Raincity Mama » parenthood

I get knocked down but I get up again

Sandi — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:18:28 +0000

It is so predictable. Life throws me a speed bump and I stop taking care of myself the way I should. I stop going to the gym because I was home with the kids. I sleep funny and wake up barely able to get out of bed my back hurts so much. I stop eating, grasping for something, anything that I feel I can control.

Last night’s sleep disruption left me feeling like a zombie and not the good kind of zombie. I’m irritable, short tempered and my potty mouth is outrageous!

Conductor please stop the ride I want off. The urge to flee is becoming status quo. This has to stop. I can’t run away. I know that no matter where I go my problems will find me. I know that if I don’t take care of myself, then I cannot take care of anyone else. Last night I read my friend Mo’s latest entry and it left me shaken. I do not want to let myself deteriorate to the point that I am left so broken that my children have to care for me. (Mo, I say this in the least judgy way that I can, no offense to your mom)

This is me declaring again that I am going to take care of myself. I will pick myself up and keep moving. This pity party needs to be canceled forever. I’m getting my ass back to the gym. I’m going to find a yoga practice that I love. I am worth at least these first steps.

a change in bedtime routine

Sandi — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:25:32 +0000

We did it! We’ve finally made it to the stage where we can read stories, kiss the kids goodnight and walk out of the room with them awake. My daughter will occasionally complain loudly (read whimper, whine, or cry) but if I tell them that I need to go potty, do laundry, or help Daddy they usually snuggle down and I don’t hear a peep from them. On night when my husband puts them to bed it’s even easier. Something about me being out of the house or “sleeping” makes it even easier for him to get them to bed.

I was really hesitant to write about this for fear that the sleep gods would scoff at my cockiness in writing this and throw us in to a massive sleep regression. But the thing I’ve learned is that there will always be sleep regressions. So please sleep gods, I’m not scoffing! Please consider this as a tip of my hat and let us carry on with this fabulous new routine.

Edited to add that tonight there was a false start in putting the kids to bed. I read stories and said I had to do some laundry and my daughter complained bitterly that I wasn’t there holding her hand. The husband went in to try to settle her but no dice. I went back in and sat with her for a few minutes and then said I had to go and it’s been silent ever since. Thank you sleep gods!

Simple living with twins

Sandi — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:00:23 +0000

I find that more and more of my google reader is stuff about minimalist living, living with less, simple living, uncluttering, the list goes on. I want to find a way to do all of this with my family.

I feel like I’m drowning in “stuff”. I want to teach my kids the value of experiences versus accumulating things. Not that there is anything wrong with things, I’m just tired of the cheap plastic toy that breaks within an hour of being unpackaged. So perhaps it’s time we started to focus on buying things that will last.

I know that when a new baby is one the way the drive to start buying stuff is overwhelming and when you are expecting multiples a lot of people think that it means two of everything. I will cast my mind back and write about how we did the baby years with less and I will start to write about we are trying to simplify now. Is minimal living with multiples an oxymoron? I don’t think so.

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V is for vasectomy

Sandi — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:34:16 +0000

My husband has been ready to get a vasectomy for almost three years and he recently asked me again when he could book his vasectomy. When the babies were still tiny he told me that he was ready to get the snip-snip. Caring for newborn twins is taxing to say the least! The sleep deprivation, the overwhelming neediness of two infants, the financial burden, our house was thrown into complete chaos, these are all good reasons not to have more kids. I know that I devoted myself to caring for the kids entirely. My husband was a saint! He took over everything else so that I could focus entirely on the kids. He sat patiently on the sidelines waiting for when it would be his turn for my attentions. There are still days when it still feels like we are in survival mode. The thought of me getting pregnant again with one baby or twins again thoroughly messes with him.

I, on the other hand, am not entirely sure that I am done with having kids. Part of my reluctance to agree to the vasectomy is that I feel like I was cheated by having twins. I loved being pregnant! I was so lucky that I didn’t suffer morning sickness or preterm labour or any of the other things that can make a twin pregnancy high risk. I can’t believe that I won’t get to have that feeling of a baby hiccupping away or those swirly fingers and toes straining against my belly. I’m wistful just writing this! Is it a selfish choice to want to experience pregnancy again?

There are days that I feel like our family is very much complete but there are also days when I feel like our family is missing someone. How long do I wait to see if this feeling goes away? Is it worth turning our family upside down to have another child or children? (there is a 1/10000 chance that I could conceive twins again) Should I be practical and schedule the appointment?

How did you know that you were done having kids?

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the Dude rocking his new hat!

Sandi — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:41:31 +0000

the Dude looking stylish

My friend Alexis on twitter recently launched her new business, chill monkeys! To kick off her new store she is selling boys hats. It is so hard to find stylish clothes for boys so I am extremely excited for Alexis!

I don’t mind the occasional Handy Manny t-shirt but there are times when I want the Dude to look like a little man. I can’t wait to see what else she designs.

One of the things that I love about chill monkeys is that it is designed and manufactured in Vancouver. I love being able to support local businesses!

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way with Alexis or chill monkeys. I just really love he stuff and wanted to give her a shout out.

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when did I turn into Screamy McScreamsalot?

Sandi — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 07:13:54 +0000

My mom was a yeller and I always thought, “I will never be like that!” well, the joke is on me because guess what? I’ve turned into a yeller too! Craaaaap!

It has gotten to the point that I don’t even realize that I’m doing it. I can already see that my kids are tuning me out. Tonight the Husband wasn’t feeling well so he went to bed. I made dinner and the Dude finished first so I started cleaning up while Smoochie finished up. I walked back to the table to see that Smoochie had thrown her food all over the table and the floor around her. I wanted to scream! I didn’t. I fumed while I crouched down to her level and explained why I was so upset.

Smoochie still doesn’t get that her actions can be upsetting to others. Even after I asked her if I looked happy or angry and she said that I looked angry, she was ready to move on. I realized, not soon enough, that dwelling on it wasn’t going to help anything. I need to remind myself to count to ten before reacting, it isn’t fair to anyone when I lash out in anger.

I’ve got some parenting books that are gathering dust that now get top place on my reading stack. This parenting stuff is hard!

Are you a yeller? How do you deal when your kids are grinding your last nerve and it feels like your head is going to pop off?

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a kid-free night!

Sandi — Sat, 15 May 2010 18:39:37 +0000

Smoochie has been asking to have a sleepover at Nonna’s house for days so I arranged it with my Mom. When I asked the Dude if he wanted to go too he said “no, I sleep upstairs” and went about his business pretending to fix things. Thursday night Smoochie and I were talking about her spending the night at Grandpa & Nonna’s house the Dude piped up and said that he want going to go too. He’s been dying to go to my parents’ house and “work with grandpa” fixing things.

So yesterday when I got home from work I packed their overnight back and sent the kids home with my Dad. I was kind of secretly hoping that the Dude would change his mind and stay home so that I could spend some one-on-one time with him but he was so excited to go that I immediately got excited about a child-free evening.

I stood on the sidewalk waving as they drove away. It felt so conflicting, feeling excited about them being gone and missing them terribly when they’d only been gone a few minutes. I got over myself and made reservations for the Husband and I to make the most of our evening. We had a lovely meal but boy was it weird to come home to an empty house. Before I headed to bed I went to check on the kids and got to their bedroom only to find it empty. So weird.

This morning I slept in and then came downstairs and leisurely enjoyed my coffee and toast. It was so nice to sit and drink my coffee and eat my toast, who knew that toast tastes better when it’s still warm!

I was expecting an email from my mom letting me know that the kids were asleep but I never got one. I hope that the kids were good for my parents. I hope the kids had fun. I’m getting antsy to have them back so I’m 0ff to pick up my munchkins!

three is kicking my ass!

Sandi — Thu, 13 May 2010 16:21:19 +0000

There are many things that people say when they find out that I have three year old twins. One is “it must be so much easier now than when they were babies!” I don’t think parenting ever gets easier. There are always challenges. Yes, it’s nice to not have to breastfeed them all the live long day! Yes, it’s lovely that they can talk and tell me what’s wrong instead of crying and crying and crying. But we have difference issues now. The willfullness! The tantrums! The being oh so very three!!!

I heard about the “terrible twos” but not much about three. Let me tell you about three! There are daily battles about getting dressed. “That shirt is too flowery!” “Nope, that shirt is not flowery enough!” “No pants!!!!!” The never ending battle to change a dirty diaper. You’d think that now that they are able to tell me when they’re sitting in a big pile of shit they’d come and ask to be changed but you’d be wrong! (The first person to comment with disdain as to why they aren’t potty trained gets punched in the junk!)

There are battles between them. Smoochie will be playing, minding her own business and the Dude will come over and clock her for no other reason that I can see other than he felt like it. The Dude will be laying on the ground watching Handy Manny and Smoochie will lean over and bite him for no other reason that she wanted to see what happens.

We’ve tried reasoning and explaining but it feels like they just haven’t made the connection that their actions have repercussions and that maybe they’ll hurt someone else.

Yesterday the Dude was playing and I was finding puddles of drool. He was holding it in his mouth and then letting it spill out. I yelled. “Disgusting!” and made him clean it up. Dinner time came and he refused to come to the table and eat. I finally clued in that perhaps he wasn’t trying to be annoying and wrestled him to the couch and pried open his mouth. The back of his throat is raw and very sore looking. Now *I* feel like an asshole for yelling at him when he has a sore throat.

As I’m dealing with the Dude and his sore throat and the Husband is in the kitchen cleaning up dinner, Smoochie decides to explore. Somehow she got her hands on a tube of Vaseline and decided to paint! All over the tv!!! Now, thankfully or not so thankfully, only a smear got on the screen but the side is covered as high as she can reach. The air vents and covered and the s-video connection port is full. Oh. My. Gawd! The husband is the one to discover this piece of art. He bellows at me for leaving the tube out from the last diaper change but I didn’t use it. After a quick interrogation Smoochie tells us that she found it in the kitchen! I wrangled the kids out of the way while the Husband tried to clean the mess. FYI: he used Simple Green and a microfiber cloth and it removed it all!

So these kids are only six weeks into their third year and I’m looking back at the days when I’d lay them down on a blanket to go to the bathroom and they’d still be laying there when I got back. Mind you, the reality is that they’d probably had laid there screaming the entire time I was gone but I’ve conveniently blocked that part out!

It’s a good thing that along with all the challenges three has brought us there are also some pretty sweet moments too. Last night while I was comforting the Dude and his sore throat Smoochie came and sat beside us and stroked his head to “feel him better”. Awww! So sweet! Just be sure to keep y0ur tube of Vaseline away from her!

a kid-free night!

Big Beds

Sandi — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:00:17 +0000

Tonight is the kids’ first night in big beds! We’ve been talking a while about moving them into toddler beds but to be honest I’ve been procrastinating (I know! Shut up! Not at all surprising given how infrequently I post here). Let me back track & talk about the whole bed situation because really, I can’t remember what I’ve writen about on here.

Before the babies were born I bought a co-sleeper thing. (if I weren’t writting this on my phone I’d insert a link here showing you what kind it was but it’s too hard so I won’t) The thing with the co-sleeper is that the kids didn’t really care for it much. We were also given a crib & if I thought they didn’t like the co-sleeper thing, well they hated the crib. I remember trying to put down a limp, wet noodle baby only to have them wake up crying. It didn’t matter how deep a sleep they were in, they’d wake up.

My husband would get frustrated & figured he was “doing it wrong” so I ended up being the one to put them to sleep. Eventually it turned into just plain fatigue so I’d lay down & nurse them to sleep. Well, that was awesome! Until I’d try to get up & leave the room. It took me a while but I did figure out how to escape.

When the kids were somewhere between 18 months old & 2 years old I decided that I’d had enough of sleeping sandwiched between the two of them & it was time to move them to their own room. My husband rejoiced & moved into planning mode excited to once again sleep next to me.

We decided that since our arrangement at the time was two queen sized mattresses on the floor, we’d just move one mattress into their room & voilà it’d be done! Well, not so fast! When you have a babies’ room that never gets used as a babies’ room it ends up filled with junk. All that junk had to leave so that we could move the kids out of our room & into theirs.

Just after they turned 2 we finally had it ready. The momentous day came. We sent the kids off to my parents’ house & scrambled to move all that junk. Before we knew it, it was time to go pick up the kids. We brought them home and at the top of the stairs instead of going down the hall we opened the forbidden door, erm I mean the door to their new room! They were excited, this was a room they never really knew existed. We settled in & I nurse them to sleep.

Within a few short weeks, hell maybe even days (I can’t remember) they were night weaned & sleeping through the night! This was momentous stuff! Over two years of consistent sleep deprivation takes it’s toll. I’m not sure I’ve really caught up on sleep yet to be honest.

Months of me nursing them to sleep & then slipping out of the room. The mattress on the floor was perfect for this! I’d get asked if my kids wouldn’t just get up & run around but the answer is no! I don’t know if it’s just because they don’t know any different or if they just haven’t figured it out yet, but they really don’t get out of bed. So lucky!

Where was I? Yes, still nursing them to sleep. I ended up getting the flu shortly before they were 2.5. I’d been lucky & hadn’t really gotten sick up to that point but that flu really knocked me out. I just couldn’t nurse them to sleep. So I told them that there’d be “no more nurse”. They protested a bit but it only took a few days until they’d stop asking for it.

Yahoo right? Kind of. I still had to go lay down with them to get them to sleep. I don’t usually talk about how I do this because whenever I do people say that I’m nuts. Well, guess what? I am! This is what worked for my family. This was the choice we made & when it stopped working for us we made a new choice.

Big beds. Right. My father-in-law has the bunkbeds my husband & sister-in-law grew up using & offered them to us. Thrilled to not have to dole out the money for two beds we said yes! The only thing I insisted on is that the beds don’t get stacked for a while. Three is just too young in my opinion for stacked bunkbeds.

Well, I’ve run out of steam telling this story so I’m going to stop here and post the rest next time. Plus it will enable me to find out how the first morning with big beds goes. Later!

so long 2009 — best trip

Sandi — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:37:26 +0000

I haven’t traveled since I had the kids. It isn’t in our budget and no travel opportunities have come up at work so I’ve been home bound. While I may not have hopped on a plane and happily arrived at a new destination we did a family 0uting that I think counts as a trip that I’d like to share.

We took the kids to Maplewood Farm. It is part of Vancouver Parks and the kids absolutely loved it. We’ve taken them before but the last time we went was their first time visiting out of the str0ller. If you have only one child I would imagine that it is easy to let a toddler roam around but with two toddlers it is impossible for a single adult to wrangle two kids running off in different directions. I arranged for us to go on a weekend when my husband could join us.

It was a rainy Vancouver day so I packed the kids’ rainsuits. We got them bundled up and they were happy to be let loose. Once we were inside it was just a matter of following the rainsuited child that was mine to watch. It was so nice to just have to watch one kid! I cannot explain how much energy goes into trying to supervise two kids, but I think it would be similar to trying to watch two tennis matches at the same time.

My husband followed one and I followed the other. I got to watch my daughter pet a baby goat. It was so sweet to see how gentle she was with it. She seemed to understand that she needed to be gentle. I saw my son chase ducks and chickens that stayed *just* out of his reach. We watched the pigs sleep and sat and pet the enormous bunnies.

We let the kids roam. It was bittersweet, it was awesome because I knew they were having a blast and I also felt sad because roaming isn’t something they get to do nearly often enough. We made our rounds to say goodbye to the animals and loaded our exhausted kids into the car. It wasn’t long until they were both asleep.

For days after both kids talked about their trip to the farm. There was lots of farm play and both kids asked to go back. Writing this reminds me that I need to make time to take them again. It just goes to show that it isn’t the big things, it is the tiny things that matter.

This post was inspired by a fabulous idea I saw in a tweet from Gwen Bell!

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