A Love Letter

Does every parent think about their child's birth on every birthday that child has?  Well, I do... and it always chokes me up.

Eight years ago today, I gave birth to my twins via c-section.  My son was born at 2 lbs, 5 oz.  Two minutes later my daughter was born at 1 lb, 15 oz.  The line between complete joy and complete sorrow had never been thinner.

After three months of heart surgeries, tubes, needles, blood work and tears, I was able to bring them home. Every day I counted my blessings that they were still alive, and thriving.  I had seen them stop breathing so many times in the NICU that I knew it could happen at the drop of a hat.  They had died a thousand times in my head.

I have so many wishes for my children... but some of them are selfish, I must admit. And a whole lot of them naive...

May you never tell me you hate me, but if you do, may you only mean it for a fleeting moment.

May you never be embarrassed to be seen with me in public.  In turn, I promise to never show up in curlers and pajama bottoms.

May you never make the driving mistakes I did when I was younger, relying on the skill of other drivers to avoid an accident.

May you never pick up a cigerette.

May you stay healthy.

May you cherish your childhood, as I promise to make it the best that I can.

May you acknowledge that.

May you recognize my mistakes, forgive me for them, and learn from them.

May you never take anyone for granted.

May you always say "I love you" with your good byes, b/c whether you are getting on the bus to go to school down the road, or getting on a plane to go to college, I will always have the fleeting thought that it may be the last time I see you.

Please don't need a plane to go to college!

May you date someone who treats you like garbage, but only for a little bit, so when "the one" does come along, you will know how lucky you are.

May you marry someone who treats you like your father treats me...

May your best friend be your twin.  May you realize how lucky you are that they are alive.

May you realize how lucky you are to be alive.

And may you have children.  For it is only then will you realize how much I love you.

Mother of the Year.... Yes please!

I nominate myself for Mother of the Year.  All you other mother's can suck it.  And here's why...

My 7 year old twins got off an hour early from school today.

And I didn't know.

And I wasn't home.

And I apparently scarred my daughter for life.

Luckily I can bribe them with presents so they don't tell their father, he already thinks I'm crazy.  To verify my craziness, see ALL my other blog posts.

Luckily my neighbor was home and they went next door.  I can't imagine what would have happened if she wasn't home.  I felt horrible when she called me.  Horrible.

At least I wasn't at the bar trying to get my drink on.  I do that in the morning while my youngest is at school.  Hey, I am not a totally irresponsible mother!  I will wait until she is at least a teenager before I bring her.

Sweatpants are the Devil's Doing

You know you are gaining weight when you go out to buy "fancy sweatpants" aka Yoga Pants.  Wearing yoga pants while out and about town gives off the impression that I work out, that I am attempting to lose weight and get healthy.

Or perhaps I don't have anybody fooled, and they really give off the impression that I don't want to have to stuff all the junk in my trunk into a pair of unforgiving jeans.  Wearing jeans makes me feel fat, as the waistband doesn't grow with you, it want's you to stay in the past, when you were 10 pounds lighter.  A Yoga pant waist band is more like a great friend, you know it's there but it isn't suffocating you.  AND it will still love you if you gain weight...well, until you gain too much weight and the once Sweat Pant looks more like Jeggings.

Jeggings.... something I will never truly understand, kind of like Algebra.

I have started making healthier choices in my eating habits, I am half heartedly trying.  I am just waiting for my tipping point when I absolutely can't handle it anymore.

I am also waiting to win the lottery...(but considering I don't ever buy lottery tickets, I would appreciate it if YOU won the lottery and then just mailed me the winning ticket) I look at it this way, I was "lucky" enough to be 1 out of 50,000 people to have a child with CDC, I have a good chance of being 1 out of 234,824,0214 million people and win a couple million bukaroo's.

Just think of all the fancy sweatpants I could buy with that money!  Every color in the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHacDYj8KZM

But not real green sweat pants, that's cruel.

Life is like a jump rope...

up, down, up, down, up...

I have been listening to Kids Place a lot on Sirius in the car.  I can NOT remember the last time I was able to listen to one of "my" stations, I don't even know what type of music I like anymore (probably bluegrass and gangster rap).

But please do me a favor and listen to "Life's like a jump rope" by Blue October.  I LOVE it.

And I love you, pizza delivery man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuzEcmGzX_s

Sleep?!?

One of the issue's CDC children have are bad sleeping habits.  V is no exception. I put her to bed anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30 and she will wake up at 3 in the morning.  So I would crawl into bed with her and try to squeeze out the most amount of sleep I can, all the while she is kicking me, hitting me, and crying on and off.  Then at 5:30, when I can't take it any longer, we get up and I start brewing my first of many cups of coffee.

However, this morning she slept until 7:00!  CRAZY!  And notice I said "she", not "we".  At around 5:00 my internal alarm clock went off... preparing me for the crying and door kicking down the hall.  It didn't come.  I kept my eyes closed and managed to keep sleeping.  Half an hour later I woke up again, still not hearing V.  And then the thoughts came... you know the "thoughts".  Like when a noise wakes you up in the middle of the night, and you rationalize to yourself that it is probably just your cat knocking something over, and definitely NOT a burglar.  So you go back to sleep, happy that the Cat to Burglar ratio weighs heavily in the direction of the cat.  You do not need to get up to investigate b/c sleeping is way more important than double checking to see if a criminal is downstairs rummaging thru your silver and fine china (does anyone have silver and fine china anymore?).

Here is my rendition of the conversation I had with myself this morning, preventing me from sleeping:
Is she still sleeping?
She can't be, is she sick?
OMG, what if something fell on her?
What if someone snuck in and took her (along with the silver and fine china)?
No, she is probably still sleeping.
I should go back to sleep.
But what if something happened to her?
I should check on her.
But then she will wake up.
I should go back to sleep.

Needless to say, I did NOT get up.  I know, mother of the year!  In my sleepy state I concluded that she was just sleeping in for once in her life.  I know that since I blogged about it, I totally jinxed myself and she will probably wake up at her usual 3 o'clock in the morning, but I remain hopeful.

Looking forward to Round 2!

Suckage.

Wouldn't it suck, that even while you are still just a little kidney bean in your mother's belly, if your future was already decided for you?  Your limitations, all though are not set in stone, would still be a hard boulder to move out of your way...and there are a long line of them in your path.  Your dreams of living a "Once Upon a Time" storybook life, don't have the slightest chance of being a possibility that our adolescent minds cling to at times.  That would suck.  Or would it?  Your oblivion acts as both a shield and curse.  You never had it, so how do you know what you are missing?  However, if you weren't oblivious, maybe you would be able to work harder at the life you want b/c you know it's out there.

Now what if you were the mother that was carrying that kidney bean in your belly, and you know what's out there, and you know that your baby will never have it. YOU feel the pain of the limitations, YOU feel the pain of  "Once Upon Never".  And that DOES suck... and I just got hit hard by a wave of suckage.

I had my 7 year old daughter G bring up a diaper for V.  G started putting the diaper on V in a goofy way, on purpose.
I laughed at G and said, "You are going to have to learn to put on diapers otherwise I get to keep all of YOUR babies!"
G laughed, and then asked, "Is V going to have babies?"
"No, she can't."
"Why can't she, b/c of that thing that's wrong with her head?" G still doesn't quite understand the whole chromosome deletion thingy
"Yes, that is why she can't have babies"
"Does that mean that she will have to put them up for adoption?"
Confused, I answered "You DO know that all women don't have babies right?"
She thought for a moment and asked, "Will I have babies?"
To which I replied, "You will HAVE babies, but I will get to keep them b/c you can put diapers on right!"
She laughed and walked away.

I just sat there. I felt like I had been hit with a demolition ball right in the chest, and on it's retracting swing, it tore out my heart.

I have known that V wasn't going to be able to have babies... I KNOW this.  It just sucks that this decision was made for her, and not by her.

I am assuming there will be more days like this ahead.

And that sucks.

Poo

You can smell it.  You know it is around somewhere.  Lurking.  You have looked high, low, and "in-between" and still can't find it!  You can't just ignore it, it's poo!  The poopy diaper you just changed is in the garbage...the aroma is wafting out of it's confine.  So you take the half full garbage bag out.  The smell is STILL THERE!  You check the baby's butt to see if you had interrupted her "mid-dump"....nope, clean!  You change her clothes and STILL THERE!!!!

Then, the creepy suspicion arises and no matter how hard you try to suppress your instincts... you realize, the baby poo has to be ON YOU!!!!  Then you do the mental dance, equivalent to the motions you go thru when you suspect a spider has landed on you.

I wasn't planning on showering this early.... but then again, I wasn't planning on getting ninja baby poo on me.

And by the way... I don't remember giving her corn!