Category: Uncategorized

Project Twin Preparation! How our family is getting ready for the chaos that begins in October.

This morning I woke feeling stoked.  Totally mentally prepared to be a mother of FOUR.  Ben even said, as I calmly dealt with Lewis sticking his fingers in the peanut butter and Art's strong desire for… something… that I was "on FIRE!"  And I was.  I was the super breakfast-making, kid-soothing, playdate-planning mom.  I didn't even feel nauseas!  Until I drank some orange juice with my breakfast.  That was an unfortunate decision.

Anyhoo, we are readying the house for the impending challenges.  I have revamped our laundry system by making a central hamper in our linen closet where previously there were drawers.  I've stored every bed's sheets under their respective beds (in  lidded boxes, of course) so there will be no searching for the correct set.  We have the minivan. That's working out great.  Lewis is out of the crib and comfortable in his lower bunk under Art, so that's good, too.  We have added shelving to storage closets so their contents are more accessible.  I will soon index much of what is in those closets so we will not have to waste time looking for things.  I am leaving Lewis diaper free for long stretches of time in my determined efforts to have him potty trained by twin-arrival.  So far so good.  He can hold it until a potty is present, or until he laughs or cries really hard.  Whichever comes first.  And I have weaned him off being carried so as not to be lifting any more "heavy objects" as I continue to grow.
Mentally I am preparing as well.  I practically meditate on the physical and emotional challenges of raising twin infants.  The sleeplessness, the monotony, the desperate attempt to stay loving and attentive to my two older children, at least for small parts of the day.  The other night I was up several times before morning to go to the bathroom or shake out my Restless Legs (a very annoying and unfortunate pregnancy symptom of mine) and I reminded myself of the plain reality that sleep will probably come in 30 to 90 minute intervals for a long time.  That's infant raising.  But it IS temporary.  But with two, even if they eat simultaneously and wake, or are woken, simultaneously they still require twice the diaper changes, twice the burping time and twice the soothing to sleep time.  There goes the two hours of sleep I used to grab with Art or Lewis when they were new.  
Well, things could definitely be different.  You really never know.  Both of these new babies could be marathon sleepers from an early age.  Maybe one of them will be that elusive baby that needs to be WOKEN to eat enough during the day!!  (I've never met one, but I hear there are such newborns.)  But just to be safe I am tearing my house apart and trying to put it back together in a new and almost-run-itself efficient way so those precious minute of sleep are not lost to trying to find the stain stick.

Twin percentages.

I’m no mathematician but if I calculate right, here are the chances for various sexes for our twins:
25% two boys
25% two girls
50% one of each
But in reality I think jess and I both think chances or 80% 2 boys. Boys boys boys. Jessica just corrected me and says she feels 65% 2 boys.
We find out in a couple weeks!

Lewis is shy.

Today I went with Lewis to music class instead of Jessica. As soon as we walked in he looked away from folks and grabbed my leg. He’s so shy! It’s actually quite a wonderful feeling to have a little shy body pressed against my leg. Makes me feel like a protector!

Nachos.

Art has always been a particular eater.  Like many kids his age, he does not like his foods to touch, he is very picky about textures (does not like sour cream, peanut or any other nut butter, hummus, or any other smooth, creamy thing like that) and resistant to new meals.  He doesn’t even like hamburgers.  Go figure.  But there is a meal he devours in heaping forkfuls that breaks seemingly all of his rules.  Nachos.

Our nachos are really more like deconstructed tacos by design.  I figured he would not want everything piled on together so we would bake the chips over refried beans with grated cheese on top and, hopefully, a little bit of beans would make it into his belly by way of the chips.  Offered as accompaniments are chopped lettuce, tomatoes, olives and salsa but I was doubtful he would want to pile those on.  Wrong.  First time we made nachos (out of desperation – I was scraping the bottom of the barrel dinner-wise) he put all the extras on and literally shoveled it in.  “This is the best dinner ever!  We should eat this EVERY night!”

Tonight we had nachos for the third time in his life.  He piled on lettuce and tomatoes and olives, licked the spoon that was coated with beans and didn’t eat a single chip.  “I just like the cheese,” he said, peeling it off of one.  Here are the pictures to prove that even the lettuce, or salad as he called it, was part of his smörgåsbord.