a dollar for our daddy

I met Daddy a few days before his 18th birthday. He was ginormous! He was 6 foot 3 inches tall and weighed close to 250 pounds. I told him within hours of meeting him that I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley.

We started dating a month later and I had the distinct pleasure of watching him play football. He was awesome. He was a tank. It was beyond cool!

But something happened a few months into 1989. He started to lose weight. He went from 250 pounds to under 180. He was close to becoming skin and bones. It was a scary. He had no idea what was wrong. Neither did his doctors. For months, they tested him for different things and could not figure out what was happening.

Then, one day, he became so sick that he was hospitalized. His friend, Joe's, mom after hearing all of his symptoms asked a question that would change Daddy's life forever: "Have they tested for diabetes?"

Joe's mom, Ida, had lived with Type I diabetes her entire life and the symptoms Daddy had were very much like the symptoms she experienced when her diabetes was not under control. Sure enough, a blood test confirmed that Daddy's blood glucose level was over 600. His doctor told him that he should have been in a coma. We were all stunned. There was no history of diabetes in Daddy's family, at least not Type I. To Daddy, it was like a death sentence. No more football, no more real life.

I won't share more of Daddy's story. It's really his to share. Needless to say, he lived his life as if he was invincible and diabetes couldn't hurt him. If he could go back and change his behavior, I know he would do it in a heartbeat. Those years of not taking care of himself have resulted in major health problems today.

A few years ago, before Gracie and Luke were even imagined, Daddy started walking in the America's Walk for Diabetes. The Walk raises money for the American Diabetic Association. The ADA uses the money to help search for a cure for diabetes. Over the past 4 years, he and his team have raised over $10,000 for diabetes research.

This weekend is the big weekend. Step Out for Diabetes Walk is Sunday in Santa Clarita. This year, our team is small. This year, people have fewer funds to share and Daddy is very far from his goal. He lowered it this year, because he knew people would not be able to help as much as in the past. His goal is to raise $2000. So far, he has raised only 61% of that amount.

So here's the thing: He only needs $784 to reach his goal. If you read this and his story touches you in any way or if you know of someone whose life has been affected by diabetes, will you please help? Any amount will do. Maybe you will be the person who adds $4 to decrease the amount he needs to $780 or maybe you'll decide to be the person who adds $34 to decrease it to $750. It doesn't matter. Every amount is welcome.

Will you help? Click here to visit his sponsorship page.

Oh, and if you are free, come Step Out with us this Sunday. Gracie and Lukie will be walking, too (until they get bored and want to be held...at the same time...by me).

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone! Daddy only has $289 more to raise. If you can, won't you please help?!

Gosh, I love my kids

I was scrolling through my blog a few minutes ago, minding my own business, when suddenly a picture of Gracie and Luke flashed before my eyes. Before I knew it, a WAVE of love washed over me. Have you ever felt that? That tingling wave that starts at the top of your head and washes through your body? A feeling of love that makes you want to find the person immediately and hug them senseless?

This one felt that way to me.

It's amazing to me that I have two children; two amazing 2 year olds with their own personalities, likes and dislikes, and their own hearts brimming with love for the people around them.

What did I do to deserve them? I guess that's my question every day. When they are happy and loving life...what did I do to deserve two fantastic kids? When they are tired and cranky and running into Men's bathrooms...what did I do to deserve these two amazingly independent children? When they hug me and kiss me and cuddle up to me...what did I do to have two little children love me so?

When times are tough, I ask myself these questions. When it seems like life can't get any worse, I remind myself how truly, amazingly, fantastically blessed I am to have Gracie and Lukie in my life.

And then that wave of love feels like a warm, sunny ocean. It can't get any better than that.

A Birthday Party with Friends

Today was James and Jonathan's birthday party at The Little Gym. What a totally fun place to go! We had a great time climbing, balancing, throwing balls at the back of other children's heads, kicking them in the back...Oh, wait, that part wasn't so fun.

Anyway, Gracie and Luke had a great time. We got to see James and Jonathan, whose mommy was in the High Risk Pregnancy Unit with me for a very long time, and we got to see Lucas and Riley twins of one of our Twin Momma group. I took a ton of pictures and have a video, but it needs to be edited.

Here are some pictures to tide you over until I get my act together.

After this birthday party, we are feeling even better about the presents we got James and Jonathan. We bought them a fabric play tunnel and a tent to hide in! We hope they really like them!

Oh the Places You'll Play!

We went to IKEA to buy a present for our friends, James and Jonathan, who are celebrating their 2nd birthday today. While we were shopping, we came across a tent. The brilliance of IKEA is that they have all of the children's toys out, allowing the kids to play and rock and climb. It is brilliant because parents are unable to leave without purchasing at least one of the things that made their children smile.

We bought a tent.
The tent likes Gracie's hair.

How Do You Do It?

I get asked all the time how we handle/survive with twins.

How we do it is that we imagine the worst possible scenario and plan everything we can to avoid it. If the worst thing is that Lukie will run out into the street, then Lukie gets carried to the car. If the worst thing is that Gracie and Luke will spill their juice all over the living room, then they get water instead or we go outside. If the worst thing is that they will scream and cry and make our meal out a living nightmare, then we go to McDonald's or Panda Express where the food is handed out before we sit down and there is no waiting.

It's all a balancing act. It's a constant assessment and reassessment of our plans and the current landscape. At times, it means we curtail our plans and other times we forge ahead with the full knowledge that we will be reminded in a fantastic way of how stupid we were for that decision.

Case in point: The Los Angeles Zoo

We got our Los Angeles Zoo passes in July. The first time we used them was for Gracie and Luke's birthday on September 5th. Ever since that weekend, I've been itching to take them back. We only saw half of the Zoo for their birthday and they've been asking about the lion repeatedly.

Since Daddy has dialysis on Saturday mornings, I've been hesitant about taking Gracie and Luke to the Zoo by myself. I've asked Nana to go with us (she never called me back), but nothing seems to work out. I've worked through every worst case scenario I can think of prior to today. Here are some of them:

1. Lukie and Gracie running in different directions and I don't know who to go after first.
2. Lukie or Gracie climbing on a fence and falling into the bear or rhinoceros pit.
3. Lukie or Gracie pitching a fit of epic proportions and me having to carry one or both of them out of the Zoo.
4. Losing one of them.
5. Lukie or Gracie running into an unlabelled door that turns out to be the entrance to the tiger exhibit.
6. Leaving quickly because I can't handle this all on my own.

This morning, I realized I was just a big baby. I mean, heck, people take kids to the Zoo all the time! Surely, I could handle two 2 year olds. Seriously, I used to take 15 six year olds to the Zoo and to Disneyland and the beach! This should be a walk in the park!

Here are some of the things working against me:

• The Zoo doesn't open until 10 am and we did not arrive until 10:45 am. This is 1 hour and 15 minutes before Gracie and Luke's nap.
• The weather was beautiful and there were triple the number of people there today as compared to their birthday trip to the Zoo.
• I made the fatal error of choosing not to take the stroller in with us.
• Despite their love of looking at trains, neither Gracie or Luke was happy with the tram.

When we arrived, there were clearly more people there than during our last visit. I convinced Gracie and Luke to hold my hands rather than try to wrangle the stroller and two toddlers who would definitely want to get out and stand in front of each of the exhibits. For the entire walk from the car to the front gate, the visit to the seals, the walk up the steps and past the stores...Heck! all the way to the flamingos...they were awesome! I mean, they already wanted me to pick them up a half dozen times to see the "mingos" and the meerkats, but we were okay.



When I saw the tram up ahead, I asked them if they wanted to ride the "Choo-choo." Lukie was so excited that he tried to jump on the wrong side of the tram. Gracie immediately balked. "No choo-choo, Mommy! No choo-choo!" I convinced her that she would be safe on my lap and away we went. In retrospect, we should have ridden the tram all the way around the Zoo to decide what we really wanted to see and then come back around to stop. Instead, Lukie got excited by the sound of the Howler Monkeys and I decided to get us all off.

Lukie and Gracie traipsed happily down the hill and we looked at the rhino, the Howler Monkeys, and the hippo. They were very happy to be free and would hold my hand when I asked them to. We walked to the giraffes, sat down and had some water and a few M&Ms. We talked to the giraffes and Gracie decided the tallest one was the Daddy Giraffe. When it was time to leave the giraffes, it became evident that our lovely trip was about to take a turn for the worse.

Lukie did not want to leave the giraffes and when I picked him up off of the steps he was trying to climb, he insisted that he wanted to be held. Instead, I worked a little Mommy Magic and said, "Who's ready? On your mark, get set, go!" Gracie and Luke took off running and Gracie took a header into the cement walkway. She was fine, but she wanted to be cuddled for a bit, so I carried her. This led to Lukie wanting to be held as well.

I managed to distract them by entering then Red Ape exhibit. There was an enormous orangutan sleeping against the glass. Gracie and Luke were able to walk right up to it and put their fingers "on" him. That occupied us for a few minutes and then Gracie discovered the telescope. She climbed up it by herself and proclaimed, "Mine!"

This did not go over well with Lukie and he immediately started to try to pull her off of the telescope perch. Thus ensued 5 minutes of me trying to distract one twin so that the other could climb and a certain twin taking off down the path while I tried to pry the former off of the telescope perch. I finally caught up with my little angelic girl child and we headed tried to continue our journey to find the lion.

Really. Is it so much to ask to see one lion? Really?

On our way down the hill, Lukie started running again and he took a header into the ground. We wiped off his scrapes, but he wanted to be held and Gracie was no longer willing to hold my hand. This is when things went horribly awry.

As we approached the gorilla exhibit, Lukie was playing wet noodle in an attempt to get me to hold him. Gracie was walking ahead of us. I remember asking them if they wanted to go see the gorillas and as we started to make the right turn into the gorilla maze, my worst fears were realized. Lukie took off in one direction and Gracie took one look at Lukie and me and made a beeline for the gorilla maze. For two seconds, I stood there trying to figure out which one to go after. Both of them are pretty darn cute and easily snatched by some evil doer. But my brain processed that Gracie had entered the gorilla maze and there really wasn't far for her to go. Lukie, on the other hand, had headed toward the side of a building and down a path. I had no idea where he was going and that scared me. So I took off after him.

As I rounded the corner, I realized he was no where in sight. He had completely disappeared. And that is when I noticed that a door was open on the building. As I ran toward it, I realized it was a bathroom. The Men's Bathroom. Lukie was standing right inside the door, the little punk, and after he saw me, he ran completely into the bathroom where I could not see him. Desperate, but not willing to surprise a bunch of men doing their business, I called out to him and then asked if someone could please bring the little boy out. A nice grandpa shooed Lukie out of the bathroom and into my vice-like grip. I thanked him and took off in the direction of where I had seen Gracie last. There she was, pulling herself up on the rail to try to see the gorillas more. I managed to snag her and get us up to the top of the gorilla exhibit.

I'll spare you the details of the next hour. Here's a very short recap:

• Crying, wet-noodling by both twins
• An attempt to buy a snack turns into "Wrestle one kid to stay by my legs while trying to pay while the other takes off and completely leaves my sight"
• Half a tub of popcorn is consumed and a fight begins over the one drink Mommy (stupidly buying one) purchased.
• It takes us 40 minutes to get to the shopping area of the Zoo (a walk which would normally take about 10 minutes)
• Gracie attempts to 1) assume the role of a Zoo employee by running behind the cashier's counter in a store and 2) get me arrested for child abuse when she begins screaming at the top of her lungs and pulling her arm away from me so hard I was afraid it would pull out of the socket.
• 5 blissful minutes are spent watching the seal again until we have to go and Lukie starts the Epic Tantrum of All Tantrums (just picture the absolute worst tantrum ever, add running away from me in a zigzag pattern and attempting to hide from me while running through 5 other families, then almost running into the street and you'll get a great picture in your head)
• I am forced to let them walk in the parking lot because my arms will no longer carry them.
• Lukie tries to run in front of a car.
• Gracie tries to lock me out of the car.
• They are both asleep before we get on the freeway.

No lion is seen by us at any time.

If I weren't already exhausted from the day, I'd probably pass out from all of that!

Since my adrenaline is completely spent, I can tell you that after reflecting on the day, our next trip will be after their nap and involve the double stroller. That's right, the stroller with the five point harness. I'm not going to avoid the Zoo. That would be cowardly.

It's just that next time, I'm going to remember what I've learned from the past 2 years: Expect the worst and you can avoid the worst.

I'm going to regret doing this

Helene over at I'm Living Proof God Has a Sense of Humor, one of my fav blogs, has 2 sets of twins. Unlike me, who keeps my computer life very separate from my kiddos (I don't want them to figure out how to use the computer better than I can), Helene has allowed her kiddos to use her computer to watch shows on the internet and peruse different animal websites. Recently, they discovered that the San Diego Zoo has live camera feeds of several animals enclosures.

You do realize what this means, don't you?

They have an elephant cam.

They have a panda cam.

If I show Gracie and Luke this website, I'll never get my computer back. Then again, they would LOVE to see the animals. They get excited by pictures in a board book, so seeing real live animals is going to floor them!

Do I do it? Do I show them the zoo cams? Do I risk my already tenuous hold on MY computer?

Feeling Flash-backy

Nana has me combing my computers for pictures of her to send in for her reunion. Can you believe it has been 40 years since she graduated from high school? (She's going to kill me for that!)

Anyway, I came across a few pictures in my Photobucket account that are simply too cute to pass up. These are from my 36th birthday party. Gracie and Luke were about 7 months old.

Daddy's Lament

"It happened."

This was how Daddy started our conversation last night about the events of yesterday morning. 

"What happened?" I asked, not sure if I needed to be concerned or not.

"Well, Grandma and Grandpa were helping me get Gracie and Luke dressed this morning and as soon as he was dressed, Lukie walked over to the door and stood there.  Then he said, 'Friends.' "

 (Friends is our magic word for school.  As in:  "Gracie and Lukie, let's go play with your Friends.")

Daddy continued, "So, I called him over to put his backpack on and then we put Gracie's backpack on and they led me out the door.  They walked me to school."

So the days of not wanting to go to school are over.  No more attempting to run the opposite direction down the street to avoid crossing at the crosswalk.  No more crying when Daddy and Grandma drop them off.  No more falling to the ground in an attempt to avoid being taken over the threshold. 

Gracie and Luke love school. 

I'm not sure why this makes Daddy sad.  Especially when you consider the reception when he goes to pick them up!

Empathy

At 2 years old, you'd think Gracie and Luke would be all about themselves. For the most part, they are, but when it comes to someone getting hurt or sad, Gracie and Luke are among the first on the scene to offer help, hugs, and love.

Gracie is a back-patter. She'll pat your back and say, "It's okay, Momma! It's okay!" She'll offer kisses and hugs or whatever is needed to make you feel better.

Lukie is a little different. He will cock his head to one side and say, "Okay, Momma? Okay?" and if you don't respond right away, he'll say it for you: "Okay, Momma, okay." He may pat your back or your cheek. He'll hold your hand until you feel better.

They are quick to comfort the people they love and, when they see a friend in need, will approach them if they feel safe. When they don't, they'll hold my hand and make mewling sounds in sympathy.

Tonight, we watched the movie Dumbo for the first time. They were facinated by all of the elephants and the other animals. They were very excited and told us the names of the animals they saw:

"Momma, elephant!"

"Papa, 'ook! 'raffe!" (Giraffe)

They were a little nervous of the lightening in the beginning, but it did not bother them too much.

Cut to the scene when Dumbo's Mommy holds him through the bars of her cage and rocks him in her trunk. I was in tears listening to Baby Mine and thinking about how incredibly awful I would feel if I were kept from my babies. I wasn't facing Gracie at the time, but all of a sudden, I heard a cry and looked over at her. My baby girl was sitting on the couch, clutching her blanket, tears streaming down her face, crying for a little baby elephant who cold not be with his Mommy. I went over to her an picked her up gently, as she was very upset. I took her to my chair and rocked her. It took a lot of reassuring, but eventually, I convinced Gracie that the Mommy (Mrs. Jumbo) would get out soon and that she and Dumbo would be able to play together soon.

While she stopped crying, Gracie did not leave my lap for the rest of the movie. I was stunned at how much my little girl gleaned from watching a movie. There was nothing scary about the scene, but for a little girl and boy who have spent months away from their Daddy and had to leave him in the hospital, it clearly touched her.

The experts say that toddlers don't begin to empathize until closer to 3. Maybe Gracie and Luke are experiencing empathy earlier because of the events of the past year. I don't know which is the case. I just know that my little girl cried for a baby elephant tonight because he could not be with his Mommy.

And it made me very proud to be her Mommy.

The Doctor's Visit

Friday's doctor's visit was preceded by a visit to the park. Unfortunately, I did not plan well. They were filthy by the time we left to drive to the doctor's office.

Lucas decided to show us how great he will be one day as a base runner. Gracie reminded me that she is in charge of herself and I have no say whatsoever!

Lots of Things to Say

Gracie and Luke are talking so much now that we are walking around in a state of constant bewilderedness at the things they say. We have to be very careful what we say because they will parrot it right back.

Gracie is the more talkative of the two, but Lukie holds his own.

Here's a sample of their words: