Barb's Blurbs

Annie inherited my love of games and competitiveness. When we play her little pre school games she will say, “I want to win.” 

We were “playing” Monopoly the other day and I chose the thimble (it’s being retired, you know). 

Annie said, “Why did you choose the trash can?” Ha ha

Then she drew a couple of “Chance” cards. I asked her to read this one:

She reads: “Collect $100 for a hug.”

I drew the next card: 

She asked, “Why is that man wearing girl shoes?” Ha ha

Rich had to go to Kentucky for business a few days last week. We both were not looking forward to his trip. I think he secretly was looking slightly forward to it to have some peace and quiet away from children!

Rich works from home and is a big help during the day and I depend on his help a lot. The kids and I are so lucky he works from home. So I was a little nervous about being completely on my own.

As luck would have it, here is what happened:

We feed the twins a “dream feed” at 11pm to get them through the night. I started feeding McCall and 2 minutes into her bottle, Annie starts screaming at the top of her lungs. I waited a minute or two to see if she would calm down on her own, but it kept getting worse. I knew if I laid McCall back down, she would probably get angry and I would have 2 screaming children. I kept feeding her as I went back to Annie’s room. Annie was inconsolable and I couldn’t do much while feeding/holding McCall. She kept saying her legs hurt. I figured it was growing pains. She kept crying and crying and nothing I said or did was calming her down. McCall kept drinking, oblivious to Annie’s screams, thankfully. Then Ethan started crying from the other room! AHHHH! Why does this have to happen the night Rich is gone?! I was praying that McCall would stay asleep so I wouldn’t have 3 crying children.

I told Annie I would be back, but she probably didn’t hear me because she was crying so loud. I went to look in on Ethan. I put the pacifier in his mouth and crossed my fingers. Usually, when he knows it is time to eat, he will spit it back out and get super angry. But he took it and I knew there was a higher being! McCall was done with her bottle so I laid her in her crib and attended to Annie again.

After 30 minutes of Annie crying, she finally calmed down. I went to feed Ethan and all was well from then on.

Rich can never leave again.

So far, bringing two babies home hasn’t been that much of an adjustment for my 2 year old. When she came to see them in the hospital she immediately called them “my babies.” She wants to hold them and help feed them and gives them lots of hugs. She is concerned when they cry and wants to “check on my babies.”

One thing though, is she wants to be treated just like the babies. I will demonstrate this by pictures:

She wants to be swaddled like the babies

And then placed in one of the baby’s chairs.

She looks huge!

When the babies are exercising on the floor, she does too.

She wants to have a pacifier. This is one thing we do not give in to. She found these googly eyes and has made it her pacifier. (Also note she is swaddled sitting in one of the chairs.)

She wants me to feed her a bottle. Here is a pretend one with nothing in it. She also wants a burp cloth tucked under her chin like the babies get. Then she will say, “I spilled.”

Then she wants to be burped. After a few pats she will fake burp. I have a video of it, but it cannot be uploaded to this site.

I’ll take these adjustments over her trying to sit on their heads. I’m sure that is coming. Meanwhile, this last picture sums up our 2 year old:

I am not experienced at changing baby boys diapers. I realized how little I knew what to do in the hospital. My little boy had been circumcised earlier that day. That looked like it hurt, bad. The nurses told me I would need to put lots and lots of vaseline on him. I attempted to change his diaper.  From what my sister told me, I would have to move fast because these little boys tend to pee once their diaper is off. I had the tube of vaseline ready to goop everything up. The vaseline wasn’t sticking! Meanwhile, little baby was crying. I am sure he was hurting. I had vaseline all over my fingers. I had a fresh diaper underneath him. Then he peed. A steady stream right onto his left side of his face, probably splashing into his eye. He cried more. I was trying to wipe that up when he proceeded to poop. I had vaseline on my fingers, trying to wipe up pee from his face, and holding the diaper so poo wouldn’t get everywhere. I kind of panicked. I had to go to the other side of my hospital bed where I pushed the Nurse button, summoning for help. The poop just kept coming. Boy kept crying. Nurse came in and saved the day. She had him cleaned up in less than 30 seconds. She also gave me a tip to put the vaseline on the diaper instead of on him. Geez. Why didn’t I think of that? Sleep deprivation. That is my only excuse. I have got a lot quicker at changing his diapers. However, he went through every blanket and pajama’s he had within a couple of days when we first brought him home…

I think I am still in a little denial that I have two babies inside of me. But, I still have to get ready for it somehow. Here is how I get ready to have twins:

1. Cry. I admit, when I first found out we were having twins, I cried. “How am I going to do this?!!!” 

2. Get lots of hand-me-downs from my older siblings such as an extra swing and crib and baby boy clothes. Being the youngest has its perks! It has saved us a lot of money. But I still have to buy a couple things that are semi matchup for the twins like these Minnie and Mickey jammies:

3. Fix said crib since nephew who used it before liked to jump a lot and broke the crib. This was all my husband, and I watched as he became frustrated trying to fix it. 

4. Find and purchase cute vinyl to hang in the twins room. 

5. After the mural is up, realize it’s going to get covered up by a dresser or another piece of furniture because there just isn’t enough space in the room for 2 cribs, a changing table, rocking chair, and dresser. Why did I spend a Saturday putting up this vinyl?

Charlie put the dresser together all by himself!

6. Buy a Mini-Van. *SOB SOB SOB* I guess it’s a right of passage? A new stage of life? No one ever says their dream car is a mini van. Annie and Charlie think it’s cool. 

I do kind of love the sliding doors, though.

7. Just smile at people’s comments. Being 7.5 months pregnant with twins, I look like I should be delivering my babies any day. Or probably way past due. But that doesn’t stop people from telling me I look like it. I will become a hermit now.  

8. Sleep with a fortress of king-sized pillows around me. The knee and hip pain and uncomfortable nights still come. And it’s hard to breathe. One of them must like to lay on my diaphragm. 

9. Try to train the toddler to potty train. It wasn’t successful. I was the one who gave up.

10. Resolve to have 3 kids in diapers because potty training wasn’t successful. $$$$$$

11. Dream about a $700 stroller I need want to buy. And also a $160 formula dispenser. 

12. Decide not to buy a stroller at this time. Yep, we’re crazy. My husband doesn’t think the formula dispenser is necessary. I disagree. 

13. Realize we will have no spending money again and will not travel anywhere for several years. Or go on a date.

14. Get names chosen. After 32 weeks of discussing, I think we finally decided on names! This was a pain in the butt. Rich and I had very different ideas for names. We will not tell you, so don’t ask. 🙂 

15. Get more excited! I have two babies inside of me! The miracle of life is amazing and that my body is able to do this on its own is mind-blowing!

Wish me luck. 

I hate ironing. I told Rich when we were engaged to be married that I would not be ironing any of his shirts…or anything. He irons his own shirts.

Every once in awhile I will need something that needs ironed. But I don’t have to because I have found the perfect product. Check out the before and after pictures:

Before spraying the most awesome product ever

After spraying the most awesome product ever

I hung my shirt on a hanger, sprayed miracle product and went and did 5 minutes of laundry. And maybe checked Facebook. When I came back it looked like the above picture! It’s not perfect, but I will take it.

This makes me so happy.

Goodbye ironing forever.

I’d be happy to show anyone how to get their hands on this.

Some of the maternity clothes I wore with my first pregnancy, aren’t fitting this pregnancy. I grew a lot faster during this pregnancy and still have a couple months to go!

I decided to take a comparison picture wearing the same shirt.

On the left was taken today at almost 26 weeks pregnant with twins. On the right is at 40 weeks pregnant with my first baby! I have been preparing myself that my belly is going to be torpedo like soon.

I also have a shelf! It is only fitting that a picture like this should be taken with a high-calorie dessert.

I am also already using my new TwinZ pillow. This is going to be used to feed the babies or prop them up. But it is serving as great back support for me at the moment. I saw this pillow on Shark Tank. I love watching Shark Tank.

One of my biggest annoyances is when people take pictures of their feet. They are at some gorgeous beach or pool side and feel the need to take a picture of their feet and legs with this pretty view in the background. Ugh! It just bugs me so much and I can never “like” those photos. 

So I took one. 

This is what I really will be doing this summer. Watching my daughter go “sweeming” in her plastic pool she got for her birthday, as I stick my pregnant swollen feet in the cold water. Ahh! Refreshing. 

Gotta love those tan lines. 

I started potty training my 2 year old a week ago. I had a couple of motivations. 24 weeks pregnant with twins and I did not want 3 children in diapers when they came. Also, I swear, she has had a diaper rash since birth. My sister can attest to this.  The first 2.5 hours into it, she had already had 6 accidents. Now I understood why moms put off potty-training. I had her help me clean up her accidents using my Sol-u-Mel stain remover and deodorizer and Sol-u-Guard disinfectant  which are both safe, natural products so I didn’t have to worry about her breathing in chemicals or touching them. #childlabor The first 2 days, I was constantly by her side. I didn’t take my eye off her. I gave her lots of liquids and let her run around in her new Minnie Mouse underwear. Or Daisy. She liked both. Each time she had an accident and we would change her underwear, she would say, “Cuuuuuute” each time. I was almost convinced she was wetting herself just so she could put on new underwear. By the end of that second day, I was completely worn out from following a toddler around and rushing her to the bathroom each time there was an accident occurring. I was ready to give up. I was convinced she and I would never leave the house again. We would be potty-training for the rest of her life. I would never dare take her anywhere for fear of an accident.

Then the third day we had some success. There were no accidents. All of a sudden it seemed that #1 just clicked with her and we went through about 3 pairs of underwear instead of 20! And she was letting me know in her own little ways she needed to go. I was ecstatic! She still didn’t have #2 down, but I was just so happy #1 seemed to be working.

By going to the potty, I found out the biggest incentive for her was. She is obsessed with Little Einsteins. She asks for it constantly. At first, I was using it as a reward when she would go in the potty at all. And it was working. When I felt #1 was down, I decided I needed to only use that as an incentive for #2 since she was still having trouble with that. And it worked! She is so obsessed with Little Einsteins that she was stirring in her sleep a little last night when I happened to go check on her and she was talking about Little Einsteins.

Then the big moment came. We were supposed to leave the house. Ahhhh! I packed about 3 additional pairs of underwear and a couple pairs of pants. I left the pull-ups at home and risked it. I did take her small potty seat that just goes on the regular toilet. I tried just sitting her on it without it and she freaked out. Not ready for that yet. We were at my brother’s house and she would come up to me and say, “Little Einsteins?” This is her way of letting me know she has to go potty. And she went and we had no accidents while we were out. And what I thought was a dream leaving the house a week ago, is all becoming reality again. It sure was a long week, though. No turning back now.

A friend posted this image to Facebook and I thought it described my toddler right now.

I had a few bags to donate to the thrift store and then I like to browse the books there. I can find some good reads for a $1. The book aisle section at the thrift store is always busy. I usually like to contain my little girl in a shopping cart, but that wasn’t going to work. I let her get out. She did good at staying close to me, but had grand ideas of climbing the book shelves, which she did with a proud look on her face. Being 23 weeks pregnant with twins, I was content to let her do this. It was better than waddling chasing her around the store. I would have to get her down and she thought it would be more fun if I would hold her hands so she could just use her feet to climb. When I did not agree with this, she goes into her slow-motion toddler tantrums.

Definition of a slow-motion toddler tantrum: Easing herself slowing onto the floor to lay down on her stomach and crying.

I think in the past when she has put on a tantrum, she has thrown her head back and hit her head on things, she realized she better ease into it instead.

Then we came to the toys. She discovered one of those little cars that are the perfect size for a little person to drive. It wasn’t working, but she thought it was great fun to climb in and out of it and sit in the drivers side, then the passenger side and go back and forth. I was tired of standing at this point. So I found a chair for sale and sat in it and watched her. Plus, it was a Barbie car. I wanted one of those soooooo bad when I was younger. It was on my Christmas list. I ended up with a Barbie car, but it was the car for the dolls. So I let her play with this perfect size car for her. I plan on living vicariously through her the rest of my life. Sorry to the other parents of those kids who my little girl pushed away with her hand and screamed “no” to them if they even tried to get close to the car.

30-40 minutes passed and I was ready to leave. I told her it was time to go several times with her response of, “Nooooo!” Finally, I got serious when the twins started begging for food. I get her out of the car and she goes into her slow-motion tantrum. I just watch her. People are also passing by, watching. We finally get away from the toys and she does another slow-motion tantrum. I watch her. An old lady walks by, laughing smiling. I decide to walk away. Little girl follows and cries until we get into the car and drive a few miles. She starts asking for, “wunch” (lunch) and “treat”. I guess all four of us were hungry.

I am going to be outnumbered soon and will have 3 little dictators around here. Help me!