It was inevitable

I knew this day would come. I can't be on top of Gracie and Luke 24 hours a day.

The good news is that it wasn't the toilet.

Let me explain. Gracie and Luke refuse to take a bath anywhere but in the guest bathroom. They like the big tub and the sliding glass doors. The doors help them hide from us and they love that they can splash and be silly without making a mess.

Last week, the tub stopped draining well. In fact, it took over a half hour to drain last night. Daddy thought perhaps a recent poop episode resulted in a clogged drain. The thought makes me gag a little. So, I tried using Liquid Plumber gel last night and nothing. The water refused to drain. So tonight, we went and bought the Foaming Pipe Snake version of Liquid Plumber and, on Daddy's suggestion, a new plunger.

I used the Liquid Plumber as soon as we got Gracie and Lukie into bed. It had to be poured in and left to sit for an hour. When I came back an hour later, I turned on the hottest possible water and waited for the drain to start, well, draining.

Nothing. Nada. The tub continued to fill with water and would not drain. So, I grabbed the plunger and started plumbing. Suddenly, weird colored stuff started floating in the water: some turquoise stuff I did not recognize, discarded elastics from Gracie's hair, and then...
a small green alligator toy. The water started draining a bit. Success!

And then, something else poked up from the drain. As the water drained a bit more, I was able to put my hand down and pull up: a yellow, plastic, toy fork.

Why was there a toy fork in the bathtub? I suspect we'll never know.

I'm going to remain happy it was not the toilet with the alligator and fork inside. For now.

The Bee Sting

Two weeks ago, Gracie got stung by a bee.

For the third time in her life.

She's 2 years and 8 months old.

I, on the other hand, have never been stung by a bee. *knock on wood!*

She was pretty traumatized by the bee sting and while I remembered to get the stinger out and give her Benedryl and Motrin, I forgot to do the baking soda paste on the sting. Thus, all of the venom was left in her arm.

By the following morning, her arm looked like this:


It stayed like that until Wednesday. It was pretty scary for me. Gracie just hated it because it hurt. We are practicing a new line for bees when we are in the yard or the park:

"NO BEE! GO AWAY, BEE!"

Do you think that will work?

Don't kid yourself. Sleep is important.

There are some children on this planet who purportedly do not have any problem taking a nap. These same mythical children can survive on little sleep and still behave as angels.

My children do not fall in this category of beings. Oh, no. They are nap-requiring, fussy-when-tired, crazy-when-exhausted, toy-throwing, food-throwing, Mommy-and-sibling-biting children. In essence, your typical almost 20 month old.

On Friday, the day care lady asked me if Gracie had been going to sleep earlier than usual. This is impossible because of her brother, but she was getting tired much earlier. Apparently, her nap time has been out of whack this week and she has hardly been sleeping. Well, no wonder! That explains some of the craziness we have had this week. This morning, she was up at 5 am and taking a hard nap by 9 am. She was out for almost 2 hours.

Luke, on the other hand, was not going to take a nap this morning, no matter what! I tried cuddling with him, giving him his binky, everything, and nothing...no nap. I managed to fall asleep (a total accident, but to be expected when you are up chasing twins at 5 am) and Luke played quietly around me. When he woke me about 20 minutes after I dozed off, I found that he had scaled the kitchen table and dumped all my papers to the floor in an effort to get to the fruit snacks. I also discovered that he had somehow unscrewed the cap on the jumbo bubble container, pulled off the heretofore untouched seal, and pulled out the massive bubble wand. All, I might add, without knocking over the container or spilling any bubble solution. When I discovered this, I had a moment of panic, but then Lukie walked over to me and handed me the bubble wand. He just wanted some bubbles!

These days, when they will not nap like they are used to, are very difficult. They don't want any of the food I make them, they don't want to play nicely, they don't want to do much of anything except all the things I don't want them to do. Add to this Luke throwing up his lunch because he was coughing too hard and you have a pretty fantastically awful day. It is days like today that I am reminded how critical their proper sleep is. When they have their naps, their full night of sleep, they are kinder, gentler Twinsies. They don't throw things nearly as often and I am much less likely to have an imprint of toddler teeth on my outer thigh.

Now, the mommies out there who have my category of toddlers are reading this and nodding in agreement. They know how awful this can be. They've had the days when they would like wine before 10:30 am or would love to have a padded room where they can leave their children for 15 minutes of peace and quiet (or maybe the padded room is really the haven they would like to seach refuge in - to each her own). The mommies of the "perfect" sleepers and non-sleepers are shaking their heads at me right now. "Clearly, Gracie and Luke's Mommy just doesn't have proper discipline of her children. If that were me, my Little Perfect Angel Jim-Bob would know I mean business!"

Seriously, those perfect mommies can take a flying leap! I want a day of peace and quiet. A day when Twinsies take their predictable nap at the predictable time. A day when I can take a shower and not feel like everyone is looking at me and wondering why I look like death warmed over. A day when my children eat the food I put in front of them and signal me when they are all done instead of chucking their apples, french toast, tangerines, etc. across the room to be found weeks later behind the television.

There is something like a month and a half left until summer vacation. I'm wondering if we will be able to have a better schedule then. Oooo! Maybe we will be back in our house so that I will indeed have that padded room for their playing pleasure instead of a teensy one bedroom apartment with no privacy and leaking bathtubs and cockroaches (yes, I found one the other day trying to crawl into our apartment).

Hey, a girl can dream!

The Great Bee Incident, Part 2

Other than some seriously long napping time today, Gracie appears to be fine after her bee sting ordeal.

Daddy and I, however, will never be the same.

Raising my fist into the air.

Darn those bees!

The Great Bee Incident

I don't know what it is about Gracie and creepy crawlies, but seriously kid, give it a rest!

Today, Gracie got stung by a bee. We think the bee was already dead and lounging (I guess you can't lounge if you are dead) on the grass in Aunt Bec's yard. Gracie was playing in the grass when all of a sudden we heard a terrified/pain-filled cry. I rushed over to her and could not figure out why she was crying. That is, until I saw the stinger sticking out of her thumb.

Cousin Hailey pulled the stinger out and Gracie continued to cry. Just in case the doctor needed it, we put the stinger (with the little venom bag still attached) into a zip-lock bag. Aunt Bec and I decided to give Gracie Benadryl and Tylenol. None of us are allergic to bees, but we decided an early hit of anti-histamine would be good. Within a few minutes, her thumb started to swell and the swelling made it down to the soft tissue around the base of her thumb. We washed her thumb with soap and water and held ice to it until she passed out from the trauma. Actually, she did not pass out! She fell asleep after we gave her a bottle.

I am keeping an eye on her to make sure she does not have an allergic reaction to the sting. Here's to an uneventful night!

Though, will someone please tell me why this child is a magnet for creepy crawlies?

What do your babies eat? Mine eat bugs.

Most babies eat squash, carrots, apples, pears...you know, the normal foods. My babies eat these and much more!

Oh, we aren't talking about the Baby Mum-Mums or the Gerber Puffs. We aren't talking about the Wagon Wheels, rice cereal, or even oatmeal. Nope. My babies eat anything they can get their hands on.

This includes (but is not limited to):

carpet fibers
plastic food wrappers
baby blocks
June bugs

June bugs, you ask? Yes. Apparently, they are all the rage among the 10 month old set!

This past weekend, we spent two nights at Nana's. We had lots of fun activities, including our first bout with a major virus. On Saturday morning, we were hanging out and enjoying the fact that we weren't ill for the moment, when I noticed that I did not see Gracie in the general vicinity. Now, this does not normally worry me immediately. Gracie is a very fast crawler and likes to find places to hide.

So, I called out her name and there was no response. I got up from my chair and found Luke trying to push his way past the Baby Dam into the kitchen. No sign of Gracie.

I looked down the hallway, thinking perhaps she was going for the long distance medal. Nope, no Gracie.

It was then that I saw my tiny sprite sitting on her knees by the screen door. She looked intent upon something, but I was not immediately suspicious. That is, until I noticed that her jaw was moving as if she were eating something.

I headed over, ready to swipe my finger through her mouth to pull out whatever paper or carpet fiber she had shoved into her mouth when I noticed a slimy June Bug carcass on the floor in front of her. Now, the June Bug was not new. I saw it when we came through the door the day before. I remember thinking that I should pick the thing up and throw it away. Right. I thought that. I did not do it.

Just as I was about ask Gracie what she had in her mouth, she opened her mouth and spat out the insides of the empty June Bug shell.

Now, I am sure you have several questions, among them being:

Yuck! Didn't she know it was a bug? Um, right. She's 10 months old. Everything is food to her.

Eek! What do June Bug insides look like? Well, they are hard to describe. The best I can do is refer you to those Polynesian noodles. You know, the clear ones.

Yikes! Did you clean her mouth out with bleach??!!! I don't think that is really advisable. I'm sure Dr. Anderson would not have appreciated meeting us at the emergency room for bleach in the mouth.

After I calmed down, I picked Gracie up and said, "Gracie, no! Bugs are not for eating!" (Brilliant, I know.) I complained a lot to Nana, the woman I felt was certainly to blame for my baby girl eating a June Bug. I panicked, thinking, "Holy cow. That thing was dead. What if it died from the horse fly killing pesticide Nana uses!?!?!"

Nana, of course, thought this was all hysterical and tried to calm me down by saying that the June Bug was dead because it did a kamikaze type dive into the screen door. She was just saying that to avoid the blame for letting her granddaughter die from June Bug venom. (Okay. That was an exaggeration.)

Daddy tried to calm me down by saying that people all over the world eat bugs every day. Right, Daddy! They aren't my baby girl!

Then, Daddy tried to say that I would pass out if I knew all the things he ate when he was a little boy. He even listed some of them. Gross! I SO did not need to hear that list.

In the end, I swiped Gracie's mouth to make sure that there wasn't antennae or something like that in her mouth, cleaned her up with a wipie, and made her drink some Pedialyte. I know, so anticlimactic. But what else would you have me do?

The good news is that Gracie is still alive. No rashes, strange things growing from her head, or anything like that. She lives to eat something else she isn't supposed to sometime soon.

That is if I let her out of my sight!

My busy night with a creepy crawly in the hospital

Just thought I'd make you laugh:

So I have a corner room here at the hospital and my wall/window is backs up to a garden planter. When I first was admitted, we killed 3 spiders (no idea if they were dangerous) and noticed some ants trying to start a conga line in my shower. I haven't seen spiders in a while and since the spring/summer cleaning last week, there haven't been any more ants.

Last night, I got up to go to the bathroom and saw something about an inch long crawling across the floor. Now, I was a biology major, so bugs don't scare me. But at 5 am, in the dark, with a pregnant belly, dark shapes on the floor are a little disconcerting. So, I got myself back up onto my bed, tucked my feet up, and turned on the lights just to make sure that I did not have a roach or something in my room. Once the lights were on, I saw that the bug had more legs than I had ever counted in my life! It looked suspiciously like it could be a centipede. A centipede! In Pasadena? In a hospital room? Are they poisonous?

So, I pushed my call button and kept my eyes plastered to the little thing now making its way along the wall trying to hide. My nurse came in and I told her my story. She had to move aside the cart with all of the monitoring devices, but sure enough, there it was. And, YES, it was a centipede. She told me that in the foothills of Pasadena, there are indeed centipedes? How come I did not know this? Again, biology major! How did I miss it? I thought they were in South America or something!

Rather than try to capture him and put him back outside, the nurse smushed him and gave him a burial at sea (hehehehehe!). She checked the rest of the room for any other night visitors and went out to share the news of my "Centipede Attack." I attempted to go back to sleep, but the creepy crawlies, and my newly awakened Twinsies, kept me awake. I kept thinking: "If there was one, there could be more." Yikes! Again, are they poisonous?

Any hoodle, I'm contacting the customer service people today. I can handle ants (I'm in So Cal for crying out loud), even spiders (as long as they are far away from me), but centipedes put me over the edge. Hospitals should be a little more attentive to these kinds of things. Honestly!

Hope you enjoyed my "Centipede Attack!"