Thank you Twitter

So...

It appears that this blog thing still works, and yes, I can actually do a blog post longer then 140 characters long. :)

So...

Anyway, I haven't been much in the mood to blog for awhile now, even though I was starting to miss it a lot.  I've checked in here and there with people through things like Twitter, but it just ain't the same.

First off, it turns out that if a woman has a tubal ligation, the probability of a pregnancy being "normal" are very slim.  We found this out about a week after my post a couple posts back.  Super Mega Mommy started off with the normal morning sickness and it just got worse.  She started to have really bad cramping and then it turned into bleeding.  We immediately went to the emergency room and it was then that we were informed that this type of pregnancy almost never is successful and that her body was just reacting to this and rejecting it.

You would have thought that when we told the regular doctor that she was pregant the week before, some alarm bells might have went off, but apparently not.  Needless to say, we were both pretty depressed over the whole situation.  We had just gotten over the whole shock of the pregnancy and now it was being taken away from us.  In hindsight, we probably should have waited to say anything to anybody, but we both did get pretty excited about it and were looking forward to child number three.  I had always wanted three kids, but Super Mega Mommy wasn't in the same boat as me.  After she found out she was pregnant, she got pretty excited too and it was an exciting time for us.  Granted, we aren't spring chickens anymore, but it was exciting for us to start over again.  We're MUCH better off financially now and we have plenty of room for more.  Unfortunately, it just wasn't meant to be.

So, after that, I just didn't feel like writting anything and have just been really taking it easy for awhile now.  Add back to school, TaeKwonDo days, work, plenty of stuff on DVR, Gamefly games staring at me to be played, Netflix movies to watch, and it's just a recipe for disaster.

I've also been working on a little side project of mine over at My New Daycare .com.  I started that a few years back when I got pissed off with the lack of quality sites helping parents find daycare for their kids. I think I started that about a year before I started this blog originally (the ugly version, which shall remain hidden for all time).  We were looking for daycare for the kids and it was just incredibly frustrating for us.  We were both daycare virgins and just had no clue what we were doing.  So, I just started the website to try to help others locate daycare facilities as a part time thing.  It's still part time, but traffic is starting to really pick up on the site.  Man, I was even thinking of starting up ANOTHER side project with a great idea I had, but I figured I better wait until I know I have time to devote to it.  

So, anyway, I've been playing around with Twitter for awhile now, slowly building up followers, following people here and there.  Taking part in conversations when it seemed appropriate.  It's an interesting little application.  I didn't really understand how COOL it was, though, until today. 

Every so often, on Twitter, I'll ask for some advice on whatever is bugging me that day.  Normally, I'll get a response or two, and I thank them and move on.  Today, however, I must have struck a chord with people.  The question I asked?  We've been having a problem with our kids not sleeping through the night for awhile now.  It's not consistent, but it happens enough that it bothers us and keeps us up all night more then it should.  Super Michael's problem is he has nightmares and is afraid of monsters.  He won't even go into a room by himself unless someone goes in with him.  He is deathly afraid of the dark.  Princess K is starting to pick up on his fears and she wakes up in the middle of the night now with bad dreams and wants to sleep in our bed.  Now I would prefer that the kids sleep through the night and not sleep in our bed.  I rather like my privacy and just would prefer them not in our bed.

I asked for people's suggestions and explained that I've tried things like monster spray, limit what they watch on TV, giving them flashlights, looking into places monsters hide to make sure there aren't monsters there, and leaving their lights on at night and none of this helps.  With Super Michael in particular, he has Christmas lights around his window, has his bedroom light on, has the hallway light on, has OUR light on in our room, and is convered with stuffed animals to "hide" himself.  Nothing works.

Almost immediately, TONS of concerned parents started tweeting me with advice, retweeting to THEIR followers, and posted comments on Facebook (I have my Twitter feed piped to my Facebook page).  I think I counted somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 people that my original tweet made it out to besides MY 500 and some followers.  I was just floored by the response and I received some great advice from some really great people.  I'm going to try some of that advice and I'm fairly hopeful that it will work.

It just impressed on me what a valuable tool Twitter really is.  I had started my blog for a similar reason.  Both asking for advice from other parents, and possibly helping other parents as well.  While blogging, I've gotten into a really cool network of other parents that help each out and share stories of our kids and our adventures in life.  I've felt part of a lot of people's lives and had some really great "adult" conversation (compared to talking to my kids day in and day out.)

Twitter is like blogging on steroids!  You write an update, and you get immediate satisfaction.  Things happen in real time.  It's really something to behold.

I know a lot of you have already discovered this and do both blogging and Twitter updates, but I'm just a little bit slow and just discovered what powerful tools both of these things are.  I'm already doing some Twitter stuff, and I HOPE to get back into blogging.

Tomorrow we're going to Legoland here in California.  It's located over in Carlsbad near the beach, which is only about half an hour away from us.  This will be the first time either the kids or Super Mega Mommy has been there.  I've been there a few times.  I used to work over in Carlsbad and Legoland periodically had free days for companies in Carlsbad.  The company I worked for never gave up a free day off or time to party (did I mention it's not in business anymore?), even if it was a bunch of adults hanging out at Legoland.  Hell, we even spent a day at Disneyland one year.  I'll take lots of pictures at Legoland and, of course, will share them here with everybody!  The kids are pretty excited.

Thanks for stopping by and we'll see ya soon!