Current favorite toy

Ok, so Randy and I have bought the girls exactly four toys since they were born. Don't worry, though, friends and family have come to the rescue and supplied us with many more. Here is their current favorite:

That's right, a plastic coffee tub. It's brightly colored, makes a VERY good drum and when tipped on its side it rolls away. All three are very high on the baby-approval list.

baby products review

So, I'm no expert. My babies are only six months old. However, unlike most moms, who go about things one at a time, I have two very different personalities living with me right now and, as such, I feel I'm somewhat qualified to give advice on baby needs. Karla & Grant - are you happy with your gate purchase? Because I stand by my gate - I'm still in love with it. At some point every day I still smile when I walk through the gate. In any case, here's my opinion on baby items:


The good (necessary):

• Crib (duh)

• Bassinet OR Moses basket (we did Moses baskets b/c my sister-in-law gave them to us. We purchased little mattresses for them and called it good. The girls shared one until they were a month old, and slept in their own until they were two months old. Then we finally switched to the crib.
• Bouncy Seat OR swing. Eve LOVED both the bouncy seat and the swing. Mae tolerates the swing and never enjoyed the bouncy seat, BUT you need somewhere you can strap them in and get them to fall asleep while you nap. The straps are essential so they don't end up like this:
• Saucer OR door jumper. Both of our girls LOVE both of these things. Every day we still spend a lot of time in both and they've been great for smiles.
• Play pen. Pack-N-Plays are both wonderful and horrible inventions. They take advanced degrees (I think three undergrad and four masters) to set-up. However, once they're up they're fabulous. Getting them down causes the same concern, so, unless aboslutely necessary - keep them set-up at all times. We're actually using my 28 year-old play pen b/c it's ten thousand times easier to use. I'm sure the babies are being exposed to all sorts of dangerous things, but so far they seem fine, so I'm not switching.
  
• Rocking Chair. Every house needs one. Period.
  
• Stroller/car seat/travel system. With twins this was kinda tricky to figure out, but in the end we went with a Graco double stroller and matching car seats. It's been great. the car seats snap right on to the stroller. The stroller has good shock absorbers, folds fairly flat fairly easily and everything works together well. PLUS, my HS classmate who has 2 1/2 year-old twins uses the exact same stroller, so I know it's good for the long haul.
  
• Buying diapers: I KNOW not everyone has access to this -but here are my opinions of diapers: Huggies are GREAT, but overpriced. Costco's Kirkland's are just generic Huggies (these are my first choice). Luvs are ok, they're my second choice. Pampers always seems to give Mae rashes, but it's all we used in the hospital. White Cloud (Sam's club generic) are generic Luv's. Walgreens brand are HORRIBLE. Never, upon pain of death, use these on your children. I don't care how cheap they are. Both girls broke out in a rash within 24 horus of using them.
• Toys: Start small. The interlinking plastic rings (24/approx. $4) and fabulous for everything and still occupy the girls daily. Blankets with tabs on all sides are also fascinating early on. Also have a couple different car seat toys to alternate.
• BOPPY. I am a boppy convert. When we were registering I thought they were ridiculous and for the first three weeks we didn't have one. I don't know WHAT I was thinking. Ridiculous. THIS is a fabulous product. I was able to stick a baby under both arms and breastfeed Mae on one side and bottlefeed Eve on the other. Randy could bottle feed them both. It's fabulous. Now we use it for helping catch Eve when she falls over (she's good at sitting, not great)
• Baby blankets (and lots of them) It's a good thing a lot of people give blankets, b/c we used them all - especially in the cold Midwest winter. I think at last count we had 23 different blankets of varying material, size and patterns. And each one is well used.
  
• Crib toys: We only have a mobile (that the girls cannot reach) in the crib and they do just fine. The crib is for sleeping, not playing, so IMO, keep the distractions in the crib to a minimum.
• Gate. We have two dogs. Two wonderful energetic dogs. Who just now are beginning to live in rooms other than the kitchen. Did I mention they're also patient? So, check out this post to see my opinions on gates.
  

Unnecesary items:

• Baby wipe warmer. Unless you plan to bring it with you always, you're really just training your baby to be pampered. What happens when you're out at Wal-mart in the winter and you change their diaper? Screams. I've seen it happen. They get used to what they have. I'm a no frills mom, and this is total frills. Don't waste your money and don't register for it.
  
• Bottle warmer. There were times this would have been really useful, but overall, we just didn't have space and time for a bottle warmer. So, for breastmilk, Mae just took it straight from the source and I just pumped early for Eve. Otherwise, we make their formula up just ahead of time, most of the time. The rest of the time they've just learned to take it chilled. They've never really minded - not even in the middle of the night.
• Everything on the list above. We do have everything above, but we also have two babies, so we need more distractions.
  

My number one tip:

DO NOT BUY ANY OF THESE THINGS NEW. (ok, ok, you can buy new diapers). And maybe the ring toys. And rocking chair. OK - anything that's normally over $30 - look for it used. Ask family (hint, hint, Jeni), check craigslist, shop garage sales. People were extraordinarily generous with us, so between that and garage sales we've only spent money on the consumables (diapers, formula, wipes).

I'll bet I have a lot more opinions, but this is what I can come up with for now. Enjoy and let me know where you disagree, or where you have a differing opinion. I'll try to post on clothing and bedding needs soon.

Oh - the one thing I do not place any limits on nor begrudge Randy for purchasing are books. The more the better. LOVE books.

One more tip - start thinking now what lullaby you want to sing to them. Singing is intregal to bedtime. I sing 'Baby Mine' from Dumbo and started doing it when they were two days old. Now, when I start singing that song they stop what they're doing, look at me, smile and quiet down. Eve even starts to close her eyes, even if she's not all that sleepy. Brilliant!

Love Begins Here

I am now about 24 hours removed from my first mission trip, Love Begins Here, and I had an amazing time. The following quote, from Mother Teresa, was the inspiration for the trip,

"And so here I am talking with you - I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people. And find out about your next-door neighbor - do you know who they are?"

The idea, of course, being that before we can go out and save the world by doing work elsewhere we need to first take care of the rest of us. It was ideal for our parish, since, for liability reasons we won't be doing far away mission trips.

I took a group of 11 kids, seven of which were from SJB, the others were friends and relatives of parishioners. It was a great group: Kayla, Megan, Heather, Jessica, Danielle, Madilyn, Angelina, Matt, Slade, Dylan, and James. We stayed the week at a house (the family was on vacation) - all 30 of us with no air conditioning (they don't have it) and worked on a site in east Madison. If you want more details of the trip itself, here's the Love Begins Here blog.

But my impressions are great. The leaders were amazing. Lindsay, whom I'm briefly worked with as a fellow youth minister proved herself to be a great organizer. Gina, who I met at Youth 2000 was a fabulous motivator. Michael was steadfast and solid presence and Jeff was a sort of spiritual leader. All four are fabulous young adults and I am so glad I had the chance to work with them this past week.

It was also odd to the be the oldest person there, at 28. Also, the only married one and, thusly, the only parent. I was surprised at how being a mother has changed my perception of service. The selflessness that is inherent in being a parent carries over quite well to service work. I've long admired Mother Teresa, but I've always known that I couldn't do the work the Missionaries of Charity do. However, now that I am a mother and I've cleaned up the most helpless of the helpless my perception has changed. The idea of serving the poorest of the poor no longer disgusts me, or seems impossible. The selflessness of service is inherent in being a mother. I was surprised how it hit me.

I was also struck by how the kids responded to daily mass- they enjoyed it by the end of the week. Not all of them, of course, but enough of them acquired an appreciation for it that we'll be going on Tuesday this coming week and many of them are making plans to attempt o get there at least once a week now.

I also enjoyed getting to know these young people. They are not the church of tomorrow, they are the young church of today. Their faith and willingness to grow in that faith is what keeps me working as I do. I see good people, willing to give their time and comforts and routine for others. Especially others who live somewhat similiarly to them - the home we worked on was in a neighborhood like the ones they live in. It was the same size as the one they live in. And it was good for them to see how the people near them - in their own community, needed their help.

I also realized a big part of the 'why' behind why I'm Catholic and why I enjoy it and continue to explore it. When a topic captures my attention I try to find out everything about it; comic books, Harry Potters, movies I enjoy, the Barnevald tornado, etc. I research, read, learn as much as I can about whatever has currently caught my interest. And the same goes with Catholocism. But there is so much out there that every time I think I've got something cornered and figured out a question gets posed to me, or an article will mention something I'm not familiar with and off I go again. And there is so much out there about the Catholic faith - 2,000 + years - to keep me occupied.

This past week was very good for me as much as the kids I brought and I am so very glad I was given the opportunity to help the family and grow spiritually, and work together with our group of 30 to attempt to do some good in this word and spread the good news of Jesus risen from the dead.

An angry Roman soldier

Ok, so this week is our vacation bible school at work and I'm playing Brutus, St. Paul's house guard. And every day the kids come and visit Paul in his home and he shares with them one of God's lessons, usually something like "God's love is a gift", etc.

And yesterday, the first day, I was gruff and grumpy and told them to leave Paul alone, or they'd end up chained to me, too (Paul and Brutus have a chain connecting their ankles) and then I told them to stay away from the dangerous Christians.

Apparently, I was scary. I scared some 4 year-olds to the point where one of the group leaders mentioned it at the end of the day and this morning a few more adults mentioned they had talked about Brutus with their kids.

I feel awful. I don't mean to sound inflated about myself, but I pride myself on being kind and gentle to kids and I would never want to scare them - I was just trying to be grumpy. The older kids got it - some of them were trying to make me laugh (I just glared at them), but a few of the 4 year olds were very wary of me today. So I toned it down big time. And still some little kid was overheard saying he was scared when the soldier yelled. I did not yell or even get close to it - that I would swear on the Bible.

I feel terrible. There's this little pit in my stomach that clenches when I think about it. Actually-more than that - I feel bad for the kids I do know who don't understand why I won't smile at them when they come into Paul's house, because normally I'm very smiley and I know about 1/3 of the kids from church stuff and school. The 2nd graders on up understand, but there are a few kindergartners who are confused, I can tell.

Of course, then there are the 3rd and 4th graders who try to pass Paul weapons (something I specifically told them not to do!) just to see what I'll do.

I'm having a good time, but thank goodness I get converted by the end and get to smile and be happy; I'm not very good at being grumpy, I feel bad about it.

I'll try to post a pic of me in costume sometime this week. Then you can decide whether I'm intimidating or not.

Six Years!

That's right...yesterday marked the six year anniversary of our marriage! Man oh man, that's a respectable number. No longer newlyweds by anyone's definition, we're in it for the long haul!

And what a day it was! Since the actual date of our marriage I think I've worked every year, except last year. When I was at Empire it was almost always one of our busiest weekend days, or else it fell during the week of our super busy end-of-grad-season push. This year it fell on the last day of our parish festival, when I work the little kids' games with the confirmation students.

But, it is what it is. When I got home Randy had already chilled the bottle of white wine we had purchased in Italy on our honeymoon and we ordered in delicious Italian food and, with one baby in my arms and another rolling around on the floor we had a wonderful dinner to sit and talk with one another.

Admittedly I went to bed five minutes after the girls, so we didn't watch our customary movie, but I was sick, sunburned, mildly buzzed, and mother of almost-six-month-old twins, so by 9 p.m. I was passed out in bed. Not the most romantic ending to the day, but that's ok.

Randy and I have been told several times by several married couples that the 'newlywed glow' will burn out, but I don't think we've gotten there yet. I used to think all those cards, songs, people who said their husband was their best friend were lame, but he is. We have so much fun picking on each other, making fun of each other, hanging out, and yet we do our own things, too, and everything works out.

We still have the occasional fight. I'd say maybe 1-3/year that are actual fights. And they're not yelling fights, just one of us takes an oppositional stand on an issue and refuses to budge. But even then we never go to bed angry. I think maybe once in our entire marriage have we've done that. No, I'm still blissfully happy and wildly in love with him.

We both talk about one another constantly to other people; probably to the point where it annoys other people. Ah well. I respect him tremendously and think he's brilliant and smart, and handsome, and kind, and a good dad, and very thoughtful and just all around wonderful. I'm so glad we have each other.

And even though some anniversaries will be spent at swim meets with the kids, like my friend Sue did for her anniversary, I know we will always take time to acknowledge one another and our commitment to one another.

More house guests

My family is coming today! Since Wendy had her baby last week we've been relying on the kindness of family. Mom, Dad & Kate are all arriving in a few hours to help out this week. Of course, Kate's only staying until tomorrow morning so she can get back to IC for a drug test (it's a good thing, trust me).

The girls will be in heaven. So much attention! I think we may have to order pizza, since I'm not sure I have the energy to make that much food. My ovarian cysts are back, apparently. I noticed it first on Saturday afternoon, but thought nothing of it; I hadn't eaten very well the night before and assumed it was stomach cramps.

However, by Sunday afternoon that very specific pain in my right ovary was there. Ouch! I also have general cramping, which I never get, so, I have a prescription for painkillers waiting for me to pick up after work today. I hope, like last time, they shrink back down after a week, because this is not fun. It's still odd to me that I can feel my ovaries, because it's seems an odd thing to experience. Stomach - of course. Lungs, duh. Uterus, occasionally, but feeling my ovaries is like feeling my spleen, or liver.

I just want to be out of pain. My ankle is finally at about 90%, so once I get past this I might be able to actually start working out, which would be amazing. I plan on bundling the girls into the burley and going bike riding on a regular basis.

Saturday night we had our second official date since the girls were born. I say official, because we've used lots of babysitters with the girls, but it's always been for work related things. But Saturday was a date. Dinner and a movie, again. We're not exactly creative.

We saw 'Up'. What a lovely movie. I laughed, I cried, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a delight of a movie. I don't think there's been a Pixar movie yet I haven't liked. It's just such a simple method of storytelling. My only complaint was this movie contained a few more obvious laughts than most - like the 'Dogs Playing Poker' reference and little things like that. But such fun, all the same.

Nerdiness confirmed

So I won a contest over at Baby on Bored. I rarely, if ever, win contests, but it was for two snarky books on parenting and the guidelines were simple: what's your guilty pleasure? So, I wrote mine down, press 'post' and let my freak flag fly high and proud.

What was my guilty pleasure? Most of the women there posted about a glass of red wine, faking a stomach ailment to get some alone time in the bathroom, popping a big zit, reality tv. Nope. Not odd or guilty enough to win the contest.

Dale picked Divamommy who likes to shampoo her carpet to drown out the noise of the kids.

"I love that Divamommy finds 'guilty pleasure' in cleaning. Thunderously loud, escapist cleaning. It's a sort of overachieving guilty pleasure, as opposed to just, say, just swallowing ice cream."

Me? Well, Teen Titans fan fiction. Now you all know. Or maybe you don't. Teen Titans...don't know who they are? Well - the photo here is of the cartoon characters, however, they were originally a DC Comics title starrign Robin (Dick Grayson of Batman & Robin), Kid Flash, and Aqualad. They were shortly joined by Wonder Girl and Speedy (Green Arrow's sidekick). In other words - a sort of junior Justice League. (Please don't make me define the Justice League...just google/wikipedia it).

Fan fiction is fiction written by fans. The most prolific site is Fanfiction.net. Currently there are over 23,000 fics for Teen Titans, though most are crap written by pre-teens and have no plot, so character development and are short fan-love fics that aren't worth reading. (omigosh I'm critiquing Teen Titans fanfic).

In any case, other the past few months I've really gotten into Batman and the whole DC Comics universe. I even recently bought my first comic book - Battle for the Cowl #3. Whenever I go to Barnes and Noble or a used bookstore I go first to the graphic novel/comic book section to check out their selection.

Randy, of course, encourages this wholeheartedly, since, as he says, it makes me officially the coolest wife ever. I play video games and read comic books.

I think it just makes me a huge nerd. And now that I'm basking in the afterglow of my victory, I don't think I'll stop. So, there. I'm flying my freak flag mighty high right now.

A musing.

I can feel myself becoming more boring. As a number of people in my age group, I use facebook and have able to grant friend requests to a number of classmates from high school and beyond (there are only a couple people I would deny a request from) and, in turn, always go check out their profiles. And compared to many of my classmates I lead a relatively boring life.

Many of my friends have photos posted from adventures in other countries, vacations in fun locales in the states, nights at bars, concerts, exciting projects for work. Some of my best friends have amazing adventures that I catch only snippets of.

And though I love my life, there is a part of me that longs for that sort of adventure. Now, I know perfectly well I have traveled to other countries. And bars and concerts are usually too loud for me since, as I prefer conversations to parties. But, parts of my heart hurt when I think of my routine life with little excitement to offer.

I do love my life; please do not think I begrudge my beautiful children or my amazing husband. But there are times I feel as though some parts of life have flown past with barely a nod in my direction.

I think it is most likely a natural occurrence to, at this point in my life, take stock at what has occurred and feel some regret for what will never be. I am now always and ever a mom and wife. And I would not exchange that for all the riches in the world.

But my day is very centered around my own little corner of the world. I get up, go to work, come home, play with my family and go to bed. Every day is a routine on that. The little adventures Randy and I used to take before the pregnancy won't really happen until the kids are a little older.

I think there's just a bit of regret going on because it's summer and I'm silly. I do want a grand adventure, but between babies, money, physical limitations it just won't happen right now. And that's all right.