I'm going home!

Of course, seeing as I am a US Citizen, technically this is my home, but the UK is where I was born and has all the things I love, not least my family and friends. Chuck and I booked our flights on Monday and now it seems real! I am very excited to see everyone and introduce them all to my twins, I can hardly wait. But before we take off I have a lot of work to do. We haven't flown since early in 2001 and of course everything changed after 9/11 and now there are so many rules and regulations to take in. I have to go out and buy plastic bottles to put liquids in, can't pack my saw or axe, damn! and need to carefully measure the size of our suitcases to ensure they are not too big! As we have to remove our shoes at the security check point I need to make a note to myself to buy Chuck new socks, his are full of holes!

The boys are excited too, they have never flown and I don't think they completely understand about getting in a plane and flying to another country. It's a strange concept for them but I am telling them about watching a movie on the plane, having dinner and sleeping too, so they are looking forward to it. We have already started debating which cuddly toys they will take along in their back packs, although I am sure the choice will change many times over the next few weeks!

I have so many friends in addition to family who want to see us during our stay that my cousin Jackie and I are trying to arrange a mini family reunion, which will be wonderful. I will get to meet my cousin and her grown up boys, last time I saw them they were about 7 or 8 I think, and my aunt, my mum's sister, who I haven't seen for many, many years, so I am really looking forward to that. We are planning to do some travel in Cornwall, Chuck's ancestors the Wadge's are from that area, and I know my father-in-law would love it if I could find out more about the family for him. Plus I love Cornwall and it's been many years since I have been although I did work there for a while. Living in Colorado I miss seeing the sea, so this trip will give me that and more. We are also going to London to take the boys on the London Eye and a trip down the River Thames, which I think is about all of London two 4 year olds will be interested in!

I am also trying to lose some weight. I have gained around 20lbs from taking high doses of steroids to bring the symptoms of my Lupus under control and also from making some unwise food choices over the Christmas period! I am now calorie counting and exercising at least four times a week! BORING! Every Wednesday morning I go to my doctor's office to be weighed - as that's a great motivator for me - and last week, which was my first week, I lost 2 lbs. So this is do-able, I can get back into my jeans before my vacation! It just takes hard work! Which I am not too keen on!

But, perhaps all the preparations for the holiday, sorting out and washing clothes and reading the rules and regulations on the TSA website will take my mind off eating! Wouldn't that be nice?

Another year has come and gone!

I have a post it note on my computer that says "The days are long, but the years are short", and each day when I read it I realize how true it is. Already it is 2009 and my twins will be 4 in two weeks. Four! Where did those years go? It seems just minutes since they were babies and we brought them home from the hospital at a little over 4lbs each. The day was snowy and cold and we were so nervous driving all the way from Denver with such a precious cargo in the car. Oliver had some problems with breathing at our high altitude and needed oxygen at home for the first month, and when I look back at the photos of him with the nasal cannula he looks so small and frail. And now he can sit on his twin and keep him pinned to the floor!


Sometimes the days with twins, on your own at home, especially when the weather is bad and too cold to get out, are the longest of any I have ever known. The boys pick up on my mood, they take advantage of me, they fight and squabble and scream and hit each other, and just when I am in despair, they run over and hug me before running off to play nicely together. I was going through my files last week - in a futile effort to get more organized - and came across the cards with their footprints on, and they are SO tiny, it seems unbelievable to me that they could ever have been so tiny.

And now they are growing out of all their clothes, they seem to get bigger every day and ask me to measure them weekly so we can check their progress! They chatter to me constantly, to each other and to themselves while they play, they make up elaborate games, with convoluted plots and can keep that going for hours. They love to pretend to be other people, their friends from school, their teachers or our neighbors! They climb up the back of the sofa using their toy snakes as the ropes and sail around the floor on the sofa cushions. I am amazed at their imaginations and the stories they can create, I love Jamie's cheeky smile when he's trying to convince me that he really, really needs another cookie and I love that Oliver can correct me when I am wrong and delight in saying "You were wrong Mummy and I was right" It gives him such joy!

While life with the twins is incredibly tiring, very hard (at times), lonely sometimes and often demanding, I am so proud of my sons and it's wonderful to watch them grow and develop and become their own person!

It's almost Christmas!

It has kind of crept up on me, where did autumn go to? Here we are, 8 days before the BIG day and my house looks like a Christmas shop!

For our first Christmas together I made my husband go out and buy a lovely big tree which I enjoyed decorating while he was at work. I even added a garland down the stairs with lights and ribbon and our home looked so lovely. But as Chuck is a mailman, he is very busy on the run up to the holiday and only has Christmas Day off, so I found myself looking at the decorations on my own quite a lot.

Subsequent years we did the same thing, and then one year I decided I no longer wanted the big tree, we sold it at our summer yard sale and the following Christmas bought a 3' white fibre optic tree. It was (and still is) very pretty, took no time to decorate or take down and I was very happy with that. It was perfect in my bedroom the Christmas I was on bed rest when I was expecting the boys and it was still great their first year. But for the twins second Christmas I wanted something bigger and better, I wanted to begin to create an exciting and special time for them each Christmas, so Chuck and I went out shopping and bought a 6' pre lit tree. It is so nice, and majestic and I love it, although the small white tree still goes up, in the opposite corner of the room!

One year I decided to buy some plaster houses from Michael's and sat and painted them so I could create a tiny village for my mantelpiece. It looked so nice and I was more than pleased with it. Then my in-laws came to visit and bought me an entire set of houses, complete with fir trees and figures, so my village grew. Two summers ago at my neighbor's yard sale, I bought some more houses to add to the village which is rapidly becoming a town!

I purchased lovely wire wrapped lights and hung them across the archway to our living room and entwined lights through the metal of the bakers rack! This year, my husband's parents sent me more Christmas things. We got icicle lights for outside, and a reindeer and sleigh. For inside the house we have a train set that goes round and round a village green, filled with people and a carousel. We have an ice skating pond, with skaters and a street lamp to light the entire scene. We have Santa and Mrs. Claus and various other figures that sing and dance their way into Christmas.

I have been told there is more to come, my living room is bedecked, lighted and so Christmassy you would think you were in the North Pole at Santa's workshop. I have penguin and snowmen candle holders, golden fir cones and wreaths a plenty. And now the twins are in preschool I have paper plate reindeer heads, ginger bread men with fluffy pompom noses and Christmas tree decorations every where I look. My tree is lop sided, with many decorations placed together on the lower branches. When the boys aren't looking I move the decorations around and spread them out higher up the tree, and when I am not looking the twins reach what they can and move them back down to the lower branches!

And this year, for the first time ever, Chuck actually has two weeks off over the Christmas and New Year holidays. I am so excited to have a real family Christmas this year, one where he doesn't have to rush back to work before the turkey is cold. I am planning to make cookies with the boys, bake a cake and make a traditional English trifle and mince pies. We'll have a huge turkey with all the trimmings and I already have plans for using the leftovers. The present shopping is all done, the cards are written and mailed so when the boys finish school this week, and Chuck finishes work we will all be able to relax and enjoy the holiday!

Am I my mother?

I have been wondering if I am becoming my mother? It is said that all women do, but has anyone tested that theory?

My mum died in 1979 after a 10 year battle with breast cancer, and I have realized that will be 30 years next year. 30 years! I can hardly believe it. I have lived longer without my mum than I lived with her. That's kind of sad really. Sometimes I wonder what she would think of me if she could see me now. Since she died I have moved from my family home, worked in a hotel in Cornwall, trained as a nurse in London, and taken holidays throughout Europe. I have gained two degrees, moved to America, gotten married and had twin boys. It truly has been a lifetime!

Although I have been without her for so long, I still have so many memories of her that stick with me. She ALWAYS ate mints, Foxes Glacier Mints, wrapped in a little blue paper with a drawing of a polar bear standing on an ice block on it. They were clear, and hard and I thought they were the most boring sweets in the entire world! Even the fruit ones that were introduced later, were really boring! Hard candy is not what children want to eat! Now I live in the US I cannot buy Foxes mints, but I do buy Altoids instead and eat them all the time, and one of my twins loves them too! So I have inherited the mint habit! Have I become my mother?

My mum had dark, curly hair and would set it regularly in hard plastic rollers to help create more of her curls. But after sleeping, sometimes bits of her hair would stick out at odd angles, so she would just take a pair of scissors and cut that piece off! It used to make me laugh to see her chopping bits of her hair off before she dashed out the door to catch the bus to work! But guess what I have a tendency to do now? Yes, I will cut my hair if there's a bit sticking out that won't be trained or behave itself! Am I my mother?

And last but not least, my mum always had her favorite biscuits (cookies to my American friends). She loved custard creams (YUK! I don't know any children that like custard creams, let alone love them), and she loved wafers! These two types of biscuit were always the ones left at the bottom of the biscuit tin. As children we would come home from school and always checked out the biscuit tin to see what there was to eat, and if those two varieties were in there, we would leave them there! And now, I quite enjoy custard creams - when I can get them. And as for wafer biscuits, I have found that they are pretty nice, I even bought some this morning when I went grocery shopping!

So, have I become my mother??

Run For The Wall

Run For The Wall and Rolling Thunder were new terms to me a few years ago, until I met Steve Woestemeyer.

Steve is a computer guy I worked with at HP, here in Colorado Springs, a tall quiet man with white hair and a white beard. He scared me once, although I had no idea it was him for some time. It was Halloween and I was sitting at my desk early one morning when I looked up to find the Grim Reaper standing in front of me. He wore a flowing black robe and carried a scythe. I couldn't see his face, and more scarily, he didn't speak. I was hesitantly laughing and trying to work out who was under the costume but the figure never said a word to me, and after a while just turned and left.

Steve is a Vietnam Veteran and every other year he joins with family and friends to participate in the Run For The Wall motorcycle ride (www.rftw.org) This ride, from coast to coast across America, ending at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC was started in 1989 by a couple of Vietnam Veterans who traveled across the heartland of America on motorcycles, talking to local radio, TV, and newspapers about the fact that there were thousands of men and women still unaccounted for from all of America's wars.

The Run For The Wall always culminates with a Rolling Thunder Protest Ride from the Pentagon to the Wall on Memorial Weekend. Mainstream media calls it a parade but the organizers refer to it as a protest ride. It’s not a party. It’s a mission to pay respect to those who have fallen and to call attention to issues regarding the POW's and MIA's that are not accounted for after each war or conflict.

Steve and Linda have two sons, Aaron and Shawn, and last Friday suffered the unimaginable when they lost their son Aaron in a motorcycle accident. I want so badly to tell Steve, Linda and Aaron's wife Tami how sorry I am, but no words can adequately convey those feelings. I can never tell them I understand how they feel, and I hope and pray I will never lose a child. Now that I am a mother I cannot imagine how you ever get over losing a child. I cannot imagine the sadness and pain and the immense sense of loss. Aaron was only 29, he had his entire life ahead of him. I didn't know him at all, but if he was like his dad, he was a great guy.

I can't be at the memorial service, but I will be there in spirit and my thoughts will be with Steve and his family long after the ceremony is over and 'normal' life is resumed. I know that for Steve, Linda, Tami and Shawn life will never be the same again, but I do know that in time things will become easier, that they will smile and laugh and talk about Aaron fondly. Steve, I hope that your family and friends help you be strong at this time, I hope the sun shines on you all, and I hope that you are able to get past this terrible time in the knowledge that so many of your friends and work colleagues, past and present, would take this burden from you if they could.

You are all in my thoughts.

Thoughts of England

I am homesick this week. There's a possibility we may be able to take the boys to England next summer and I am so excited at the idea. (If it doesn't happen I am going to be SO disappointed). There's a whole family out there my twins have never met, plus my niece and nephews are in relationships and having children of their own that I have never met. It's a tough thing to be living somewhere so far away from everyone who is so close and dear to you. While I love my life here in the US, and am now an American citizen, my heart and my 'home' will always be in the UK.

I spent the better part of my life in the UK, I miss the scenery, the gentle (and green) rolling hills, the small winding roads, the pubs and restaurants. I love that you are never far from the sea and a walk on the beach and despite what many people say about British food, I miss bacon, sausages and really good pub grub. I miss being able to park my car in the town center and then just walk around to visit the bakers and buy wonderful Cornish pasties and freshly made bread. Then pop next door to buy fruit and vegetables and head across the street to the butcher to get the freshest meat available. Here, all my shopping is done at the grocery store (called a supermarket in the UK) and it's sad that so many towns here in America have lost that connection, that people no longer have the ability to walk around their town center and purchase the groceries they need for dinner from individually owned and operated shops. Having a town center is very European and I would love to see it happen here more, I miss it greatly.

Another thing that has made me feel homesick this week is a purple weed!

Before I moved to America I lived in North Yorkshire and regularly drove across the North Yorkshire Moors on business. In August the moorland comes alive and is a blaze of purple as the heather flowers and blooms. It's a wonderful sight and tourists come from all over the country to take photos and marvel at the color. (Occasionally they also try and steal the heather, but that's another story!) There are two fields near where I now live that are covered in this unknown purple weed, and every time I drive to the grocery store I am both uplifted by the sight, and saddened, as it makes me want to be in Yorkshire next time the heather blooms!

My poor head!

Isn't it funny how accidents happen when you least expect them to? Of course if you were expecting them, I don't suppose you could call them accidents! But as someone who seems to be prone to them, I am starting to think a little warning would be nice!

Chuck was off yesterday and after we collected the boys from preschool, decided to give them lunch and work in the house until we had some shade in the back garden and could go out there to work. A little while back we bought a Hoover steam vacuum so we could clean our carpets, and thought we could practice on the stairs before doing the entire upper floor. (We have wood downstairs). Chuck wanted me to sit down and rest, but I wanted to help him, so said I would vacuum the stairs while he prepared the steam vacuum. He wasn't thrilled, but I hate sitting down doing nothing while he's working! It's neither comfortable nor relaxing for me.

I cleaned the bottom few steps then moved the vacuum to the middle landing while I cleaned the last two steps and without warning the vacuum fell off the landing and hit me on the head! OMG! It hurt like hell! I burst into tears and was crouched on the stairs with my hands on my head and just crying and crying. Chuck ran over, pushed the vacuum off me and switched it off and all I heard him say was "Oh God Wendy, you're bleeding!" So, being somewhat practical, I told him to get me off the stairs before I bled all over the carpet and to fetch me some towels. I couldn't stop crying, my head hurt so much and I was conscious of blood all over my hands and arms, down my shirt and pooling around my feet on the wood floor. The twins were standing silently in front of me while I cried and bled and tried to reassure them that mummy was OK, she just had a bad boo boo!

While I stood there with the towels pressed to my head, Chuck called my doctor but she wasn't able to get me in, so we realised we were going to have to head to the emergency room. I called my friend and neighbor, Christine, and she came right over to take the boys, despite having 3 of her own children at home and a husband who was laying a new floor that day. Thank heavens for friends who are willing to drop everything to help you out when you are in a bind! Chuck and I headed to the hospital and I cried off and on the entire way, not just because my head hurt but because I was in my old gardening clothes and had little makeup left on my face! I hate to go out looking a mess! How silly!

We expected a long wait at the hospital, but the emergency room was entirely empty so I was taken straight through to be treated. I needed a tetanus shot, had my head cleaned and then injected with Lidocaine to numb it before the nurse put in two staples! OUCH! Needless to say I had the worst headache of my life for the rest of the day, and spent the afternoon trying to rest and sleep away the pain and wash the blood out of my hair. I didn't sleep very well last night, and have a bad headache again today. This morning I am relishing the quiet in the house, but already dreading when the screaming, shouting, terrible twosome get home from preschool!

Chuck has banned me from ever using the vacuum cleaner again, so I may have to resign myself to living in dust and dirt up to my ankles from now on! But how many of us clean the bottom half of the stairs with the vacuum on the floor, then put it at the top of the stairs while cleaning the rest? It's normal practice, but not for me, not anymore.