Random question of the day

What kind of tape is best for making a sculpture and why?

Pumpkin Season

Yesterday we took the girls to their first Halloween party. It was put on by our twins group and held at an indoor kids play place. The girls had fun at first, but as more and more people showed up it got a little overwhelming for them and we hit melt down before they got to trick or treat. Oh well, they wouldn't have remembered it anyway.

Before the meltdown occurred though, Samantha managed to latch on to a baby doll they had there. She carried it all around. When she found another one, she took it to Riley who held it a moment and then put it down. She was too busy putting things away as she saw fit. Everything was going back into containers, and in the proper way. She was even taken the legos apart (biting them to seperate them when she couldn't pull them apart), and then puttin them in the big Lego bucket. Oh I can't wait till they are big enough for Legoland.

Later in the day we went to dinner with my parents and then came home and carved pumpkins for which my parents provided dessert, yummy pumpkin pie and boston cream pie. We called my sister, who now has her own blog Dream. She came over and brought some really cute cookies she made. They were in the shape of cat heads and looked very professionally done. I will try to post some pics of them when I post the girls pumpkin pictures.

Just waiting for Trick-or-treating now. Yahoo!

Bottles are gone??

Ok, this afternoon I get up (I worked last night) to find that the girls had somehow found an old bottle (they haven't had bottles since they were a year old) and they were fighting over it. After waging the constant battle to get them to keep their straw cups down instead of picking them up like a bottle to drink, I couldn't get them to lift the bottles up, they kept trying to drink out of them like straws. Silly, silly girls. Needless to say, the bottles will once again mysteriously disappear.

Homer Simpson Moment

Last night, as I was getting the girls undressed for their bath, Riley leaned over the tub and had a cheerio stuck to the seat of her pants. Samantha promptly reached over, plucked it off, and popped it in her mouth looking very pleased the whole time. Riley didn't even notice, just wanted to get in the tub.

Good news

Riley had a follow up ultrasound today for her kidney issues and it looks like all is good. Her kidney is growing again, and there's no excess fluid collection in it. Hopefully this bodes well for her 2 year test in May that will determine if she needs to continue on her antibiotics beyond then or worse case scenario, if she needs surgery or not. If this is any indicator, we're on the path to recovery without surgery. Everyone knock on wood now.

Could you pass 8th grade math now?

Thanks to Andrea. I just had to try it. How about you?

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

What is wrong with people??

Ok, I know that question could cover a lot of things, but for this post we'll limit it to selling cars. As some of you may or may not know, our friends Rich and Angelica moved back to Germany. They valiantly tried to sell Angelicas car before they left, but alas they were unable to. They left the car at our house and recently placed an ad in the SJ Mercury to sell it. This was all fine with us (and still is), but man, the wierdos that come out of the woodwork. Most of the people seem perfectly normal, but a few really take the cake.

Weird caller #1: I'm not sure if I'm interested in the car, and I have no way to get over the hill, can you drive it over for me to see?

Weird caller #2: (After 5 minutes of describing the car to him, including the model, etc.) Is it a deisel? No? Oh, then I'm not interested.

Weird caller #3: (Must be related to weird caller #1. I'm in the Sacramento area, actually I'm in Utah right now, but I'll be back in Sacramento later this week. Can you drive the car up for me to see? I'll give you $4000 for it if I like it (the car is listed for $5000.) Will you take $4000 for it?
Me: No, we already have two other offers for more than that.
WC #3: Can you drive it Sacramento and I'll pay you the $4000 if I like it?
Me: No, I'm not driving it to Sacramento and we're not taking $4000 for it.
WC#3: (Very persistent person) How about driving it halfway, and then I'll take it off your hands (and how was I supposed to get back home?)
Me: No, I'm not driving it anywhere. Anyone who is interested will have to come here to see it.
WC#3: I'll call you back tomorrow to see if you've changed your mind.

Where do people like this come from?? It's really quite amusing. The good news is we seem to have 2 good candidates for the car, so hopefully we'll be able to send Rich and Angelica a check this week.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (not necessarily in that order)

Today we had an interesting sequence of events occur. Simultaneously Liz and Rich began IMing me. During these conversations I discovered Rich has a new blog (see link at right for American in Germany) and that Andrea was about to arrive from Australia and that she was taking a shuttle to work. Needless to say, both were interesting and had to be prioritized. Since Andrea's plane was imminent I dressed the girls and it was off to the airport where the girls got to see some airplanes. For some reason they were much more fascinated by them on the way in then on the way out. Apparently they were under the Andrea's spell.

However, before we even left the house, the phone rang - it was the girls doctors office with info about Samantha's neurologist. As the story goes so far, they won't see us until Samantha has her blood drawn, starts on a rather scarey medication, has a follow up blood draw before her DECEMBER appointment. Do they not get that she's 17 months old, and has had 3 seizures? So, back to the story so far.

Once we have procured Andrea, we pack her luggage into the car (the automobile part of the story) and spirit her home where we unceremoniously kick her out, leaving her luggage on the front stoop. After leaving there, it was off to feed the girls (more riding in the automobile).

After lunch we headed to the hospital to have the aforementioned blood drawn (once more in the automobile). First we had to stop at the doctors office, pack the girls in the stroller, head up to the office on the 3rd floor, obtain the requisite lab slip, back down to the (you guessed it) automobile, back in carseats, on to the hospital, out of the automobile, into the stroller, through the pediatric offices, across the street to the hospital, into the lab (where they did an excellent job of drawing the blood - Samantha didn't even cry), back to the stroller, out of the hospital, across the street, through the medical offices, and yep, back into the automobile again. Then we headed home for some well deserved naps that never really occurred because they had slept in the (uh huh) automobile.

Later that evening we walked to the train station to pick up Bill as her arrived from work, walked home, hopped in the automobile once again, and went to dinner. After dinner, it was into the car for the last time today and home where the girls got to top off their dinner and go to sleep to dream of planes and trains, and probably try to forget about the automobile part.

And that was our day in a nutshell (ok, so it was a big nutshell.)

P.S.
And we read Rich's blog when we got home - way to go dude.

Pumpkin Hunting

Today, after working all night long, we took a trip to the pumpkin patch in Half Moon Bay. It's been years since I had gone, but we decided to take the girls to get some photo ops. The girls had fun walking around the pumpkins, riding the wooden horses as well as the ponies, and riding in the wheelbarrow. Stacey came with us which was very nice. Riley had fun riding around on her shoulders. It was nice to spend time as a family. Stacey and Bill had pumpkin pie which Riley stretched as far as she possibly could to get a bite. It was really rather cute. Samantha wasn't quite as interested.

However, I don't think I will be returning there in the near future unless we can schedule a weekday to do it. There were far too many people there. You couldn't turn around without stepping on someone, lines were long, and it was just a little too commercial for me. When it came time to leave, it took 10 minutes just to get out of the parking lot, but we were thankful we had gone out first thing in the morning. As we were coming back, we passed miles of cars waiting to get there - it was backed up almost to 280. What a mess.

On the way home we decided to go out to eat, and headed for Celia's, a little mexican place in Palo Alto. It's small, and again parking can be a pain, but the food is always good, and if you go on the right night they have mariachi music. I know, that doesn't interest most of you, but it does add a certain ambiance to the place.

Finally we made it home about 2:00 (I haven't slept in 22 hours at this point), and put the girls down for a nap. I promptly headed that way myself where I proceeded to sleep until almost 7:00 (right through hockey practice - arrrrgggghhh). Oh well, the sleep felt good. In fact, I think I'll go try to get some more now.

All in all it was a good day.

Way to break my heart girls

Tonight as I was leaving for work, Sammi came running over and gave me the best hug and kiss. I thought oh how sweet and it was, however she appeared to have alterior motives. It soon became apparent that she thought if she stood there hugging me, and snuggling in closer and closer that I wouldn't leave for work.

Then Riley came over to get into the action, or so I thought. It turns out she just wanted my badge and stethoscope.

After a few minutes, I extricated myself from the two and headed out the door only to be followed by the howling wales of the two of them, one for the lost mommy, the other for the lost toys, both sweet.

Near miss.

Riley went next to the potty today. Progress.

Woo hoo!!

Two days in a row - Sammi asked to use the potty and then did. Yahoo!!

How sweet

Riley was upset, laying on the floor crying and Sammi walked over, patted her shoulder, gave her a nose bop (sign of affection that Daddy does for them), and kissed her tummy. It was really rather sweet.

Banner day though it didn't seem like it

Ok, by the middle of this post some of you are going to be smacking your foreheads, and saying, "What were you thinking?", but I'm hoping by the end of it, you'll be saying, "Ah, it's all good."

Today started off with a nasty diaper rash for Riley, so since she had just "used" her diaper, I let her run around for a bit with nothing on. This makes her quite happy by the way. I also brought their potty seats out into the living room and told her if she needed to go potty, she could use her seat. (They both know the sign for potty.) After a bit I decided I was tempting fate so I put her back in a diaper.

While I'm in the kitchen, she comes to the gate waving her diaper to let me know she had taken it off. I went over and she handed it to me - it was soaked. Since she still had the rash I decided to ignore the fact that she was diaperless for a little bit. Besides, the potties were still there. Suddenly it bacame quiet, that quiet that every parent fears, so I walked over to where the girls were to find Sammi with two handfuls of excrement, happily squishing them around. Riley too had her hands "full" and was standing in a puddle of urine and stool. She looked quite upset, so I calmly cleaned up the mess and while I was doing it I told her, "It's ok Riley, we'll use the potty next time." After they finished helping me clean everything up, we had lunch and they went down for their naps, 2 1/2 hours - yippee.

After naptime, they got up, played a bit, and then Sammi came up to me and made the sign for potty, so I took her pants and diaper off and she trotted right over to the potties, sat down, concentrated a bit, and voila tinkled in the potty. She was quite pleased with herself and both girls were excited to pour it in the big potty and wave bye bye to it. Way to go Sam!!

They're not 2 yet!

Ok, I think we've hit the terrible two's a little early. I'm all for having smart kids, but this is too much. Yesterday I'm feeding them lunch and Riley decides she is done. Their official done sign lately is to throw whatever they don't want off the highchair trays. We've been trying to break them of this habit and have made some small inroads, but I digress. In any case, Riley decides she is done and holds the remains of her sandwich over the floor at which point I say, "Do not drop that on the floor, put it back on your tray and we'll clean it up when we're done" She looked straight at me, stared at me in fact, and wiggled the fingers holding the sandwich over the floor. I again reiterated my directions to not drop it on the floor. She stared straight at me never once blinking, opened her hand and let fly with the sandwich. Now mind you, this was a peanut butter sandwich which she had peeled open, and of course it landed peanut butter side down. Sam, not to be outdone, let fly with hers as well, and had the extra added bonus of smearing it on the wall.

Lucky for them, Grandma and Grandpa showed up and wisked them away to the park before Mommy's head could explode.

I am so spoiled.

Last night after putting the girls to bed I was casually watching tv when my hubby came into the room and said, "Come with me." I asked if I needed to bring my beverage and he said, "Probably, since you won't be coming back." Ok, I was a little apprehensive at this point, and requested the phone in case I needed to call 911, but all was good. He had set up a massage table in the living room complete with candles and champagne (I can call it that since we didn't sign the Treaty of Versailles). I received a very nice massage along with some cool refreshment, and good conversation. It was a very nice night. 5 Stars for the hubby.

Simple girl

I admit it - I am a simple girl. I like the basic things in life, I'm easily entertained, and I love the most basic of surprises. Why do I mention this now? Because now I have XM radio. It reminds me of when I first began dating my husband. I had never had cable tv and I was ok with that. I didn't need 150 channels to surf. Then came Bill and my life changed. He brought cable to my house and I slowly became a part time tv junky. After cable came TiVo and I became a full time tv junky. I'm not proud of this, and I often try to rationalize it, but the fact is, I love my TiVo and my cable tv.

Now we have this new car with XM radio - I don't need 150 radio channels to surf. So when's the TiVo for XM coming out? I'm sure I'm going to need it as soon as I figure out how to operate this system.

Tooting my own horn

I have to say I accomplished quite an amazing feat today. After you read this some of you will understand just what was accomplished while others will still be scratching their heads and saying, "So?"

Anyway, the girls have not been feeling well for a few days and today was their fussiest day yet. All morning they have been climbing up in my lap for cuddles then getting down to play for a few minutes. Well about noon both girls climbed up in my lap and after rocking for less than 5 minutes they were both asleep. One would think this was a good thing, but when you are home alone and trapped in a reclining rocking chair with 2 babies on you it becomes quite a dilemma. So, after managing to get out of the chair without tipping it over or dropping a baby I had to get out of the nursery (Riley had shut the door before climbing up in my lap.) I managed to bend, twist, and pull to get the door open, and then I had to navigate a baby gate which I could not open while holding two kids so I climbed over it (pulled groin muscle and all), made it to the bedroom, opened that door and then had to figure out how to get both girls into the crib (the sides come up to my chest) without dropping them or waking them. I stood on my tippy toes, wiggled from side to side to get the girls on the appropriate side of the rail, leaned way over and rolled them in. Not a sound from Sammi and Riley started to fuss, but two or three pats on her butt and she was right back out. I tip-toed out of the room, and so far they are still asleep. Here's hoping they are able to nap well.

In retrospect I should have said "goofball"

This morning my hubby and I were having a conversation about another friend of ours who had started reading my blog. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Why would he want to read my blog, it's so boring.
Hubby: Is that what the "B" stands for, boring?
Me: Uh yeah, Boring Life of a Gumbah (BLOG).
Hubby: A gumbah huh?
Me: Ok, that was the first "G" word I could come up with. In retrospect I should have said goofball.
Hubby: That would be a good title for a blog entry.

So that's how we got here.

Susan the Gumbah Goofball.

This just in from hubby...

Hubby: waiting to buy shoes...
Hubby: still just waiting...lady gave me a couple of pairs...went to back 10 min ago...not seen since
Hubby: murder in the shoe deptment
Hubby: deep in a sears...a monster lurks killing the shoe gals one by one...
Hubby: police baffled by the strange waffle marks and unusual rubber left in the wound...
Hubby: a rubber not used for over 60 years
Hubby: little do they know what happened here, at this very location those same 60 years ago
Hubby: christ sakes someone needs to save her so i can get a pair of shoes


It made me giggle, so I had to share, especially today when I feel so crappy.

For Andrea

See ya later raisins. (From Sam and Riley)

K e y b o a r d R e v i v e d

Oh how nice it is to have a normal space bar again. I can now type normally though you couldn't tell it from this post.

So sad

Both girls are sick. Runny noses, not sleeping well (cuz they can't breathe.) Unbelievably they are still happy little beings with ready smiles and lots of kisses. How did I get so lucky?

Ouch, ouch, ouch

Thursday is the girls regular play group date, so despite my pulled groin I loaded up on advil and off we went. They had fun as usual, but now I am definitely paying the price. I had been feeling slightly better, now it's worse again. The doc said it will probably be a few weeks before I start feeling better and I'll have to do Physical Therapy to strengthen the area as well as stretching to prevent further injury.

Children's Discovery Museum adventure

Tuesday we took the girls to the Children's Discovery Museum (CDM) where they have an actual area dedicated to infants and toddlers. There was a funnel type table where you could roll balls and they would go round and round until they finally fell out the funnel bottom, a vacuum system which would suck the balls up to the top of a wall and let them fall back down through a maze, a sand table with shovels, test tubes and other scientific devices for the kids to fill and empty, a make believe area with dress up garb and a table with pretend food, and a story area. There was also an area dedicated to crawlers where everyone has to take their shoes off and older kids are not allowed. Oh yeah, they had a little tunnel too with phosphorescent rocks that glowed under a black light, a sound area with things to push that would make the appropriate sound (ie: when you push the phone, it rings), and there were stairs that took you up to a little round room that had a small merry go round under glass that threw horse shaped multicolored shadows on the wall. The girls had a great time playing there and since it was all enclosed we didn't have to chase them so much. They were not ready to leave when we finally did.

When we left that area we went to the bubble zone where they have multiple ways of making bubbles including a machine that slowly drops a bubble from ceiling height about every 10 seconds. The girls stayed in their stroller for that and just got to blow at the sheets of film to make bubbles and grab at the big bubbles their Daddy blew for them.

Finally, on the way out, we stopped at the water zone. They have a great rainstorm area and a play place for toddlers only. There were streams of water that shot up that ballsactually balanced on. Sam had a fabulous time knocking them off and then trying to put them back on. Riley on the other hand had a great time putting balls in the water funnel - kind of like a giant toilet, but solid with water and the sides were clear glass so the whole thing looked like it was made of water. When you float a ball on top it gets sucked down the middle and out the bottom of the funnel. There were also spouts in the wall that poured water and little mini water falls as well as pooled areas to float the balls and scoop water, etc. We only got the girls out of the area by promising to feed them. (We had starved them for the whole 2 hours we were there - someone call childrens services.)

So, that was our day. I'm sure we'll be going back soon since we are now members.

One letter away from slut

Today, while trying to post a comment and get through the mystical set of letters one must type to do such I thing, I got a little giggle. The letters I had to type were sluet, take away the e and you have slut. Don't know why that made me giggle, except it did. I guess I can join the 12 and under club.

Played with the A-Team 2

Woo hoo!! Got to play Logitech for the first time with the A-Team 2 last night and had a lot of fun. Was reminded of a lot of things that I need to be working on such as keeping my head up, bending my knees, proper positioning, and skate, skate, skate.

Sadly I reinjured my groin and could barely walk yesterday without wanting to cry. Lots of ibuprofen later, I can walk (at least I think that's what it's called.) Had to take Sam to the doctor for a post seizure checkup (she's gonna help us expedite the neurology appt.), so I saw her too. She confirmed what I thought, said there's nothing we can do for it now (as I expected) except ibuprofen, heat, and rest. We could probably do some PT after it's healed to help prevent yet another reinjury. We'll see. In the mean time it's get up, ouch ouch ouch, pick up baby, ouch, ouch, ouch, change baby, not so bad - just standing, put baby back down, ouch, ouch, ouch, repeat with second baby.

However, having said all that - it was still fun and I'd do it all over again. I'll just have to start a currently healing list ala Viv.

Goats are dogs

Something I forgot to mention in my last post. When the girls were in the petting zoo, they kept signing and calling the goats dogs and looked at us very funny when we said, "No, those are goats." They insisted they were dogs (probably because they are about the size of Gus who came to visit last week). So for the rest of the day, the goats were dogs.

So much to post, so little time.

We've had a big weekend here at our house. We started off the weekend with Sammi's seizure at the car dealership (not the way I would have chosen to start the weekend.) After that we were suppose to go to the first birthday party for one of our friends daughters, but after driving around for an hour decided to bail on that idea (plus we thought we should keep Sammi a little quieter for the day.)

After much discussion we decided to take a little family time (which we don't get much of) and spend the day at Happy Hollow. Happy Hollow, for those of you who don't know is a very small petting zoo and amusement park geared at preschool kids. Since it's late in the season, a little cooler, there was hardly anyone there. No waiting in line for anything. There were probably only a hundred families there total, and we only say maybe 10 other families at any given point in time. Needless to say, it was the nice quiet outing we were looking for. We didn't put the girls on any of the rides except the small merry-go-round because we didn't want to overstimulate Sam. Anyway, when we took them on the merry-go-round, Sam started shaking first and then Riley. Neither girl was smiling and we thought they were terrified, so we smiled at them and said silly things that parents will like, "Isn't this fun?" and just tried to get through the ride without them melting down. As it turned out, apparently they really liked it. When we tried to take them off, they both howled. The operator was announcing that since there wasn't a line if kids wanted to ride again, they could just stay on, so we buckled the girls back up and let them go again. After the next ride we tried to take them off, more howling and Riley was holding on so tight that I had to literally pry her fingers off the pole. She howled for the next 200 yards (until we were totally out of sight of the merry-go-round.) When I post the pictures later, check out her white knuckles. I swear they were having fun though.

Sunday morning we went back to the dealership where everyone was very concerned about Sammi and they were glad to see she was ok. Asked a lot about her before we even talked about the car again. We got what they call a Laser Blue Equinox. Apparently the "laser" part is that it makes the blue look purple, so yes folks, I know own a purple car. Eat your heart out Cathy. ;) It has XM radio (at least for the next 90 days), Onstar, front and side curtain airbags, cruise control, a tailgate table, and the front passenger seat folds flat for a laptop desk area. It should serve us well for the next few years.

After that it was HOCKEY!! Woo hoo! Green practice and squads were chosen. We had a bit of a scrimmage which was fun, but silly me pulled an offsides call. Rooky mistake, although in my defense my teammate had the puck, was moving it up the ice, I was in stride to enter the zone just after her and she stopped. Stopped at the blue line. Oh well, it was just a scrimmage and we're all learning. That'll teach me to hang too close behind my teammates.

And now it's Monday, and perhaps I'll get to play more hockey - at Logitech. Wheeeee.

Samantha

Well, what we were hoping wouldn't happen again has - Samantha had another seizure last night. It's difficult to say if this is like the other two or trauma induced. Samantha had fallen down and hit her head shortly before started seizing this time. We were at the hospital till just after 2:00 this morning, they did another CT of her head and it was normal (no evidence of bleeding, fracture, etc.)

So, it's back to the neurologist for us. Keep your fingers crossed and say lots of prayers for Sammi please.