The stool of doom.

Ok, what is with Becca and head injuries? 

I’ve lost count of the times she has conked her melon in the last 2 years.   These falls will be the death of me (or her maybe).   I’m guessing she’s knocked 20 points off her IQ so far.  

The other night was particularly bad.  Becca was up on her stool at the island eating a bedtime snack of ice-cream (yes I know, bad mama).   It’s a high stool, but she’s been using it for a year now with no mishaps. She somehow knocked her bowl off the counter and tried to catch it sending her headfirst towards the lino.  Her forehead hit the floor first and her body kept going over until she was on her back (you can imagine the angle her neck was at).  It felt like a knife went through my chest.  For a horrible 10 seconds she didn’t move, her eyes were rolled sideways and she was shaking.  Thankfully then her face screwed up and she started to cry.  She rolled over and stood up.  She was ok....this time.

I’ve had more than my fair share of practice at assessing head injuries.  After checking B over, I decided that a hospital visit wasn’t necessary.  I would just wake her every hour or so and check her again.   So I sat up on the couch with B sleeping in my arms until 2am when I was finally reassured enough to go to sleep myself.

Other parents, seeing the twins climbing at the playground or jumping off some ridiculous height, often say “I can’t believe you let your kids DO that.”   But try and stop them!  Of course I don't like seeing them take risks.  It scares the crap out of me.   But I don’t want to keep them in bubble wrap either.  It's hard to find the balance between keeping them safe but also giving them room to grow and develop.    

Does it get any easier?  It’s that old saying about how being parent is like having your heart walking around outside your body.  And this is only the beginning.  They’re going to ride bikes, go skiing, drive cars, attend frat parties and all manner of other dangerous things.   How am I going to cope?   

Maybe we should have just gotten cats instead.   

Back on the "stool of doom" the next day getting herself a drink of water.

A typical terrifying playground activity.

Quote of the day:

Becca wakes up bright and chipper the next morning  “Do you remember that I dropped my ice-cream and fell off my chair and bonked my head.  That was soooo funny!!!!  I laughed and laughed. ”

Maybe it’s more like 25 IQ points.

Note to self: Stock up on holy water and garlic

When Becca was a baby, I jokingly nicknamed her Dracula because she would cry inconsolably if even the tiniest beam of sunlight touched her face.

So yesterday she wanders out of her room with a nosebleed. Her face is a mess and she’s sticking her tongue out to catch the trickle of blood.

B: “Look Mama, I’m a Vampire!! Did you know that Vampires drink blood? Did you KNOW that, Mama?”

Um yes … but how do YOU know that!?

B [fighting off all attempts to wipe her nose]: “No Mama. No Kleenex! I just want to be a vampire!”

So should I be worried?

Or do I finally have an excuse to buy her one of these super disturbing pacifiers?

Why I let my 2 year-old son take a home pregnancy test.

We were over the moon when we got pregnant with the twins. I took 2 or 3 home pregnancy tests a day for the first few weeks just to prove it was really happening (Greg still has no idea what my montly HPT budget was back then). Then the crippling all-day nausea kicked in and I didn't need any other evidence that the pregnancy was real.

I still have those tests stored in the drawer of my nightstand (along with other random mementos).  I don't have the heart to throw them out. I will never forget the joy of finally seeing that second line after trying for so long.

This week, the twins finally figured out how to open that drawer. They immediately started pulling the tests out rattling on in typical motor-mouth fashion. "Mama, what are these? Are these markers? Can I have paper to draw on? There’s lots of them. Can I take the tops off these white markers? Mama, what ARE these?"

Charles tried to put one in his mouth and I grabbed it away, saying without thinking "No, that’s yuck. Mama peed on that". Charles’ next question (of course) was "Can I pee on it, too?" One of our potty-training challenges is that Charles thinks it’s absolutely hilarious to pee on stuff  ( like toys or his sister in the bathtub).  Anyway, next came the tantrum "I wanna pee on Mama’s ‘white markers’!!!!   I want Mama to share her ‘pee-markers’ with me!!!" Then I gave in. I went to the bathroom, sat him on the potty and gave him one of the tests so he could pee on it. And I took pictures.

But look how happy it made him!!

One of my favorite parenting books is Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn (Thanks Sharon for giving it to me). One thing Kohn recommends is that parents say "yes" more often. It’s frustrating for toddlers to hear "no" all the time and if we save our "no’s" for when it’s actually important, kids will be more agreeable and more likely to comply. It’s picking your battles and also supporting their independence and development of decision-making skills.

Kohn suggests examining your motivation -- do I really have a good reason to say no?  Are they asking for something that's dangerous or wrong? Or is the request merely inconvenient or in Charles' case, absurdly silly. I am totally guilty of just saying "no" automatically. It's easier. Especially at the end of the day when I'm tired and I don't want to clean up after a craft project or go outside and throw rocks into the pond. But I want to change that.

Some other things I said yes to this week-end:

1) We let the twins have a bath at 7:30 am (without even having breakfast first!)

2) On our walk, we backtracked about 6 times "to see the geeses again"

3) I let the twins wear their coats backwards on our trip to the grocery store. 

4) They helped me wash dishes at the sink even though it made a colossal mess. 

So here's to saying yes!!

Sandra

Quote of the Day:
Me: "What happened to your banana?"
B: (Giggling maniacally) "I ate it.  Now I’m turning it into POOP!!!"

Bad Mama

A few weeks ago the twins had stomach flu...again.   That whole routine is getting old (the barf buckets and clean-up and disinfecting everything and OMG they got poop on the carpet! etc)

I got lazy this time around and just pitched anything really dirty in the trash.  Including a pair of old PJ bottoms that I didn't think would be missed.  I was wrong.  Turns out they are Becca's favorite PJ's.  I've had to explain many times what happened to them and today she came up with a rescue plan.  "We will talk to the garbage man and ride on his truck and go to the dump and find my Piglet pants and put them in water and they will be clean.  I really, really miss them, Mama."

(sniff) ...I'm a bad mama.

But I did drive all over town to find gold chocolate coins which were the only thing the twins wanted for Easter.  That was good, right?  Unfortunately, the twins were with me at the time so I had to lie through my teeth save the day and pretend I'd left the bag behind at Bulk Barn thus preserving the myth of the Easter Bunny.   And causing a small amount of crying which I cleverly averted by feeding them cheesies in the car.  Sadly I'd forgotten the diaper bag so they did the next stop on the errand run with orange faces and leaving many orange fingerprints. 

Oh and I didn't get Easter baskets so they did their egg hunt with their Halloween candy buckets.

Wow, I really am a bad mama.

But I did get B a "Beautiful dress that twirls":

And I didn't complain when C insisted on wearing his "Taylor Hall sweater" instead of his adorable Easter outfit.  Or when he wanted to "Run run run" instead of getting pictures taken. 

Happy Easter!

Introduction

So I'm starting a bog.   A "Mommy Blog" to be exact.  Because the world can't have too many of those.

Why you might ask? Don’t I have enough to do?

I’d like to document cute B and C stories for posterity and also some of my thoughts before my brain turns completely to jelly and I forget them all. I figure I’ll be more motivated if I think someone else might actually be reading it.   I just need an outlet. Facebook isn’t cutting it anymore and my co-workers get really tired of me rambling on about my kids. "Don’t you have anything else going on in your life?" Well, no actually. And I couldn’t be happier.

The significance of the name:
When Becca and Charles were babies, I met many parents with older sets of twins. They all told me the same thing. That special message that parents of multiples need to hear. "Don’t worry, it WILL get easier." Sometimes complete strangers would stop me on the street or at the mall just to pass on those words of hope.

Last week, I saw a mom with her newborn twins at Carters/Oshkosh and I stopped to gush over the babies and reassure her. "Don’t worry, it gets easier." But what I didn’t mention was how long she'd have to wait -- I'm thinking it must happen around age 3.

Cheers,
Sandra


Quote of the Day:

C at the grocery store.  "Mama, let's go on an adventure and see the monsters!!!"  Took me about 20 minutes to figure out he meant the lobsters in the seafood tank.