Father's Day

Daniel and Benjamin have a truly awesome Dad. They (and I) are so blessed to have him. Here's just a short list of all the great things he does for them (and me):

1. Gets up every morning at 6am to hang out with them (while mommy sleeps til 7:30). He even got up with them on Father's Day since I had been out til 3am for a bachelorette party!
2. Gives countless "horsey rides" every day.
3. Carries Ben. This can be so exhausting depending on what we're up to each day. Daddy carries Ben most of the time and I just give him breaks when he's especially worn out.
4. Ignores all the chores that need to be done each weekend in order to get as much time with them as possible.
5. Could fly solo anytime (and mommy wouldn't have to worry about him or the boys one bit).
6. Makes sure that Ben gets his stretches everyday.
7. Lies on the floor with them and lets them crawl all over him.
8. Loves them (and me) so, so, so much.

(The above pic is from December 2007. The boys were just under 3 months old and had been home from the hospital for about 3 weeks.)

Cutie pies

I couldn't resist posting this great picture of my boys. Enjoy!

On the verge...

Ben is making so much progress lately. He works so hard and it is really awesome to watch. He is ALMOST crawling on all fours on a consistent basis. I would guess we're just a few weeks away. He gets up on all fours when he wants to pull up on something. So we've been moving that "something" away and he crawls on all fours for a few feet to get to it. He's also done it spontaneously at least twice. He's so cute when he's doing it. You can tell he's all excited as he does this cute little laugh like he can't believe it himself.

He can now get "out of sitting". We're hoping when he starts to crawl on all fours consistently that he'll finally learn how to get into sitting. Currently he can get into a kneel or "w-sit" by pulling up on a toy or piece of furniture but can't do it on his own.

I feel like he's really close to doing more and more great things. I'm all optomistic these days. What a strange feeling...

Being the "downer"

I feel like I'm always the "downer" these days. Here's a couple of examples of some recent conversations I've had about Ben:

Example 1
Background: A couple of weeks ago, we took the boys to this awesome playgroup. Every Wednesday morning, about 70 kids (with moms or dads or caregivers) show up at a local church gym for a really great time. The gym is set up with all different stations for the different ages (baby, toddler, pre-schooler). There are crafts, games, play-doh, puzzles, a train set, etc. This was our first time going.

Friend: How did you enjoy the Playgroup?
Me: It's fantastic for the boys, but for me absolutely exhausting. It's so hard carrying Ben around to all the different stages. There are so many kids, it's just not possible to let him army-crawl around. Plus, if it's a station where they have to stand up, I have to help support him so he doesn't fall. He just loved the trainset but it just about killed my back! Plus, he gets so frustrated that he can't just go and do what he wants.
Friend: Yeah, but when does he get his walker? That'll make it so much easier for you.
Me: Not really. This place is really too crowded plus I'd be scared that he'd get knocked over by another kid not paying attention. Plus, he's a long way from being competent in his walker.
Friend: Oh? I thought he did awesome in that video you posted a few weeks back.
Me: Well, that wasn't his walker. That was just the gait trainer. He's all harnessed in that and just has to move his legs to move. He's got a lot of work to do before he's ready for his walker.
Friend: Oh. (not sure what to say next)

Example 2
Background: Ben is working hard on learning to crawl on all fours. All day long he pulls up onto all fours so that he can reach up to something and then pull himself to kneel or stand. When doing this, he will "walk" his knees forward once he's holding on to the item in question (i.e. chair, crib rail, etc.) This morning he was trying to pull up to kneel on my mom's leg (she was sitting on the floor). Before he got his hands on her, she moved away a little bit. So he crawled on all fours to get to her. So she moved away a bit again. He continued to crawl. In the end, he probably crawled about 3 or 4 ft that way. So hopefully he's very close to crawling properly.

My mom: WOW! That's awesome Ben! I can't believe you're crawling! And you can now pull to stand too! Before you know it, you'll be cruising around furniture!
Me: Well, it'll probably be quite awhile before he'll be able to cruise around furniture.
My mom: Yeah, but it took him no time to learn to crawl like that.
Me: Well, he's been getting up on all fours for about 3 months now...so no, it wasn't "no time". I feel like he's been teasing me with it for ages now. That's how it always is with Ben. Things that take "normal" kids a week or a month to master, take Ben 3 to 6 to 9 months to master. And as for cruising around furniture, we'll be lucky if he can do that in a year's time.
My mom: Oh.

I am so sick of being the downer all the time. I feel like everyone else gets to be all excited and thrilled about Ben's progress and when they do, I crush them with the reality of the situation. But sometimes I just want to know what our reality is. I feel like so many of my friends and family try to minimize the crappiness (nice word eh?) of our situation. It's like they really can't handle knowing how bad it is for us. Or just how hard it is physically with Ben these days now that he's 20 months old and not able to walk. Sometimes I wonder why I insist on doing this. Is it at all helpful to them or me?

Anyone else feel this way?

Up...up...and away?

A very exciting thing happened just last week. Ben pulled to stand in his crib! We knew he was getting close to figuring it out and sure enough Daddy found him standing up in his crib one morning last week. Now he's pulling to stand everywhere and it's scaring the hell outta me. It's OK in the crib where he has a railing to hold onto plus he can fall onto a nice soft mattress. It's not so OK when it's on the side of the crib with no railing to hold onto plus he can fall on a very hard tile floor! Here's a pic of him standing in his crib (I wanted to post a video but can't seem to get it to load).

Miss me?

I just checked the date of my last post. May 14th. Wow. That was almost 3 weeks ago. It has been a crazy few weeks in my world. Here's a tiny glimpse of what I've been up to:

• Moved out of our house just over 2 weeks ago. This entailed not only packing up what we needed for a 4-6 week period but also packing up everything on the 1st floor of our house. Why you ask...because we are doing a massive kitchen renovation and there is simply no way we could stay there with 2 20-month olds. Here's a pic of my kitchen after demolition:

• Volunteered to help out with my local multiples club first sale. This meant many hours planning the event, pestering members to sell at the sale, running around picking up things last minute, plus getting my own stuff ready to sell. I had a lot of fun doing it though and our first sale was a HUGE success. And now we start preparing for our fall sale...
• Participated in not 1 but 2 "National Multiple Births Awareness Day" celebrations. Our multiples club had a huge event on Wednesday of last week. It was at our local My Gym and it was really fantastic to see so many other sets of twins and triplets there. The media even showed up and I ended up on the local news being interviewed about life with multiples.
• And of course, overseeing the work being done on our kitchen as well as all the other things that daily life demands.
  

Whew...I'm exhausted just thinking about it all again.