Ala Peanut Butter Sandwiches*

Along with "twirly" dresses and tiaras, Ada is currently really into wands. She has a wand with a pink star at the end, but at some point decided that she needed more wands. In a burst of crafty enthusiasm that is rare in these life-with-twins days, I immediately hopped up and got a project going. Using a few items readily available around our house, we made a whole wizarding academy full of wands. This project was so easy that it does not really need a tutorial, but since the baby on my lap is sleeping, I am providing one anyway:

WAND-MAKING: ANOTHER HALF-ASSED TUTORIAL

STEP 1: Get some cardboard (the thinner type works best). Cut out a shape - we made star, moon, diamond, duck and octopus shapes. (Don't ask why she wanted an octopus. She's 4, that's why.) Cut out a matching shape so that the brown sides match up.

STEP 2: Color the cut-out shape (preferrably on the brown side of your cardboard, but if your preschooler disagrees, so be it).

STEP 3: Get a stick, dowel or skewer. Glue it to the cut out. You can see that Ada decided that the brown side should be on the inside. Be sure to put the glue on the side you want on the inside.

STEP 4: Glue the other cut-out on the other side of the stick so that they match up. Let the wand dry (and keep your preschooler from grabbing the wands while the glue is drying).

STEP 5: Tie a ribbon on the stick, up close to the top of the wand. We used the shiny ribbons normally used for wrapping presents.

The handmade star wand, and its purchased cousin/inspiration.

STEP 6: There is no step 6, other than to take your wand out for a spin. If you turn your little sister and brother into pumpkins, be sure to turn them back before your parents notice.

*If this title doesn't ring a bell, click here.

Two Little Girls, Three Little Pigs

An observation - Ada already favors Mira. Maybe it is the unconscious bond of sister-love, but she lavishes a bit more attention on Mira than on Ian. She wants to sit next to her in the car, prefers her as a walk-to-school companion, and asks for her more often than she does Ian.

Ada reading to an entranced Mira

Twelve Weeks with Captain Obvious

Mayberry Mom (channeling Captain Obvious) posted a series of reminders about things not to ask a woman of childbearing age.  My personal favorite -- "are you planning on having any more children?" -- is something I have heard a lot in the past 3 months. Even if we didn't just have twins, it is kind of a weird question to ask people who have just had a child. No one getting up 3 times a night really wants to think much about doing it all over again with another kid.

Mayberry's list of things not to ask got me thinking about the things Chris and I have been repeatedly asked since Ian and Mira were born three months ago.  A sampling:

Do twins run in your family? (They do now.)

Was it a surprise? (Yes, we were expecting puppies.)

Are the natural? (actually, we had them crafted from an advanced polymer.)

Are they identical? (Wow, seriously? One is a boy, the other a girl.)

People also ask us how we can tell them apart. Usually this question indicates not so much that the person is an idiot but that he or she has not actually looked at both kids. After the first week or two, when they both looked liked, well, babies, they have developed very distinct facial features. Take a peek:

Hell, they were even color coded in this photo

She has these huge cheeks (much like Ada did) while he has a longer face. Plus, about everything else is different: their hairlines; eyes, eyebrows, amount of chub; and how easily they smile. In many ways Mira looks a lot like Ada did at this age, while Ian is already his own man, so to speak.

Ok, moving on.

Ian, not seeming to mind that his sister had been bopping him in the head for the past 20 minutes

Now that Ian and Mira are 12 weeks things are changing. Sadly for me, I don't mean that they are sleeping through the night or writing their first novels. Now that the summer is ending, Chris will be returning to work and I will be going solo.

And I am scared shitless.

I am so scared I am rethinking the wisdom of taking 6 months off from work. If I went back to work I'd be able to hand off my bundles of (crying, fussing, hungry, wet) joy to someone else while I talked about Important Things(tm) all day.  Then someone else could deal with the crying that will inevitably result from one adult caring for two small babies. I am really feeling at a loss about how this will work. Amazingly enough, neither Chris nor I have been alone with both babies for more than a few hours at a time. While this has been great in so many ways, it means that I have had a lot of time to build up a scary image of what the alone-with-twins future will bring. I am constantly asking myself: how do I do this? I know how to feed them together, and generally how to entertain them, but what do I do with them when they get tired? Will all naps be walks with the stroller? (Seriously, I need some advice. Sarah? Rebecca? Anyone?)

Oh, and all that hand-wringing over breastfeeding may be moot, as Mira is showing signs of rejecting my breasts. (how's that for solidarity among females?) It is too early to say for sure, but the past couple of days have included episodes of rejection of (and tears in response to proffered) milk-engorged breasts. I know mine don't rival Salma Hayek's, but still, there is milk there, for the taking.

Guess which twin takes very little convincing to make her laugh?

I need to keep staring at the above photo to remind myself that this has not all been drudgery and torturous sleeplessness (though it certainly has been the latter). The twins gave us one glorious night this month, which happened to be our anniversary. When Ada was an infant, I was determined to celebrate our anniversary. It seemed very important not to ignore "us" while we were so wrapped up in her. I saw that the jazz trio that had played at our wedding was giving a free outdoor concert in Washington Park, and we decided to pick up picnic supplies from a favorite restaurant so that we could sit on the grass enjoying the music. Somehow it did not occur to me that driving across town to the restaurant (at rush hour) might be a bit dicey with a colicky infant. She cried the whole time. As she did during the drive across the river to the park. However, I don't remember her crying during the concert. Maybe she did, but more likely I nursed her and we bounced her and everyone had a good time. Mostly I remember how stressful each red light of the trip was, as Ada's crying started the moment the car stopped.

This year we made no such plans. Chris and I know we love one another, and one year without a dinner out won't wreck us. Still, it was nice to get that little present of sleep from the babies. It has not happened again since, but it is good to know they care.

Random Quote and Unrelated Photo of the Week

I used to be a productive individual who read serious fiction in the hours before I went to sleep. But that was in the innocent, un-Scrabbled past.

Deborah Solomon

Sand Between Our Toes

We are at the beach this week. Despite missing my sister and brother-in-law, who are half a continent away starting a new endeavor, we are having a good time.

photo credit: chris

photo credit: chris

Introducing: iPoop

Mira and Ian do not poop daily. This may have something to do with the formula they drink, but that isn't so important. What is important is that while Mira generally goes every two to three days, Ian can hold out for a week or more. It has gotten to the point where Chris and I can not remember who has gone when. This confusion is compounded by our problems remembering who has eaten recently, which one was breastfed last, who got a bottle and what was in it.

These memory problems are not unique to us; I remember commiserating with other mothers when Ada was little, each of us unable to remember which side our babies had nursed on last. Many women resort to reminder pins on their shirts, tape on their bras, and other tricks to remind them.  People with twins suffer this memory problem even more acutely than those with single babies, as two people are often feeding, changing, washing and rocking the babies. Who can remember what happened when?

In response to these problems, and to what we are sure will be thunderous calls for this product, Chris and I have developed a new iPhone application - the iPoop. iPoop lets you simply and easily track when your baby has a bowel movement, as well as when you last bathed her, the timing and duration of naps, breast- and bottle-feedings, and other important yet immensely forgettable moments in your child's day. You'll never again needlessly worry whether your child has gone for too many days without a bowel movement - you'll know whether or not to worry that it has been more than ten days. No more relying on your sleep-impaired memory to tell you if your little dear has nursed from the right side five times in a row, and no more relying on your sense of smell to tell you that it is past time to give the little darling a bath.

Also for use with pets, recalcitrant older children and the constipated.

Well crud, Chris just found an online baby activity tracker. There go our fortune in the making. Good thing I haven't done more than come up with a name.

Mama milk

Things may be falling apart, breastfeeding-wise. Actually, using the word 'breastfeeding' is kind of misleading, given that Mira and Ian generally each get fed directly from the source no more than twice a day, more often once each. Despite not getting a lot of, um, face time with my breasts, the babies are getting a lot of what we refer to as mama milk. As much as I hated pumping when Ada was a baby, I now find it in some ways better than actually breastfeeding directly. When pumping I can generally get out enough milk to feed both twins for one feeding. If I nurse I can feed one of them, and then sometimes that one finishes nursing and still wants more milk. When they were first born they were too small and tired to efficiently get the milk out, so we used bottles a lot. I think this made them lazy where drinking is concerned. Getting the milk out of me is a lot more work for them than getting it out of the bottle, and neither of them is consistently willing to take on that challenge even now.

At the end of this week the twins will be 11 weeks old - almost 3 months. As they sleep less it is harder to find time to pump. Last week I saw my likely future, in which I am alone with the twins during the day and can not pump without all hell breaking loose. Chris had gone in to work and Ian and Mira were both fed when I realized I really needed to pump. I put them both in seats (okay, car seats, as we were camping out at Ellen's house during the heat wave) and set up the pump on the floor. While rocking both car seats (with my feet) I pumped to the sound of the babies wailing. I was so traumatized that I had to take the babies to Target for the air conditioning and in-house Starbucks. Yes, it is kind of funny, if it isn't happening to you. In retrospect, it is even a little funny to me, but only a little because I know I will be living this again soon when Chris goes back to work.

This week I was able to successfully pump with Mira lying near me on the floor gurgling instead of crying. Hopefully I can do this with both kids if I can work out some kind of decent schedule. If I can't, the babies' days of mama milk are going to come to a quick end. Today was the first day that we ran out of milk before the end of the day. I knew this might happen, but at 2 pm when I made the decision to nap instead of pump, it felt like a good choice. At 10 pm it still feels like the right choice.

I actually have a bunch of frozen milk in the fridge, from last month when the milk was flowing freely and I was making more than Ian and Mira could drink. I am not sure why, but I seem to be getting a bit less from pumping these days. This may be just a normal slowdown that happens with longer-term pumping instead of breastfeeding, or it may be a byproduct of me pumping fewer times a day. The latter is likely, since I balance pumping with a desire to leave the house once in a while. We can bust out the frozen milk, but that takes a little prior planning. When one of the babies is hungry and screaming, it is quicker and thus better to mix formula than to defrost frozen milk.

In any case, I am sad about not being able to feed the babies mostly breastmilk, not out of a feeling that it is better (though all things being equal I think it is) but because formula is expensive. Wow, even at Costco prices, it pains me to shell out for something we can get (mostly) for free. (if you don't count the extra I eat to keep things going) And that's another thing - with pumping and nursing I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want. Enormous, greasy sandwiches, handfuls of trail mix at 3 am, nectarines and chocolate bars gobbled or savored. Feeding twins takes a lot of calories, and as someone who loves to eat this is an unexpected side bonus to breastfeeding.

We'll see what happens. For now I still have milk for the babies, and I hope I can continue feeding it to them at least until I go back to work at 6 months. After that who knows whether pumping will get easier or harder once I am away from Ian and Mira a bit more. I am not even sure if my milk will hold out that long. This whole twin thing is an ongoing lesson in giving up control, so why should this be any different?

A Brief Interruption

Nonlinear Papa here with an important public service announcment...

I want to live with
Nonlinear Girl
I could be happy
the rest of my life
with Nonlinear Girl

A taker of pictures
She puns with delight
You see us together
Ten years to the night
My Nonlinear Girl

(insert Neil Young inspired one-note guitar solo)

Happy Anniversary!

Much love,
C

Thanks for all the fun!

Despite being at home with the family instead of living it up at Blogher, it looks like I (or at least the photo of my head) had a great time.

I got to hang out with cool women:

Mayberry with Goon Squad Sarah and Magpie Musing, and with the Bloggess

Mayberry Mom took me all over town. I got cozy with a unicorn's butt, ate cheeseburgers and indian food (this focus on food pictures shows that despite having not met me in person, MM knows me all too well).

More evidence of what a good time my head had are here and here and here. And here.

Thanks!

Edited to add:

Apparently not ALL was joy and glamour for my head. Christy was only able to get one picture before her daughter ate my head. Maybe in retaliation for me spelling her mom's name wrong in a prior post?

No Fiona, NOOOOOOO!

Edited AGAIN to add:
Melissa figured out who the original head on a stick is! The head that Gwen and I found last year is Karen Meg's head! Nice detective work Melissa!

Random quote and unrelated photo(s by Ada) of the week

Photo Credit: Ada

"I'm strangely calm," he told me, laughing. "But then I don't know when I'm not strangely calm."

Calvin Thompkins
Shadow Player: The provocations of Paul Chan

Half right

Ada came running downstairs wrapped in a blanket, yelling, "turkey cold! turkey cold! turkey cold!"

Alighting at the dining room table she declared, "I'm cold like a turkey!"

"Cold like a turkey that's really cold?" Chris asked.

"NO. Cold like a turkey when it's cold."



Well, the kid usually runs hot, but she is right about one thing. She is a turkey.

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

When fresh, (zucchini) are great tools for self defense; but if you leave them in your pocket or purse for too long, you'll have a smelly mess.

Travis Salig
westsidegardener.com

Open Letter to the Fairies (a guest post from Monkey Boy)

Dear Fairies,

 I would like to know if  you know how fairies get into nutshells?
Also I would like to know how fairies are so tiny?
How are fairies inside nuts?   How can they make beds in nuts?
I would like to say why can fairies fly away so fast?
Fairies: I have a school with lots of other children in it.  Even girls and even boys.  The girls and boys in my school sometimes go outside.  Sometimes when my mom and dad pick me up from school they have something for me to eat.  I have one backyard and I know about fairies, but I never met one.  I would like to say if you would like to get in one of the daffodils in Darrel and Claire’s yard.
And then I would like to say how come we can’t see fairies?


Monkey Boy

Two Month Tales

On Due Dates and Don'ts
The folks posting messages on my local twin group's web site seem to think 8 weeks is a peak of horrible. Can't say I disagree where fussiness and refusal to be pacified are concerned. The problem with pinning my hopes on things getting better in the immediate future is that all the experts' sleep and other milestones are based on weeks after the due date. So this could mean no relief for three weeks or more. This is a bit daunting. Yes, I know this will ease up; unlike with Ada I know this stage will pass. The problem is that I am tired now. (On the up side, I have gotten some good naps when kind friends  have stopped by to walk the babies - Thanks!)

Since We Both Know Preschoolers are Filthy
A woman at the farmers market approached Mira, who was in the stroller. She and her young son looked at Mira, and then the kid reached out and touched Mira''s face. Without asking me first. More importantly, without the mother asking. I know from experience the range of nasty that a four year old can carry around. Please don't touch my child with those hands, unless you are prepared to sit up with a cranky, stuffy-nose baby in three days. Thanks.

Smiles, Everyone Smiles!
Week 8 brought a happy milestone for both Mira and Ian - they both smiled for the first time. Wel, they have smiled before, but only those internal "I feel good with my full belly and cozy cradling" smiles that are nice to see but not related to the kids interacting with us. Early in the week, Chris was holding Mira. She was alert, not hungry, and not fusssy. Ada started cooing and talking to Mira, who rewarded her big sister with big toothless grins. It was great that we saw those smiles together, and even better than Ada was the smiles' recipient. She was thrilled, and it has encouraged her to interact more with her siblings. Thursday afternoon, while I was sitting outside with my feet in the kitty pool, Ian smiled at me. Now that we have reached this milestone, can crawling, talking and driving be far off?

Their Best Trick
I don't know if it is because Ada was pretty much exclusively breast-fed when she was two months old, but Ada was not much of a spitter. We burped her, but my memory is that she rarely spit up. Not so with Ian and Mira - they routinely spit up, whether they have been fed by bottle or breast. This is fine; it is not as if I am wearing fine silks and linens. But. Ian and Mira have somehow figured out that the best place to spit up is down my shirt, between my breasts. It has happened more times than I would like to admit - I burp one of the babies, and do or don't get anything out of them. Then I turn the baby to face me and suddenly: BRAAAP! a big spit-up is sliding down my chest into my bra. Chris laughed when it happened again this morning, saying "I think it is their best trick." Best trick indeed. Let's see who's laughing when then learn to spit up on his pants zipper.

My Number One is Still So Number One
Ada has really been fantastic. The first few weeks were pretty rough, and sure, we still see more than our share of tantrums and difficult behavior. But overall, and given the abrupt change in her circumstances, Ada has been amazing. She loves Ian and Mira (especially Mira, who she favors possibly from some gender-based bond) and enjoys holding them, feeding and bathing them, and offering opinions about why they might be crying. But more importantly, she has shown herself willing to play independently in a way that is fairly new for her. When I need the time to pump or to put the dishes away she jabbers away to her dolls, busts out the pens and stamps, or reads herself books. She still needs (and deserves) a lot of attention, but she has been able to adjust to our changed world, showing a lot of maturity and charm.

Edited to add:
Chris is still the best husband ever. We had a night nurse come for part of the night (more on that later, hopefully) and we both got up with the babies at 2:30. Mira woke up again around 4:30, and he got her fed and back to sleep before bringing her to me in bed and then taking care of Ian. I just left Chris and Mira snuggled up in bed together.

Chris is incredibly kind, much nicer than I am, and about eleven thousand times as patient. All I have on my side of the balance sheet is the good sense to have found him so early in my life.

Long in the Nipple

Today at breakfast Ada said: Your nipples are quite large. It makes you look old.

I'd heard of "long in the tooth" but "long in the nipple" could be my new euphemism of choice.

part of what is aging me

Please Don't Ask That Question

Please - do not ask us how we are sleeping.

Even if you are concerned about us, don't ask.

Even if you think it is a funny little joke for parents of newborns, don't ask.

No really. Don't ask us. Do you really want to hear that we went to bed by 10, exhausted, were up at midnight to feed the twins and back in bed by 1, up again at 3? We did another feeding and then I went downstairs to pump. At 4 I was back upstairs to find Chris up with Ada, who had woken and had a bowel movement in bed. While he helps her clean up, I am with Mira, who has woken up and refuses to be settled, At 4:30 I sink into bed but can't sleep. I listen to my kind husband patiently helping Ada. I worry about how we we will ever get her to break this cycle and listen for noises from Mira and Ian. They'll wake again in an hour and need attention. Then Ada will wake up again and want some too. If we are lucky Chris or I will get a nap sometime later in the day. For me, that nap can be make or break, the difference between whether I function or melt into an emotional puddle.

This is just one night, worse than most, but not as exceptional as I would hope. So unless you really hate us, don't ask how we are sleeping. 

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

If you still doubt me,
Please be assured that this magazine has a rigorous policy
   of fact checking,
And all the information in this poem has been checked,
And directly verified with me.

Ian Frazier
Lines on the Poet Turning Forty

Happy Birthday Monkey Boy!

One of my favorite kids is five. People are right, time does fly.

Happy birthday kid. We love you. 

Thank You, Mother Nature

Nature is clearly not an entirely benign force, but once in a while we get something so charming that the cruelties can be, if not forgotten, at least momentarily forgiven.

I am not one of those women who revel in infancy. I don't believe all newborns are beautiful. Sure, I love the smell of a baby's head, but give me a soft round 6 month old and I am much more prone to melt than I am when faced with a skinny baby only a month along.

But once in a while... The other night I had one of those moments that stays with you when the memory of infancy's exhaustion and tears fade. Mira was fed and I was rocking her to sleep. She was in that groggy but not quite sleeping state when she suddenly flicked her eyes wide and flashed me a huge grin, complete with a big chortle. It was just a few seconds, but it seemed to last longer than that before her eyes closed and she was really asleep. The moment left me so charmed and elated, even though I knew she was not smiling at me or rewarding me for something I had done. But still, it was a reward, one that at 5 weeks helped tow me into a future where there will be real smiles, not to mention other real joys and challenges. Oh, I do love infancy, as long as it is as truly fleeting as everyone keeps reminding me to remember that it is.

Mira, sleeping during a family walk

In Case You Were Wondering

Three (non-consecutive) hours of sleep is a wildly insufficient amount for a night.


Good thing they are cute.

Ian, with an admirer

Mira, non-plussed that her parents are zombies

(the above was written with one hand while holding Ian so that he'll drop into deep enough sleep that I can lay him in bed, pump and then pass out.)