OK – yes – we haven’t written anything for a long time.  I realize this causes distress for our loyal readers. (Monette, belive it or not, but I had written these first two paragraphs before your comment on the last blog entry.)  But believe me, Joel and I had grand plans and involved completion of tons of projects over our little holiday between Christmas and New Years.  And do you know what really happened?  The boys got sick.  Joel and I got sick.  The boys stopped sleeping at night.  Joel and I stopped sleeping at night.  Joel and I became walking zombies.  It was a fun time at the Yates household.

Now you may ask yourself, why do we consider ourselves bad parents?  Well, like I said, the boys caught a cold.  I didn’t seem too bad until Dexter started to really scare us by choking on phloem.  I mean, it got so bad that on New Years Eve, he puked because he couldn’t clear his throat.  Thankfully, Tristine, Karl and their son Julian were over so they calmed Nicholas, I stripped and held Dexter, and Joel went and changed his clothes because Dexter had just baptized him in a big way, before cleaning up the floor (and fridge, and cabinets…).  Another mommy milestone passed.  This time the puke was real puke down to that lovely smell and I didn’t gag once.  Amazing how that works.  Other people can clear their throat and I’ll gag but Dexter full on puking food – nothing.  That is a truly amazing mommy power.  (sure, she says that, but I still had to take his clothes and rinse them out in the laundry room…  <shudder>)

Anyway, this led us to making him go to sleep in his car seat – which, while hard to convince him it was a good idea, nonetheless worked rather well once he went down.  Joel had the joy of trying to figure out how to get out of the rocking chair with a car seat + baby on his lap without making a sound.  Then the nightly screams started which meant we were up repeatedly attempting to soothe.  One night, Dexter screamed on and off for two hours.  Luckily, it was from 8pm to 10pm so we still were able to get a decent amount of sleep.  However, Nicholas went off two days later between 1:30am – till morning.  We tried everything.  Drugs, rocking, sleeping in the chair with him, having him sleep in our bed, putting him on a wedge – oh, it was horrible.  They were totally cranky babies off schedule.

Thank God that Chris and Don, Joel’s mom and step-dad had arrived on New Years Day to watch the boys that week before Malin arrived.  They totally saved my bacon by doing everything – cooking, cleaning, entertaining the troops which was incredible because I was on my 4th cold, had been sick since December 5th and was going downhill fast.  Finally, after one too many choking episodes with Dexter, enough was enough and I scheduled a doctor’s appointment because Joel and I were worried about his lungs.  Here’s what his doctor said “Oh Dexter – you must have a high tolerance for pain because you have a bad ear infection in both ears.”  Doesn’t that just make a parent feel good? Yep – that is why we are bad parents.

In hindsight, one might have guessed ear infections.  Low grade fever.  Off schedule.  Eating haphazardly.  Nightly screams.  Needy.  Not really tugging on the ear.  I even asked Chris before the doctor’s appointment if she thought they might have an ear infection.  So, I schedule Nicholas for an appointment that same afternoon and Joel heard the same comment – high pain threshold.  Both ears infected.  You see, just the night before, in the middle of the night, I told both Nicholas and Dexter it was time to man up and sleep.  That next day, I felt horrible about being mad at them.  Bad parent, bad parent.

Dexter and Nicholas are on day 10 of their antibiotics course.  I’m on day 9.  The following day, I went to see my doctor and she wrote me a prescription because one should not have a cold for over 30 days.  My mouth/teeth hurt there was so much sinus pressure going on.

We are all, knock on wood, on the mend.  Malin arrive on the 8th safe and sound and we know Laura is ok because she’s responded to a couple blog posts.  Right now, I think she is in Hawaii, soaking up the sun.  Tomorrow, I’ll attempt to share with you our adventures with Malin so far, and some pictures.  Hope everyone out there is healthy because colds suck, especially 4 of them in a row.

Four days before Laura was to leave us and the day before her last day working, the boys finally got to her.  Granted, the day before she had been bumped by a car in the Everett Mall parking lot as she broke down the stroller to put in the back of the van.  It was raining, she wasn’t in the street, and the car didn’t even stop.  Who does that kind of thing?  Thankfully, Laura wasn’t hurt in the incident.  However, she did roll her ankle when the car backed into her and she did catch a cold as she sat in the rain getting her wits about her.

The next day, I was sitting at work when I got the call.  Laura called in tears and asked for me to come home.  The boys had broken her.  Laura lasted so much longer than even Joel or I.  She was a rock.   It was great to have an excuse to leave work early and I didn’t mind one bit.  I rushed home, sent Laura to bed and attempted to keep the boys amused.  That didn’t last too long and then an idea struck.  Why don’t I take them to my alergy shot with me?  Brilliant!

I loaded the boys into Kanga (the van) and off we went.  They were happy to hit the road.  When we got to the clinic where I get my alergy shots, I thought, what’s the harm in having them walk in with me.  We don’t need the stroller.  (You see, I hadn’t managed yet to figure out how to set up or take down the van stroller so of course I rationalized the fact that it would be easy to get them to behave perfectly.  Ha ha ha ha ha – you see that I was clearly dilusional.)

So, I got Nicholas out first and carried him around to Dexter’s side of the van.  I sat him on the floor of Kanga while I unhooked Dexter.  Nicholas didn’t move.  I got them both out of Kanga, grabbed their hands and started to walk.  Second mistake – I was wearing heels and thus looked like the hunch back of Notre Dame walking in with the boys.  Dexter did not like the elevator ride but still walked quietly with me to the allergist.  Everyone came out to ooh and ahh over them while I signed in.  They sat on my laps like pros, quietly taking everything in.  Slight problem when I had to let go of their hands in order to get my shots and ended up having to hold Dexter during the process.  We left as quietly as we came in.

Wow – this was going great.  Why not stop by their doctor’s office and see about the H1N1 booster.  We walked down the hallway, no problem.  The problem arose when we reached their doctor’s office.  The boys recognized it.  No longer were they content with holding my hand.  In unison, they dropped my hands and took off in different directions.  Crap.  I rangled toddlers, managed to ask my H1N1 question and then  off they went - Dexter and Nicholas both loved the aquarium tank.

I attempted to grab their hands to leave with no avail.  Finally, in desperation, I pulled out a make-up bag from my purse and handed it to Dexter.  This seemed to appease him and he let me hold his hand.  Nicholas had a coffee cup lid.  I grabbed his hand and said “let’s run.”  So we did a little jog to get moving and it worked.  By this time, I had built up a sweat.  Then Dexter dropped the bag.  Crap.  If I let go, they would be off running on their own.  So, I told Dexter 4 times, “pick up the bag, Dexter” and he did.  A few more steps forward and Nicholas dropped the lid.  “Help” I cried inside.  “Nicky – pick up the lid – we do not litter.”  Finally, he picked up the lid.

We made it outside.  We made it to Kanga.  The keys were in my pocket and both hands were holding on tightly to boys who wanted to run.  I tried to hold on to their hands with one of mine while I fumbled for the keys.  Nicholas escaped but luckily headed for the gravel pit away from the traffic.  Dexter headed for the traffic.  I got the door open.  I snagged Dexter and placed him in the van.  I scooped up a not happy with me Nicholas and plopped him next to Dexter.  I blocked the way out and threw Dexter into his car seat.  One buckle to hold him in and then it was Nicholas’s turn.  Once Nicky was buckled in, I went back to Dexter and finished him off.  I breathed a sigh of relief and colapsed into the driver’s seat.  I was so lucky.  How stupid was it to take on two boys by myself?  I won’t make that mistake again for a little while.

(okay, seriously, how do you possibly take two toddlers out in public without a stroller or a second set of hands?  I mean, unless they’re strapped to something, how do you open a door, or put one into the car, without having the other one run out into the street and get hit by a bus?  I’m seriously contemplating handcuffs…  -Joel)

The boys are eating almost all solid foods now.  Still a lot of purees, as they’re not eager to chew anything that takes too much work, but they haven’t had a bottle in a few months.  They have three regular meals a day, and 2-3 snacks.  They do fine with finger foods, and we’re working on getting them to use silverware.  Both boys will make a fair attempt with the fork.  Nicholas tries hard, and usually successfully.  Sometimes, though, he cheats by picking up the food with one hand, and then putting it onto the fork before putting the fork into his mouth.  This I can accept.

Dexter, on the other hand, just gets all stabby with it, and tries to viciously murder his food repeatedly.  If he successfully spears any food it’s likely an accident, and he’s just as likely to fling the food back off the fork before he notices.  And then when he does manage to get something onto his fork, he doesn’t always place the fork exactly where we might like.

As for spoons, we’re not even pretending that we’re ready for that yet.  We let them play with them occasionally with some really sticky foods, but they don’t keep it right-side-up yet, so not much success to be had.

We’re also still using mostly sippy cups.  They’ll occasionally try to use cups, but usually this is when we’re not looking.  The other day Katie and I had some hard cider.  Katie was feeding Nic, with her glass on the table.  I had just finished with Dex, and set him on the ground whilst I was cleaning up his tray.

The next thing I knew Katie was swearing.  Her butt was suddenly wet, and when she looked, Dexter was right next to her and had the glass of cider in both hands up to his face, trying to drink the nearly-full glass, and it was pouring down his face and onto his clothes, and the chair, and her backside.  Fortunately he didn’t seem to like the taste much so we don’t have to send him to rehab, but he required an urgent bath lest any visitors raise concerns and call child protective services.

We’re not trying to feed our toddlers alcohol, really.  They just try to feed it to themselves whenever we’re not looking.  We have to hide the liquor cabinet and they aren’t even teenagers yet…

With the New Year upon us, we can now show how carefully the boys worked at choosing what presents they wanted this year, and which presents they wanted to give.  They agonized for hours, carefully reviewing catalog after catalog, looking for the perfect gift.  In the end, the answer was obvious; paper products.