Labor Day and Lyme Disease

We haven't been back in PA long. But we've been back long enough for our little Liam to get bitten by a tick and infected with Lyme disease. Maybe a week after getting back I noticed a strange bite on his leg just a little bit above his right ankle. I had heard a story on NPR not long before about Lyme and thought to myself "how awful would it be if this is Lyme." But it didn't have the halo around it that is so often associated with the disease so I decided to just watch the bite and see if it got worse. About two and a half weeks later the halo appeared and my heart sank. I took him to the doctor the next day and we walked out with a months supply of an antibiotic and that was that. Since then I have been feverishly researching the disease and all forms of treatment from your typical antibiotic regiment all the way down to acupuncture.

Initial bite

Bite with halo

I could go on forever about the details of the disease, but thousands of people before me have already done so. Basically, the bacteria that causes Lyme is extremely smart and hard to kill. One can be infected for years and not know it until one day they begin to feel the painful symptoms that come with the disease. We were lucky (or not) to see the rash on Liam's leg because that is one of the few early signs that one has been infected. Chase and I have our reservations about continuing Liam on his antibiotic because of how ineffective antibiotics have been proven to be when it comes to treating Lyme. That is why we are pursuing alternative forms of treatment in addition to the antibiotic. Lyme isn't something that will be with him for the remainder of his life necessarily, however, as I mentioned before, it is very difficult to cure. If anyone is interested in learning more about Lyme, I encourage you to do so. Also, if anyone has any advice, we would love to hear it. I will say that other than the bite, Liam has absolutely no other signs of having Lyme. He is our normal happy-go-lucky guy and every day we're striving to keep it that way!

Other than the realization that Liam has Lyme, things have been rather low key here. The weather is changing and our days are much cooler than before which is so nice. It hasn't gotten out of the 60s the past few days which means we've been spending more time outside. We bought the boys their first 4wheelers last week. We hadn't been planning on getting them but we saw them in the store and they had so much fun on them we couldn't pass them up. There was only one out of the box so we let Liam drive and Landon sat behind him and held on. It was so cute to watch them driving around crashing into things and laughing. They still don't quite get the steering aspect, but they sure do have fun. To drive them, all they have to do is push the button on the handlebar and they're off. Chase has even taught them how to get themselves "unstuck" when they drive into a tree or the fence.

On Labor Day Chase and I took the boys to a water park in the city. They're too little for any of the rides there, but we all had a lot of fun playing in the kitty pools. Landon is always more adventurous than Liam it seems, but they both got quite brave as the day wore on. The pool was perfect for them because it didn't have sides that they had to step off of to get into the water. The sides of the pool gradually sloped down like a beach so they could wade right in. Liam's favorite part was running in, turning around when it got too deep, and running back out again. Landon had fun exploring the deeper water with dad. It was a fun way to spend the holiday.

I'm looking forward to winter as I always do. Planning for things that the boys and I can do to occupy our time since we won't be able to be outside as much. I am taking the boys to two different library programs that are starting up this week, we also sampled a "mommy and me yoga class" the other day. It was pretty awful to be honest. There were probably 60 people there all together. The AC in the building was turned off so we were all sweating like crazy. The kids (ranging from newborn to 4 years) were totally out of control and the instructor was doing her best to talk loud enough for all the moms to hear. L&L kept taking her phone and unplugging the little AC unit. So needless to say, once the free trial runs out, we're going to find something else to Monday mornings. Hot Yoga with toddlers? No thanks. I may, however, go to "mommy and me swim classes" with two of my friends and their kids. We also really like going to the science center and children's museum. Today we went to the children's museum with our new friends Tasha and her son Breckon. There is a new exhibit at the museum that is all beach balls. There is an area about the size of a school cafeteria and the majority of the room was filled with small and medium beach balls. The boys all had so much fun running around in the sea of balls, throwing and kicking them and rolling around on the ground with them. What a good idea for an exhibit.

Oktoberfest is coming up in a few weeks and Canonsburg puts on a really fun fair every year. There are carnival rides, good food and bands every night for three nights. We're looking forward to that and then the next week is the Houston Pumpkin Festival. I can't believe its already that time of year again. Maybe this year we'll take the boys on some of the rides at Oktoberfest, but if not, they should be just the right age for the little train rides at the Pumpkin Festival!

Starting Up Again

Hello all!

Welcome to my new blog. As promised, this is an extension of my previous blog; "The First Year," in which I wrote about the first year of our twins lives. I'm so glad that I kept a record of the events of that year. It was a fun way for me to share my life with family and friends, but I loved re-reading my posts and thinking back fondly on the times that I wrote about. That is the main reason I wanted to start a new blog. Time flies. It's so easy to get caught up in our every day lives that we forget to cherish the moments that are slipping away so quickly. I don't keep a journal, so my blog posts serve as a way for me to hang on to those moments. Perhaps it's just me being a bit self absorbed thinking that anyone else enjoys reading about my life as much as I do, but in case that's true, enjoy!

It's been almost six months since my last blog post. And during that time our family has gone through some BIG changes. The boys got their first, and second, and third and fourth hair cuts, they started walking, I stopped breast feeding them, they went on their first (and second) big road trip, their parents got married, they spent a week away from mommy and daddy, they're starting to talk and they're getting bigger every day. I wish I had started this blog sooner so as to cover all of those big changes in more depth, but with the stress of the wedding, driving across country and having a wonderful vacation, I couldn't find the time to really catch my breath, let alone start a new blog. However, I'll try my best to catch everyone up, after first touching on the highlights of the past few months.

Landon walking with Grandpa

The boys started walking a few months after their first birthday. Interestingly enough, Liam was first to start walking. With many other developmental milestones Landon was first to reach them, followed closely by his brother but that wasn't the case here. Liam took his first confident steps around 13 months and Landon followed about a month later. I was surprised by how little their learning to walk changed our routine. They were already crawling everywhere and getting into everything, walking just added an element of hight to the equasion. I had to clear everything off of my tables and any other places that were now within their reach. More falls and bonked heads came along with their newly discovered skill as well. But being able to walk made our trips to the park and other play dates much more fun for everyone involved. 

Around the first of May, I decided that I was going to have to start weaning the boys. By July, we were going to be driving out to Colorado for our wedding and then at the end of that month, Chase and I were going to the Bahamas for a week without the boys and I knew that if I continued to nurse them until we left for our honeymoon, the boys and I would have been very miserable. We started the delicate process of weaning slowly. Since breastfeeding is so much more than a way to feed your children, I was concerned with the emotional toll weaning was going to have on myself, the boys and Chase. I was also worried about the physical changes that would be taking place in my body because of the countless times that I come down with Mastitis over the months in which I was nursing. The beginning was pretty hard on all of us. I cut down on one nursing session every two weeks which is what pediatricians recommend and this approach worked for us for the first few sessions. But when it came to nap time and nighttime sessions, it was harder. So after getting a lot of help from a good friend I had met through La Leche League, I decided to be much more relaxed about it and let it happen more naturally. "Gently encouraging the weaning process" as it is refereed to in books. This was the best advice I could have gotten. I had gotten the boys down to only nursing at night by the end of June. Then there were three nights in a row where the boys didn't wake up at all. We had gone four days without nursing, and I told myself that that was it. I couldn't start back up again if they woke up asking to nurse. On the fourth night they woke up asking to nurse and I simply rocked them for a while, and laid them back down to sleep. It wasn't as easy as I'm making it sound, but you get the general ideal. By early July, we were done nursing! If I had known that I would successfully breastfeed my twins to 15 months when I was starting out I think that would have made things a lot easier! It was challenging, but I'm so glad that it worked out for us:)

Resting in Kansas City with Great Grandma Nancy on our road trip

I'm not really sure where to begin when it comes to the road trips. I'll just start by first thanking Maggie from the bottom of my heart for helping me with the drive from Pennsylvania to Colorado. Also, thanks to Maggie's family in Indiana as well as the Terry and Penkowski families for letting us stay with you guys along the way. Being able to stay with family and have help with the boys and a place for Kita to run around was so much nicer than having to find hotels. Maggie, the boys, Kita and I drove my car and an oversized Uhaul from Pittsburgh to Steamboat over the course of four very long, stressful days. Whoever wasn't driving was most likely in "baby land" as it became known, which was in the back seat wedged between two car seats and two antsy toddlers. Usually singing, playing games, clapping, feeding them, just trying anything to keep them from crying. Suffice it to say, I have never been happier to get to my dad's house.  Once we arrived, I swore that I would never make that trip again and that Chase and I were going to have to figure out a different way to get back out to Pennsylvania. I even went so far as to say we would just leave my car in Colorado and fly back to Pennsylvania and then just buy a new car when we got back, but that wasn't Chase's favorite option.

Their first trip up the Gondola!

Playing with Grandpa at the base of the ski hill

Hiking on Mt. Warner with Grandpa, Omi and Kita

After the honeymoon, Chase and I had not other choice but to make the drive again. The longest stretch (9 hours without stops) is from Denver to Kansas City. Maggie and I made that drive at night because we couldn't imagine trying to make it during the day and that strategy worked quite well for us, so Chase and I decided to drive at night the whole time in hopes that the boys would sleep, thus making the trip shorter and less stressful. That plan worked! We made the drive in just two nights. Two very long nights. And now, I'm swearing again (and hopefully meaning it this time) that I will never do it again.

Our wedding and honeymoon were so wonderful, I could go on and on....and on about them so I will try to keep it as brief as possible. We had a beautiful ceremony outside in Steamboat. It poured down rain on all of us making for a very memorable ceremony to say the least. All us got thoroughly drenched but everyone there were such good sports about it. Chase and I loved the rain. And ironically, whenever anything significant has occurred in our relationship, it has been pouring down rain so we should have known that it would be raining on our wedding day. And like everyone says, rain on your wedding day is good luck!

The day after the wedding, Marcy and Skyler took the boys to Encampment where they stayed while Chase and I were on our Honeymoon. We were both so sad knowing that we were going to be without our babies for a whole week! But we knew that they were with family and that we had nothing to worry about which was very reassuring. Chase and I had a blast in the Bahamas. We swam with dolphins, sharks, pigs and sting rays, ate delicious Bahamian food, laid out on the beautiful beaches, and just enjoyed not having anything to do. After the stress of the weeks preceding our honeymoon, nothing could have been better. It was tough to be without the boys, but talking to Marcy and getting pictures of the boys every few days was really helpful.

Rock climbing with Papa

Landon

Now that we are back home, Chase is back to work and the boys and I are back into our normal routine. Fall is approaching quickly and we are feeling the distance between our families and friends. It was so wonderful for us to be close to everyone. For us to share our boys with our families and for us to enjoy everyone's company again. We are still happy in our Pittsburgh home and with the life we have made for ourself here, but wish that the distance wasn't so great. We know that we'll move back west sometime, but until then, I'll keep blogging!