Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Boy talk

Having four girls and one boy, I love to talk to my son about manly boy things.

Like trucks. And robots.

And screwdrivers.

Unfair

So there I was, bouncing the boy baby on my knee. Playing and having some one on one time with him, all to the tune of "the grand old duke of york"...when my second child looks at me and states..."When are you going to do that with her (pointing to the girl baby)?" I look at her and remind her that it is, in fact, okay for me to play with one baby and not the other. (GASP) I know...I know!!! WHAT am I thinking? Then she stares at me with a look of horror and says "But she can see you!"

So, the girl baby can see me playing with her brother, and not with her...I didn't realize that the trauma of things not being equal started at such a young age.

When I buy something for, or spend time with one of my children, and not the other...that is called being unfair. But at the same time, they all want to be the only one who goes with me somewhere. And now, apparently, I can't spend time with one of the babies and not the other.

There really is a secret guilt about spending one on one time with one of the babies and not the other though. I have had it that feeling even before they were born. I wonder if all twin mama's feel that?

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Boy and girl







Favorite and most unfavorite

When asking my children, in an attempt to bond and create conversation, what their most favorite things are about the twins, I get this:

1. They are cute (lucky, really...It would suck if they were ugly when we get to the UNfavorites...cute can carry you pretty far)

2. They smile.

And that's it. I wonder if it is because I am interrupting their TV time by trying to talk to them. Probably. The Unfavorites are:

1. They poop. (This is from this morning, when I had a diaper ON the boy baby and he pooped and it fell off. I wonder if boys have some sort of super power. The power to get dirty and create dirt no matter the time, place or space...hmmmmm, maybe I am onto something. Direct quote was "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM...he pooped. And his diaper came off." So that means COVERED in poop. Head. To. Toe.)

2. They cry. (Not much I can do about this one.)


Here are my most favorites (I will keep it at five):

1. When the boy baby yawns, he hums afterwards for about six seconds.

2. When the girl baby laughs, it comes from her gut. And she laughs so easily. When the girls get her going, THEY laugh because she laughs, and then SHE laughs because they laugh. It is so cool.

3. When the babies wake up in the morning, it is just the three of us in the bed, and they have crazy bed hair and sweet smiles.

4. There are two of them.

5. They love to be naked anywhere and at anytime.

Unfavorites:

1. They just pulled out the power cord from the wall that keeps my computer on. (Apparently blogspot saves the blog...good to know!) And they try to eat the powercords under my desk when I am on the computer.

2. They pull each others hair.

3. They won't stop growing up.


Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Quote of the day

"My farts smell like chocolate bars"

Second child


Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Whew...it's still there!

So I have a son. And my son has a penis. And my son loves the fact that he has a penis. I, as a mother and a woman, find this new found yet age old relationship between my son and his penis quite fasinating.

When the diaper comes off, his hands must immediately (and I mean immediately) reach down and make sure that his penis is still there. He grabs it, jabs it, pulls it, pokes it, squeezes it, mashes it...it is multi-fuctional.

Did you know that penis's or peen"i" can collect things? I didn't. But they can and they do, at every opportunity. Little bits of grass. An occasional twig. Sand. Chalk. Dirt (of course). Sometimes things are in there and I can't quite figure out what they are, or where they came from. I have heard from other mothers that when he gets old enough, he will start to put things in his foreskin. Like marbles. And pennies. And dead ants.

'Cause really....why wouldn't you want dead ants in your foreskin?

Saturday, June 20, 2009

The second (used to be middle)




Boys are awesome



He comes up with these faces all on his own. I think that he is telling me that he wants to be a pirate. Or that maybe he was a pirate. Or that he likes pirates. Or that he understands what it is like to live like a pirate. Or maybe it is his grrrrrrrrrrrr face and I am just interpreting it as a aaarrrrrrrrrrrg face.

It's one of those things for sure.


Friday, June 19, 2009

The oldest

Waxing maudlin


When the babies were about six weeks old, we went to the Renaissance Festival. As I was holding my babies and attempting to walk six feet without being stopped (and I admit two babies held by one mama is worthy of stopping someone) I bumped into a family with twins. She looked at me and the babies and said (first words) "Don't worry, they will grow and it will get better." Then she went on to tell me how "horrible" the first year is.

Grow? Better? Easier?

Now I will be the first to say that it would most likely be a lot more difficult if these were my first babies. I have tried and failed at ways of parenting with my other children, so hopefully they will be the only ones to suffer the brunt of therapy...and I am very happy with where we are as a parenting unit. I say this today of course...ask me again tomorrow!

Anyway, I see many many posts about how hard it is, how simple "twin" things are overwhelming. Two babies in a bath, one goes this way and one goes that. One gets into this thing while the other gets into that. Pretty normal twinage type stuff.

I embrace that. Embrace it so completely.

I know that I will miss that terribly when it is gone. I can't hardly even think about it. I tell the babies all of the time to STOP GROWING!! I can't think about the fact they are almost one. I hate it. There are so many amazing things in every little thing that they do. I LOVE that when one starts to try to climb the stairs, the other has just peed all over the floor. I might complain about it...but I have noticed that I still leave my babies naked every day. I love a naked baby more than I care about the pee.

I don't know. They are going to go off in two directions and we are going to feel torn in two directions. I can see that tear as something that needs to be patched up...or I can fill it with the joy that they bring me.

I don't mean to say that I don't have days. I do.

I have times where if they don't stop touching me/nursing me/climbing all over me, I'm going to scream. Those usually come after hard nights. But I can count those nights on one hand and I am pretty good about not carrying that on for more then one day.

I have had so many people say "I make it look easy", or "I set the bar so high"...but really, it IS easy. They are the most awesome, fantastic, funny, amazing babies that I have ever known (standard not including my others) and it is a privilege to get to be in their lives.

Mama's of twins...we have to do it either way. Why not do it with complete surrender to the entire experience and overwhelmingness of it all?

What an amazing trip.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The middle




Just go to bed

Why is there always one child that has to hang on for all she's worth? Just go to bed already!! I get four of them down, it's 10pm (which is way to friggin' fraggin' late for kids to be up anyway) and I just want to eat some cheesecake my mom made and read my book about Elfs and Druids...

I mean...my book about the political aspects of American birth and the maternal assement of hospital practioners and the level of informed consent within those establishments and why birthing....

yeah, okay...my book about Elfs and Druids.

So anyway, go to beeeeeeeeeeeeduh. I want cheesecake!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Rubbermaids: Not just for storin' stuff

















Thank you so much Allison, for your amazing photo's.

Fitting it all in

We bought an eight person tent with a pole that needed to be replaced off of Craigslist for fifteen dollars (I am such a great hunter/gatherer!). We took the four person tent camping this weekend, having looked at the eight person tent and determining that they are "about" the same size, we could just replace the pole when we got back. When I say "we"...I, of course, mean "me".

Yeah. They aren't even remotely close to being the same size. Memories can be faulty in this family. The last time I used the four person tent...I was about this big:


















Because Rebecca says that it is the dress that makes me look so big, here is another picture for perspective:



















That is our friend Pfoser holding one of our chickens eggs next to the babies.

Anyway, back to tents. When I am pregnant, I lose all perspective of time and place and tent size. Seven people, including two co-sleeping, breastfeeding ten month olds, DO NOT...I repeat DO NOT fit into a four person tent. I highly encourage any and all breastfeeding co-sleeping mothers of twins to pay the six dollars to get the new pole. It won't take that long and it is so worth it.

My night consisted of trying to keep the babies on the queen sized air mattress, under the blankets and as far away from each other as two babies sleeping next to each other can be. That is measured by inches. When I would put one on either side of me, the baby closest to the edge would fall in-between the tent and the mattress, and could have...at any moment...been eaten by the giant man sized spiders I kept finding in my tent. They woke often to nurse and fight with each other to get to the same boob. Apparently I only have one.

On the upside...camping is still as cool as it was when I was a kid.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Good times

On the upside...if you squint hard enough...it sort of looks like snow. Really really wet snow. On the floor of my bathroom. Next to the toilet. Where it seems, someone did some work...and then didn't flush. On the other hand, they wiped very well. Used lots of toilet paper.

Have I mentioned the babies know how to lift the seat now? Why am I always the last to know?

Naked







Ponder this

If you camp better than most people live...can it still be called camping?

Thursday, June 11, 2009

It's smurftastic!!

Remember the Smurfs!?

My children found them on TV today, which was crazy. I haven't seen that show in ages. I found it a perfectly valid way to talk as a child, and watching it today, I was struck by how easy it must have been to actually write the storyline. Just insert the word "smurf" for anything descriptive, or sensory, and BAM...it's smurfy! In honor of the smurfs, here is my day:


Wake up and look outside. Smurftastic! It is finally a smurfarific day! The girls are going to be so smurfy when they get outside. The babies both wake up at the same time and give me smurfy smiles.

We go downstairs and I pour some coffee. In an attempt to keep the babies smurfy, I take off their diapers and there is immediate smurfiness. They of course, smurf all over the floor, because...well, why wouldn't they? I make my other smurfs and smurfy breakfast, which they smurf right down....

Okay... Honestly, smurf is starting to sound like some sort of porn trick and I have to stop writing about it! My sick smurfy mind.

When words made sense

My family, over the years, has come undone. We have a secret language that only a select few understand. I really hope we aren't alone in this, and that there are others out there...somewhere...who are struggling with the same problem.

It starts out slowly. A child says "heagy" instead of "heavy". Cute, right? WRONG! Feet somehow becomes "pooters". Diaper turns into" dippy" or even better..."dip dip". Spongebob Squarepants is "Poo-da-da-da". We also add an "ee" to the end of things. Food is foodee, for example. Oh...and lets not forget the beezee. Which of course, is butt.

My children are "punkaloons", "spookaloons", "poopaloons" ...I am noticing a "loon" theme going on here. Maybe Minnesota is getting to me!

So a sentence in my house might be (and this is coming from a 34 year old man):

Hey poopaloon, your getting so heagy! Are you pooters stinky? Nope. It's your dippy. You have a stinky beezee.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Heck yeah!!


Quote of the day


"Girls, can you please stop making constant noise?"

Joel (papa)


It's so loud now

Things I have learned:

*When you are in the basement, it is amazing how loud a bare bottomed boy's poop can sound (gross, I know) when it evacuates its contained area. (You would think I would have learned by now)

*Poop from a breastfed baby matches light colored wood floors.

*Boys are gross.

*Seriously. They are gross.

*Two more children (no school) make about ten peoples worth of noise.

*It doesn't matter how many times you say to be quiet...they won't be.

*They will find something to fight about, even if it is about how they don't fight.

*Babies won't stop growing, even when you ask them to. *sob*

*Other peoples kids can tell it like it is. Even if this means they ask in a sweet voice "Sarah, why are you so fat?"

*Five year olds aren't that cute.

*Whoever said a white lie is bad hasn't been called fat by a five year old.

*If you squeeze twinskin just so, it looks like a bagel.





Sunday, June 7, 2009

Husbands...and less

I have seen not so much of my husband since Thursday. He has decided to become a fisherman and is currently fishing up in the Northern areas. I thought that when he cracked, it would be hunting that he would want to take up, but apparently fishing it will be.

When a man goes up to the Northern areas, they take eggs, bread and fishing poles.

You know...to catch the fish. With the poles.

Have they ever caught a fish before? Naw.
Have they ever cleaned a fish before? Naw.
Have they ever bought a fish before...well, certainly!
Oh yeah, and of course they have read about how to clean a fish before. So that works.

Needless to say they are tired of egg sandwiches.


And here I sit with five lovely well behaved, well mannered children on a cold wet rainy Minnesota day. I am choosing to use this time pretending that I am already living in Portland and it is November. It's sort of working. kinda

I feel inspired to write a poem:

Oh great and wonderful rainy cold day
You make my five children want to play
Footsie and "we sorta bite but it doesn't hurt" games
"You bit me too hard" and "she called me names"
"Well your foot went to far into my side
and it hurt" and "it's your fault" and "nuh-uh, she lied"

Don't wake the babies
Don't wake the babies.
Don't wake the babies!
Don't wake the babies!!
Don't wake the babies!!!

I'll get a towel.








Thursday, June 4, 2009

Oh yeah...

Crap, I forgot I had a blog.


Wake up with baby. Grab a cup of coffee. Big kids off to school for the last time YAY! *sob*

Upon diaper removal, a time of the day all babies enjoy, the babe shows excitement by peeing all over the floor. As this is the fifth kid, a prefold diaper is thrown on the pee, and we move on with the day. This happens three more times. The husband, who is admittedly smarter, would put a diaper on the babe, but he isn't here and the other baby has woken up and wants the mother figure. Or at least the boob.

Another diaper off of another babe. Attempt second sip of coffee and try to clean something.

Cleaning up around the house, one notices things that don't belong. Like baby poop. Where did it come from? To whom does it belong? Why is it ground into the carpet?

Well, the thing that I am learning about boy babies, this being my one and only, is that when they poop, unlike girls, who would move on with their day...they feel the need to heavily investigate all of the "W's"...what is it? what does it taste like? where did it come from? why is it here...

And by the time the mother figure discovers the poopy pile, you are off banging your not so clean self all over the freshly washed glass on the back screen door.

Poor some "Clean Freak" (the BEST STUFF) on the poopy pile, grab the boy child, wash him down and set into cleaning the mess up. Which is super easy with a bucket full of sudsy water, a washcloth and two naked babies coming at you from all angles. Empty bucket, dry carpet and attempt once again to drink the now cold coffee.

Enjoy the quiet.




Why is it so quiet? Where are the babies? Ask middle child where babies are and hear a "Ewwwwwwww....gross".



Well folks, no need to worry about any dirty babies...they cleaned themselves good and well in the toilet. Yummy.

Into the tub we go.