Tobie here: Wow! Can't believe I'm writing this…but life is great!! We started our new mother's helper last Wednesday. I again had my doubts if it would work out, I kept telling myself "I don't need help. These are my kids and I just need to figure it out". But I ignored myself and I'm so glad I did. Paige and Cole are loving the new girl, and she is making my life so much easier. I'm actually enjoying my days. The babies and I spend a little over an hour in the morning by ourselves before J arrives. J shows up, everyone gets giddy, we play for an hour, then J puts one baby down and I put the other down for a nap. Each baby gets a story read and a cuddle…and I'm not kidding…they go to sleep without a tear and sleep for a good hour or more. Then we eat lunch and play the rest of the afternoon or do therapy. It's so nice. We're looking forward to swimming in the afternoons too…but our pool is a little out of service right now so we busted out the playpool.

Big news for me! I'm so excited. My six week rest after the c-section is over next Thursday. I reinstated my gym membership today. They kind of looked at me funny when I said that I've been on a 2-yr maternity leave. This gym has monitors in every workout room so you can watch your kids in the kid room playing. How cool. I checked out the kid room too…it's awesome. Tons of toys that get cleaned three times a day, gym mats, slides, a huge romper room. And the best part is that it's only for kids between the ages of 1-3. When I was there (which is during the time I'll most likely work out) there were two kids in the romper room. The staff were so nice in explaining the romper room protocol to me too and reassuring me that the babies would be fine…I'm really looking forward to this. Plus…I need to get my body back, I can't believe I'm still in my "transitional" maternity clothes. My plan is to take P and C and leave D at home with J. I'm trying to treat them like normal kids now that we're older, healthier and not in RSV season.

Okay…kid updates. Paige is getting about 5-6 teeth at once. Ouch. She's a vampire…preying on the innocent. When you're not looking, she'll sink her teeth into your flesh so hard and deep (see attached pic). The worst part is we say "No biting" and then she smiles. I'd like to believe she's smiling because her teeth hurt and the smile is a sign of relief from her discomfort. But the realist in me knows she is smiling because she knows she did something wrong. We are going to start the time-out game for her tomorrow. We're going to do time-out in the pack-and-play. I'm scared because I don't want to believe my kids are testing me, though I know it's true. It just shows that they're growing up. Cute, right?

Cole is doing great but he's got a terrible allergic reaction to something undefined. His face is covered in a rash…he looks awful. We have an appointment next week with an allergist to figure out what is causing him to break out so bad. Other than that..he's awesome.

Drew is screaming at me right now. The kid is always hungry. Luckily he is not a piranha anymore. We're still eating every three hours. I'm curious what he weighs because he's outgrown his newborn and 0-3mo clothing and now we're in 3-6mo clothes. I almost started crying a few days back when I put a cute outfit on him. It was Cole's outfit that Cole never got to wear because we weren't able to easily put clothes over Cole's head with his oxygen tubing. It just reinforced to me how lucky we are that Drew is so healthy and normal. And did I mention adorable?

So much to report, so little time. As most of you know, someone was writing their own version of OUR life, using OUR pictures and OUR blog posts on another blog (said blog has been taken down). While this blog has been a godsend for family, friends, and making connections with others who have shared similar experiences, there is a dark side to having our life on display to every Larry, Curly, and Moe out there. It was hard to see family pictures on another website with someone claiming our kids as their own, but even harder to see a picture of Kaylee on that site. It’s sick, perverse, and sad. For the time being we’re still here, but I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be apart of the blogosphere. UPDATE: Oh forgot to thank you all for the emails, comments, and phone calls about everything. That’s one of the biggest reasons I would hate to stop blogging. Who loves you baby?

We had two straight weeks of grandparents helping out around the house. My dad left Monday leaving us to fend for ourselves. Our new full-time mommy’s helper started today. Hopefully, she’ll make things much easier for Tobie. Tobie is sick right now and the babies seem to be getting a tad sick (first clue to that was them going down for a 2 hour nap without crying or fighting). Drew has had a little temperature and is a little stuffy. I can’t believe we went a year without being sick and now this is our second cold in as many weeks.

Other than being a little sick, Drew is doing great. His eating has sucked the past few days since coming down with his cold, but he loves to eat. We did an informal weight check at home. He’s pushing over 10 1/2 pounds if our scale is correct. Just 8 more pounds to catch Cole! Cole is walking everywhere. He’s even decided he can get somewhere quicker by walking versus crawling. Great milestone for him. Paige just started taking some steps on her own yesterday. I give her a week before she’s able to walk more than 10 steps. She also has learned how to climb up on the couch and chairs. She’s a regular monkey I tell you. Now if she could only learn how to climb down feet first.

Have a I mentioned tantrums yet? I’ll save that for another day because guess who’s crying? EVERYONE!