Embarassment of...not posting

Sheesh. I am in Boston at my parents. I drove with the kids on Friday, leaving Homestead Mama behind to work through Tuesday. I've been wanting to travel with the kids to see my parents & sister for months, but have been intimidated by the daunting task of parenting them by myself, nursing them both 24 hours a day by myself, tackling bedtime by myself. I could only go where I have excellent support, which is why I was thinking of Boston and not somewhere perhaps more exciting, but with no grandparents to spell me.

In the last few weeks, H-Mama and I have begun a new nighttime ritual with the babes. We've had a hijacked evening life since the kids were born, nursing them down, fetching them from their cribs to comfort them whenever they cried, and once they awakened in the night pulling them into the family bed for the remainder of the night. This system fit our desire to attachment parent, our belief that easy = best, and our complete confoundment at how to crib/sleep train two babies by two lactating women. (Usually the father or non-lactating mom goes in to comfort a kid in the night.) Firstly, we never told them that daylight savings happened; we kept their old 8pm bedtime, but it is now 7pm. They don't know the difference, and we get more evening time. We now go into the nursery and the kids pick out two books each, then we brush their teeth and pile onto our big queen bed. We turn out all the lights, turn on the white noise machine (which admittedly is mostly for me, except that it does muffle noises for the kids, too) and read our books by flashlight. We then sing about 4 songs while we nurse the kids, then we put them into their respective cribs which flank our bed. For the first few days they cried with the horror of the whole situation. We let them go for about 10 minutes, then went up and let them nurse and they crashed within 90 seconds. We then stretched out the time we made them wait for us to go up - at one point they were crying for 30 minutes or so before we'd go up. Then, kind of suddenly, they seemed to get it. They fussed, they might cry for a few minutes, but they settled down fairly quickly. Pequita has a flashlight and a few books, and she reads and sings herself to sleep some nights. Monito usually fusses a bit and then quiets down. This is a huge success! We still go up to nurse them if they wake up in the hours before we go to bed, but they are both cutting molars and are sick, so we'll stop that once their mouths settle down.

We made this shift for us, but it works well for me travelling alone with them. Tubby, books with grandma and then songs with grandpa, who has a beautiful voice and makes even a song about bloodshed and murder sound peaceful and lovely. He sang it to us when we were kids, and I have a soft spot in my heart for it. When we were just little kids, my sister and I would ride our bikes around the neighborhood bellowing lyrics like:

"As Abdul's long knife was extracting the life —
in fact he was shouting "Huzzah!"
He felt himself struck by that wily Kalmyk,
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar."

So H-Mama is home, admittedly lonely, but getting some things done that we haven't had time to do and really wanted to. I am having a super time here - Mom had purchased a massage for me, and the nice gay masseuse showed up with his table and heated shearling pad at 9 am this morning. Mom and Dad tended the kids while I had 17 months of co-sleeping and side-lie nursing rubbed out of my shoulders. The kids definitely miss their Mama, but it isn't as overwhelming as I had feared. Pequita has a hard time at bedtime, when she usually got her most concentrated time with Mama.

I feel quite guilty about leaving H-Mama behind. She has to pump a few times a day to keep her meager milk supply from drying up. I had forgotten this fact entirely, total humdar moment. And she is lonely. I would be too, but I think I would enjoy the time to myself a lot. H-Mama has a lot of stress on her, working full time in a job that completely overstimulates and strains her nerves, then coming home to kids who overstimulate her and strain her nerves. She maintains a higher level of frustration with the kids than I do; she prefers older kids, while I really like the baby & toddler times. I thought that the time alone in the house would help her appreciate the clutter, mayhem and cacophony a bit. It might, but for now she is rattling around in a medium-sized homestead by herself without me to entertain her, and without the babies she loves so dearly. I definitely have the better deal, I think. She'll drive out on Tues night and stay with us through Sunday after Thanksgiving, then we'll all return together. It will be amazing to be reunited. It is also a really good thing to miss the people you love. Distance certainly helps me value what I take for granted.

Healthy Living

You know all that plastic that is in your drawers? The stuff you feed your baby with, but might cause all sorts of ills?

I try to avoid plastic, although as an act of self preservation I am less militant than I thought I would be. Anyway, I found some demi-tasse spoons that are stainless steel and the perfect size to feed babies with. I have less guilt, and the kids like them just fine. I Freecycled half the plastic spoons, and mosly use the demitasse ones unless we are traveling.

Demi tasse spoon

Plastic 'disposable' baby spoon

Regular tea spoon

The Day After the Night From Hell

I wanted to make sure to give credit to Homestead Mama for doing what she could last Friday in the hotel when Monito and I didn't sleep. When she woke up with Pequita, they played in the bathroom in the hotel room for an hour while we stole a little more rest. How do you keep a 13 month old kid entertained in a small 3' x 5' bathroom for an hour? Let her play with all the toiletries she isn't usually allowed to touch. Then let her carry it all into the tub and put it in the soap dish. Joy.
As much as Pequita enjoyed the king sized bed, Monito couldn't get enough of the vanity. As handsome as he is, who can blame him.

Equal opportunity torture

Monito is getting his fair share of training. I read in The Wonder Weeks that he is in his 19 week developmental spurt (this explains the recent sleep disturbances and whineyness) and commonly babies are flipping over back and forth without assistance like trout in a fishing boat. Not Monito. I imagine this is mostly because he gets less belly time than he should so doesn't have time to practice. This is not due to negligence but caution - if he is on the floor, Pequita likes to play a game called "Name This Hole on the Baby's Head" using her sharp and poky index finger. She's going through a period of nostril love right now, and he prefers to have his nostrils unmolested; since she never sleeps he spends his time up off the floor with Mommy or in the Bumbo seat. Lest my son fall behind the curve, I've started him on a rigorous tummy time training schedule while I play Chase with Pequita to distract her. From his expression below, I believe he would prefer to be upright. Or have the butler take care of his tummy responsibilities.

Winter is finally coming, with days in the 50s and nights down in the 30s. The house is kept at a brisk 65 degrees 24 hours a day - we flick it up as needed, but mostly we are wool sweater wearers and use two duvets on the bed in the winter. Each kid has their own duvets to top them and a shearling under them. Pequita refuses to wear a hat, and with her head of hair she doesn't really need it anyway. Monito on the other hand is too young to figure out how to pull his off, so spends each night adorably (I think) attired thusly:

Yeah, two moms

Momma Penguin commented, "What to do when there are two Mums? I foresee some trouble ahead, [my partner] is MUCH softer than I am... "

Yup. Homestead Mama may be the 'tough' one at her job, carry a gun, employ a curt and no-bullshit communication style, and seem like a wall of firmness and resolve, but I am the disciplinarian in the house. Her heart is very big, and she hates to make anyone unhappy. Me? If it for the greater good, I'll make everyone miserable.

We have a weird division of labor/ childcare. The second kid really created two teams, each of us acting as primary caregiver for our own spawn. This will lessen as Monito becomes able to sit up, walk, etc. At this point, Homestead Mama comes home and takes over with Pequita, because she misses her, P is more fun to interact with at this stage, and also because after 9 hours straight with her, I am ready to not see or hear her for a little while. Monito is still breastfeeding almost exclusively from me, so I get him. For now, we each have very specific ideas about how things are to happen, how to parent. I assume that straight couples have to work this out too, but it is trickier when you have distinct input on how someone else is breastfeeding. I will have to ask mothers of twins if they had a similar (wo)man-on-(wo)man defensive system. They must.

Momma Penguin also had an excellent point the other day. Better to do all this sleep training before Pequita can get herself out of her own bed. That, my friends, would be an endeavor of nightmarish proportions.

Operation Pequita Nap: Day 1

OHMYGOD my child doesn't cry herself to sleep, she cries herself into a horrid fit of anger. My psyche may not be able to handle this. She's up there now screaming and jumping up and down in her crib, I'm up there every 5 minutes to comfort her - yeah right - and then I come down to comfort & nurse Monito, who, after his sister took 65 minutes to stop playing and figure out that she was trapped, is VERY AWAKE and wanting attention.
In between comfort visits (=during a scream fest) I called Homestead Mama at work to remind her to leave soon (early day, and she's covering for me while I go to a meeting at work) and the gem she has for me? "I hope you aren't ruining the crib for Pequita so she screams every time I put her in there." Not helpful. It feels like I haven't had ONE MINUTE of both babies sleeping at the same time for weeks, with no end in sight. Not frigging helpful.

There is absolutely NOTHING in the world like the sound of your own child screaming and unhappy to tear apart your heart, relationship, happy home and any scrap of well being you still possessed.

I'm off for another visit to the unhappy baby upstairs, leaving Monito downstairs, now crying too.

I'll be going to the store this evening to buy blackout window shades in hopes of de-stimulating the bedroom.

Tandem Napping

With two nap schedules and one mommy at home, here is how we do things. One of them plays with me while the other rides and sleeps. Presto, multitasking at its finest. (This was a two-hour nap for Pequita.)