High Maintenance Trains

First, before I start my story, I have to proudly announce that Noah scooted forward on his belly twice today!!! It was an army crawl and was one "step" forward to get a toy. I egged him on and he did it again another time!! Yay, Nano!!

Ok, we play this game with Kai sometimes where we ask him questions about things to get him to say "yes" to the right answer. For example, if I were holding a banana and were to say, "Is this an orange?", he'd say no. And then we'll go on naming other things to which he says no to until I say, "is this a banana?" and he joyfully shouts, "yes!!"

Here is our conversation earlier.
me: Kai, did you poop?
Kai: No. (the sagging diaper, the stink and the rapid denial plus avoidance indicated otherwise. So I started to play the game to see if he'd actually admit to pooping.)
me: did zeze poop?
kai: no
me: did nano poop?
kai: no
me: diiiiiid KAI poop?
kai: (silence for a few seconds) diiiiid SCOUT poop?
me: no (I'm laughing now)
kai: did sage poop?
me: no. Did Kai poop?
kai: no. did Gordon poop? (that's one of the trains)
me: no
kai: did Thomas poop?
me: no
kai: Yes, Thomas pooped!!
me: Ok, then Thomas needs a diaper. (Much to Kai's surprise I took Thomas and went and put a kleenex diaper on him. I think I blew his mind!).

Then I went upstairs to put the babies down for a nap and when I came down I could hear him saying. "Gordon poop." "Thomas poop." "Other Thomas poop." and he was putting kleenexes on all his trains! Funny kid!

cry me a river....of drool, snot and tears.

our house is flowing with those 3 things from all 3 boys b/c they are all sick. All of them have snotty noses, wet chins, necks and shirts. The amount of drooling (and crying) is amazing. Our front storm glass door is so gross. Kai and Zeze stand there to look out at the kids playing (the healthy kids) and smear their goo and repeatedly sneeze all over it. There's just a cloudy film from 3 feet high and lower. yucky.

"I'm WINNING!" (said with the voice of Mr. Bean in the movie Road Race)

I just "won" my first item on ebay!! I'm obviously not very skilled at bidding on it since I've bid on numerous things and always lose. I usually end up buying stuff with the Buy It Now option. No drama. No losing my item in the last 20 seconds of the bid at 1:30am. I guess I get a little crazy about it (yes, I've waited up until the wee hours and watched...and lost), but I get so excited with the bidding process. The screen keeps saying, "Congratulations! Your bid is WINNING!" as the clock counts down. I hit refresh, "You're WINNING!". refresh. 1 minute left...."You're WINNING". 20 seconds left, "You've been outbid and LOSING. Hurry and rebid before time is...Sorry, you have LOST this item." Man! I lost again!! I usually go upstairs and whisper to Chad about my bidding drama and he says he's going to have to cut me off. Hahaha! It's true!

So you can imagine my delight when the countdown happened and there were 20 seconds left and it said, "You are WINNING!!" As the clock ticked down 5,4,3,2,1 I cheered!! Just then the screen changed and ebay said to me, "Thank you. You have just BOUGHT this item. Payment is due....blah blah blah."

What?!!? Couldn't you just give me a small congratulations or hip hip hooray because I won? You (ebay) were egging me on the whole time saying I was winning and then as soon as it's over you say, "pay up pal with your Pay Pal account." I guess I felt a little deflated after that. I mean, I knew I was buying the product, but ebay is so tricky and preys on emotions with that Winning/Losing stuff and then says, "Yay, you bought something. whoop-dee-doo"

So now Chad and I joke about mundane purchases by saying, "Congratulations!!! You just BOUGHT your groceries!!" or whatever else it might be.

Stupid ebay! :) :)

Not quite what I was imagining

Ok, picture this....a huge carved-out pumpkin, two adorable twin babies....something like Anne Gedes' pictures pops into my mind where the baby looks so cute inside this pumpkin. Heather even got an adorable shot of David inside a pumpkin when he was a baby. Should be fun and easy! The boys will love it!! NOPE!

Zeze wouldn't even touch the pumpkin or stand next to it. I got Noah in, but you can see his misery in the progression of pictures below as he sunk lower and lower inside it. Kai didn't even want anything to do with the pumpkin. So I said to myself, "Screw it, I'll carve my own damn pumpkin without all you ungrateful little boys!"
Mom, I'm starting to understand what it must have been like for you to drag 3 whining girls apple picking or strawberry picking or any other nature-ish seasonal event...the moms love it...the kids hate it! Don't even get me started on the trip to the little fair we went to this summer. Ok, I'll start a little...I LOVE LOVE LOVE country fairs. My boys do not. The whole fair ended for us with a symbolic event that pretty much summed up the whole experience. "Kai, it popped"....."Kai, it's gone."......"Kai, it's dead!!!" Followed by wailing. This is what Chad said to Kai after Kai saw his ducky balloon animal blow out of the stroller and immediately get run over by a passing gas truck. POP! "Where is it?" "Balloon?" "Duck?"

good times!

Anyway, back to the pumpkin: it took me 4 days of carving (a few minutes here and a few minutes there) and I finally got it done today! Kai actually liked it when he saw the train. He said, "Wow, it's Gordon! No, it's James!!"

I'm going to try to cook up my pumpkin seeds soon too! I won't expect Kai to like them or even try one, but Chad and I will LOVE them!

Noah clone

So did anyone look at those pictures of the little kids with DS? Did anyone find the Noah clone? :) What a cutie!! Here's a picture of him at this link. You can see that he also has a heart surgery scar AND his name is Noah....funny!
http://www.parenting.com/gallery/Baby/A-Special-Joy-4-Babies-With-Down-Syndrome/12

party night

Last night when Chad and I were going upstairs to bed we opened Kai's door to check on him. It was almost 10 and we hadn't heard a peep for a couple of hours. When we opened the door the light was on (a new trick he's learned to do) and he was sitting on his bed surrounded by every single book from his book shelf....about 50 books! He said, "I'm not tired." (well that was the gist of it). The amazing thing is that he got all those books on his bed without making noise! We have the monitor on and our house isn't very sound proof. He was just up there partying away and very pleased that he didn't have to sit in the dark and go to sleep!!

Learning to Share....

Learning to share (or hoard all your toys up higher where your brother can't reach them!!) As you can see in the second picture, Zeze figured out that he can pull himself up at Kai's train table. I snapped the picture just after it happened. You can see how happy Zeze is and how Kai looks like he's just starting to realize that trouble is brewing!! Fun Fun!

The first picture is from our walk this weekend. It was beautiful out!

"Ahhhhh-tooth!"

Yes, Chad, pun was intended in the title!

Noah has his first tooth!!!! It's his lower right incisor! I'm so happy for him b/c that means soon he'll be able to "chew" food. I'm hoping as his teeth come, his tongue will learn to mature also. What I mean is, right now he still does the suckle thing with his tongue when I put the spoon in. The next developmental stage is to move the jaw up and down and the tongue follows the up/down movement. Then the next progression is for the tongue to move side to side while the jaw is going up and down (a mature adult chewing pattern). Zeze already does this and is doing great with cheerios. They told me to not give Noah solids until his tongue and jaw pattern mature. Well, usually with babies when the teeth come, they are on the verge of "chewing" things, so my hope is that Noah will do that soon too!!

Also, he vocalized on command today! When I'm about to give Zeze a spoonful of food I say, "Ahhhh" and he opens his mouth and he started saying, "Ahhh" with me every time today. While I was doing it to zeze, noah did it to. So then I put the spoon in front of his mouth, said Ahhh, and waited for him to do it before I gave him the spoonful of food. It didn't take long. So I did it again and again and now he is making some sort of vocalization whenever I go, "Ahhhh"! I hope that will help him learn to talk (even though I know that is a loooonnng ways off...preparing to learn full sign language soon). We'll see if he remembers what he learned after he wakes up from his nap.

Anyway, I'm very encouraged. He's such a smart little guy!

Down Syndrome Awareness month

October is Down Syndrome Awareness month. I started this blog mostly because a bunch of moms in an online group (a group solely dedicated to people that have twins and one of them having DS or having multiple children with DS) are doing what's called 31 For 21. They are blogging every day of October (31 days) for Down Syndrome (aka Trisomy 21 or T21). Some have dedicated their entire blog to the child with DS and others just talk about their day so that others can see they have normal lives too. I knew I couldn't commit to blogging every day, but I thought I would blog sometimes so that you all can see what our family life is like.

I've finally delved into the world of Down Syndrome and am lately drawn to pictures of kids with DS. I think these kids are so stinking cute!! Here is a link to a bunch of galleries of kids with DS. Man, they are SO cute with those chubby little cheeks and those awesome smiles! There is one little baby in one of the galleries that has blond spikey hair just like my Noah and blue eyes too...funny thing is that this baby's name is also Noah. See if you can find him!

http://www.parenting.com/article/Baby/Health/A-Special-Joy-Babies-With-Down-Syndrome-Galleries

Bellybutton milk

Last night I got out my pump to pump some milk for the babies. Kai came up before I started and took one of the horns. He lifted up his shirt and looked around for a bit and stuck the horn on his bellybutton and let it suck there. He watched and waited and seemed kind of dissapointed that no milk came out of his belly. He gave up after a minute and went off to play with his trains. Chad and I laughed and laughed and asked him why no milk came out of his belly button. He was bored with the whole thing and wouldn't answer us! Funny kid!

What Season Is It?

Ok, this first picture was taken last weekend (end of September). Note the pretty foliage colors. The second picture was taken of the cherry tree blossoming in front of my home. When was it taken?? Today!! What's up with that? I've never known a fruit tree to blossom in the fall in New England. Just like I don't expect to see any daffodils popping up in the next few days either. The funny thing about this tree is that it's completely naked except for that little cluster of blossoms and the 2-3 leaves around it. It's been covered in gypsy moth webs/tents for a couple of months now and those nasty worms ate all the leaves off the trees and left it smothered in nasty sticky grey webs. Well, the other day I went out and scraped off all the webs (it's a very small kind of pathetic little tree, but I love it b/c it makes the sweetest big cherries I've every had) and underneath was this flower and a couple of leaves. Chad and I wonder if there is some symbolism we're supposed to get here. Any ideas? Something to do with More Than Conquerors? Chet and Sandy, you guys know a lot about trees and plants, has it been so warm this summer that plants can have a second crop season...like a second or third cut of hay? Nobody really has to answer my questions, just kind of pondering out loud, but I do love to receive comments!! :)

Cut

Yesterday I noticed that Kai had 3 small linear holes in the front of his shirt. I figured it must have gotten caught in the washer somehow and torn. I said outloud, "What happened to your shirt?" not really expecting an answer. Kai runs over to the desk opens a drawer and pulls out a pair of sewing scissors and says, "cut". I couldn't believe it! I've had those scissors in that drawer since day one and he's NEVER EVER shown any interest in them and never played with them or anything! 1. I'm amazed he used them. 2. I'm amazed he knew how to use them b/c he's never used scissors before. 3. How did I not see him do it? We are on top of each other all day long and I usually know his every move. 4. I'm so glad and amazed he didn't cut himself or his brothers!!

Well, I hid the scissors and then this morning while I'm making his oatmeal, he runs in the kitchen and says, "All gone! Cut all gone! Hiding!" Yeah, so who knows what project he's been working on when I'm not looking. There's probably some oragami-like bird down in the basement somewhere just waiting for the last few snips!!