i noticed there were some comments awaiting moderation from weeks ago so i finally approved them. sorry if i ignored you!  does this count as a second post in one day? maybe if i add a picture. five sentences and a picture oughta do it.

I am ready for January because I am ready for January to be over. I want spring to get here with a quickness but I know I’ll have to endure two more months. Resigned to that fact, I will spend my Christmas gift cards to buy clearance sweaters and corduroy pants. Am I the only one who wears corduroy often? I don’t like seventies-ish cords that swish, just regular corduroy, soft corduroy pants- usually in brown or black. corduroy is hard to spell. once, my husband wore green corduroy pants (not slacks. i hate the word slacks. slaaaacks.) for a year without realizing they were green. he thought they were brown because he is red-green color blind until someone asked why he often wore green corduroy pants all the time. He won’t wear corduroy anymore.

Christmas was hectic, fun and occasionally gave me a stomach ache. We had unrelenting holiday festivities but now we have a four day weekend upon us with no plans. Hell yeah.  When we aren’t toddler wrangling, I imagine the husband will be playing his xbox, oldest will repeatedly play ”Slowride” by Foghat on Guitar Hero. I will continue to look for updates on my friends’ blogs but there will be none because apparently, the world is taking the week between christmas and new year’s off. The triplets will continue to cause confusion and delay while being cute as hell saying things like, “Circle, circle, greeeeen, I’m sorry, cookie! daddy!”  The little urchins had a wonderful Christmas and are attacking each other over the new toys. 

I hope you had a good holiday and don’t have anything you have to do for four days.  

Oh Happy Day! We are home. Lily is still a bit under the weather but she is getting there. I have so much I could tell you about this week and the kind people that helped us along. There was the ambulance driver (Dave) who knows my family because he’s taken Lily and I to the hospital at least three times in two years. Dave calmed me down in the ambulance because this time, Lil scared me. There was the group of seventh graders who brought my daughter a stocking full of toys, the older women who sang Christmas Carols outside our door, the nameless volunteers who dropped off dolls and books every few hours, the nurse who brought me earl grey tea, the friends who provided much needed distraction, my family net who took care of all of my boys and my husband who brought me cheeseburgers and sang Disney songs to our sick toddler.

My sister, brother-in-law and seven week old niece arrived today so I got to hold and kiss my newest family member. The nephew who was born on my birthday is being baptized Sunday and I get to see most of my extended family in the next week. We have a warm home, a turkey waiting to be cooked, presents to open and no one has to go to work or school for days. I have great friends in the real world and on the intarweb.

Kiddo had a very shiny nose and if you ever saw it,
You would even say it glows like only a pom-pon scotch taped to a nose does. 

I don’t think I will be posting very often until after the holidays because my babies will never be two years old and tearing through wrapping paper and bows without quite understanding why- by next year they will understand the “gimme gimme gimme!” part of the holidays so I am relishing their innocence. My oldest may never be this entranced in the magic of Christmas again so excuse me while I immerse myself in the festivities. I wish you and yours the best possible holiday.

Love
Kim

P.S. It seems I went from posting everyday in November to not very much at all in December. You’ll excuse my sporadic updates but I’ll be better in aught-eight (in history shows, they often refer to the first decade of the 1900′s as the “aughts” so is this time in our lives going to be referred to as the aughts?).  

P.P.S.S. Notice there are advertisements now? Peg and BlogHer combined their powers and TA-DA! I’m a sell out! I don’t expect to make much money but it would be nice to get back a bit of my hosting fees. After all, we have 12 feet in this house that need shoes so go click on those pretty ads over there to your left.

short but sweet: lily had to be rushed to the hospital yesterday with severe respiratory distress and a way too high heart rate. she has some virus and probable bacterial pneumonia as well. she’s doing alright and isn’t on a vent but is still pretty sick. we’ll be here for a while but i’m crossing my fingers that we’ll be out by this weekend when my new niece comes to town and my nephew is baptized. please cross your fingers for us and while you’re at it, flip the bird to the insurance company who decided she didn’t need a third year of synagis injections to prevent RSV (a dangerous respiratory infection for preemies and kids with compromised lungs) and cut our nursing hours to eight hours a day. so help me,  I am Falling Down on their asses if she has any permanent damage from this one.

there are christmas cards and packages on my kitchen counter waiting to be addressed and sent so i apologize if i’m late on your greetings. if you don’t get one? i still love you. 

i can still check my email from my phone (grrr hospital doesn’t have wi-fi. or beds for parents to sleep in or showers in ICU rooms).

for my fellow yo gabba gabba fans. best. dancer. ever. 

i cannot watch this without dancing in the dorkiest fashion ever. 

(and proof you can pair anything with walk it out. still not nearly as good as the bob fosse dancers).

is it just me or is the soup what snl skits would be if they were funny. well, sometimes they ARE funny but it is rare. the soup rulez.

I am trying to think of something to write that isn’t the equivalent of, “Get off my yard you stinkin’ teenagers! Back in my day….” because I am feeling a bit CRANKY.

This is my number one peeve of the day. Yahoo? If I wanted a flash animation of a fat body versus a thin body? I could make on of pictures of me at 18 versus me after four kids.  I am really annoyed at before and after fat animation when perusing my email.

I think I need a nap.

I just made a mistake and thought of all the things I have to do before Christmas. I need to hit the shipping deadlines for a few online orders with time to re-package and ship off a few thousand miles. Those damn photo books that have been gnawing at my brain for over a month- really to finish those. Shit. Oh, Christmas Cards? Guess I should mail you.

I love Christmas, I really do but damn this frenetic feeling of needing to do too many things and not offending or skipping anyone is making me feel like a hamster running on a tinsel decorated wheel. How do you deal with holiday stress?

i wish you merry christmas shopping and a happpy neeeew year.

hi!

posting everyday in november got to me so i took some time away from writing. of course, i still spent hours reading other people’s blogs, shopping online and not responding to emails or phone calls so i was busy.

i’m having a good day so far. my oldest got the boys out of their beds and turned on nickelodeon and let us sleep for an extra hour. (i had a dream last night that i was babysitting kids but didn’t watch them at all. in my dream, i went to a wedding and came home hours later  without giving any thought to the kids. later, i found one in the mud behind a fence.) mike made breakfast which he makes very well- the secret is the bacon grease. he only cooks breakfast, barbeque and camping food but he does them all well. i got my hair cut and colored yesterday so i have sassy hair. it is cold, wet and gray outside but comfy cozy are we. we’re snuggled up together like six birds of a feather would be. have a good weekend.

Winter is hard for me. Part of me loves the comfort of snuggling in bed under a down comforter and flannel sheets, fireplaces, sweaters and warm socks but an equal part hates the cold, dark and ache of short, frigid days. My entire body hurts in the winter and it is endlessly frustrating because no treatment that I have tried provides relief for more than a few hours. My right shoulder, jaw and side of my neck have been locked up since last Thursday. My muscles feel like taut ropes pulling my head to one side so I have been laying on ice packs and heating pads, dosing myself on anti-inflammatories and laying around in a pathetic lump.

The following words come to mind when I try to describe how my muscles feel when this happens: rubber bands, taught, tight, sticky, unyielding, frustrating.  I called my doctor yesterday and reiterated how I feel which I have done roughly every six months for five years. He doesn’t have many answers other than telling me to go to physical therapy again and a prescription for mild muscle relaxers and more ibuprofen. He tells me fibromylagia is a diagnosis of exclusion meaning he doesn’t know what is wrong so that’s what he will call it whether or not he believes it is an actual condition. Some physical  and massage therapists have told me they don’t believe in fibromylagia- that it is a bullshit diagnosis for a questionable condition. Then they try to work out the knots in my muscles and wonder. I don’t know what is wrong with me and why the muscles around my joints painfully contract. I’ve had blood drawn and tests run but they always come back normal.

These flair ups happen year round but get worse in the winter. Sometimes, without reason, my muscles are fine and you would never know I had a problem. Chiropractors, massage/physical therapists and nutritional supplements somewhat help but only for a short time.  If I exercised everyday, the steady aching would decrease but I’m in a catch-22 where I have no energy and hurt so I don’t want to do jumping jacks in my basement. How else can I exercise when I’m stuck at home with three two year olds? I have a gym membership but when am I supposed to go? They have daycare but I can’t take my kids places with other germy kids, especially not Lily with her trach. I could go when Mike gets home from work if he came home at a consistent time but he doesn’t and never will. He has worked 160 hours in two weeks and there is no end in sight for his overtime. Excuses, excuses. I should change my entire diet, exercise daily, eliminate caffeine and get more sleep. In my spare time.

Anyone wanna come over, bring me whole foods, give me a massage and babysit while I go to the gym? Kthnksbai!

5. Stepping into the shower and forgetting I am wearing my glasses until the lenses are covered in water drops 

4. Emptying a steamy dishwasher and walking away fogged (this was particularly irritating when I worked at the coffee shop and constantly emptied the dishwasher)

3. Young children love to rip them off and put them back on by aiming for my eyeballs

2. Walking inside on a cold day and pausing to defrost because the lenses are all frosty

1. When I lose my glasses it is very hard to find them without wearing glasses. This happened today and I found them by stepping on them like Velma in Scooby Doo. They are now very bent and I can’t get them back to their normal shape. I went to a physical therapist once who claimed that your entire body becomes off-kilter if your glasses are crooked. Now I’m even more out of whack. I have nightmares that I’m lost in a forest without my glasses and easy prey.