Friday, April 9, 2010

Tell me a story daddy.

My daughter Emily (whether my wife Sarah will admit it or not) is Mommy's girl. When she was a baby, she slept with Sarah. Only Sarah could feed Emily. Emily would only stop crying when her mommy held her. Emily is almost 3 and still has many days when she will not leave Sarah's side.

Emily does hang out and play with her daddy now, though. And I, of course, love it! I never thought the day would come when I could play with my daughters. The last few nights, upon arriving home from work, Emily has said "daddy, come in the living room and play with me". You don't have to ask me twice, Em! Emily and I also have another connection with a bedtime routine of me telling her a story. Every night now Emily will say "daddy tell me a story". Daddy's true, real life stories include Daddy Goes to School, Daddy Goes to the Doctor and Daddy Gets Stung by Bees - the story most requested by Em (I'll have to do a post on that story sometime).

Here's a video clip of Emily (and Anna) demonstrating how adorable she is.


Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Triple Babby Jogger.

For the first time since last fall, I took the girls for a run. "Take for a run" = push the girls in the triple baby jogger we bought used on craigslist a couple of years ago.

I cannot recall how much the girls weighed the last time I pushed them, but right now in total they weigh over 75 pounds. So, as you can imagine, as good as the triple jogger is, pushing them for about 3 miles was tough!

I plan to push them in a local 5K Sarah are will run next month so I need to do a couple more runs before then. Here's a glimpse of what it is like to push 3 year old triplets:

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Good Night Elmo

I realized today that my daughter Allie made me a grandfather. My three year old daughter's child is ELMO! I've watched Allie carry Elmo around for over a year now and their relationship has grown to the point that Allie (aka Elmo's mommy) has put a diaper and pajamas on Elmo, rocked her to sleep, fed her and even sang happy birthday to Elmo. Today I witnessed Allie expand her motherly duties by putting Elmo on the potty!

I pulled two other Elmos from storage today and Allie adopted them as Elmo's mommy and daddy. Later in the day I was able to capture Allie and Anna giving goodnight love to the entire Elmo family. Too cute.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Reasons to love Friday, April 2, 2010.

It seems as though there hasn’t been much for me to be excited about the last couple of weeks. Today, however, I felt some of the hope and rejuvenation that comes from a beautiful spring day in New England. The reasons for me to be hopeful and excited include:

-Running along the Charles River (in shorts) during my lunch break today!
-The water left behind from the historic rainfalls we received in March is starting to dry up.
-The forecasted 70+ degree weather this weekend!
-The Sox opening their promising 2010 season Sunday night.
-Celebrating our girls’ third birthday next week.
-Preparations have begun in Copley Square for Marathon Monday.
-I got to listen to Sarah tell me how great my daughters’ did today at their first gymnastics class this morning!
-Did I mention the forecasted 70+ degree weather this weekend!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Anna and her dad go to the doctor.

If you follow Sarah’s blog you know my daughter Anna and you know Anna's medical history and her physical limitations. You also may know that each of the girls, including Anna, have recently had rare alone time with either mommy or daddy. Anna and I had one-on-one time last week. Our time together that morning consisted of our first meeting with her GI doctor, followed by a visit to my office. Both went well.

As a reminder, Anna has five doctors she sees at least once a year. She sees her pediatrician, her neurosurgeon, nephrologist, urologist and neurologist. She now has her very own gastroenterologist. SIX doctors.

In my inner soul lies a huge amount of gratitude for Anna’s health. To some this may not make sense, to others it may be understandable. It could be worse. It could be much “worse”. We could be talking about wheelchairs. After Sarah’s first ultrasound and the discovery of the opening in Anna’s spine, we were told about selective reduction options. Spina bifida is not pretty. And it does not go away.

I've gotten comments from people such as “well, she will get better, right?” or “she will not always be like this, right”. I understand comments like that are often said out of ignorance. Comments like that may also reflect the person’s sympathy. In other words: I don’t like the fact that Anna has a condition so…I’ll just pretend like it will go away and that will make me feel better.

Yes, I get the “why Anna?” attitude at times. I get mad, maybe even a little bitter that Anna will be physically restricted throughout her life. Doctor visits, daily medications and Anna’s unsteadiness on her feet sometimes make this dad mad. Sarah & I have learned however, that all these “things” make Anna even more special, more lovable and more adorable.

We have a Fisher Price jungle gym type thing in our back yard. Thank you Grammy. Check out Anna (and Allie) play on the slide in the video below. Not bad for a girl with physical limitations, eh? Go Anna!