I NEED A DRINK!!!

In the name of all that is good and decent, what a freegoan CRAZY NUTSO day!

We both need to go vaccuum now because all the hair we both pulled out today is all over the STINKING floor!

Okay. Let's walk through, shall we?

Twins had their 2 month checkup today. But Steph also had a dental appointment today at the same time. Which meant that I had to load all the kids into the car, take the big girls to B&K's so they could play with J&M while I took the twins to the doctor.

No big deal, everyone was good (more on the checkup later) but it made for a wild morning, and of course trying to explain what's happening to Mari who has a memory like a food processor (as in, you put in nice fresh pieces of information and she mashes them up into goo or paste) is always trying.

So the first sign of the disasters to come was when I attempted to carry the twins into the doctor's office, with the diaper bag on my shoulder. Of course the diaper bag slipped off and, oh, sort of landed on Robby's head. No big deal, little scratch. Didn't even cry. Maybe he was stunned.

They both were great at the appointment, but at the 2 month checkup, the babies are pincushions. 4 shots each, and an oral rotovirus vaccination. And the doctor was out of the infant's Tylenol he usually gives us to help them with the pain and soreness. No biggie, I'll just dose them up when we get home. So they scream bloody murder during the shots then get sleepy, as Faith and Mari always did too. No big deal, I come home.

Get home, give the babies their medicine to help them feel better, throw together lunch for the girls, and before long, I hear the van pull up and the sound of Mari in pure meltdown mode. She comes stumbling up to the door, Steph gives me that "Yep" look and says "She lost her milk privilege."

Now, this may sound strange to some. But one of our challenges with Mari has always been finding something she values enough to get her attention by the threat of losing it. Most things she just doesn't show enough interest in to make that kind of thing effective. And yes, I know we should try to do more positive reinforcement, but any parent knows that in the heat of the moment stuff flies out of your mouth and you sometimes talk yourself into a corner. So every so often, we end up having to take away her milk. She loves her milk. Always has. Would probably drink a gallon a day if she could. Long after she was done with bottles, we still had to give her a sippy cup of milk every night before bed. So of course, Mari was a mess at lunch.

At any rate, the story was, Mari started whining and crying as soon as Steph got to B&K's because she didn't want to leave yet. Steph gave her more chances than she would normally get to get herself under control on the way home, and so...NO MILK FOR YOU!!!

Okay. Next item. Steph starts asking about the appointment, looks at the vaccination records and says, "Didn't they get the rotovirus vaccination?" And my jaw drops. Our wonderful pediatrician (seriously, he's great - we go to the office farther away so he can be the kids' primary) forgot to order it, and I (being the dumb dad) forgot about it while holding my children down for their 8 other shots. So we call the doctor's office and they're great, they'll get us into the office closer to us at 1:30.

Fine, except that I DESPERATELY need to mow the lawn. It's been like 2 weeks at least, it's embarassing and we're pretty sure that the reason the dogs have been going in the house a lot more lately is that the grass is literally too tall for them to go out there. So I'm gonna need to mow while the girls are inside, hopefully sleeping. No problem with Mari, but Faith likes to come out 5 times with this that and the other problem just because she doesn't want to sleep.

So I explain to Faith that I'll be mowing the lawn and if there are any small problems she can take care of it herself...if she has to go potty, wipe herself and go back to bed, etc, etc...And that if there is a real, serious problem, she should come find me...but if she comes to get me and there is not a really serious problem, she's going to be in big trouble, blah blah blah.

I start the lawn. Get the back done. Start on the front. Suddenly, there's Faith in the doorway. I take a deep breath, turn off the mower and go find out what's wrong. Faith has 'leaked' in the bed. And long story short (because this kind of thing has happened before) she did it on purpose so she could come out and tell me that something was wrong.

So I go in, probably yell more than I should (but at the same time there's a line here that Faith needs to know about even if she can't quite understand it yet) strip the sheets off our bed (she naps in our room since Mari won't nap unless she's by herself) change Faith, and send her into her room where Mari isn't sleeping anyway.

Steph comes home, I explain the situation then go finish the lawn. Come back in, and as God is my witness, I decide to tell Faith the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf...which is just too ironic since we've been making a million 'wolf' jokes since the Great Wolf Lodge. Have no idea if Faith got it but I made the effort.

ANYWAY, Steph then tells me that at the doctor's office, Hannah basically spit up most of her vaccine and that the carseat cover is now pretty wet from it. Nice. Meanwhile, it's become quite clear that the twins are extremely uncomfortable and in pain from the shots. Hannah is crazy crying and can't calm down.

Soon after, we realized that we had an errand to run which required us printing out a couple of pages of information. No paper. Scrounged around, found two kind of crumply pieces of paper, good enough. Print one out. Printer out of ink.

Long story short, needed to deliver the papers to Grandma D's house anyway, so I threw everyone into the car, and left Steph to start packing unmolested. On the way there, Mari falls asleep. Then, about 10 minutes later, I see Faith in the rearview mirror messing with Mari's face. Now please understand. If Mari wakes up from a nap before she's ready, she is absolutely inconsolable for about 20 minutes. She can not stop herself from the hysterics. So, once again, probably more than I should (but this time out of sheer incredulousness) I start in on Faith.

Faith's response is to say "I will scream all the way home because you are being nasty to me" and then scream rhythmically every 2 seconds. We work through that and get her calmed down.

Run the errand, Faith falls asleep too. Normally, this would be bad, because it's now about 6pm and if they sleep this late they might not sleep at night. Just this once, I genuinely DO NOT CARE. Accident on the I-275 bridge. Thank God they're sleeping.

Grab dinner and head home. Mari and Faith are both a wreck from their interrupted nap. Mari between howling cries tells us she can't decide whether to eat her burger or her apples first. They didn't give me the dressing for my Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad. To heck with them (this is a family blog so I can't say what I really want to say there - use your imagination). Hannah and Robby are crazy crying in the other room.

Honestly up to this point, neither of us have really had time to realize what a crazy day this has been. Steph and I go in the other room and end up having a really nasty stupid fight about nothing at all. Then I (thinking it will be good therapy and help lighten things up) tell her we should each just tell the other one what's ticking us off most about them. She says something I didn't expect and I get all offended. What a jerk I am.

We go get the girls ready for bed. It is SO bedtime. Somehow while reading books, Steph and I manage to get in another dumb argument. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, Robby silently and without fussing, spits up all over himself in the other room...in his carrier...on the couch. Steph soon discovers that it has leaked through, and frantically tries to clean up the couch.

I finish reading to the girls (forgetting of course that Faith was not supposed to have books since she decided to leave her mark on our bed) and go call dad to tell him that we can't set the carseats up in the Suburban tonight, because we have to wash both the covers.

OH FOR CRY YI.

It's still just 9:30 - what else could go wrong tonight? Or is this all a preview of tomorrow - a 4 1/2 hour drive to Cleveland, crammed into a big red Suburban, with Zayde, who will probably have some new excuse for not wearing his hearing aids?

Keep us in your prayers. Pass the salt.

Matt

P.S. Robby is 13lb 1oz and Hannah is 11lb 15oz

For God's Sake, Contribute!

That's what Matt just said to me. Whatevs. Like I never post. I have always hated writing, though.

Ok, so Tuesday at Great Wolf Lodge just strengthened our appreciation of it! The girls actually slept in that morning ('till almost 8am) and the babies went 5 hrs that night for the first stretch! Not bad at all!

Got up, got dressed, waited for Matt's dad to call to say he was on his way (he had a tennis game early that morning). Went back to the "Loose Moose" for our free breakfast buffet. It was WAY WAY better than dinner had been the previous night! A really wide variety of food and well-cooked! We stuffed our faces (even the girls ate well) then went back to the room to finish packing up. Matt loaded the car, we put our swimsuits on, checked out and headed to the waterpark area. We were allowed to stay until close at 10pm if we had wanted.

Mari had a general tough time that morning/afternoon. Besides the fact that the acoustics are horrible in there (it's a huge, really tall building with tons of water slides/water splashing) and we could hardly hear a word she said, she was tired. We managed to get her on two more slides, but that's it. And I think she never did go back on the lazy river, much to my dismay (I LOVE those things)! The most she wanted to do was sit in the shallow end of the wave pool and play in the fountains there. Oh, and fuss and cry and whine. Oh well. She's VERY two!

Faith continued to have a WONDERFUL time! She was a machine on those kids' slides! She loved it and went on the slides, I think Matt counted 46 times! I also think she did the lazy river once and also got to jump some waves in the wave pool. By about 1pm, we were all beyond exhausted. We got changed out of our suits (the locker rooms had "bathing suit water extractors" which is fascinating to me!) and got in the cards. Z and I had to work hard to keep Mari awake for the 5 minute drive to McDonald's. We were successful, though, and after a good lunch Z headed to his house and we headed to ours.

The girls fell asleep in the car no more than 10 mins in to the drive. Matt actually made a successful transfer of them in to their beds. We finally woke them up around 4:45 for fear that they wouldn't go to bed that night. Oh and the babies continued to do well -- slept most of the time at the waterpark that day and ended up sleeping well last night, too!

I was asleep by like 11pm at the latest. I was beyond exhausted!!!

So today is our day "off" -- tomorrow we have appointments in the morning, Matt has to mow the lawn and I have to pack for Cleveland. We leave Fri morning!!! Matt's paternal grandmother's family is having a small reunion and I am looking forward to it. I always like trips and I've only ever met his uncle from that side (and his Zayde who passed away in 2000).

I am sure we'll be posting a bit this weekend about our trip to Cleveland!

Please keep Matt's mom (aka: grammy) in your thoughts and prayers -- she's traveling to Kenya tomorrow!

Steph

Howlin' at the moon...

Sorry, no pics. The logistics did not allow us to get the camera out. Here are the highlights:

First of all, very cool place. Just FYI, we're only here because a friend of ours hooked us up with a free night as part of a grassroots marketing job she had. We could never afford this place on our own. BUT, we think that even as expensive as this place is, when the twins are Faith's age, it would be totally worth it, provided we bring our own food or drive out to the local McDonald's to eat cheap. The dinner buffet left quite a bit to be desired. I can honestly say I've never been to a buffet with more items which I could not identify. Some things, even after I ate them. It was either fishy pork or really tough salmon. Not sure.

Anyway, the waterpark is very nice, very cool. Kinda bummed that we weren't free to go on the big waterslides. Maybe next time. The kids area was great, 5 slides Faith's size. Mari could have easily done 3 of them, but on her first try, she sort of slid down on her back and so refused to do another slide the rest of the day. Faith on the other hand went down about a hundred times.

Mari did finally find something she liked...the lazy river. She went around that thing on Zayde and my and Steph's lap like 15 times. And eventually, she fell asleep on Zayde's lap. And then later, she fell asleep at the buffet.

Anyway, this room is really cool - it has a semi-seperate 'kids' room with one twin bed and one bunk bed. Faith is getting to sleep in the top of a bunk bed for the first time. She's very excited.

Again, sorry about the lack of pics - but hopefully this will be entertaining for everyone:

New Blog Title

In honor of all the stupid things people say to us when they see the twins, we have decided to rename the blog "You've Got Your Hands Full". Check back later today for pics from Great Wolf Lodge up in Mason.

2 months tomorrow

Hello all. Not much to report here, just a summation of where things are and have been.

Babies continue to improve their sleep patterns. Robby might be able to go all night. We have to wake him up when Hannah wakes up and then he doesn't eat much. Hannah is still the one who's not quite on track. She now is in a pattern of becoming wide awake after her last feeding. She's actually been doing that for a while, but has been able to fall asleep on her own. Now, though, she sometimes has to have a crying session before she'll fall asleep, and at least so far, one of us usually goes in to hold her for a few minutes. Probably start backing off on that pretty soon. At any rate, they are consistently good for 5-6 hours at a time which means only one nighttime feeding. All in all, we couldn't have asked for more.

Hannah and Robby are still fighting off colds or a series of colds that have been passed around the family. Steph said today, "This is the house of snot." I've got it too, now...and it's not a bad cold, but it is moving in geologic time. Despite this, they have both become very smiley. One or the other of them usually has a wonderful happy session right after they wake up in the morning. Steph and I can sit in bed while the girls come in and we all just hang out. Of course we have to keep Tookzilla from trampling both babies and Salsa, but it's still a nice morning routine. We'll be sad of course when summer's over and it's back to school again.

This week is/has been busy. July 4th get-together at M&MJ's on Friday, maternal side of the family over last night, B K and family tonight, Great Wolf Lodge tomorrow night, with more time there on Tuesday, then Cleveland on Friday and Saturday. A whirlwind.

THat's all for now. Posting is ever tougher now, because Steph's laptop from work is also less than functional. But we'll keep trying to find the time.

Thanks all, hope your summer is going well.

Matt

P.S. Here's the rescued Louisville video - from the waterpark:

Happy 4th

Here's how you know that you really needed time away from the kids. And the parents of young children will know exactly what I'm talking about:

It's like in some bad sitcom, where the parents go out to dinner and end up calling the babysitter every 20 minutes to check on things. We really never were quite THAT bad, but we would end up sitting around talking about the girls quite a bit if we ever had an evening to ourselves.

Yeah. This time, we haven't mentioned them at all. Haven't said to each other that we missed them. We've been blissfully taking care of the babies and ourselves, and MAN has it been nice.

And we know it's been nice for the girls too...sometimes everyone just needs time apart. I think that next week will be a much better week because of us having this 24-hour break from one another. Thanks again, G and Z!

So, it's noon, we're going back over to G and Z's for dinner, and then taking everyone down to M&MJ's for a laid-back July 4th get-together and possible fireworks display (raining all day here in Cincy, so you never know).

So, all in all, not a bad time right now. Enjoying the quietness of the house, and the break between crazy trips.

Oh, and a note to Mary who keeps leaving comments admiring us for taking trips with the kids and whatnot. Mary, just so you know, we still have the suitcase from Louisville full of dirty clothes just sitting in the middle of our living room unpacked. We have our issues, trust me.

Happy 4th, everyone. And if you're setting off fireworks, remember..."Do not place in mouth."

Matt

My the time does fly...

Whew. Busy couple of days. The highlights:

Computer starting fritzing out on us - as it does once a year or so. Smartly, I grabbed the external hard drive and backed up all the video files. The next day the computer died. Thankful that I had all my movies safe and secure, except for the latest one I had created that day, I hauled it up to the Geek Squad where they know me pretty well by now. I purchased the highest level of extended protection you can get, and it's been worth every penny. Trust me people, when you buy a laptop computer, things will go wrong. Especially if you have 4 kids and 2 dogs. Anyway, they were kind enough to back up my single file to a CD for me, and I was on my way. Of course, later that day I remembered that I hadn't backed up the pictures, so I ran to the phone and managed to get a hold of them before it got shipped off for repair. Got those files on CD and now the computer is on its way to probably have the whole board replaced again. OH well. That means no new videos for a while.

Tonight we just had our first annual viewing of the 2007 trip video with mom and dad. Pretty complicated arranging things to allow us all to watch with not many interruptions, but it all came off very well. Thanks mom and dad for being part of those memories and reminiscing with us. Hopefully there will be many more in the future, starting soon.

Tomorrow is an exciting day...the big girls are having a 'sleepover' at G&Z's place. Steph and I have come to the realization that our little trip to Louisville was great, but in doing it we really stretched ourselves thin as parents. It will be good for everyone to have 24 hours apart. We are looking forward to time with just us and the twins, and time with just us.

Monday we're spending the day/night at Great Wolf Lodge up by KI. Z will be coming to help and spend the night with us. Should get some good pics and stories from that one. And then Friday we're beelining it up to Cleveland for a family reunion on the Specter side. Again, should be wild, especially since Grandma will be leaving for Kenya a couple days prior. Yeah. It's going to be a wild week next week.

Anyway, just wanted to check in. I might be able to post the new Louisville video tomorrow, if I can get the gumption to transfer it from the CD.

Peace,
Matt

Old vid

This one is from day 3 of the 2007 trip. Driving from Salina, Kansas to Denver. A few random thoughts:

Kansas is pretty much exactly like all the cliches. But what they don't tell you is that eastern Colorado is probably worse.

Steph actually did some driving on this day. Figured Kansas was the place to let her try it. Of course, she was a bit nervous. And of course, the one day she drove, we got passed by 3-4 oversize loads. If you've never driven an RV with only one foot of space on either side in your lane, let me tell you, it takes some mental control to convince yourself you're not going to scrape every vehicle you see. When there's a barrier, it can be terrifying. When there's a big rig, you can't help but cheat to the other side. So when these houses started passing us...it was pretty wild.

Also, this was one of those times when I wish I had fancy sound editing equipment. There were a bunch of amusing conversations but it's really hard to capture them with all the road noise in the RV...if I get enough complaints/requests I might add subtitles to help everyone hear and appreciate the experience of being trapped in an RV with the Specter Family.

Enjoy!

Teaser and Retrospection

Here's a little hint of what's to come. I managed to throw together the first part of the Louisville video. It's really short, it's just the drive down there, it's certainly not my best work or anything. But it proves that I can still find the time to edit video with 4 kids. It also turned out to be one of those 'look how far things have come' moments. Allow me to explain:

Choosing the music for these videos is sometimes clear as day - I know even when I'm filming exactly what music is going to be perfect. Sometimes it's really tough to find something that fits. Sometimes I go through 2-3 different ideas until I find one that works. And sometimes, it's a total intuition...somehow I just pull up a file that had never crossed my mind and it just works.

5 years ago, when I was putting together the first road trip video, the one that started it all, I was looking for music for the beginning of the drive, Day 1 of this amazing trip we had taken, and somehow I thought of "Take it to the Limit" by the Eagles. I'm not even a huge Eagles fan, and back then I probably couldn't have recited half the lyrics. But I stuck it in there and it worked like a charm. And in a lot of ways, if I hadn't gotten that music right, there wouldn't have been the drive to finish the rest of the thing.

And just today, as I was sitting thinking of music for this short little video of driving to Louisville with our family of 6, something led me back to the Eagles, and this time I pulled up "Take it Easy" and lo and behold, one or two splices and it was done.

I think it's meaningful that both of these 'beginnnings' were one of those intuitive selections. I think it's meaningful that I was drawn to the same band. And I think it shows the change in attitude in my life in the last 5 years...from "Take it to the Limit" to "Take it Easy".

5 years. Wow. Seems like a lifetime ago, but amazingly, 5 years ago, there was no Robby, no Hannah, no Mari, no Faith. Just 5 years. Amazing.

What will the next 5 years bring? We all hope you stick around to find out.

Oh, here's the vid - it uses the "overlay" function that I first used on Day 3 of the big 2007 trip...gimmicky, but effective. I promise I will use it sparingly. Enjoy.

Last day

Okay, so. The last day was really only a half day, but a good story or two did come about.

After packing up the stuff and saying goodbye to the hotel (it's cute that the girls still don't know the difference between a 5-star hotel and the ratty place we were staying...it's nice to know that it's going to be a special memory to them even if it was less than stellar to trained eyes) we drove over to Clarksville for a 'nature walk'. My family used to spend a lot of time going on hikes in Eastern Pennsylvania, so it's something I'd like for them to at least have as part of their world. And also, we have potential plans for some small walks in the Smokies in August, so we wanted to see how they'd handle the idea. I had found a park in Clarksville with 3 trails and decided to try one that went by a creek, so we'd have a sort of physical objective in mind. We spent the whole drive explaining that we weren't going to a playground, that we were going for a nice walk in the woods, etc...because Faith can get it into her mind that something is boring or pointless (like staying and talking with your family after dinner) and just become miserable. Anyway, we also remembered the night before that we had forgotten to pack the second Bjorn, so we were going to have to either carry them or attempt to push the stroller.

SOOOO, we got there. Found the trail. It was actually a lot less distance to the creek than I had thought, but then right there at the overlook and bench, the terrain dropped off into a dry creekbed. So having come all this way and talked it up, and with the girls being in a pretty good mood, I left Steph with the stroller up on the bench and Faith and Mari and I headed off on a little 'adventure' into the ravine. It was a little muddy of course, but pretty dry, so not too slippery. And it went really well. We got all the way down to the bottom, and waved back up to Steph. And then, after successfully navigating the whole descent, Mari turned around and fell in the mud.

Not bad at all, but since Mari likes a new napkin after each bite of food, it was a moment of panic for me. But she thought it was funny, and she managed to not put her muddy hands all over her hair and clothes. We climbed back up, did get a little muddy on the way, and used baby wipes to perfunctorily clean everyone up (during which time Faith managed to wipe her muddy shoes all over me). The whole thing took about 20 minutes, but it was a nice, fun, memorable ending to the whole affair. The girls were so good, we let them play at the playgrounds there at the park for a while before we headed home.

So, all things considered, a modest vacation was acheived with pretty good results. Nice to be home. Nice to know that we have more small trips planned throughout the summer. Anyway, thanks for checking in, we'll keep posting the day-to-day stuff, and maybe I'll have some brand new videos in a few days.

Matt