trenches...

I am DEEP into the trenches of the "terrible twos" and I do not know how to get out of them. The last week has been a rough one! I have cried practically every day. God love my hubby for taking those tear filled calls. What I have been experiencing my girlfriend Desiree says best, "Tantrum Rodeos". LOL! Some days thats exactly how I feel, like I fought a bull & the bull won! I'm SO EXHAUSTED! I feel like I cannot listen to another hysterical cry or anymore stomping feet! This one took this one's toy or that one has this one's cup. They sure know what buttons to push! They make my nights LONG and my days even LONGER! Each day I wake up telling myself that this day will be better than the last & I am ALWAYS wrong! I have all of these ideas on how to make our home MUCH more liveable. Like first off since we cannot have a basement( SO want a basement!) to corral them into then I want a "kid" room. A place for them to have completely. A place they can do whatever in. We do not have a home big enough for us all so we need to do something QUICK! It is terrible how they wreck the place. They think they have free reign over everything & just when I clean up one mess there goes another one. Other than putting EVERY item from inside our home out in our garage out of their reach, I do not know what I should do! The only time they listen is if I tell them I have a bug. Yes our kids LOVE bugs. I cannot tell you how many times I have lied about catching a bug for them to come to me. CRAZY huh!? They bang things on the windows, they try to unlock doors, pull things off the counters, grab things off the side of the fridge or better yet wave the broom towards the walls trying to knock down the pictures. They are WILD! I take them outside & they try to push out the screens or make holes in them. Then when they have something they should not have they will run faster as I chase them through the house like it is one BIG joke. I know I'll laugh about it when they are older but right now all I want to do is cry. I get SO upset & I feel that they are putting me to an early grave. My wish to become a mommy was not granted for me to get this upset. There are few people that I can call that can relate to my struggles. We had it SO easy when they were babies. They ate when they were suppose to, slept through the night since 4 months, rarely cried & most of all loved being in their stroller! Now the hell begins! Most people including my hubby say they are just kids. Yes I realize this BUT no woman should ever have to go through what I go through. My quad PLUS momma friend Joellen will call me from time to time because she has been there, done that. She senses my frustration and trys to make me see that this too will pass. I really do think that I have aged quite a bit these past few months. Some days I have no energy to red up anything. I hope when they grow up they will appreciate the sacrifices I have made. I hope they will remember the happy times instead of these CRAZY times! Does it ever get better? PLEASE help me get through this! If there is anyone out there that knows how I feel or experienced the same PLEASE give me pointers on what to do! With a LOT of prayer I hope to get out of these...

trenches...

walking in my shoes...

I happen to have two different friends that have quadruplets, I know how lucky am I!? Joellen used to work with me years ago. She ended up moving away a LONG time ago but we continue to keep in contact. She too struggled to get pregnant & with medical intervention had quadruplets. She has a set of twins too but that is another story! LOL! Michael & I visited her family the summer before we got pregnant. At this point in our struggle multiples were not on our mind nor did we ever think we would have any. We just wanted one baby! Anyhow that visit with her is still etched in my memory like it was yesterday. We arrived just before she got back from grocery shopping with all 6 kids. I know, CRAZY! She had like 4 gallons of milk plus several bags of food. I was truly amazed! She has three boys & one girl, plus her twins are boys. The boys were wild! They each wanted out attention, wanted to sit by us for lunch, etc. Lunch that day was so funny. They wanted to eat something other than what was on their plates & Joellen did not budge. She told them that was their lunch and to sit down & eat! LOL! I am SO this way! ha! Being that they live up north they have a basement, this is something a native Floridian knows nothing about. Their basement was the BEST playroom ever! There was SO many toys down there for them to play with. I guess when you have that many kids you need a TON of toys! I decided right then that I wanted a basement, in Florida! hahah! I think we left their house that day in a blur thanking God that was not us! Ha Ha Ha, the joke sure was on us! Little did we know that just a year later we too would be having quadruplets! WOW! Life sure is amazing! Those who cross your path and you get to call them friend is too! Joellen & I were meant to have that connection! She is one of the first people I called when my triplets turned into Quadruplets. She calmed me down & said that life would be CRAZY but it's manageable. Her saying that was all that I needed to hear! Thank heaven for her! (= This is why I appreciate my friendship with her so much. She provides for me something that is a hot comodity around her, someone that understands all the chaos! I talk to Joellen especially when I am in need of an "experienced" quad mommy's advice. She helped me through those first few months with VALUABLE advice on what to do, how to feed them all at the SAME time & how important it was to keep to a tight schedule. That is SO important even now! We continue to chat from time to time over the phone. We have not been able to travel up to see them since that day in June of '05. But one day we will introduce our children to each other! My other compadre is Nicole, she is my "new" friend who lives about two hours S of me & her quads are 15 months old. We chat about schedules, their development & our mommy guilt quite a lot! Yes that is something we struggle with even now. It is always good to have someone to bounce ideas off that will not judge because they too feel like you. The cool part is that she lives so close. The bad part is that our schedules conflict & we never get together in person. I know, TERRIBLE! I have to work on that! I just keep telling myself that we will get together one of these days! At least for now we can give each other the support & encouragement we need. I cannot tell you how important it is to talk to another momma that is part of the same club! I value these friendships SO much! In this CRAZY life we lead I NEED more friends that have been...

walking in my shoes...