In The Nudes-- I Mean, NEWS...

I'm happy to report that we do NOT have swine flu. At least not that we know of. But considering the way everyone's talking about that and nothing else I'm sure we'll all get it very soon. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated.

We do have other news to report though. No, we're not expecting any more babies. At least not that we know of. But we had a visitor on Friday the 17th. The Binkie Fairy came to our house. That's right! The Beans are getting to be big girls now and the Binkie Fairy decided they were ready to leave the Bink behind in favor of Bedtime Bears.

Stupid Binkie Fairy.

Hubby and I put the Beans to bed that Friday night and within five minutes I had left the house. After almost two years of getting up, sometimes several times, in the middle of the night to rescue an overboard Binkie and scrambling madly at bedtime to procure the requisite number (5) for night-night, I was totally okay with letting Hubby handle this one. I called Biscuit about forty-five minutes later and he reported that the Beans were still crying. I hightailed it home and heard...

Silence.

My timing was perfect. Saturday night I left, too. I just can't take the crying and I knew that if I stuck around I'd cave and that could mean still more months of getting up in the middle of the night and doing the one-eye-partially-open-looking-at-the-black-floor-sweeping-the-hand-blindly-under-the-crib-hoping-she-doesn't-wake-up-for-real-okay-got-it-back-in-the-mouth-falling-asleep-thank-you-God-I'm-going-back-to-bed-ow-goddam-shoe-oh-sheets-are-still-warm routine and I couldn't TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!!!!!

I miss them a little bit. I miss how one would pick up two Binkies and take the extra one over to her sister and pop it into her mouth, or how they would swap because everybody knows that Binkies taste better with a coating of your twin's slobber on them. Sometimes one would walk over to the other one and pull the Binkie from her own mouth, lean over and pop out her sister's and shove it into her own piehole while forcing her former Binkie into her sister's maw while she just kept playing with whatever was in her hands.

So now they're finding other ways of entertaining themselves. With poop.

Yes, poop.

On Saturday, the day before Biscuit returned from Disneyland, the Beans were down for Happy Nappy and I poked my head in to peek at them. What greeted me was the unmistakable aroma of Beanpoop and the color brown. Parki had, in the ten minutes since I'd last checked on her, filled her diaper with solid waste matter, stripped naked, pulled off her diaper and PLAYED WITH ITS CONTENTS. It was always a matter of not if, but when, and I really wasn't in the mindframe to deal with it on that lovely Saturday afternoon but there it was. And it was in the crib, on the sheet, on the blanket, on her clothes, and in her hair, under her fingernails, on her hands and smeared across her little butt which, coincidentally, was the part I saw first through the crack in the door since it was pointed right at whomever walked past.

Needless to say, every day since then Parki's gone down buttoned, taped and zipped seven ways to Sunday. But at least there is no poop whatsoever on Bedtime Bear and I got a great picture to use whenever and how ever I deem appropriate.

And, I'm really sorry to be taking such long breaks between posts. I don't want to do that because I forget a lot of moments that I really want to blog about but Mimzi's been pretty high-maintenance lately. She's got "triple-negative" breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy on April 7th. Did you know that Nordstrom sells prosthetic breasts? I didn't either! But their staff is absolutely fantastic and I cannot recommend them highly enough. And you know I'd snark on them mercilessly if the case were otherwise. Mimzi is scheduled to begin dose-dense A/C chemotherapy on May 7th, but she may have hit a snag with that because while receiving treatment for sleep apnea, the neurologist ordered an ultrasound on her carotid artery (the one that hasn't already been surgically cleared) and he found "significant blockage". Ole Mimzi might need to get that fixed before chemo begins.

But she's a tough old biddy and, personally, I think she'll totally rock the bald look. Fortunately her lymph nodes were clear, so she's got that going for her. I'm thinking about getting her some of those thick plastic black-framed eyeglasses and having her dance around in a suit to some crazy techno music so she'll look like the creepy old dude in the Six Flags commercials. We could put it on YouTube and she'll be an Internet sensation. Or I could just get her a few cute hats and make her some homemade chicken noodle soup. Whatever she wants. If she starts jonesing for cotton candy and sardines I'll figure out a way to get her those too.

It's funny how something small, say, a three-centimeter tumor, can have such a tremendous impact on so many people. But what I think is even more important is how we're going to let it change us. Mimzi's taking everything one day at a time. DPSM's keeping his patent stiff upper lip, stoic in the face of new developments that seem to just complicate matters a little further each day. And I'm suddenly aware of a malignant specter lurking in the future that may rear its ugly head not just for me but for my kids, too. There isn't a "preferable" cancer, I don't think, but this one's particularly disheartening for a woman with twin daughters. That's six boobs to worry about. And I only have two eyes.

All in all, it makes me appreciate what's most important to me-- and I want to make sure that I accomplish everything on my list before I can't do it at all. I want to make sure my kids and Hubby know every single day how much I love them. I want to teach my kids to love completely and with all their hearts. I will never stop working to conquer my fears, and even though it may be extremely messy and smelly and get them in trouble sometimes, I hope my kids never lose their curiosity. But hopefully Parki's had her curiosity about poop satisfied. I'll be totally okay with that.