How do you do it?

Other than, "Are they natural," "How do you do it," is the second most common question I get from most people. Lately, I've been wondering how the hell any of us moms of multiples do it. Seriously! To me, one baby would be hard, two babies would be even harder, and three is just insanity. I'm not even going to tell you how much I'd bow down to the quad or quint mom. Octomom though? Well, she can kiss my butt!

Here I go posting about the harder times again instead of all the fun stuff that goes on in our house. There are a lot of fun things right now. I laugh all day long. I really do. But lately, there have been a lot of tears as well. I've said before that we go through really tough periods and then fun and then it gets tough again. It seems to ebb and flow every couple of months. Right now.... is one of those harder periods.

Rachel is struggling with her eating and isn't really making much progress with the feeding therapy or the behaviorist.  She had a rough session this morning and ended up crying so hard that she puked. She just cannot handle food and I have no idea where this ever came from. It seems like it just came out of nowhere about a year ago. She's down to only eating yogurt if I dip the spoon into the yogurt and then into banana baby food. She will no longer eat cereal or let me mix cereal or pediasure into her yogurt. I'm the hunt for some sort of powder to mix into her milk. I'm also looking for a liquid childrens vitamin to mix into her juice. She's hardly eating at all. Thankfully, she doesn't seem to be losing any weight yet but I'm concerned she's going to. Because today's session went poorly, we're going to have another meeting about where to go from here. She's one of the toughest cases they've had on a child who isn't severely autistic. All of her food related behaviors are the same as children on the spectrum. We still have another month to go before she is "officially" evaluated. She's a harder case because she interacts very well and doesn't have a lot of the classic autism symptoms so they aren't sure which direction to go with her.

I'm having my surgery on Friday. I'm nervous about it. I'm mostly worried about the recovery and how soon I'll be able to lift the girls and take care of them on my own again. I actually have a lot of guilt about even doing this in the first place. I know I need to. I've been feeling pretty crappy for a long time. I know once I recover, I'll be a much healthier mommy for my girls! I just hope that the surgery stays minor and that my doctor doesn't need to do a hysterectomy at this point. There's more to it, but that's all I'm going to share with the internet.

I've been the membership chair person for my multiples group since July of last year. I've made the hard decision to stop volunteering for at least the next year. I'm going to finish the one year commitment that I made, but after that, I'm done. I'm really torn with this decision, but I know it's the right one. I just don't have the time or the energy that it takes to keep doing it. When I agreed to this position almost a year ago, I didn't anticipate everything that has happened in the past year. Shortly after I started, the tumor showed up on Rachel's ankle that we had biopsied and then that led to her surgery and another biopsy. We also got the news that the girls were several months delayed with their development and we started their 4 day a week therapy schedule. Bob's father passed away. I haven't been feeling well and am now having surgery myself. I'm tired just thinking about this stuff. I am still going to be a part of the group. I really do love the club. I am just going to be a regular member and resign from the board. My family comes first and the girls need all of me right now. I am really looking forward to the summer when I can relax and not have any outside responsibilities.

So yeah... I don't know how I'm doing it all right now, but at least I have all weekend in bed recovering to figure it out! :)