Yesterday Adam spent some time in the local office here while I spent some time with my family.

Mom, Lara and her kids + Me and my kids all headed down to the dim sum place Mom frequents.

dim sum

I’m very lucky to have such a helpful family. This trip would not be possible without them. Mom and Lara took turns holding and feeding babies while Clay and Brandy entertained the older kids. At one point I noticed Jack and Ben poking Clay with chopsticks, but he didn’t seem too upset.

There was the usual fight over the bill. Lara distracted Mom while I slipped the hostess our credit cards. I knew Mom disappeared for a while with a baby, I’m sure she slipped our waiter another card because she’s not that subtle. Later when he was serving us, she was winking at him and grabbing his shoulder. He turned to her and said, “Don’t touch Chinese people about the shoulder. It’s bad luck.”

Not sure if that’s true or if he just didn’t appreciate being felt up by my Mom. Either way it wasn’t so upsetting to him to take her credit card over ours. One win for Mom, but Lara and I aren’t through yet.

Later we headed over to my father’s house. He had arranged for some of my Aunt Doris’ friends to come to dinner to see both our family and Lara’s.

Adam got back from work before the party and took Jack for a swim. While he did that I tried walking the twins around in the stroller. They slept their second nap in the car. As they get older, this gets harder to do. Aaron ended up with a short 20 minute nap and was exhausted all afternoon.

Real Men

Victor brought his homemade salsa and made margaritas for all. Dad put on an impressive spread. Jack and Ben ran around with Victor and Rhonda’s three sons, Victor, Waukeen and Alex. People held babies, Adam, Aunt Doris, Dee, but no one was more helpful than Lara. She volunteered her kids for babysitting Ben when he fell asleep in the car. She walked Ben and Aaron around the block. And so much more…

Double hold. Seriously, could she be more helpful?

Brother in laws

Yesterday I scrolled though facebook and noticed that it has finally started snowing this winter in Chicago. While the kids would probably be upset if they knew they were missing their first chance to go sledding this year, I couldn’t be happier to be doing this instead…

Picnic with Bob’s Pizza. Reminds me of the good old days at Deerfield Beach

We were joined my sister and her family…

I was so happy to see Lara!

Also my friend Gina, her sister Natalie and Natalie’s son Joey joined…

And Gina!!!

We left the twins in the hotel with Japo so we could fully enjoy this day with the older boys. Cousins Clay and Brandy took turns playing with them, as did Adam…

Burying Ben in the sand

I know it’s going to make us sound crazy. Attempting a plane ride, car rental and hotel for our family of so many small children. The combined age of all four kids is only 9!

The text messages back and forth from my friend Jessica had me thinking that way. She is a mom of 2 girls, who recently travelled to Chicago with her husband and kids. She wrote after her own plane ride, “Please tell me you and Adam have another adult traveling with you.”

Luggage for 6, minus 2 strollers

No we didn’t. I was wondering if we would be seen with pity, awe, or distain from our fellow travellers. Perhaps it was the holiday spirit but everyone was super nice. About ten times in the airport someone said, “You really have your hands full.”

How we looked in the airport

Yes we did! Not just our hands but our backs, our chests carried a babies as well. Jack pushed Ben in a stroller.

The logistics were pretty intense. Two days of packing, our sitter had to drive us to the airport where we curb checked the bags.

Santa makes a random appearance on the tarmac

The plane ride went remarkably well, thanks to the world of electronics! Both Jack and Ben stayed in their seats watching their movies and getting plowed with snacks. Adam and I juggled the twins.

On the way out of the airport we needed two carts to get our stuff to the rental car shuttle, then another two to get us to the counter.

Nothing better than arriving in South Florida. There are things that you can only see here. Like the woman with an exploding muffin top, skinny jeans, a see through lace white top and florescent blue bra underneath.

Since the flight was delayed, by the time we got to the hotel, 3 out of 4 kids were asleep. We managed by 11pm to get them all in their jammies, teeth brushed and back asleep. I was so tired near the end that I was having trouble figuring out how to put the sheets on the pack and plays. The dehydration head ache from breast feeding and flying didn’t help.

There was also moment after we’d gotten in the rental car and were congratulating ourselves for a job well done where Ben started melting down. We still hadn’t had dinner and because it was Christmas Eve, even MacDonalds was closed. We finally found a supermarket that was closing in 10 minutes and grabbed something quick. Aaron had a monster poop up the back and through the pants. We were doling out processed ‘Lunchables’ for the kids and I was changing Aaron in the front seat of the car. I was so tired I felt like just putting him back in his car seat in his diaper. But the moment was white trashy enough so I mustered up the energy to find clothes and dress him. Ben fell asleep ten minutes later with his entire meal in front of him.

The hard part came later, when Sam decided to wake up every hour and 30 minutes crying. Surprisingly it didn’t wake up any of the other kids.

Mirrors, Hours of entertainment for the twins at our hotel

It was all worth it this morning, though. We got our free hotel breakfast and, after putting the twins to sleep for their morning nap, I took the older boys out to enjoy the sunshine. Adam was stuck in the room working. Hopefully the run he’s taking now while I’m sitting here blogging will make it finally seem like he’s on holiday.

Fun in the warm Florida Sun, Patch Reef Park

Only in Boca.

Love, love, loved all of our holiday cards! Thank you my friends! So nice to see everyone and their families both near and far.

Hope everyone has a relaxing few days off to enjoy with their loved ones.

Yesterday Angelica came early and, after a trip to Costco and the grocery store, I jammed in a quick pedicure before I have to show my toes in Florida.

I was sitting in the chair, eating lunch and having a starbucks AND reading a book on my iPad. The pedicurist thought it was funny to see me doing so many things at once, so I told her, laughing through a mouth full of egg salad, “I have four kids ages 5 and under. I have to do multiple things at once all the time.”

The woman in the chair next to me was shocked. She asked if I had multiples. She had seven year old twins. She had no idea how I did it. I have no idea how I do it. And sometimes I realize, like today, that I’m not doing it that well.

Aaron was up from 12:30 until 2am last night. I managed to feed Sam in between fielding a crying Aaron. I went to bed and fell asleep for what felt like a second before Ben cried out around 4am. I joined him in his bed. Sam woke for the morning at 5:30, but luckily Adam took that one. Jack climbed out of the bed above me around 6am and passed me by, finding Adam and Sam downstairs. Ben woke at 7:15.

We were suppose to have Ben at school no later than 8am today for his holiday show.

This morning besides Ben’s holiday show, he also had his Winter Gingerbread house project which I said I’d attend. And yesterday I stupidly booked someone to come fix a cabinet in our rental unit at the same exact time. So much happening all the time!

“Was I suppose to put him in something special?” I asked Adam, frantically rustling through my papers to find the sheet with instructions. It took all my will power to ignore the sink full of dishes. No time for that now.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get him dressed. Can you pack his lunch?” Adam called out from the back room.

Crap. Lunch! I packed in a hurry. Adam reorganized his morning so he could take each kid to school individually. While he took Ben, I fed a twin, packed Jack’s lunch and helped Jack with the few things he still needs help to get dressed in the morning.

Luckily Adam had a plan. He would get the kids fed for school and drop them off. He would cover my mistake with the repair man if the two appointments overlapped.

After Adam dropped Ben he came back for Jack. I dressed while he was gone, fed another twin, then put them both in their winter suits. I was just putting the second one in the stroller when Adam arrived. Perfect timing. We walked over to Ben’s school.

Since the repair man had not arrived yet, we both managed to catch the play. Ben didn’t flop on the ground the entire play like the last time. This time he wandered around the length of the stage in his black batman shirt with attached cape (while all the other kids wore white shirts). The other kids stood in their assigned places singing. It was quintessential Ben. I don’t think we helped by putting him in the wrong shirt, though. It just made his free spirited nature stand out even more.

Afterwards Adam went home to let the repair man in while I stayed to do Gingerbread Houses. It was really cute and fun. Ben mostly ate the candy while I decorated, but I could see how much fun he was having. And I thought it was super nice of him to talk about sharing it with his brother later today…

If I have Batman for a son, then my husband must be Superman. I returned home to see the sink empty and clean and the dishwasher running. The twins were well cared for in my absence and the cabinet was fixed.

When they called ‘Aaron?’ at the doctor’s office Saturday morning, I completely did not respond. It wasn’t until they repeated and added the last name, ‘Aaron Calisoff?’ that I realized they were calling my son.

It was the first time I’d ever heard Aaron’s name on it’s own, so I didn’t recognize it! Normally it’s Sam and Aaron, or the twins, or Jack, or Ben, or Jack and Ben or all four names together but not until this day did I hear little Aaron’s name all on it’s own.

“It’s actually got quite a nice ring to it”, I thought as I walked out of the waiting room.

What was I doing at the doctor’s office with just one kid on Saturday morning? Besides treating it LIKE A VACATION?

Some Weird Viral Thing

Aaron had developed some weird rash. Anjelica noticed little bumps on his skin when she gave him his nightly bath. Every night they spread a bit further. Pretty soon they covered his stomach, groin and back.

I asked my doctor friend Carrie to have a look when I met her at the Lincoln Park Conservatory last week for a play date. (Another cool place that I wanted to blog about that I never got to. Let’s just sum it up, warmth from the winter, trains and a dinosaur hunt. Perfect one hour, winter after school play date spot.)

She diagnosed Jack’s Reflux when my own doctor couldn’t. And she was spot on with this one too. Either dry skin or some weird viral thing you just have to wait out. We tried lotioning him up, it didn’t help. Two days later we took him to our doctor, who confirmed it was probably some weird viral thing and to use an over the counter cortisone cream. We stuck it on and it’s been clearing ever since.

Sorry if this one bored you readers, ever since the big bird incident, I’ve realized my brain is swiss cheese and I’d better write it all down, good and bad, or I’ll forget it! I found the cortisone cream in our cabinet I couldn’t remember why we had it. Even after Adam reminded me it still didn’t jar my memory. Then Adam tried testing my swiss cheese out by telling me it’s been 3 months since we had sex. Nice try, it’s not that befuddled. Yet.

Sorry Aaron, this was meant to be your post, but I couldn’t resist – @ the LP Conservatory