When will I learn...

So I've been at this Mama to Multiples gig for a little over fifteen months now one would think that I could accurately guess my limitation on what I can handle on my own. I surely did when I made the girls doctor appointment with every intention of taking them on my own. I figured this would be easy peasy take them to the doctor armed with snacks and sippy-cups. Good to go!! Or you know this could happen..

-The lady I park next to stares me down as I unload my children from the car.
-When I unload the girls from the stroller (the exam rooms are too small for our gigantic stroller) Coralee starts to lose it.
-Undressing = crying
-The poor nurse assistant is so frazzled she writes the stats on the wrongs slips, did I mention both girls are beside themselves at this point.
-Snacks who wants snacks, crying, snot and drool, just for head measurements
-Everyone leaves the room and my angels return
-The exam room is easily 1000 degrees
-The doctor enters with an intern, Coralee flips again.
-The measurements don't seem write, DO OVER!! causes Coralee to gag on her cookie which is now all over my sweater
-Time for shots, Coralee is up first and crying because I'm not holding her, Brennan is at my feet attempting to push me away from the exam table mashing her cookie hands all over my pants.
-It's all over, Coralee has no tears left , but proceeds to wail loudly.
-The lady at check-out offers them lollipops and toys that would make them choke. "Thanks but really I just want to go home." (What I meant to say, "Lady, I have chewed up, semi thrown up cookie on me, I'm a hot sweaty mess and my kid won't stop crying how much is my flippin' co-pay?)

In the car on the way home Coralee konks out and Brennan talks to me and plays with her feet. And I have learned my lesson about the doctors office.

Did you know it is was National Margarita Day today yesterday? I feel that I earned one, with an extra shot of Patron and extra salt.*

*I meant to post this last night but as I was finishing up Brennan woke up and stayed awake for the most part until 1am, when I finally realized she was suffering gas pains and gave her Mylicon.

Somedays I really wonder if I'm even close to getting this mom thing, yesterday was definitely one of those days.

Happy Monday, errr Tuesday..

First Words

As a mother I'm excited to watch my babes grow and enter new phases and learn new things. This excitement would definitely include the first word. I'm quite sure Dade's first word was ball; he is all boy and loves all sports involving a ball. Now, I'm not a baby book kind of mama so I have no official recording, I'm just trying to remember. It was with great anticipation that at least one of the girls first word would be Mama, not just the noise but the actual recognition that they wanted me. I would instantly be whisked to a happy place where birds are singing, flowers are blooming, there is even a rainbow in the sky. If I, the actual Mom, was blessed enough to be the first word. SO what do they utter first….

NO! (actually nonononononononono, accompanied with violent head shaking)(Brennan)

STOP! (actually yelled & accompanied with a finger raised in the air)(Coralee)

Dreams squashed… All the more reason to have a 4^th right?

P.S.-Those are pictures from Christmas #2 in their super cute dresses.

A Birthday Party-

brought to you by a firstborn over achiever

We held the girls birthday party on Saturday, because it's the weekend (duh!) and we had out of town family coming to the party. As I mentioned before we were going with a rainbow theme. I thought it would be cheap and easy. Buy some colorful balloons, the cheapest plates, utensils and napkins from the party store, have it catered to keep it easy on myself. Well, then it happened my firstbornedness(new word just go with it) flared up and I needed to do something over the top.



And then I saw this-




I originally found the recipe here and I thank Amanda for sharing it with the unknown masses. And then of course to kick it up a notch rather than put the layers together with frosting I made and used pastry cream.

Oh, wait it gets better. I made rainbow cupcakes

and filled them with pastry cream too.

I am an overachiever and I need help. A simple easy peasy party turned into 4 days of preparation, sometimes I seriously annoy myself. Oh! but the cake was so moist and the cream cheese frosting divine.

Enough about me already. On to the party--

Coralee, Uncle Buddy (my brother) and Brennan

Coralee (a little excited)
Brennan (just as excited as sissy)

It's messy..

What? Messy? It's delicious

MMMMMMMmmm!

Coralee didn't like getting messy, so she pretended she was bobbing for apples cupcake.


Yum Books

Yum Glow worm (B)

Hi! baby glow worm (C)

I'm smiling but sooo sleepy. (C)

Smiling through sleepy eyes (B)

Party is over. There is nothing to see here people. We need a bath and bed.

*-some photos were contributed by my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bill

Happy Birthday Babies Big Girls!!!

Our traditional on the day before your birthday. The girls last day at age "0"

Brennan


Coralee

"Here mama have a toy"

Silly chica

I'm not Baby Wise

...but maybe I should be.

In ALL my years my 3 short years as a parent I have read one parenting book. It was a great book about rearing your child to seek the heart of God rather than out of fear or ONLY obedience. It was hard to read because it was and is so different from the way I was raised. It is also hard to implement and re-program myself.

The point of my post is not child rearing or discipline; trust me I am FAR from an expert in this area. I need to talk about sleep, sweet sleep that eludes me, save the few days where someone else has taken care of my children. I am an 8 hour kinda gal. I need 8 solid hours of sleep to feel myself.

When we had Dade I truly had no idea that there were sleep training books or that there may ever be a need for such books. He was easy peasy. I didn't really have a set schedule with him. I wanted him to be a go with the flow sort of baby and he was. By 3 months he was sleeping though the night. Occasionally, he woke up when he was teething or sick.

Along came the girls. Since they were smaller I figured they may take longer to sleep and thought surely they would be sleeping through the night by 6 months. Well, here we are 4 days shy of their first birthday and they are STILL waking up. In fact the past two nights Coralee has woken up twice per night. Are you kiddin' me? We have tried increasing the number of bottles and the amount in each bottle. Both girls have consistently been 4oz. drinkers, occasionally 6ozs. Their daytime schedule is consistent with two naps, three meals, four bottles and two snacks. Yet when they wake up at night you can actually hear their little tummies grumbling. What, oh what is a mother to do?? I’ve toyed with giving them only water at night, but haven’t actually made the switch because of the grumbling tummies.

At around four months of age an acquaintance at church started raving about Baby Wise. “It’s the perfect solution that works for every baby.” This was her claim. She is also a first-time mom to 1 baby. At that time I hit up my friend google and read an overview. Establish a schedule: Eat, Play, Nap Rinse and Repeat. Not a problem we were already there. The thing that I can’t do is let my children Cry It Out (not at 4 months and not now) We do put them to bed at night awake and they fall asleep. Sometimes at nap-time or at night they fuss and moan, we don’t get them, but if they are screaming and crying I can’t bear to listen to that. On top of that the girls share a room and do wake each other up, if we don’t get to the crier fast enough. Unfortunately there is no other option. We have a 4^th bedroom but it is in the basement. I’m certainly not putting myself or my babies two floors apart.

There must be another way. Right?? There has to be something else. Yesterday when I came home from work our nanny said she was checking it out on, good ole faithful, google. What she found was an earlier bedtime. How early? 6:30 – 7:30. My heart sank. Jon and I get home from work at 6. We make dinner, eat, family time, baths and the girls are getting their last bottles around 8pm. How could we possibly get them to bed any earlier? And don’t even get me started on the fact that the change would net me a total of 1 and ½ hours of face time with my babies each day during the week.

So I’m still at a loss, what is the answer? Do I suck it up and re-adjust our schedule for a 7pm bedtime? How do I do that without being frazzled and frustrated?

So I ask you? Yes you. New moms, seasoned moms, one baby, 12 babies… What did/do you do? When was/is your baby’s bedtime? Are you Baby Wise? Am I wrong? How did you make it work? Is it too late and I’m doomed to horrible sleepers? 17 more years of waking up three times a night…

1 year ago today...

I looked like this-

That is a big baby/baby belly and swelling. To me, my fingers look like they are going to burst. I was 34 weeks and 5 days on the day these pictures were taken.

This was my last outing before becoming a mama again and again. We were at our friends J & P's celebrating J's birthday. P took these pictures (they are the only ones of the twin pregnancy). My swelling was already pretty bad at this point.

I can't believe how my face looked. Despite how the picture looks my eyes are indeed open. (That's my hubs in the shot with me if you can see him) The next day (Sunday) I stepped on the scale and realized I had gained 17 lbs in a week. I began frantically drinking water and hoping the swelling would go down prior to my appointment on Tuesday. This was to be my last week of work and I really wanted to make it to Friday. Monday however ended up being my last day. Tuesday I went to the doctor, then to the hospital and stayed until my girls were born. Recounting this story means it's only about two weeks until my babies turn 1. I'm excited and sad all rolled together. I'm also far more emotional than I was when Dade turned one, maybe because it was harder for so much longer.

For the record all the clothes I was wearing that night were non-maternity clothes. But they were also my comfies that I NEVER left the house in, that was until there wasn't anything else I could stretch over myself.

C & B in the kitchen

This is a cabinet in my kitchen. You will notice this cabinet door does not have a child safety lock.

But that's OK it only houses storage containers also know as "Rubbermaid"/"Tupperware" (which none of it is.)

The cabinet used to look like this. Organized, plenty of space, easily viewable..
I know you probably think I'm crazy to blog about my kitchen cabinet but there is cuteness coming, I promise.

This is what the cabinet looks like frequently now.
No need to guess who the culprits of this abomination are-

Yesterday while cleaning up the kitchen I caught them in the act. To save myself from listening to them throw holy temper tantrums and hang on my leg, trying to pull down my pants and cry while I was doing the dishes I let the "Tupperware" mayhem ensue.

I wanted to catch photos of them playing peek-a-boo with lids and gnawing on the containers, but this is as close as I got.

As soon as they heard the camera turn on they would drop what they had in there hand and look at me to smile. SUCH HAM BONES!!

Then they just couldn't take it anymore and had to crawl over to me for more smiling, talking and raspberry blowing.

Side note about me and how having twins has changed me. If Dade had gotten into the cabinet, which he hardly ever did because there was always an "extra" parent to entertain him. I would have likely freaked out that he was slobbering and chewing on clean dishes and promptly put them in the sink to be washed. What did I do last night instead, after all our children were tucked in bed for the night?? Well of course I put all the plastic ware back in the cabinet and took a picture for such a post as this, because seriously who has a lick of time to wash any extra dishes.

10 Down 2 to go

That's months baby!! Woo hooo closer to 1. I love my girls and can't wait til they are toddlers(my favorite kid age so far). Their personalities are developing quickly now.

Below are some images from the proverbial photo fail I attempted on Sunday, when they are were looking cute in their matchy matchy outfits sitting on their stools. I really should not have tried to take pictures with the TV on, much less the Disney channel.

"But mama this is way more important than you."

Coralee, " Are you buying that I am looking at the camera?"

Brennan, "Mama I AM smiling"

Coralee, "Oh! hi brother."

This is Coralee's new smile when she is trying.

And we're done..

PS- Not to be outdone by her sister Ms. Coralee took her first steps on Sunday at church. Unfortunately we have no video. Both girls are still testing out their walking but feel that crawling is the far faster option at this point.