Snow Day Ruined

Friday was a snow day.  It was awesome.  We had about a half inch of snow here at our apartment (sorry, only one picture!) and the entire city shut down.  My physical therapy was rescheduled and all of the schools Travis can substitute at were closed.  The boys and I stayed in our pajamas and snuggled on the couch to watch movies under a blanket.  All that was missing was a mug of hot cocoa.  Frankly, it was turning out to be an awesome, quiet snow day.  Of course, this is when the day decided to stop being so awesome.

I wasn't present for what I'm about to describe so I'm not sure exactly what happened.  I think I was in the bathroom or something.  Apparently, Travis and the boys were playing with the multitude of balls littering our living room (thanks, Mom for that ball pit by the way... : ) ) and somehow a racquetball found its way into the mix.  You know, one of those sort of heavy, blue bouncy balls.  Anyway, one of the boys threw it directly into the television.  The tv seemed okay at first so the offender got a time-out and they moved on.  We turned off the tv and put Eli and Jude down for their nap after lunch.  Once the boys were settled, Travis and I plopped ourselves back on the couch to play our respective video games - him Fallout 3, me The Sims 3 - and it became clear the tv was broken.  Travis turned it on and there were green lines all the way across the entire screen.  Thinking it was the PS3, he changed the input and the lines remained.  I had no idea why it would act like that but Travis knew exactly what happened.

So, the poor old tv is being sold for scrap parts on Craig's List and we bought a new one from Costco.  Not exactly how I envisioned spending our coming tax return, but the new tv is really nice and we plan to keep it for the next 10+ years.  Needless to say, there is no more throwing of balls anywhere near the television.

Poop-tastrophe

I have to say, until I became a mom I was very grossed out by all kinds of bodily fluids.  Vomit, urine, excrement, what have you.  I have had to get over this since the boys have arrived but days like today really test my resolve.  A little back story - Eli has been getting very good at controlling his bowel muscles.  This is exciting because it means we're getting that much closer to potty training but not exciting because he's decided he never wants to poop again.  I have tried everything to get this boy to poop but it won't work.  Suppositories, prunes, lots and lots of juice... you name it, I've tried it.  He is very stubborn about it and refuses.  I know it must be very painful for him by this point and he won't let me anywhere near his behind so I've stopped pushing the issue.  He will poop when he's good and ready.  Okay, on with the story.

Things were all running smoothly, generally speaking.  Travis was at work and the boys and I were at home, hanging out.  We're experiencing a bit of nap rescheduling (it seems to be shifting from a morning nap to an afternoon nap) so I didn't put Eli and Jude down for their naps until about 1:30 pm today.  They seemed unfazed by staying up a little longer and actually went to sleep at about 1:50.  I went about my afternoon not knowing what I would discover a couple of short hours later.

Eli and Jude awoke from their naps at about 3:45 and started to play.  It started to get a little loud and rowdy so I went in their room with the intention of changing diapers and then feeding them a snack.  Oh man, was I shocked.  I'm still not sure what exactly happened.  When I entered the room, I found Jude completely naked, Eli with his diaper half off, and the room and my children covered in poop.  It was such a mess and so completely disgusting that I wasn't even sure where to begin.  So I started with Eli and Jude and figured I'd clean the room when Travis got home.

I put Eli and Jude into our shower with the sprayer-like shower head and literally hosed them down (thank you Savannah for that amazing wedding present!).  Eli thought it was super cool but Jude kept trying to hide in the corner of the shower and yelled at me any time I went near him with the water.  And he was the most dirty too.  He had rubbed the poop into his eczema so he had little rough nasty patches all over his shoulders, arms, and back.  It was gross.  Also during the scrubbing, Eli peed for the first time without a diaper on (that I can remember, at least) and looked at me with a horrified "Oh my god Mom, what is happening to me???" face.  It was so adorable that I almost forgot why I was so cranky and grossed out.  Almost.  We had a quick chat about what pee-pee is and he was soon back to stomping around the shower.

Travis arrived home shortly after drying and re-diapering the boys and he volunteered to clean the boys' room - much to my excitement - before looking at the daunting task.  Apparently, the boys had gotten poop on the bottoms of their feet and walked around, so there were little brown splotches all over their carpet.  All of the sheets and blankets had to be washed because someone peed on them.  And it was quite smelly.  Travis did a fantastic job and you can barely tell what grossness had been there earlier today.  We will need to steam clean the carpet now though, there's no way around that.  But we'd known that for a while since Eli and Jude have a great talent for spilling things EVERYWHERE.

In short, it was a very draining afternoon.  If you have children, I hope this never happens to you.  If you don't have children, I hope I haven't terrified you into never having any.

Big Boy Beds

I normally try to keep the blog pretty light - which is silly because I think that more people should see the nitty gritty part of raising twins, but all of that is fodder for a post on another day - but know that today was not a light day for me.  Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was something else, but I had a very hard day today.  Looking back at the day, it doesn't seem like very much but I guess it was the culmination of a lot of things and I went totally off the deep end.  It was also a hard day for Travis, but I'm writing this post.  : )

Travis woke me up as he was getting ready to leave for his Dr. appointment (I've been sleeping late because of the pills for my back) and had been up with the babies for two hours already.  This in itself is unusual.  On top of them waking up ridiculously early, Travis found them both standing on top of the changing table pulling on the blinds.  I knew they had been climbing out of their cribs for a few days in Eli's case and a few weeks in Jude's, but up until now it has been pretty sporadic.  I played with them this morning even though I was completely exhausted and was excited to take a nap or even just relax during their nap times.  Too bad naps were non-existent today.

I put Eli and Jude down for their naps just after 11 am, as per usual, and they chatted for a little bit, also normal.  Then, I heard a lot of laughing and banging so I thought I'd check on them.  Sure enough, both boys were standing on the changing table playing with the blinds again!  I put them back in their cribs, told them that we do not climb out as calmly as I could (let's be honest, not very calmly) and went back to the other room.  We did this dance about five times in the next half hour before I completely lost my cool.  And Eli and Jude could not get enough of it!  They thought I was absolutely hilarious!  Which of course, became more aggravating and I was becoming more and more angry.  I finally decided that the three of us were going to sit in the living room and NOT nap until we could figure out a sleeping solution.

When Travis returned home, he very sweetly picked me up a delicious burrito from Chipotle but I was still furious, exhausted, and drained so I wasn't very pleasant.  We decided to convert the cribs into toddler beds - the kits arrived a week or two ago and we've been putting it off - and just deal with wandering babies.  I was skeptical of this plan because I was envisioning our little boys passed out on the floor, surrounded by ripped up books and toys in the middle of the night.  But, we really didn't have any other option (except crib tents, but we decided against those already).

I left for an impromptu Mom's Night Out dinner with a couple of the Moms of Multiples and prayed that bedtime went smoothly.  I just got home a little while ago and peeked into Eli and Jude's room and was pleasantly surprised (okay, SHOCKED!) to see that both boys had passed out IN THEIR BEDS!  Travis said that there was lots of crying and banging on the door for the first half hour, but then they realized it was still bedtime and went to sleep.  I'm so proud of my big boys, sleeping in their big beds!  Even if they do drive me absolutely bonkers.