Supporting Our Athletes

 

I LOVE the Olympics.  For as long as I can remember, every two years my family has tuned in every night watching sports I had never heard of before that night to cheer for one thing -- USA.  From the opening ceremonies to the passing of the torch, my family loves the Olympics.

This year has been no different and I joyfully have our television on all day when I am home with the little ones keeping my eye on events like archery, beach volleyball, waterpolo, equestrian events and table tennis.  To me, it doesn't matter the event as long as the US is competing, I am engaged and cheering.  Some of them, I don't know any of the rules, but I am cheering for Team USA pretending like I know what is going on.

I am not on twitter -- I have an account but I have posted less than five tweets in my life, and even then, they were mostly, "Testing... testing."  I still don't really know how twitter works and the more I see it used for communication, the more I am comfortable with not really knowing how it works.

Why can't we, as a nation, simply support our athletes?

These Olympics have been less than 48 hours under weigh and every time I log on facebook, I see headlines alluding to athletes being attacked via twitter.

Our first gold was won in the event of air-rifle shooting and apparently twitter takes off with political propaganda about this girl's win.  A great beach volley ball player gives an interview mentioning how much she loves being a mother and that she feels that becoming a mother has made her more focused, and a better athlete, and twitter takes off challenging her priorities and calling her old-fashioned.

Why can't we just support our athletes?

Do I think all of the athletes in Rio on our team agree with all of my political points of view?  Absolutely not.  Do I respect them and support them in their representation of our country in their respective athletic sports?  ABSOLUTELY!

Good luck, Team USA.

You all have worked so hard to be where you are, and my family and I are incredibly proud of you.  We are cheering for you and we appreciate your representing our country with dignity, class, and excellence.

 

It's Hard.

So, this week apparently is... or was (does it run Sunday-Saturday, or Monday-Sunday?) World Breastfeeding Week.  All week my Facebook news feed has been full of articles or personal posts about mothers who have chosen to, and are able to nurse their babies.

All week I have wondered what I have to say on the topic, and I do have a few thoughts, but they are not nearly as heart-warming and prideful as I thought they would be.

As a mother of three who has breastfed my daughter for fifteen months, and breastfed my twins for seven-plus months and counting, and who was able to exclusively breastfeed without needing other supplemental milk or formula, I have one thing to say about breastfeeding -- its hard.

A mother has to WANT to breastfeed.  In my opinion, a mother has to think in terms of there being no other option for nourishing her baby in order to be successful at breastfeeding.

Even if a mother is committed to nursing, and is able to successfully nurse the way she wants to... breastfeeding gets easier, but it is still challenging.

When a mother is actively nursing one or more babies, it affects every aspect of her life for as long as she is nursing.  It impacts her eating, her sleeping, her wardrobe, her exercise, her appearance, her coming and goings, her planning ahead, her mobility... it impacts everything.

If a father is in charge of feedings, he might understand the lack of sleep and some other inconveniences... but when he leaves the house and skips a feeding leaving someone else in charge, he can actually skip a feeding.    When a nursing mother leaves the house and skips a feeding, she has to devote time to still producing milk even though the baby is being fed by someone else.

There are so many benefits to nursing, and I can't imagine a scenario when I wouldn't want to nurse... but it is hard.

But also, a lot of aspects of motherhood are hard, and I don't see a World week for those parts.  There is not a World Discipline Week or World Sacrificing For Your Kids Week or World Teaching Your Children Manners Week.  All of those things (and more) are hard things that parents do (or should do) for the sake of their kids, and nursing is no different -- why all the accolades, when it is simply a mother doing something hard that is in her child's best interest?

Twins -- Seven Months

Well this past month flew by... probably because we were traveling, visiting family and generally having a lot of fun.  Howard and Caroline are seven months old -- they will be a year before I know it.

For comparison:

Twins as newborns

Twins at seven months:

 Weight: 

We think both Howard and Caroline are staying pretty stable at 18+ and 16+ pounds respectively.  We didn't notice a huge growth spurt or change in clothing size this month... but with their now eating solid foods regularly we'll see what the next month brings.

Length:  

Again, I think they're staying pretty steady at the moment because neither Howard or Caroline have outgrown their footsie pajamas in the past month.  But, I do think Howard is outgrowing some of his onesies -- I noticed in one picture I took this month that it is becoming pretty low-cut.  Time for bigger tee-shirts.

Clothing size: 

I feel like I'm a broken record this month, but size-wise, not a lot has changed this month.  Howard is still wearing the same clothes -- a mix of six, nine, and twelve month clothes, and size four diapers.

Caroline, likewise hasn't changed a lot in size this month -- still wearing six and nine month outfits, but I did recently move her up to size four diapers.

Eating:  

We have officially introduced solid foods.  We are doing baby-led weaning again, which is what we did with Tracey.  That basically means that we offer Howard and Caroline small pieces of food, for them to play with and feed themselves as much as they want, or as little as they want... and still continue to nurse as much as they want.

We started both babies with soft bananas, and Howard devoured it, while Caroline liked to play with it.  I will say, with Tracey we were very careful about introducing new foods and kept a careful list of what she had tried and when.  With Howard and Caroline, they try new foods all the time because I offer them whatever Tracey is having for dinner.

It was really hard to make the adjustment to feeding two babies solid foods.  Now, I think I have a good system set up, and they are getting better and better at feeding themselves every day, but we had a few rough weeks when we were in transition.

Now, Howard and Caroline have tried all of the following, and possibly more:

bananas, peaches, applesauce, pears, watermelon, cantaloupe, baby puffed cereal, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, spaghetti, bread, crackers, peas, green beans, corn and pancakes.

Sleeping:  

We really had a set back in our great sleeping routine this month with our travels.  By the time we got home, both Howard and Caroline had gone from sleeping through the night before we left, to waking up twice or three-times each night to feed.  Now, we've fixed that a little but they still are not back to their amazing sleep routine that we had before our trip.

During our travels, Howard especially got in the habit of falling asleep in our bed, and still has a fit when he realizes he is in his crib.  Thankfully, he does not not nurse all night the way Tracey did in our bed at his age, but it still has changed our nighttime routine significantly. 

 

A few days ago, I received my fitbit weekly summary in an email and it was amusing to me, so I took pictures of it on my phone... the first picture just says that its a summary of my weekly stats.  The second picture says that my average sleep duration is 2 hours and 34 minutes.  Yeah.

 

 

New things/discoveries/accomplishments: 

• They can scoot backwards in their walkers
• Both babies can roll in both directions
• Both babies love being on their tummies to reach toys or relax
• Both babies are eating solid foods and feeding themselves
• Both babies love to play with their feet
• They have both begun sleeping on their tummies
•  They both went to the nursery room during the church service for the first time
• Their Mama got hand-foot-mouth disease for the first time
•  They took a bath together for the first time (they were always bathed or showered separately before now) and now they get a bath together almost every day, and sometimes with Tracey too -- that's when the real crazy comes out 
• Caroline is beginning to sit up on her own -- for a few seconds anyway

Personalities:

• Howard really wants to move.  He loves to bounce and jump, he rolls everywhere, and he wants to crawl.  He frequently lays on his stomach and kicks his feet and bobs his head -- its his way of trying to move.  He is also turning into a real Mama's boy.  He has a lot of fun with Daddy and Tracey, but when he's upset, he wants Mama, and he loves to cuddle.  He does not want to nap or fall asleep when there is the chance that something is going on.  He watches everything, and will not fall asleep if there is something interesting to watch.  He often needs to be either rocked to sleep, or cuddled in order to relax and fall asleep.
• Caroline remains such a sweetheart.  She still sleeps well and adores Tracey and Howard.  When either Tracey or Howard and looking at her and making eye contact, she breaks out the BIGGEST smile and then just laughs.  She is the easiest going of the three, and often does not mind for new people to hold her.  What i did learn this month, however, is that, while I think of Caroline as my easiest baby... when I am not home, she is the hardest baby.  This month whether she was left with Hubby, St. Louis grandparents or Michigan grandparents, Caroline was always the one sobbing when I got home, and when I took her, she stopped crying within seconds.  So, while she adores Caroline and Howard, there is a touch of Mama's girl in her too.

Likes: 

• Playing with each other
• Pacifiers
• Nursing
• Solid food
• Bath time together
• Playing with Tracey
• Playing with each other
• Swimming
• Watching new things and people when we're out and about 
• Crackers
• Cousins

Dislikes:

• Being hungry
• Carseats after long trips

Special Memories:

• We got to spend time at my childhood home for the last time and spend time swimming and playing there as a family before my parents sell the house at the end of the summer.
• Tracey is really coming into her role as the big sister, telling me who is crying and when to check them... or telling me to stay put because she is going to check them.  She also keeps track of whose passie belongs to whom and dictates what they play with at times.  On the downside, they have started grabbing her hair, which she does not appreciate.
• Spending time with our St. Louis family and cousins -- those kids really have a blast together
• Great-grandpa Jacobs and his gal came to visit and spend some time with us out here

Places They Went:

• St. Louis
• Nebraska
•  Duluth Trading Company
• Grant's Farm in St. Louis
• Michigan
• Church nursery
• Rifle State Park
• Eating at Shooters Grill

Nicknames:

• Howard
• Master Howard
• Buddy
• Our Little Hunk
• Mister
• Big guy
• Little guy 
• "Oward" Tracey's name for him  

• Caroline
• Sweet Caroline
• Sweetheart
• Sweetie Pie
• Baby Girl
• "Airoline" Tracey's name for her

They both are called:

• Bubble-blower
• Little roller
• Good Little Eater 

Surprise Pictures

Pretty much every time Tracey notices that I am taking a picture, she asks to take a picture.  For awhile, that meant she would simply hold my phone and look at the screen, never actually taking a picture.  Now she is slowly learning where the shutter button is and so I am finding surprise pictures on my phone that Tracey has taken.  Something tells me these are just the beginning of surprise pictures I find:

 "I want to take a picture, Mama."

This picture I took with her to show her how to take one.

 

and these are Tracey's...

She did pretty well...

My Limits

As we enter new seasons with our children... which sometimes feels like every week, something new, I am also learning my limits when it comes to motherhood.

This was a new concept to me, because I don't think of motherhood as having limits -- you do what you have to do -- and that is true, to a degree.

We are figuring out our new routine headed into this fall.  The new routine includes the following:

• two babies gaining mobility and eating more and more solid foods every day
• one toddler who oscillates almost hourly from behaving sweetly, joyfully and obediently to behaving like a baby who has a really hard time listening or obeying us
• three jobs (Hubby full-time plus, and my two part-time jobs)
• Hubby in his last home stretch of grad school trying to complete an enormous Capstone in record time
• a kitchen that has become more than three times the mess every day now that three times the little ones are eating at meals
• Tracey going back to preschool
• A nanny watching our kiddos one day a week so I can work
• My attending morning workout classes

We have a lot we're trying to figure out and many times I do more on a given day than I thought I was capable of... the capacity of motherhood has few limits.

 

All that to say, a few day ago, I did find myself in a situation where, with Hubby's help, I realized, I was beyond my limits.

 

A friend asked me if I would consider watching her two boys two mornings each week.  Their oldest is two months older than Tracey, and their youngest is two months older than our twins, and I REALLY wanted to say yes.

 

I invited the boys over for a few hours on Sunday with both Hubby and me watching them so I could see how they interacted with our children and to try and discern if I thought this would be possible for me to watch by myself.  It is not.

 

In my head, I really thought there was a chance I could do this.  I've seen Tracey play with her cousins, and I thought that scenario could work for a few hours while I juggled the babies... but I overlooked one huge difference.  The cousins I have watched  Tracey play with are girls... and these were boys.

 

There was just an extra factor with boys that I did not anticipate -- like their creativity.  Tracey never considered diving off of our couch until this little boy showed her how fun it could be.  Tracey never considered taking her riding airplane toy upstairs, but this little boy was prepared to roll the plane upstairs despite my instructions that the play stays downstairs... he made it up two stairs while my back was turned before the plane and he fell backwards down the stairs. 

 

Tracey had more accidental falls and cuts in the two hours we were watching these boys than she had the entire summer of our visiting family.  That's not to say it was the boys' fault... Tracey was feeding off of their energy and creating her own situations.

 

But, with Hubby's help, I had to acknowledge that watching five children under three -- at least these five children under three by myself is beyond my limits right now.

The Process

As a mother, I have so much to learn, and among those things are the beauty of the process of doing something with my children.  For once in my life -- really, probably for the first time, these activities are not about the result as much as they are about the process.

Yesterday, I bravely made muffins with Tracey for the first time.

She and I had baked together before, but it was before the twins were born... actually, I'm pretty sure it was before the twins were even on the way, so this was definitely the first time I was baking with her as a full-fledged excited toddler.  Also, the first time baking with my full-fledged excited toddler WHILE there were two other babies on my radar.

Sufficed to say, we survived and the muffins were baked.

We made banana cinnamon chocolate-chip muffins... with extra baking soda.  The actual recipe called for banana nut muffins, but another recipe I looked up added cinnamon, so that part was legit.  The chocolate-chips were just thrown in at the end because we had the end of a bag that needed to be used, and I thought Tracey would like that... and the extra baking soda occurred when I turned around to do something else and Tracey decided to add an additional heaping teaspoon of baking soda to the batter before I could get to her.  I actually was thrilled with how they turned out.

 

I was fully prepared to end up donating these muffins to the birds if need be, but they are seriously delicious.

The best part about baking with my daughter is the process... the fact that the result was edible is just an awesome bonus.

 

1000 Words

1000 Words