Month: August 2008

Baton Rouge

In case anyone is wondering…we’re in Baton Rouge. I took the boys to my mom last night, and thank god I left when I did, because we made it in under two hours. (On a normal day it’s about 90 minutes, so not bad at all…) And the best part? They slept the.whole.way. No screaming! Whew.

I don’t think I mentioned this before, but on Thursday, when I picked up the boys from daycare, I noticed that Linus had a little rash. Nothing too major, but it was all over his body, so I called the pediatrician, who said to come in the next day. He didn’t seem to notice it, so I put them all to sleep and made plans to add one more thing to my hurricane-evacuation-filled-day.

The next morning, his rash was WAY worse. Very very red and angry looking. He still didn’t seem to notice that he looked like he’d taken a nap on the beach at noon, thank goodness.  Here’s a pic I got from my camera phone. It doesn’t show how bad it is, but you get the idea:

I had to take him to work with me, which was NOT fun, esp since everyone thought he was contagious (so did I), so I ordered them to stay away from my office. Anyway, took him to the doc, who decided he had an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin he’s been on for his ear infection. Poor bunny. Now he’s on a new course of antibiotics, plus some prednisone and some foul-tasting antihistamine that he screams bloody murder at.

He looks a bit better today, but I have a feeling it’s starting to bother him. He was miserable today.

So yeah. This is fun. George is coming up tomorrow, and after that, just cross your fingers for us all…

Ugh.

First of all, happy birthday to my big little sis, Jenny! Happy 36 26th birthday! Gosh, I loved being picked on mercilessly by passing along all of my wisdom to you, big little sis.

Aunt Jenny with one of her favorite nephews:

I think she’d kill me if I posted this, from my wedding.

Oops.

Now, onto the real fun stuff. Gustav. Am looking forward to my first evacuation since Katrina. With three babies. While I’m truly grateful I didn’t have to evacuate last year while pregnant, I think that would have been far preferable than evacuating with three infants, particularly one who recently decided that riding in a car was akin to being tortured, and thus must scream the entire way.

I’m looking at you, Linus:

(Okay, technically that’s Miles, but come on…they look exactly the same, and isn’t that the perfect picture to illustrate my point?)

So at some point either tomorrow or Saturday, we’re going to pack the boys up to spend the weekend at Grandees. Actually, that was the plan anyway, but this time, I’m going to be smart and pack more than two days’ worth of clothes.

Canada trip

Yay, I’m home! My trip was so short, though, you probably didn’t even notice I was gone. 😛

It was a very busy trip, but MAN I was glad to be away from everything at home, you know? Yes, I guess I include the boys in that, but really what it means is that I needed a break from taking care of them all by myself while George was sick. And they were sick. Very stressful week I had last week. So of course, it goes without saying that I missed them terribly, and was sooo happy to see them this afternoon when we went to pick them up. Best part is, I think they missed me too! 😀

So, the recap…it’s not without drama!

First, let me explain the trip. I was going to Toronto to help with the preliminary planning of a conference (the one I go to every May, the one I took the boys to in San Antonio, the one I went to Monterey for last May, etc, etc) that will be held there in 2010. We were going to be visiting several Marriott properties so that we could make the decision and sign a contract for the conference. We also needed to see the city so we could get some ideas for things to do for the conference. I was meeting Mike and Eva, other board members (who also came down here earlier this month, and we did the swamp tour, remember?) and Ralph and Fiona, a couple who live in Toronto and will be hosting the conference.

Saturday:
Up bright ‘n’ early at 4 am to get on my flight at 6 am. I was lucky enough to get a row to myself, quite rare nowadays. I didn’t sleep (I never do) but at least I was able to relax with a book. My connecting flight in Atlanta was an hour late leaving, but no biggie, really, as our schedule on Saturday was pretty flexible. No appointments or anything. I arrive in Toronto and have no issues going through customs.

So I go to get some cash out of an ATM. Whenever I travel to a foreign country (okay, only England so far), I never bring money to exchange, I always just use my ATM card there and withdraw it that way. I’ve never had a problem, and I have no reason to think I will now. But I do. It just doesn’t work. Later, I figure out that my ATM card is on a network that I don’t see on any Canadian ATMs. Oh well, it doesn’t end up being that big of a deal. Everyone takes credit cards (fortunately, my CC worked) but it’s nice to have a little cash on hand. No biggie. I panic a bit, though, thinking I’m not going to be able to get on the airport shuttle to the hotel, but they take CC (of course.)

The half-hour ride to the hotel ends up taking closer to 90 minutes because of unexpected traffic, so instead of arriving at 1, I get to the hotel at 2:30. Everyone else is there, and I try to check in. Half an hour early, no biggie. Eva had already checked that I had a room, and I did. It just wasn’t clean yet, so I wasn’t able to check in. We head off to Niagara Falls.

Ralph, me, Eva on the Maid of the Mist:

Rainbow!

Purty:

In a nutshell…fun! We walked around, took a boat ride on the Maid of the Mist, got soaked, walked some more, had dinner at the Marriott there (very nice dinner.) We head back to the city at around 10:00, after a comical search for the car. There is a LOT of traffic due to construction, and I am beyond exhausted. We finally make it back to the hotel close to 1 am.

I go up to the front desk to check in, and wouldn’t you know? The night manager, who is checking me in, says the hotel is 100% occupied, and he is very sorry, but there is no room for me.

Nice. Everyone is irate but me, I’m just tired. I’ll just sleep on a sofa in the lobby, whatever. I’m exhausted. He says the only room available is one at the Marriott at the airport. No freaking way. I go off to the restroom and let everyone else deal with it. I come back, and I am told that I will be staying up the street at the Four Seasons.

Now THAT’s more like it. Heh.

They stick me in a cab and off I go to sleep for the night at the fanciest hotel I’m likely ever to stay at.

(Truth be told, the rooms aren’t THAT nice, kind of dated. But they had L’Occitane toiletries in the bathroom and a very comfortable bed.)

Not that fancy room:

The next morning, I wake up, have my $40 breakfast and get picked up by everyone so we can tour the city.

My $40 breakfast: (but a real rose in the vase!)

So we tour the city, blah blah blah. Love the city. Decide I want to live there.

Then we go to lunch at a restaurant near the hotel called Baton Rouge. Love that. They feature “Louisiana Spinach Dip” and “Louisiana Chicken Sandwich” and “Baton Rouge Hurricane” on the menu. Kills me. Good food, but absolutely NO connection to my fair hometown. Funny.

After that, we have a meeting at a hotel.

Then we go to the top of the CN tower. Fun!

Then to dinner at a Moroccan restaurant called the Sultan’s Tent, where you get to see belly dancers perform. It was fun. Food was delish.

Back to the hotel (where I had a room this time, and a fruit basket because they felt bad) and off to sleep.

View from my room:

Up bright ‘n’ early on Monday for a breakfast meeting at the hotel we were staying at. The sales rep felt so bad about how I was treated on Saturday night. After the meeting, there was a tiny bottle of ice wine (some Canadian special wine that I have a feeling I’ll like a lot) and three tiny Roots t-shirts for the boys! Aw! Too bad I’d already bought them three tiny Roots t-shirts. I may sell three of them. We’ll see. Maybe not.

Now I have the Toronto bug. It’s such a beautiful city. Perfect size, clean, safe, lots of stuff to do, great shopping. And I didn’t know you get a WHOLE YEAR OFF after having a baby. I know, I know, Canadians pay higher taxes for this and for their socialized medicine, but damn. I’ll pay higher taxes to live in such a place! To raise the boys in such a place…sigh…where the Coke has real sugar in it, not high fructose corn syrup…

And because I can’t post without ONE picture of the boys, here’s one my mom took this weekend:

Can’t wait to go back in Fall 2009. Woot!

In non-travel news, we may be evacuating this weekend for Gustav. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn’t head this way. Sigh.

Fun times in the K house

Sickness, sickness, everywhere. Thank goodness (KNOCK ON WOOD) I don’t get sick much. I do get sinus infections, but I rarely get anything else. I can’t remember the last time I had a fever. I guess when I was little? I must’ve. KNOCK ON WOOD. I’m going to Toronto in two days, I WILL NOT get sick. Anyway, if I was sick, who’d take care of my four boys?

Let’s go over this…

George: Fever, chills, I dunno…flu? Something bad. Taking him to the doctor this morning.

Miles: Took him to the ped yesterday. Ear infection and chest congestion. We now have a nebulizer that I have to use on him three times a day and he gets antibiotics twice a day.

I had to take him with me to work yesterday. He had fun, I think. Let me just tell you how productive it was! Yeeeeah, right.

Linus and Oliver: Taking them today. Suspect they will also have ear infections and will need the nebulizer.

My poor babies. I just hope they’re all better by the weekend!

I’m it!

Jessica tagged me for this, so here goes…

How it works:
1. Post the rules of the game at the beginning.
2. Each player answers questions about themselves
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and post their names, then goes to their blogs and leave them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the players blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answers

Where were you 5 years ago?
Living in the same neighborhood we do now, but in the cutest little rental house. George and I had been dating for a year and a half. I had just started a temp job working at Delta Queen Steamboat Company in the inside sales department (where I stayed for a year before starting my current job), after being laid off from my job as a graphic designer for phone cards. If you really want to see, here is an entry from exactly five years ago…

What are 5 things on your to do list for the week?
1. Do laundry
2. Pack for trip to Toronto
3. Watch Project Runway tomorrow with Teresa
4. Go to the gym at least once
5. Do more laundry! I have a lot to do.

What are 5 snacks you enjoy?
1. Sabra (brand) hummus and Stacey’s (brand) pita chips
2. vanilla meringue cookies
3. Snickers (hey, the protein in those things helped grow me some big ol’ babies when I was pregnant)
4. Veggie chips (they only sound healthy)
5. Smarties

What are 5 things you would do if you were a billionaire?
1. Buy a bigger house
2. Pay off my mom’s, sister’s, and brother’s houses for them
3. Send all the kids to college.
4. Donate to charity (but who wouldn’t say that?)
5. Commission a statue of myself made of hummus, smarties, snickers, and meringue cookies.

What are five of your bad habits?
1. I am messy
2. Chew my fingernails
3. Procrastinate
4. Messy
5. Messy

What are five places you’ve lived?
1. Baton Rouge
2. Natchitoches, La
3. London, England
4. New Orleans
that’s it!

What are 5 jobs you’ve had?
1. Sandwich Artist at Subway
2. Salad Bar Technician at Ryan’s Steakhouse (first job. Where do they come up with these titles?)
3. Graphic designer of international phone cards
4. Children’s Bookseller at Barnes & Noble
5. Graphic designer/lifestyles editor at small-town newspaper

Five people I tag.
1. Linda
2. Amy
3. Lani
4. Amber
5. Mel

10 babies! Part 2

So yesterday we had our second playdate (here’s the first) with the other triplets and the quadruplets. Yes, that makes ten babies. Thank goodness they aren’t ALL mobile yet! This time it was at Stephanie’s house (mom of the other triplets) and, like Alicia, she has an enviable playroom. Toys, toys, and best of all, carpet! Man, I wish we had carpet in some of our rooms. I never wished that before.

Anyway, enough talk. Let’s see pictures!

All ten babies, playing. Click on the picture to see who is who:
IMG_0983

Babies and daddies:

Here I am, covered in my own babies:

Connor tries to break his friends out of baby jail:

Future prom dates for my boys:

This girl is a speed demon! This is a rare shot of Mary sitting still:

Babies! Babies! Baaaabbbieeeeesssss!!!

Okay, I’ll stop now.

Thursday

You know what’s exciting? Tomorrow. Tomorrow is exciting because it’s a Catholic holiday and I have the day off. I have big plans. Unfortunately, sleeping late isn’t one of them. That would be truly magnificent, but alas, the boys are still going to daycare so I have to bring them before George goes to work. But I am going to go to the gym after I drop them off. And then I’m going to take the van in to have the (newish) tire looked at. Fun, right? Okay, maybe not that part.

But then I’m going to hang out with Kristie and Ren! Kristie lives in exotic San Francisco, and I haven’t seen her since the day before I went into the hospital. So she’s never met the boys! After having lunch and hanging out, we’ll go pick up the boys so she can see them.

It’s gonna be fun. Except for the tire part.

Speaking of fun, I had dinner with Stephanie and Alicia the other night. You know, my triplet and quad mom friends. After talking to them over the most delicious grilled artichokes on earth (HOLY CRAP), I came to realize I think the boys are eating too much formula and too little food. So yesterday, instead of giving them a bottle after daycare, we gave them some baby food. And then they had their regular evening bottle before bed. They were getting about 40 oz of formula a day, which is apparently way too much. Oops. This is why I like going to the pediatrician every month. But no biggie, they seemed fine with the change from bottle to food.

I’m also going to branch out with what they eat. Currently, they’re getting a lot of purees, and not much else. (Though I did find out they got animal crackers at daycare yesterday, which I have other thoughts on…don’t really want to get into here, am not too angry, but don’t want it happening again, but apparently they loved them…but I don’t want them eating cookies! But they gummed them good, and I am pleased they’re enjoying different textures…so we’ll see.) They’re getting better at picking up their puffs and eating them, so I’m going to add in some chicken and see how they like that. Thanks, of course, to Karen for her advice on this matter.

In other random excitement, I’m wearing my wedding band and engagement ring today! For the first time in a LONG time. Woo!

Sunday we have another playdate with the aforementioned Stephanie and Alicia and their kids. All ten babies will be together again! I think, since Ellen hasn’t responded to our last photo, we need an updated one. Yeah, we’ll be able to get a decent picture with ten babies. Yeah. Right.

And I can’t post without a picture, can I?

Since I don’t have any new ones, how about an old one? Don’t ask who this is, by the way. I don’t know. But he was not quite 2 months old in this picture. Ack!

Oh wait, this was on my phone. Here you go…

Weekend recap

Fun weekend. Tiring.

Friday night, the boys spent the night at George’s parents’ house, while we went to the pub to see our friends’ band. George joked that I had to stay out til 3 am. I responded with an eye roll and “there’s no way in HELL I can stay up that late.” Well, the joke was on me, because we left the pub shortly after, yes, 3 a.m. Woo! Haven’t done that in a while! It was v fun. And all the better because I was able to sleep until noon on Saturday. Heh.

Went to the gym after that, and then we went to pick up the boys. Awww, I missed them after just 24 hours! They’re at such a fun age, I hate to miss any of it. Well, except the cranky parts. I don’t mind missing that too much. Hmm.

Saturday evening, we went and had sloppy joes with friends, and then brought the boys home. It was nice because it felt like Sunday, but we still had another weekend day left!

My mom came in yesterday, and we took the boys to the mall. Just like males everywhere, the mall made them pretty cranky. But also like men everywhere, we dragged them from store to store and shopped anyway. You think they’d be happy, they got most of the loot! Grandee bought them some clothes, some toys, and some foam mats to go in their new playroom. I got some new mugs (one of which I broke shortly after getting it home, arrrgh) and some hand soap. Hand soap may not sound exciting, but it’s the foaming stuff from Bath & Body Works which I love.

my mug. well, not MY mug. but one just like it. the unbroken one, anyway.
new mug

Okay, so here are some cute pictures of the boys…

Linus, upon waking:

Linus (foreground) and Oliver:

Miles is MAD. Very MAD.

The whole family. It’s hard to hold wiggling babies. Nice diaper, Miles.

And here’s a lil’ video, click here.

First swing!

Awwww….

Linus:

Oliver:

Miles:

And look, I found these pictures my cousin took when the boys were teeny. This is Miles. I’m just blown away. I think he was 6 days old here. I mean, look at my hand compared to him. Geez!!!

8/7/08

I don’t have much to post about, but I’ll post anyway. How about pictures?

The pose that strikes terror into my heart…Miles on all fours!

And, oh crap, he’s not the only one! Oliver…

Linus is getting so good at scootching on his belly. He was “chasing” George, trying to get a pacifier that Daddy was taunting him with.

Look how sweet they are, playing on the floor together:

And you can’t miss the best outtake from the monthly photoshoot, Miles using Oliver’s ear as a handle.

Oooh, and here’s something fun. Last weekend, I went on a swamp tour with some work people. It was really fun, I’m glad I went.

I held an alligator!

And you can watch a video of a crazy Cajun man feeding an alligator off the side of the boat.

8 months old!

Happy 8 months, my baby boys!

They are doing so much now! Miles and Oliver are getting up on all fours – gulp! Linus has gotten pretty good at scootching around on his belly, and I saw Miles covering some ground this morning too. Eep! Mobility is getting closer! We’re working on switching some rooms around so that they can have our current bedroom as their playroom, which will be a lot safer than any other option. That’ll be fun!

We’ve also introduced the sippy cup and puffs, neither of which is a big hit yet. They’re not quite sure what to do with the cup, and the puffs make them puzzled and confused. Hee!

They’re wearing size 6-12 month clothes and size 3 diapers. They eat 2-3 solid “meals” a day and 4-5 bottles. They’re sleeping 12 hours at night, with only the occasional wakeup that requires a pat on the back or a pacifier replacement.

Oliver took his first plane ride this month, and all three boys have now slept away from Mommy and Daddy at their paternal grandparent’s house. My mom just needs to take them overnight now, heh heh! (Though Linus and Miles have spent the night there too without me.)

No idea on their weight or lengths – we don’t go back to the pediatrician until next month.