Double Trouble!

Well, it finally happened.  The thing I have been dreading since I found out we were having twins.  The twin stomach virus.  Anyone with children dreads the stomach virus probably more than any other sickness.  With twins, its doubly dreaded!  I should have known something was wrong at swim lessons.  However, previous blogs have demonstrated that I am not the best at figuring out when my kids are sick and when they are just cranky!  I swear, they need a "check engine" light just like a car!  Then moms would know when the "check engine" light came on it was time to go to the doctor, but if they were just being cranky and the light isn't on, its just random baby behavior!  We went to our usual swim lesson and it was very odd.  Caroline did awesome - of course! - Lilah actually had fun and even smiled a couple of times which was a vast improvement over the first lesson when she clung to me and cried the whole time, but Liam screamed and cried the entire lesson!  Not like him at all, but his nap had been interrupted so I chalked it up to being tired.  The evening went as normal as crazy off-schedule swim lesson nights usually go.  The kids ate their dinner and the babies got to watch their new favorite show - water filling the bathtub for their bath.  I don't know why they love it, but it's a highlight of every day!

After bath, the babies were having their bedtime bottle when Liam threw up for the first time.  We got him cleaned up and started praying that it was just from crying so much at swimming or that he ate something off the floor while he was crawling around that made his tummy upset.  I know - way to go mommy hoping the baby ate something yucky off of the floor, but the stomach virus really is one of the worst case scenarios!  We got Liam cleaned up and everyone to bed and as we went to sleep a few hours later we thought we had dodged the bullet!  HA!  At 12:30 Liam woke up crying.  Robert went in and patted him and he laid back down.  He cried again about 12:45.  It was my turn, so I headed to the babies room to try to calm him down.  As soon as I went in the room, the yucky smell hit me and I knew that the stomach virus was here.  We managed to get Liam's yucky sheet off his bed and into the washer in the dark so we didn't wake Lilah up.  We made Liam a little bed of towels in our bed and tried to get some more sleep.  Liam was up and down throwing up for the rest of the night off and on, but no noise from Lilah we were hoping was a good thing.  That morning we were up at the usual time - thank you sweet Caroline - and Liam seemed to be doing a little better.  He was keeping down some Pedialyte and seemed to be pretty happy, all things considered.  Lilah slept late (almost 9:00), woke up very happy and laughing, drank her whole bottle, and started throwing up everywhere!  Caroline was a great little alarm system and took great joy in screaming at the top of her lungs, "Mommy, Daddy, the babies just threw up everywhere - AGAIN!".  Friday was filled with laundry, Pedialyte, naps (for the babies not mommy and daddy), laundry, a migraine for mommy, grocery shopping (thanks to SuperDad who could see the crazy coming out in my eyes and stayed home from work to help!), and more laundry.  It is just shocking to me how much laundry two pukey babies can create!  If we could figure out some way for pukey baby laundry to power our cars, the gas prices wouldn't matter at all!  The rest of the weekend they have been doing better tummy-wise, but still VERY cranky.  They must still be feeling yucky, but I wish they could figure out some sort of medicine to fix the cranky!  Its the hardest time to be a twin mommy when both of your babies aren't feeling well and want mommy to hold them, but there is only one mommy.  We are just praying that Caroline doesn't get sick, that Robert and I stay well, and that the cranky ends soon! 

Caroline was VERY excited to get to spend the night at her Cayah and Ike's house this weekend and has had a blast helping them plant new flowers in the backyard and taking them to Target to find new things that she needs!  She also had fun making banana pudding this week because according to her, she is a "cooker girl"! 

The babies have also figured out how to pull themselves up in their cribs and knock the CD player off of its shelf and screech back and forth to each other, so we lowered the cribs this weekend to try to minimize the trouble they can get into together - I am sure that's wishful thinking!  Here are the co-conspirators checking out the new crib level in Liam's crib!  I am sure they are already planning their next adventure!

Tulips and Tonsils

We have had a crazy couple of days here in Cochran Land!  Last night was our big Spring Program and Open House at CDO!  The theme was "God is Everywhere" and each classroom represented a different country.  My absolutely fantastic co-teacher Blythe and I were given the country of Holland to represent. We spent a long evening at Snuffers and racked our brains to come up with projects to do with the kids.  Blythe's husband Jimmy made us some fabulous flower boxes to hold tulips with each student's name and picture and Blythe burned a tracing of each child's name into each box!  We had windmills hanging and outside our door.  We really had so much fun working for hours and hours to make our vision a reality!  I think we were more excited than the kids when last night finally rolled around!  The room turned out fantastically and our wonderfully supportive parents were so impressed with all of their student's work! 

While Mommy worked late, Daddy was in charge of swim lesson night!  Mer bravely volunteered to come and help out because we need two adults in the water for Liam and Lilah while Caroline takes her "big girl" lesson at the same time.  At pick up time after school, Ms. Sunny and Ms. Vicki mentioned that Lilah had a tough day.  She was fussy and hadn't slept well and just laid on them for most of the day.  Since Lilah spent all of her last swim lesson crying and clinging to me and now screams through every bath time (I guess it causes flashbacks to the terrible swim lesson!), I decided to be a nice mommy and ask Auntie MerMer to keep her at home for snuggles while the little fishies (Caroline and Liam) went to swimming with Daddy!  From the looks of things, Lilah was thrilled with that decision!  She was fine all night and checked out great at the doctor, so I guess it was just the stress of the impending swim lesson that had her down all day!

Daddy made it through swimming, dinner, and got everyone in bed!  He's a keeper!

After a yummy late night dinner with the lively ladies of 4A and 4C, I was reluctantly awake early this morning to take Liam and Lilah to their 9 month check up.  Robert is applying for sainthood soon, so he agreed to go to the appointment with me so that I would not look like crazy Octomom trying to control all of my children in the doctor's office!  He had to leave the 9:30 appointment by 10:30 in order to get to Opening Day at the ballpark on time, so if the appointment ran late, I was on my own.  So, of course, the appointment ran late.  Robert was there to find out that the babies look perfect!  They are developing well, meeting their milestones and Liam (at 19 lbs. 6 oz.) weighs a pound more than Lilah (at 18 lbs. 5 oz.) and is a quarter of an inch longer than her (Liam 27.5 inches and Lilah 27.25 inches)!  Fortunately, the staff at the pediatrician's office is kind and they took pity on me.  After Robert left, Dr. Mix took Lilah and Caroline on a walk around the office while Liam and I got his vision screening done.  When Dr. Mix came back she mentioned that she would like to check Caroline out because her nose was really runny and her ear was draining a lot.  Yes, I am Mother of the Year, I wait for the doctor to notice my child is sick at my other childrens' appointment instead of realizing that my child is sick and taking her to the doctor.  Don't be jealous of my superior mothering skills!  She checked Caroline's ear and it was very infected and so clogged that no drops were even getting to the infection.  Her throat is also covered in pus (sorry for the gross visual) and her tonsils were huge and red.  Yep, right back where we started a few weeks ago when we ended up in the hospital with strep and dehydration.  Dr. Mix decided she needed to be seen by the ENT right away.  I asked if she meant right away now when both babies are screaming hysterically because they had no nap, are starving, and just had their finger pricked and Caroline is hysterical because she had her ear checked and her throat swabbed and I am BY MYSELF with all of them?  Yep, right now.  She called the ENT and he would see us as soon as we could get there.  I am proud of myself for not crying or begging some of the nurses to come with me until they called security to remove me and my screaming friends.  I gathered up the happy campers and we headed to the ENT.  In a flash of brilliance I called my dad who was working close by and he agreed to come and drive the babies around the parking lot while we were in the ENT's office so they could have their morning nap!  My dad the hero!  After two nurses, the doctor, and I held Caroline down and got her ear sucked out (again, sorry for the visual) we left with a 10 day course of high dose antibiotics and more ear drops.  We are really praying that this relapse is just do to the severity of her previous strep infection because if they can't get it under control, we will have to have her tonsils taken out.  She's already had her adenoids removed, so I asked the ENT if he had to go in to get the tonsils could he just go ahead and remove the appendix, the gallbladder, and anything else that might need to come out at any point in time.  We finally made it home at 12:45 from our 9:30 doctor appointment.  After a stop at Sonic of course!  Everyone is sleeping off the effects of a crazy morning and mommy is counting down until bedtime!  Here's hoping for a calm weekend (but what fun would that be?) :)