I Don't Know How You Do It

There is one phrase that I hear on a fairly consistent basis.

"I don't know how you do it" or a variation of that..."How do you do it?"
I have one word for them. Naps. Cosistent, daily naps. (well, that and the escape a.k.a my 30 hr a wk job)

It's my 1-3 hours of the day I can count on to be predictable. Some time to throw in laundry, clean up a bit, maybe eat lunch, take a shower, etc.
Well, the twins have decided that they are going to drop their second nap.

As my daughter didn't drop the second nap until she was 20 months old, I am ill prepared for my dynamic duo to drop down to one nap per day.
Despite my best attempts (have tried to separate them, rock them, talk some sense into them) they are still refusing to do it.

Couple that with a 2 year and 9 month old who is also fighting/getting close to dropping her one nap and/or making mucho noise throughout our teeny house, waking the twins and you've got a harried, cranky mom.

I know, things could be ever so much worse. It wasn't that long ago that they would only sleep in bouncy chairs, swaddled, paci in mouth and I had to sleep on the couch, go to bed at 7 p.m. and feed them every 2 hours. I was a walking zombie, sleep deprived and deeply depressed. Thing are really quite good in comparison.

I need to keep remembering that.

Despite the lack of sleep, they are still pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself.

A Day I'll Never Forget

So in an ironic twist of fate, I just realized that my twins are 10 months old today...and this is the anniversary of my first miscarriage at 13 weeks, 4 years ago. It's hard to even remember how all that felt, I'm in such a different place now. I was a different person back then. More self absorbed, more idealistic and most definitely more innocent/ignorant when pertaining to all things fertility related or infertility related, as the case may be.

Had gone in for my routine 13 week OB appt and there was no heartbeat. They sent me to u/s and this confirmed no heartbeat. I was completely blindsided as I'd been having horrible nausea and certainly no miscarriage symptoms = plus I'd had a perfect nuchal scan the week before and heard the heartbeat a few times before. Had a D&E the next day...I did have one more miscarriage before conceiving Sofia, but that's another story for another day.

To imagine a time when I thought my life was over, feeling complete despair as I went through this loss, I could have never, ever imagined that a mere 4 years later I would have 3 beautiful children.

I grieve the lost child, I do. But at the same time, if I'd had that child, I would not have my Sofia. I can't imagine my life without Sofia or the twins, they are truly the best thing that ever happened to me. Back then I was dynagirl, now I am Momlissa. Life is strange that way.

Mommy is Toast

So my back has been hurting me a lot lately. The strain of lifting all 3 kids regularly is really getting to me. Plus, being sedentary, out of shape and overweight isn't helping. Working on changing that, I did make it to the gym on Sunday and am trying to make better eating choices, will rejoin Weight Watchers if not this week, then next. I wanted to eat all the food in my freezer before starting WW, then start with a clean slate once the fridge arrives, pack it with only healthy things. Anyhoo - Sofia grabs my hand and wants me to lift her up, playing this game where I hold her hands and she lifts her body up and leans back. I was like "No, honey, I can't right now - my back is toast..."

She stops and looks at me, then says "Turn around..."

I say "Huh?"

"Turn around, mommy...Where's your toast?"

Again I say "What?" I'm really perplexed. Then, I burst out laughing as I realize she is looking for toast on my back.

Ahhh, it's like having a non native speaker in the house. No wonder English is the hardest language to learn. Moments like that make it all so clear why it would be!

Where's Kevin?

Ok, so last night, a conversation about God, which is always interesting with a 2 yr old.

It was bedtime, she was laying there with her standard 7 blankets "wrapping" (covering) her, clutching her angel doll and trying desparately to stall her actually having to fall asleep. She started saying "Grandma" then "Where is your Grandma?" Sofia doesn't have an "official" Grandma, so naturally she has attached herself to the word. She has also figured out that if she starts asking questions and acting cute, I will stick around, hence stalling bedtime, smart cookie that she is.

I said "She's in heaven..." So that started an age appropriate explanation of "Heaven." It was quite humorous, with Steve backing me up from the other room, a la Cyrano de Bergerac. We coverd a whole litany of things from "Heaven is where the angels are" to "Heaven is in the sky, beyond the clouds" to "Heaven is where God lives" which of course, started "Who is God?"

She took this information in, excitedly talked about angels a bit more (she is really on an angel kick lately - could be because our friend calls her "Angel Girl"). I announce it's time for her to go to sleep and in desperation, she cries out "Where's Kevin?" I laugh and say "What? Kevin? Who's Kevin?" It took me a few minutes to realize she was asking "Where's Heaven?"

This morning, the first thing out of her mouth was "The angels are hiding behind da clouds!"

Of Shampoo and Jesus

Raining cats and dogs these days. Huge, ancient trees snapped in half like twigs, flooded streets and intermittent power outtages. Not so much fun, but I'll take this over tornadoes and hurricanes and snow, anyday.

Lunch with friends today. "Cheese boogers and fench fies" at Red Robin. Good times. Sofia having a lack of nap induced meltdown in the midst of Sears refrigerator department, not good times. "I wanna frih-gerrrr-ayyyy-torrrr" which meant she wanted to open and close the door of every appliance in the dept. When I stopped her from doing this, she threw herself on the ground and made herself limp when I attempted to lift her up. Ahhhh yes, the limp toddler maneuver. Nothing worse than that. Worst part was that I hauled my cookies down there in an attempt to see the one I want only to discover they don't carry it. I still haven't purchased it, keep getting distracted. Can't imagine why...

I must brag a bit here and mention that I took the first step and organized my fridge today while the twins napped. This as a huge step for me. My freezer is beautifully in order with main courses on one shelf, veggies on another, side dishes on one and breakfast items on the bottom. Yey me. It's the little things. Next task, the pantry. My goal is to not grocery shop for 2 weeks. I am allowed to buy milk or bread, coffee creme or eggs, diapers or formula, that sort of thing, but absolutely no big food shopping. I must use what we have, that's the rule. Between what we have in the pantry and the fridge, should not be a problem. I just discovered that I've been spending about $150-300 a week on groceries and end up that's got to stop. That's ridiculous, we don't eat half of it.

I captured Miss Thang doing what she does best. Hamming it up. She was reading herself a story last night, something she is doing more and more. Her readings are a mish mash of repeating the same phrase over and over, manipulating her voice to rise and fall with the story she has made up, throwing in little random things that comprise her experiences of the day. This can include anything from shampoo to Jesus and everything in between. Here's a little taste...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vvpgdu6f8g8

Yell less, read more...

New Year's resolutions

1. Be nicer to DH - this would include more sex, less bossing, more kindness, less attitude. Lighten up on always having to be right, having to control things, having it my way or the highway.
2. Be smarter with my money. I have already spent $300 in groceries this week. That's too much. I need to pare this down, take some notes from J&K+8. Try to use what we already have in the freezer and pantry to prepare meals, instead of buying more food, then never eating it and throwing it out. Plan meals better.
3. Spend less on magazines. Do not buy a magazine if it has Britney (or Britney related item) or Angelina/Brad (or related item) on it. This should cut down my magazine buying significantly.
4. Read more. And not just magazines or blogs.
5. Write more. And not just forums, emails and my blog.
6. And the biggie. Lose weight. Start WW again. I have let this slide profoundly due to the ridiculous amount of stress I've been under since late summer. The worst part is, I've been paying the WW every month, and not going. Lame, I know. I just need to jump in and get on program, it's easy once you get in the groove.
7. Try to fit in working out to my schedule, at least twice a week. (this is going to be hard...)
8. Try to work on being more patient, raise my voice less. I grew up in a yelling household, so I struggle with this. It's my first instinct and I don't like it. I see Sofia yelling at the cats, copying me and I just can't let this happen.

Ok, I think that's enough for now. Don't want to overdo it.

Kriss Miss

So started out the Christmas season with a fabulous gift at my company's annual staff luncheon. There is a tradition of doing a White Elephant, spending a few hours getting sloshed on champagne and exchanging useless gifts with people we work with, but wouldn't necessarily choose to lunch with. Such fun. I ended up with - of all things - the"Slipper Genie" - basically slipper dusters - A must have for the multi tasker such as myself. And yes, all sarcasm aside, I actually am using them. I would have much rather had the Starbucks gift card, but this is infinitely more practical.

Oh yeah, I'm sick again. I believe that's my 7th cold since the twins were born, but who's counting? I am sort of always in a state of congestion, sometimes it hits full blown, sometimes it's stays on the periphery, but it's always there. No amount of Purell can fend off the amount of germs I am bombarded with on a daily basis. Welcome to my world.

New Year's was ok. Went into SF to see Cake (my favorite band, despite the fact that they haven't had a hit in over 5 years). We found a great college girl from craigslist to babysit. Senior at SF State, has her ECE cert. and CPR trained. She was wonderful, got rave referrals, etc. I was a bit nervous using a stranger, but I checked her out thoroughly, one of the perks of working in real estate. She was as stellar as everyone said she was but didn't come cheap. Easy money for her as all 3 kids were asleep when she arrived at 8 pm and none of them made a peep in our absence.

In planning my NYE, I didn't really anticipate how tired I would be, I had a hard time keeping from nodding off at the concert. I kept thinking, who am I fooling. I have no business trying to stay up until midnight. I think my days of "going out" such as this are over. At least until the kids are out of the baby stage.

Both boys are crawling now, thus limiting my online time greatly. In my waking hours, I am either feeding babies, chasing babies, changing diapers, preparing food, cleaning the kitchen floor (where said babies drop bits of food - we need a dog!) or doing laundry. This is my life. I do manage to get out to movies now and then (after the kids are in bed) but my movie buddy is 38 weeks pregnant with #2 and 4 cm dilated, so I suspect my movie going days are over.

Sofia had a blast during Christmas. She keeps telling me she wants do "Kriss Miss" again. I was overjoyed to explain to her that it only comes once a year.

Did pretty well this Christmas, no complaints. Lots of gift cards and chocolate. What more could one ask for? You know your life has changed when you get the excited, sick, puppy love feeling in the pit of your stomach over a...refrigerator...or even better...new, high capacity front loading washers and dryers. I almost can't contain my excitement.

Steve had the bad sense to actually ask me what was wrong with the ones we have. I almost didn't know how to respond as the question was so absurd. Firstly, because we've already had the conversation several times, but primarily because I regularly almost knock him over on my quest to get in yet another load of laundry or move the load that's in there to the dryer so I can do ...yet another load (average 3 a day). Must keep the laundry moving. We have a teeny, meant-for-one-single-person-not a-family-of-5 - miniature stackable. He doesn't understand.

I had to explain to him that I don't enjoy being in a constant state of laundry, that this situation will only get worse as the children...well...grow. Then, he had the bad taste to suggest we go to the laundromat once a week. Yes, a fabulous idea! Why didn't I think of that? A mother of 3 under 3, I have a few hours to spare. Natch! I honestly felt like smacking him in the head at that point.

Needless to say, I am clutching my 2 Best Buy gift cards in my dry, copious-amounts-of Purell soaked, cracked hand and getting ready to order my new appliances. Be still my heart.