Ringing the Bell, Baby!

How I Started My Day.....I got to ring the NASDAQ opening bell. Woo-Hoo!

Let the online holiday shopping begin!

Be A Good Cookie

I read a touching story in Cookie magazine this month ( don't ask me WHEN I find time for magazines...you can guess where my library is these days. Let's just say it's not a comfy armchair, more like a hard porcelain seat...). A family was faced with the devastating news that their 2 1/2 year old has a rare pediatric cancer. During their search for treatment they found that less than 10% of all cancer research and dollars are dedicated to specific pediatric cancers. Most of these cancers do not affect adults and are unique to children.

They decided that they would do something to help. Being marketers by profession they decided to bake cookies and sell them, donating all proceeds to pediatric cancer research. Today, 2 years later their son is cancer free and they have raised half a million dollars to research and treat similar cancers.

You can go to their web site and buy cookies as gifts this holiday season. 75% of the cost of all cookies is donated. This is a tax deductable gift (but ask your Accountant, don't take my word for it).

You can also bake your own cookies and hold a bake sale at school, work or wherever. They will give you signs and whatever you need to promote your sale. After your sale you send them the proceeds which they then use for cancer research.

Such a simple idea. Such a great idea! Check out their site and read all about them. Cookies For Kids Cancer.

Brothers and Such

Two announcements that I have been meaning to make:

CONGRATULATIONS ERNIE!

For winning the 2008 Henry Mancini Award for Emerging Film and TV Composer by the ASCAP Foundation. You are so awesome and we are all so proud of you!

CONGRATULATIONS BRYAN AND SAM!

For getting engaged and I can't wait for your wedding in December.

>>>>>>

Holiday time fast approaches. My, my, my...I just can't understand where the time goes.

Mama is back at work. Working hard and glad for it. Especially in these times that are so difficult for so many. I just read that Google is laying off 10,000 people. That is a little too close to home for me. If Google gets hit that means my industry is not insulated from this economic downturn. So far, only one client has had to pull their advertising. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Business travel has been difficult for me as I have to lug the Medela Pump in Style with me everywhere I go. Silas is allergic (or has a sensitivity) to milk and we have not found a formula that he can tolerate yet. So I pump in my office. I pump at airports, restaurants and in the bathrooms of Fortune 500 companies. I never thought I would be THAT woman. But there you have it. I am.

The big boys are, well, BIG. I can't believe how they are really boys now and not babies at all. They are loud and rough and full of energy. I mean exploding with the stuff. They don't even sit still when they sleep. I oftentimes bump into one or the other of them in the hallway when I make my midnight trip to the loo. One or both of them are often found sleeping on the floor of thei bedroom (the fact that I removed their beds doesn't help that fact, but that's another post) or sleeping on the couch in their room. Sometimes Waylon will be on the floor in MY room when I get up to feed the baby at 3am.

Speech therapy is going well and both boys know a good number of words now. Reminding them to use their words has become another part time job. Tantrums have died down some but we are definitely still in the terrible 2s.

Silas is a cool little dude. He is so mellow - except when daddy has him. When he is with mama he is all smiles and bubbles. When he is with dada he is a screaming ball of spitfire. No idea why. Really. Just something about Ernie that sets him off. I think he can smell the terror on Ernie when I leave for work in the morning and he plays off of that.

All in all, we feel very blessed this Thanksgiving season. I want to thank all of you who have helped us make it through yet another year of fun and mayhem here in CT. We are looking forward to continuing along the same lines for years to come. Sort of a restless abandon, ALL THE TIME. Nothing like living on the edge.....I am doing my best not to jump.

P.S. new pics on the Adzentoivich Boys blog (link in sidebar)

We're All Surviving!

Well, it's been 8 weeks and we are all still here. Woo hoo! Only 3 1/2 more weeks of maternity leave. Boo-hoo!

Silas - Growing Fast!

These photos are from 5 weeks.

Well, Silas is 7 weeks old this week. Boy does time fly! I spent most of the last 7 weeks convalescing in and out of the hospital. There seemed to be one complication after another...

But I won't bore you with the details. Let's just suffice it to say that Yes, you can catch nasty infections from the hospital - even when you weren't sick to begin with. Five rounds of antibiotics later......here we are at 7 weeks!

Silas is a great baby. Sleeps like a champ. No colic. Very happy. Likes to "talk" and laugh all the time. Very different than his twin brothers - but in their defense they were 5 weeks premature and he was almost a week and a half late. So he was technically born "older" than they were. He also holds his head up almost all the time, can roll over from tummy to back and likes to "stand" on mommy's lap!

We have been having issues with diarreah and spitting up - well, Silas has, not me - we think it may be due to all of the anitbiotics his food source has ingested (that would be me). So he has been taking probiotics for the past five days in hopes of regulating his system. Other than that - he has been a dream!

The big brothers love the little guy. Vladimir likes to make sure the Calming Vibrations chair is always switched to "On" when Silas is in it. And Vlad also likes to pull the cord on the toy that makes music so Silas has something to listen to. Very cute. Waylon likes to look at Silas and makes sure he comes with us wherever we go.

Silas

He's Here

11:37 am
8lbs 7 oz
19.5 inches
Silas Wolfram Adzentoivich
Mother and baby are doing fine. Pictures and details to follow.

Due Date +6

Scheduled the c-section. It will be Thursday at 10:30am. Assuming, of course, that things don't happen on their own before then.

Not exactly what I had in mind - but as I learned from my last birthing experience, as long as everyone comes out alright in the end, everything else is just small stuff.

Looking forward to meeting my son! FINALLY.

Due Date +5

Yep. Still here.

I woke up at 3:00am and never went back to sleep. Was sure I was in "Early Labor" as it's called. Thought I was having the whole lower abdoninal and around the back contractions. Like 5 or 6 an hour. Thing is, once I got up and out of bed and started the day, seems like things have calmed down. Why does this happen every day? Maybe if I just stay in bed all day I will go into labor?

Got the Red Raspberry Leaf tea yesterday. So now I am on that and the Evening Primrose Oil. Let's hope these contractions are focused properly now.

I really shouldn't say that nothing is happening since I got out of bed. It could be that it just seemed more exciting in the middle of the night while in the light of day it is just sort of whatever. I am trying to keep positive. Next doctor's appointment is tomorrow at 8am.

Hopefully I won't need to keep that appoinement!

Due Date +4

Well, made it through another night. Is that good or bad? I don't know.

Did I mention that I have a whopping case of SCIATICA?!?! Yeouch!! ("An important thing to understand is that sciatica is a symptom of a problem — of something compressing or irritating the nerve roots that comprise the sciatic nerve" ---really? hmmmm...wonder what that something could be?) .

If any of you could see me "walking" right now you would ROTFLYAO! And to make matters worse, child 1 and his cohort child 2 decided to wake up at 3:30am and wouldn't go back to sleep if MAMA left the room. This prompted me to "sleep" on the Lilliputian-sized IKEA couch in their bedroom. Did I mention that I am suffering from siatica? And how about trying to go down the stairs to breakfast this morning? Almost didn't happen.

Grandmother leaves for home this afternoon. Her prediction is that I will go into labor while she is en route. If only we were that lucky! Unfortunately, after 3 1/2 months hanging out with us she will not be here for the birth of child #3.

My next stop is to Mrs. Green's market to buy some Red Raspberry Leaf tea. Supposed to "focus" the contractions to make them actually do something other than be annoying. Just like me to have contractions that suffer from ADHD....

Due Date +Three

Nothing to report but a wicked case of sciatica from all of the walking I've been doing.....

Due Date +Two

So, this morning I woke up and stripped our bed and the boys beds. Folded a load of laundry. Put a second load in the wash. Baked a slew of summer savory biscuits (no idea what Summer Savory is, some sort of herb we got from the CSA last week) and two pans of Zucchini Bread. Do you think this could be "nesting"? Hmmm...I do hope so.

Doc appointment today at 3:00.

Still waiting. It can't be long now. Can it?

UPDATE: At doctor's office the nurse (who used to be a doula) recommended I try Evening Primrose Oil. So off I went to CVS to get some. So far I have taken two capsules - 1000 mg each. I also went for a loooooonng walk in the neighborhood after the boys went to sleep. Let's hope this does the trick!

1 Day Overdue

Well follks, yesterday was the BIG DAY. Yep. It came and went. And nothing. Due date, schmoo date is all I have to say.

Still working. Still sitting here with my laptop. Still surfing real estate listings (which could become dangerous if I spend too many more days like this!). Waiting.

The two existing Adzentoivich Boys have been super-clingy to me the past week. I wonder if this means that they know something I don't? Could there be inter-womb communication going on with their little brother? Some sort of weird twin to newborn telepathy? I can only hope. For the past 4 or 5 days neither of them will go anywhere without MAMA. They would rather sit with me while I work on the computer than to play outside with Grandma or DADA. They have always been very happy to spend time with me but this has been ridiculous. Bath time won't go down unless I am in the bathroom to watch (of course it is quite difficult to lean over the tub and assist with the actual bathing at this stage of the game). And only MAMA is allowed to apply powder and diapers before bed. Please tell me this is all because they know that labor is fast approaching. Some sort of animal survival instinct. They want to preserve their MAMA.

Hmmmmm.....maybe I will do some research. I am, afterall, sitting at my laptop looking to kill some time....

Update

The update is...there is no update.

No change since my doctor's visit last week.

We sit and we wait.

The suspense is KILLING me!! This baby is going to be gigantic by the time he decides to be born...a month ago he was already 7 pounds!

Still Waiting

Yes, T minus two days until the "official" due date of baby boy #3. We are still in the holding pattern waiting for clearance.

Next doctor appointment scheduled for tomorrow morning. Will post update.

In the meantime, we greatly anticipate the first REAL contraction.....

Baby Watch

Still on high alert over here. Baby watch is in full swing. And I have to say I do not like it one little bit.

My due date is exactly one week from today. I was ready for this baby to make his entrance a month ago!

The boys were born at 35 1/2 weeks, so I never got this far. I also wasn't sitting around waiting to go into labor because I was in preterm labor for two months before they were born. We were doing everything we could at the time to stop the labor.

Now I just sit. And I wait. And wait. I have contractions every now and again. As I have since about 5 months along. But honestly they aren't too big of a deal. I am waiting for the REAL DEAL to begin. I don't like not knowing. This whole idea of it all being out of my control does not bode well with me. In case you don't know me too well, I like to be the one in charge.

But...as you quickly learn when you become a parent....it is very seldom that you are really the one in charge. These little people have a way of making your entire life bend to their will. Very powerful creatures....

So we wait. And Wait. and wait......

Quick Update

Hello Readers. Are there any of you left out there? I can no longer call myself a Blogger, and I am sorry for that. Maybe somehow, someday....

But in the meantime, a few updates.

• Baby #3 is finally head down and ready to go! He was breech the entire pregnancy. I resorted to Chinese Medicine and something called Moxibustion which is basically lighting this sort of cigar sized incense below the outside tip of your left little toe for 20 minutes twice a day. Following each incense burning session you get down on your hands and knees and do a modified version of downward dog for 10 minutes.

• I also did some other posture exercises which included putting my butt up on a stack of ten pillows and laying on my back so that all of the blood rushed to my head for 20 minutes twice per day.

• And the last thing we did to get this boy to flip upside down was to put the iPod headphones on the lowest part of my belly with the volume down low (this is actually when I think he flipped). The baby has to flip over to get is ears closer to the sound. I am not kidding.

All of these were doctor recommended measures. And they worked! Baby Boy #3 flipped upside down at 36 weeks and 2 days. This was after my doctor and all of his staff told me that it was unlikely that he would flip and we were discussing things like external versions and c-sections. Now I am looking forward (?) to a nice normal labor and birthing experience. Nothing like the last time. Please keep your fingers crossed and send me some really good energy...

• My last day in the office at work is this Friday because - well, hey! - I am three weeks away from my due date. And I have a suspicion that I am not going to make it all the way to July 9th before this little guy decides to join our family. I will be working from home beginning next Monday until the blessed event!

• My Yahoo email no longer works. I think it may have been hacked. My password is no longer valid. This sucks big time because things like my bank and credit card statements are sent to this address. Not to mention my Victoria's Secret specials! Man. It sucks. So if you would please send your own email address of choice to my Gmail account I would appreciate it. My Gmail address is the same as my Yahoo address only with gmail.com instead of yahoo.com at the end (duh!). And if you don't know my Yahoo address then that's OK - I probably don't know you anyway!

• My lovely Mother in Law has now been living with us for 2 1/2 months and nobody has killed anyone. She has been a huge help with the boys and the house as I have gotten bigger and more tired. Father In Law was also here for 3 weeks in May. He and husband tore apart our back porch and build a new one out of stone. Beautiful work. Someday, if I ever upload the pics from my camera, I will post some images of that for your amazement.

• My boys are big kids now - or so it seems. They still aren't speaking much that is intelligible, but they are getting there. They have both had hearing tests and they passed with flying colors. It seems they are just taking their sweet time with the language thing. We had to get them new toddler beds today because their convertible cribs don't work when your kdis are climbers...these boys were climbing up on the sides of the toddler bed/crib to get on top of the dresser in their room. The dresser is about 4 1/2 feet tall! this is not acceptable. So we got them toddler beds with low footboards. Hopefully they will be able to reach the top of the dresser but not get on top of it. We'll see....

And now my boss just called me to her office so it is adios again. Ciao!

I am sorry. This has absolutely nothing to do with anything. I just thought it was SO FREAKIN FUNNY I had to post it. This is not a doctored photo - this was issued by the State Department and syndicated by the AP. And in case you don't recognize them without their make-up...this is a picture of KISS with Condoleza Rice.

Priceless...

From left are, Tommy Thayer, Paul Stanley, Secretary Rice, Gene Simmons and Eric Singer

Meme Update

OK. So here is the story.

When I wrote my things I thought one was a lie - but it turns out they are all true. The sad thing is, I didn't know that. My husband had to tell me!

1. Yes - I did have fire engine red stripes in my hair back in oh, I'd say 1999/2000 or 2001? Those were the dotcom days and the days of Epoch Entertainment when I was a drum-n-bass promoter. Fun times. Now, if you ask my hubby, he will say they were magenta, not red....but he has been known to be a tad color blind.
2. Yes - I have been to Portugal multiple times. We went to Lisbon twice, then travelled down the West Coast to the Algarve once and on another trip wen to the Portugese island of Madeira. It is one of the most beautiful countries I have even enjoyed. And back then, I guess it was back in 2001/2003 ish, they were not part of the EU and so the US dollar exchange rate to the Escudo allowed us to travel in style. Those were the days.
3. Yes - I did pierce my nose. However, it lasted only about a month. You see, I desperatly wanted a little diamond stud and I attempted to swap it out Mother's Day weekend before I went home to see my mom. I knew she would object to the piercing, but at least if it was a cute little diamond it would be less offensive than the stark steel ball they used to pierce it with. This was probably sometime around 2002...the hole closed up in hours as I tried to put the new stud in. I never was able to open it back up. I ended up giving the little diamond to my cousin Natalie who is studying marine biology in New Zeland as we speak.
4. Yes - I have a huge scar on my knee from a High School ski trip accident. That would be back in 1987. There is a long stupid story behind that one I assure you. Let's just say there was a gondola involved and some bad judgement on my part. Stupid kids.
5. Yes - I did swim with the Polar Bears Club in Coney Island on New Years Day. In fact, that was one of my very first blog posts. That is a very good memory. I hope to do it again someday.
6. Yes - I did read a book besides Good Night Moon (available on books.google.com) since the beginning of the year. This is the one I thought was a lie. I completely forgot that I read A Thousand Splendid Suns back in January. Lord knows where I found the time. I completely forgot I read it - Ernie had to convince me that it was true. So, Josette, in my mind, you are the winner :-) And now that I am able to recall that I read it, let me recommend it emphatically. It is an excellent novel. I think I may have liked it better than The Kite Runner.

So, Josette is the winner sort of, but not really. I am sorry I am suffering from pregnant brain and twin mommy brain all at once. I did not start out this meme with the intent to lie to my friends and family....though I am really surprise none of you believed that I had been to Portugal...

Anne's Meme

OK so I've been tagged by Anne (see link in right column - I am too lazy to grab the URL and embed it here, sorry!) to do this meme. Hers is pretty funny. And I haven't been writing much at all lately so, why the heck not!?

OK. So I am going to list 5 things - or was it 6? - about myself that are non-important and silly, or what have you. One of these things is NOT TRUE. You have to guess which one is the lie. Then please post your pick in the comments section. The winner gets a prize (or so Anne says). When I see what she gives out as a prize then I will let you all know what I am giving away. I don't want to be an over or under-gifter ya' know.

List below.

1. I once dyed my hair fire engine red stripes.
2. I have a four inch scar on my knee where a ski once sliced through it
3. I have been to Portugal more than once
4. My nose used to be pierced
5. I once jumped into the Atlantic Ocean on January 1st with the Polar Bears Club

and for good measure...

6. I have read a book this year (other than Good Night Moon, etc.)