Trying to keep it all together

Not a very clever title for my post, but it's very appropriate for my season of life right now.

Since I last blogged P&J have switched schools, my oldest boy has been diagnosed with a skull deformity which means he needs to have a major surgery on his skull within the next 6 months, I am having to fight for my other son to have the services he qualifies for at school (which is also forcing me to come to terms with the fact that I have a special needs child) and everything that isn't getting done is piling up around me. I also found out a week ago that a friend of mine's 6 year old daughter has been diagnosed with an aggressive, inoperable brain tumor and am broken for that precious family. (exhale…that feels good to get off my chest!)

I'm not blogging about this for sympathy or an "Awe, poor T…" moment. What prompted it was in the midst of my overwhelmed state, my sweet "special needs" son came up to me and proceeded to blow numerous raspberries on my arm to make me laugh. He melts my heart with his sweetness and disarms my frustrated spirit.

Time to "man up" and make a to do list of all that needs to be done. Promise the next post (whenever that is…) will be more cheery. ;)

And how is it already November???

Womb to Tomb

And birth to earth!

Had that in my head all day and needed to use it for a blog post title. Not sure if this means I'll be blogging regularly, but you never know! ;)

What prompted this line from West Side Story is preschool starting for my littlest twin boys. The "elder" of the pair has communication issues and therefore qualifies for Special Day Preschool Classes through our district. These are smaller, specialized classes with extra staff to work specifically with speech delay. He started this week and will go everyday for 2 1/2 hours. His "younger" counterpart is in private preschool 2 days a week for 3 hours at a time and their schedules do not coincide (I have to say I was a little sad to have a glimmer of a couple of hours to myself 2x a week taken away...hopefully next school year!). While C has been going to preschool for a couple of weeks with no problem being away from J, he does not like dropping J off and coming home solo with me. He is sad and wants me to hold him a whole lot. It's pretty cute. Tonight he told me that we are not taking J to school tomorrow because he doesn't want to miss him. Melted this mama's heart. :)

"When you're a Zuk, you're a Zuk all the way..."

Is that water I hear????

That's the thought running through my head as I'm in the middle of sweeping up all the disgusting bits that have accumulated under my stove. I was retrieving a fork and noticed the field of Cheerios that could feed small village under there and decided to pull out the stove and quickly sweep it up. As this is going on I kept thinking that I was hearing water running through our pipes at a good velocity. After pushing the stove back I decided to investigate. I make my way to my bedroom (It seems I foolishly left my room wide open during lunch...) and hear the tub running full blast. Who is in there??? Then I recall I'm unsure of the whereabouts of Twin #1. As I attempt to open the door, it is blocked by an open drawer. I start to slowly try to close it using the inch and half of space the door it open and call to my son. He happily slams the drawer shut and I discover an exuberant, soaking wet, three year old who has managed to fill the tub halfway without closing the drain, filled the commode with toilet paper and drenched my floor. Whenever I wonder why it feels difficult to get even small household chores done during the day (like I was moments before this), I just need to think back on this moment and many other "wildfires" that pop up during my day.

I wish I could've snapped a pic of that wet, happy boy (who kept declaring, "Water! Water!") before changing his clothes, but he was too cold from his adventure.

Surprise!

When it's been forever since I last blogged I like to pick right back up as if no time has passed. I have a couple of lifelong friends who are like that. They are a huge blessing in my life. 

The main reason I haven't blogged yet in 2013 is that it has been a rough year so far. We got hit hard in January with the dreaded flu (not stomach) and then it seems like every cold virus out there has been preying on our weakened immune systems. Other various accidents and such have happened as well, but the weather is warming up and I am looking forward to a great Spring! 

I'm going to start this story by saying that we have an old-ish and funky house that has been added on to or re-modeled a lot before and since we bought it 12 1/2 years ago. Probably around 35-40 years ago the owners at that time added on a family room. We affectionately called it "The Cave" because the only windows are the sliding glass door to the backyard and it's always at least 5 degrees colder than the rest of the house in the winter. After the twins came along we needed to convert The Cave to a master bedroom since we only had 2 bedrooms at the time and there are six of us and we were tired of sharing with the littlest boys. 

Now on to the surprise. Since we sleep in The Cave it can be quite dark, but we leave our bedroom door open which helps to indicate how long (or not) the sun has been up. This morning we woke up to the cries of two 3 years olds who were clearly awake in their room and starting to pick on each other. I glanced at the clock which read 8:09. Did I read that right??? It was much too dark in our room to be that "late". I woke up Hubby saying we needed to get up, it's already 8, but maybe my clock was wrong since it was so dim in our room. Nope, that was the correct time. Our eldest two had shut our door because they were concocting a "surprise" and didn't want to disturb us. I love it when they are in cahoots together! We emerged from The Cave to a series of arrows leading us to the kitchen where they had prepared a "feast" complete with Fireplace for Your Home playing on Netflix on our TV. The table was set, there was an assortment of treats and drinks and my Cuties were donning aprons and huge grins on their faces. It was too precious and made my heart swell. Mind you they've done little stuff similar to this many times, but this has been the most elaborate to date. Here is what our feast looked like:

They were very proud of themselves. My favorite part was when my girl told her brother she loved him. He's been a bit of a nuisance to her for a while and she doesn't say that to him often. 

That's how our Sunday started, hope yours is going great!

Word Verification

I got sent an odd "spam-ish" e-mail posing as a comment on my last post so I reimplemented word verification on comments. Just wanted to give the heads up for the few times a year I seem to be blogging. ;o)

Happy New Year!!