhausted

• Charlotte has been running a fever for the past few days. I think it is teething but who knows.
• I spent most of the night up with Charlotte on Saturday night.
• I can't get the girls to sleep past 5am, and I really don't have the energy anymore to let them cry. I've tried everything and their bodies still want to wake up at 5am. There is a HUGE difference between getting up at 6am every day and getting up at 5...trust me. I know we'll get them back to 6am eventually, but it will be a long time before I change more than one time zone again.
• Andrew has been working on a deal for almost a year and it is blowing up. He wants this deal to close very badly. I want this deal to close very badly. Citibank wants this deal to close very badly. He spent most of the weekend on the phone working.
• My mom got sick on Sunday and couldn't help take care of the girls for a few hours...I thought Andrew was going to cry when I told him.
• Our (Andrew's but I like to hear about it and swear I'll have more time next year to have a team) fantasy football didn't advance in the playoffs.
• Toxic saliva has effected the earpiece on my cell phone, making it difficult to hear people.
• My nanny had to cancel today, and the last minute nanny place I call is fully booked all week.
• We have andrew's office party this Saturday and my babysitter cancelled. I have no idea what we are going to do with the munchkins.
• But here's the real kicker. Our three week old HP Pavillion died this weekend. Imploded, exploded, died. Unreal. The hard drive is at Best Buy..we're hoping to recover the data. A new hard drive is on the way. My old computer died after getting the new one, so I am without a computer, and without a tech department to hand me one. I'm living on borrowed time even as I write this, but the past few days have been so unbelievable I had to write it all down because I need to legitimize my fatigue.
• Amall's getting evicted after a month in her apartment in NYC. DR is losing her nanny. They still beat me, but I'm putting in a good run for third place for "whose life doesn't really suck, but is really a big pain in the ass right now."

Plastics

Yesterday we went to the plastic surgeon to check out Dylan's skin tag...she has a skin tag at the base of her tailbone...she had a ton of tests when she was first born because skin tags are rare in that area and can point to major spinal problems. Thankfully, it turned out to be just a skin tag. It was how she was originally identified relative to her sister because other than size it is the only thing different about them. I could have left it on her, but truthfully, it was not how I wanted them to be differentiated, and it reminded me a bit of Jason Alexander in Shallow Hal. My daughter was not going to be teased about having "a mini-tail." Never.

So it just so happens that there is a great plastic surgeon next to my ped's office, so last time I was in a made an appointment. We go in yesterday and the doctor takes a quick look and says he can remove it right then and there. No anesthesia needed ...he said it would hurt more than just clipping it off. So I held the wiry miss Dylan long enough for him to snip it off. She cried about 5 seconds and then was fine. I had a moment of panic because I thought "If they end up the same size and then something happens to me, who will tell them apart?" (Andrew assures me he will).

As the doctor leave he looks directly at me and says "If there is anything else I can do for you just let me know." Given that there weren't any other obvious skin tags on my daughter, it was pretty clear he meant ME. (I guess he figured, if you are vain enough to bring your 10 month old in to remove a skin tag, you must be vain enough to consider plastic surgery). And yes, maybe I am. And clearly he saw that there were things that need fixing (my stomach is still about two inches further out than it was 2 years ago, and my rack has definitely dropped half a floor). So I took the bait, and he told me all about the breast lifts, tummy tucks, body lifts, etc that he does for mothers, his "biggest clients." And So Dr. Bermudez, we'll see you again after I have my last kid : )

ps. The pic above was part of an attempt to get a Xmas card picture..unfortunately Charlie wanted nothing of it. Complete strangers were coming up, trying to make them laugh, taking pictures of them (which happens kind of a lot, and i try not to freak out about it). Nothing doing, Charlotte sat there like a buddha while dylan mugged for the camera. so we'll try again this weekend i guess.