The boys are feeling much better and back to themselves. Gavin did end up coming down with it. He was sick Thursday night and missed school on Friday. He was back to school today. He threw up so hard that he ended up with lots of petechiae (peh-TEH-kee-a) all over his face.

This “spring forward” thing is a whole ‘nother ballgame though. Who would have thought an hour lost would completely mess with my world. The twins are still on Standard Time. So everything about their day is an hour behind. And that’s screws with my day like nobody’s business. Gavin starts kindergarten at 12:25pm. It’s during his 3 hour day at school that the twins are suppose to be napping. Today they didn’t go down until after 1:30pm. Even then they were talking and playing in their cribs for a good hour before finally boring each other to sleep. I had to wake them up at 4:15pm. I don’t know how I’m going to get them back to their 8:30am – 8:30pm schedule. It’s going to take at least a week to adjust.

Friday I paid to rent some space for a Mom-to-Mom sale at a nearby Trade Center/Flea Market. Hoping to get rid of a lot of baby stuff. I’ve been going through it little by little since Friday. Tonight I was sorting and pricing until 2am.

Here’s what my sorting looked like. See that tiny little bare spot on the center of the couch? That’s where I was sitting. Surrounded by a year and a half worth of twin baby clothes. If anyone was due to have twin boys in July, they could have all the clothes they’d need for at least the entire first year.

Last Thursday night around 2am Brady woke up screaming. This wasn’t his usual “check to see if mom’s paying attention” cry. But more of an urgent cry. As I walked through their bedroom door, that’s when the fog hit me. It was the unmistakable odor of vomit. I took him downstairs to clean him up. Change his jammies and offer a sip of water. Not wanting to wake Blake up, I just layed with Brady on the full mattress on the floor in their room. He snuggled right up and went quickly back to sleep.

That was the beginning of a long night and what was soon to be a long week. Brady continued to throw up almost every half hour to 45 minutes. Every time he’d start to whine and do his “death roll” in the bed, I knew it was coming. I must have changed his jammies 3 times. I layed a huge beach towel down under him and grabbed a stack of recieving blankets from the closet. Blake slept soundly through all of this.

At about 6am, Blake started to stir and whine in his sleep. He didn’t sound too good. I picked him up and then suddenly “BLECH!” He’s throwing up. Most of the day Friday they weren’t keeping much down. They were only getting liquids all day. Just little sips every half hour until they could keep it down. They were miserable Saturday, Sunday and on Monday, the diareah started. They were on plain liquids again yesterday and so far neither has had a dirty diaper. I’m hoping that means it’s about out of their systems.

I felt so sorry for them. Blake’s fever went up to about 103F. Both of them have been clingy and irritable for several days. They’re still not running at 100% and I miss my happy babies. This morning they were back to fighting over the same toy, even though there’s a duplicate toy nearby.

Here’s a picture from Saturday afternoon of my recuperating boys watching their favorite Elmo video.

Because I’m at a complete loss for words tonight, and since I can’t do a Way Back Whensday on a Thursday, I thought I’d make up my own theme for today. I shall call it, “Throwback Thursday.”

That’s me, August 1973. I was flowergirl in my uncle’s wedding. I was 5yrs old. The dress, I think, was homemade. I remember the material. I remember the flowers and little white dots were raised and felt like velvet. I remember I stayed at someone’s house I’d never been too, but can’t remember who’s house it was. I do remember that at breakfast that morning, I was complaining that my milk was warm (I still hate warm milk to this day); and someone had plopped and ice cube in my milk. I thought it was gross that there was an ice cube floating in my milk. I remember looking at it melting and literally watering down my milk. I have vague memories of the wedding itself. But I remember my necklace, a bridal party gift from the bride. The silver charm was engraved with my initials. And I STILL have it. My uncle and aunt will celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary this August.

Why is it that a tiny little spider can totally freak me out? I know I’m like a million times bigger than it. I’m sitting here at my computer, no other light but the light from my monitor and out of the corner of my eye, I see movement. To my right I see a spider crawling along the edge of my desk. Now I had recently cleaned my desk, so of course there were no napkins or papers close by. So I had to reach with my feet to grab the garbage pail under my desk right where the spider had stopped and was looking at me. I pulled out a piece of paper from the pail and went for the spider. In the 1.3 seconds it took for me to actually squash the spider, all these scenerios played in my mind. “What if I miss him and he falls to the floor. It’s so dark. I won’t see him. I’ll be afraid to put my feet under the desk. He’s right on the edge corner. It’s possible I’ll slip. Oh just go for it. He see’s it coming. What if he jumps.”

Finally I attacked head on and I won. As I’m squeezing the crumbled up piece of paper with the spider inside, again I’m wondering.. “Is he dead? can he bite me through this paper? What if I throw him in the garbage and he isn’t dead. He’ll get out and come after me.” I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep two floors up knowing that he might be down here. So I took him to the toilet. There, he’s gone. Better flush it twice.

Dave was working late tonight, so it was just the boys and I having dinner. I threw a quick kid friendly dinner together (mac-n-cheese with polish kielbasa) Here’s how it all went down.

Twins are in their high chairs. I make Gavin’s plate first and place it in front of him at the table. I cut up some sausage for Blake & Brady. They each have a small plate of sausage with a dap of ketchup and a bowl of mac-n-cheese. Everyone is set and beginning to eat. I grab myself a plate and spoon on some mac-n-cheese. I sit down, take one bite. Gavin wants something to drink. I sit back down, take one bite. Brady points to his bowl and says “more.” I get him more mac and sit down and take one bite off my plate. Blake points to his bowl, “more.” Again I sit and take another bite and Brady want’s more ketchup. Then Blake wants more sausage. Then Brady wants more sausage. Then Brady wants more milk, then Blake wants more milk. I’m up, I’m down. I think I had about 5 bites off my plate in total.

I leave you with some fun video of Blake & Brady.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgmE-7N2bb4]

Friday night a couple girlfriends and I had a fun night out. It was a night that we all needed and was long overdue.  Bren and Shannon booked a room at the Windsor Hilton in Canada. They went over late in the afternoon and then I met them there. The hotel was just a few city blocks from Caesars Hotel & Casino, so we drove over.

The first 45 minutes of being there, we got completely lost. We were just walking around, having no clue where we were going.   Most of it was because of Shannons fear of escalators (this I only learned about her less than a few years ago).  In order to get anywhere in the hotel and casino, you have to take escalators. The hotel and casino are 2 seperate buildings with a small connection between the two. And in order to get from one to the other, you have to take an escalator.  So most of our evening was spent looking for alternative routes so that Shannon could avoid the escalators. We tried several times to convince her that nothing would happen to her, but she insisted her phobia was serious.  But we had so much fun. I never rode so many elevators in one evening.  One elevator we got on was double sided. The side that opened was not the side we entered through. And when the doors opened this is what we saw.  Brenda decides to push every button and every floor looked the same. I turned around at the door we entered through, leaned my face against it and just started shouting “hello? hello? anyone there?”  Brenda and Shannon were hysterical. Every where we went it was completely deserted. We were so far deep in elevators, it was like a maze. Finally the opposite door, the one we entered through, opened. And we were back where we started.

We finally found our way to the casino and more importantly, the buffet. I never ate so much in my life. It happened to be Seafood night at the buffet. By the end of our meal we had a mile high pile of crab leg shells on our table. I only wish I had snapped a photo of it. The three of us started reciting lines from John Pinette’s famous “Chinese Buffet” skit and laughing so hard we about peed our pants. You can see all the crazy pictures here.

In other news. My little problem solver is at it again.

I am so tired of winter. Normally I don’t mind these winter months, and probably wouldn’t mind the snow so much, but it’s this darn bitter cold. Why does it have to be so cold? We’ve had a whole winter’s worth of winter just in the last 4 weeks.

I hate when I have to take Gavin to school and I have to bundle up both babies to drive 4 blocks. I hate that when I come down to my computer, which is in the basement, I have to put on 2 layers of clothes. It’s probably one of the main reasons I’ve been a blog slacker, because I hate coming down to my cold basement. Right now I have a tank top on, then a flannel pajama top on over that and then a thick sweater over that. I have a thick pair of socks on with knitted footie slippers over them. I’m wearing jeans with long johns underneath, and I’m wrapped in a polar fleece blanket. All so that I can sit here and type about how much I hate being cold all the time.

In other news, we’re finally near the finishing touches of Gavin’s room. Gavin wanted a Superhero bedroom. So my mom and I spent countless hours painting him a Superhero bedroom. You can see the progression photos here.

Dave recieved his Stanley Cup ring about a week ago.  They get better and better with every championship.  Mind you, he didn’t recieve the exact ring that the players recieve, but instead, a replica with a little less.. sparkle?

The thing is a monster nonetheless. It’s nice though that the organization recognizes those that played a part in support of our Wings. Below is a picture of the actual ring that the players recieve and then pictures of Dave’s ring. Then last, I took a picture of it on my finger just to show the pure magnitude of this thing. Mind you, it doesn’t look as big on Dave’s hand as it does on mine. But it’s still huge.

 Blake & Brady turned 18 months yesterday. A year and a half has flown by. They have their 18 month well-visit on Friday. They most always end up weighing the same and measuring the same.  I also scheduled for both of them to have tubes put in their ears. In the last 6 months alone we’ve battled way too many ear infections. They finally saw an Ear, Nose & Throat doctor last week and yes, they both have fluid in their ears.  I’m nervous about it of course but, I know it’s a routine procedure and it is going to benefit them so so much. I’m anxious to see if they start hearing better and as a result start to really talk more. They do talk a little, but I’m looking forward to seeing if the talking really picks up after the tubes are put in. I’m also anxious to see if it makes nights any better. Surprisingly though, both boys slept about 11 hours last night. Brady woke up once, but I didn’t have to put him back to sleep, he just kind of stirred, fussed and then found his bear and went back to sleep.  It’s been a long time, if at all, that we’ve had a full nights sleep.  It’s always one of them that needs to be comforted back to sleep.  And during an ear infection, it’s a nightmare.

Gavin turns 6 next week.  Last year, before his 5th birthday, whenever we wanted him to try a new food, or just do something he’s not used to, he’d say, “When I’m 5 I can do that” or “When I’m 5 years old I can eat that.”  We’d tell him all the time that he’s going to be quite a busy boy when he turns 5.  Well, needless to say, he’s going to be a busy 6 year old too.  In school (kindergarten), he’s starting to learn greater than and less than. And I think he’s beginning to catch on because the other day I wanted him to try some swiss steak my mother had made and he said, “When I’m 13 I can eat that.”  Seems he’s learning he can buy himself a lot more time by going with higher numbers. At least I know he’s paying attention in school. Kids are so much smarter than we give them credit for.