Mama Mama Quite Contrary

On the eve of 2010, I've been thinking about what 2009 has been like for me and my husband. Here is our year in review: -Two new children -Approximately 1600 diapers -1200 ounces of laundry soap -27 pounds of baking soda -A new dishwasher, car, and garbage disposal (see bullet point #1) -Seven weeks of home construction -Three months with no more than three consecutive hours of sleep -Vivi starting nursery school -Delicious meals made by friends who took pity on us -Quiet winter evenings by the sewing machine -Booboos and daddy's remedies -Amelia Bedelia, why must Vivi love you so? -Our beloved Brown student who helps us several days a week and Aunt Jane who lived with us for the summer and still says (honestly, I think) that she misses seeing her nieces everyday. -Countless tears And lots and lots of joy. See you in the New Year! Love, Mama Mama

Vivi is a master chef. We frequently enjoy onion muffins with fried maple syrup or spaghetti with poop sauce, all of which is made with love in her play kitchen. What Vivi is not a master at is cleaning up her own messes. After the millionth time of stepping on her toy whisk and cupcake pan, we had the following conversation: "Vi, will you please pick up that mess in there?" I asked in my usual exasperated tone. "Mama, I didn't make that mess." "Oh yeah?" "Chaos did it. He came up from the basement when you weren't looking and did it." For those of you who are new to this blog and don't know who Chaos is, allow me to explain. He is the monster who makes a mess. He lived in our friends' basement for several years but moved into our house right after the Turtles arrived. Now I am thinking that if we can have imaginary monsters who make messes, we most certainly can have imaginary beings clean them up. Let me introduce you to the new...

Our holidays were full of good stuff this year-- the kind you can't quantify or hold in your hands. The stuff that doesn't make you cringe when the credit card bill rolls in or demand batteries in a size that you most certainly do not have. The things that made our Christmas so wonderful, as Dr. Seuss put it, didn't come from a store. We shared delicious food with friends who joined us on Christmas Eve and had a joyful sing-along around our piano. My husband, who was not raised celebrating Christmas, happily indulged all of our musical requests. Vivi and I packed up a large box of food for our local food bank and she wrapped up some of her toys to give to her baby sisters. She is beginning to understand that when we give to others, we receive much in return. My husband and I got to see Santa Claus through our daughter's eyes and were pleased to hear Vivi say, "That Santa is a nice guy. I will write him a thank you note for my scooter." (A scooter that cost us ...

Rejoice! A holiday miracle has happened-- my husband and I went out on a hot date last night. With the Turtles going to bed by 6:30 every evening, we decided we would be wild and crazy, get them a babysitter, and go out for dinner and a movie. I know. We've outdone ourselves. In order to enjoy our date, some prep work needed to be done. A frozen pizza was purchased for Vivi and the babysitter, a movie was rented, and the popcorn was pre -popped. After dinner, Vivi was to take a bath and then she could stay up and watch Babe, the film I had chosen for the occasion. Now, being a person who isn't really familiar with kids' movies, I thought a film about a sheep- herding pig would be totally innocuous. When we got home from our date, however, the sitter informed us that Vivi was rather upset about a sheep dying and Babe getting sick. ( Ummm ... a sheep dies in it? There's blood? What about the happy little pig?) So it was no surprise this morning when Vivi said, "Mam...

Now that Vivi is three and a half, there's holiday spirit oozing out of every nook and crannie of this house. She is really into the whole thing and I find myself enjoying the holidays so much more because of it. The first weekend in December, my Jewish husband took Vivi and a Turtle out to pick out the Christmas tree while I took another Turtle with me to a friend's baby shower. My husband really seems to enjoy Christmas and I know that he and Vivi spent a good amount of time deliberating on the perfect tree. They both came home very excited by the one they chose. Here she is: We become very attached to our Christmas trees and every year we give it a name. Vivi offered Jimmy the Skunk for this year's tree but we decided to go with her second choice, Penelope. We have also been whipping up various confections like nobody's business. I participate in an annual cookie swap which is one of my favorite events of the holidays. Everyone always seems to come up with something ...

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a baby in this country. When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Central Asia, the specifics of childrearing were pretty much lost on me. I was 22 at the time and not thinking much about kids, even though I spent most of my working days with them. What was very clear is that the children were raised by the community and they had a lot of independence. About four months into my service, I got my own bachelorette pad. It was two rooms with a shared outbuilding containing a hole for relieving yourself and an adjacent room with a torch and cauldron for washing. It was January and it was cold the day I moved. When I opened the door to my place, I found my neighbor bathing her newborn daughter in a pot next to the open flame on the gas stove. I didn't think much of it at the time but now I laugh at the thought of that sort of thing happening here. As parents, there are plenty of things to protect our kids from-- bullies, d...

I hate the freaking mall. It is the last place I want to go when I need to do holiday shopping. The crowds, the nasty fast food smell, the stores that sell unoriginal Chinese-made crap-- it is all just too much for this mama to bear. And yet, out of necessity, I found myself there last week trying to find some plain old long sleeved white onesies for the Turtles' thrift store Christmas dresses. It seemed like it would be a quick trip. I would take Vivi to the mall and my husband would take the Turtles off to the local Medicare office building in a desperate attempt to try and figure out why he hasn't been paid for the last nine months of work. (Alas, his pay has been foiled by a Kafka-esque scenario involving a change of address form. It would almost be funny if it wasn't our damn livelihood. But I digress...) Anyway, back to the mall... We had no luck with the onesies and as Vivi and I were hightailing it around a corner trying desperately to get back out to the da...

It seems that I got a little sidetracked with the Thanksgiving holiday and sufficiently neglected this blog. Such is the life of this mama: a week late, several dollars short, and more kids than hands. I probably should be giving myself props for just making it to New Jersey and back with all of my children accounted for but being thankful for things is soooo November. It's December now and the rules are changing. Rule #1: No more public performances during naptime. Just because people tell you that your three year-old is very mature, it does not mean that she will hold it together for an entire production of The Nutcracker. It took a meltdown during intermission at Lincoln Center and a subsequent walking tantrum on 8th Avenue to get us to rethink things. Rule #2: Everyone is responsible for taking care of their own wedgies. Vivi came up with this one and I can't agree more. I will feed you and I will love you. On occasion, I may even wipe your tush but I draw the li...

Why is it that as soon as our Turtles started sleeping through the night Vivi started getting up four or five times? Why is it that, after a freak white-water rafting mishap ten years ago, I needed to sacrifice a molar to the oral surgeon four days before Thanksgiving? Why is it that other people tell you how sweet and curious and polite your three-year-old is but you, the mother, rarely see that behavior at home? My husband says that all this is just Murphy's Law. Why is it that I forgot that the rug cleaners were supposed to come at 8:30 this morning yet I still managed to have on decent pajamas and a polar fleece jacket thick enough to cover my braless state? That, my friends, is really good luck. Today, like most days, I am thankful for my good luck. Sure, it's not lucky to be getting up frequently at night, to have a crater-sized hole where my molar used to be, or to have to deal with a really cranky kid. BUT if I never had the good luck to meet my husband, I wouldn't ...

I grew up in a very small house with five siblings, two parents, a dog, and tons of stuff. We had one bathroom and a tiny living room. The house was always a disaster and the noise level rivaled that of a rock concert. It was 1200 square feet of overstimulation and I have no idea how I survived it. My heart races a little now just thinking of it. You see, I am the type of person who likes things a certain way . I need quiet to clear my head. I need to know where my things are. I need to have my bills paid on time, my children bathed semi-regularly, and I need to have the house in a condition that is clean and presentable. I have tried embracing the chaos that rules my every day but it is a fight against who I truly am-- a type A control freak who thrives on routine and feels more comfortable in a library (ahh... quiet! systems! organization!) than in her own freaking house (noise! chaos! filth! boo...). I get the joke the universe has played on me with these twins and a pre...

There are many blogs that I peruse on a semi-regular basis. I like to read about other mothers' trials and tribulations, particularly those who have multiples. I keep up to date on friends' travels and other adventures. I have a few blogs with health and environmentalism bents that I enjoy and of course, there's no shortage of craft and sewing tutorials to keep my hands busy. Being relatively new to the whole blogosphere, it's a real thrill happening upon something that makes me laugh or makes my life a little bit saner or more "green." A few weeks ago when I was reading The Crunchy Chicken blog, I found the perfect way to approach the holidays this year. With her "Buy Hand" challenge, this blogger asks that you do one or more of the following: hand-make your gifts buy your gifts that are handmade by someone else (like from Etsy or a local craftsperson) buy it used either at a thrift store, yard sale, Craigslist or Freecycle, etc. buy tickets, membe...

Vivi's room is done and the girl is all moved in. I'm no Martha Stewart but I did put on my crafty pants (with the elastic waist) and let a little acrylic paint fly. Then, because that wasn't enough and I needed another way to channel (increase?) my stress, I decided to sew her some curtains. Alas, the final product: Still working on the curtains to the Turtles' room so stay tuned.

I don't seem to be lacking in anger these days. This home improvement project has me stressed beyond belief and I find myself barely able to keep my mama rage in check. I am exhausted to the core from eight months of little sleep and I have little patience for the usual shenanigans that come with having a three-year old in the house. This morning, Vivi intentionally woke up one of her sisters. Just one. For those of you without twins, one baby awake in the morning while the other sleeps is pretty much a guarantee that there will not be one moment that day when they both will be sleeping. Not one. The rage that erupted from within me after Vivi's transgression was disgusting. A full-on volcano of anger and issues spewing forth with little warning to anyone who happened to be around. I am ashamed of myself. Three-year olds are expected to do annoying stuff like this so why the hell am I the one acting like a child? To top off my nasty mood, my husband called me a control freak. M...

After a month of dust, drywall, lead, and tears, the end is in sight for our home renovation project. Hot damn! Of course, the cost will be more than double what we expected but unexpectedly doubling things seems to be what we do. Vivi should be out of the basement and into her new space by Sunday. The ceiling needs to be painted and the room could use a thorough cleaning but other than that it is ready to go. I've got some crafty ideas up my sleeve which I hope to have time to implement, not the least of which is making her curtains. We'll see how that goes. Until the final unveiling, you can get a look at the room here: The Turtles' room still has a ways to go. To combat the lead paint on the floor, it made the most sense for us to install a brand new floor on top of the existing one. That will go in on Saturday. We could have just ripped out the part with the paint but that would have meant we would have needed to remove the built-ins as well. Since we had just shelled ...

Is it a bad sign when last night at dinner I offered Vivi juice and she said, "I don't know, Mama. Does it have protein in it?" Is it also a bad sign when my husband greets the day by saying, "Only about 1000 more days until they [our girls] are all in school!"? Well, when you put it that way. At least one Turtle didn't seem to mind.

Saturday mornings around this place are pretty standard. My husband watches the kids while he talks to his father between 8 and 9 a.m. There's usually a lot of noise but I manage to squeeze in a few extra minutes of sleep during this time. Then, as his conversation finishes up, my husband gathers his checkbook and co-payments from the week and prepares to head off to the bank. Vivi accompanies him with the sole purpose of getting a lollipop and I get to ease into my morning with one less child in the house. It's been a pretty good system overall. On Halloween morning, things took a different turn with this conversation: Husband: "I am going to go to the b-a-n-k by myself because she [Vivi] will get plenty of candy tonight." Me: "Good point. Are you going now?" Vivi: "Daddy, where are you going?" Husband: "I am going to take care of some business." Vivi: "I want to go with you!" Husband: "You don' t even know wher...

The preparation for our winter hibernation has begun. Like a switch, we've gone from the hustle and bustle of warmer weather to the paradoxical illness and fortifying associated with the colder months. Being of old Yankee stock, I rather look forward to this hunkering down. With the wind and the rain, the cold virus has swept into our home. It hit Vivi first and now the Turtles' are dripping and sneezing and all around feverish. They have still maintained their congenial temperaments as though they accept this as part of our transition. Their sleep is sporadic but when it comes it is deep and peaceful. As is mine. Vivi has found a lot of solace in playing quietly and independently. She loves to sit at the table and practice writing her letters and her name. She is pensive and creative and seems to have absorbed that we're moving at just a little slower pace these days. The last vestige of summer-- Vivi's dresses-- are still present but they are on top of pants and shirt...

Vivi has made peace with the potty. (Or perhaps more accurately, she has made pees with the potty. Hey, I really crack myself up sometimes.) The pants-wetting regression that followed the Turtles' birth is now thankfully just a distant memory and we are thrilled that she lets us know what her pottying needs are. When the time comes for Vivi to make her deposit, her proclamations are full of movement and drama. She dances around grabbing her crotch and yells, "Ugh! Mama, I can't hold my pee! I gotta go NOW! It is coming on really fast!!!!" When Vivi dances, Mama jumps which is a real change for a mama who has had a baby on each breast for seven months now. With this kind of success, Vivi is currently trying to capitalize in other ways on Mama's quick response. As I was loading her into the car this afternoon, she exclaimed, "Mama, I really need a snack. Ugh! Ugh! I just can't hold my hungries!" She has also had an attack of the thirties ...

Vivi had her first sleep-over last night. Unbeknownst to me, she has been not so subtly asking all of her friends' parents if they would either let their child sleep at our house or if she could sleep at theirs. This made me wonder if my poor child is really aching to get out of the construction madness that has consumed our days or if she thinks yet another child in our basement would only improve the party. Who knows. What I do know is that my dear friend, Lovely Mama, agreed to Vivi's request and the sleepover went off without a hitch. Lovely Mama is a generous soul who loves Vivi in such a pure and beautiful way that my grinchy mama heart grows three sizes whenever I see them interact. Of course, Lovely Mama was probably a bit worn out today from dealing with my daughter and her son's sleep-deprived antics but she still didn't drop Vivi off at home until 2:30 this afternoon. 2:30! Lovely Mama must also be Super Mom.

I am about to lose my shit. BIG. TIME. What started as a little renovation project that involved taking one wall down and putting one new wall up has turned into a bloody $*%(#)$ nightmare. And all the screeching and tears indicate that I am definitely awake for the whole stupid thing. Two words sum up our problem: lead paint. Two more words make this problem especially upsetting: dismissive contractor. Like most people who live in old houses, we've got lead paint. Ours just happens to be on the hardwood floor in the Turtles' future room. We didn't think much of this paint initially because it was under a piece of old shag carpeting that was in our walk-in closet. When the wall to the closet came down and the carpet came up, we saw that the floor was green and it looked a little incongruous next to the regular old pine boards. As we were about to embark on the refinishing project, it occurred to us that it might be a smart idea to check to make sure that lovely green was...

Vivi is a regular at Ernie's Barber Shop. While I tend to let my hair go until it is a frightening, frizzed-out, untamed mess, my husband can be counted on for a trim every few weeks. It has become the tradition that when my husband goes to the barber, Vivi goes too. Ernie gets a real kick out of Vivi and Vivi gets a kick out of Ernie's candy jar. It is a win-win situation. A couple of months ago, I wanted in on the action and decided to take Vivi with me to the hairdresser. I figured she would enjoy the hustle and bustle of the place and the old ladies who congregate there would love to see her head of curls. Plus, I was going to be transformed from long-haired mess to short-haired super-mom. (Well, that is what I was hoping for at least.) Who wouldn't want to witness that? Well, it wasn't quite the wonderful bonding experience I had imagined. Vivi was bored out of her mind and while the old ladies did fawn over her curls, she just tried to hide behind her coloring bo...

I find that I am both a perfectionist and a people-pleaser and this is unfortunate. Now that we have undertaken this little renovation project and I've put my home in someone else's hands, I have been all full of angst because of these traits. Ugh... It all started on Friday when we were taking in our contractor's progress. At first glance, I was happy with how the rooms looked but when I started really looking, I noticed that the baseboards he installed were made of medium-density fiberboard. MDF is a cheap, engineered wood product and it isn't in keeping with the architectural integrity of our 88 year-old house. It is also quite toxic. (The glue used in its production is particularly egregious.) I wasn't happy . So, what to do? I didn't want the MDF there but I also knew that our contractor had done a lot of work that would need to be undone if I wanted it changed. I was upset that he didn't clear the MDF with us in advance but then I thought maybe I shou...

The remodel has begun. We are in the midst of two by fours and old horse hair plaster, hammers and saws, and hope and horror. Our little two bedroom home is being converted into a little three bedroom home and while I am optimistic about how the change will improve the quality of our lives, I am not exactly thrilled to have to do it. We are sealed in plastic and still covered in dust. The construction zone used to be our bedroom. It has two windows, a large walk-in closet, and enough floorspace to accommodate two cribs, two dressers, and a queen-size bed. There is a door at either end of the room which made us realize that, at some point during our home's 80-year history, our big room used to be two small rooms. With that knowledge, our plan was hatched. And this is what that large room where my Turtles entered the world looks like now: My home's bones are laid bare before my eyes. The nakedness makes me want to turn away out of respect to its history. I am uncomfortable, in...

Much to the neglect of my family, I am fully engrossed in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga. I will be the first to admit that a young adult book about vampires who have sworn off human blood wouldn't normally be at the top of my must-read list but I am sucked in (pretty clever pun, eh?) and with only a book and a half to go, I must finish. Normally, I am not the type to jump on the mass-market book bandwagon. I missed the whole Harry Potter thing while I was in Peace Corps and never felt the desire to pick up the book upon my return. Science fiction has never really been my thing so when my friend MiNa gave me the Twilight book "just in case" I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, I thought that I would politely return it to her a week or so later with the usual "too busy" excuse. Then I curiously read the first few pages and well, you see where this is heading. It's not that the book is well-written. It isn't. The story, however, is something...

We seem to be on a six month cycle of change around here and we're about to enter a new phase. Six months ago the Turtles came into the world and everything that was normal at the time was quickly upended by the chaos that accompanies a new child... or two. We have settled into that chaos now and while it can still be maddening, it also feels comfortable and secure. On the rare occasion when I have found myself without my children, it is still next to impossible for me to accomplish anything. I run around the house, manically flitting from one task to the next, while seeing not one single thing to completion. That's my new reality and I'm surprised to say that I am finally comfortable with that. So as September draws to an end, we are closing the door on the new parents to three cycle. Vivi is happily enjoying her new identity as a preschooler and we are slowly accepting the fact that she now has a small part of her life that doesn't include us. She is growing in...

Baby, baby, where have you gone? Literally. I was sitting at my desk with a certain Jude Bug lying on the floor directly behind me playing with her ball. When I turned around, not more than a couple of minutes later, she was heading into the kitchen. Maybe she wanted some of the delicious yogurt she shared with her sister the other night. Well, she thought it was delicious. These Turtles continue to amaze me. They are growing at the speed of light and although every day seems to be a challenge of survival, the time is passing very quickly. Their personalities are becoming much clearer and though they are quite different, they seem incomplete with out the other. I feel their bodies relax simultaneously when they hold hands while nursing. Just the other day, Eliya was cracking up whenever Jude brushed her face with her hand. They are beautiful separate but glorious together and that is more than enough to keep us going for another day.

It has been nearly a week since the cry-it-out experiment began and we've had some success. It is not the blissful, perfect sleep I had in mind but it is a definite improvement over the multiple night wakings we were enduring. I'm just not sure if my expectations for these Turtles are reasonable. So, fair readers who have survived the cry-it-out technique, I need your help. Here's the back story: I've been putting the Turtles down to bed between 6:30 and 7 p.m. with little fuss. For the first three or four nights, they would stir at around 10 p.m. and I would nurse them in their semi-sleep state and then head off to bed myself. I wouldn't pick them up again until 5 a.m. or after. The first night Jude cried for two and a half hours but subsequent nights have been much better. They still wake up and cry but usually don't go longer than 20 minutes. By the end of the week, I decided to let them put themselves back to sleep at the 10 p.m. waking. I have been...

So we did it. We let the babies cry it out and oh god, it hurt. It hurt really badly. As I have written in the past, our Turtles are not great sleepers. Part of this, I believe, is their natural inclination but I also recognize that I have likely created a situation that rewards their desire to stay awake. Like at 11:00 p.m., 1:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., and 5:00 a.m. when I nurse them back into sleepy oblivion. It started innocently enough. Every parent of twins told me to feed the babies at the same time and I did that... for three days. On hour 36 of hardly any sleep, I gave up. You see, nursing two babies at a time was logistically very difficult for me. I required a light, a chair, a pillow for my back, a huge pillow for my front, and someone to help me align two babies. Add to this the fact that I effectively forgot how to nurse and was in so much pain that I would cry the moment each baby latched on. I knew I had something all wrong. By the time each nursing session was co...

Vivi, in all her three year old charm, started school on Thursday. It was a big event around this place. Vivi was excited. Daddy was excited. Mama was REALLY excited. The Turtles even seemed excited. When Vivi awoke for school, she informed me that she wanted to wear a dress because she needed "to look stylish." I told her that it was probably a little chilly for a dress but she wasn't swayed. "I'll just wear my leg warmers then." And there you have it: So far, we have been pleased with the nursery school we have chosen for Vivi. It is a small, local cooperative where the teachers are progressive and the format is entirely "child-led." The community of parents seems happy and the work involved appears not to be too onerous. I think our whole family is going to get a lot out of it and I am really looking forward to that.

It seems we are all getting older around here. Our Labor Day weekend was spent celebrating various milestones, including my birthday and the Turtles' six months of life. With each passing month, time seems to speed up so much so that my birthday came like a hurricane-force wind and knocked me on my extra-cushioned ass. I barely had a chance to catch my breath from the preceding year. Whoooooosh... Now, here I am 33 years old and thinking that this has to be my year of threes: three children (one of whom is three), three major appliances broken in as many months, and three hours of sleep a night. I am just waiting for the genie in a bottle to grant me three wishes. And so we celebrated with at least three types of cake: And then 24 short hours later, the Turtles turned six months old. SIX WHOLE MONTHS! We had some mashed banana, sang some songs, and generally spent the entire day impressed with the fact that we managed to keep our children and ourselves alive and our house intact ...

I finally left my family. My exit was premeditated and executed with such precision that I may have a future as a CIA agent... or a wedding planner. While I normally fantasize about slipping out of the house under cover of darkness, I left town last Friday morning in broad daylight with the blessing of my husband. I didn't come home until Monday night and it was glorious. It's fair to say that I have been pretty burned out by my domestic duties. I love my family but, good god, I was turning into a Class A Crankypants. I was just tired and miserable and isolated in my mom of multiple babies identity.* I was getting bogged down in what I hated about my life instead of enjoying what I do. Six months of chronic sleep deprivation has a way of doing that to a person. So when the invitation came from my friend E. to visit her and some of our Peace Corps friends in San Diego, I jumped at the chance. E. is one of my dearest friends and we were practically inseparable during our ser...

I spent the weekend feeling a bit unsettled and I'm not sure how to let it go. When I picked Vivi up from her last day of camp on Friday, the teacher said to me, "She did great all week. You would never know that she's never been to school." I am sure the teacher meant it in a complimentary way but the comment bothered me. I felt like there was some judgement that Vivi, being three years and four months old, should have had some type of formal education before now or that it was odd to find a child who is bright and socialized even without school. Since Vivi was 13 months old, I have been home with her full-time. My husband and I always knew that when she was pre-school age, we would send her to an official nursery school. This idea, however, that children need to be in some sort of formal learning environment before they are even done toddling seems a tad ridiculous. I have even heard parents of babies refer to their child's daycare as "school." Are you...

I went to the farm a couple of weeks ago and they had yukon potatoes, in all their glorious fresh from the earth goodness. Excited by their appearance, I ran through all the things I could make with them: mashed potatoes, a tart with a potato crust, some hearty kind of soup. I purchased a couple pounds and was filled with warm thoughts on the drive home. Then, to my horror, I realized that it isn't November. In fact, it is August and it is bloody hot outside. (Hence, the warm thoughts.) Oh, and I hate potato salad. So they sit on the counter waiting for a damn culinary intervention.

Vivi is a great eater and for that, I am grateful. I would love to take credit for her unusual pre-school taste buds but I think she is just a curious kid and that curiosity extends to food as well. She's been taking lunch all this week and has had everything from sesame noodles to tabbouleh. Her lunch box comes home empty and I'm delighted that I manage to hit a home run in the food department. That is until yesterday when I committed the cardinal sin of parenting in the new millennium. I sent Vivi to camp with.... PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!!! (On a boring ol' rice cake, no less.) Apparently schools today have this thing about peanut butter. If I send it in my child's lunch and another child with a peanut allergy happens to eat it and go into anaphylaxis... well, that would be a bad thing. I guess I was supposed to know this without being told. Obviously, no one wants a kid's life to be threatened but it seems to me that banning it from an entire school because of one c...

I woke up this morning to find Vivi cooking in her kitchen. She was making us "raspberry noodles" for breakfast. With a big day of camp ahead of her, she apparently needed something more fortifying than the bowl of dry cereal and watered down juice my husband put before her. Talk about a breakfast of champions. In order to properly cook her meal, Vivi had to put on her apron and chef's hat: And nothing else: I finished my delicious breakfast and Vivi happily left for camp. Then I went to the kitchen and polished off some raw cookie dough. Yeah, that's right. I made it on Sunday but it's been too blazing hot to put it in the oven and my attempts to make a few in the toaster oven failed miserably. So I've been eating it raw. It is both exhilarating and disgusting all at the same time. Please ignore previous post about getting my fitness on.

This morning we shipped Vivi off to camp. I never envisioned camp for a three-year-old but by mid-June I was pretty certain that I was going to need some help at the end of August if I wanted to survive the summer with my sanity intact. So all this week my little spitfire will be getting her kicks from 8:30 until 3:30 under someone else's supervision. Last night, in the heat and chaos of our "vacation" week coming to an end, I was ironing name labels into Vivi's clothes and packing lunches. My husband was beginning the mental and organizational adjustment of returning to work and we all were feeling a bit excited and anxious about the whole prospect of the two of them being out of the house all day. Vivi went to bed at about 8 and by 8:30 I had climbed in with her. I wanted to snuggle and hold onto my first baby who is so much a kid that I can hardly stand it. "Mama, you can sleep in my bed tonight," she said. When I told her that I would take up too m...

Vivi has started to... ahem... touch herself. It's been hot out and she's been going without clothes for the better part of the week so she's had more than enough opportunities to give her body a thorough review. It's not that I have a problem with her exploring her body. It's natural and normal and all that. I just really don't want to see her do it. So the other day, while she was checking things out, I said, "Hey V, I know you like to touch there but it is your business and you should have some privacy." "But Mama, I want to do it here." "Well, some people may not want to see it. That's not polite." "Mama, if you don't like it, don't look." Well, I wasn' t quite sure what to say to that. I mean it is how I feel about breastfeeding in public. I don't flaunt my breasts but if one or both of my babies needs to eat, the boobs have to come out. If someone doesn't like it, too bad. They probably don...

There are a few words that I thought I'd never say as a parent. Things like "...because I said so" or "if I have to stop this car..." Those phrases always seemed tired and old and I vowed never to use them. Well, I am old and tired and I have to admit that I have threatened to stop the car on numerous occasions. This morning, however, I uttered eight words that I really didn't expect ever to string together. In horror, I yelled, "VIVI! DON'T PUT LIP GLOSS ON THE BABIES!!!!!!!!!!!"

I know I'm fat. Yeah, yeah, I gave birth to twins five months ago and I probably should be easier on myself but I know what I can look like. And what I'm looking at every day ain't it. With both of my pregnancies, I ate sensibly and gained the recommended amount of weight. I didn't deny myself anything but I didn't overdo it either. I gave birth to three good-sized babies and have nursed or plan to nurse them all exclusively until they start solid foods. After that, I'll just continue nursing at least until they are one. This plan worked beautifully with Vivi and my pregnancy weight melted off. With the Turtles, it just hasn't happened. I'm sure there are a whole host of reasons for this. Vivi was the model baby- sleeping soundly, regularly, and through the night by three months. She was the only child so getting out for a walk was never a problem. I returned to work part-time when she was 13 weeks so we had a routine for our meals and snacks. We both ...