Parenting Intentionally

Recently, my husband and I read this fantastic article (followed by this one) about how to create a positive family culture. It was a fantastic read and it really got us thinking about what we are teaching our kids, and whether it's intentional or not.

So while we were on a long road trip with the kids snoozing in the back of the van, we started discussing what we want our family culture to be like: what we want our priorities to be, what our expectations are, and what kind of people we want us (and our kids) to be. We talked for a long time and filled a page with ideas. We wrote down words like adventure, harmony, traditions, education, dreams and love. We talked about families we looked up to and specific things the did that we wanted to incorporate in our own family. We wrote down our ideas for family activities that could foster the type of culture we'd been talking about building. And then we took a big look at our list and tried to pick out the most important things. Eventually I'm hoping to take those main ideas and turn them into a functional family mission statement. But for now, at least we have a start.

Even though our mission statement is not complete, we've made some changes to our daily life because of the things we talked about. For example, one of the things we talked about wanting to be part of our family culture was physical activity. It's always been important to Forrest and I, and we want to pass our love of sports/fitness/outdoor activity to our kids. I do a lot of playing with the kids at home, wrestling, swimming, riding bikes etc. but Forrest is often at work when we do those kinds of activities. Then he would get home from work at 6, we'd eat dinner, give the kids a bath and then put them in bed. There wasn't much time for "family activities" in the evenings. However, our kids (Charlie and Caroline, to be more specific) lately have been beasts to get to sleep. We lay them down at their normal bedtime (around 7:30) and then sit and wait and tell them to get back in bed a million times until they finally fall asleep around 9 and we are exhausted and frustrated. So after our discussion and list-making exercise, we made an executive decision: after dinner, we have family activity time for an hour or two before bed. Now when Forrest gets home from work we eat dinner and then ride bikes, or go to the park, or go swimming, or go on a walk, or play outside with a ball. And then the kids go to bed at 9, completely exhausted and they fall right to sleep. No fight. No frustrated parents. And we got to spend time together as a family, doing things with our kids that are important to us.

The idea of parenting intentionally has changed the way I look at our day. The way I look at our activities, priorities and pastimes. I've gone from just surviving (which is how I often used to describe life with 3 kids under the age of 3) to doing things on purpose. I feel like a better parent because I'm thinking about what I want to teach my children ahead of time, and then when I find myself in a challenging situation I find I'm better able to react in a positive way. It's important for me to teach my children responsibility. So when they messes (many of you saw Charlie's otter pop mess in the bathroom the other day), I make more of an effort to have them help me clean it up, even when it would be way easier and faster for me to clean it up myself. (In that instance, I locked all 4 of us in the bathroom with a bag of baby wipes and gave each of the kids a wipe and told them to scrub the floors and walls until their wipe was dirty, then I gave them a new one. It took us a while, but the kids cleaned it all up.) I've also started giving my kids more chores. They LOVE helping with the laundry, washing dishes, unloading the dishwasher, etc. but for a while I just did it myself because it was easier and cleaner. Now they are responsible for putting their dishes into the dishwasher after meals (I have to be careful with this one because Charlie sometimes gets confused and throws his dishes away haha), loading and unloading the washer and dryer, putting their clothes away after I fold them, washing dishes, vacuuming and sweeping the floors. That's not to say that I never vacuum, sweep, or do laundry or dishes anymore. Most of the time when they are doing those chores, I'm helping them. But I try to make it clear that it's their responsibility and mommy is just helping.

I know we still have a lot of work to do. I imagine we'll be redefining our ideal family culture pretty regularly over the coming years. But for now, I can see the changes we've made starting to take effect. The kids LOVE family activity time, and every night at dinner they ask what family 'tivity we get to do that night. I've also noticed that now when they make a mess, they are instantly searching for a towel to wipe it up. And I'm taking that as a win!

Have any of you created a family mission statement? If so, I'd love to hear it!

I forgot what it was like to have a 1 year old

Juliet will be 1 in a week. I was trying to plan the small family party we're having for her and every time I asked Forrest his opinion he would respond that he had no idea what I was talking about because our baby IS NOT turning 1. We're in a little bit of denial about it.
With the twins I felt like every time they hit a new milestone I was SO excited! Cheering them on, helping them practice etc. But with Juliet I've wanted so much more for her to just stay little. She must have missed the memo. I'm sure she must not be that much different from what Charlie and Caroline were, but it seems like she does 100x more, and there's only 1 of her.
It wasn't that long ago that the twins were turning 1, but even in that short amount of time I honestly forgot what it was like to have a 1 year old. I've had to re-lock the door leading to the trash can. I have to remind myself to shut the bathroom doors when I leave. I've stopped sorting all of the toys into their various bins because they all end up on the floor in a pile anyway when Juliet enters the room. I step on oven mitts, saucepans and lids, and kitchen towels every single time I walk into the kitchen. I think I've put back everything under the sink in my bathroom at least 15 times this week. I've started storing toilet paper on the back of the toilet instead of on their rollers because she eats it, and started leaving the bathroom trash up there as well because if she can't eat fresh toilet paper she'll settle for the kind that has boogers blown into it. I can't turn my back on her or before I count to 5 she's at the top of both flights of stairs.
She disappears constantly and is still as silent as ever. I frequently have to search every room in our house before I find her hiding somewhere giggling quietly. She loves to tease me, and she knows exactly what she's doing. She loves when we throw the kids into the air in a blanket, and she waits so patiently. As soon as we put the blanket on the ground and say "it's Juliet's turn!" she crawls on there so fast and lays down on her back, as happy as a clam. She loves to clap and as soon as she hears someone clapping or the words to "If You're Happy And You Know It" she joins right in. She is a master peek-a-booer and if there's a blanket anywhere near her, you can bet it will be on her head in an instant. Her favorite word is "hi" and she thinks she's so funny. She loves her daddy and she never gets so excited as when he comes home from work.
It's near impossible to get her to sit still to change her clothes or her diaper. I swear the twins were never as wiggly as she is. I swear they couldn't climb onto the top of the toilet to get to the hidden toilet paper and trash cans when they were 1. I swear they didn't know how to go down stairs backwards before they turned 1. I swear they couldn't climb onto the couch or out of the highchair when they were 1. But I'm sure I'm wrong about it all. I just forgot what it was like to have a 1 year old.
Happy almost birthday, sweet baby girl.

So long, 7:00 bedtime.

Charlie started climbing out of his crib when he was 17 months old. He didn't just climb out once and then not do it again, like a lot of kids do. Once he figured out he could escape there was no keeping him in. So we promptly took the bottom out of his crib and put his mattress flat on the ground to buy us a few more inches and a little more time. That worked for a couple of months until he figured out that he could tip his entire crib over and use the slats as monkey-bars. By the time he had that down, Caroline had finally gotten brave enough to climb out of her crib on a consistent basis. They were about 20 months old at this point. So we heeded the advice of some friends with much older twins and turned their cribs upside down on top of them like cages. At naptime and bedtime we would lift one side of the crib up off the ground, they would get on hands and knees and climb right in. It wasn't a perfect solution but it at least kept the madness contained to their cages. That lasted until just before they turned 2.

One day we had the brilliant idea to try out toddler beds. Sheer genius, I tell you (insert eye roll here). The first night we were completely shocked that they actually stayed in their beds. I thought it was going to be perfect and wonderful and way better than cages. I couldn't have been more wrong! It didn't take long for them to start getting out of bed. And pull every single article of clothing out of their drawers. And try on every single sock and every single shoe. And try fit six bowties around their waist at a time. Every time I entered their room, there was no floor to be seen.

But at least the mess was contained. Their room only. I could live with that. And then they figured out how to open doors. The dreaded day of days. I woke up at 4:30 AM with a tiny little finger (not mine) stuck up my nose. Good thing I had doorknob covers in stock and ready to pull out when needed. It took Charlie less that a day to figure out how to break them off the doorknobs (on Caroline's bidding, probably. I always say she is the brains and he is the muscle). For over a week they woke up between 4:30 and 5:30 AM. If there is one good thing about that, though, it is that it made me really appreciate their standard 7:30 AM wakeup time, which I used to think was far too early for little humans to be up and roaming around.

We passed the super early wake-up phase, thank heavens. And now we are stuck in the "never going to sleep" era. Oh how I miss those days of putting them down at 7:00 and knowing they would be asleep before long. I used to really look forward to bedtime. And now I dread it. Dread with a capital D. Caroline wants the light on so she can read. Charlie hates the light on but wants the door open with the hall light on. Caroline doesn't like the door open and keeps getting up to shut it. Charlie wants his bear to sit up next to him in bed but his bear keeps falling over, because it's stuffed and stuffed bears don't sit up very well. And when stuffed bears don't sit up very well, that's cause for many many tears in our house. Caroline demands that every single book in sight be on her bed. But then she can't lay down because the books are taking up the entire surface area of her bed. And heaven forbid you take the books out of the room. She NEEDS her books. If there is even a single book on top of the dresser, you'd better believe she will be found standing in one of the drawers trying to climb onto the top of the dresser to get it down and safely into her bed with the other books. Charlie has at least eight blue blankies. And try as I might to hide all but one or two of them in the dresser, he goes to bed with a couple of them and cries and cries that he needs "mo' blankies." He would steal Caroline's in a heart beat if she'd let him.

You get the gist. Lots of tears and bedtime. And when there aren't tears, there are giggles. I love giggles. But giggles are now an indication that somebody is out of bed and running around the room with a bare bum and yelling "nakey nakey!". How do you even get mad about that? Especially when accompanying the bare bum are a pair of blue dinosaur rain boots and the cutest little head of white hair you've ever seen?

Long story short, our 7:00 bedtime has turned into 7:00 bedtime that doesn't actually end until 9:30. I'm not too hopeful that it will get better anytime soon!

The New Routine

 

I was reading back through some old blog posts and I came across this post about our daily routine when the twins were Juliet's age. I laughed out loud at how different life is now, and how much crazy has come into our lives. Here's a little look at what I'm talking about, a peek into our average every-day kind of a day:

7 AM - twins wake up, climb on top of the dresser, pull out every article of clothing in any drawer in their room, empty the trash can and laundry basket, undress themselves and attempt to re-dress themselves in swimming suits and rain boots, and spread lotion all over every available surface
7:15 - I finally realize they are awake and walk in to find what appears to be the aftermath of Hurricane Charlie and Caroline
7:16 - rush to the potty and sing "The Wheels on the Bus" for what already feels like the 57th time that day
7:20 - go rescue Juliet from her crib moments before Charlie crashes in on top of her, and remind myself that I need to put a child-proof door knob cover on her door
7:30 - make oatmeal and toast for the twins, strap them in their seats with their milk, breakfast, and "treats" (which are actually vitamins. I've conned them into thinking they are a treat.), and then sit down to feed Juliet
7:45 - clean up the kitchen which was spotless before breakfast and is somehow now coated in a layer of oatmeal, and grab myself something to eat, also intermittently interfering in Charlie's attempts to lay on top of Juliet (confession - sometimes I let him do it if it doesn't appear to be bothering her. I have to pick my battles)
8:00 - put Juliet back in bed. Brush kids teeth (this involves me pinning them to the ground and holding their head in-between my knees. Caroline's tears usually make a brief appearance.), do hair, use the potty again, and get dressed for the day. Sounds simple, but it takes a certain amount of finesse to get Caroline to allow me to touch her hair and get it done in the brief moments of light that Charlie's obsession with flipping the bathroom lights on and off allows me. Also taking care to keep the water faucet pointed toward "cold" so that Charlie doesn't burn himself when he gets bored with the lights and moves to turning the water on and off
8:15 - mop up the bathroom counters and floors from all of the water that somehow made its way out of the sink and onto everything else
8:20 - go into my bedroom and attempt to get dressed. If I'm super lucky, I might get to use the bathroom privately, and might get a bonus of brushing my teeth, putting my contacts in, or maybe even putting on makeup (ha! not likely). Meanwhile, my room now looks like it too was hit by Hurricane Char and Care.
8:30 - head down in the basement, our most kid-proof area in the house, and play. We work on puzzles, peg boards, and mega blocks. We play pretend with dolls and little people and throw balls at each other. The kids climb over the back of the couch and play peek-a-boo with each other. At some point I go and get Juju, feed her, and add her to the madness.
Noon - finally lunch time. Head upstairs, and I make one of three meals: grilled cheese, cheese quesadilla, or macaroni and cheese (somebody loves cheese a little too much..) Eat, potty, and then the most glorious time of all is here.
1 PM - Nap time!! Hallelujah. Caroline goes in her bed in her room. Charlie goes in Juliet's crib. Juliet goes in the pack n play in my room. Put them all down then sit in the hallway watching the monitors like a hawk. Go put Charlie back in the crib at least 4 times. Take Caroline to the potty once or twice more. Then finally, heaven-sent silence. If I'm lucky I get 2.5 hours of beautiful wonderful naptime. Enter the debate: nap? Clean up after hurricanes? Work on a project? Watch TV? The possibilities are endless, and yet somehow I find myself spending at least 15 of those precious naptime minutes sitting in the bathroom scrolling through my Facebook news feed. So lame.
3:30 - twins wake up from nap. Same sequence occurs as when they wake up in the morning, only this time they are in two separate rooms so Juilet's room now gets the hurricane treatment as well. I swear they get out of bed silently and destroy without making a peep.
4:00 - try to start some kind of a dinner, all while protecting Juju from her siblings and protecting the twins from hurting themselves. Charlie inevitably bring his bike over to the stove and tries to use it as a stool to get up and help me cook. Caroline digs into the drawer and pulls out two oven mitts and tries to open the hot oven saying "help you mommy!". I constantly remind myself to keep the knives away from the edges of the countertops, in the sink, or basically anywhere except for the top of the refrigerator.
5:30 - dinner. Convince the twins that they can have a "treat" (treat this time meaning applesauce, yogurt, or Almonds..) if they finish their dinner. Charlie finishes first every single time and gets his treat. Caroline cries that she doesn't get her treat yet, then finally after many tears decides it worth eating her dinner for.
6:30 - twins bath, brush teeth, potty, go on horsey rides, read scriptures, say prayers, tickle their guts out and then sing lots and lots of songs. And read lots of stories. And then some more.
7:00 - lights out, door shut, and hope they stay in bed. Sit by the door and listen to their conversations.
Charlie - Gramma!
Caroline - No! No gramma. Night night.
Char - Outside!
Care - No! No outside. Night night.
Char - Jumping jellybean!
Care - No! No jumping jellybean. Night night.
She loves her sleep, and she also loves telling Charlie no.
7:30 - Juliet bath (on the good days), feed her, and put her in bed.
And then party because all 3 kids are in bed and asleep before 8:00. Do some laundry, sleep, and repeat. That's how we roll.

Potty Training Tales: What They Don't Tell You

If I've talked about potty training too much lately it's because I've basically been consumed by it for the last 4 months. But now, I am proud to say that I only have 1 child in diapers. Woot woot! Prior to starting the toilet training process, I was terrified. I'd heard horror stories of walls, clothes, floors and hands covered in pee and other unpleasant bodily excretions. Like I said, absolutely frightening.

So I approached the potty training process with caution and solely out of desperation to stop the poop-flinging fiascos that I spoke of in my last post.

But as I started potty training, I was surprised by my experience. I expected disaster: screaming, crying and lots of cleaning. And there was some of that. But what I noticed most was excitement. Pride and satisfaction. Nobody told me how FUN potty training could be! That's right, I just used the words "fun" and "potty training" in the same sentence. Seeing those big smiles and proud faces when they were successful.. now that is rewarding. Singing happy songs and clapping and handing out treats. Hearing their cute tiny voices call out "potty!" when they're in their beds because they know it will get them out. All in all I'd say our experience with potty training was really positive!

And yet there is another thing they don't tell you about potty training. At first it's harder. You get all excited thinking you don't have to change diapers anymore, which IS really exciting. But then you realize that leaving the house is nearly impossible. You have to time it so that you leave immediately after they "go" and even then you pack extra undies and pants just in case. You carry a folding potty with you everywhere you go just in case. And then there are the times that they forget to tell you they need to go and they have an accident. So you make a habit of putting them on the potty every hour to try to minimize those accidents. And then you realize that you are sitting reading books to kids on the potty for what feels like half of every day, whereas a diaper change only takes 37 seconds.

But that hard phase doesn't last too long. A few months maybe. And then life is good. Much cleaner. And it costs WAY less! And immediately after you high-five yourself for successfully teaching your child to use the potty, you find yourself in tears over the fact that they are growing up much too quickly.

Double Diaper Trouble

If I've been a little absent lately, it's because I've been cleaning up poop. Not even kidding. I should warn you that this post will include a lot of talk about poop and other unpleasant bodily functions. Not mine, thankfully, but disgusting none the less.

I don't know what kind of a special affinity my children have for pooping on me, but they've had it since they were newborn. All three of them. And I'm not just talking blowouts or diaper explosions, I mean like pooping all over my leg in the middle of a diaper change, or pooping on me when I pick them up to put them in the tub. I've been pooped on more times than I can count. But little exclusively-breastfed-baby-poop isn't so bad. It cleans up pretty easily and doesn't smell awful. But the bigger they get, the worse it gets.

The twins were about 15 months old when they (and by they, I mean Caroline) learned how to take off their diapers. That's the way it works around here. One figures out how to do it and does it over and over again until the other learns how. So when they say "double trouble" for twins, they really should say quadruple trouble. Because not only are there two children with their own ideas of how to get into trouble, but they are each learning from and copying the other's trouble-making skills. Learning to un-diaper themselves was one of those nasty, awful, no good trouble-making skills. And they both mastered it very early on. I think it's payback for laughing about one of my besties' babies learning to un-diaper before her mom was ready to go through potty training. I had no idea.

When they started un-diapering, I was pretty big pregnant with Juliet. I wanted to potty train, but I knew it was a bit early and frankly I just didn't have the energy to do it. So I opted for duct tape instead. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I got to where I would go around the entire circumference of the diaper around their waist two times with a strip of duct tape. But even then they would somehow weasel themselves out of it.

They got into a really awful habit of taking their diapers off in the middle of the night. So then they would wake up sopping wet. And on some very unfortunate mornings, I would walk in to the awful stench of tiny human poop spread all over their sheets. And their hair. And their crib slats. And under their fingernails. And sometimes (I shudder even to think it) even smeared around their mouths. Gag. Cut to me rinsing out pajamas and sheets in the toilet, wiping my babies down with wet wipes and spraying them off (from a distance) in the shower. I seriously think I deserve a medal for the amount of poop I've had to clean up in my less than two year stint as a mother.

After Juliet arrived, I decided it was time to potty train. I committed myself to three entire days and nights diaper-free. Day 1 was awful. I think we maybe had one success. The entire day. Potty training two little bums at the same time is a lot harder than I expected. It seemed like each time one was sitting on the potty, the other had an accident. And trying to put two little bums on the potty every 20 minutes while also breastfeeding a newborn and trying to maintain peace and cleanliness in our home is no small task.

Day 2 was better. After I caught her mid-pee and stuck her on the potty to finish, Caroline seemed to get the hang of it. Charlie would pee on the potty but had a hard time going #2. By day 3 Caroline had it down and rarely had accidents after that. Charlie, not so much. He went back into diapers on day 4. That was about 2 months ago when the twins were 20 months old. Caroline still does really well for the most part. I still take extra undies and pants with us everywhere we go, and I still wash her sheets nearly every morning because she wets the bed, but I consider here successfully potty trained.

Charlie still rips his diaper off nearly every night. I've given up on duct tape because it's a pain in the rear and it doesn't work half the time anyway. So every morning when I go into their room I cross my fingers that it's only a wet diaper I have to deal with. The finger crossing works exactly 67% of the time. The other 33% of the time I'm not so lucky. And each time, the award that I think I deserve gets bigger and bigger.

I'm almost out of size 4 diapers. When I run out, I have sworn that I will never put another diaper on that boy. I figure I'm cleaning up his poop anyway, so I may as well be doing it in the name of potty training. Heaven help me!

And with that, I hereby promise I will never talk about poop this much ever again. The end.

Halloween Time!

Happy Halloween! I like Halloween, but I don't love it. I was super lame and didn't even put up decorations this year. I had good intentions, but with Forrest out of town and then my trip out to Missouri in the middle of the month to bring him home, decorating was low on the totem pole of things to do! But I still wanted to make it fun for Charlie and Caroline.

They are learning to LOVE Halloween. The courtyard at our apartments is all decked out with ghosts, pumpkins, witches and scarecrows. Our neighbor's door is covered in skeletons and Happy Halloween signs. And the kids think it's the best thing ever! Especially Caroline. She walks around pointing at everything with her jaw dropped and says "Ooooohhhhh!" It's adorable. When we were at the grocery store I walked them down the Halloween aisle and the both kept saying "boo!" over and over at every new decoration they saw. Silly kids.

We had our ward Trunk or Treat on Saturday. We dressed up our cute little munchkins in a bumble bee and a lady bug costumes. Forrest and I carried nets to go with our "bug catcher" costumes. The littles thought it was wonderful going from car to car and getting oodles of candy that we will never let them eat. And they looked super adorable!

It has been pointed out to me that Charlie's head looks 100 times bigger than Caroline's in these pictures. Let me explain: His head isn't huge. It's actually kinda small percentile wise. But the allusion is due to his constume being a 6-9 month size, and Caroline's being 12-18 month. Hey, we make do with what we've got! And on the bright side, a future child will be able to wear them both on different years.

We try to do a fun family activity every Monday night. In our church, we call it Family Home Evening. Yesterday for FHE we were planning on carving pumpkins. Then it turned out that the only pumpkins we had were pint sized and a little too small for our unskilled hands to carve. So we opted to paint them instead, and Charlie and Caroline thought that was the best idea ever! I made edible paint using Sweetened Condensed Milk and food coloring. Caroline painted her pumpkin and the floor really well, and Charlie had a blast painting himself and eating the paint. They were so cute!

In the end we had a giant mess to clean up, but I think it's good for kids to get messy sometimes. And it's not so bad cleaning up when you don't have to do it alone! 

So we've had a great Halloween so far, and it's not even October 31 yet! Holidays are so much more fun when you have little ones who are experiencing everything for the first time. 

10 Things I Didn't Understand Until I Had Kids

1) Nap time is sacred.
I mean that quite literally. Don't be offended if you call me during nap time and I don't answer. Or I answer but only talk briefly. It's that amazing (yet always too brief) part of the day where you can shower, eat, clean the house, catch up on your TV shows and try to relax. Like I said, sacred.

2) You can sweep the floor five times a day and still have crumbs everywhere.
I remember thinking it was odd that one of my friends had sweeping the floor on both the morning and afternoon chores list for her kids. But seriously. When there are children roaming free in the house, you can sweep all day long and still have food sticking to the bottom of your feet when you walk around barefoot.

3) You will forget what life before kids was like.
Being able to leave the house on a whim? Spontaneous weekend getaways? Enjoying a nice quiet candle-lit dinner at home? Those things will all seem worlds away, like a dream that you are unsure of whether or not it actually happened.

4) It is impossible to have nice things.
That cute shirt you bought on a killer sale? NEVER wear it unless you want it to be covered in ketchup, yogurt, or blueberry stains. Your smart phone/tablet/laptop? Hide them. Up high. And don't ever let them be seen. Those cute lamps that you spent hours refinishing? You have two options: 1) put them in a storage until for the next 15 years or 2) take a picture for posterity and then give them a kiss goodbye.

5) Your house will never be clean again.
Your perfectly decorated house will be cluttered with an endless amount of baby things. It starts with swings, bouncers, burp cloths and diapers. Soon it turns into jumpers, bumbos, high chairs, books, stuffed animals and toys. Add a cute little crawler or walker into the mix and you have a constant "my-house-looks-like-it's-been-hit-by-a-hurricane" feeling.

6) Picking someone else's boogers isn't as bad as it sounds.
Neither is cleaning up a child with poop up their back. When it's your own child, it's not weird. It's just life. I remember watching my sister pick her daughter's nose and thinking that it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. Now it's a nearly daily occurrence for me.

7) Everything in your house is deadly.
If your kids are awake and let loose in the house, you will never go outside for long. You will constantly be worrying that they will pull over that 300+ pound entertainment center that you have yet to secure to the wall. Or that they will eat something nasty out of the garbage. Or fall and hit their head on the corner of your $7 Ikea end table. Basically anything in your house could kill your child.

8) Hanging out with friends is nearly impossible.
You swore you would be the cool parents that would still go hang out with your old friends and do pretty much anything you want. Oh wait what about nap time? It's sacred, remember? And then there's the time you need to breastfeed. Can you do that easily where you're going? Now make sure you pack enough diapers, wipes, burp clothes, bibs, toys, books, spare change of clothes, snacks etc. in the diaper bag. Got it all? OK go. Then once you get to wherever you're going, your child decides they want to scream the whole time. So you go home, probably before even really getting to see your friends. And you decide just to stay home next time.

9) You never knew what love really was.
Your heart will hurt with how much you love your little mini-me. And your love for your spouse will grown and change too, when you see how much they love your little one. You will be overly emotional about any potential harm that could come to your child. And you will be completely irrational. You would literally do absolutely anything for your baby.

10) The laundry/dishes/housework will never be done.
You will no longer be able to get away with doing one-two loads of laundry a week. It's a daily thing now. And the dishwasher will be run on a daily basis. You should vacuum at least weekly but you don't. You will pick up toys all day every day and still miss some. You will have a pile of folded laundry that sits outside the baby's room all night (and maybe for the next few nights) until you get a chance to go in and put everything away. And folding all those teeny tiny baby clothes is pure misery.

The Rhinoceros and the Puppy Dog

A few weeks ago it was pointed out to me that Charlie is a little bit of a bulldozer. Or a "rough and tumble" little boy. I prefer to think of him as a rhinoceros. Seriously though, that kid has no fear. He also has no regard for anything or anyone that gets in his way. If Caroline is trying to get to a toy on the other side of an obstacle, she crawls around it. Not Charlie. He goes right over it, even if "it" is Caroline's face. Or mine. He literally headbutts his sister 10 times a day. She doesn't mind so I usually just let it happen. Except when he does it at church - then I at least try to appear like I'm trying to keep him from bowling her over. And he dives off of everything. I mean DIVES. Head first. From the couch onto the end table. Out of the bathtub. Into the bathtub. Down the stairs. He seriously falls 378 times a day. And gets bruises and bloody noses and bloody lips and any other kind of skin abraison you can think of. I promise I do try to keep him safe. I've seriously considered just wrapping him from head to toe in layers of bubble wrap. He eats like a rhino too. I give him half a banana most mornings to start his breakfast. He picks it up, squishes it between his cubby little fingers and then tries the shove the entire thing in his mouth at once. What doesn't make it in ends up smeared on his face, his arms, his high chair, and the wall. And anything that is left on his tray ends up bouncing off when he pounds his tray with his fists just for the fun of it. To save myself some trouble I've started stripping him down to a diaper for every meal and then throwing him under the sink afterwards to clean him up. It's just easier.

Caroline, on the other hand, is the most dainty little eater I've ever seen. She rarely drops food or gets anything on her face. She is perfectly clean all the time. Other than the cleanliness, everything she does reminds me of a puppy. And that's not just because she barks nonstop. She follows me everywhere. From room to room, right on my heels. And if she's playing with a toy when I leave and she wants to bring it with her, she carries it in her mouth. I'm not kidding, she really does. It's pretty adorable. She is always happy and she pants when she gets excited. And she is so incredibly smart. My parents have stairs at their house, so my dad built a gate many many years ago to keep us from falling. It has been in place for roughly 30 years. The latch isn't super easy to open - some of my nieces (4-6 years old) even struggle to get the latch open and closed. Not Caroline. She watched intently while people would open and close it, and the figured out how to do it herself. She sneaks over and opens it and tries to get Charlie to go down the stairs and fetch all the toys they threw down there. Crazy girl. 

And then this happened today. They are both so smart. They watch what I do and then try to copy it. They LOVE going outside, and clearly they are determined to find a way to get out whenever they want. I'm in big trouble. My little rhino and the puppy dog sure do keep me on my toes!

Mischief Managed

I've heard one devious child can create a lot of mischief. If that's the case, think of the havoc that two little pre-toddlers can wreck. Still trying to think? Let me help you with a few examples.

Some of Charlie and Caroline's favorite play places are NOT mommy's favorite places for them to play. IE) refrigerator, dishwasher, under the table, drawers, toilets, floor vents, barstools, couches etc. Most of those are places that are dangerous in some sort of way. Whether doors can shut on them, chairs can fall on them, they can drown in them, they are covered in germs, they can fall off of them.. You get the drift. Try as I might to keep them from these places, when you have two crawling munchkins going in two different directions, you have to make a choice on which danger is more urgent. So that leaves room for situations like those I'm about to describe to you.

The first happened about two months ago. I had just finished feeding the babes and pulled them out of their highchairs and set them on the ground in the kitchen. I had to run in to the restroom, but I must have left the refrigerator partially opened because this is what I returned to:

Caroline had climbed up into the fridge, found the yogurt and either dropped or handed it down to Charlie who had successfully punctured a two-baby-teeth sized hole in the top and proceeded to suck it dry. And all of this probably happened in less that 3 minutes. They were quite proud of themselves when I found them!

Oh yes they are sneaky. Especially our little Care-bear. She loves her pacifier, you see, but we leave it in her bed and she only gets it during nap times. She's caught on to this and has devised her own plan to thwart our attempts at keeping her separated from her beloved binky. Now when she wakes up from a nap, or first thing in the morning, she cleverly throws her pacifier out of her crib to a slightly hidden location that only she knows. Then when we get her out of her bed and let her play, she retrieves the prize from said hiding place, sticks it in her mouth and comes out bursting with pride and joy that she has stumped us yet again. That girl! She keeps us on our toes.

Charlie has his days too. I try to keep the bathroom door closed, but sometimes I fail. One day Char made his way into there and accidentally shut himself inside. He loves door stoppers, and I think he got so excited playing with it and hitting it that he didn't even realize he was pushing the door closed. It took a while for Caroline and I to get in there, but when we did - oh dear, it looked like Christmas. Little tiny shreds of toilet paper EVERYWHERE. I think he used the entire roll. Whatever he didn't shred, I'm certain he ate. At least he didn't fall into the toilet!

Next example - Caroline again. She is obsessed with her cousin Hallie. We were staying at their house the other day and Hallie was taking a bath. The babes were in the bathroom with her, already bathed, lotioned and pajama-ed for the night, sitting in their bumbos watching her play in the bath. Then Forrest called and I stepped out for all of 30 seconds to grab the phone. As soon as I picked it up I heard a crash and then "Aunt Holly!! Come quick!" And I run as fast as I can into the bathroom to find Caroline sputtering, dripping wet and as thrilled as can be in the tub with Hallie. Apparently she knows how to climb out of her bumbo, I wonder when she was planning on sharing that little development with me?! After I got past the shock, terror and frustration with myself for leaving the babes in there for 30 seconds, it was actually pretty funny.

She was overjoyed with herself and didn't even seem to notice that she was fully clothed. Can you tell that she is dripping from head to toe?

I could continue on with stories like this for days.. but pictures will do the job much more quickly. 

He finds himself in some pretty precarious situations..

Another one of Caroline's tricks - pulling her arms out of her PJ's! She's clearly not too happy about it.

The minute their clothes and diapers come off, they run (or speed-crawl) as fast and as far as they can get.

Most days, Caroline needs a little more sleep than Charlie does. Sometimes he sneaks back in the room without me knowing and tries to get her to come play with him.

This poor boy falls about 10,000 times a day. This particular fall was after pulling up to a barstool and falling backwards, pulling the stool on top of him. I think I cried about as much as he did over his first bloody nose :(

And last but not least.. what fun is a twin if you can't wrestle with them? They seriously crawl over eacher nonstop. Mostly Care over Char, but sometimes he returns the favor. They don't usually mind it, unless their head gets kicked!

I think it's safe to say their Mischief is Managed! (Harry Potter anyone?)

This is Life

A few months ago a had a friend come over to visit. It was one of those mornings where we were all still in our pajamas and the house was a mess. When she got here, I apologized for the condition that we were in, and she responded, "Oh Holly, this is life."

Then I had a little bit of a paradigm shift. Before having children, I couldn't handle our house being cluttered/dirty/messy. I mean, of course there were days that it was that way.. but I tried really hard to minimize that. But babies come with a lot of stuff. And I mean A LOT. Especially when you have two. And you live in a small apartment. In our living room we have an exersaucer, three baskets of toys, a bouncer, a bookshelf, and Charlie's large toys from the vision specialist. That's in addition to all our furniture/decor that was already there. Then add to the kitchen two swings, two high chairs, two bumbo's.. you get my point. There's no helping the clutter now. I still try to keep it clean, but my friend's comment made me realize that my life has changed. So now I'm trying to adjust to my new life and the mess that often accompanies it. But it's a beautiful and wonderful mess, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Sometimes I think people feel sorry for me. Like last week when I completely forgot that the twins had their 9 month checkup. I remembered just in time to get there, but not in time to find someone to come with me. Just a tip: never EVER take twins to get shots by yourself. Check-ups are doable. But shots? No. Bad bad bad idea. The first part of the appointment went fine. But by the end they were getting tired and hungry. And then getting shots.. one baby screams after their shots and I'm trying to comfort them while the other baby is crawling all over getting into everything on the floor. Then I put baby #1 down while baby #2 gets shots. Putting baby 1 down brings many many tears. Then I have two screaming babies. And the poor nurse just looks at me and says, "I'm sorry." I can see the look of pity in her eyes. And of course this is hard for me, but it's just life. I'm used to having two crying babies. But other people aren't used to seeing women with two crying babies. So I just shrug and say, "This is life." And then I try to clean up as quickly as possible, get my two babes dressed and get out of there before I get any more pitying stares.

So when things like that happen, I just take it in stride. When I'm at the grocery store and one baby (or both) is just so sad, I try to continue my shopping trip if at all possible. Because if I bagged it and came home every time one cried, I'd never make it to checkout. And when someone stops by for a quick visit and my house is a mess, I try not to let it bother me. Because I can only do so much. And I think most people understand that. This is life. My crazy, hectic, beautiful and wonderful life.

Mobility

I knew this day was coming. But that doesn't make it any easier to prepare for! Caroline started crawling. Well, sort of. She started scooting around on her belly, using her little hands and toes to push herself forward. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. And Charlie can roll across the room in less than a minute to get to whatever he wants. It's darling, really, but the idea of my kids being mobile is more than a little terrifying. We haven't fully baby-proofed yet.. I'm hoping that once we have, it won't be quite so overwhelming. The problem is, I keep forgetting how mobile they are. That they can get into anything, and do get into everything, that I leave on the floor. Those dirty picture frames that I've been meaning to paint that have been sitting on the floor in the corner for the last 3 months? Well now they (and all the germs on them) have been all over in both my kids' mouths. Dirty diapers, my shoes, the remote, my cell phone (oh my, that phone.. Caroline can spot it from across the room and zips right to it every time. My camera roll is full of her "selfies.." see below.) You name it, it's in their mouths. Oh ya, add to that list the bowl of squash puree that I left on the floor after trying to feed Caroline. I walk away for 30 seconds and come back to find this: 

How in the world did I suddenly forget that they were mobile and leave something wide open for them to get into? I have no clue. But they loved it. My carpet did not love it. Seriously though, by the time I found the mess it was already made, so I just let them play there as long as they were happy. On the bright side, they sort of fed themselves for the first time. If you count licking the squash off of your fingers feeding yourself. Oh well, it didn't take long to clean up and it kept them entertained for a while. All it took was an early tubby and less than 3 minutes of floor and clothing scrubbing to get it cleaned up. Not bad :) How I love these two!

Oh, and here's one of Caroline's best selfies:

Haha she cracks me up. She takes videos of herself too, but you can't see most of them because the phone spends most of the time in her mouth. Something about that big red button on the phone - she can't help but push it! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Meal time

My kids love food. Like, really love it. So much so that they often get impatient that they only get every other bite. And they eat a ton! Baby food adds up and can get really expensive, so I make my own. It's super easy, plus I've read articles that suggest that kids who are fed with homemade baby food may end up being less picky than others. We'll see if that proves true or not. Either way, I use my rice cooker to steam carrots, squash, sweet potatoes etc then add a little of the steam water and purée them in the magic bullet. Then I put them into ice cube trays and freeze them. Once they're frozen I break them into a ziplock freezer bag to store them until I'm ready to use them. So easy. I've made peas, carrots, green beans, squash, and sweet potatoes. The fruits are generally easier just to make fresh - ie) I'll cut up a fresh pear and add a little water and mix it in the bullet. I sometimes add a handful of frozen blueberries to it before mixing. They love it all! I've also been trying to introduce spices so they can get different flavors. I put cinnamon in their oatmeal/applesauce mixture every morning, and I've added garlic, chili powder, and herbs to their sweet potatoes. It's really fun to experiment with different flavors and see their reactions. My rule is that I never give them anything I wouldn't eat. So when I made the sweet potatoes and tasted them and thought they were too bland, that's when I started adding spices. My goal is to be able to transition them right to eating the same meals that Forrest and I eat, so I don't have to prepare or buy special meals for them.

Lately Caroline has been not liking her high chair. She'll sit in there for the first few bites, but then she cries and fusses until I get her out and put her on my lap instead. Then she's happy as a clam. But that means that I'm trying to keep the bowl of food out of her reaching grasp while I try to feed her (without being able to see her mouth very well) and feed Charlie, who is waiting anxiously with his mouth wide open for another bite. Generally we all end up covered in whatever food they're eating, but it's ok. I find the challenge to stay clean kind of thrilling. When she will stay in her high chair, Caroline makes me work pretty hard to get her to open her mouth. I don't think it's because she doesn't want the food - she loves it and she'll eat 4 cubes of food (which is about the equivalent of two store bought containers) without batting an eye. I think she does it because she likes to see me be silly. So she sits there with her lips pursed tight until I come up with a silly new song or pull a face that is funny enough to make her crack a smile - then I sneak the spoon in and she's thrilled as she chows down. Meanwhile Charlie sits with his mouth wide open, as if saying "Give it to me! I'll take it! Pick me!" 

And Charlie has made a habit of falling asleep in the middle of dinner. I mean literally, in between bites. He starts strong and then after a few bites, his eyes stay closed longer when he blinks. Then he gets to the point where he just leaves his eyes closed and opens his mouth for bites when I touch the spoon to his lips. I know he's finally 100% asleep when he stops opening his mouth at all. He hunkers down with his face still covered in food and takes a little 15 minute cat nap, then wakes up ready to resume his eating. Like nothing ever happened. I think it's the cutest thing ever. 

Don't you agree?