Okay, you guys really wish that Jamie lived near YOU, because then she would bring you bacon chocolate for your birthday and come play at your house without even complaining about how the place is so crazy messy that her baby started eating paper he found on the floor!

 

 

(In all fairness, I had just gotten home and the twins had been super-high-maintenance for the babysitter so she couldn't get anything cleaned up and I was nursing the babies until Jamie got there...)

 

 

AND she doesn't even complain about the ant on the tray that you served cookies and milk on, for which there is no defense. We have ants. I am trying to figure out how to get rid of them.

 

 

But ANYWAY, for our first visit we were just so excited to be in the physical presence of one another that we didn't take any pictures!!!

 

 

Worst. Bloggers. Ever.

 

 

Don't worry though, because I've got a trillion from this visit!

 

Emeric is a master of the backward crawl, which is why he managed to make his way to the paper...  Don't know why he couldn't make do with the doll blanket, plastic lid, teething toy, or 75000 plastic animals on the way to the paper - there's just something about that non-food!

Okay, that's not the paper he found...  Apparently John Paul's new "craft" is "Rip all the paper you can find into long strips and then throw it on the floor."

 

Showing off for the ladies while contemplating the pink Mrs. Potato Head visor.  Also, I promise Mary Claire gets tummy time (at least once a week...).  She can actually hold her head up, she just chose not to because she was about 7 seconds away from taking a nap.

 AND NOW... 

For your viewing pleasure...

STAGED PHOTOS OF 4 CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 4!

"Okay, everybody sit on the step!  No, the second step.  Yes, John Paul, that step.  Cecilia, sit down!  Clare, move down to the second step.  Ava, almost there!"

"It's a popcorn kernel, John Paul.  Not a mustard seed.  Clare, go down to the SECOND step.  Cecilia, it's just an ant.  Sit down!"

"Okay fine, everybody on the top step.  Ava, it's just sand, you don't need to brush it all off.  John Paul, sit down and stop worrying about the popcorn kernel!"

"Ava, it's clean enough.  It's fine, it's just sand!  Everybody, hands on your knees and smile!"

"No, look at me!   Cecilia!  Look at me!  John Paul, where are your shoes???  Ava, just sit down, you can brush the sand off later!"

"Everybody smile!  No, laugh!  Cecilia, look up here!  Clare, turn around!"

"Clare, turn around!  Look!  Cecilia, look up!"



"Clare, look at Miss Rosie!"  Cecilia, stop looking posessed...

"Okay good Clare, now sit down!  On the step!  John Paul, Cecilia, look up here!"

"Okay good, everybody smile again!"

"NO!  One more!  Look at Miss Rosie!"
Cecilia:  NO, DAT'S MY MOM!!!

And thus ended a lovely playdate!  Next time we will clean up beforehand...  And perhaps just lock the kids out of the house and lie on the floor drinking mimosas?

7 Quick Takes - John Paul-style

Ah, woken up at 2 AM by the smoke detectors that have decided to make random, intermittent, and very LOUD beeps (but not enough that would make us think something is, say, smoking...).  Turned off the heat, disconnected the detectors, and am now praying that we don't wake up dead in the morning because there was a secret fire somewhere...   But since I'm up I might as well post these, right?

 

--1--

Oh, the escapades of my firstborn.  I was nursing the babies yesterday when I heard a strange clicking coming from the kitchen.  Cecilia was taking her sweet time on the potty ("MOM come watch me poop!!!  MOM hug my while I poop!!!") so I knew it wasn't her...

Then John Paul came in, crunching something in his mouth. 

"What are you eating, John Paul?"

"A crunchy bear."  These are the chewable vitamins the kids eat

"How did you get it?"  These are in a childproof container on one of the highest shelves in the kitchen.  He DEFINITELY climbed up on a counter and got one out of the cabinet while standing on the high counter. 

No answer.  Well, I knew the answer anyway.

"How many did you eat?"

"Just ONE!" He announced, pleased with himself for exercising self-control and following my instructions.

Now, I honestly couldn't be that angry with him - he knew what he was allowed to have, it just didn't occur to him that he wasn't supposed to be the one getting one.  And since he's been exercising his independence in the kitchen so much (a little too much...) lately, it was the obvious solution to get himself a vitamin instead of bothering mom! 

"Well...  Go get one for Cecilia too."

And then he happily grabbed one for her and fed it to her while she finished up on the potty.

High shelves?  No longer safe.

Childproof containers?  Not even close.

We are screwed.

--2--

John Paul decided he wanted applesauce yesterday but NOT the applesauce we already had in the fridge.  No, he wanted to make his OWN applesauce.  And thus he embarked upon a culinary journey...

--3--

First he took an apple out of the fridge and placed it in a bowl of water, telling me "The water will help the apple grow.  It will grow and then it will be applesauce on Monday!  And we will eat it on Epiphany!"

Then I explained to him that's not how growing works.  Or applesauce.  I told him that to make applesauce we had to cook the apples and then mash them up.

So he found a toy microphone to be his masher, and started mashing the apple bobbing in a measuring cup full of water.  I made him take it to the playroom so he wouldn't make a mess in the kitchen, and apparently that inspired him to add more ingredients...

--4--

When I checked on him next (to bring him an actual potato masher so he would stop using the microphone), he had added a little milk, carrots, and bread to his "applesauce."

THEN he had the brilliant idea that he needed to CUT the apple up!  So he grabbed the plastic scalpel from his doctor kit (which he had used that morning to cut up his breakfast banana), but it wasn't sharp enough to cut the apple.  He stole my metal measuring spoons and those were perfect!  Little scoops of apple were added to the mixture of milk, water, whole wheat bread, and carrots.  He dutifully mashed it and left it to sit.

I figured he realized that he wasn't *really* making applesauce.  But when he went to check on it after Andrew came home and tossed it out, he was nearly in tears with the devastation.  "WHERE IS MY APPLESAUCE???" he cried out, in a shocked and nearly sobbing voice.

He got over it almost immediately when he realized it was time for dinner and that he would get to eat ANOTHER one of his glorious creations!!!

--5--

Have you seen this pin?



Halved Potatoes, cooked face down on a layer of butter, garlic salt, Parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 for 45 min. Oh my word.

I repinned it from The Pioneer Woman but the link is dead!  And those instructions are not quite enough for my detail-loving self.  So John Paul asked if he could help me cook and after he spent 15 minutes washing his hands (during which time I assembled all the ingredients and cut up the potatoes), and he was SO excited to help cook!

I present to you...  A pinnable version of this recipe with ACTUAL QUANTITIES!

5-6 medium potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch thick rounds

1/2 stick butter, melted

Garlic salt

1 cup shredded parmesan (or 1/2 cup powdered parmesan)

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix butter, garlic salt, and parmesan on a baking sheet.

2.  Place potatoes flat side down on baking sheet mixture.  Sprinkle with garlic salt.

3.  Bake for 30-40 minutes, until largest potato pieces are soft when pricked with a fork.

 

WHOA and I can link this up with Dorian Speed and be a Pinisher!  Win!!!

 --6--

So easy a 3-year-old could do it!

--7--

And he's sleeping well tonight, thank goodness!  We went for a 1.2-mile (round trip) walk to the frozen yogurt place and back.  He ran/walked at a VERY brisk pace the whole way while I wore Mary Claire and Andrew pushed Cecilia and Elizabeth in the stroller.  Normally he's up for 30 minutes or more after he gets tucked in, singing or shouting or whatever.  Tonight?  Absolute silence.  Beautiful!

 

Check out more takes at Jen's!

Play

 

Well, I know where her favorite place to play is!

 

And Mary Claire likes it too!

 

I set up a "science experiment" for the big kids because the twins were being low-maintenance...

 

Colored vinegar, baking soda, eye dropper.  Awesome play!

 

Of course, they eventually dumped all the vinegar in...  So I set up their next experiment!

 

Also, if you skip the food coloring this is an awesome "cleaning" experiment - totally let them clean the stove with the leftovers once...

 

 

Goop!  Stringy, disgusting, and awesome!

Maybe the best picture I've ever taken of what John Paul actually looks like when he's not making weird faces - too bad there's goop all over his chin!

 

And since it's just corn starch and water, it didn't matter that they decided to do "tongue stringing" and try to see how far it would stretch from their tongue to their hand.

 

And while they looked disgustingly dirty, it rinsed off SO easily in the sink!

 

And dried right on the table so that I could pull the dustbuster out and clean it up within minutes after bedtime.

 

Did they make a mess?

 

Yes.

 

Did they stain their clothes?

 

Probably (a white shirt?  WHY did I not make her change?).

 

Did they have an AWESOME time playing?

 

Absolutely.

 

Linking up with Cari for this week's theme, Play.

Nursing Twins: Beyond the newborn days

As little as I like the newborn phase, it was actually really nice that we had a somewhat prolonged phase with the twins.  John Paul and Cecilia were the kind of newborns who seemed to live to defy all newborn knowledge - sleeping was NOT something that they relished, and they had long periods of awake and alert time from the beginning. 

Awake.  Alert.  Wanting to be entertained.  24/7.

Mary Claire and Elizabeth, on the other hand, probably spent 23 hours a day sleeping in the first two months.  They did NOT want to be put down ever, and they wanted to nurse for most of those 23 hours.  But I already told you all about this - check out my first post on nursing twins to see how we handled the first couple of months, if you're curious!  And my birth story with the twins is a long read, but I always enjoy stories about non-surgical twin birth.

Anyway, I ended the last post on a "To be continued" note because I didn't feel like writing anymore...  So here's more!

But let's be honest, you're just reading for the cute baby pictures!

Once we hit about two months, things started to change. 

-  Elizabeth was finally gaining weight, so we didn't need to worry about tracking how often she was nursing.

-  Both babies had become more efficient nursers, so we no longer had the 2-hour session followed by 15 minutes of sleep followed by another 2 hours...  Now they were nursing for 5-30 minutes, depending on whether they fell asleep or not.  Which means sometimes I actually had time to get off the couch and get dinner started, read to the big kids, go to the bathroom, etc.

-  Both babies started sleeping for longer periods at night (Mary Claire for 6-8 hours most nights!).

-  Both babies were willing to be put down for naps and for short periods of awake time during the day.

They still slept a LOT, though...

These changes couldn't have come at a better time, because my sister had just gone back to her actual life and I needed to learn how to deal with the twins on my own! 

They look so cute...  But cute doesn't mean easy!

The video below was a HUGE help for me when it came to logistics for actually getting the babies on the pillow!  At this point latching was not a problem, but physically getting in position was totally perplexing to me.


Nowadays I mostly don't bother with the boppies - my leg strength is back and I generally crouch or kneel, balancing the pillow on my knees (it buckles on in the back), and lift them into position from either the floor or the couch.  It's actually probably really good for muscle development, but there's no way I would have been able to do that in the early days.  You can see that her hands are free with this pillow, so you can have people bring you food, read a book, blog with one hand, etc...

The pillow is also a HUGE help when it comes time to put the babies down for naps after they nurse to sleep - again, I can crouch or kneel and balance the pillow on my knees while I put one baby in the swing or glider. 

Although sometimes they fell asleep like this while the big kids were napping and I just stayed put because really, could you bear to put those adorable babies down?

I can also *very* carefully lower it to the floor and it's flat enough that the babies don't roll off so I can put them down in their cribs, since the mattresses are lowered all the way (not because they're mobile enough for it to matter, because John Paul and Cecilia insist on climbing into and out of the cribs all day long).  5.5 months in and we still use the pillow a ton!

But certainly not as often as before.  Because here's the wonderful thing - the babies don't need to nurse all the time anymore!  So there are often times when one is playing on the floor and the other wants to nurse and I can just nurse one baby at a time!  Like a normal mom!

And then I have a hand free for a selfie!

There are still times when one baby wants to be held while the other nurses.  You get really good at the one-handed scoop, which is pretty much impossible until the babies have good head control.  Basically I slide my arm under them and hook them by the opposite armpit and I've got a pretty good grip (and I can do this even while nursing one).  Then I can usually just bounce one on my knee while the other nurses.

Or you give them both to your sister, who reads them a princess book...

Tandem nursing is still a big help when I want to get both babies down for simultaneous naps (those baby-free moments are all the more precious when you have twins!), when it's time to get them to bed, when they're both fussy and need mom at the same time but I want my hands free, when I want to get them good and full so that they'll play by themselves for a while...  But now it's more my choice and not a constant necessity. 

Both babies down and I chose to take pictures instead of eating something...  Priorities!  Get them straight!!!

I'd say the roughest patch we've been through in the past few months was the dreaded 4-month sleep regression.  I knew it was coming.  And the babies had been sleeping through the night regularly for several weeks, so I had built up a little stockpiled sleep.

Little did I know what they had planned for the evening...

But WOW.  So. Much. Worse. Than I ever would have expected.  Because you know how terrible that sleep regression was with one child?  MORE than twice as bad with two children at once.  It was a couple weeks of a constant haze and a lot of caffeine, because I was nursing one child or the other all. night. long.  And half the time I couldn't fall back asleep, so I was sleeping in 30-minute spurts and wishing that I had figured out how to tandem nurse while lying down!  I know it's possible, but I don't think it's possible with my body.  We got through it though, and the babies are both sleeping through the night again and it's one of those memories that makes me feel like a warrior and makes me even more convicted in my belief in co-sleeping, if ONLY because it's the only way I can get any sleep!!!

We still have a long way to go and a lot of obstacles to overcome - distracted babies not wanting to nurse, more sleep regressions, the time when they *won't* nurse to sleep every day, etc.  But we're doing well so far, and I'm happy to see that these chunky little babies are 100% growing thanks to me!

Resources:

http://www.karengromada.com/ - She literally wrote the book on breastfeeding twins!

EZ-2-Nurse nursing pillow - the brand I use - join your local Mothers of Multiples group and you may be able to borrow one for free!

Find a Mothers of Twins club near you!

Facebook is an AMAZING resource - there's a "Naturally Parenting Twins" group that has lots of crunchy twin moms, many of whom breastfed their twins and can answer questions.  Karen Kerkhoff Gromada is a member and answers questions about nursing frequently.  She's also a member of the "La Leche League for Moms of Twins/Multiples" group, which has a smaller membership but plenty of helpful advice!  There's also a "Tandem Babywearing" group with TONS of twin moms who can show you the ropes!

5 Favorites - Awesome Inventions

Linking up with Hallie at Moxie Wife for my Five Favorites of the week - 5 of my favorite inventions!

ONE:

Suretrack Railroad Clips

Doesn't it drive you nuts when you  your kids spend a long time building an awesome set of train tracks and then someone comes along and sits on them and messes everything up?  This keeps it all together!  So when I spend forever making an awesome double-bridge with a spiral and like, 8 splitters, Cecilia can't knock it down!

I mean...  John Paul makes it.  Andrew and I don't spend time building awesome train villages after the kids go to bed.  Not at all...

TWO:

Ikea drying rack

Source:  IKEA

 Space-saving, perfect for drying my cloth diaper covers, and looks like an octopus!

THREE:

Envirosax

SUCH cute prints, fold up tiny, hold a TON and don't hurt when I sling several on my shoulders because I don't want to make multiple trips from the car to the house to carry my groceries.

FOUR:

Rent the Runway

*If you click my link amd sign up, we'll both get $20 credit if you rent a dress - it's win-win!

I generally want to wear nicer dresses to weddings than I can justify spending money on, particularly since I KNOW I'll probably never wear them again.  Enter Rent the Runway - for as little as $40, they'll send you the dress of your choice in 2 sizes right before your event and you send it back without having to worry about cleaning it!  Way cheaper than buying a new dress you'll never wear again, and these are NICE brand-name dresses.  I'm considering the ones below for a wedding this summer:



Green Royal Standard Dress by Badgley Mischka

Shoshanna Dixie Ruffle Dress

 Nursing-friendly and SO cute!!!

FIVE:

Ikea bag clips



Source

 Okay, if you don't have an IKEA around you I know you wish you had one...  But these bag clips are so amazing that you might want to have a friend buy them and send them to.  Durable, easy to use, hard for little kids to open (bwahaha!), great for babies to teeth on - the uses are unlimited!

Okay, go check out more Five Favorites at Hallie's!