Have you ever....

Tried so hard to keep a child from getting sick?  Do you ever feel like you're running in circles trying to win a NO WIN game?  That's a bit how I'm feeling lately.

Well my ultimate goal over the next 5 weeks or so is to try and not let Birk get sick.  I HAVE to keep him as healthy as possible.  If he gets sick (the sick that he gets where we have to put him on steroids or the poor child gets no sleep) that will set back or surgery date roughly about 3 weeks.  WELL, with a sick nurse (who has been out for the better part of this week), a sister who can't seem to poop and is running fevers and barfing all over me (that was a real cap to a crappy day for me)...I'm about at my whits end.  Then to top it off he got so worried about Addy he just wants to come over and kiss on her, and rub her belly to which I try and get him to go somewhere else so that she isn't breathing down his throat....UGH!

Prayers for healthy kids over the next several weeks are very much appreciated!

I love being a mom

Although I have yet to receive my mother of the year award in the mail I'm sure it is on it's way.  Like tonight, I go to pick up the kids and do a piano lesson for my daycare ladies son and quickly hug the twins and pawn them off on someone else.  Then watch as we are loading out to the van as Birk falls down the stairs (only 4 stairs and I think it scared him more than anything).  We load up...I drive to McDonald's and say to the man asking for my order and I quote "I want 2 chicken nugget happy meals, both with chocolate milk, 1 boy, 1 girl...NO sauce."  I get to the window and he says "wow, its like you've done this before?"    Then I pop on the Dora movie in the car so we can unload some things in our storage unit.  We unload some boxes and drive to Fareway so I can get some crappy food to cook for Nick and I AND a bottle of wine.  It's just been one of those days. 

My award has to be on its way soon, right?  

Today...

What a great weekend.

We've had so much fun as a family of 4 and it has been delightful.  We went and saw some live music on Friday night and the twins got to dance and sing and enjoy a hotdog.  Yesterday we spent the day with some good friends and their new baby and their families.  The twins played in the sandbox, played outside and had so much fun (with NO NAPS...YIKES) that they ended up bathed and in bed by 8pm last night.  Today we are again heading to a friends house for a wonderful BBQ and some outdoor fun.

Its weekends (and events) like this that just make me want to say THANKS.  Thanks for my wonderful family, fabulous friends and the ability to enjoy life in so many ways.

Where did this last week go?

So I realize that it has been almost a week since my last blog post.  Oops. I was so determined for a little while there.

Lots has happened this week too.  First, my wonderful husband surprised me with a ticket to the Iowa/Pittsburg game.  I hitched a ride with my nephew and his friend and got to tailgate with most of my old crew and had a wonderful time.  It wasn't the best game until about 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter and boy am I glad I stayed! 

Our great friends had their sweet baby girl Avery Mae on Sunday night.  I haven't been on the waiting side of a baby for a while so Sunday about set me over the edge waiting for news.  We met her on Monday and she is very precious.  I got to hold her and listen to Addy sing her some sweet songs!  I'm sure Avery is in for a little Addy Grace bossing around when she gets a  little older. 

The twins are still 2.  That is about all I can saw somedays.  We love to RUN, and run fast.  We love to read books, we don't love to share and our tantrums are getting bigger these days.  However, I wouldn't change it for a second.  They are the most fun people to be around.  We laugh a lot these days and there is nothing better than the laughter of a child.  Addy is still very motherly to her brother.  In fact when he gets himself in timeout she helps coach him on who he needs to say sorry to and how to say it!  Birk LOVES TO WRESTLE.  Consider yourself warned if you enter our home, sit anywhere on the floor you are fairgame for a full body tackle followed by some little boy giggles. 

We are almost to October.  Seriously?  I can't believe that I'm down to a little over a month left with a Trache child.  I am so amazed at what Birk can do, who he has become and how strong that little bogger is.  I  hate to say it, but I'm a bit nervous to see how life will be like w/o the Trache.  I have confidence that he will do great just by watching how well he overcame having a Trache put in.  We will spend a month in Ohio and I'm a bit nervous how that will go.  I'm sure we will all be feeling some extreme boredom at times....so if anyone wants to make the lovely 9 hour drive to visit us...you're more than welcome!  :-)

I thank you for your prayers these past months/years.  They have been heard.  Birk and Addy are doing great! 

Happy Hump day (i've always hated that phrase...BTW). 

Best Friends

Is what Birk and Addy are these days.  Now don't get me wrong they sure have their fair share of fighting, but man oh man they have some good times.  They love to run and chase each other, play house (or in Addy's case just boss Birk around).  They love to sit right next to each other and watch a movie and lately they love to wrestle each other.  This morning as I was getting ready they were wrestling on my bedroom floor and I asked them to stop (in my ever so polite Mommy voice) and Birk looked up at me as he was laying oh his sister pinning her to the ground and said "Mommy, I'm hugging Addy."  I just looked at him and thought to myself ... well how do you argue with that logic?  :-)  Little turd! 

I thought of him today

Truth is I think of him every day.  I miss my dad.  He was such an awesome person.  If you ever had the great opportunity to meet him you would know that he didn't really have a lot to say.  But when he did...it counted.  He loved the Hawkeyes, golf, his wife, his kids, a good stiff drink, and most importantly his grandkids.  Man, talk about a man's pride and joy.  I think this is the part that makes me the most sad.  He doesn't get to play catch with crazy man Birk as he learns to throw with (yes this is true) both his right and left hands.  Or when he stands up and asks you to pitch him the ball so he can either swing the bat or kick it mid air.  He can't participate in the make believe drives we take each night to "Chuckie Cheese" with Addy or when she invites us to her self proclaimed "party."  I miss him.  I miss his voice, his laugh, and I miss his silent presence.  I'll never forget that he called me on my 29th birthday (from the nursing home) and ended the call with "I love you."  I'm not sure if he knew the end was near, but he gave me a moment I will cherish FOREVER.  I will never forget his last breath.  The peace that took over his body.

One of my favorite stories and most close to my heart is how I will ask Addy, and now Birk where their Bomps (thanks to Tim for nicknaming him that) is and their innocent response is "he lives with Jesus."  

My post has no other purpose tonight, other than I miss him.  I'm not sure that pain will ever go away.  I do take great joy in knowing that he sits next to Jesus every day.  He is watching over us and waiting until we can all be together again.

I will just wait...and miss him!

Reflections

Why?

Why do bad things happen?  Why do we have to experience pain?  Today has been a day filled with questions like that.  What a life changing day 9/1/01 was to our country, and to each and every person!  I'm sure almost everyone who was old enough remembers VIVDLY the exact moment they found out and almost just as much the feelings they felt that day and the days to follow.

I heard the stories of all the heroes who served that community and our country following that day, but until now I'm not sure I fully grasped the magnitude.  You sacrificed.  You put your life on the line.  You worked for your family, friends, neighbors, people you loved, and people you never met.  You are the picture of the cross to me.  You put your life on the line for someone else.

Today I don't feel sad, but I feel proud.  We don't live in fear, we live in freedom.

CBS had a fantastic documentary recounting the moments of that day.  Some quotes that stand out to me I decided to put into this blog.  I hope to read this to Birk and Addy some day and help them to understand what happened to our country and how we overcame it.  I want to teach them that sometimes life can be hard and we go through challenges, but find the purpose, find your courage, strength, unity.

"9/11 is a part of me, it is who I am now.  It will never go away."

"Every day there is a thought in my head from that day."

I will never forget.  9/11.  Day that changed us forever.  

Suck

Is all I can say when I think about this week.  If you though you had a bad week...you should have come to my house.  When we thought we were finished with bad news, we got more bad news....then we got more.  To make matters WORSE tonight Nick left about 9:50pm to go get us some Taco Johns (yes we drown our sorrows in taco's), and they were closed.  CLOSED.  Of all the things to just set a person over the edge.

For anyone reading this...just to set the record straight, kids are good...nothing of this sucky week has been about them.  :-)

Please say some prayers for good news for members of our family.  It seems like what we thought was a good plan, was not His plan.  You would think we would learn this lesson sometime, right?

Bossy Pants

I don't have much to say tonight (shocking, I know).  However I will share with you a video of the kids playing 'house' last night.  As you can see Addy is a bit more bossy than her brother.  She is sometimes down right RUDE!  :-)  However, that be it as it may, they sure are cute when they play together!

Ok, I guess I had a little more to say than I thought!

Enjoy!

I'm not sure when to...

So being a first time mom (I still refer to myself as that especially when I'm not sure on things) I have some questions on things.  My two main areas of concern these days are potty training and moving to toddler beds. 

I've decided to don't want to push either one. 

The kids talk a lot about going potty and seem to follow me into the restroom every chance they get and discuss with me what I am doing (step by step we have to talk about what is happening and why I'm doing that),  but they don't really seem all that motivated to do it themselves.  Addy will sit on the toilet every so often, but quickly gets off and asks for her diaper back.  Birk...rarely wants anything to do with the potty.  I'm determined it just takes to much time away from playing so he chooses not to.  The kid loves to play! With the surgery coming up...I won't push this.  I want them to feel good about their progress and with how much I anticipate our lives to be thrown around I fear that would only hurt their success.  Plus poor Birk will be sedated for an extended period of time.  Secondly, is moving to a toddler bed.  The twins both stay in their cribs and have yet tried to climb out (knocking on wood).  They just yell for me (or in Addy's case sings me a wonderful song) when they are ready to get up.  In fact, Birk now wakes up and starts telling me about the footballs, baseballs, basketballs and soccer balls on his walls OR yells at the monitor and says "Mom, MOM, MOM, I'm awake." 

I'm sure everything will fall into place that is supposed to, but I just don't know when I need to force the issue!  I guess for now I'm writing to tell you I'm keeping things status quo!  We will wear diapers and stay in cribs. 

I mean heck, I should keep them 'babies' as long as I can, right? 

FABULOUS weekend

Oh man, where do I even start.  We literally had such a fun weekend.  It started on Friday when we invited the neighbors over for some grilling and beers.  We put the kids down and literally sat at the table and laughed and talked for a few hours.  Such fun to get to know the great people we live by.  Saturday we spent the day in Ames.  Now, for those of you that know me and know me well I AM A HAWKEYE.  I always will be a HAWKEYE, however it doesn't make it very easy for me to spend my Saturdays in Iowa City and Nick in Ames (especially with 2 little ones) so we are going to try this out.  I do have to say tailgating in Ames was fun.  The kids had an absolute blast.  We ate crap, we played football, we took our naps, we drank beer (well, I did), and the best part was our family got to hitch a ride on the firetruck that leads the Spirit walk.  If you don't know what the spirit walk is...its the drive in where the players enter on their buses, bet off and make their way to Jack Trice for the game.  At one point on our firetruck ride, CY (or YI) jumped on and we were right there by him.  Nick and Birk just stared at him like it was the best thing on the planet, while Addy screamed her head off in fear.  The twins and I stayed until game time and loaded in our van and made the 13 minute ride back to our house.  We ate some dinner, played, and went to bed.
We got up Sunday morning and made the drive up to our annual Robertson/Rebhuhn family reunion in Okoboji.  The twins have been talking all week about going to Okoboji and it was finally here.  We promised them fun...and we DELIVERED!  Sunday and today were spent doing the following (and nothing short of), riding bikes, kicking the giant red ball, playing volleyball, playing at the park, swinging, shuffleboard, baseball, running around the basketball court, eating hot dogs, playing with cousins and MANY more fun moments!  It is a challenge to take the twins up there and try to cram into such a small space, but to see the amount of fun they had made it worth it.  If it paints any picture of our weekend Addy didn't even make it out of the parking lot of the cabin before she was asleep on our drive home and slept almost the whole way home!  :-)  (she woke up for some chicken nuggets and fries and was back out).

The low point of the weekend came tonight.  I came home from my run to find Addy yelling that Birk had an 'owie'.  He had fallen off a chair and had a pretty nice sized cut on his head. We called the Mercy Nurse who advised us that we should make our way to the ER.  SO, we loaded up around 7pm and headed in.  Turns out it was already in the process of healing so stitches were not needed, but we were glad we made our way in to check.  We got home about 8:30 (and had yet to eat dinner) so I gave the kids some cheese and grapes ( I know, I know MOTHER OF THE YEAR).  They went straight to bed and are sleeping soundly!  :-)

I sure hope they remember weekends like this as they get older.  I know this one will go down in my record book as A+!

(side note: there is also a Friends marathon on TV tonight...man could this girl get any luckier?)

We have a date!!!!

Although it isn't what we had hoped for.  Birks surgery will be on November 7th.  With Dr. Cotton's vacation in October and the delay from the scheduling department this was the earliest we could get in.  Which will mean a couple things.  We have more time to prepare to be gone.  I won't need as much coverage at work for an upcoming class and I can even run the DSM marathon which I had debated doing the year I turned 30!  I mean, if Birk can endure the surgery, recovery and learning to breathe and eat again I can surely run 26.2 miles, right? Yikes.

Now we prepare for the surgery.  We have to keep him as healthy as possible.  Any major illness could set up back even further and getting into cold and flu season does have me a bit alarmed.  I guess we will cross that bridge when we get to it.

Twin Update!
The twins are for sure in their two's as I have said before.  Addy is very dominant and wants what she wants when she wants it...and if you don't provide that....LOOK OUT!  She is also very motherly and always looking out for her brother.  In fact this morning when I was leaving (Birk was staying home with his nurse today) she was watching Birk who was crying and begging me not to leave and got down to his level and kissed him and said "Its ok Birky, its ok!"  How sweet.
Birk is all boy.  He loves cars, footballs, baseball, cartoons and RUNNING.  That kid could run until his legs fall off if we let him.  Addy loves dollies, pushing them in the stroller, feeding them and rocking them to sleep.  When you ask them who their best friend is, their response is "Birk" or "Addy Grace".  It about melts my heart!  Lets hope that continues in the coming years.
Birk is weighing in at 26 pounds and some odd ounces and Addy is almost 25.  We had our final high risk appt at Mercy this week and found out the twins are developmentally at a 3 year old level.  WOW.  Never thought that would happen.  I mean, we struggled to get them caught up and now they are acting so grown up.  Makes me so proud of who they are and what they are becoming.

So, I feel in love with this song the first time I heard it so I thought I'd share as my TUNE THURSDAY!  I firmly believe God had a plan for me.  It included Nick, BIRK and ADDY!  :-)