week ending dec 28, 2008:

Week ending Dec 28, 2008: On Monday I took Chloe into the doctor because she obviously had pink eye. While there the doctor noticed her coughing and asked a bunch of questions. I reported that she coughs infrequently except when she exercises or when she transitions from inside to outside. The doctor said those are classic asthma symptoms, and I know that so I say “but her symptoms don’t bother her, she just coughs for 5 minutes and then she’s done.”. The doctor explained that even kids with only mild symptoms can have big asthma attacks, so it is important to keep the airways open. He prescribed medicine for the nebulizer and said that if the medicine helps her then it will confirm the diagnosis of asthma. Well for the rest of the week Chloe had coughing attacks (I mean she could barely talk between the coughs) every time she ran around or elevated her heart rate with any activity. One time she was watching me do a workout video and she loves the part with the jumping jacks. Doing jumping jacks set off the coughing so I gave the medicine in her nebulizer and turned the video back on while she inhaled it (it takes 5+ minutes to inhale all the medicine). While she was breathing through the nebulizer she stopped coughing and started doing jumping jacks again with the nebulizer pipe still in her mouth, this time with no coughing. I guess that proves that the medicine helps and she does in fact have asthma.

Alex has been enjoying playing with all his new Christmas toys, and it has been driving Chloe (and by default me) crazy. She relies on having him to play with and has very little tolerance for playing alone, but when he plays video games on the Wii, plays with his new Transformers, or folds paper airplanes from his new paper airplane book, she’s left to amuse herself. I’ve even offered to play with her, but she greatly prefers Alex and when asking him nicely to include her doesn’t work, she tries more devious tactics.

The kids were really cute at church this week. Each week the pastor asks all the children in the congregation to come to front of the church and he does a very short children’s lesson while and allows some time for them to talk briefly about what’s going on in their lives. One week a boy’s father had come home from a business trip in Norway and brought him a hat with horns. The boy wore the hat to church to share with everyone. The kids knew right away that they each wanted to bring a Christmas toy to show off. Alex brought his electric guitar and Chloe her bunny from Build-a-Bear Workshop. Chloe dressed in an outfit that matched the bunny and knew Pastor Dave would notice. Pastor Dave asked Alex to play his guitar in front of everyone and Alex obliged and everyone applauded. In this way the kids really feel like going to church is “for them” and that the church congregation is their extended family. Chloe also wore her new sparkly-light-up princess shoes and several people complimented her. She’s got a reputation in church for her amazing shoes.

Well, another year is coming to an end. I feel like I should wax philosophical on the events of the past and contemplate the future, but I really don’t want to. Here’s what I wrote in my Christmas note this year: ‘Notable “firsts” for this year include first snorkeling, first cruise, first time skiing, first time seeing the circus, first soccer clinic, first time canoeing, inviting friends to their birthday party for the first time, first pets of their own, and Chloe’s first ballet class.’ A big year for us!

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008: I decided to write this entry as a series of little moments that I found cute.

Dec 23 the twins have an extended argument about whether Santa eats the cookies in our house, or whether that takes too long so Santa takes the cookies back to his sleigh with him.

Dec 24 Alex says “Daddy, you don’t smell good. You have to smell good to go to parties.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

That evening as I’m tucking her in bed Chloe says “Mommy, you can’t go downstairs now, Santa might need to come”. I say that Santa will see the lights in our windows and know to wait until we go to bed, after all Daddy and I have to go downstairs to make the sticky buns. This appeases her temporarily. When Daddy goes in to kiss her good night Chloe says “Daddy, we have to turn the bathroom light off or Santa won’t come. He’ll think we are awake.” We usually leave the bathroom light on as a night light and to help the kids find the toilet if they need to use it in the middle of the night. Daddy assures her that Santa is very smart and that we’ve left the bathroom light on last year and Santa figured it out. I wonder what she’ll think of to worry about next.

Dec 25 Alex says “This is AWESOME!” no less than a dozen times as he opens and plays with his gifts. He’s really enthusiastic about several of the presents as he opens them, and then as he learns more about the features as he plays with them he again is so moved by their awesomeness. Chloe is also very excited about her presents and wants to show us each one. In the afternoon when we had a break between one set of company and the next Chloe tried out her new “Trace and Draw Projector”. She said she was going to make a whole book of pictures. I suggested she make some to give to MomMom and Grammy Barb later that night. She said “I think I’ll make 2 for MomMom, she’s really nice to us.” I was so proud of her. We’ve been trying to emphasize to the kids all these gifts that they are getting are really expressions of love from people who give their time and money to make the kids happy, time and money that those people could be spending on themselves. Of course the message is a little too mature for 5 year olds to really grasp. Mostly they just think about what they are getting instead of what they are giving, so I was really impressed by this one act of generosity.

The guinea pigs are obviously watching the TV as we play the new Wii in the playroom.

At the end of the evening I was again tucking Chloe in bed and wanted to take advantage of the quiet moment to ask her about her thoughts on the day. She just said “Mom, I’m SO tired.” I’ve never seen Chloe too tired to talk, but couldn’t fault her for it given all the activity of the past two days.

It was so great to get to spend Christmas with such a loving extended family. Sometimes I can’t even believe how blessed we are.

week ending dec 21, 2008:

Week ending Dec 21: This week the kids were really having a hard time waiting for Christmas. They’d say “when is it EVER going to get here?!” and “When am I EVER going to get a new toy?!” They are frustrated that the gifts are piling up in front of the tree and none of them are for them. They are frustrated that we are doing so much shopping and none of it is for them. Alex asked why I was buying presents for all those other people and not for him. I explained that I had to buy his presents when he wasn’t there so they would be surprises. So, one night after they went to bed I wrapped up one gift for each twin and put them under the tree with a “from Mommy and Daddy label”. The very next morning they started digging through the gifts under the tree trying to read the labels. They found the ones to them and carried them around for about a half an hour, satisfied in the knowledge that there was something in the house for them. Then when the half hour was up they were back to complaining about how long it was they’d have to wait to open the gifts. Oh well. Then we had 3 parties in three days to distract them.

This week was also the Christmas party at school. First about 5 classes of kids and their parents herded into a big room with a piano and the kids sang a half dozen Christmas songs. Alex sat on my lap for most of the songs except when the teacher asked him to stand up in front of everyone and hold up a picture of baby Jesus in the manger. Chloe asked if she could go and sit with her “boy friend Devon” and his Mom and I said “sure”. At church all the kids from my Sunday School class go and sit with their friends families (Collin comes to sit with Alex and I, Chloe goes and sits with Miley or Jada), so I guess we’ve set a precedent for this. After the songs we went back to the class room to help the kids with a craft, then they decorated sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles, and then did their usual first “15 minutes of class” stuff like talking about which day of the week it is, which month, what the weather is like, counting, etc. Despite practicing 3 times a week, most of the kids aren’t good at the days of the week, and on December 19, the month of Christmas, none of them correctly guessed what month it is. It is very cute to watch them try though. After the lesson they opened a piñata and each kid got a sandwich bag full of goodies. Alex did a little dance of triumph after he got his bag. Very fun to see all the excitement.

I took the kids to their friend Abby’s 5th bday party. She had the party at a kids’ salon and had a “rock stars and diva’s” theme. I explained to the kids beforehand that someone would put gel in their hair so they’d look like rock stars and they were both excited about it. When we got there they had an assortment of costumes and all the kids except one chose to play dress up. Chloe got her hair curled and had blue streaks added and was thrilled that they had a sparkly gold jacket for her to wear. Alex loves electric guitars (and is hoping to get one for xmas), so he was excited about the guitar shirt and guitar temporary tattoo. I wasn’t excited that they put makeup on the kids (do we need this at 5 years old?), but I let it go. Some of the parents dropped their kids off at the party and I was invited to leave, but chose to stay. Really they would have been fine without me, but then I would have all these fun pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/AbbyS5thBday#

I took the kids to Aiden’s 1st birthday party. It is hard to believe that last Christmas Eve I was standing in the hospital meeting Aiden for the 1st time. The pictures from the party tell pretty much the whole story except the misbehavior of my over-tired children who were attending their 3rd party in 3 days, and that’s best left forgotten anyway. http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/AidenS1stBday#

week ending dec 14, 2008

Week ending Dec 14, 2008: Chloe and Alex love their weekly gymnastic class and they seem to be making progress in their cartwheels, trampoline jumping, and uneven parallel bar tricks. Chloe had been practicing cartwheels on the trampoline, and had perfect form except for the landing (which was usually a form of crash landing) up until last week when she was able to land them. Now she can do cartwheels in the living room.

Gastroenterologist follow up. I’ve been gradually cutting back on Chloe’s Nexium to see how little we can get away with. The pediatrician said that Chloe’s symptoms may come and go, and Chloe was doing so well on so little Nexium that I let her stop taking it altogether. After 4 days of no medicine Chloe started complaining about pain. It took several days back on the Nexium to undo the damage done with a few days off. We did get some good news at the gastroenterologist, Chloe’s grown at least an inch and gained 5lb since her summer appointment, which is amazing and great since the pediatrician commented about how “skinny” she was in October. The side effect of growing so much is that she’s outgrown all her shoes. More on that later. Before we left the office, the doctor asked the kids if they’d been good this year. They both shrugged shyly. I guess they don’t remember last year’s inquisitions from random strangers as to whether they felt worthy of a big haul from Santa. Pop psychology today dictates that parents not classify our children as “good” or “bad” but identify specific actions as acceptable or unacceptable, so the kids have never really thought about whether they are good, and I have never threatened them that Santa won’t bring toys if they don’t behave. In the car after the appointment I told the kids that some people say that Santa only bring toys to the good boys and girls. Chloe said “is that true?” I said I didn’t know. She said “I think it is just made up.” I thought that was a cute answer.

As to the shoes, we’d just bought Alex a new pair of dress shoes when Chloe started to complain that all her shoes didn’t fit. I thought she was just jealous that Alex had something new, but when the appointment confirmed that she’d grown a great deal, I took her shoe shopping. We found some great bargains and bought 3 new pairs of shoes. I was really surprised that with all the pink sparkly lighted sneakers out there Chloe picked these black sneakers. She’s really outgrowing the pinks and lavenders and now is showing a preference for gold and sparkly things.
The twins have adopted a weekly ritual with their father. They all 3 sit together in the recliner and watch “Ship Shape TV” which a half hour long show boat maintenance and repairs. I usually grab a shower while they bond and then the kids give me the low down after it is over. They really pay attention!

week ending dec 7, 2008:

Week ending Dec 7, 2008: This week I’ve been catching up on cleaning and Christmas shopping while the kids are in school, and much of the time when they aren’t. It seems sometimes that I only noticed what they are doing after they make a huge mess like the play dough and the little bits of paper they called “snow” (4 days before we got a dusting of the real stuff).

Also this week we did some catching up on fixing some of the goodies from Casey’s childhood like the remote control dune buggy and the electric train set. Last year I wiped all the dust off of all the trains, inventoried the track and made a list of what we’d need. This year we went out and got some plywood, some paper with faux grass on it, some track, a transformer/controller, and put it all together. Low and behold it works! The kids really liked getting to take turns making the trains go. Chloe can’t wait to get more buildings for our “village” (we told her next year since we’d invested in the platform and transformer this year). As for the r/c dune buggy, Casey got it working for the 1st time in 15 years and it sped around the yard faster than the kids could run after it.

Sunday was our annual trek to Frederick for the Gingerbread party hosted by our friends from college, Rob and Tina. Tina buys enough houses for each family to do their own, 8 houses this year. Although we only see that group a few times a year, the kids have really bonded and it is a great time for them to play while the grownups catch up. This year Alex said his favorite part was the gingerbread house, which surprised me since he did a lot of rough housing and pillow fighting with the other boys. Chloe said her favorite was playing the girls, and eating candy, and watching Christmas movies and… basically everything. Can you remember a time when you were so excited that your favorite part was everything? I think I felt that way on our cruise about all the parts that didn’t involve waiting in lines or doing other mundane daily chores.

We had some very sad news this week. Our next door neighbor’s 11 year old granddaughter passed away from an unknown illness. I’d heard a couple of weeks ago that she’d been hospitalized, but in this time of medical miracles I didn’t worry too much about it. I just can’t believe that she never got better and that her family is going to have to deal with this kind of loss. She was a very nice girl and despite the fact that she was 6 years older than the twins, she’d play with them while she was visiting her grandparents. She’d push them on the swings and hold their hands when the crossed the street to run up and down the hill, and she was very patient about playing hide-and-seek with them even though Alex and Chloe weren’t very good at hide-and-seek. She was having developmental issues at the same time that Alex was, so her grandmother and I would trade stories about their respective successes when we’d run into each other. I haven’t told the twins yet.