"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" - Oscar Wilde

Ah yes, the stomach flu - how awful that vomit and diarrhea can actually be permitted to coexist together. Tuesday afternoon both boys began the horrendous journey into the "stomach flu zone" which began with a few rather benign watery poos and devolved into something much, much worse; Projectile vomiting, screaming, diarrhea and long intense 'bouts of whining and whimpering.

Both Matt and I feel so badly for our kids and also, conversely have the urge to quietly leave them at Target for an hour in a paper box to fend for themselves:) So far we haven't left them anywhere, it is probably in part due to the fact that they are feeling a little bit better today.

This is day 5 of this monstrous bug, it had better get its meaty claws out of my family soon, or ELSE!

Spring is here, or at least approaching at a fairly leisurely rate, I will take it. Nice to have a little sun on our bleached and drawn faces. My double stroller can actually fit down the sidewalk and I am feeling a little lighter, a little happier.

Matt and I have been up to all kinds of brave things these days, no not just marriage and parenting twins:) But also getting our little Eliot assessed at the Developmental Medicine Center of Boston Children's Hospital. It would take a long time to fully articulate everything leading up to this, suffice it to say that both Matt and I saw behavior in Eliot that we felt on a very gut level was "something".

The good news is that he is not on the Autism Spectrum for which we are truly grateful, and that he has a "Communication Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified, he will be getting help from a speech pathologist to help with this as well as some other services down the road. We will also be getting him down to the Genetic Testing Center as well just to rule out some issues there. The even better news is that Eliot scored above average in cognition and problem solving in his evaluation, this as our Doc said points to above average intelligence ( I knew that anyway:). He scored lower in expressive language ( We also knew about that:). All good news, we are happy that Eliot will be getting any and all help that he needs.

Henry is doing well and speaking in sentences now, "Mama, want chocolate milk, like it, peeease" for example. We are blown away with his language ability - he is not even two yet! Eliot's frustrations over communicating are probably exacerbated because of Henry's ease at communicating.

Matt has some hopeful employment opportunities coming down the pipe and it looks like I will be staring back up with my freelance writing, yeah! Then on to EMT school, goody, goody.

I feel like we are finally starting to surface from the lower levels... yeah!

Those who are Awake
live in a state of constant amazement ...

~ Jack Kornfield ~