Since literally the second I held Spencer when he was born my mommy red flags were flapping around in the breeze. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was at first but I told Gates, “Something is different about this one”. It didn’t help that he looked like this in the beginning before he started plumping out:

As the babies slowly grew out of their sleepy stage and started being more interactive I noticed that Spencer was just flat out awkward to hold. He was always arching his back and seemed to throw his head back any time he was up on someone’s shoulder. Whenever anyone wanted to hold a baby I tried to give them Sasha because she sat properly like a fat little squashy toadstool with none of his erratic movements. I wasn’t quiet about my concerns, I told everyone, “I think something is up with this kid”, as many of our friends and family members can confirm. His head just seemed too giant for his little body. He couldn’t hold it up at all, wouldn’t even try to move during tummy time, and had head lag so dramatic it looked like he was about to bend in half backwards any time I would try to pull him to sitting position with his hands. My best guess for the longest time was that he might have cerebral palsy, and I even reached out to a friend whose daughter has CP to ask about when I should be pushing for a referral. His pediatrician addressed my concerns but said to be patient and so I sat on my suspicions like a rhinoceros guarding her freshly laid eggs. But I knew, SOMETHING. Something was up with this kid.

Well….

It wasn’t cerebral palsy (that we know of at least at this point) but there WAS something up with Spency boy. His big ol’ head wasn’t just bigger than the average noggin – it was filled to the brim with extra brain juice. Making it difficult for him to hold it up and affecting his gross motor development. VINDICATED! Obviously the better case scenario would have been that I’m a crazy histrionic helicopter parent just looking for problems where they don’t exist but I have to say it feels GOOD to know my instincts were spot on with this one. Looking back on our little hospital adventure with Spence I can’t help but feel grateful that we went through what we went through and that his docs were so thorough because if this ends up being something that worsens and needs intervention we already know about it and can be prepared. Here’s a timeline of Mr. Sir’s medical adventure for those of you who are curious:

1. Babysitter texts me while I’m at work that Spence has fever of 102. I leave work and give Tylenol and fever comes down and he is still acting like his normal squish.
2. The next morning his temp is 99 and he’s happy and drooling so I assume teething and proceed to bop around all day with all the kids like an asshole. He is quieter than normal but still awake and interactive.
3. Around 5 pm he starts fussing and his face turns the color of an overripe tomato and I check his temp – 103. WHOOPS! I give Tylenol and check again in an hour, no change. At this point he is basically moaning. I notice his soft spot is firmer than normal and pulsating. Off to urgent care we go.
4. At urgent care they check his ears, swab for flu, and cath for urine collection. All results WNL. Temp 103.5. There is not much  more they can check for so they are giving me the spiel about monitoring at home and watching for dehydration and I’m nodding along like a dashboard bobblehead Jesus and am like yes yes yes but what about THIS – pointing to his soft spot which is now bulging enormously and visibly throbbing. They go OH! Off to the ER we are sent with suspicion for meningitis.
   

   
5. At the ER they give more Tylenol, fever is close to 104 and he is just moaning and pitifully mewing like a wet kitten. Heart rate is well over 200. They send us for chest x-ray and CT. X-ray shows “viral process” but no pneumonia and CT shows the increased brain fluid level I was talking about. Because they can’t tell from this type of imaging if the increased fluid is infection related or benign hydrocephalus they decide to admit him, begin treating as if he has meningitis, get MRI to confirm cause of excess fluid, and once that is done do spinal tap to see what bacteria or virus is cause of infection.
6. At this point it’s like 3 am so they finally get Spencer and I up to a room and into his little circus monkey crib cage. Around 4 am they change the plan and order lumbar puncture and that gets finished around 5.
7.  He gets pumped full of antibiotics and fluids and I think we slept from maybe 6:30 am until the docs came for rounds around 7 am, but thanks to my hardcore training in sleep deprivation I feel just dandy and go into proper Mama Bear Nurse mode which is a dangerous beast if you’ve never encountered in the wild, questioning the residents and demanding answers for things they can’t possibly know whilst glaring from underneath the hospital issue blanket I’ve cocooned myself in with Spence like a tiny, sickly papoose.
8. Gates drops the girls at daycare and returns to hospital for a whole lot of waiting, which is what happens the most during a stay. An MRI spot finally opens and he gets popped into another machine for a few more pics of the ol’ melon.
9. Somewhere in here we for sure meet our $12k deductible lol.
10. Spinal tap positive for Roseola Virus (HHV6) which causes the docs to start Googling madly, because even though Roseola is common they haven’t ever seen it on spinal tap so the question becomes “have they never seen it on spinal tap because most kids with Roseola aren’t being tapped or is this an atypical presentation of it causing a viral meningitis?” and a consult with infections disease is ordered.
    

    

    
11. MRI shows what appears to be a non-infectious moderate hydrocephalus and an effusion or infection on mastoid bone in left ear. Plan is to monitor head growth and fluid level every few weeks and if levels out with age no intervention will be necessary which we will keep our paws and claws crossed for. If worsens over time then the most common intervention is a shunt to get the extra fluid off the brain. Problem with the mastoid will also be watched outpatient and if clinical signs persist despite the now billion of antibiotics he’s been drinking while in hospital then next step is surgical scraping BARF lets also give a little shout out to the powers that be that we can avoid that nonsense.
12. By now it’s like 4 or 5 pm and fever has been responding to consistent Tylenol dosing and I’ve been sowing the seeds of mom nurse that I can handle his care from home and am demanding discharge. From what I figure, he’s had enough antibiotics to kill any bacterial infection, and we know he has a virus so there’s really nothing we can do for that but rest, fluids, and fever control, and if anything else grows on the cultures (24 & 48 hours from testing time) they can just call me and I’ll scurry him back right quick. I figure the best thing for him would be rest and rest is hard to come by when there is a nurse or doc or resident or CNA or specialist popping in every 30 min and poking and prodding him. I put on my mean voice and the masses agree with my judgment but with the caveat that he gets one more antibiotic hung and temp check when Tylenol wears off, and we schedule appointment to follow up the next day. Done and done and done.
    

    
13. He passes temp check by literally half of a degree (102) and we are finally sprung around 9 pm. I can’t think of hardly anything that feels better than returning home with your kid in improving health after seeing all the really sick littles in the hospital who aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Really brings everything into perspective and fills me completely full of gratitude. #thankful #blessed

And he is perking up quite nicely like a little pastry in the oven since coming home. And pooping up a storm thanks to the barrage of meds he sucked up like a little camel through his IV. This would be the time and place to post one of those baby shaming up-the-back poop pictures that you see popping up around the interwebs with captions like “have a baby they said, it will be fun they said” etc etc but I am a v firm anti baby poop shaming stance. Y’all are lying to yourselves if you’re trying to say you’ve never destroyed a toilet and left the room being like HOLY GOD what was that. It’s all just bodily functions. We can’t help it and neither can they. That being said I truly think Sasha is on another level with her gas because it is louder than anything Gates produces in both decibel and length.

OK ENOUGH with the health and gas and poop updates. On to the fun stuff. The babies are at such a great age. Still basically blobs but starting to squiggle around a little bit without actual forward progress movement so no need to chase them meaning I can continue to be a worthless piece of s of a parent and put my feet up all day. They are enjoying their bouncers, starting to notice the dog, and are just tickled pink every time Olivia deigns to give them an iota of attention. She is still prone to showing her affection in a somewhat aggressive way and we have to constantly remind her when she’s getting up off the ground after playing with them to not put her hands on their stomachs and pushing off to hoist herself up.

Olivia is currently obsessed with genitals and we spent a good chunk of our day discussing who and what gets to have a penis and why. I know kid, it’s not fair. She also has broken her cottage cheese only diet and now is on a straight cream cheese diet so really I’m just hitting parenting home runs over here. The babies however are little chow hounds and eat around the clock and I mean around the clock. Every 3 hours rain or shine they are squawking for noms. And every hour in between they are squawking for fun. They literally make noise all day and all night and don’t appear to be sleeping for any significant amount of time which would be alarming except for the fact that Olivia was exactly the same way and turned out just fine.  I think we would be getting more sleep at night than we did with her if it was just one baby but between the two of them there really isn’t any amount of quiet or peace through the dark hours. It’s insane how our bodies adjust to being totally sleep deprived because honestly I feel great. I was just talking about this with someone and remembering how absolutely run down I felt when Olivia was this age and doing the same sleepless shenans but then I remembered that I was totally pregnant for a chunk of that and didn’t even know which explains the extra yuckiness. This will be my first spring and early summer in 3 years not pregnant! Bring on the shandy! I hope I’m never not thankful to not feel like crap due to pregnancy. RIP forever pregnancy hormones, you dirty, dirty jerk. 

Twins have both tried some rice cereal, sweet potato, and banana but aren’t super interested in anything but the bottle yet.

They are smiling like crazy and if we work very, very hard at it we are getting some giggles occasionally. They love laying and looking at eachother and talking and scratching eachother’s faces and holding hands. Sasha is especially fond of blowing raspberries and Spencer likes grabbing toys and wacking himself in the face with them. Whenever they are sitting in their bouncers or laying on the floor and they can see me, their little eyes just follow me wherever I go in the most creepy way. They don’t even make noise or try to get my attention they just stop whatever they are doing and track me with their little peepers.

Very unsettling. I’m so excited to be able to get outside soon, this has been a longgggg winter inside with my ducklings and I can’t wait to get some sun on their pale and crusty faces. Although we don’t have the cash flow to install a fence in the backyard this summer I settled for the second best thing which is SUPER BABY MEGA JAIL aka I bought 5 of the big octagonal play yards and am going to connect them to have a big play space for rumpus-ing. I found a raised garden bed on Groupon for an insanely good deal and plan to plant a garden with Olivia this summer thanks to the ever inspiring Peppa and her foray into the world of gardening with her grandfather piglet. I’m thinking pumpkins, carrots, tomatoes, and sunflowers. For my birthday this year my parents told us they will build a sandbox for the kids so we’ve got that to look forward to as well. OG will be able to let her toys literally jump in muddy puddles in that thing, sure to be hours of entertainment. BRING ON THE GOOD WEATHER for the love of god this winter brought us one too many colds and far too many stomach bugs for my liking. However, I am officially swimsuit ready thanks to my last brush with near-death vom city.

We’ve had a busy spring already, just like we had a busy winter and busy fall and busy, busy, busy everything. Truth be told I would rather be running all over creation with my trillion of children in tow than be stuck at home staring at the time on the clock dragging by. We threw a baby shower for my brother and his wife in Viroqua and thanks to a great find by my dad on VRBO we hosted it at this glorious old historic home that we rented to stay at for the weekend.

Any time we can get Olivia together with cousin Leo is sure to be a blast and even more fun for Gates and I when my folks are there and my mom takes over parenting of toddlers the entire time we are with them.

Not only that but my parents took Olivia up north with them for the week between the baby shower and seeing my family in Wisconsin Rapids for Easter the next weekend. It’s crazy how eliminating just one of the kids makes our lives at home so much easier. Olivia isn’t even a difficult kid, but the week with just the babies felt like vacation, despite missing our little gremlin like crazy. Olivia of course had a stinking blast up north and my mom took care of a couple of big parenting duties for us…. got Olivia to go #2 in the potty chair and transitioned her to a big girl bed. Continuing the trend of letting me be a giant slacker parent, I’m into it. THANKS NANA!

After a busy quick trip to Rapids:

we headed back to Racine to see Gates side of the family for Easter.

Lucky Olivia, the Easter Bunny found her at both places and gave her plenty of treats so that she would give her pacifiers to the Easter Bunny to give to the baby bunnies he knows. So far so good on the pacifier front except for a few exceptions needed at bedtime after we “called the Easter Bunny” to check if it was ok for her to use the Nuk for just a little bit when she lays down at night. But she is doing so well during the day, mighty proud of our little paci queen.

Somewhere in there Gates and I also snuck out of town together for a little weekend getaway where we ate and drank our way through Michigan. My parents babysat and let’s just say we made the most of our alone time. That I can remember. I came home at least 5 pounds heavier and $700 richer so it must have been a good time.

We’ve met new friends and played with old friends and basically just never stopped moving for the past eternal amount of time.

And we are loving every second of it.

And finally, one of my friends and coworkers recently recorded an ALBUM! How cool is that?! The music is all about the day in the life of their cats, and any animal lover will surely relate. Please check it out on Spotify!

AND LASTLY – to all you stinkers who hardy har har giggled and suggested maybe I was pregnant during my last bout with stomach flu… well…

OF COURSE I’M NOT PREGNANT. I am literally using 3 forms of birth control. A rogue sperm would legit have to break into my business and disable a birth control pill. But jest away you jerks!

And for real lastly, your memes of the moment:

 

Lol. Accurate AF though.