Smooth Operation

After a brief hiatus, I’m back with new material.

In a previous post I commented on how I needed to take on less stuff to reduce my stress level…..and didn’t.
But then I did.
Hence the no blogging.

While I was away from blog-land, Georgia had her umbilical hernia operated on.
She was born with her hernia and we were not expecting to have it fixed until she was around a year old. We were surprised when the surgeon, during a check up, said she was ready that following week.
The thing that made me the most nervous was not so much the surgery itself but the anesthesia. I read the frightening information available concerning anesthesia so I was informed but freaked. It is frightening because there is a vey small percentage of a likelihood of death. For some reason I knew in my heart she would be okay but I was still nervous.
Thank goodness the hospital had a great gift shop to help keep my head distracted.
My husband was a great pilar of support:

And a thoughtful friend offered to watch Jackson:

Georgia made it through her surgery and anesthesia just fine. I would, however, love to have been able to know what she was thinking as she was going under. Only because the last time I went under I just kept repeating “the snozzberries taste like snozzberries!!!”

Dude, Where’s My Wit

For the last week or so I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of fun and witty things to post here. Maybe I’ve been a little intimidated by Jerry’s amazing blog; Where Do Gaybies Come From, soon to be titled…..something else. We have boy/girl twins, stay at home parenting and awesomeness in common but Jerry has a little more experience under his belt (as his twins are a little older) and is quite an hilarious writer.

I’m not really getting down on myself here. I’ve learned that as twins get older you are rewarded for keeping them alive by having a little more free time so I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before I am back in the swing of things….mentally.

Which brings me to my latest observation.

Normally, I like to think of myself as a pretty humorous person but I think that, along with sleep and what used to be a plumper ass, I may have lost some wittiness since having children. I do things like:

Walk away from a conversation I just had with somebody, wondering what I just said, if it made sense and if I ended the conversation properly or just started walking away.

Forget the spelling of simple words like “their” or “tomorrow”.

Can’t tell a decent joke to save my life.

Forget whether or not I’ve said something and end up constantly repeating myself. “Oh, did I not say ‘thank you’ for the crackers? Thank you. Oh I did? Ummm, thanks.”

I have lost the ability to read directions and instructions completely, all the way through.

Can no longer interject with some hilarious little quip. I’m down to about 1 or 2 laugh out louders a month.

Stare blankly at my feet while I’m in bed trying to think of funny non-funny things that I do

Now that I’ve typed this all out, it appears as if you could either be reading a blog of a stay at home mom of twins or a career stoner.

I’m ultimately not too worried, I’m sure something that resembles my brain might slowly start to return….maybe it will bring some of my ass back with it too. In the meantime I will make due with my one or two solid laughers a month….here’s to hoping they end up here!

“But there’s TWO of them.”…and other hilarity from my husband

In order for me to be a stay at home mom, my husband, Rob, has to work a lot. It’s definitely a work in progress as far as nailing down the dynamics is concerned. Sometimes I freak out and tell him he’s not home enough and other times I’m anxious for him to leave…one less baby to take care of, but all in all I appreciate how hard he works and try to make the best out of the time we have together.
Because he is away from home so much there are little things he unfortunately misses out on…or I forget to fill him in on. As a result I have a few gems that have come out of his brain listed below. I guarantee this list can only grow…enjoy!

I know you sent me to the store to get two high chairs, but I have returned with a retro Radio Flyer tricycle and one table attaching child’s seat! Pretty cool, huh?

Awesome.

When I told this next one to my mom she laughed so hard she had to pull her car over.

While having some me time I get a call from Rob asking when I will be coming home. I told him I was heading home and asked “Why, is everything ok?”. He then explained that the kids were fussy and hungry…”then feed them?!” was my obvious response as I’m slowly pushing two cumbersome boxes containing actual highchairs through the store. His response?

“But there’s two of them and…..”followed by some sort of inaudible whimper

I mean what do you say to that except to laugh, right?

To be continued……

To Crawl or Not To Crawl

Georgia and Jackson just turned 9 months old the other day and I can hardly believe it. One thing that has been a constant struggle with boy/girl twins is not comparing their development. When our pediatrician first explained this I just nodded my head like “duh, they’re two different people , they’re two different sexes. ..it won’t be that hard”. It is hard! At each new development that one makes I’m questioning why the other hasn’t done the same thing. Our doctor reminds us that Jackson and Georgia are two different people and assures us that they are both healthy and growing and developing at exactly the rate they are supposed to….but that still doesn’t make me feel any better when it comes to the crawling thing.
Jackson has basically been crawling since 6 1/2 months while Georgia seems to be content with her latest achievement of sitting up unassisted. I try to give her plenty of belly time and encourage her with toys just out of reach, but the best she has is what I like to call the “penguin slide”. She doesn’t actually slide but she raises her legs up and her arms up and back as if she was, well, a penguin, gently careening down a slide of ice. I swear the look on her face is like she fully expects that this will get her where she wants to go followed by a grunt as if to say “why isn’t this working?!”.
I’ve recently started doing a little research to see when babies should be crawling and what I’ve learned is that babies can start crawling anywhere from 6 to 10 months. So, if by Georgia’s 10 month birthday, she has not started crawling, I will inform her to start crawling. Ok.. Obviously that won’t work, but it would be nice. She is so observant I wouldn’t be surprised if she just looked at me and said “Finally Mom, geeze, why didn’t you just say so?”. Or maybe she’s been crawling this whole time but thinks it’s funny to A: watch me get all flustered and B: make me think that it’s Jackson that’s knocking everything over. Really. I would not be surprised.
We have a doctor’s appointment in a few days so I will be talking to their pediatrician about it. She’ll probably roll her eyes and repeat herself for the billionth time but, whatever, maybe I need to hear it again. Whatever the case it will be good to either hear that she’s fine or that maybe there’s some more we can do to gently urge our little penguin along.
In the meantime, for all you parents of twins out there; just repeat over and over “they are two different people, they are two different people……..” at some point it may actually sink in.
For all the non parents out there; just lather, rinse, repeat.

And the mother of the year award goes to…

Not yours truly.
Today I just didn’t have the energy…for anything. I managed enough strength to change the twins, feed them and that’s about it. I’ve noticed that, every once in a while, a wave of exhaustion hits me and I need to “take a day off”. Although I still feel incredibly guilty about this, I feel it’s my body and my brain’s way of telling me “Okay, we’ve had enough. Here’s where we get off.” Today was quite a doozy though.
I made a barricade out of carseats and boppy pillows in the living room and cozied up on the couch. The twins seemed fine with this. Well, except for Jackson who was suddenly limited in his travels. I never really got to take a nap or anything, the thought of the endless possibilities of things that could go wrong while I was snoozing squashed that idea. So I’m sitting there blankly staring off into space and I realize; “I’m one of those moms right now. The kids and the floor are covered in cheerios, the house is a mess, I’m still in my pajamas, there’s a soap opera on tv, and all I can think is “I wish someone would bring me a meatball sandwich and some freakin’ Bon-bons.”. Man, I feel like I’m coming clean right now. Anyway, when I was just starting to muster up some energy to not be in that spot, my husband walked in the door.
Awesome.
“I swear this is not what it’s like all the time when you’re not here!”. He gets it though, bless his little hard working heart. I suppose that was the little jump start I needed though, and managed to pull off a mildly productive rest of the day. “Success!” I was thinking at the end of the evening as I put the freshly cleaned babies to bed…but not so fast.
As I begin to do some straightening up I notice a smell like a candle that has just been put out. I check the candles I had lit earlier in the evening and, sure enough, one that was almost gone was now gone and replaced by a small forest fire. Thankfully it was contained in a decorative bowl but, guess what I did next?! I poured water on it!!!!
As flames are lightly licking my face I am just standing there stunned thinking one: “you idiot“, and two: “I sure hope those curtains aren’t going to catch on fire.”.
They didn’t.
Everything is fine but today I get a big fat F in motherhood.

The Aftermath

Eye of the Tiger

Really, I didn’t know what else to put down for a title. I’ve dedicated myself to posting at least every other night but, tonight I’m drawing a blank…
Some random thoughts:
Why do refills for the diaper genie cost more than the diaper genie?
At what point will folding my children’s laundry become piling my children’s laundry into two separate, yet clean, bins?
Salsa is not a good late-night snack.

Dear Inventors:

Pretty tired tonight. There are still a lot of bugs that need to be worked out as far as bedtime with Jackson is concerned. While I was yawning and rubbing his back I thought of a couple inventions I would like to see:

1. Mommy Dummy – I suppose this one would be easy enough but perhaps too creepy. Seriously, just a dummy you can set up in your twins’ nursery so if they wake up at 3 am and look for you, there “you” will be and they can drift peacefully back to sleep.

2. Automatic Back Rub – This simple device would work similar to a porch light. Whenever there’s enough movement in the crib or a loud enough cry, the Automatic Back Rub springs into action safely rubbing my child’s back until he falls back to sleep.

These are the things that I think about as I’m sitting with my head pressed against the crib, arm falling asleep stuck between the bars, and perhaps a little drool slowly making it’s way down my exhausted face.
G’night…for now.

Friends With Benefits

Okay, so I know that in a recent post I delighted in the wonders of staying at home, but I feel I need to talk a little…no, sing the praises of getting out too. I don’t really mean the friggin’ mall, or the grocery store, or even a walk for that matter. What I’m talking about is time with friends. The ones that love your children. Really. Not to say that everybody you know doesn’t love your children but, let’s face it, there are some people out there that just aren’t “kid people”. You know them, you love them, but when you try to put a kid in their arms they stiff up like the walking dead. I used to be one of those people. Not so entranced by children. Different story now but I can remember when I was pregnant and people would hold their babies in my face like; “Oh look aren’t they cute! This is what yours are going to look like when they come out!”. I would just tilt my head, look the parent in the eye, and say: “Really? Thank you. Because I was worried for a second there that I was going to be giving birth to puppies.” Oh, hormones.
Anyway, I’ve gotten a little off-track.
Spending time at a friend’s house is great. We have a weekly dinner get-together with a group of friends that I always look forward to. Not just because I thoroughly enjoy these people and their company, but also because they also love mine and the babies’….aaaaannd it’s a nice break. There. I said it.
I get to socialize while the twins are lovingly passed around from one “aunty” or “uncle” to the next and I can still be right there if they need to eat or be changed. It’s great for the twins because they get to interact with other faces besides mine and it’s great for me because I get a little break without having to arrange a babysitter. It’s a new thing I will call Semi-Babysitting…or Mommy Playdates. Whatever I call it, it works.

Sleepy time success?

So I woke up this morning and I couldn’t remember whether or not I had to get up in the middle of the night to soothe Jackson back to sleep. I got a little excited thinking that my diligence over the last three nights has paid off but I asked Rob just to make sure. Yes! I actually did get a decent night’s sleep. Here’s what I did for three nights in a row:
I put Georgia in the other room for initial bedtime so Jackson wouldn’t wake her up by screaming or crawling on her face. I put Jackson in the crib and rubbed his back. When he sat up, I kissed his little head and left the room. He cried. For ten minutes. Then I went back in the room. As soon as I came in he knew the drill (by the second night) and laid down for me to rub his back. This happened about two more times until the back rubbing finally put him to sleep. When he would wake up periodically throughout the night, I would not take him out of the damn crib! To all non-parents out there; easier said than done. The first two nights I had to go in about every two to three hours but he was starting to catch on and falling back to sleep easier. So night three I only had to soothe him once and then I got to sleep in my bed with my husband, uninterrupted. Epic.
This all may seem a little boring for non-parents out there but I just had to share something that worked with other parents. That’s part of the reason I started this blog in the first place…that and, just like millions of other bloggers, I apparently like to see myself talk.
So. For parents and non-parents alike:
Go The **** to Sleep as narrated by Samuel L. Jackson

“Stay-at-home Mom Actually Stays at Home”

Today I made an executive decision and the twins and I stayed in today. I know, I threw caution to the wind and didn’t even ask Georgia or Jackson how they felt about it. I have a feeling they really enjoyed it though.
Lately I have kind of prided myself on the fact that we make sure to get out a lot, but mama needed a break dammit! It was like a beautiful dream. We woke up and cuddled in bed for a bit and then I thought I would attempt a routine. It was awesome. Seriously, from breakfast to playtime to nursing to nap…and then repeat. It was just what I needed to remind me that I am, in fact, a good mom.
For all those busy stay at home moms out there; try staying at home for a day. I know it sounds crazy but it does wonders for you and your babies. They get to relax and be car-seat free for a day and you get to just soak up their precious little faces.
Also, they don’t mind that you aren’t wearing make-up, smell a little,or that your hair looks like Don King’s.