We have the sickies

We're all sick. All 5 of us. It started with Sophia, then Rachel, me and Morgan, and now Bob has it too. I wish they had a vaccine for colds. Being sick isn't fun at all, especially when I can't call in sick. I still have to be the mommy.

My poor little sickies kept me up almost all night last night. Poor things were so miserable. So far, tonight is already better. I should be asleep myself, but I took a nice long nap today thanks to Bob for staying home from work to take care of us. So I guess I kind of got to call in sick. It was like a half day at the office, I suppose. I still had to feed them dinner, do laundry and such. Oh how I crave just a whole day in bed watching movies and eating bon bons.

So yeah, I should be sleeping. I'm finishing up with some grocery shopping (God bless Safeway online shopping and delivery). I heard one of the girls coughing so I went into their room to check on them. All of a sudden, I realized how big my "babies" are. They are so big in their cribs. They look like little people instead of the teeny babies who came home from the hospital under 5 pounds each. It feels like just yesterday I was swaddling them and burping them and enjoying their first smile or the first time they rolled over. How did two years go by already? Wow. Just wow!

We're only on day 3 of this lovely cold. I think we picked it up at the park last week. Since we were getting our new tile floor in the kitchen installed, the girls' two occupational therapists and I took the girls to the nearby park and library for one of our sessions. There was a big caterpillar play structure thing with a face. Morgan kept kissing that face. It was pretty funny to see, but I knew we'd catch something. Sure enough, they had lovely runny poopies all weekend long and now we've got this cold. Awesome-ness all around! Oh I even have a picture of Morgan kissing that stinking play structure too. I'll have to upload that off of my camera one of these days.

Okay, I'm just rambling now. Time for me to get some sleep. I have a toddler behavior class I have to attend in the morning. I'm so behind on my blogging lately. I have to attend this class so that we can get further services from the girls' program. It's for Rachel's eating issues. Lots has been going on in that department, but I'll have to save that for another update. I'm sleepy and my grocery shopping is done! Woo hoo!

Happy Birthday to our three little sweeties!

I simply cannot believe that it has been two years since we were blessed with our three precious daughters. I remember the day they were born like it was yesterday. I was 35 weeks, and 1 day pregnant. It was 6 weeks farther than my perinatology team expected me to get. Even at 35 weeks, the girls were so tiny at 3, 4, and 5 pounds. Rachel's little head fit in the palm of our hands. Sophia was a feisty little sweetheart and made it out of the NICU in just over 12 hours. Morgan, well she was Bob's mini me all the way. She still is. I got to meet her first at 10pm after delivering around 5pm. She looked like my husband, only a heck of a lot smaller. I had an instant bond with each of them. Their birthday was the day I finally new how deep a mother's love really is. There is no other feeling like it in the world. I'm so thankful I get to be called, "Mom."

We had the girls' birthday party last weekend. We had a small celebration with just family this year. (Well, and one of my friends who helps us on Mondays, but as far as I'm concerned, she is family!) The girls loved all their presents and enjoyed all the attention they got. They were so spoiled. Here's a cute picture of them opening gifts.

The girls are really starting to talk so much more. Sophia is putting two words together. Her favorite two words are, "need help." She is very into lining up blocks so she can try to sing her ABC's (just like a Barney episode.) And she loves, loves, loves books! Morgan loves to sing. Well, she tries to sing. I think she has an amazing memory. She can spout off all the lines in a lot of Barney episodes that we watch because YES, that purple dinosaur is the king of the world in our house right now. Rachel's speech is starting to take off too. The cutest thing she says right now is, "shoe" while doing the sign for "more" when she is hungry. The sign for more and shoe are very similar and she gets them confused. I love it though. It's too cute when she comes up to me and says shoe when I know she is really asking for food. 

I'm excited to see what the next year is like with the girls. I know we're right on the verge of talking more and communicating better. It's such a cute stage right now..... Difficult of course, but oh so cute which makes it fun too!

Last week.....and randoms from now.

I didn't exercise at all.

I drank a few cokes. (oopsie)

I went out to dinner with my triplet mom fearsome foursome. (That's what I call us because I am a dork.)

I somehow got talked into and committed myself to running a half marathon in July.

I know. #$*&!

What the heck was I thinking?

At least it's a girls weekend away in the city, and I get to eat pasta the night before.

I wonder if I can really do this.

I've done several 5K races and can currently run a comfortable 3 miles.

My friend D took a really bad picture of me today at her house.

I was dancing to a Big Bird song for our combined SIX toddlers.

If I don't lose 2 pounds this week, she says she will post that picture on Facebook.

I'm quite possibly screwed.

Oh well. I guess I better not eat any chocolate this week. Or cokes.

I'm still trying to make small changes, but I totally blew it last week.

I had no plan.

We had the girls' second birthday party this past Saturday.

I ate pizza. And chips with salsa. And coke. And cake. And ice cream.

I was afraid to step on the scale today, so I didn't.

My excuse is that our kitchen is in shambles because we're having the tile put in this week.

I keep my scale in the kitchen. I don't know why.

I better get my fat butt on track this week.

Otherwise, you'll see a picture of a fat girl dancing to a Big Bird song all over Facebook next week.

I have no doubt that she'll really post it.

I think she might hate me.

I'm never dancing to Big Bird at her house again!

Stitches and biopsy results

Rachel had her stitches removed last Thursday. It was certainly an adventure as usual. Poor Rach seems to know where she is as soon as we walk into any doctor's office building. She starts to kick and cry in the stroller as soon as we enter. I feel bad for her. She hasn't exactly had it easy with the biopsies and surgery and appointments lately.

Dr. D didn't make us wait long at all. He came in, Rachel cried..... and then screamed while he took the stitches out. He was really fast though so at least the screaming didn't last too long. It wasn't because it was hurting her. Rach has just had it with doctors and isn't happy when she seems them. I can't blame her. When he was done, he left the room so I could calm Rachel down and we could talk about the biopsy results. That was my first clue that I wasn't going to just hear the happy word, "benign," and be sent on our way. He said, "Let's get her calmed down so we can talk about the pathology report." Ugh! Don't worry though, we didn't get bad news.

I guess you could say the results were um, unsettling...... but good news overall. The tumor was a Spitz Nevus tumor as originally thought. According to the pathology report, the biopsy was neither benign nor malignant. Apparently, the Spitz Nevus tumors usually fall into a gray area. Almost all the time, everything is just fine and there is nothing to worry about. Dr. D thinks that is how it is in our case. If these tumors are not completely removed, they will always come back. He said he is as sure as he can be that he got every last bit of it. We still have to watch her though. She is going to be seeing him every 3 months for the next year so that he can keep a close eye on the area. Then we'll be having her examined at her regular well child check ups annualy. Having had the tumor, it can put her at a higher risk for certain skin cancers, but it's also not that likely. Gray area again.

It was hard for me to comprehend all of this. I fully expected to go in and hear the word benign and then say thank you and good bye! When Dr. D started talking about the gray area and all the statistics and follow up, I have to admit, my head started to spin a little bit. It's like I still don't have the answer I was looking for. Waiting and watching isn't fun for any parent. However, I'm not going to dwell on the gray area. I'm going to focus on the positive news in all this. The tumor has been removed. We have an excellent doctor who is following up to make sure my little girl stays healthy. And... we didn't hear the word malignant. So this is all good news!

I just feel bad for Rachel. She has her 2 year well child check up coming up in the next month. All I can say is that I'm glad they are current with their vaccines and none are scheduled at this next appointment!

And WOW, I can't believe my babies are going to be 2 next week.

Weren't they just born like a week ago?

Oh and if it weren't so late at night, I'd tell you about the two crazy ladies who almost got into a fight in the hospital parking lot over my parking space as I was backing out. One of them practically hit my van trying to beat the other person to the spot. It was a bit crazy!

Goals for this year

It seems like every year I start some sort of diet. Then a couple of weeks into it, I fail miserably. For example, last year I did weight watchers for the....oh I don't know...20th time. Colossal fail!

I ended up starting this year 12 or 13 pounds heavier than I was last year. UGH!

So I decided that I'm not going on a diet. Diets suck, and I suck at diets! But I still need (and want) to lose weight. I've decided to just make small changes. I've formed some seriously bad habits over the last two years. Life with the girls has been super busy and of course stressful. I obviously wouldn't trade it for anything, but I have been eating and drinking (cokes) myself into the biggest pants EVER! 

A couple of weeks ago (okay and still right now) I'm popping out of my fat pants. These aren't the same fat pants I talked about last year. These are new fat pants that I bought a couple of months ago when I busted out of the previous pair. Never buy bigger pants! I refuse to buy bigger pants this time!!!!

So back to my point. I'm making small changes. I'm in week 3 of these changes and I've lost 5 pounds so far. The first week, I gave up cokes. I used to drink 1-2 cokes a day. I'm not talking about diet cokes either. I was drinking 150-300 calories a day in sugar! BAD! I've only had one coke so far this year and that was over the weekend because I REALLY wanted a rum and coke. The second week, I didn't go to Starbucks every day. Yes, there were times when I would go to Starbucks every single day. Now I'm allowing myself three tall non-fat chai tea lattes per week. I'm going to eventually narrow that down to just one or two. 

Here I am in week three, and the goal is to exercise at least five times and eat healthy. I've been doing pretty well for a few days now. I've been jogging on my treadmill when the girls go to bed. Tonight I jogged 2 miles straight without stopping. Go me! 

I haven't decided what my goal for week four will be yet. I originally planned to stop going to the fast food drive-thrus as one of my goals, but with my new mindset, that has just naturally happened. I don't want to eat that crap when I'm working out so hard. 

So I'm hoping that because I'm trying to make small changes and allow myself a treat when I really want it, that I'll be successful. The weight will take a bit longer to come off, but I need to change my lifestyle and not just do a crash type diet. 

I'm going to check in here on my blog each week so that I can be held accountable. I'm already weighing in with a group of friends on Mondays so that's keeping me motivated right now. 

Weight loss isn't the only goal. I want to get this house organized!...... And painted, and actually hang pictures on my walls. We've lived here for over 4 years and I barely have any pictures up. It's pathetic. We're about to have tile put in the downstairs bathroom and kitchen within the next month or so, so I need to paint the bathroom asap. Then when the weather gets a little better, I'm going to finish painting the rest of this house! I'm also in the process of turning the retreat area of our bedroom into a home office so I have a place that is all my own. 

So there ya have it! There's a lot to update about the girls and their therapies, but I'll save that one for the next couple of days. Rachel gets her stitches out on Thursday and I'm hoping Dr. D has the biopsy results for us. I'm going to feel like a huge weight has been lifted when I hear the word, "benign."

This mama is signing off. 

Sad News...

 Our family has been dealing with an incredible loss. Bob's father passed away a few days after Christmas. It's really difficult to write about so I'll just make this short. We're sad the girls will not be able to know their Grandpa. He loved them with his whole heart and lit up every time the girls were around him. He will be greatly missed. 

Rachel is a superstar!

Rachel had her surgery last week. I'm so relieved that it's over and that the tumor is off of my baby. Her pediatric surgeon really is in the right profession. He is so amazing with her. We had to check in at the hospital at 8:40am. The surgery wasn't until a couple of hours later so we had to entertain our hungry almost two year old while we waited. She actually did pretty good for not being aloud to have anything to eat or drink that morning. One of the nurses brought us a tv that had a built in vcr. The only tape they had that I thought she'd actually watch was the Teletubbies. Much to my horror, she LOVED them. Since they are no longer on tv here and I'm not going to be buying any Teletubby dvds, you can bet that she won't be watching that show again. hehehe....

When it was time to get her ready for surgery, a nurse and Bob had to hold my poor baby down to get her to drink some tylenol with a sedative in it. It was really hard to watch. We all know Rachel has issues with eating and drinking almost everything so she had to be given this medication a special way so that she couldn't spit it out. It was awful. However, it kicked in pretty quick and she was almost immediately loopy. It was then time for kisses and hugs and they took her away to the operating room. Oh how I wished I could go with her. I think by that point, she was under the medication pretty good and didn't really know she was being taken away from Mommy anyway. You know I cried though!

She was supposed to be back there for 45 minutes. So when 45 minutes turned into 60 minutes, I was trying not to freak out. Bob and I sat in the waiting room just kind of staring at the walls and tapping our feet with impatience. Dr. D finally came out and brought us back to see our sweet Rachel. She was sound asleep with an oxygen mask over her face. I know it was all normal but I started to shed some tears seeing her like that.

The drama started within seconds of her waking up. She woke up about 20 minutes before they expected her to. We were told that some people metabolize the anesthesia faster than others and will wake up while they are still under the drugs. She started screaming and was completely inconsolable for about 20 minutes. The nurse had to hold her foot to protect her from hurting it because she was thrashing her arms and legs. They even had to tape her IV up because she was trying to rip it out.  I was holding her and she didn't even recognize me. It was heart breaking. They ended up having to put her back to sleep. It freaked me out though because once the nurse gave her the sleepy drugs, her body went limp in my arms and I could feel that her chest wasn't moving. She was only taking a breath about every 10 seconds. The nurse assured me that it was normal and her breathing improved once they put the oxygen back on her.

She slept for maybe 5-10 more minutes. When she woke up the second time, she was as happy as could be and just snuggled with me while she drank some juice. She was so precious. I was so proud of her. After about an hour, she was being released and we were on our way home.

When we got home, Rachel and I snuggled in our bed and watched a little Barney. Then we both fell asleep. That evening, you wouldn't even have known that she had surgery that day. She was walking around just fine and was in a happy mood. She's been doing great ever since!

We do have to go back next Thursday to have her stitches removed. She has a cute little pink and purple bandage protecting the incision. We've been keeping her in zipper/footie pjs all week to keep her from playing with the bandage.

I snapped a cute picture of her after changing her diaper and before getting her dressed again. You can see her sporting the cute bandage. I'm so proud of how well she has done. I was so worried this surgery would set her back, but she's done just fine!

Our next step is to wait about another week for the biopsy results. Dr. D is still 99.9999% sure that it will be benign just like last time. I'll feel a lot better once I know for sure!!!!