Week in review...

Okay...so I just put TJ down...again. Bless his little heart. He is now suffering from allergies. To what, I am not sure. I am assuming pollen, etc. His nose/cheeks are raw from rubbing his nose and he is really congested. Nothing seems to be working. We tried the recommended dosage of Children's Zyrtec...nothing. We tried an increased dosage (per doctor orders)...nothing. Now we are on prescription Allegra and it is working, but not like I want it to work. But oh well, I guess some relief is better than none. We are to try Allegra for a few weeks and then it's off to allergy testing. Hopefully we won't have to do that.

He is not in any way letting it effect his demeanor. He, and Olivia, are just little balls of energy. I LOVE it. His new favorite thing to do is get water out of the water dispenser on the outside of the refrigerator. The only thing is that he doesn't have a cup so it pours water all over the floor. He is getting too tall for his own good. He also LOVES to "sing". His favorite songs are the theme songs from Little Einsteins, The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, The Backyardigans, Wonder Pets, The Letter Factory (a Leap Frog video that I highly recommend to toddlers) and "Itsy Bitsy Spider". Olivia enjoys the same songs, but she mainly dances to them. I think they make a good team:) She also LOVES to walk on her tippy toes. She got her first war wound a few days ago...it was actually on the day they turned 16 months old. She apparently took a spill on the driveway while outside with her "G-pa" (my dad). TJ had a similar spill right before their first birthday...again, while playing outside with "G-pa". I remember the timing because it came right before we took them to get their 1st birthday pictures. He survived so I'm sure she'll be fine. Just a few scrapes on the nose, above her lip and on her forehead. Its probably good that I didn't witness that fall...

I went to Clearwater this past weekend with a few friends. We had a great time. Terry stayed with my parents in DeBary so he could have some overnight help with the kids. (Between the two of them, SOMEONE is bound to wake up during the night...if not both.) Getting back my weekend...we all used to work together in St. Augustine as Industrial Engineers. My friend, Gallagher, lives in Maryland now and my other friend, D, is still living in St. Augustine. Despite living in different cities/states we have managed to reunite at least once a year since 2004. We develop an agenda in powerpoint the week prior to the reunion to make sure that everything is covered during the short time that we are together. We usually get together in DeBary (where I grew up) at a Dunkin Donuts, but we've also taken the reunion on the road to Savannah and now, Clearwater. Pretty much we ate, hung out, ate, slept and ate again. My friend, D, from St. Augustine is 17 weeks pregnant so it should come as no surprise that most of our trip was spent eating or figuring out the details of our next meal. Anyway, we had fun...whenever I figure out how to get these pictures off of my camera I will show you a picture of us after eating at this restaurant on Clearwater Beach. This is how we ALWAYS line up for pictures, with me in the middle - so there is symmetry in height and "brightness". It makes sense to us anyway...


That's about all that's going on in my life right now. I guess I should try to get a few minutes of sleep before TJ wakes up again.

"One day, all babies will be born healthy. But we have to walk to get there"

That was the theme of this year's "March of Dimes - March for Babies". The Parks family participated in the walk this past Saturday (my company is a huge supporter of the cause). It was our 2nd year doing so. Last year TJ and Olivia were pretty young so we just attended the walk. This year, however, we braved the dangerous roads (…not really) of Melbourne to walk for the tiny babies! We had a great time!! Terry brought some of his players to participate as well which was nice. We didn't walk the entire 4.5 mile course - I bet we walked about 2 miles total. The kids and I took a shortcut because they started getting restless in the stroller…we let Terry and his players finish out the course on behalf of the family;) It should be better next year when they have another year under their belts! Anyway, it was a beautiful day! We were able to play in the grass, blow bubbles and enjoy the atmosphere! Of course as soon as I let them out of the stroller Olivia, with her bottle of sun block in hand, went in one direction; and TJ shot off in the opposite direction. Luckily my coworker was there to help me out!!
Afterwards we went home - Terry had open gym at the school so I was on my own for the rest of the day. Of course I was worn out from the sun and from pushing their stroller for 2 miles, but they were wired!! We ended up going back out and attending a PAL basketball game that a few of our friends/coworkers coach to kill a few more hours until Terry got back…
One last thing. TJ let out the burp of ALL burps yesterday. Terry heard it all the way in the other room. It was impressive…

What a difference a year makes...

It's so interesting that during the first 365 days of the twins' lives we were extra anal about dirt. (It was probably more so ME being anal…I do admit that). EVERYTHING that fell on the floor had to be washed off. With hot water. NO food that touched anything but the spoon and the bowl made it to their mouths. If their faces were not washed first with the washcloth, I would get a new one instead of using the dirty washcloth that had been used to bathe their body…

Ohhhhhhh, but on day 366 things changed…

The three second rule for food is in FULL effect at the Parks house. Peas, carrots, chicken (etc) that touch the floor are fair game now. I do not dive for Olivia's mouth every time she picks up some random particle off of the carpet and sticks it in her mouth. And what solidified my new approach on this was what happened last night. I was bathing Miss Olivia. I turn around to grab the bottle of soap off of the sink, turn back around and she is literally drinking her bath water. I mean. It took all that I had not to bust out laughing. I literally had to use two hands to lift up her entire body because she was so focused on slurping the bath water. Apparently Johnson's baby lotion tastes pretty good as well, because she goes on an all out lick of anything that the lotion touches. You end up rubbing in lotion and her saliva when lotioning her after a bath. .

I also noticed a difference when Terry mentioned that TJ had a fever yesterday. I felt his head and didn't feel anything at first, but then noticed that he was extremely hot to the touch. By that time Terry had gone to the driving range. I could not, however, find a thermometer. Now last year, I would have sent Terry an emergency text saying that he MUST leave the driving range IMMEDIATELY and go to the store for this thermometer!!! But not this year! I calmly sent a text message for him to pick one up on the way home and proceeded to get a cold compress for him in the meantime. (Luckily I took that approach, b/c I finally found the thermometer which saved us a few bucks. ) His temperature was 100.5, so I gave him some Tylenol and everything was good.

I think I'm catching on to this motherhood thing…I'm sure Terry's blood pressure couldn’t be happier!

That's it!!!!

That's it!
So I am going to a baby shower on Sunday and I got this really cute invitation that has a 'tear-off' portion on the bottom. You are supposed to write advice to the mom-to-be and bring it to the shower. I don't want to give the same old 'cliché' types of advice (e.g. "get your sleep now!", "enjoy being the center of attention now", etc.) so I've been struggling with what advice to write down. I figure with two, I should have GREAT advice to give. I've had this invitation for awhile, but now the shower is 3 days away and still nothing. And then the proverbial light bulb came on this morning after sharing with a friend my direct tv experience from yesterday. A little history...Olivia or TJ…which I have a feeling it was my boy…apparently ordered a Directv MLB baseball package via the remote control for a bargain price of 4 payments of $50 (more or less). This is especially funny to anyone who knows me because I have NEVER watched a baseball game on television. I have only attended 3 games in my entire 28 years of living. I have no love for "America's favorite pasttime" I'm sorry to say. Anyway, fast forward to this morning when the invitation was staring at me for yet another day still with nothing written in the advice portion. Now to the light bulb coming on…I said "THAT'S IT!!!". I have now written the following advice to the mom-to-be. It can be advice for ANY parents out there who have young children who are technological geniuses as I like to call my children…
Advice: Password protect or disable (which gets my vote) all ordering capabilities on your cell phone and tv remote control. It will save you time, $ and the stress of begging the customer service representative to remove mysterious charges from your bill!
I have a feeling no one else will come to the shower with this advice. Mission accomplished!!!

I feel so old...

Hmmm. So THIS is what a "blog" is?!?! Who knew?! I have been hearing this word "blog" for awhile now, but have just not been brave enough to do it myself. I feel like ever since I left Auburn, I am so behind the times on this type of stuff. I can count on one hand how many times I've been on my myspace page...which was just created within the last year. Oh well. Here I am...thanks to good old Star who sent me Mark and Sarah's blog. I guess that's what friends are for. Anyway, I don't know how this is going to work out, but I will try it out. Sounds like a good idea...

Sooooo, the twins (TJ and Olivia) are 15 months old. We went for our checkup on Monday and, as expected, they are REALLY tall for their age. We are not around babies that much so I never really have anyone to compare them to. That changed last week when we went to the mall to let them run around and they were TOWERING over other 18 month olds!! Craziest thing. I have giants as babies. I don't know how they were both inside of my belly...

Anyway, we are on a mission now to start saying words other than mama and dada. I DO believe they are communicating with each other, but that does me or Terry no good! I need English words! So now we are literally like Nettie and Celie on "The Color Purple"...we have letters and words and books EVERYWHERE.

Okay, I guess that's enough for now...