Category — Attempts at Parenting

I’ve hesitated to post about this because I thought it was just some random thing. But it’s lingering — no, festering– so I need to share so that I might help other clueless, first-time parents.

The girls’ first year was full of plenty of tribulation, but overall, it was relatively easy as far I imagined raising twins would be.

Now? Ummm, not so much. For the past month or so, the girls have shown that they are regular kids.

It started with some extra-needy days. Elise would whimper for attention. Althea would need to be held. Teething, I figured, or just a random needy day. Hell, I’m 32 and I still have those days.

But weeks later, I’m pretty sure this isn’t random.

Some days aren’t too bad. I have to pay more attention to one daughter over the other, or we need to get out for extra playtime to distract. My patience is tried, but not broken.

Other days, though, are exhausting. Ex. Haus. Ting.

From the moment the girls wake up until bedtime some 12+ hours later, it seems like someone is constantly crying, whining, begging and clinging. Demanding to be constantly entertained. Rejecting food and drinks. Pushing the other sister, fighting for my attention, whining for no apparent reason. They’re really starting to understand requests and directives, and they’re blatantly defying them.

It’s maddening. Yet the defiance is somehow more manageable to me than the inexplicable crying.

The inexplicable crying ALL. DAY. LONG.

When Chris checks in with me during the week and asks how the girls are doing, I try to explain to him how tenuous my nerves are:

“I’m about to lose it.”

“Incessant crying since 9 a.m. Where are you?”

“Contemplating taking a leisurely walk on I-75 during rush hour. Leaving the girls at Toys R Us.”

From my conversations with other moms, this clingy-crying stage is painfully common at this 1+- year-old mark.  Thing is, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t end.

Ever.

I did something tonight that I haven’t done since the girls were practically newborns: I rocked Althea to sleep.

She startled out of a dream, wailing mournfully. Nightmare or what, I don’t know. I gave it a minute and a half before recognizing that she wasn’t going to settle on her own.

Cracked the door open. Tiptoed to her crib. Picked up her fuzzy, footed-jammies body. Her tears flowed. I swayed my body back and forth, rubbing her back and breathing my mama comfort into her chest.

The wails stopped. She heaved a sigh and rested her head on my left shoulder. I continued rocking until I felt her body once again go limp with sleep.

***

I don’t get to spend much time with the girls one-on-one. If I’m honest, I’ve felt that Althea has an independence about her that makes me sort of incidental at times. Silly, I know. She’s only 14 months old. But tonight reminded me that she’s still a needy infant. The push and pull of a child’s expanding self.

At some point during the past week of new play areas (a free church playgroup, a kids’ gym), Elise picked up a stuffy nose. Her first ever! (I know, I’ve been spoiled. Fourteen-month-old twins and one is just now getting a stuffy nose.)

I thought mostly nothing of it. She didn’t have much of an appetite, but she was nursing as usual and didn’t have a fever. I figured it was just one of those things and she’d get over it.

But at 11:30 last night, she woke out of her sleep coughing — bad. Chris and I didn’t wait more than 30 seconds before we realized this wasn’t a bad dream. After talking to the on-call pediatrician at the doctor’s office, we ended up at the ER with both girls.

They did an initial intake at triage almost right away. Elise’s barking cough, rattling chest and labored breathing gave away her diagnosis right away: croup. Blech.

One Ephinephrine breathing treatment, a dose of steroids and three hours later, we finally headed out.

We’re super glad nothing else was wrong. Luckily, with the short round of steroids, the worst will clear up in two or three days. And if God has any mercy, Althea will not be waking up in a few hours for another trip to the hospital….

Here’s more information about croup and some audio files of croup and stridor.

I’m no expert when it comes to traveling with kids. I’m just writing from our experiences so far. But a reader asked, and I’m answering. Because I care.

Compared to the trip to Colorado we did back in July, when the girls were eight months old, this trip went considerably better. Plus, we were better prepared.

This advice is probably most helpful for kids between ages 6 months (eating some solid foods) to 2 years. Our first plane ride was with eight-month-old twins; our second was with 13-month-old twins.

Layover vs. non-stop flight

Bottom-line advice
If it’s a trip of three hours or less: non-stop flight. Longer than three hours? Layover. Your mileage may vary (YMMV).

Details
We did a non-stop flight to Colorado in July, when the girls were eight months old. It was a total nightmare. However, considering the flight was only 3 to 3.5 hours, it was the best, most logical option.

This time, we didn’t have the option of a non-stop flight to California from the Tampa airport, so we had a layover in Houston. For a trip that long, I was very glad we had a layover. It gave us all a break to get a change of scenery, stretch our legs, change diapers in a more spacious environment, let the girls run around, find some decent food and generally regroup, mentally and physically.

I believe a big part of the difference had to do with the girls’ age. With a few more months under their belts, I think they were just better equipped for such a dramatic change in their surroundings.

Strollers, carryons and security

Bottom-line advice
The three-ounce rule doesn’t really apply with little kids. Have your liquid-y foodstuffs in big Ziplocs. If traveling with twins, take the regular double stroller and check it right before you board.

Details
This was actually the easiest part of the trip. We brought our regular double stroller and checked it right before boarding. If you do this, a stroller travel bag isn’t necessary at all. Plus, it’s free. Plus, if you bring two single strollers, who’s going to lug all the suitcases?

The airports we went through all had family lines, so we didn’t feel like we were being rushed through. Then again, we’re assholes about it now, so we wouldn’t have rushed anyway.

They made us each take a baby and walk through the metal detector with her while they inspected the stroller separately. Chris and I made sure we had easy shoes to take off and had our boarding passes and IDs at hand. I had a backpack and a purse for my carryons. Chris just had a backpack.

A couple of other points:

• Make sure you have any of the baby’s liquids (breastmilk/formula, juice boxes, etc.) and food in easy-to-retrieve Ziploc bags for security. I didn’t even think about it and they gave me a little bit of a ribbing. (By the way, you’re allowed a “reasonable amount” of liquids and foods for kids above the regular 3-ounce limit. Basically, don’t worry about how much you have — just be prepared to allow extra time for them to inspect all of it.)
• I highly recommend a backpack versus a shoulder-strap carryon for the kids. MUCH easier to make it down the airplane aisle, stow under the seat, and find things in a very cramped airplane. Trust me, if you have a lap child under 2, you have zero maneuvering room.

What to take on the plane

Bottom-line advice
Bring the baby’s favorite and/or usually off-limits food, toys and drinks. Bring wipes and dipes in an easily accessed compartment.

Details
When you hear people tell you to bring snacks on the plane, take it seriously. A constant (and I do mean constant) supply of food was our saving grace on our second plane trip.

A sampling of what I packed in extreme excess:

• Goldfish
• Gerber yogurt melts
• Nilla wafers
• Cheerios
• Fig Newtons
• Cereal bars
• Juice boxes

It was minimally nutritious and that was okay with me for the occasion. We paid for it the next day with some serious intestinal productions. Just plan to feed the kid(s)  something semi-decent during the layover or when you land.

Other thoughts:

Bring foods/snacks they normally don’t get and/or foods that they love. The plane is a special occasion and you have to pull out all your tricks. The juice boxes and yogurt melts were especially helpful. We fed the girls a juice box each for takeoff and landing (much easier than nursing, let me tell you, which is what I tried on the Colorado trip. Yes, with twins). This was a big hit because they normally don’t get much juice and they LOVE drinking out of straws.

Only bring foods that the child can self-feed and that preferably don’t have individual wrappers for anything. Baby food jars are a JOKE on a plane. We tried that on the Colorado trip and it was a total mess.

Pack toys they normally don’t get to play with. Get creative. If your baby’s obsessed with TV remotes, shoes, paper, and chewing on books, then bring that stuff. On the plane, you’ll also have the safety brochure, the Sky Mall catalogue (good for ripping apart), the barf bag, and napkins and plastic cups from the flight attendants for emergency distractions.

Plan for delays by bringing extra snacks and distractions. Seriously, bring way more than you think you need. We were stuck on the tarmac for an hour at one point and I was so tired, I didn’t even notice; unfortunately, the baby did.

Other items I found necessary:

• An empty plastic bag for trash (okay, I actually wasn’t organized enough to use it, but if I had been, it would have been helpful)
• Wipes — specifically, travel-sized wipes in a VERY accessible pocket in the backpack — for the inevitable mess you’re going to make
• Diapers in a very accessible area of the carry-on. Both girls pooped during the 30-minute descent on the first leg of our California trip. Chris managed to change a diaper before we weren’t allowed out of our seats; I wasn’t so lucky and had to apologize for the smell to my fellow passengers.

How to dress the baby

I always remembered planes being freezing. But the last 4 or 5 times I’ve flown, it’s been kind of uncomfortably stuffy. I think they keep the air vents closed nowadays. Dress the baby in layers. For a California winter, we did lightweight, long-sleeved cotton shirt, leggings, socks, shoes and a lightweight, hooded sweatshirt. Also keep in mind that on longer flights, even the baby’s feet can swell. Make sure any shoes are VERY easily removed to relieve that.

On the plane for reals

Read this shit for reals.

This is where the shit hits the fan, where the rubber meets the road, where we’re all work and no play.

After our first high-strung experience, Chris and I were a bit more relaxed — or at least, presented ourselves that way — throughout this trip. I think that, along with the twins being a little older,  made a big difference. This time around, we:

• Changed the girls’ diapers before boarding
• Smiled at everyone down the aisles, waved the baby’s hand at anyone who would look, and generally capitalized on baby cuteness every chance we got
• Pre-apologized to our immediate neighbors and assured them that we’d do as much as we could to make sure everyone was cool during the flight

Here are my serious, for-reals, on-the-plane tips that were a HUGE help:

We were among the LAST to board the plane. Screw that family-first seating. That means you have to get up 80,000 times and deal with people dropping shit and making a big racket around you for an extra 30 minutes. When you’re traveling with kids, every second counts. No need to prolong the plane trip if it’s not necessary.

Stuff the seat pocket before you sit. Since we were among the last to board, we didn’t have sweaty mouth-breathers behind us.  So, when I got to my seat, I stuffed the seat pocket with snacks, toys and wipes. I hardly had to lug out the carry-on at all.

Plan for terrifying diaper changes and bathroom trips. Invariably, when the girls needed a new diaper on the plane or I needed to pee, it was just when turbulence hit. The planes all luckily had mini-changing tables, but the girls were freaked the hell out because the plane noise was so loud in the bathrooms. When I had to go to the bathroom on the plane, I took my assigned child with me and did everything one-handed (the baby was too freaked out to be set on the floor because of the crazy plane vibrations).

Chris, on the other hand, just didn’t use the bathroom on the plane. Good luck there.

Stay calm. Make friends with your neighbors. Don’t count on flight attendants being nice to you. Remember that the plane’s ambient n0ise drowns out a tremendous amount of screaming (from you and the kids).

Remind yourself that you have a right to fly — yes, even with children. That child might be the next president. RESPECK.

When you arrive

Bottom-line advice
If you don’t co-sleep, rent a Pack -n- Play — and any other VERY necessary baby items you can’t easily travel with. If you have two or more kids and you need to drive with two or more adults at your destination, rent a mini-van and find a deal online. Don’t bother renting toys.

Details
Baby equipment rental: Traveling with twins, we need stuff. We don’t co-sleep. We just don’t have that luxury, not even occasionally, and not even now that the girls are older. So, after very serious thought, I knew we needed Pack -n- Plays for both girls, car seats, high chairs and safety gates (to fence off a fireplace and some stair cases at my mom’s house).

I browsed and got a rough estimate for baby equipment rental from travelbabees.com. But holy mother of all that is holy, that service is WAAAYYYY overpriced, even with a twins discount. Holy smokes. Don’t even go there.

We used babysaway.com for our Colorado trip and used them again for our Cali trip. They have safe and clean equipment and offer delivery and pick-up (for an extra fee — either to the home/hotel you’re staying at or the airport), pick-up, and set-up and break-down of equipment. Mind you, this isn’t all fancy-schmancy stuff. But it’s clean and safe and worth every single red cent it costs to rent. (As an example, travelbabees quoted $96 for two Pack n Plays for a week; it’s $80 for both at babysaway, plus potential discount.)

P.S. No one has reimbursed me for any of those mentions.

Car rental: I’m a big-time comparison shopper. After a lot of research, my online reservation at Alamo had the best rates for a week-long rental of an eight-passenger minivan, including rental of two full-sized carseats. (Google around for coupon codes.)

We got an eight-passenger, 2010 Toyota Sienna (with 17 — yes, seven-fucking-teen — cupholders) for  a full week for less than $600, including two carseat rentals, taxes, fees, etc. (Sidenote: That’s a lot of money any way you slice it.)

(By the way, I’d read bad things online about crappy carseats from rental car companies, and we didn’t have any such problems at all.)

P.S. No reimbursement for this mention either.

Baby proofing: If you’re renting equipment, find out about safety gate needs at  your destination and rent accordingly.

Bring a cheap-o pack of plastic outlet covers.

Keep an eye on the kids. <– probably important overall

The girls will not eat.

It started during our recent trip to California. Althea started refusing most nursings, but ate like a horse during regular meals. Elise, on the other hand, started losing interest in solids. I figured it was just the trip, the foreign environment, the change in climate, etc.

When we got home, Elise went to an almost complete refusal of solids. She’ll eat yogurt and these natural fig bars I get from the crunchy section of the grocery store. She’ll eat Gerber yogurt melts. Today, she ate some turkey neck meat (????). Other than that, she spits the food out, drops it on the floor, or outright turns her head and refuses it.

Upon our return to Florida, Althea went back to nursing four times a day and continued eating table food like crazy. But over the past two days, she’s rejecting solid food more and more. Like Elise, she spits out or refuses most anything I offer aside from yogurt and melon.

Elise had a bad bout with her stomach this week. Althea had a fever for a day. But even outside of those factors, no dice.

I constantly remind and promise myself to be patient, calm and content with my kids. I usually try not to make a big deal of anything so that they don’t act out based on my response.

But man, I’m getting FRUSTRATED. More than frustrated, I’m getting annoyed and resentful. I’m feeling angry and hurt. I’m dealing with one year olds who are learning a desire for control but can’t communicate in any way that doesn’t involve defiance or tantrums.

And of course, I’m worried. I already have it in my head that my girls are “small.” And now I can’t get them to eat at all? I’ll probably be put in jail.

I’ve tried every food in the house that I can think of — pasta, vegetables, a variety of fruits and meats, breads, cookies, crackers, drinks, sweets, savories, finger foods, baby food, cold food, hot food, food with sauce, food without sauce, spoon feeding, self-feeding.

I’ve tried letting them eat out of the high chairs — free-range baby feeding.

I tried putting a variety of foods in a muffin tin and letting them eat as they pleased. Althea turned the tin upside down, dumped all the food out, and the girls proceeded to smoosh the food into the tile and their hair.

A quick consultation with Dr. Google revealed that this is super, super normal. I was a very picky eater growing up, too. But this is something beyond picky. This is an straight-up “Screw you, I’m not eating.”

My next step is to try smoothies — yogurt, milk and some other stuff with nutritional value. Do they make broccoli and liver ice cream?

I’m turning into “that mom.”

You know, the one who’s 10 minutes late to EVERYTHING.

I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

I’ve always prided myself on my punctuality. I think that tardiness translates, on some minor and occasional level, into self-centeredness. After all, why is your time more valuable than mine? Shouldn’t we both respect the importance of each others’ schedules and plans?

Before kids, and even during the first few months, I was always early to every appointment, meeting, call and date. At worst, I was on time. I get the idea of being fashionably late to parties, but since I considered “fashionable” to be about 10 minutes, I was generally the first one to awkwardly arrive to any event.

Then I had the twins. Over time, my tardiness has gotten worse. Despite my best efforts, despite all common sense, despite pre-planning,  I’m finding myself running late to almost everything.

This is among the many (many) “Oh, I get it now” lessons I’m learning as a mother.

You know what I’m talking about:

Before: Why is you kid so effing filthy?
Oh, I get it now: My kid SCREAMS when I try to wipe off his hands/face/mouth/feet and I have 18 loads of laundry piling up . . . So, after almost dropping him from his high chair and poking him in the eye seven or eight times in an attempt to make him presentable, I concluded that the spaghetti sauce stains kind of match the shirt and hey, aren’t kids supposed to be filthy?

Before: Do you not hear you stupid kid crying in the middle of XYZ Department Store/grocery store/pharmacy? If you can’t shut your child up, you shouldn’t be in public.
Oh, I get it now: Crying is not an emergency. Crying is just someone trying to speak when they have no vocabulary and, in this case, they’re saying “I want to pull everything off the shelves!”

Before: Can you please not expose your freaking BOOBS in public?
Oh, I get it now: Boobs? Oh, I didn’t even notice.

Before: It’s been a year since your kid was born and you’re still holding onto baby weight? No excuses for that one.
Oh, I get it now: OH. I GET IT NOW.

I know, I haven’t been blogging. Shame, as my grandmother would have said.

I’m tired. I’ve been working a lot, mostly at night, and staying up much later than I’m used to. I’ve been working while sitting on an old, uneven couch, which is killing my back and shoulders.

I’m stressed. About the house. About money. About feeling overwhelmed — kids, house, money. What to make for dinner. Laundry piling up and spreading disease and pestilence.  You know, typical stuff.

But mostly, I’m freaking out. I’m freaking out because my daughters are going to turn one next week. I’m having flashbacks of where I was, what I was doing, this time last year.

This time last year, I was spending most of the day on the couch, having contractions that I didn’t know were contractions.

This time last year, I was shuffling down the street, trying to walk myself into labor.

This time last year, I had (gestational) diabetes.

This time last year, I had a 50-inch waist.

This time last year, I knew what day my daughters would be born.

This time last year, I didn’t know what my daughters looked like.

This time last year, I had no idea what I was in for. I had mentally checked out. All I needed to know, all I needed to do, was give birth to healthy twins. I didn’t know about the worry, the ignorance, the fear, the sleep deprivation, the protectiveness.

The hopes and dreams. The smiles. The laughter. The pride. The love. My god, the love.

***

I don’t know these folks. Haven’t interacted with them prior to their loss — a loss I truly, truly can’t imagine (happy birthday, little one). Even now, I feel that all I can do is leave sympathetic comments. But I think about their family often, especially in times like these when I get caught up in the charade that being a parent can bring on.

***

Now, typing all of that, I feel ridiculous for worrying about a fucking party. Fucking streamers and fucking balloons and the fucking idiotic Dixie plates I bought at Walmart, worrying that they weren’t fancy enough and theme-y enough and that people would judge me as an uncaring mother because I didn’t pay $5 for eight paper plates.

I love my daughters. I love my daughters.  And that is what’s important — to them, to me, to us.

Did you know that kids’ birthday parties have themes?

I didn’t.

I mean, I’d seen TV shows and been to parties with themes, but somehow that didn’t translate to reality for me.

For the record, I also didn’t know that you’re supposed to wash all the baby clothes before the baby is born. I didn’t know that newborns sleep a lot and can’t do jack shit. I’d never heard of a “blow out” that didn’t relate to an afternoon at the salon. I had no idea that most parents are serious germ-phobes. (I went out with some mom friends the other night and someone passed around hand sanitizer. I declined. And maybe spit in someone’s drink.)

Anyway. Birthday parties have themes, I guess. No one told me this. So Chris and I sent out some Evites for a little gathering for the girls’ upcoming first birthday. It looks like this. Little cute little birdies with big ole oranges for their cute little heads with big ole eyes and cute little beaks.

So cute! But bad. Because, apparently, this means we’re having a bird/citrus/birds-with-citrus-heads-themed birthday party. What am I supposed to do with that?

I realize that this party is for adults, and the kids are incidental, and blah blah blah. I’m not psycho about this because ultimately I’m too lazy, but this has become semi-important-ish to me. I have no photos or videos or stories of my first birthdays. It’s a struggle for me to document the girls’ lives, but I’m determined to try since I didn’t have that.

Of course we’ll have the smash cake thing. I have little shirts for the girls to destroy with said cake. If you have any ideas or advice beyond that, please (please!) share!

I was raised mostly in Southern California. Where I lived, there were vast fields of strawberries and thick orange groves that would perfume the whole city during orange blossom season. We would throw open the windows at night to inhale the sweet balm of nascent citrus. The smell was intoxicating.

Then it was all bulldozed and replaced with a few hundred strip malls, gas stations, freeway overpasses and overpriced cookie-cutter homes. Because that’s how people in the O.C. roll, bitches.

Anything nature-y or farm-y or down-home-y is very foreign to me. I was pretty shocked when I moved to Florida. There’s, like, green stuff here. Endless stretches of flat, verdant land, thick swamps, Spanish moss swaying from ancient cypress trees.

What struck me as much as the landscape was the people. Let me tell you, anyone who thinks Florida isn’t part of the American South is very, very wrong. I thought big-wheeled Chevys with Confederate flags and gun racks were the things of an Alabama or a Texas. Now I know.

Anyway. To the subject of this blog post: The Effing Pumpkin Patch.

The Effing Pumpkin Patch was my idea. I figured, now that we have kids, we need to do things like go to The Effing Pumpkin Patch and take some effing pictures. I found out about a popular one out in BFE (and believe it or not, no matter where you are in Florida, you can get to a local BFE in an hour or less). So we went.

The directions to get to BFE were simple enough. But with me driving, we did no fewer than 1,800 u-turns before we finally got on track down a two-lane rural road — and promptly screeched to a halt. There was a bloody accident, followed by a slow-moving line of cars filing into a giant field to park. It took half an hour before we got to the farm.

The Effing Pumpkin Patch was, in a word, PACKED. Like, nutso, OMFG claustrophobia, 40-minute line for a pulled pork sandwich, I hate this fucking stroller, will-you-please-get-the-fuck-out-of-my-WAY packed.

I love parties, but I hate giant, overwhelming crowds. I get incredibly impatient and grumble obscenities at old people. It’s just not pretty.

So yeah. I hated every second of it, from the moment we entered BFE to the glorious second we finally pulled away from the burning armpit of hell.

If you’re not feeling me yet, take a look at the line to exit the farm.

You can’t see the end, can you? That’s because it it goes allllllll the way to the edge of the field, then wraps allllllll the way back to the front to dump you out onto the two-lane country road.

Kinda makes you want to run someone over, doesn’t it?

Oh, and about the whole Florida-is-the-South thing?

Dude on a tall unicycle made to look like he’s riding a horse? Check.

Scarecrow family sitting on a barn? Check.

Emaciated donkey ass? Check.

Confederate flag on a Dodge? Ding ding ding!

For as long as I live, I will never go to another pumpkin patch. Ever.

Then again, I guess there were a few highlights.

Althea’s a character. She really is. If we’re going to generalize, Elise is sweet and subdued. Althea’s a bulldozer.

And, I hate to say this, but she’s kind of a bully toward Elise.

I hate to say it because I don’t want to say anything negative about my kids. I also hate to say it because I certainly didn’t instill this in her, not even inadvertently. This is just her personality.

For instance.

Elise has the spoon.

Althea spots Elise with the spoon.

Because Elise  has the spoon, Althea decides the spoon is Extremely Super Rad. Now, Althea wants the spoon.

Althea makes a move for the spoon. Elise pulls it away.

Undeterred by Elise’s protests, Althea pulls on Elise’s shirt and pushes her to the ground.

Spoon = stolen.

Althea has the Extremely Super Rad spoon.

Elise = sad.

Elise seeks the comforting arms of Ama.

The problem is, how the hell do I tame this?

The whole parenting thing has been pretty easy so far. Oh sure, I’ve endured two babies coming out my vagina, stretch marks, extreme sleep deprivation, starvation, dehydration, depression, financial hardship, sacrifice.

But I haven’t really had to discipline before. It’s kinda hard. Because I just want to hug them a lot.

For now, I’m pulling Althea away, telling her that Elise is playing with the toy, and distracting Althea with something else. I figure she’s too young to grasp the whole “why we don’t steal spoons from other people” concept, so I’m relying on the whole “hey, here’s this other super awesome thing that you might like instead” concept.