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.