My grandma unexpectedly passed away on Saturday.  I hopped on a plane to NY leaving the babies with Tobie (did you know, none of the airlines do bereavement fares anymore? What’s up with that? Damn Capitalists).  My grandma was 94 1/2 years old.  How cool is that?  Who lives to be that old anymore?  After all Tobie and I have been through the past few years, I don’t think we have much time left as we have cashed in all our reserves!  Oye!  I have nothing but good memories of my grandma.  Due to geography and Tobie having a litter, we haven’t had the chance to see her for many years.

Following Jewish customs, she was buried today in the family plot in Long Island.  Now if the dead ever become undead, do not, and I repeat do not go to Long Island.  It is home to a ton of cemeteries.  Huge gravestones.  Row after row of grave markings.  It’s the last place you want to be in case of a zombie uprising.  Now, I was raised Jewish, but don’t ask me anything about it.  I’m now a C & E Christian.  Well not really, but I do like Christmas trees (they are so sparkly).  Anyways, right now we are sitting Shiv’ah.  7 days of mourning.  Lots of eating, talking, and sitting on boxes being uncomfortable.  Hey, it’s the way we roll out here.  My grandma left a long legacy of family behind.  We are all here pretty much because of her.  Thanks grandma Ruth, without you none of those would have been possible!

On another note, the NY Giants are going to the Super Bowl.  Since the Super Bowl is in Arizona, what are the chances any of my east coast family is going to fly out and take me?  Anyone?  Bueller?

We had Drew’s 9-mo peed appt yesterday.  No shots!  Drew seems to have dropped off on his growth curve which is surprising since we (and the rest of America) think he’s HUGE!  But alas, his height is now in the 62% (hello my side of the family…where is your contribution?) and his weight and head size are still in the 89%.  His height was proportional to his weight previously and the nurse measured his height about 3 times before believing it.  The peed was very very very brief with this appt.  I was so ready to brag about how Drew just learned to crawl and pull up to stand this last week, but that was never asked.  The peed asked if he was saying any words yet or babbling and I said no.  Just a lot of grunting.  Of course that’s an issue and now the peed wants us to really use positive reinforcement to get Drew to imitate us making ba,da,ma sounds.  So none of our kids can really speak.  We’re a bunch of mutes.  Which is really weird because I babble all day long to myself.  The kids must think Mommy’s crazy and they don’t want to seem crazy so they don’t talk.  The peed also asked if Drew can turn pages in a book.  I don’t know!  I normally read to all three kids at once and it is impossible to read if they are all reaching for the book and trying to turn pages.  So I don’t let them.  Uugh.  What about all the great things Drew can do?  We didn’t get to those at this appt.  I must have looked like hell at this appt too because the peed said I needed to take better care of myself before I could take good care of the kids.  Duh.  Is he willing to babysit?  I have been fighting a cold this last week and really feel rotten so he was probably justified in saying that.  Eric just got sick two days ago too so pretty much this ship has sank. 

What else?  I picked up the forms for preschool registration on Monday.  They’re due next Friday and it may take me that long to fill them out.  Seriously it’s like 6 pages each kid and I have to order official birth certificates on the kids (which was one of my many projects) because they need to make a copy of that.  Good thing I’ve known the director of the preschool for the last 20 years because I think I may miss all the deadlines.

Drew is a crawling machine.  I have to videotape him crawling now.  It’s weird that last week he was maybe commando crawling about 3 feet and now he can crawl about 50 feet from room to room grunting the whole way.  The peed said at our next appt that Drew may be walking and then he laughed and said “time to get out the leashes”.  And I laughed.  But it was more of a “Geez, that’s going to kill me” laugh. 

Look who learned to pull himself up all on his own!

“Look ma, one hand”!

It’s know the pic is totally blurry, but look how high he can jump!
What’s the starting salary in the NBA nowadays?

It’s very difficult to just get a shot of her teeth!

So Paige got her new teeth yesterday.  You can’t even tell she’s got crowns or caps.  Her smile is gorgeous.  I’m so glad we were proactive on this and had this done.  Her tooth that had chipped to a little nubbin had immense decay under the tooth.  When the dentist went in there she was surprised by the amount of decay and ended up doing a root canal on little Paige.  She said Paige was in a good deal of pain/discomfort from the decay being on the nerve like that.  All told she needed two caps, two crowns, and one root canal.  She had to be put under for the entire procedure which lasted a little over 2 hours.

Being at Children’s Hospital to have that done really made so thankful that the kids turned out so healthy.  I saw kids in circumstances that almost made me cry in the admitting waiting room.  While I was talking to some other moms in the surgical waiting room their kids were having seriously grave procedures being done to them.  Their daughters had cancer and tumors and when the conversation came around to why Paige and I were there, I felt ridiculous saying “oh we’re here for a dental cleaning”.  Ridiculous in a way and not to sound like a jerk, but I was thrilled to say that.

So her smile is restored, she looks fantastic, more importantly, she is no longer in any discomfort.  To burst my own bubble…Cole appears to have a tooth that is wearing away like Paige’s was.  The good news is that he goes in for his 2-yr cleaning this month and I think they can fix his tooth in the office under a sedative.

I have so many more things to report on like how the kids can reach pretty much all the counter tops now and the entire kitchen table.  Nothing is safe.  Or how Cole is “this close” to figuring out how to escape his crib.  Or how I only have 12 weeks left of breastfeeding and I am soooooo looking forward to Drew going on whole milk.  Or how Paige imitates me on the cell phone.  Or how Cole prefers the pink lawn mower to the blue one?  Or how if one kid coughs, all three end up hacking because we’re high drama around here.  Or how I have yet to start timeout but I sooooo need to figure something out soon because they’re pushing me to see how far they can go.  Or how tomorrow we’re going to try out our new Christmas big wheels which should be so cool!!  Or how no parent should ever teach their kids to sign ’more’ because that could be the most annoying sign when overused.  Just some topics for future postings……

Before I forget!!!!!  Drew is officially crawling.

Have a great weekend.  Cindy…if you read this before swim lessons today…could you call me?  I don’t know what you want me to bring for Drew since I can’t imagine you’d want to hold all 23 lbs of him the whole time.

Blue cupcakes for the boys!

Pink cupcakes for the girls!

2 candles each for each 2 year old!

“Oh yes, I am going to blow you out, then I’m going to eat you!”

“Oh yeah, frosting rocks”

“Take the picture before I rip this hat off my head”!

“Yummmm…..frostinggggggg”

Daddy: “Just blow the candle out already, I’m hungry”.

Birthdays Rock!!

Take a look at last year’s birthday pictures. My how far we’ve come!