Whenever the babies do something new—eat a new food, master a new skill, wear a new outfit—they get plenty of oohs and aahs from their biggest fans: their older siblings. I love that the awesomeness of having twin babies has never worn off for these kids. And even though sometimes I wish they would just leave them alone ("Hear her crying? That's because she doesn't want you to put your swim goggles on her head!") I'm so glad that the twins will always have a built-in cheering section.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Built-in cheering section
Whenever the babies do something new—eat a new food, master a new skill, wear a new outfit—they get plenty of oohs and aahs from their biggest fans: their older siblings. I love that the awesomeness of having twin babies has never worn off for these kids. And even though sometimes I wish they would just leave them alone ("Hear her crying? That's because she doesn't want you to put your swim goggles on her head!") I'm so glad that the twins will always have a built-in cheering section.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Midnight re-decorating
Last night, I awoke to find myself standing up in my bed, taking the window curtain off the rod. Lovely. My poor husband was mumbling something about just putting them on the floor, which I did. When I woke up this morning to go to the gym, I looked over in the corner, hoping that I wouldn't see the curtain lying on the floor. Drat! My husband has no insight into why I felt the need to re-decorate the window treatment in the middle of the night, and sadly, neither do I.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Pictures from the big day
Note: These pictures don't accurately portray N's happy and flirty nature. But, she's not a huge ham for the camera like her brother.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
What a ride
As I've tried over the past week or so to think about what I wanted to write on the babies' first birthday, all I kept coming up with was, "I can't believe it's already been a year." I have never had a year go by so incredibly quickly. It's been such a rollercoaster in terms of emotions—a lot of tears. There have been tears of exhaustion, tears of sadness, tears of anger and frustration, and tears of joy. So much joy.
I sat in the doctor's office yesterday as my five children played while we waited for our turn. (A2 can graduate to a forward-facing carseat. N may never get there.) As I watched N race-walk around the room and A2 get more and more confident walking on his own, I realized... this is it. My babies are growing up. And while I don't think I would ever want to repeat the last year again just because it was such a rollercoaster ride, oh, what a wonderful ride it's been.
I sat in the doctor's office yesterday as my five children played while we waited for our turn. (A2 can graduate to a forward-facing carseat. N may never get there.) As I watched N race-walk around the room and A2 get more and more confident walking on his own, I realized... this is it. My babies are growing up. And while I don't think I would ever want to repeat the last year again just because it was such a rollercoaster ride, oh, what a wonderful ride it's been.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
This time last year...
During the last several months, I've done a lot of, "This time last year..." "This time last year, I found out I was pregnant with the twins." "This time last year, we found out it was a boy and a girl."
This time last year, I was doing a whole lot of nothing. Lying on the couch while my husband got the kids out of the house. Doing errands early in the morning before I got way too tired and contractions set in (usually around noon). Adding multiple pillows to my work chair so I could handle sitting for longer than five minutes at a time. Going to seemingly endless doctor appointments for ultrasounds and non-stress tests. Getting less and less sleep as it became nearly impossible to get comfortable in my bed.
As generally awful as pregnancy can be, I still marvel that my body grew two beautiful, perfect people. I'm still so very thankful that they made it here safe and sound, and that I had one of the most boring and uneventful twin pregnancies ever. And I'm most grateful of all that I never have to do it again. :)
Note: This picture is from my baby shower last May. My mother did insist that my husband take a picture of me just days before going into labor. Thankfully (I choose to see it that way), it got lost when our hard drive died this past winter.
This time last year, I was doing a whole lot of nothing. Lying on the couch while my husband got the kids out of the house. Doing errands early in the morning before I got way too tired and contractions set in (usually around noon). Adding multiple pillows to my work chair so I could handle sitting for longer than five minutes at a time. Going to seemingly endless doctor appointments for ultrasounds and non-stress tests. Getting less and less sleep as it became nearly impossible to get comfortable in my bed.
As generally awful as pregnancy can be, I still marvel that my body grew two beautiful, perfect people. I'm still so very thankful that they made it here safe and sound, and that I had one of the most boring and uneventful twin pregnancies ever. And I'm most grateful of all that I never have to do it again. :)
Note: This picture is from my baby shower last May. My mother did insist that my husband take a picture of me just days before going into labor. Thankfully (I choose to see it that way), it got lost when our hard drive died this past winter.Friday, July 17, 2009
Junk and not junk
The other day, I started up again with one of my favorite past times—de-junking. There are few things that give me more joy than taking a huge box of stuff and paring it down into just a few items. Even though I just went through my closet a few months ago, I did it again, and made a big pile of clothes and shoes to donate. I had the kids weed out some stuffed animals (I swear those things multiply on their own) and we'll tackle the toy room soon. I also ventured down into the basement. Since we did an overhaul not too long ago, I really didn't think that there would be much to chuck, but I was wrong. While sorting, I came across some high school and college mementos. A lot of it I threw away, but I did discover another thing I love about de-junking: finding old treasures I haven't thought about in years. I found some sweet reminders of when A and I were dating (including the piece of paper he wrote his phone number on), a letter from one of my best friends while she was on her mission, and old "love notes" from my family.
Even though I love getting rid of junk, it's always so nice to find precious things to remind me of the past.
Even though I love getting rid of junk, it's always so nice to find precious things to remind me of the past.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Messy meanderings through baby food
Feeding babies real food is messy and challenging at best. Feeding two babies at once and not losing your mind in the process should be a new Olympic sport.
N has always been lukewarm at best about eating baby food. There was about a month where she was doing fairly well with eating, but I still had to prod her a lot to get her to do it. Now, she's determined that she pretty much hates being fed with a spoon. That isn't horrible per se, but it does make things tricky (and messy), especially when her brother eats best when you feed him (both babies take food out of their mouths immediately after putting it in—you know, to inspect it—but A2 does it the most. Also, he seems to freak out about new textures more than she does.) At one feeding, I was giving N bites of banana, and then mushing up banana on a spoon for A2. And neither one of them has a ton of teeth, so it's not like I can give them anything that requires a lot of chewing.
As a mildly OCD person, the mess of letting two babies feed themselves gives me small panic attacks every day. Yesterday, I fed them little bits of cheese and then we tried some yogurt melts. By the end of it, both babies were pretty much covered in squish and drool. Would I be too anal if I covered them in plastic from head to toe before every meal?
Really, most of my frustration of late is with N. Every day is a constant battle to figure out what I can get her to eat. Will she decide that yogurt is her very best friend again? Will she even get close to finishing her bottles? If I sing to her or try to get her to giggle, will that distract her enough that she'll eat?
I realize that there's no actual point to this post, but it helps me to write it all out. I'm working on not freaking out when she won't eat, and accepting her for who she is. It might help if people didn't think she was some genius six-month-old walking around because she's so tiny.
N has always been lukewarm at best about eating baby food. There was about a month where she was doing fairly well with eating, but I still had to prod her a lot to get her to do it. Now, she's determined that she pretty much hates being fed with a spoon. That isn't horrible per se, but it does make things tricky (and messy), especially when her brother eats best when you feed him (both babies take food out of their mouths immediately after putting it in—you know, to inspect it—but A2 does it the most. Also, he seems to freak out about new textures more than she does.) At one feeding, I was giving N bites of banana, and then mushing up banana on a spoon for A2. And neither one of them has a ton of teeth, so it's not like I can give them anything that requires a lot of chewing.
As a mildly OCD person, the mess of letting two babies feed themselves gives me small panic attacks every day. Yesterday, I fed them little bits of cheese and then we tried some yogurt melts. By the end of it, both babies were pretty much covered in squish and drool. Would I be too anal if I covered them in plastic from head to toe before every meal?
Really, most of my frustration of late is with N. Every day is a constant battle to figure out what I can get her to eat. Will she decide that yogurt is her very best friend again? Will she even get close to finishing her bottles? If I sing to her or try to get her to giggle, will that distract her enough that she'll eat?
I realize that there's no actual point to this post, but it helps me to write it all out. I'm working on not freaking out when she won't eat, and accepting her for who she is. It might help if people didn't think she was some genius six-month-old walking around because she's so tiny.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Birthday help
In a few weeks, the twins will turn one (I know, I can't believe it either.) In a house overflowing with toys, I'm having trouble coming up with fun things to get them—especially when all they seem to want to do is chew on the plastic food from the kids' kitchen set, turn the TV on and off via the remote, and take wipes out of the package. I had planned to stock up on winter clothes (since their summer wardrobe exceeds actual days in the season) but stores aren't so much selling them right now. I got a few books, but I need help with ideas on small toys that are preferably not loud (or at least ones with an off switch). I keep feeling like we have all the toys any kid would ever need, but I know there have to be new things I haven't seen before.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Lowpoint in parenting
On Monday night, A and I experienced one of the lowest lowpoints in our parenting career. (A contests that when we canceled Halloween for H, that was lower. I'm not so sure.) I won't go into too many of the details, but it involved a lot of whining and screaming from the children, and us parents dragging said children literally kicking and screaming (with two still in their dripping wet swimming suits) from my in-laws' house.
It wasn't pretty.
All three kids spent the rest of the evening in their bedrooms and they went to bed without dinner. In all my years as a mom, I've never done that. I even thought about smuggling them bread or a tortilla, but I knew this was definitely a time when the two parents had to stand strong and stand together. We all had a big talk right before bed, and we told them they wouldn't be able to do fun things for a week--no trips to the pool, playing with friends, fun excursions with family--nothing. A wanted to do it for two weeks, but I intervened because, let's face it, I'm the one who really gets punished here.
As my husband and I sat dejectedly in the living room while all three of the kids cried in their rooms, I said to him, "We're good people, right?" And I was only half-joking. I know I'm a good person, and I think I'm a good mom, but when you try and try and try, and things only seem to get worse, you can't help feeling sorry for yourself. This summer has been really rough in terms of attitude in our house. We've had pretty bad attitudes running rampant. I've tried all sorts of different tactics, and had actually just started a reward system for doing good things versus yelling, hitting siblings, and whining to Mom and Dad. I'm still going to continue the system to see if it helps at all.
I did get some insight later Monday night that kind of hit me hard. In a text, my mother-in-law wrote, "You're doing a great job. It's just an extra challenging time right now. Just keep having prayer, scripture, and FHE no matter how hard and I promise you it will get better." As I read that, I realized, we hadn't been doing great with, sadly, all three of those things. We're usually great about family prayer, but lately, it's been more hit and miss. We used to be great about reading scripture stories right before bed, but I'll admit that with the babies usually very cranky right at that time, we usually just do the bare minimum of saying prayers and forgo scripture study. And no, we've never been super regular about FHE, because let's face it, it is hard to keep kids' attention for longer than 10 seconds. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse, because plenty of families find ways to do it.
So, we go back (again) to the basics. Try and do better to first create a better spirit in home, and see where it takes us. I know it can only help. Wish us luck. :)
It wasn't pretty.
All three kids spent the rest of the evening in their bedrooms and they went to bed without dinner. In all my years as a mom, I've never done that. I even thought about smuggling them bread or a tortilla, but I knew this was definitely a time when the two parents had to stand strong and stand together. We all had a big talk right before bed, and we told them they wouldn't be able to do fun things for a week--no trips to the pool, playing with friends, fun excursions with family--nothing. A wanted to do it for two weeks, but I intervened because, let's face it, I'm the one who really gets punished here.
As my husband and I sat dejectedly in the living room while all three of the kids cried in their rooms, I said to him, "We're good people, right?" And I was only half-joking. I know I'm a good person, and I think I'm a good mom, but when you try and try and try, and things only seem to get worse, you can't help feeling sorry for yourself. This summer has been really rough in terms of attitude in our house. We've had pretty bad attitudes running rampant. I've tried all sorts of different tactics, and had actually just started a reward system for doing good things versus yelling, hitting siblings, and whining to Mom and Dad. I'm still going to continue the system to see if it helps at all.
I did get some insight later Monday night that kind of hit me hard. In a text, my mother-in-law wrote, "You're doing a great job. It's just an extra challenging time right now. Just keep having prayer, scripture, and FHE no matter how hard and I promise you it will get better." As I read that, I realized, we hadn't been doing great with, sadly, all three of those things. We're usually great about family prayer, but lately, it's been more hit and miss. We used to be great about reading scripture stories right before bed, but I'll admit that with the babies usually very cranky right at that time, we usually just do the bare minimum of saying prayers and forgo scripture study. And no, we've never been super regular about FHE, because let's face it, it is hard to keep kids' attention for longer than 10 seconds. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse, because plenty of families find ways to do it.
So, we go back (again) to the basics. Try and do better to first create a better spirit in home, and see where it takes us. I know it can only help. Wish us luck. :)
Monday, July 6, 2009
Ingredients for a great 4th of July weekend
A fun neighborhood party (complete with all the blue snow cones you could ever want)
Two super-cute babies
One themed dessert
A plastic pool on Grandma's deck
Fireworks and some spinning things that light up
And...a bounce house!
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