New Year's resolutions

It's kind of crazy to me this my third new year's eve blogging. As I said last year and the year before, I am not into new year's resolutions because I try to live a happy and balanced life all the time.

HA HA HA. That has not happened AT ALL with twins in 2007. Happy? Yes. YES. YES YES YES!!! Balanced? NO EF-ING WAY.

When I did my 100 tasks blog, I found that publicly discussing my goals helped me achieve them. So let me introduce...

Laura's First (and Last) New Year's Resolutions EVER

1. Get bikini ready by Memorial Day. While I am back at my pre-pregnancy weight, I'm a lot jigglier and softer than before. My old bikinis are dying to hang out at the baby pool ALL SUMMER.

2. Finish the baby book. I am not even joking about this. IT WILL GET DONE in 2008. Included in this task is to get my blog bound in book form.

3. Finish decorating the house. We are so so so close.

4. Make my blog reflect me, not just the part of me that is a mom.

5. Spend more time by myself. I love my three boys but we spend a lot of time together.

2006 was clearly a survival year. All we did was gestate twins and take care of twin newborns. 2007 was a rebuilding year - emotionally, financially, and physically. 2008 will be a "new horizons" year. It will be a year in which Jon and I learn to navigate this complicated life of working full-time, parenting two toddlers, and living the life we want to lead.

Here's what we already have planned:

* Meeting a blogging friend in real life
* Girls' road trip with some friends
* First family road trip to Ohio
* Hours and hours at the pool with the boys
* Jon and my belated babymoon trip, first-class to San Francisco for a week!
* Beach vacation as a family
* Setting up my garden in the backyard
* The start of the Terrible Twos Times Two

Clearly 2008 is going to be awesome, amazing, and spectacular. I recommend you stick around for the show. Happy New Year everyone!

"I see squirrel"

Nate said "I see squirrel" yesterday. To those without kids, this would be a fairly unexciting sentence. But to parents of two toddlers who speak only caveman-style (single words and lots of grunting and pointing), this development is crazy exciting. I will cry with joy the day I hear this mini-sentence: "I sleep in."

Christmas picture overload

This Christmas was fantastic. It's nice that our house is finally starting to look like a home!



Nate and Alex got to indulge in a Fargo treat for the first time - chocolate covered potato chips. They luuuvvvved them. It's now a four person fight to finish the box.



Santa brought a very special present for the boys - a play kitchen. The play kitchen is in the real kitchen so the boys have something to occupy them when mom and dad are trying to cook. Santa is so smart to bring a present for everyone.



It took hours for the boys to open gifts. They would open a gift then play with it for a long time. They didn't quite "get" opening presents.

One toy they loved is an animal hospital. Nate really liked listening to the animals while Alex really like shoving the animals back in their cages.


Alex could not get enough of the animal hospital. He walked around with the syringe giving everyone "yummy yummy" (motrin).



The boys also got wooden puzzles, which fit perfectly onto their little play table. Much to our surprise, Alex rocks puzzles and Nate already knew the word for puzzle.



And what is Christmas morning without a fight over a toy? I hope Santa remembers to bring everything EXACTLY THE SAME next year!


It's hard to believe that a year has passed since Nate and Alex's first Christmas. Our house saw so many changes and so much happiness since last year. Last Christmas, the boys had just learned to sit. Now they are such interesting little people.

Most importantly, look how WELL-RESTED we look this year!!! And we (almost) know what we are doing as parents!



The only thing missing from this Christmas was four faces smiling at the camera. Maybe next year!


I'll be back for a New Year's resolution post. Until then, this cuteness will have to tide you over.

Does life get any better than this?

My posting will be light this week due to the unbelievable cuteness in my house. Before I head back to the fun, here's a front view of the holiday sweaters.

Merry Christmas

No matter what happens on Tuesday, this Christmas will be the best Christmas ever. Santa already gave me everything I need:

the best husband and family in the world,

two beautiful and healthy children,

and a happy and (mostly) peaceful home.

We are so very blessed this holiday season. Merry Christmas.

Another mega-tantrum

Poor Alex. His top right canine has just come through and his bottom left one is bulging so bad. Yesterday he woke up at 5:30 in the foulest mood ever. Even after some motrin for the pain, he was so tired that he stayed cranky. They said he had a great day at day care but when we got home, all hell broke loose. I never fully understood those words until I lived with toddlers.


At dinner, I put a piece of bread on Alex's tray for him to eat while we got the food ready. He completely and utterly lost it over the bread. I took him out of his booster for his own safety. On the floor, he was thrashing and kicking and rolling and screaming and punching. It was sad to see him so upset.

He does the craziest stuff during these tantrums. He started doing his army crawl and his downward-facing dog that he hasn't done in almost 10 months. He army crawled all over the kitchen while bawling. I had to laugh into my shirt.

During this multi-tantrum episode, Nate sat happily eating his dinner. I asked Nate if he wanted some grapes. Alex stopped crying, stood up, walked over to his booster and said, "Eat." It was almost like it never happened.

Around 6:20, another monster tantrum started up so I decided he needed to go to bed. He was out of control until we were in his room. I held him and he relaxed and fell asleep within 30 seconds.

Poor little guy. He can sign "bedtime" and say "night night" but this entire evening made it clear that even though the boys' communication is improving, it's not perfect. So far, we haven't seen any mega-tantrums out of Nate and for that, I am THANKFUL.

Prepare to be amazed and astounded!

Three things will amaze you in this post:

1. Nate already has the whiteboy dance perfected. He is SO going to rock the middle school slow song dances with this move.

2. Nate does, in fact, LEAVE IT when asked to do so (before going on to take ornaments off the tree...).

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3. Nate and Alex can sleep together under Alex's bed without fighting with each other.

Do I get tired of taking pictures of them sleeping? NO!

Turning things around

Jon left for Chicago yesterday afternoon and I realized I needed a little break. When the boys get home from day care, they are HUNGRY. When I'm on my own, there's a lot of whining and crying until I have dinner on the table. I decided to make a stop on the way home to pick up dinner for the boys and me, a first for me. Perhaps this should go in the baby book.

I always thought I would be one of those parents who would never let my kids eat junk food. I now think junk food has its time and place. 99% of the time, the boys eat healthy foods with lots of fruits and vegetables. But like their mom, they love McNuggets.

The boys were so excited that I let them drink milk out of the little bottles. Alex was particularly excited, dipping his straw alternately in his ketchup and back into his milk. Yummy! Things were going well until he dipped a french fry in the milk, dropped it, and couldn't get it back out. Here he's aggressively signing, "HELP!" Note there are two bibs around his neck because he soaked the first one with milk.

After seeing Alex put a fry in his milk, you know what happened next. Nate managed to fit two entire McNuggets and two fries in his milk. And he chugged the milk around the food. Nothing tastes better than McNugget & Fry Milk. Perhaps I should patent that flavor for Nestle. Chocolate and strawberry are so boring.

The end of dinner was sad for everyone, particularly Alex. Look at this sad sad face he made as he said over and over, "Bye bye milk. Gone gone. Milk bye bye."

Toddlers are exhausting

I am particuarly beat the last couple of weeks. The double whammy of canines and vomiting virus has meant a lot of interrupted sleep in our house. Work has been incredibly busy as I have a big deadline this week. December means Christmas preparations, which Jon and I have learned means lots of toy assembly and gift wrapping. But the icing on the cake is this 18-24 month stage, times two.

When the boys were newborns, there was always something to do. If one baby was content, it seemed like the other always needed something. This current phase is starting to feel like that for three reasons.

1. We need to almost constantly supervise the boys. We spent hours babyproofing the office and tried to enjoy it this weekend. I turned my back to check my email for less than 5 minutes. I turned around to find Alex standing inside the train table drawer and Nate standing on top of the train table. Then Nate picked up a toy and cracked Alex in the head with it with no warning.

2. Their attachment to me means I rarely get a break when they are around. If I lay on the couch, they run over and say, "Up!" If I sit on the rocking chair, they run over and say, "Rock!" If I am around, they want to be touching me, near me, listening to me read stories, sitting on my lap, being held, playing with me. I love it, I mean I really love it. I love seeing all the love I've given them come right back at me. But it makes me sad that when I want a few minutes of downtime, I have to be away from them. And being an introvert, I need a lot of downtime to recharge.

3. "Listening ears" were completely missing this weekend. I love that phrase from day care. I could have had a megaphone shouting orders and they still would not have listened. While I love their inquisitiveness and independence, some days obedience is really nice!

Anyway, this is a really long way of saying I have no new pictures and I'd love a megaphone for Christmas.

Again, I really need to be careful what I wish for

How many times have I mentioned it would be nice if the boys would get into their beds at naptime?

At the end of yesterday's nap, there was quite a lot of commotion going on in their room. A... lot... of... commotion. Not the bad kind, the crying-hysterically-walking-in-to-find-Alex-on-top-of-Nate commotion. The good kind - they were laughing and clapping and saying, "YAY!"

I opened the door to their room to find Nate and Alex standing next to each other on Nate's bed, jumping up and down. They would pause, cheer "YAY!", and jump again.

Why Jon and I stay anal-retentive

All the baby books recommend giving your newborn naked time every day. Jon and I never did it. Our thought was that we already had enough to do, so why add in the possibility of messy accidents times two? We can be a little anal-retentive and we know that. We're fine with that.

Lately when the boys get out of the bath, it's a hassle to wrap them up in a towel while they brush their teeth so I let them run naked. I pinch their little butts and it makes them giggle. Wednesday night as I was putting Alex's toothpaste on his toothbrush, I heard him peeing on the floor. I was shocked and said, "Alex!" He immediately stopped peeing mid-stream, ran over to his stepstool, and proceeded to finish the job, peeing on the floor.

Oh yes, I am quite happy being anal-retentive. Quite happy indeed.

Timeout times two

Discipline is a topic I don't like to debate. If there's anything I've learned as a twin parent, it's that each child is different and you need to parent each child differently. We're seeing the same thing with discipline.

Nate has started to do something very dangerous - rock back and forth in his booster to the point that the chair legs come off the ground. When he first did it, we would yell DANGER! and he laughed. After many dangerous situations where Nate laughed, we decided to put him immediately in timeout when he does it.

I have read to sit with the child during timeout, but that doesn't work with Nate. If we sit with him, he whispers to us and smiles and laughs. He thinks it is a game. We have to put him in timeout and ignore him. If he tries to get up, we keep putting him back until he sits there. Eventually he cries. After his timeout period, we hug him, talk to him calmly about everything, and tell him we love him.

Monday night was the first night Nate cried hard about timeout. Alex hoevered watching the whole thing unfold. Eventually, Alex decided he should sit right next to Nate in timeout. He had the saddest look on his face, sitting there in solidarity with Nate and refusing to get up until Nate was out of timeout.


It was so hard to keep a straight face and not shout, "THAT IS SO CUTE!!!!" Could Alex love Nate any more?!

PS. Nate puked in the middle of the night. Poor guy.

Tired gumbo

* Yay for global warming. It was 80 here yesterday and today. In December. Both boys were home Monday and Tuesday with a vomiting virus. It was the best kind of vomiting virus in that they each puked a couple of times and then were in fantastic moods. However Alex did come perilously close to puking on a sleeping Nate. When are they going to start sleeping in their beds instead of on the floor?!?!

* Nate has started singing, really singing. While he can't sing the words to the Sesame Street song, he can mimic the tune exactly while singing. It is eerie and amazing at the same time. We've been playing a lot of Christmas music and whenever there's no music, Nate says, "Munich?" He either really really loves music or he wants to take a trip to Germany.

* Alex's canines are killing us (and him). We're tired. The thing that's saving our sanity? Seven more teeth and we're done with teething. Forever. The other thing that's saving my sanity? Alex has started saying, "Mine!" then hugging me when he needs extra affection.

* We were supposed to have a holiday party on Sunday which we cancelled because of the puking. To make lemonade out of lemons, Jon bought our Christmas tree while the boys napped. The boys helped us decorate the tree while listening to Christmas music. Jon and I have had a lot of great tree decorating parties but this one was, BY FAR, the best.

* We'll be giving the boys their first hot chocolate with whipped cream this weekend, when it's no longer 80 and the risk of puking is down to zero percent.

More about the camera and taking pictures

To make a very long story short (believe me, it is a long story involving me not realizing I was in love with Jon and buying him expensive gifts), Jon and I have a Canon digital Rebel. Ever since starting to read Barr Babies and Twinkies, I've felt motivated to get more serious about pictures again. The last two years, I've been taking snapshots. I want to take beautiful photographs. Those two twin mommas take ROCKING amazing photographs.

Jon loves researching this kind of stuff, so he found this Canon 50 mm lens which is also cheap. The photos I took from yesterday's post were taken indoors at f 1.8 while the boys played at the kitchen island. I didn't do any photo editing but I will.

For anyone interested in taking better photos, here are some general guidelines (not from me, from every photography book ever):

1. Turn off the flash. Everything looks better in natural light, particularly people.

2. Get closer. Most people take pictures from too far away. Get up close. Then take a couple more steps closer.

3. Take a lot of pictures. A lot of pictures. Keep on snapping. For every 20 photos, you'll end up with (maybe) one good shot. Delete everything you don't love. Figure out why you love particular photos and why you hate particular photos. Then take some more pictures.

4. Don't just take posed photos. That's not going to be the one that melts your heart.

This is one of my favorite photos I've taken of the boys and it follows the above guidelines. I took over 100 pictures the day at the pumpkin farm. This picture tells a story to me.

Here's what happened that same day. I tried to take a posed shot - the classic "children sitting on hay bale at pumpkin patch" picture. The boys didn't look at the camera. Nate's jean snaps opened up showing his diaper! I didn't notice the black tube or the red wire or Nate's exposed diaper. And the lighting is horrible. And seriously, Nate's diaper. That's awesome.

Now to go back to the guidelines. Get up close, take a lot of pictures, and turn off the flash.

Again, kicking myself for not getting better lenses sooner

After some use, we've decided we're still going ahead with more lenses. In the meantime, I am loving this lens!

This is the first indoor shot of Nate where you can see his true hair color and eye color. This is classic Nate: happy-go-lucky as long as Alex is out of his business.


Also classic Nate: super flirty with lady-killer eyes.


This is classic Alex: into everything but a sweetheart through and through with puppy dog eyes.


Also classic Alex: The Special Smile.

Twin day!

What's wrong with this chair picture?


Jon and I watched Julie's twins most of Saturday morning to give her a break (her husband is on a business trip in India!). We were worried about having not two but FOUR 18 month olds in the house, but it went extremely well. There is strength in numbers... there was not a single tantrum or crying fit the entire morning. In fact, it was the most peaceful morning we've had in 18 months.


I came away from this experience with an even greater respect for superquad parents. You would not believe the look and questions we got. "Are those ALL yours?!" And filling up 4 sippy cups, putting 4 kids in high chairs, changing 4 diapers, putting on 4 sets of shoes and coats... it is a good thing Jon and I are already uber-organized!


I did have one panicked moment when we got to the park and realized the boys could run four different directions yet there were just two of us. Fortunately, our skills as herders (aka twin toddler parents) came in handy and we were able to have an extremely fun time at the park. Julie's boys enjoy nature walks as much as Nate and Alex do.



Overall, I have to declare twin day a fantastic success!

Why yes, I am a good mom

The phone rang yesterday morning and the caller ID said UNC Hospital. I panicked thinking they were calling to say they made a mistake and we owe them $3000 for Alex's helmet. I picked up the phone to find it was a research study on parenting so I agreed to participate. Usually I don't do this but karma told me I must be kind to UNC forever for fixing Alex's head for free.

They proceeded to ask me a ton of questions about parenting and how I interact with Nate as he's considered the youngest. I aced all the "positive" questions - in the last month, how many times have I read a book, hugged him, kissed him, told him I loved him... all 20+ times! I aced all of the negative questions (I won't list them as some of them were upsetting) except one.

Caller: "How would you rate the difficulty of the last year parenting Nate? Extremely Easy, Easy, Moderate, Hard, Extremely Hard?"

Laura: "Can I qualify this answer? Can I put a little star next to it? Extremely hard. But I am a first-time mom to twins. Can you write that on my form?"

Caller: Laughs and sound of typing in background. "Yes, I will note it was twins. Too bad there is not an extra category for that."

The questions made me think about what a good mom I really am. Instead of focusing on the things I don't get done, it made me think about how much love and time I give to Nate and Alex. Then when I was sorting November's pictures, I saw these and remembered I am also a pretty cool mom. Do you think it was Jon's idea to let the boys play with packing peanuts? As Alex would say, NO WAY!

How it all began...

I created holiday cards using pictures from the boys' 18 month photo shoot and sent most of them out last week. The picture below is such a definitive snapshot of this age - Alex up in Nate's business and Nate having none of it. I had to put it on our card.



Alex is so frequently up in Nate's business I find myself thinking daily, "When did it all start?" During my big picture organization project, I found this picture of Nate and Alex, less than 6 weeks old. This solves the nature versus nurture debate for me - getting all up in someone's business is an inborn trait.

Pear!

I was trying to teach the boys the sign for "pear" at dinner and for some reason, Nate found it hilarious. Then we asked him to do it, and if this is what he thought I sounded like, I can see why he found "pear" hilarious.

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One for the baby book

Last Christmas, we had an amazing experience with Santa. People oohed and aahed watching Santa hold twin newborns. Alex put the icing on the cake when he pulled on Santa's beard. It was like a scene out of a movie and Nate and Alex were the stars.





This Christmas, we had a unique experience with Santa. People pointed and turned away watching Santa hold screaming twin toddlers. Nate put the icing on the cake when he tried to buck out of Santa's arms. It was like a scene out of a horror movie and Nate and Alex were the stars.







(My entire life, I always hoped for one kid to cry in Santa's arms because I thought those pictures were hilarious. I think I will be a little more careful what I wish for in the future.)

Fall chores

Who knew raking a bazillion leaves would be so much more fun with little helpers?

Jon and I are in the process of upgrading our digital SLR with some new lenses. I've been wanting to do this for some time but last time I checked, buying your first house and having twins within a 6 month time period is ridiculously and ludicrously expensive.

I could kick myself for not investing earlier in the lens we bought that I used to take the pictures above! The next couple of months will be photo overload on my blog as I play around and learn.