Losing My Sanity to the Tune of Disney Classics

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It’s been a long week for the Family-in-Training. The boys haven’t been sleeping well thanks to all of us basically being sick since we moved here, so Daddy-in-Training and I are also exhausted. Add to that a crazy-busy work week for both of us, and we’re all a little cranky.

Last night, though, during a much-needed Facebook break for some mindless entertainment, I entered a whole new realm of “losing it.”

It started when a babywearing friend commented about wanting a new, mermaid-inspired wrap despite already having a sufficient array of carriers. “Wouldn’t you think your collection’s complete?” I inquired, humming The Little Mermaid. I was tickled with myself. Everyone seemed amused. But then my brain kept going, and I thought of another girl in the group who has every carrier known to man (a.k.a., my DREAM collection), and I couldn’t stop myself.

And then when Jesse posted in our local group about our needing an occassional babysitter, well, I started taking requests in the comment trail. Continue reading →

…And Then He Crammed a Shoe in My Bra

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Emmett and my boobs have a love-hate relationship these days. He was still breastfeeding pretty well in December, but somewhere between moving into our new place and learning how to walk and, thus, run away from me because it’s funny, he seems to have forgotten now to nurse. That would be no problem if he didn’t still WANT to nurse.

How can I tell?

  • He cries and frantically lifts my shirt while signing “milk.”
  • He randomly flings himself into my chest while thrusting his arms down the neck of my shirt.
  • He gets super excited and runs over to me if I’m not wearing a shirt, if I remove a layer, if I undo a button.
  • He flips out when he can’t get my bra off.

He kind of reminds me of his father, actually. Continue reading →

Why I Don’t Hit My Kids

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A friend and fellow mommy blogger (see her awesome In Love and Words) posted this on her Facebook wall this week, and debate ensued.

I consider myself a gentle parent, but I have bad days. I have yelled at my kids on two different occasions. (I do not include the times Emmett bit me while nursing and I screeched involuntarily because it hurt worse than childbirth or my tattoo and I literally couldn’t help it.) One time, when the boys were about 9 months old and Emmett reached for something super dangerous, I can’t even remember what it was, I grabbed his hand and swatted it and said, “NO!” very firmly. Then I froze. I had just hit my kid. My BABY. That is not the kind of mom I want to be, and in that moment, I immediately apologized to him and swore I would never do it again. So far, I haven’t. And I plan to keep it that way.  Continue reading →

Losing the “Baby Weight” – My Journey and My Motivation

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At my six-week postpartum follow-up appointment, I had lost 40 lbs from the day I delivered Emmett and Miles. I was 20 lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight. I was also still 20 lbs higher than my “happy weight,” but still thinner than I had been in years of back-t0-back pregnancies and stressful day-to-day life. During my pregnancy, I was grateful for the extra “padding” that helped me and my babies survive 8 months of nonstop puking. Afterward, I was over it, but the weight didn’t really get the message to move on.

Unfortunately my weight crept back up another 10 lbs, 13 on some days, and stayed there for the last year. I briefly went back to the gym starting when the boys were about 3 months old, but it was too hard to find childcare to leave them at home and too difficult for me to leave them with strangers at bedtime (I worked days, so nights were my only option for the gym), and honestly I was freaking exhausted so it was difficult to stay motivated.

When we moved to Florida in December, we knew life here would be different. We were down to one income, a smaller home, less stress, less CRAP to deal with every day just to keep things running. It took about 2 months to settle in, during which time the boys turned 1 and overnight became little people instead of just babies. My goal had been to reach my happy weight by the twins’ first birthday. I did not meet this goal. I did, however, survive my first year of twin parenthood, so I tried to focus on that and not look too closely in the mirror.

We joined the YMCA after about a month here, and were great about going as a family most days of the week. Over the course of 4 months, I got about 10 lbs off. Then everyone got sick. Repeatedly. And stayed sick for 3 months. We stopped working out. The weight started to creep back up. The stress started to creep back up. And I started to feel like I was never going to be happy in my body again.

I also started to feel like I would never cut my hair again. See, that was the deal Daddy-in-Training and I made when we started talking about getting both of our weights into a healthy range: He HAS to cut his hair until he reaches his goal weight, and I CAN’T cut my hair until I reach mine.

I am happy to report that I expect to make my hair appointment by the end of next week. In the last month, I have lost almost 10 lbs. In 7 more, I will be in the dead center of my goal weight range. In 5 more, I can schedule my cut and color. It’s kind of amazing. Continue reading →

They Sleep All Night, Yet I’m Wide Awake for HOURS

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I’ve been yawning like this for hours.

I’m finally at that point where, when people annoyingly ask me, “Are they sleeping through the night yet?” which at least one person has asked literally every day for the last 15 months, I can actually respond, “Yes!” most of the time. And now I’m sleeping like crap. You know that whole sleep training movement, where you supposedly teach your baby to sleep how you want him to? Well, these babies have trained me. To be awake. All the time. Except during the day, when I can barely keep my eyes open half the time.

Whether they are awake or not, I find myself involuntarily alert at random times throughout the night no matter how tired I am, how much I want to sleep, how relaxed I feel. Although on some nights, I wake every 2 hours like clockwork, and can’t go back to sleep for at least 45 minutes. It’s now 6:34 a.m. local time. Early but not THAT early. Thing is, I’ve been WIDE AWAKE since 3:30, and I didn’t sleep much before that, either.

As I lie awake in bed, I initially start by telling myself that everything is okay, I don’t need to do anything, it’s okay to go back to sleep. If that doesn’t work, I get up and pee and have a drink of water, maybe stretch a little to relieve any tension in my body, and do boring things in bed like counting backwards from 100 in Spanish. When I was a kid, that knocked me right out. Now, no help.

Around the wide-awake-for-90-minutes mark, I start thinking about all of the things I could or should be doing since I’m obviously not sleeping. Things like laundry, vacuuming, taking down all of the curtains in the house and washing them, cleaning out the car, dusting the bookshelves… You’d think a list so boring would also lull me to sleep, but then the debate begins: Wait it out in case I fall back asleep, or get up and do something so I’m not so flipping bored.

Am I the only one with massive sleep dysfunction these days? How do you cope — either in the moment or during the day after you haven’t slept? I need ideas.