Mama Mama Quite Contrary

I am part of a Facebook group called Naturally Parenting Twins.  This group was a nice discovery for me because it is hard to find people who believe that it is possible to have a natural twin birth and breastfeed two babies simultaneously. To have women who share those feelings as well as know the unique challenges of raising twins is a real gift....usually. The problem is that in every kind of mothers' group there always seems to be a person (or two) who believes her way of parenting is the right way.  Sadly, in my experience, these women almost always fall under the Dr. Sears Attachment Parenting  purview.  You know the kind:  the militant co-sleepers, the woman who believes that if you had a c-section you are just a victim of the medical establishment, the mother who insists on carrying a baby nonstop instead of using a stroller (aka "a pod of isolation"). You get the idea.  These are the women I try to avoid. I believe that unless a woman has a se...

I am not a bibliophile.  I love reading but I prefer to keep my books at the library for someone else to take care of.  I have a few that I treasure or use for reference but I am not a collector.  In fact, I don't like holding on to things that lack utility or sentiment and that is how I feel about most books.  When my space is cluttered with things, my mind is too and it is an uncomfortable way for me to live. When it comes to books my husband and I are total opposites.  He loves them.  The physical object, old and tattered or new and crisp, is a joy to him.  His books are like friends that hold memories and the idea that he would part with them is ludicrous.   As you might imagine, we are at odds about his book collection.  We are also at odds about our children's books, but in a different way.  I love that my girls love books.  We probably have a couple hundred and I treasure most of them.  I love to watch them read o...

Jude and Ellie don't really know that they are twins.  They aren't yet three and I think the whole meaning of being a twin is far beyond their level of comprehension.  People frequently ask if they are twins and they always proclaim that they are.  I know they are just echoing what they hear me say.  They are who they are.  One is Jude and one is Ellie. Last night, the girls chose to wear matching pajamas.  This is unusual because we only have one matching set (they were a gift) and Ellie hasn't been very interested in them. She is very persnickety about her clothing and tends to like different things from Jude so I was surprised when they both picked the same thing. Well, this morning Elie looked at Jude and had a revelation. She said, "Jude, you wearing pink polka dot pajamas and I wearing pink polka dot pajamas.  We are twins!!!!!" Yes, indeed.

Internet, please forgive me, I have created yet another mythical being to con my children into doing something they don't want to do. Her name is the Hairy Fairy. As I explained to my girls, the Hairy Fairy is a rather unfortunate soul.  She has the most awful hair.  It is stick straight, thin, and the color of smashed peas.  She tried everything to make her hair curly like Vivi, Jude, and Elie's but nothing has ever worked and she felt very sad about that.  One day, she realized that the only way that she could ever have the beautiful, curly hair she admired so much would be to take the curls that big girls like mine no longer need.  That was how she magically transformed from sad sack to magical fairy hair collector.  Because the Hairy Fairy knows that not every girl wants to part with her curls, she leaves a treasure behind to thank the girl for her kind curl donation. I had Vivi at the word "treasure." So, after months of months of "gr...

I love the holidays but they always seem to pass so quickly that I often resent the arrival of January.  It can seem like a really long, dark month here in New England so I have decided this year I am going to change the way I do things. My husband and I are cleaning out and simplifying. We both have been feeling like our lives are falling victim to the TOO MUCH SYNDROME.  Our girls have too many toys. They are watching too much television and their behavior is the worse for it.  We have had too much food.  Our shelf space is lacking because of too many books that aren't worth keeping.  Our dressers are bulging from clothes that don't fit. My husband works too much.  I have too many control issues.  (That's kind of a perpetual problem.) So in 2012, we are: -Canceling Netflix -Donating our unused clothes, toys, and books and limiting what comes into our house -Menu planning and wasting less food -Limiting our dairy (which leaves my husband chronicall...

Am I the only one who thinks the holidays come and go in one big blur?  It seems like it was just the beginning of December and we were all worked up about choosing our tree.   My husband had the brilliant idea that we should tag a tree after Thanksgiving before all the good ones are scooped up.  (Apparently our Charlie Brown trees of yore were haunting my poor Jewish spouse.)  Well, he and the girls did a good job this year.  Take a look: I also spent a fair amount of time at the sewing machine this December.  I made those big cushions on the left hand side of the tree-- complete with piping.  (That's unchartered territory for me!)  Jude and Elie love them and, as I suspected, they work beautifully for story time or as implements of destruction. Speaking of Jude and Elie, they had quite an accidental meeting with "Santa Claus" in the YMCA parking lot a few weeks ago.  There is an older man who works out when I do.  He has long white...