Christmas wish lists

I was on Amazon over the weekend beefing up the kids' wish lists in anticipation of Christmas gift giving. And then it occured to me that Amazon doesn't have the twins' favorite toys of all time.... empty plastic water bottles and wax Dixie bathroom cups.

And hopefully someone will come out with some Harry Potter dolls, like the Barbie kind of dolls, before Christmas so that I can put them on Jenna's list. She's obsessed with Harry Potter, and I don't think I can make doll-sized Hogwart's robes by myself and re-gift her Ballerina Barbie dressed in homemade clothing without her noticing.

Sleep, sweet sleep.

Yay. I feel so refreshed.

For the last four nights, I've had Jenna sleep with me in my room (so that Lauren doesn't wake her with her crying--they share a room), and turn on my air purifier on "high" and close my door. I imagine the babies probably fussed a lot the first night, not that I heard them. And I imagine they fussed progressively less as each night went on. But the bottom line is that I'm finally getting some sleep, and getting caught up on the sleep I've been missing. I no longer feel like the college student who was up all night cramming for tests, like a zombie or something during the day.

Tonight I'll send Jenna back to her room, and keep my fingers crossed that Lauren finally has her act together. Wish us luck! I'm hoping this is a permanent thing, this idea of me actually sleeping from 10am-6pm, each night!

Hello, Sleep! It's been so long since I've seen you!

Ahhhhh. I am on the computer at 6am because I've been happily awake since 5:30am. Why, you ask? I got 6.5 hours of sleep last night and was woken only once!!

I just got to this point of desperation. The babies missed their afternoon naps for reasons unknown (they just didn't sleep), so I was convinced that they'd go down easier and stay asleep all night. But things didn't start out so well. So I made sure they were both in their rooms and they were probably blanketed and had multiple pacifiers in sight and were otherwise physically safe.... and then I made Jenna sleep in my bed with me, I turned up the air purifier in my room to the loudest setting and closed the door.

I woke up at 3am, stunned that their hysterics hadn't seeped into my dreams through my closed door and loud air filter. I hadn't hear them because...they weren't in hysterics. I imagine they fussed and cried a little. But if they had completely been freaking out I would have heard that (I speak from experience).

So I got 4 uninterrupted hours of sleep, and then another 2.5 hours, and I'm fresh as a daisy this morning. Wheeee!

I'm glad I finally got some shut-eye, because I was seriously considering leaving the kids with the neighbor and checking into a hotel tonight. LOL.

And since I don't have a picture of me sleeping last night, I'll post some sleep-themed photos from our recent San Diego Vacation Spectacular.

Teeth are sharp, kids, teeth are sharp.

Dear Children,

Your teeth are sharp. It shouldn't surprise you--though it always seems to--that your twin's teeth are sharp, too. It would behoove all of us if you did not try to test this by placing your finger in your sibling's mouth. And if your sibling does this to you, for crimoney's sake please do not close your teeth on the sweet little finger. It hurt this time. It hurt the last 100 times. Ever heard of Pavlov, children??

Love, Your Mom.

I'm getting no sleep, and sippy cup identification bracelets

Sleep sucks around here these days. Lauren used to be my good sleeper--she's loud and fussy, but when she's down at night she's down. She slept through the night five out of seven nights per week. That's as of, oh, say, three months ago. Slowly, the number of nights with wakings have surpassed the number of nights of rest to the point where I can't even remember the last time she slept through the night. And she's a beast to put down at bedtime. I don't get it. And Kyle? He's gotten a little fussy at bedtime, too, and he's waking 3-6 times per night. If I let him cry it out, it's too much to take. Half the time when I let him cry it out, he throws up on himself--I think he's probably crying due to burpy discomfort, so if I'd just gone in there to begin with, he would have been fine and not thrown up. And everytime, the only thing that will quiet him down and get him to sleep is nursing him. I'm tired of it. Literally. I am exhausted. Between the two of them, I haven't gotten more than two consecutive hours of sleep in WEEKS. I go to bed around 9pm and wake up around 6am and I'm up about 7 times each night. With Jenna, I took a hard stance against this crap and whipped her into sleep shape right after she turned 1, and she's my Ultimate Sleeping Champion now. I just don't feel like I can let them be when they wake anymore, I guess because until we get them up to speed developmentally, they just lay in their cribs on their backs and cry. They can't roll around and amuse themselves for a couple of minutes with their little Pooh or stuffed Shamu. And the pacifiers that tumble out of their mouths and lodge into their necks and wake them up, ooohhh I'm totally over that. And none of this is helping to wean them. Right now they're day-weaned from the breast, and I'm past my self-imposed deadline for night-weaning. I guess it all goes hand in hand, the waking at night to nurse and the ending of the nursing business. Ugh. And I'm so tired that I can't even formulate a plan to try to fix this. I'm surprised that I have the energy to think of all this stuff to say and type it out.

On a separate note, I got these ID tags for their sippy cups in the mail the other day--love them!

Lauren had an awful allergic reaction a couple weeks ago--to what, we don't know, but the only thing we could think of was cow's milk that she drinks everyday, so I've been putting soy milk in her sippy cup instead. Then her cup and Kyle's cup got mixed up and she consumed a little more cow's milk and got a rash again, ugh. So these little bands are so cool! I recommend them to anyone who has kids close enough in age to both be using the same kind of sippy cup or bottle.

Major headway made in the baby book project

Both babies now have baby books with the first ~20 pages completed! I haven't gotten to the parts where I write about what they were like at 3 months or 6 months or anything, but I have their birthdates written in there, and their birth annoucements taped to that page, and their family trees written in. A good, solid start. But alas, my house needs to be cleaned now and I had to put the baby books away for now.

Regarding that question about what I wish for them in life, I think I'm going to put something along the lines of thinking for themselves. That sort of covers everything, you know? If you are a critical thinker and don't go with the crowd just to save yourself the trouble of thinking things through on your own, then you will likely be happy, love yourself, be independant, be a good citizen, be considerate of others, etc. And I decided that whatever I come up with, it has to be the same for both babies. I don't want them to one day read their books and compare and be bummed that Mom wanted him to think for himself but wanted her to do something else. Whatever is important enough to want for one, I want for both! Though it has felt a little like plagiarism when I copy things word for word. Oh well. If God wanted me to be completely unique and creative in all things, He wouldn't have given me two babies at once.

And since I just now figured out how to post a photo in my blog, here is a photo unrelated to the baby books. It was taken in our hotel room in San Diego. Love Bumbos!

Baby Book: "If I could wish anything for you in your life, I would wish..."?

Help me answer this question? I have that question in both Kyle's and Lauren's baby books. Is it right to get all serious and cheesy and say that I wish they grow up to love themselves and love God? That's not a bad answer. But is that what I'm comfortable expounding upon? Not really. I need something more "me". But what to write, what to write. Times two. ?? Help.

Baby Books

I just bought baby books for the twins last week. They're nearly 15 months old, and I haven't documented anything of their babyhood yet. I'm horrified at myself.

Why is it so hard to "feel" like sitting down and documenting their milestones and personalities like this? It's such an important thing for me, to have these memories jotted down, to have something to look back on, and maybe later on something to compare them to. And give the baby books to the children when they have their own children, like my mom gave mine to me not so long ago.

Well actually, I haven't decided yet if I'm going to give the books to them. They are, after all, my memories. My memories of their babyhood, but also of my young motherhood. That's precious stuff. Who knows if they'll even care about that later on, or if they'll take good care of the books.

Anyway. I just wish I would do it already. I'll stop blogging and get right on that.... As soon as I check my email, finish uploading photos to Shutterfly, see what the free song of the week is on iTunes, catch up on my Word Twist games on Facebook, and maybe surf over to My Space and update my status there, and by then the laundry might need to go into the dryer....

How do I want my children to see me? How do I want them to be when they grow up?

Let's be honest. I want my kids to be like me. Or how I think I am, or how I want me to be, anyway.

I want them to be independent. Deep down, I'd love to coddle them, but they need to know how to pick up after themselves, how to wash a load of their laundry, and how to think for themselves and prioritize.

I want them to understand the big picture--their big picture. What today's events mean in the great scheme of things. To have perspective. The most important time in life, I think, to have a concept of "the big picture" would be middle and high school. These are probably the most challenging times to teach this concept, though...so must start early on this one. Is age 4 too early to explain "the big picture"? I'm not sure, but I can let you know later.

I want them to not be afraid. The world can be a scary place, and there are some bad people and some bad governments on this earth, but if you focus on your own community and the positive impact you can have, that's more productive. I'll have to lead by example on this one, but better to wait until they understand what all those words on the nightly news mean. There's no use in explaining what a terrorist is to a child too young to have figured it out on her own.

I want them to understand and really embrace the concepts of teamwork, being a good sport, and "it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game". Being competetive can be good--or at least that's what I hear, since I don't have a competetive bone in my body--but being the best or first or the winner isn't everything. But how to teach such abstract concepts?? If it were easy, there'd be more adults out here in the Real World who are put the greater good over their own interests and are good sports.

I want them to have a sense of humor. For crying out loud, this can get you through almost anything. If there's nothing else I've learned from having twins, it's that a sense of humor is almost always your greatest asset. Having three or four arms would be an even better asset, but I personally haven't been provided with these yet, so a sense of humor it is! And the best way to teach humor, so far as I can tell, is to keep laughing. All through the day. And we're pretty good at this at our house. Nothing is too sacred to be a punchline.

I also would like them to love to read, to be interested in cooking and in photography, to love music with their very souls, and also to watch less TV. Maybe if we had a cheap, crappy TV, that lesson would be easier to instill in them. Hmm.

Early Intervention came by today for a lovely visit

The babies are now formally in "the system" for in-home physical therapy with the state of Arizona. Today, we formalized a plan with objectives/outcomes and goals for their therapy. Our service coordinator and physical therapist seem so nice! We're really excited to have them in our lives for the next couple of years.

Our objectives for both babies include having them be able to roll over, to sit up soundly, to lift their feet to their mouths while lying on their backs, and to use sippy cups. Apparently, it's too early to add "crawling" to that list right now because they're just so far behind. We can freely add objectives to this list of goals later on, so that will come later.

On a positive note, the physical therapist was surprised and thrilled at Kyle's progress since she last evaluated him 5 weeks ago. He now sits upright (with pillows behind him for when he falls, because he does), claps his hands, and reaches forward to reach for items on his highchair tray. She read to us her notes from her last time here and wow, yes, Kyle has definitely progressed since then. So that made our day!

It will still be a month or so before we can get on their weekly schedule. But when we do, there could be up to three therapist coming here each week, for each baby--that's 6 weekly visits from pros whose only job is to play with them and teach me about the babies' development! Hooray for tax dollars!

As an aside..... right now Jenna is alternately singing into her Wiggles microphone "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis, "Pocketful of Sunshine" by Natasha Beddingfield and the Hannah Montana theme song. LMAO! I knew she knew the words to Hannah Montana, but I had no idea she even knew the other two songs existed! LMAO

Jack Doody

Jack Doody is running for the Arizona State House of Representatives.

Really. He is. And the most surprising thing is that jackdoody.com wasn't already taken. His campaign nabbed it before anyone else.

Jack Doody, though! How come I can't think of a dozen "jack shit" jokes right now? LMAO

A Jenna Funny

Today it was just me and Jenna running errands together. On this rare occasion without the babies holding us back, we elected to pop into CVS to pick up a prescription rather than go through the drive-thru. After we decided which "path" would take us to the pharmacy counter (thanks to Dora, everywhere we go has a "path" to choose), Jenna played with the rack of reading glasses while I waited at the pharmacy counter. The clerk rang me up while looking suspiciously over at Jenna. She finally informed me, "your daughter is wearing our glasses", with a certain distaste reserved for children who eat dirt or pick their noses. I looked at Jenna standing next to me, with a pair of (stylish) readers on with a giant piece of plastic hanging off the side so that they could hang properly from the rack they'd been on. Jenna exclaimed, "Mommy! I can finally see!" The clerk didn't seem to this this was funny! Can you imagine? She seemed to take Jenna seriously. Yes, I am the mom who won't buy her child glasses, and instead the child can only see her world when we visit pharmacies which sell glasses.

And on a separate note, today, Lauren picked up a toy telephone, held it up to her ear, and babbled something that sounded like, "Hello?"! She's a genius! I knew it! Yay.

Decompressing from our San Diego Vacation Spectacular

Ahhh, how nice it is to be home! It's strange to think that we went to San Diego to get out of this pit, but after 6 days away, the heart definitely grew fonder.

The first few days were a little rough. We had to force Benadryl and Prednisone down Lauren's throat, thanks to a severe allergic reaction she enjoyed the night before we left for San Diego. And we were all a little cramped at a friend's house... they have an enormous home, but really, is it possible for home to truly be big enough to accomodate five demanding houseguests? I'm thinking no.

In six days, we squeezed in one day at Legoland (BIG hit) and three days at Sea World (LOTS of great photo ops), plus some time at the beach and enough time leftover for Chris to attend the big job fair that brought our family to San Diego to begin with. Add to that a half day's drive there and back, and we were some busy people. Sprinkle in some puke sessions (two sessions for Lauren, one for Kyle), and only a fraction of the naps that were truly needed, and there you have it.

All our laundry is all done--small miracle! The babies are a little sickly now, as is Jenna, with congestion and coughs. And nap schedules are slowly (very slowly) starting to normalize. It's a lot of hard work to leave home for more than a day, but this trip was so worth it. If we didn't ever go anywhere because it's "too hard", then what sad little lives our kids would have. Kate Gosselin, from Jon & Kate Plus 8 said the same thing once. We want them to have memories of family trips like this, and to have neat experiences like letting the crashing waves chase you up to the dry sand and petting a dolphin at Sea World. And I want lots of pictures for our family scrapbooks.

So, when can we go to Disneyland?? I'm being serious. Sign me up! I must be feeling lucky, eh?