catastrophic diaper failure

Dear Huggies,

I have been a fan of your overnight diapers for probably about a year now. My three gigantic triplets have worn them every night with much success, even though I had to use a size larger than recommended on your package to comply with their needs. Even my son, B, who holds all of his urine during the day just so he can fill up one of your diapers until they weigh at least 8 lbs in the morning, has been a success story. I mean we could probably squeeze his diaper out in the morning and find 5 gallons of pee. Seriously. I don't know why he pees so much at night, perhaps he dreams of waterfalls a lot.

However, recently we have been having problems. I consider the fact that I have had to wake up 8 of the last 10 mornings during the 4-5 am hour because one or more of my children is soaking wet a problem. I do not mean a little spot of leakage. I mean these children are usually wet from just under their ribcage to their knees or lower. I consider this an CATASTROPHIC. DIAPER. FAILURE. The fact that it is happening to a boy and a girl means that this is not a gender specific design problem. The fact that we are using a diaper a size larger than you would recommend means that we should have covered our bases. But, the mere fact that I am writing this missive at 4 am tells me and you that there is a problem. This morning I had the joy of changing two children in the dark. Whether the diaper replacement ended up properly applied or the region in question got properly cleaned has yet to be determined in daylight hours.

This, my friends, is unacceptable. I am a tired mom. I have had sick or disobedient children for about 8 weeks now, which, due to the level of complaining I've been doing, you may have already heard about through the grapevine. What is more unacceptable is that there is no overnight diaper one size larger than we use. That's right. Perhaps it never occurred to you that anyone should need an overnight diaper larger than a 6, which according to your package (which I might add, I might have to sue you for as it is false advertising at it's worst) is for children 35+ lbs. Now admittedly, my children are only hovering around the 30 lb mark but what am I supposed to do? Put rubber pants on over your diapers? Double diaper them with your already bulky overnight diapers? Wrap their entire lower halves in cellophane?

Because I am telling you right now that 4 am is a time I do not like to see. I do not like even more to have to change diapers and pajamas at this hour on one of more children. You must find me a solution. Immediately. While my in the dark diapering skills are improving, this is not a useful skill outside of raising toddler triplets. Seeing as how we, with our gigantic triplets, use approximately 1894 diapers a month, we are quite a valuable customer to you. So let's hear some brainstorming, or perhaps you could just make a freaking size 7 for me. Please?

Your crabby mamma,

Mira

oooh that little....

So there I am, 2am wake up again. Kids are getting sick. The boys are coughing their lungs out, noses running at a fast pace and we begin. The least sick kid, A, is waking every 20 min. At first I am sympathetic. I mean her brothers are coughing, so how can she sleep? I go in, I pat her, tuck her in, stroke her head. Worry a little because she usually cries the most the night before she gets sick so I know what's coming right?

Meanwhile, because my children are annoying, B has decided that every time I come into the room it must be for him. Even though his sister is the one screaming, it's him I must have come running to pat, right? So since I dare to go to her first he starts in. Whining, standing up, rattling his cage, fussing, and eventually, screaming. Sigh. So I get her settled and step over to settle him down. No sooner do I step away but her head pops up. I step back over to her crib and gently (or maybe not so gently) place her head back onto the mattress. B pops up and starts fussing again. I mean really? Am I supposed to stay calm and rational at this moment? Do you two really not realize that you are one of three yet? I will pat whichever of you needs it most at whatever time and you are to keep your little head down on your mattress and zip it!

So it carries on like this until I leave the room, hoping I've settled each somewhat enough. 20 minutes later, I'm back on it. A starts screaming her fool head off and I return. I check her all over for leaky diaper, poop, broken parts, scorpions, you name it. Nothing. Wrong. Fine, I still feel sorry for her because seemingly, even though when I stand over B he does not cough, the minute I leave the room his coughing starts up again. I'd venture to guess 'someone' is sitting up when I leave the room but since I'm not allowed to tie him to his mattress, so it will be.

From 2-4am I play this every 20 minutes game. I am patient, no? But you know what? I'm done. At 4 I am physically done, mentally finished and overall going to kill a child if I step back in that nursery again before morning officially begins so I hear her screaming like she's being skinned alive but I wait. She calms down on her own, I begin to drift off thinking maybe it's all over. Oh, there she goes again. She's winding up for the scream when B says 'da' to her. That's triplet speak for "I'm awake too, wanna play?" Or so I think I've translated. So here's what it sounds like:

"Aaaaaaahhh..." "da" "Aaaahhh, DA DA, Auuuuuggghhhaaaaauughghwahaaaaaahhh!"

I kid you not. She paused in her scream to respond to B happily and calmly, "da da" being triplet speak for "I'm up for playing!" only to return to her screaming now that that business was out of the way. I can not repeat here the words that came out of my mouth when I heard this. If that girl thinks I'm stupid enough to hear her talking with her brother about playing and still think she's dying of some unknown condition at 4am? That little girl is wrong. That little girl is such a faker! I can tell you, however, that I did NOT get out of bed again. And you know what? She was alive in the morning. Probably a better result than she deserved.

Funkariffic

So this weekend I got into a pretty good funk about the whole vacation thing. I looked up Disney Cruises, as if I could afford one, and found out that basically you need the kids to be 3 and potty trained, which, with two boys means at least 4. Which, with the proper math skills I can deduce to mean we are not going on a family vacation that I will enjoy for approximately 2 and 1/2 more years.

Kind of depressing. I put out a sad call to my multiples parents in the SF area to see if this was really true. I am craving a change of scenery. Dying for it. And yet, if it's just more work and I have to give up my morning help, then why would I do it? Is it really that refreshing to sit on a different balcony, perhaps staring at waves or a river, after the kids go to bed than staring at my tv at home? And if they sleep badly because they're in a new place? And if I can't keep them from escaping into the woods and so never get to sit down is that worth it?

I don't know. I'm trying to find a solution in some house I could rent on the Russian River or in Tahoe that has a fenced back yard, a different climate (anything different than cold foggy SF might be nice) and perhaps a beach, park or playground nearby or even better, a pool. There must be a way for me to 'get away' and feel ok about it. There must...

Kids and cats, the same?

How my kids are like my cats. Or vice versa naturally.

1. They chase each other around the house.

2. They fight with each other regularly, over me or random crap.

3. They all want to pile on me at once and none of them wants anyone else on me at the same time.

4. They prefer to play with garbage or wrapping more than the toys we spend so much money on.

5. I have to clean up their poop, pee and vomit on a regular basis.

6. They hate the doctor and practically claw me to death trying to get away from him.

7. They turn their nose up at half the food I serve them.

8. They destroy my furniture.

9. They want attention in the middle of the night.

10. They cry constantly while I'm fixing their meals, apparently not fast enough.

11. They writhe in agony while I'm trimming their nails even though I am NOT hurting them.

12. The Dr has to constantly explain their odd behaviors to me.

13. According to them I never spend enough time with them.

14. They tend to drool all over me.

15. They all have different personalities.

16. Oh heck, I love every messy, annoying, demanding one of them.

Slacker Sunday photo

How many other children do you thing have done this exact same thing to this exact same maraca recently? I'm thinking 3 billion. Germs at least.

ACHOO!

Boogers again. No, really, 3rd cold in 6 weeks, BOOGERS AGAIN!!! I can not believe it. I am ready to instruct all triplet childcare providers that my children will be doused in baths of hand sanitizer upon leaving any public arena and before all meals. Meanwhile I believe all of their toys will be boiled and dunked in gasoline before being lit on fire to sanitize them. Now, I'm not sure many toys will survive this process but A. we have a lot of stinking toys so we can spare a few, and B. I. Don't. Care. We need to stop this situation pronto. I will not wipe more snotty noses every two weeks and survive. I can not spend one more kiddie meal watching them eat equal quantities of boogers with each bite of food. I will vomit. I know it.

Perhaps I should just make them bubble children? Although the weight of entertaining them all day long in the house might kill me a different way than booger wiping would. Perhaps more painful? I mean, their attention span would require 800 different activities in one morning alone if they did not have sand, swings and play structures or the rec. center full of toys to explore. Perhaps it's a better trade off not having to be inventive or energetic every morning to let them be exposed to the 8 million germs left behind by other snotty children who's parents were perhaps not as vigilant about wiping their noses before they overflowed onto the communal toys.

Or perhaps I should spare myself the effort and let them run around with boogers hanging down to their knees, ignoring the evil eyes from other parents and pretending I don't see anything. Would spare me some of the gross out factor, but honestly? I have cute kids. I don't think I could stand to watch them covered in snot. I want everyone else to see how cute they are, not how bad of a mom I am. Focus on the children folks! Help me out a bit, lend a kleenex to the effort. For goodness' sake.

I don't know what the solution is but I am not a happy mom right now. Long nights with lots of wake ups due to coughs and congestion do not make for good mornings and energetic mothering. Crabby sick children do not make me love my job. And I have pretty good natured kids despite the illnesses, perhaps they're just getting used to constantly feeling sick? But there has to be an answer to stop this cycle. Is it just common in the summer for kids to be sick more often? More kids on the playgrounds since they're not in school and so they are passing around more colds? Whatever it is, I think I'm going to dress them head to toe in kevlar or teflon. Or some kind of hazmat suit made for kids. I think I just came up with my million dollar patent! Hazmat suits for toddlers! We would all be so much happier without sick toddlers! Who wants to give me seed money?

Birthed child pains

The pain of children doesn't end at childbirth. Sure, it was more direct during that pregnancy thing. Bladder kicks, stretching muscles and tendons, hemorrhoids, and the usual discomforts, not to mention the actual birthing process, I don't care how the baby or babies come out. It all hurts and it hurts a. lot. For some reason we choose to subject ourselves to it more than once quite frequently but we don't realize what we're in for in the long haul do we? The whole stinking process of raising kids is painful, and I'm not talking about the mental stuff!

First, there's the back breaking lifting and carrying and toting and rocking and walking of the baby or babies. My back hurt like hell during the first few months! I still don't now how women wear those baby carrier things, my shoulders would ache for days after. Sure, I had huge babies but people wear those with their babies all kinds of sizes and I just don't see how.

Next, at some point you baby proof and baby gates are in half the doors in the house. Baby gates are not for keeping kids in or out of a room, they're for torturing parents! Every time I walk in or out of a door I get a new bruise from knocking my thigh against the frame. I can't even open the things fast enough to keep from kicking the stupid gate on the way through. Unbelievable. Where's the stupid remote control that opens the door and slides the frame into the wall?

Then, inevitably, the kids decide you're a trampoline, punching bag, gym mat or whatever and start jumping on you, pounding on you, crawling all over you and generally treating you like a great big stuffed animal. Try telling them to be gentle when they realize that when they pound on your belly it jiggles in a very amusing way. Try getting them to stop jumping on you when they realize it's such a soft place to land. It just doesn't work.

Not to mention the endless round of unintentional head butts, book corner to cheek hits, plastic hammer whacks and random full on kicks by children not entirely sure how to coordinate their body parts yet. I have bruises all over, especially on my face, but that's probably because I'm stupid enough to lean in again and again while making smoochy smoochy noises to kiss bellies and faces and feet of flailing children. I suppose I'll never be able to resist. The learning curve is defeated by sheer hormonal attraction to baby belly. Ach.

I'm sure I've missed a few, but you get the general idea. Raising children is cause for many injuries, bruises, strains, headaches and general malaise. And I'm not even talking about the illnesses they give you. Cold after cold after flu after cold. Good gracious. I need a vacation.

On sleep

Speaking of evolutionary principles, what is the point of fighting one's bedtime till all hours when you know perfectly well you will be up at 6 am no matter when you fell asleep? It seems mighty counterintuitive seeing as how doctors have shown that inadequate sleep will affect you negatively in many ways. So why do toddlers fight their parents, sometimes for hours each night, about falling asleep in their beds and then spend the next day all bleary eyed and crabby for all to enjoy?

Of course it's not just the toddlers is it? How many of you adults out there fight your bedtime constantly? I say almost every day 'today I'm going to go to bed early because I feel like crap.' Does it happen? Oh no. Despite the fact that I know that my impatient, tired toddlers will be rattling their cages loudly and screaming starting as early as 6, I watch one more crappy show, read one more magazine, send one more email. I know I feel like my justification these days is that once the kids finally go to sleep I need a couple of hours to decompress but really? I'd feel better in the morning with less decompression and more sleep. And honestly? I didn't go to bed on time before I had kids.

So what is this about human nature? I'm a morning person and I still can't get into bed on time. So I spend my days dragging around trying to find the energy to play with three wildcats and rueing the lack of sleep I got last night, because in addition to my stupidity one or more babies may have had a bad night and awakened me 3 or 4 times for comforting, and I think to myself that there must be a reason we do this to ourselves? Perhaps the saber toothed tiger was on the prowl in early evening and we needed to be up to watch for it?

In contemplation of the noble tantrum

What is the evolutionary principle behind tantrums? Can you imagine, just imagine, cave mamma Ugg with child #1 standing just outside cave mouth #43 on Cave Mouth Street grinding corn or preparing to go out and gather and little cave kid Ugg Jr throws himself to the ground and pounds his tiny fists and kicks his tiny legs and screams like a bear to get what he wants? Do you suppose she rolls her cavelady eyes and hands it to him? Because I don't. I see cave mamma taking her club out and giving him a good whack.

Imagine, again, Mayan momma standing in the hot sun after harvesting corn (oh I'm not an indigenous tribe specialist get off my back) watching Mayan girl baby screaming to be allowed to play with that last ear of corn, because it had become her toy, and not giving it to Mayan momma immediately upon being asked. Do you think she might be tempting the Mayan god to select her for the heart sacrifice? I think I'd tread a bit more carefully if I were that kid.

And imagine, if you will, prairie settler family Miller just put prairie kid Joseph to bed and he throws a tantrum to the point of barfing on his bedcovers. Do you think that in an era of no washing machines and no multiple sheet sets he was allowed to do this time and time again for no apparent reason and not end up sleeping amidst his barf particles? I think not. I think he'd be washing his own sheets pretty soon in the river with bloody knuckles of his own. I think he'd learn pretty stinking fast not to barf in his bed. His mom wouldn't be running with his barfing self out of the nursery to try to stop the inevitable sheet change one stinking time. I don't think so. Heck, he'd be lucky to have a bed. And if he barfed in mom and pop's bed? I think he'd be hoeing a row of crops before he was 2.

I mean how did tantrums achieve anything until the current parental administration where we overindulge such children? In the last, what, 50 years there's been a sea change from children being a necessary production of help mates for the household to children being our entire reason for the sun coming up in the morning and goodness knows you better not wake/upset/scold/deny/deprive them. So I see how it's evolutionarily useful now. It works like a charm to lay your tiny little body down in the middle of a packed grocery store and go to town with tears and snot because you bet your mom is going to scoop your butt up and get you anything to shut you up so she can finish shopping because this is the one stupid chance she gets all week to get groceries and if she can't now you'll all starve.

Well not this mom. That kid and I will either be standing there annoying the rest of you until he's done with his theatrics or we leave and we starve. I know it looks bad to the other judging eyes and I've been them too, but you know once you're the parent that the difference between a tantrum and a true cry is so obvious to you at some point early on in getting to know this kid that you can not allow yourself to indulge the former. Because that only means more in the future. And those judging eyes? They can go have triplets of their own and then judge me. Well, maybe not even then. Because this is my kid, and for some unexplainable reason tantrums are there in the animal brain, even though I'm pretty sure that our ancestor apes used them to better effect and they should have been extinguished as a useful strategy somewhere around the 1300s, BC, and there is NOTHING. I. CAN. DO. ABOUT. IT. So smile sweetly and move on rubberneckers. Nothing to see here.

Holiday shmoliday

Long holiday weekends annoy me. Particularly because here I am exhausted at the end of one and everyone else is all fresh and, well, perhaps hung over. Fine, exhausted for a different reason. All sunburned and overfed and smokey throated from cookouts and sitting by pools and watching fireworks. See, I'm a holiday lover. Before I had kids who, for the first years of their lives, are keeping me from having any. Because what is a holiday if I lose my usual childcare for the day? That seems like NOT a holiday to me.

And I want to laugh about the idiot hooligans who set off firecrackers in my neighborhood half the night but I'm trying to sleep here. Why? Because my molar teething daughter has kept me up for 3 nights straight waking every hour or two to complain about it loudly. Because in the morning I have to get up, dress, feed and clean them and take the to the park singlehandedly. While at the park I have to monitor them on a jungle gym, catch B as he slides down the slide head first, A as she eats sand, C as he finds a step to just sit on and cry for no reason. But I also apparently have to monitor the 8 year old daughter of a dad playing basketball in the nearby courts for some reason?

First of all, this park is divided into two play areas with fences. The one we're in, for very young kids, and the other one for kids her age. Where does she choose to play? Here. How many times to I have to remind her that she has to close the stinking door behind her on the way in and out because I have THREE running toddlers trying to escape at every minute? And why does she have to bring in a cup of water to play in the sand with, leaving two wet sandy spots for my kid to sit in and walk in after she's abandoned them? No, I don't bring a change of clothing to the park with me, why would I? And how bad of a mom am I to have to let my daughter run around with a big wet behind on a 60 degree day?

Dad? Whomever you are? I don't think your wife's idea for you to take your daughter to the park was this exactly. I don't think she was supposed to entertain herself completely, do you see this as father/daughter bonding time? Do you think she'll look back on these days fondly? Oh, remember dad, how you used to take me to the park and abandon me so you could pretend you were still single and play with those loud sweaty men a testosterone laden game of basketball? Right.

So, I leave the Independence weekend a little crabbier than before. Shocking I know, but I think my transition to grouchy old lady may be completing. I'm the one at the window looking out at the neighborhood fireworks (and I'm not talking little tiny fireworks, I'm talking they got the kind that shoot up over their 3 story houses and explode, lighting up the neighborhood and echoing for miles) grumbling and moaning about kids and hooligans and where are the police. I'm the one sending dirty looks to the dad on the b-ball court ignoring his lonely daughter. I'm the one who can't wait until next year when the kids are old enough to take to a fireworks display and maybe spend the day cooking out and baking ourselves in the sun. Wait, what? That doesn't fit. Ok, fine, I have a little holiday spirit left in me. Even if it is all in future fantasy land.

Chaos part 2

Seems innocent doesn't she? Not so much.

Why does everything having to do with my mother end in chaos? How is it possible that her vortex of crazy is so strong that even things that I am 'in control' of are sucked in? It is truly amazing. There is not one time that shocks me any more but let me tell you about some of it.

First off we have the sale of her condo. Yes, it is a sucky market so I'm not going to complain about the sales price or the sticking it to me that the buyer did just because she could. Because, what seller isn't suffering at the present time? My complaint is this: how is it possible that after being on the market for 3 months, the very moment an offer comes in I am on my very first, monumental, wedding anniversary related, miles away from the babies, romantic getaway in Big Sur with my DH? Is it not possible that this single, solitary, miserable buyer's offer could have come in 2 days before or a day after this trip? Is it really true that I have to spend hours of my mere 4 days away printing and faxing and signing and sitting on the phone receiving instructions from the real estate agent because if I don't deal with this one miserable offer we may never get another? How did she plan this? It's magical I tell you. It's like her universe has a compass that points always to Mira's least convenient time to do something.

So, we get the contract signed in the middle of my 'vacation' and time passes until this week. The week of closing. It's very simple what I have to do, and straightforward: since mom is too sick to get to a notary (her condo is across the country in DC) I have to go to the notary myself and get the documents signed and then xerox and fedex them. Yes, there are 30 pages, but I was once a real estate agent myself, how hard could it be to get these documents signed, notarized and sent off? Well, apparently, once caught in the vortex of mom, it becomes nearly impossible. First off, I'm sick. I'm sick like I haven't been sick in years. My children gave me this illness, and they are not too bad off. They coughed a bit, released 8 tons of boogers each and had a few bad nights. But since they all had bad nights in a row, I got sicker. No sleep and a simple cold apparently adds up to bronchitis and the need for heavy drugs.

So I wake this morning, prepared to head to the notary by 9, get back in time for a phone call at 10:30 and with a plan to see a doctor about my unhappy lungs sometime in the afternoon. Oh no. Too easy. First, I arrive at the UPS store only to realize that the title company sent me a 32 page document that printed fine with the exception of one hidden page that was legal sized and therefore cut off at the top. Thanks guys, how did you expect me to print a legal page on 8 1/2 by 11? So I had to go home, get the DH to make the printer print it properly, then head back to UPS. I then encountered the slowest, most detail oriented (and that's putting it nicely), most politely unable to do things the way that the lawyers in MD wanted it done, notary public. So we had to make calls and find a way to do the notarizing for a MD contract in the CA accepted way. One might think that notarizing is somewhat standardized across the county but that would be false. Because that would be easy.

So once we established that he had a way of following his rules and still notarizing my document we proceeded. There were 8 signatures that needed notarizing in total. This took 45 minutes. Each signed document must be recorded in his little book, a separate form filled out, a stamp and my signature. Oh. My. God. Really? 45 minutes NOT including the initial review of documents and negotiations with the paralegal? Grinding and gnashing of teeth could be heard blocks away, but not a single bronchial spasm. I persevered.

I then had to head home for the phone call but called the Dr.'s office on the way. The only appointment they had was for 10 minutes after my phone call ended at a location 30 minutes away. I had to exchange my DH's car for mine, park down the street, conduct my phone call, and halfway through start driving downtown. Thankfully, my affairs are not chaotic. The phone call was accomplished, the doctor's office got me in and out in 20 minutes and I was on my way to the Fedex/Kinko's to fax and xerox and fedex. Again, this seemed simple enough. Really. I xeroxed, I started faxing, I prepared the fedex forms. Wait, hold on, the fax machine is spitting random numbers of pages through at the same time and we have no way of knowing what pages actually got scanned through. Even though I only put 5 pages AT A TIME through this stupid machine. Wouldn't you think Fedex could afford a nice spiffy self service machine?

No. The self serve machine would be 10 years old and finicky like a cat, so the nice man behind the counter offered to fax it. His beautiful new high end fax machine pulled all 29 pages through in the blink of an eye. I thought, this is a change in luck, now we'll be done soon. So I waited. 15, 20, 25 min. Uh, Fedex dude? What's up with the fax? "Oh, apparently the machine stopped at some point, I think page 19, and I can't tell why but usually it will redial the number and try again." So I wait, 15, 20 minutes again. What page does it say it's on now? "uh, page 20, it must have started at the beginning again." Gee, sure must have! 10 more minutes. What page is it on now? "24"

Ok world. That's it for me. Honestly, I have fedexed the original and the lawyers will have it by 10 am tomorrow so I'm all done. If the last 5 pages of that document don't make it through I could care less. I'm pretty sure the world won't come to an end. And if they call me and tell me they need it they will find out pretty quickly that I don't care. I have now spent 3 hours of my very small amount of personal time waiting for slow and stupid people and machines to complete small and easy tasks and I am done.

But see what I mean about everything becoming chaos around her? This stuff is usually cake. Sure, there are at least a thousand pages in the average sales contract for a house, and a thousand and 50 when you can't be there in person for closing but notarizing, faxing, xeroxing? Cake! What is it about this woman that draws the evil spirits of delay and postponement towards everything around her? I can't go grocery shopping for her without something going wrong while walking through the store, driving to her place, unpacking her stuff into a refrigerator. And I won't even go into the story again about the organizer person I hired to do her stuff. All of you non-believers who think that the world is a completely scientifically explainable place listen up. It just isn't true when you live with crazy.

I dare you to offer to help me with my mom and avoid getting sucked into the crazy. I dare you.