A while ago, we finally got to meet cousin Keira.  She’s my cousin Ann’s little daughter and she is so beautiful.  Dexter took a shine to her right away.  I was totally impressed with Ann for making me wash my hands before getting to hold her.  You go girl.  Keep her germ free for as long as possible.  The first cold is always nerve wracking for parents.  Or, if you are me, it’s always nerve wracking.

Seeing that the “weights” I lift on a daily basis are about 30 lbs of wriggling mass, Keira felt surprisingly light.

Hi Keira – you can call me “auntie katie” if you wish.

(and be sure to call Ryan Uncle Too Tall)

Isn’t it every boy’s dream to be surrounded by a bunch of young, Swedish, blonde women?  (answer – yes, but qualified as ideally being the Swedish Beach Volleyball Team, but I digress-joel) Well, that dream came true for Nicholas and Dexter in early September.  Here you can see all eyes on Nicholas, (even Dexter is in awe of his presence) as he is surrounded by Malin and her Swedish friends (plus a Norwegian – we don’t discriminate – all Scandinavians are good in our book, though in honor of Malin’s prejudices we try not to discuss the Finns in front of her).  Not too shabby for being just 2.  Can’t wait to see what happens in 14 years.  Or maybe I can.  Too many girls calling / texting the boys during dinner will not win me over  (okay, last Joel comment I swear, but personally, I think it’s adorable that texting at dinner is Katie’s worst case scenario).   I’m sure Joel was totally proud of this moment and just a little envious.  As it is he took the consoled himself with taking the photo.

I’ve never seen so many true blondes before……..

Friday night, I got home a little late from work and holy moly, the boys were just about perfect.  No fights.  No whines.  No Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!  Just tons of smiles and chatting about their day, and Joel even had the oven preheated to 425, perfect for the take-n-bake pizza I brought with me (he’d started it for chicken nuggets, but we’ll take it).  In fact, for the first time ever, Nicholas actually told me what he did during the day – he blew bubbles at school.  How awesome is that?  And Dexter, he told Joel that Gaga “aka Grandma”, visited that day.  The boys are growing up to be big boys.  I am so proud and a little sad, all at the same time.

Well, I’m not sure what happened, but the next morning, our two little happy boys had been replaced by aliens.  Gone were the laughter and smiles.  They had been replaced by terrible tantrums, tons of tears, and non-stop MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!!!!!!  I swear, all of us woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  Not even getting out of the house and going grocery shopping, followed by another visit from Gaga could save the day.  A non-stop cold, followed by two year molar teething and possibly growing pains had conquered the boys spirits.  It was only when Joel and I stopped trying to parent and instead ignored the boys in order to eat dinner, that suddenly, the mood in the house changed.  

As Joel and I sat and chatted quietly over dinner, we noticed the boys chatting also.  We had just moved our family room furniture around so that we could no longer see what they were doing and thus, had to quietly stand up in order to find out what exactly was going on.  There, sitting on the couch looking like the best of friends, were Nicholas and Dexter, reading stories to each other.  After the day that we had had, it was the most amazing thing to see.  After enjoying about 20 minutes of freedom, I stupidly said to Joel “and the most amazing thing is, they haven’t called out to us yet.”  No sooner had the word “yet” left my mouth, when sir Nicholas popped up and said “Mommy?” to which Joel and I laughed and I replied “hi Nicky”.  Nicholas smiled, turned and responded with “Hi Daddy”.  Dexter stood up on the couch too, then they both got off the couch and started runny around.

The day ended on a happy note and pretty much carried through today too.  Just wanted to share the little piece of heaven we discovered on the other side of the couch.  

So, where have we been this past week?  Well, let me tell you of our great adventure….

About 9 days ago, the boys showed signs of runny noses.  No problem.  I’ve not quite conquered my fear of them getting sick but I have plenty of Kleenex boxes on hand for just an occasion.  The boys, especially Dexter, have mastered the technique of blowing their noses.  In fact, Dex is SO good, he doesn’t even need a Kleenex.  Just mention the words, blow your nose, say in the context of “Dexter, let mommy get a Kleenex so that we can blow your nose” and before you know it, snot is runny down his face and Grandma and Uncle Ryan are laughing their heads off which just causes Dex to go into nose blowing over-drive.  Did I mention we have new carpet?

Anyway, Monday – Wednesday we saw runny noses.  Monday night Joel had to attend the mandatory parent night and on Tuesday night, I played volleyball and thus no blogs. Then on Wednesday night, Dexter decided to cough all night long.  Guess who drew the short end of the stick and ended up in the rocking chair with him from midnight to 3:00am and then from 3:30am – 4:30am?  Yep, you guessed it, it was me.  Joel is quite clever.  When the boys wake up in the middle of the night, he is so tired, all he has to say is “let’s wait to see what happens” and before you know it, I can’t take it anymore and get up (note – Wednesday IS KATIE’S NIGHT.  Just saying…)  Needless to say, after being up all night long, or so it felt at the time, I called in sick to work and slept from 6:30am (when Malin starts her day) to 8am when I had to get up for an appointment.  On Thursday, we started to give Dexter nebulizer treatments which is basically an inhaler that opens up the lungs.  We also invited our friends Julie and Trevor over so that the boys had someone else to perform for instead of whining to us.  Worked like magic.

OK, you can see we’ve been somewhat busy entertaining slightly sick kids.  Friday night was a blur.  On Saturday, we all headed to a pumpkin farm to pick out pumpkins.  Sunday was about Skyping with the Yates grandparents and visiting the French grandparents.  Monday, Joel and I had the day off so we took the boys down to IKEA to burn off steam, and to get two more chairs for the kitchen table now that the boys have broken up with their high chairs.  IKEA is a great place for kids to play.  The boys were especially intrigued by bunk beds this time around.  Joel and I had to attend a class that night so Malin put the boys down to bed.  She mentioned that Nicholas sounded a little wheezy but I didn’t think anything of it UNTIL midnight.  Nicky woke me up and when I ran into his room, he was standing in his crib and he sounded like Darth Vader.  The wheezing sound was amazing. OH MY GOD – my baby can’t breathe!  I scooped him up and ran to Joel in a total panic.  WE HAVE TO NEB NIC NOW – I shouted.  I can’t remember what Joel said, but it was like a verbal slap that knocked me out of my panicked state.  I carried Nicholas downstairs and Joel turned on the light.  He was a nice shade of pink and his lips were not blue.  His oxygen level was just fine – he just sounded like shit and it scared the crap out of me.  I made us neb him twice.  Joel reminded me that this had happened before – last October to be exact – and the doctor’s order at that time were to neb every 4 hours.  I also made Joel fire up his work computer and send off an email to my manager saying it wasn’t likely I would show up at work the next morning.

I attempted to put Nic back in bed but he was scary sounding and I ended up back in the chair which him on my chest.  I swear every 15 minutes he woke up and would cry until I reminded him that I was there and everything would be ok.  This process lasted until 4:30am when I got Joel up to help me with the nebulizer treatment again.  This time, I did put Nicky in his crib and reclined in the chair all by myself.  Once again, Nicholas needed reassurance but I think I actually got one whole hour of uninterrupted sleep at one time.  At 6:30am, Nic insisted it was time to get out of the crib.  We fell asleep in the rocking chair downstairs.  I didn’t even hear Malin bring Dexter down.  At 7am, Nicholas let me go take my shower.  The rest of the day, I had to be right next to him.  Bathroom breaks were few and far between.  At 9:40am, we saw the doctor.  Nicholas had a slight fever – but his lungs were totally clear.  Keep up the neb treatment.  As for Dexter, he had the beginning stages of an ear infection.  Hopefully this one clears up quickly – I can’t take another night of no sleep, which brings us to last night. 

As you know, I am now the “it girl”.  Mommy has to do everything – daddy is not allowed to help.  Ask the boys who do you want to change your diaper and they will reply “Mommy” (thanks guys – I will find out how much your father paid you to say that).  Joel repeatedly ask if he can do something for them – anything really – and the answer is all the same – Mommy.  Mommy is getting really tired.  Knowing this, Joel offered to listen and neb Nic during the middle of the night with the caveat that “you know Nicholas won’t let me touch him, right?” and that I would need to get up anyway.  Yes, I know.  So, when Nicky started to scream at 10:30pm and neither one of us had fallen asleep yet, I went in to see if I could help.  Nicholas was off his rocker.  He did not want to be touched by anyone and was totally thrashing about.  This made me think maybe he was still in the midst of a bad dream so I suggested we take him to our bathroom and turn on the light.  Nothing would comfort Nicky.  He ended up on the floor, thrashing about.  He only calmed when we stopped trying to help him and just sat with him and waited.  Nicky fell asleep, on the floor next to our bathtub.  I tried to move him – no go.  Fine then.  We blocked the path to the toilet with a pillow, left the bathroom door open, and went to bed.  At 2:30am he started to cry.  We nebbed him and all he wanted to do was go back to sleep on the floor.  No way – enough was enough.  I scooped him up and put him back in bed.  Joel stayed with him for the next 45 minutes until he fell back asleep.  My alarm went off way too early.

So, that’s our story.  Sorry if any of you were scared when you read Malin’s blog.  The boys are doing much better today.  Hopefully that holds true for tonight too.  It’s 9:08pm.  Time for Joel to proofread this post and for me to go to bed.  I was worthless at work today – way too tired to think.

Some days parenting is absolutely fantastic.  Other days, it really sucks.  I hate being that panicked and frightened.  I really think the whole NICU experience damaged my psyche.

(now it’s 9:44pm.  Just finished proof reading, and there on cue Nicholas is starting to cry out for Mommy.  Katie can’t catch a break…)

Yes, our lives are seriously boring.  So boring and filled with so many chores, that blogging often times gets out prioritized.  Take last week for example.   Here we did have excitement, drudgery, and way too much to do all in one week.

Chris and Don (Joel’s mom and step-dad), along with his uncle Bill, and “aunt” Emmy and “uncle” Dan all flew in from other states and converged in Everett for a vacation.  Thus, last Sunday, we had one big happy family reunion at our house.  Joel’s cousin Jaysa and second cousin Steve, wife Rachel, and 6 month old daughter Kayla, along with my parents and brother completed the picture.  I am so amazed at how loud our house can get – and that’s just the adults talking.  It’s truly impressive.  We have an abundance of pictures but have had little time in which to edit and prepare for publication.

Monday through Wednesday, the out of town extended family went site seeing and Joel and I enjoyed a typical week.  I stayed home on Monday to entertain the boys and run errands, I played volleyball on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, we got ready to hand the boys off to Chris and Don because Malin left that afternoon for an East coast mini-vacation.  Poor Chris and Don – little did they know that when they agreed to babysit, they would be signing up for two 15 hour days.  You see, after work on Thursday, Joel and I took a CPR class and on Friday, we worked the pre-sale set up for my SNOMOMS club.  Of course, the boys behaved beautifully for them and kept them running.  Don had to take a mid-morning nap on Saturday just to recover.  Joel and I paid for it on Saturday though.  Saturday was one melt down after another by every member of this family – and I mean – every member of the family.  They continued constantly until around 6pm that night.  Finally, the sun broke through and Nicholas and Dexter started to laugh and smile again.  If that hadn’t happened, I’m not sure if Joel and I would still be alive today. 

Our happy boys stayed with us and Sunday turned out to be a peaceful and mellow day.  Nicholas went to church with me and Dexter stayed home with Joel.  It was our second attempt at one-on-one time with the boys.  Nicholas was great throughout church and quite the little charmer.  He hid behind mommy anytime someone smiled at him.  As soon as we left though, Mr. Chatterbox returned.  When we got home (2 hours later), we found Dexter still in his pajama top with no pants on.  Hmmmm.  I thought pants off day was on Friday, not Sunday.  Joel smiled sheepishly when I commented on Dexter’s appearance, and admonished me not to judge.  We also snuck in a visit at my parents’ home, a challenging hair cut (i.e., disastrous - when Marilyn saw it, she asked if Joel was drunk when he gave it), and bath time.  For the first time since before the boys came along, I slept the whole night through without waking once.  Around 7:30am this morning, I actually checked on the boys to make sure they were still alive.

Today has been a go go go day too.  Joel is attending the mandatory co-op parent meeting tonight.  I have volleyball tomorrow.  Wednesday I need to work at a post SNOMOM sale activity event in the evening.  Thursday is filled with appointments and on Friday, Dexter has his first Ocupational Therapy appointment.  We are getting Dexter checked out for sensory integration issues.

I am seriously tired just sitting and writing this post.  Lately, my memory sucks and words do not flow freely from my mouth or my fingers.  Like I said, nothing too exciting has happened lately.  Nicholas and Dexter are experimenting with words.  Some of the time we figure out what they are saying.  Other times they repeat the word six times, looking at us the the “are you an idiot” expression because we have no clue what they are saying.  Dexter ABSOLUTELY LOVES to try on shoes.  He puts them on and takes them off – over and over again.

Another thing the boys are hooked on is the PIXAR movie Cars.  We try not to let watching TV be a daily part of our routine, but it’s our standby for when the schedule is thrown and everyone needs a chance to chill out, which pretty much describes the time frame from when we left for Michigan until today, so we have seen that movie many times now.  I’m really curious as to how long we will be stuck on this movie before they move on to another.

That’s about it.  We’ll try to get pictures up.  It’s just that the blog is now competing with Christmas shopping, classes, volleyball, regular chores and precious little free time.   And, I do have to admit, I have come to rely on Malin’s blog to show you all the current going-ons in this house.  Hopefully, Annamaria will be a blogger too.