I Love the Taste of Foot

We went out Saturday night with friends of ours - two couples and all of us first time parents as of 2008. So naturally, we spend lots of time talking about our kids and parenthood in general.

One of the guys was telling us how a co-worker of his takes turns with his wife on the weekends over caring for their baby - she will do Saturday and he will do Sunday while the other has the day off. He was saying how crazy that seemed because that way, they never get to spend time with each other! I agreed and said, "No offense, but is it really so diffiuclt taking care of a baby??" This did not go over well. It sounded like I meant it's not hard to take care of one baby as opposed to more than one baby, like I do. Not what I meant at all. I meant that I don't believe parenting, in general, is so overwhelmingly difficult that it requires a whole day off from it every week, especially if that means spending it alone. I'd like to think that most people agree with me and, had they understood my intended meaning, I think our friends would have. I know that they enjoy being parents, even through the tougher times, just like I do.

But instead, they all thought I was just being that twin mom with the chip on her shoulder, thinking people with one baby should realize how easy they have it. And the reality is, I spend a lot of time watching what I say just so people won't think that about me. Sigh.

So, two questions: Do other MoMs out there bite their tongues but inevitably slip a foot in their mouths when it comes to discussing the difficulties of parenting? And do singleton moms think that mothers of multiples are always rubbing it in that we have it harder?

Makes My Monday: Twinvasion!!

Oh, how naive I was. I thought I could keep at least part of my home looking baby-free. My formal living room is rather dangerous for rolling babies what with hard-edged sofas and tables and wood floors. So, it seemed natural to keep the twins out of this area of the house, to protect them and our relatively expensive furniture. Here's what my dining room/living room used to look like:

However, lugging twins up and down two flights of stairs to feed them solids 3 times a day was starting to wear on me. Especially now that they are getting heavy, my back is taking a serious beating. And I think eventually it will get hot here in good old Massachusetts so spending all day on the third floor won't be so enjoyable. The logical solution: move the baby operation to the first floor, at least for the summer. But probably until they are walking. So, we rearranged the furniture, got a floor mat to protect their noggins and brought some toys and gear from upstairs to keep them entertained. Here's what things look like now:

They have now officially taken over. For such small people, they certainly take up a lot of space. And although my dreams of maintaining a baby-free area in my home have been dashed, it is so much easier to get things done when you don't have to shuttle two infants up and down stairs all day - and that is Making my Monday!

Also, check me out over here today to read about our day as "locavores."

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta: Three's a Crowd

I noticed the other day, after looking through a bunch of pictures of Sebastian and Collette, that I have practically no photos of me with my children. There are a few here and there but even then, I'm usually just with one of the babies. Since Auntie Kim was over, I decided to rectify the situation and had her take some pics of me actually holding both of my offspring. We decked them out in the new threads, an impromptu gift from their Auntie. But as soon as we got ourselves into position, I realized why there are so few pictures of all three of us together.

They started off only slightly pissed...

And proceeded to completely meltdown in the time it took to snap two pictures.

Oh well. I'll have to call J. Crew and tell them that we are no longer available for that family photo shoot.

Check out some other Friday Fotos at Carrie's!

PS - Michael Jackson died of a heart attack yesterday. I don't really have a comment. Just wanted to include it here for posterity.

Meant for Twins

Us twin moms (and I bet a lot of moms in general) are quite resourceful. Juggling two little babies is as much mental as it is physical and we are always thinking of ways to make things work for 2 at a time.

Lucky for us, though, some things lend themselves very easily to duets. Here are the Soto Twins, using my beloved pregnancy body pillow to "catch" them when they tip during some sitting play-time.

And here they are with Ned and Penny (in the back) of Mommy Esq. fame, taking their first ever swing ride! (The one hour the sun was out in the past 2 weeks was the one day I didn't have sun hats...) You can't see his face in this shot but Sebastian REALLY loved it - we need to find a swing like this close to our house.

Makes My Monday: 7 months!

Yesterday, Billy had to share his special day with twins - they turned 7 months old!! I have to say, this has been the BEST month so far. They sleep through the night - thank you CIO! - and they have a great eating/nap routine. A few weeks ago, they were able to sit up for a few seconds at a time and I predicted that by the 7-month mark, they would be sitting unassisted at least long enough to play with some toys. Lo and behold - they do! I still need some good shots of it but everyday, they can do it better and longer. It's life changing, I swear!

Also, solid food feeding has gotten easier. They tolerate their high chairs more and I can actually clean up while they chill out and play with some toys. I can't get 15 minutes out of them like some other people but I'll take 5 minutes. You'd be surprised how much you can get done in the kitchen in 5 minutes!

In other gross motor development, Sebastian is really starting to push up on the heels of his hands. Collette can do it a little but not as much - she doesn't like to spend much time on her belly so she gets way less practice. I think I will need to invest in some more toys as they start these new moves - sitting, "crawling" and, in a few months, pulling up.

Fine motor development is going well, too. They can put their binkies in their mouth and are much more deliberate in their grabbing. They both love to scratch and grab faces - I have evidence of it on my upper lip. And when sitting, they can easily pick up small toys and put them in - you guessed it! - their mouths. They also notice each other and will each for the other's face, scalp, arm, etc.

And of course - their chair pictures. It was Collette's turn to cooperate while Sebastian protested. Gotta love twins!

Needless to say, this is one great Monday! What's making your Monday? Let us know at Twinfatuation. All the cool kids are doing it.

PS - This Monday also rocks because I did my first ever guest post!! Check me out at How Does YOUR Garden Grow to get an awesome strawberry rhubarb crisp recipe. They also have tons of other great recipes that use local ingredients. Yum!

BPS - Happy Father's Day, Daddy!!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy! You're the bestest!

Small Footprint Saturday: Plastic Bags

Through my friend What A Card and her new blog I found this other great blog dedicated to advice on how to reduce our carbon footprints. By no stretch of the imagination am I very "green" - I could do a lot more in my life to be more eco-friendly but I'm often lazy and ignorant. However, Reduce Footprints is educating me little by little. Also, they have made me a little less lazy by giving their readers a weekly challenge. And since I don't usually blog on weekends, I figured I could use Saturdays to quickly write about the challenge for the week. So here it goes:


This week's challenge is to go 7 days without using any (new) plastic bags. As a bonus challenge, you can write about plastic bags environmental impact on your blog. So far, I have been able to avoid plastic bags at the grocery store and elsewhere, although I had to put the wet carrots in my reusable bag and that was kinda weird. But a little water never killed anyone.


As for their environmental impact, I could do a bunch of research about bags, decomposition, recycling, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I figured I would give the consultant in me a chance to flex her atrophied muscles and do some back-of-the-envelope estimating.

1. On average, I would estimate that the typical U.S. household goes the grocery once per week. Because that's what I do.


2. At the grocery store, the average consumer buys enough stuff to "fill" approximately 10 plastic bags. Baggers tend to put very few things in each bag so this estimate might even by low.


3. In addition to grocery stores, I estimate that the average American consumer goes to non-grocery stores three times per week.


4. These non-grocery store trips result in an average of 5 bags, total.


5. So, in a week, I estimate the average American household uses 15 NEW plastic bags.


6. There are approximately 120 million households in America.


7. 120,000,000 x 15 = 1,800,000,000 or 1.8 billion plastic bags per week.


8. 1.8b x 52 weeks = 93 billion bags per year! Yowza.

OK, so that's just my quickie analysis of US household consumption of plastic bags. This doesn't include other uses/users or other countries. And I had to look it up for real and apparently the global annual consumption of these bags is 500 billion. So my estimate seems to be in the ball park since the US is probably one of the bigger offenders.

What this means is that if you, as the buyer-of-all-stuff-for-your-family, can make a serious impact. This is one of those things where households make up the majority of consumption, not some random businesses and industries. So, we are also the ones who have to curb that consumption if we hope to see a difference. And let's be honest. Giving up plastic bags is not like giving up long, hot showers or hours upon hours of TV. Do you really love plastic bags? I didn't think so. And that makes it pretty easy to just let them go. Give it a try this week and maybe it will become a regular habit for you, too.

If It Ain't Broke...

I've always believed that life was as hard as you make it. To be sure, people get dealt raw deals but in general, I think we have a lot of control over our lives. With that in mind, I feel many people make their lives more difficult than they need to be. I always wondered why people do this, until I found myself doing that very same thing.

A few months ago, my emotions got the better of me. I was still upset about not breastfeeding that I figured I would try, just one last time, to make it work. I had been stressing about it for so long, pretty much since the day the twins came home from the hospital. They had been in the Special Care Nursery for nearly 2 weeks, but it seemed like an eternity. And the only thing keeping them there was eating. Well, not eating, really.

Their prematurity (34 weekers) didn't have any huge "health" impacts on them when they were born but they were small and tired and didn't really know how to suck and eat. My C-section kept me in the hospital for 4 days but then I had to go home. I had been "nursing" them at almost every feeding and some days we had a bit of success and other times we didn't. But when I went home, I could only go to the hospital once a day for a few hours because my blood pressure was still quite high and I was basically on bed rest. That left very little opportunity to breastfeed - at most, 2 feedings per day. And usually we just tried once because we didn't want to wear them out.

The last few days they were in the hospital, we had a lot of success with the breastfeeding. But still, the lactation consultant said in the first week at home we should still just do it once a day, since that is what they were used to. And then work our way up from there. I think that was the beginning of the end for us. When your babies have only been alive for 11 days, a week seems like an eternity! I had no idea what to make of that advice. Do I do it twice a day for the second week? Or do I just do it all the time after that? There was no road map for transitioning to all breastfeeding.

The second blow came when we had our first visit with the pediatrician. The babies had been eating pumped breast milk with high calorie formula powder added to bulk them up. Now, it doesn't take a genius to realize that if they need these extra calories, then breastfeeding isn't really an option. It's not like I can inject my breasts with formula powder. So, I was hoping that she would say we could stop the extra calories or at least cut back. No such luck. I was crushed. How would I ever do this if I had to keep giving them these extra calories??

And that's how we ended up here. I'm pumping exclusively for my twins. A while back, I tried to get them back on the breast. And I did, sort of. I bought the nipple shields which make real nipples more like bottle nipples. The babies sometimes accepted it, other times not so much. But I was a day late and a dollar short, so to speak. They were already 4 months old. I was on my own with them for the better part of the week. I had already established a very smooth routine around pumping and feeding and, with the exception of my lingering guilt/sadness/longing, everyone was happy. And when you are outnumbered by infants, changing your routine (especially one that is working!) is beyond difficult.

It's obvious to me why I tried to make my life so much more difficult. I felt like a failure. Scratch that: I feel like a failure. And for those of you who know me, you know I don't fail. I ace tests, I get into the best schools, I get job offers. Heck, I even get boy/girl twins! But I can't breastfeed. I fail.

And the guilt and disappointment in myself is what propelled me to try and recapture my goal, even though everything was going so well. And that was stupid. It's not like me to make my life harder than it needs to be. But I simply could not reconcile those feelings. I have since given up on that goal and realized the error of my ways. That certainly doesn't mean I am over all these emotions - it just means I have decided to not let them interfere with our daily life as I had been. Our life is good, the twins are so happy and healthy - there is no reason to screw around with a good thing. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! I can put this in the "lessons learned the hard way" column.

Whew. I feel better now. Thanks.

Way Back When-esday: This one time when I touched Jon Bon Jovi

A month or so ago, I mentioned that I am a big Bon Jovi fan and that one time I touched Jon (the lead singer). Cheryl at Twinfatuation requested the story so, now that I have my scanner up and running, here it is for Way Back When-esday:

When: May 2001
Where: Bon Jovi Concert, MCI Center, Washington DC

Bon Jovi taking their last bow of the night

Ok, so I'm a huge Bon Jovi fan. Not the biggest fan, but I get butterflies just at the thought of seeing them live. They have been my favorite band since my best friend, Kristin, got me hooked back in middle school. Kristin's older sister, Kim, was a teenager in the band's prime and got her hooked first so we all shared the obsession together.

Now Kim, she really is their biggest fan. She is in the fan club and follows them around the country. She knows all the guys in the band and some of their family members - no joke. I've seen her pictures on Facebook. She's a total groupie, like out of Almost Famous, or something. As their #1 fan, she gets awesome seats to concerts. And as a fringe benefit of being the best friend to the sister of Bon Jovi's biggest fan, I got one of those tickets for a show they did in DC.

Kim, one of her Bon Jovi groupie friends, and I drove down the night before the concert to crash at Kristin's place - her Georgetown dorm "suite." Of course, in the end it was totally worth the 8-hour drive and crappy sleeping arrangements because from our second row seats, I managed to score us 4 passes to get on the side stage for a 20-minute set! It was there that Jon, during a Richie guitar solo, jumped into our little crowd. I found myself in charge of his left shoulder. And then didn't wash my hands for a few days. He was rather sweaty but damn, does he look even better close up!

Makes My Monday: First Farmer's Market

Saturday was our town's first farmers market of the season and we loaded up the twins and the pug and made our way through the crowds. We didn't buy much but picked up some strawberries, asparagus, cheese, tomatoes and potatoes. And the common was packed! This is our first time going and we were so surprised to see so many families. And dogs! Lola was in her glory - she made friends with a couple Boston Terriers and a Lab puppy. Sebastian and Collette got their share of attention, too. It's funny - strangers always say the same things to us: "Twins?? Wow - a boy and girl, so lucky!" and "She's bigger than him, how weird!!" Yes, I am lucky and no, it's not weird, but thanks.

Here they are, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine at the Market.

The asparagus was DELICIOUS and the strawberries could not have been juicier. Not sure yet what we will do with the potatoes but I want to do something more than just mashed. And I will have to get my creative cooking juices flowing because tomorrow we pick up our first CSA share!! We will get some more strawberries, some asparagus, herbs, lettuce, mixed greens and some other veggies that I don't know how to cook. What A Card gave me some good tips on what to do with extras or stuff that I don't like. I'm sure I will be asking her, and anyone else out there, for some ideas on what to do with everything I get. For example, I will get chard at some point and I don't know what it is, what it looks like or how to cook it. It'll be a great learning experience this summer!!



All those fresh fruits and veggies are making my Monday - what about you?? Check out Twinfatuation for more Monday makers.