Ahh...The Good Times and The Bad times

Today it is totally freezing out side...9 degrees to be exact. It is snowing and our neighborhood looks so pretty and peaceful with all the snow. The girls have been asking me if they can go outside and play in the snow. My answer is that is has to get warmer before we can go outside. They want to build a snowman so much they can hardly stand it! Unfortunately because it is so cold outside, it makes for a rather light and powdery snow, not really good for snowmen building. We'll see, maybe we can get outside and make a small one.

The girls were so cute after lunch today. They brought about 10-12 stuffed animals out of their rooms, lined them up across the couch and then pretended to be leading them in singing time. My guess is they are imitating music time at their mother's day out program. I was able to discreetly video tape them while I was sitting at the kitchen table. If I'm holding the camera, all they want to do is see themselves on the video screen, so I had to be sly and set up the camera on the table. It worked! I caught them singing several songs, loudly, and they were totally unaware that they were being videoed. I'll have to put that footage on DVD and send it out to our family, they'll love it!

After all the singing and happily playing together, it was time for a nap. That's when the good behavior went straight to bad. I don't know what goes through their minds, but Savannah especially seems to have a strong willed streak. When I was changing her diaper she decided to kick the decorative letters on the wall above the changing table. She's done this before and knocked a few off the wall, and one broke (it's wood, so I have no idea what happened). This time she took off about 3 letters. I had warned her to stop or we would take the letters off the wall for awhile. About 2 minutes later, she looks at me and kicks the letters again--this time really hard. I got mad, gave her a couple of swats and now all of the letters in her name have come down from the wall. Makes the room look really blah, but I don't know what else to do. Her behavior is so frustrating sometimes. It's really hard to deal with when she gets that way.

I realized something over the weekend. Our girls are a total delight to be with when we get to spend individual time with each girl (it happens so rarely). I had such a great time with Emily on Saturday. Seth took Savannah grocery shopping with him and I stayed home with Emily. We didn't do anything special, all she wanted to do was hang out in the kitchen with me, drawing, while I cooked lunch. It was so different than when both girls are together. I can see why other couples pursue more children once their first child hits 2 years old. It makes me sad that our girls are so competitive for my attention, and often so mean to each other on a daily basis. I can only hope that will change as they get older and are a little more mature. It scares me to think what their behavior might be like if we added another child to our family. So, for now, 2 is all I can handle, unless God suddenly has other plans for me.

Funny Statements From Little Girls

So today I was talking to Emily and she told me her bottom hurt. I asked her if it was her diaper rash and she said yes. Then she yells "My butt hurts!". I then say to her, "Emily, in our house we say bottom". To which she replied, "At Grandma's house we say butt!". That pretty much sent me into a laughing fit. Now I know where she's been hearing the word butt used. Seth and I have been trying to figure it out, and the girls, especially Emily, seems to have great fun saying the word. Neither he or I use that word when we change their diapers, so my next guess was the Mother's Day Out program...but I really didn't think that would be the word of choice with the teachers. So, Grandma's to blame for this one--now we just have to figure out which Grandma says it. We're really not upset about it, it's really funny actually, we just couldn't figure out where they had heard the word butt.

Being A Mom Is Really Hard Sometimes

Since Saturday, both girls have been sick with the yucky stomach virus that's been going around. I have changed diapers more times in the past few days than I have in an entire week! The poor girls tummies hurt and their little bottoms are red with diaper rash, no matter how much diaper cream I put on them. To make things worse, they are grouchy and totally uncooperative. Not sure if all of that is due to being sick, or if they are just having one of those days. They are not getting along at all today. Savannah has wanted me all to herself and she gets mad when I attend to Emily. It's so frustrating! I've been noticing that lately Savannah has been exhibiting some bully-type behavior toward Emily. I don't know how to get that to stop. I think it may be because in the past several weeks, Emily has had a little more attention due to her allergic reactions and illness. It's hard to make a 2 year old understand that you love her just as much as her sister, but sometimes you need to help the other one more than the other. I know eventually this will get easier, but when?

So, I've cried twice today, lost my temper with Savannah after she continued to bite Emily after I repeatedly told her no and to stop. I don't spank my girls very often, but Savannah got a spanking today... and now I feel like a horrible mom. It was a harder spanking than probably needed, and I was mad at the time. I know that's when it's best not to spank, but my fuse was short and it happened. I did try to talk to her and tell her I still love her even if I get mad. I don't really know if a 2 year old really gets that kind of thinking yet or not.

And to top off my really hard day, I'm dealing with a sprained left wrist. A few days ago I was lifting Emily into her highchair and I felt my wrist give out under her weight and it bent in an odd manner...and then the pain and swelling--OUCH!!! I iced it and put an ace bandage on it until the next day. It was feeling a little better, but yesterday I tried to lift Savannah and I think I aggravated the injury. So, mommy is grouchy today too--and hurting. The girls don't understand, nor accept the fact that I cannot lift them and hold them a lot today. They say "Mommy up" and I say, sorry I can't lift you today, please climb into my lap, or please use the step stool...then a major tantrum usually follows.

So, my theme for today is that being a mom is really hard sometimes.

Another Eventful Thanksgiving

So last year we ended up in Urgent Care in Joplin with Emily for an ear infection. This year we visited Urgent Care in Springfield because Emily was breaking out in hives all over her torso and it was spreading to her legs and arms--even after 2 doses of Benadryl. The doctor suspected it was caused by an allergic reaction to the Amoxicillian she had been taking for a sinus/ear infection. However he suggested it could also be food related because at Thanksgiving dinners we often eat foods that aren't normally in our diet on a regular day. We already know dairy is a problem, but now what? The doctor prescribed Prednosol--the baby version of Prednisone. Four days later and she's still having new episodes of hives. I've given her benadry at least twice a day. So far I'm suspicious of chicken, chicken broth, turkey, and cranberries. The strange part of all that is she's had those foods a dozen times or so and no reaction, so I'm not real sure what it is. I will ask our allergist tomorrow if he thinks we need to test her for all the foods they normally do allergy tests for. I just would like to know so that I can eliminate the food that's causing all this from her diet.

Among all the allergy chaos, Seth came down with a stomach virus and pretty much feels horrible. I'm just praying that Emily, Savannah, and I don't get it too--we were all just sick a few weeks ago. We need a break.

The fun parts of our Thanksgiving week all included visiting family. We went to my parents house first (Grammie and Pop as the girls refer to them). We had a good visit, the girls amused my parents with at various times--the two that stand out most are when Emily and Savavannah climbed onto the piano bench and began "playing" the piano, and singing in unison Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. My mom cried because she thought is was so precious. The second great event was decorating my parents' Christmas tree. The girls had so much fun hanging the ornaments on the tree and looking at all the old pictures on the ornaments my brother and I had made when we were kids.

We visited my grandparents (Great Grandma and Great Papa Howard). The girls have not seen them as much since my grandpa's health has been bad and my grandma has not been able to visit us much. So, upon arriving at their house I explained to the girls that Great Papa would probably been in his bed in the living room because he had been sick and so it made him very tired. I told them he needed to be in a special bed that could help him sit up since he could not do that on his own anymore. Savannah's response was "I will not be scar-ed of Great Papa". When we walked up the stair to the door, Emily would not go inside the house and said "I'm scared, I don't want to go in". This made me sad for the girls and for my grandparents. So, Emily clung to me with her face buried in my shoulder for about a half hour, then she wouldn't even look at my grandpa. Savannah was okay until my grandma raised the head of the bed up so my grandpa could sit up--I guess it was scary looking or something. Savannah just froze--facing the TV and would not move or look at anyone for a good 45 minutes. Poor girl. She must have been really stressed. Eventually she warmed up a little to my grandma, and Emily near the end of our visit let my grandma hold her.

We spent the end of the week visiting Seth's family. The girls were so excited to see their Grandma Terry and Pop-Pop. They enjoyed a big Thanksgiving dinner--thankfully everyone made an extra effort to avoid putting anything with dairy in it so that Emily could eat all of the foods that were served. I think her favorite were sweet potatoes and blueberry pie. After lunch we began to notice a few red spots on her stomach, but weren't convinced it was hives because they were small. From then on the rash just got worse...

On Saturday, Seth and his dad took the girls over to "Aunt" Jennifer's mom's house to see their horses and ride a pony named Smokey. I only saw pictures and heard the stories from Seth because his mom and I had gone to a fitness center to work off the extra calories from Thanksgiving. The girls seemed to have a lot of fun--especially Savannah. She had a huge smile on her face in most of the pictures and she looked liked she was having a blast!

Another cute thing that happened was when Savannah and Emily were playing on this little activity table at Grandma Terry's house--there's a 3 key piano on it and Savannah was pressing the keys and singing and Emily was pressing the buttons on the telephone pad and singing. Then Savannah breaks into her version of Oh Suzanna. As Savannah sings it :Oh Sue-Savannah don't you cry for me, I come from Al-bama weeth a banjo on my knee!"


Overall it was a good week, Seth and I even got to go on a date! We went ice skating at the Mediacom ice center in Springfield. There were only about 10 people on the ice...mostly teenagers/college kids, one elderly man and then then Seth and I. It took about 15 minutes for me to remember how to skate, then I was really having fun...Seth on the other hand was having a harder time. What a great husband to take on an activity he knew he might not be very good at just to make his wife happy. He earned some bonus points that night. It was so much fun! I even got brave enough to try out my spin move and I only fell once--ending up laying face down flat on the ice. No worries, nothing broke! After almost two hours of skating Seth and I began to feel really tired--and were reminded that we are getting closer to 30 and just don't have quite the endurance for that type of activity. We concluded your date with a walk throught the Festival of Lights in Jordan Valley Park.

I think it will be a bit of a rough adjustment back to normal. I really enjoyed all the extra family that helped take care of the girls and entertain them. Tomorrow it's back to being just me--and then I may also be taking care of a sick Seth too. Pray for us to get through it.

What was I thinking?

Okay, so I totally meant to post this story way before today, but our whole family has been sick this past week and I just haven't felt like blogging until now. So, hopefully I can recall the events acurately since it's been almost a week and half since this happened.

So, a week ago, Saturday, Seth came down with a yucky cold virus and fever. I decided to give him the chance to get some good rest and took the girls to Oak Park Mall to ride the carousel and play on the foam cars in front of Dillards. We stopped in at my Baby Gap store to try on a few shirts and pants and the girls were pretty good and actually ended up being overly helpful while shopping for a couple of baby gifts. Once I cleaned up all the clothes they had taken off the sale racks, we checked out and proceeded to the carousel. The girls waited patiently in line for their turn to ride the horses. They had a good time while riding. Then they were very cooperative once we entered the car area and took off their shoes and put them in the shoe cubby. Things were going well, despite the mall being crazy busy with tons of people and kids. After about 20-30 minutes of playing it was time to leave so we could bring Seth food for dinner and get the girls fed.

Of course, Emily and Savannah never want to leave the car area when they are having fun...so I expected some resistance. I gave them a 5 minute warning that it would soon be time to leave. I ended having to chase Emily and hold her down to put her shoes back on, but after that she came with me without too much of a problem. Savannah, on the other hand, went into full-blown tantrum mode--I mean HUGE! I struggled with Savannah for quite awhile, putting her shoes on only to have her take them off again. Finally I ended up carrying her out of the car area, all while she was kicking and screaming and crying. Emily followed us to the stroller. As soon as I put Savannah on the floor she screams "I don't want to leave--NO!" and she took off running--fast.

The first thought in my head was--NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! She was already 3 stores down from the play area and Emily was crying and not wanting to walk anymore. I knew I would not have time to get her in the stroller, so I picked Emily up in one arm, pushed the double stroller in the other and walked/ran after Savannah. I prayed to God no one would grab her and take her away. There were so many people and Savannah just kept running, weaving in and out and around the crowd. I tried to yell for Savannah to stop, but she ignored me and kept running.

By this time I was getting frantic because she was getting further away, and I was fast approaching the annoying design of this mall that requires people with strollers or wheel chairs to zig-zag down the main hallways--I hate that under normal circumstances, but when you are chasing a child through the mall it's even worse. Just as Savannah approached a stairway, another family with a stroller happened to end up in her way--she stopped and turned to run around them, but I caught up and blocked her with our stroller. I grabbed her hand and told her to "Always, always, stay with mommy at the mall!" . I have never been so scared to lose one of my girls until that day. Of course, getting her into the stroller after that was a nice little horrific side show for the mall crowd as she kicked and screamed and fought to get out of the stroller while I was strapping her in. AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

Lesson learned: NEVER, EVER, take your 2 year old twins to the mall by yourself on a Saturday night. You never know when a tantrum will get the best of you.

The Calm After The Storm?

The past four days have been great! I mean, I did not find myself yelling and screaming at the girls but once or twice--that is a record. So, I'm wondering if I'm just calmer these days or if the girls have chilled out for awhile. I don't know, but I will take it! Emily and Savannah have been playing together very well and half of the time at the table they are throwing food or cups/plates/forks. Hey, it's not perfect, but a huge improvement. I hope that continues to improve as the tantrums have seemed to die down a bit.

Major news--the girls had their FIRST haircut yesterday. It took them forever to get hair, and now it's finally long enough to be in their eyes...and well it just didn't look very nice, so I took them to my hairdresser (also my babysitters' mom). They were so good. They both sat in the chair like big girls and sat still. Neither of them cried or fussed. The only sad part of that experience is that in my effort to get both girls out of the house and into the van before it started raining, I forgot my camera. My hairdresser let me take some pictures with her cell phone camera, but she's not sure how to get the pictures off of the phone--hopefully her daughters can help her figure it out. I did take a few pictures of the "after the haircut". I guess I'll just have to remember to bring the camera for the 2nd haircut.

Cute things happened today. Emily and Savannah really seemed to want to play with me a lot. They still ask if they can tackle me, so we did that for awhile and then they wanted me to tackle them. They think it's great fun and they just laugh and laugh when we do that. After that Savannah wanted to play Ring Around The Rosy. So we started to hold hands...except Emily did not want to hold Savannah's hand--so I suggested they get their large stuffed Eeyore and each hold one of his "hands". They liked that idea and were laughing the whole time we were playing. Eeyore is one of their favorite stuffed animals. We spendt the rest of the afternoon drawing, running up and down the hall, chasing our dog, Billy, and tickling each other. I am tired after all that. It was a good day. I hope to have many more like it. So yes, today I do like being a mom.

A Good Day

Today was a good day for me and the girls. Even though Savannah has been in tantrum mode about 85% of her waking hours this past week, today was good. Maybe I've gotten used to her strong-willed outbursts, or maybe they just weren't as bad as they have been--I don't know, but today was pleasantly different. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I knew I was going to get out of "mom duty" early today because I was scheduled to work this evening. Who knows? All I can say is "Thank you God!".

The girls played well together today for the most part--we had a few tiffs here and there, but nothing too horrible. They played with their baby dolls, pretending to change their diapers and putting new clothes on them. Then they pretended to do laundry...which basically involves them emptying out every single clothing drawer within their reach and "hanging it up" on their cribs and rocking chairs to "dry". I'm not sure where the girls learned this, because I usually dry most things in the dryer--we don't have a clothes line...sometimes I use a sweater drying rack on the floor--maybe that's where they got the idea. It's funny, until it's time to clean it all up--I've given up on neatly folding everything--I'll save that effort for my time at the Baby Gap.

A sad thing did happen today. As I was getting ready to leave for work this evening, Emily kept crying and asking me to hold her. I held her for a few minutes then put her down so I could leave. She cried and cried and cried. Seth told me that after I had left, she climbed into her high chair and said "I mad at Mommy". Ouch--that cuts right through my heart. I guess she has some negative feelings about me leaving to go work. She has never gotten that upset when Seth goes to work. Hopefully she'll realize that I always come back and that she always sees me the next morning when she wakes up. It's hard to enjoy getting to go to my new job when I know it's upsetting my girls.

Laughter In Tough Times

Okay, so the past few days have just been plain difficult. I won't rant and rave about it, but we've had lots of tantrums, lots of fighting between the girls, and lots of defying mommy and I'm at my breaking point. Thank God for the Baby Gap! I just got a job at the Baby Gap and I'll be working a few evenings during the week and a few hours on the weekends. I applied to several stores but Baby Gap is the only place that called me and I got the job right away! Hurray! I think God knew I needed some kind of relief from being with twin 2 year olds all day long, everyday of the week. Baby Gap has a nice employee discount which is great because buying for 2 at the same time and having no hand-me-downs gets expensive. I had my first day of training earlier this week and so far all the managers seem really nice and easy to work with. I felt so happy after coming home that night. I actually got to talk to adults--and it wasn't all about raising kids.

Anyway, on to the funny part of the past few days. So a few nights ago we served grilled chicken and broccoli and bread for dinner to our girls. Keep in mind because Emily has a dairy allergy we cannot serve broccoli with anything else on it except for dairy-free margarine...or so we thought. As the girls were picking at their food, out of the blue Savannah says "I want some broccoli with ketchup on it, and chicken with ketchup on it". Seth and I just laughed, proceeded to put ketchup on her food and watched her reaction. She scarfed it all in less than 5 minutes! Then Emily made the same request. And each time we've had any vegetable, especially if it's broccoli, they ask for ketchup on it. It's just hilarious to me because I think broccoli with ketchup would be a disgusting combo. Whatever helps them eat their vegetables...

Happy Moments

After my lasting ranting post I think I'll write about some of the happy moments in our lives. Savannah and Emily have been increasingly interested in music and singing. Their favorite video is The Laurie Burkner Band. Savannah will sing every word to each song on the video, with her favorites The Goldfish and We Are The Dinosaurs being her most frequent songs. I video taped them playing a song on their xylophone while singing The Goldfish song the other day. It was really cute. Savannah really likes to help around the house. In fact she gets really excited when you say it's time to clean up the house...I can only hope that attitude lasts through adulthood. Emily will help clean up, but only if she's in a good mood and usually it's for a short period. They both enjoy helping me sort laundry--infact they fight over who gets to put the most clothes into the laundry basket.

The girls both love "tackling" Seth and I--it's one of their favorite things to do. Each day Savannah will come up to me and say, "I want tackle you, Mom". It's fine now while they are small, but 10-20 more pounds and it will start to hurt. If it's not tackling, then it's running that they love to do. Each day they run up and down our hallway and laugh and sometimes walk up to our dog, Billy, and ask him if he "want run, Bulwy?". Sometimes Billy will run and get really wound up and start running really fast--this sometimes scares Emily, but Savannah loves it.

The girls are starting to try to "read" books on their own, and I've found they actually have a few books memorized so to someone who didn't know any better they would think my 2 year olds were actually reading these books, word for word. I know this is a step in the learning to read process, so I guess they are right on track.

Savannah is really concentrating on her drawing skills these days--she will spend almost a half hour drawing a picture. Today she told me she was drawing Elmo's World, (from Sesame Street).

Emily seems to enjoy "mowing the lawn" with her Little Tikes ride-on toy. She'll push it all over the yard, perodically telling you she's mowing the yard. Yesterday she spent about 20 minutes non-stop doing this activity. It was funny.

The cutest and sweetest thing the girls do right now is tell each other goodnight and hug each other before they go to their rooms to go to bed. So cute! I need to get it on camera sometime.

Bad behavior--mad mommy

Okay, folks--get ready for some venting! If you don't want to hear me rant and rave about bad twin behavior then I suggest you not read the following. I am near exploding so I really need to vent and no one else is home but me and the girls, so here is where I vent.

I am so freakin' mad right now--I just ran to our basement and slammed the door, jumped up and down and in a shouting rage, screamed a dozen obscenities. I am THAT mad. For some people that's probably small potatoes--but for me I only cuss when I am REALLY mad. I still don't feel I've totally gotten all of my anger out even with the yelling. I just want to throw something, kick something, break something--then go away to some far off place and never come back. That's how I feel right now. I hate being a mom today. Hate it, hate it, hate it! Did I meantion I hate it?

The girls are going through a difficult phase right now--major resistance to EVERYTHING. They get mad when I try to dress them, change their diaper, turn the water to wash their hands, brush their teeth, give them a bath, read a book to them, sing, dance, etc., etc., etc. It is so frustrating. And now, Emily is into telling me she doesn't want to to eat--refuses her plate--will throw it off of her tray to make her point. Then 5 minutes later she says calmly "I want to eat, I want my plate, Mommy". This has been going on for the last month and I'm getting really tire of it. Savannah does it sometimes too--but usually doesn't refuse her plate. If she doesn't get more of something, then she simply throws her fork/spoon across the room, throws her food off her tray, throws her cup on the floor, etc. Each time I tell them no throwing food, plates, forks, cups--leave them on your tray or give them to mommy. It does not matter what I say--they still throw it anyway. Well, today I got really fed up with it and screamed at the girls for doing it again, gave Savannah a spanking for throwing her plate after I just told Emily not to throw hers. I took away their trays and ended the meal. I am still mad. I don't even want to deal with either of them at another meal time from now on. It's the same frustrating routine daily and I don't know how to get them to stop. I know it's probably normal for their age, but I really think the bad behavior happens earlier and lasts longer because I have two the same age, mimicking and learning from each other. It's about to push me to my limit. Actually I think it already has and I am now beyond my limit, because all I do is scream at them, and I'm spanking them more and more because nothing I say seems to get the message across. I don't like spanking them, but they seem to stop their bad behavior a lot quicker with a spanking than with just a verbal reprimand--even time out doesn't have an effect.

I just want to get past this frustrating time in our lives--when does the fun part come? Or has that time passed already? Is parenting nothing but a huge frustrating experience in which we just try to survive and hope later on when our kids are grown up that they still like us and want to call us and come visit occassionally? Seriously, it feels that way alot these days. Basically for me once the girls hit 16 months, life just gets harder and more frustrating by the month. Now I've totally lost my patience and have turned into a witch mommy. I'm still going to counseling for it, but I don't know that it's really helping a lot. The main advice so far is to make sure I'm getting a break to get out my frustrations. That's a hard thing to do when you are a stay-at-home mom of 2 year old twins, with no family nearby to babysit and give you that break. Maybe I need to buy a punching bag and just go nuts on it during the girls naptime. AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just wish they would behave well. And I just want them to do what I tell them, to stop hurting each other, to stop throwing tantrums. I know that won't happen for awhile, but I can still hope.

Feeling a bit lost...

For awhile I've just felt upset about something...not sure exactly what, but just sad. I think I've figured out what it is. Yesterday when my neighbor asked me if Seth and I were going to have anymore kids, I of course used my standard answer, "I don't know...this toddler phase has been rough...we'll see how the next few months are." When we went through our pre-marriage counseling, our goal back then was two kids by the age of 30. Well, we ended up meeting that goal all at once and at 29 now I'm feeling the pressure to decide if we should add another or not. Seth is fine with it either way, although I've been so stressed with the girls these past few months that I think he's leaning toward stopping at two kids. Okay, back to my figuring out what is upsetting me--I think I've been so consumed by the whole twin thing for the past 2 years and 10 months that I just don't really know who I am anymore. I kind of got lost along the way. So, with that in mind, I'm silently freaking out because I have no idea what to do with myself as the girls get more and more independent. It's a blessing in some ways, but I'm so used to being in such high demand to the point of not enough of me to go around for the two girls, that now I just don't really know what my roll will look like. So, back to the question of adding another child--I think I'm a little afraid if we don't, then I will just be more lost than I am right now. If I continue in my in high demand mommy roll in life then I know what to do for the most part--that will buy me a few more years before I really have to decide what to do with myself once all the kids are in school.

I know I still have 4 more years before Emily and Savannah start kindergarten, but I'm a planner, and I have to know what's ahead for me or I just go a bit crazy sometimes. So, we'll likely not have anymore kids as I feel not knowing what to do with myself is a bad reason to have another one, and my stress level has just been over the top, so I'm afraid it could get worse with trying to deal with pregnancy and two 2-3 year olds. I guess I should just pray about it a lot and see what God's answer is...who knows, maybe he has more kids in our future, maybe not? Until then, I need to figure out what I want to do later in life, how I'm going to get there, and what it will take to do it. That's a lot to think about...so on that note I think I'll go to bed and think some more tomorrow.

Good Weekend

We were able to go visit my parents this weekend. God blessed us all with good health so we were able to be around my mom without worrying about getting her sick. The girls had so much fun. They really enjoyed sitting in their "Pop's" lap and reading lots, and lots of books...and watching college football on TV all day Saturday. My aunt and cousin came to visit that weekend as well, so it was nice to see her. The girls played with my cousin, who is an 8th grader now, but he's so good with kids. They were really interested in his ipod. Grammie and Pop have my old piano in their living room and the girls love to "play" songs and sing. It is so cute when they do that--usually it's ABC song or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but this weekend they sang Oh Susanna. I have it on video, so I hope their singing is audible once we play it back.

My mom is scheduled for another chemo treatment tomorrow. Her hair started falling out last week, and over the weekend, I shaved the remaining hair off so she wouldn't have to go have it done in public at a salon. She was really emotional about it, I knew she would be. I think she was also worrying that it would be really hard for me to do it (emotionally). I was fine until she started crying after the first few snips of hair. I had to just focus on getting the hair off so I wouldn't start crying. My aunt was there with us and so that was really good. I took a picture of my mom totally bald, and one with her wearing one of her wigs. She does look quite a bit different without any hair. It does change the way your face appears too. One day we will look back on this and can hopefully laugh. I know my mom will go through a rough adjustment to having no hair. She already said she felt ugly. I told her she was still pretty and that everyone would feel the same. My Dad is being so good about the whole thing. He is what will keep her feeling good until her hair comes back in.

Getting Back On Track

For the last month or so I just haven't felt like writing. Just too many things going on and I'm finding it just hard to sit down and actually get my thoughts out. Things are looking up since my last post. My mom's pathology reports came back with good news, no cancer cells in the lymphnodes and her recurrence scores were low so with the chemo treatments and possibly radiation she most likely will not have to worry about the cancer coming back, God willing. She just had her first chemo treatment on September 9th. So far she's handling it well, no major nausea (thanks to all the meds they gave her) and after a week the pain from her Nulasta (not sure if that is spelled correctly) injection has subsided. The purpose of that is to boost her bone marrow production to keep her blood count up and the side effect of it gives her achy feeling in her bones--not too fun to endure I can imagine. She's feeling better this week, so we may go visit her soon as long as we are all healthy.

Update on the twins. Emily and Savannah turned 2 years old a couple weeks ago. They are talking like crazy now, and singing all the time. Emily sings 2/3rds of the day, with her favorite songs being "Make New Friends", "ABC's", "I Know A Chicken" by the Laurie Burkner Band, and a few others I can't think of right now. Savannah likes to sing "We Are The Dinosaurs" also by the Laurie Burkner Band, "ABC's", "The Goldfish" by Laurie Burkner, and a few others. They are starting to play with each other quite a bit now, although the fighting seems to occur often and makes my days difficult at times. They like to play with the Lego Duplo blocks together, and run up and down the hall. Every now and then I'll hear one of them yell "Ready, Go!" and then they both go running by. Jumping is also high on their list--usually on the floor, thank goodness and not off of something high. In fact it's the most common way they both choose to move around the house when I need them to go from point A to point B. I usually give them a choice of walking, running, jumping, crawling, or dancing...and 9 times out of 10 they jump. As long as it gets them going in the direction I need them to go that's fine with me.

Challenging things at this time in our lives is the "Terrible Two's" behavior. I'm seeing more tantrums these days and they are both just very defiant. I'm having a hard time with it...so hard I've just been angry for the last 2 months. I've started yelling at the girls way more than I ever dreamed I would. It's gotten to a level that is not healthy. I just met with a family therapist through the parents as teachers organization in Olathe. It did help to be able to talk about my frustrations and to get a handle on what I need to do to change my interactions with the girls when they are being really resistant. I know not all of my anger is from the girls' behavior, part of it is stress of my mom's cancer situation, part of it is lack of time to myself, lack of quality time with Seth, and other little things that have just added up over time. I can say the past few days have been much happier than I can remember in the past few months.

On another note--I am stressing over separating the girls into two different bedrooms. We have been separating them for naps for the last 6-8 months and I've really noticed a difference in Emily's need for sleep vs. Savannah's need for sleep. Savannah just doesn't seem to need as much as Emily and poor Emily is suffering because of it. I talked with our pediatrician about it and described her behavior the last two months (laying on the floor sucking her thumb all morning long, very grouchy, telling me she's sleepy), and he strongly recommended separating them during all sleep situations. When they are older they can probably share a room again if they choose, but for now it will be better for Emily to have her own room. So, this weekend we get to clean out our guest/storage room and move Emily's bed in. I've been fixated on the whole decorating problem--all I have is for one room...and I don't want to do a lot to the 2nd room because we will probably re-decorate once we move them into big-kid beds in the next year. Silly thing to become obsessed over, I know, but my mind just does that sometimes. I guess I want to make sure we find coordinating bedding that could work well in the same room later on if they decide to share a room again. It's not so easy to find as you might think, especially if you don't want to spend a lot of money on it. Oh well, I guess I should just find something cute and then put it on their Christmas list for the rest of our family.

Okay, it's late. I need sleep.

Tough news

Recently my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and just underwent a bilateral mastectomy. She will begin chemotherapy in about a month. I went to Joplin to be with her and my dad during her surgery and to help around the house afterward. I came Saturday afternoon because Savannah was running a fever. It was very hard to leave my mom. All I want to do right now is help take care of her and help her to feel better about all the scary things going on right now. I too am scared and I am finding it's hard to focus on caring for Emily and Savannah when all I feel like doing is crying. I've noticed my patience level is really short when I am sad...so hopefully the girls will be on good behavior or I'll finally get over the sad part of this whole thing and move forward. It's a lot to take in right now. I want to pray for my mom and my family but right now I just don't know what to pray. Sounds strange, huh? I think I just have so many thoughts going through my head at once that I just can't slow down to focus on prayer. I'm really hoping to change that soon. It's the best think I can do for my mom when I am 3 hours away from her.

Diapers on...Diapers off...AAAHHHH!!!

Well, today has been rough for me. Can't remember if I told you Savannah suddenly wanted to use the toilet for going potty and poop. About a week ago she out of the blue said "Sanna need go potty and poop-poop on toilet". So I set her on the toilet and then the next time on a potty chair and she has pooped in it several times and potty a few times. Then she got scared after she pooped on the floor and so she wasn't as interested in it for a few days. I thought maybe we weren't really going to do this after that, but yesterday she seemed to have a very strong renewal of interest in using the potty chair. Emily is not as purposeful about using the potty chair--she seems interested only when Savannah is using the potty chair (we have two or that would be another fight to deal with).

Today, they both have been taking off their pants and diapers and then go running around the house. Once I get one in a diaper and pants back on, then the other has taken hers off again. I was getting really frustrated with that. Then they kept trying to jump on the couch--pantless and diaperless. AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! I think Savannah would actually tell me if she was going to potty, but Emily is not yet ready for that--she just lets it go whenever. So, my stress level was growing by the minute after all that. I called Seth and cried, then I called my mom and cried. No one has any real good answers for this problem, other than gate them in the kitchen. Problem is we only have one gate, and two doorways to the kitchen. Finally I got mad after yet another self-depantsing episode with the girls. I just put then in their cribs naked from the waist down and then left the room. I proceeded to cook their lunch, wondering how big of a mess I was going to have to clean up. 20 minutes later I go to their room and find Emily has pooped and peed in her bed and she seemed a little frightened by it--she was standing on the opposite end of the crib sucking her thumb. At least I can throw the sheets and matress pad in the washer--much easier than trying to keep our carpet clean. I did put new diapers and onesies on both of them. Hopefully they won't try to take off their diapers while wearing the onesies...we'll see.

I'm exhausted after our long morning. Going to take a nap.

Potty Training, Already??

Yesterday Savannah asked to go potty and poop-poop in the toilet. What? Did I hear that right? Yep. She repeatedly asked to go potty in the toilet. So, I took off her diaper, and held her on the toilet seat. She wasn't too happy about it because she was afraid she'd fall in the hole...but she insisted she needed to potty in the toilet. So after 10 minutes I told her it was time to be done. I put her in the bathtub and then she went potty. So later, I brought out 2 potty chairs and we practiced sitting on them. Then Savannah again asked me to help take her pants and diaper off, "Sanna need potty and poop-poop- in potty chair". So, after 10-15 minutes she actually did go potty and poop-poop. Today, she did the same thing twice. I think Savannah is going to potty-train herself.

Emily, on the other hand, is more interested in playing on the potty chair, although she has actually gone potty twice in the potty chair. It's become a family event at least for 3 out of the 4 of us.

This whole situation caught me by surprise. I had not originally planned on attempting any potty training until after the girls' 2nd birthday. They are 22 months old now. Maybe they are ready? I really think Savannah is ready. Not sure how Emily will do once the newness of the potty chair wears off. She likes to sit for 30 seconds, then stand up, turn around look at the potty chair, close the lid, open the lid, sit down, repeat, and then occassionally try to stand/squat on the potty chair. I am so afraid she's going to let loose on the floor while she's doing her little ritual. I guess it's bound to happen...I'm just not ready to tackle this double training thing yet. I haven't even read anything about potty training. Better get to work on my research or I may go crazy! Until then, I'll just keep waiting for Savannah or Emily to ask to use the potty chair...and the rest of the time I'm sticking with diapers for the next few months unless something miraculous happens.

Funny sayings from little girls...

So the other day I went into Emily and Savannah's room to get them out of bed and Emily happily greets me with "Heh-wo Miss Mommy!". So cute! They both have been saying some silly things lately. One of their favorite games right now is to say "Mommy. mommy, mommy, mommy"...and then they want you to say their name back to them the same number of times they said yours (i.e. Emily, Emily, Emily, Emily) and then Savannah will usually join in...and it goes on and on...back and forth, back and forth. Silly girls. Another funny thing lately is their realization that poo-poo should not be eaten. This first started out with Savannah speaking a question to me while changing her diaper..."No eat poo-poo?" To which I replied, "That's right, No eat poo-poo--YUCK! That would make us sick. We eat food. Poo-poo goes in your diaper or in the toilet". And now a few weeks later we still get the same inquiry occassionally, only now they are making a statement about it "No eat poo-poo, yucky". Now they will ask if Seth and I eat poo-poo or if our dog Billy eats poo-poo...which is a tricky question to answer, because sometimes the dog has been known to eat frozen doggy poo-poo (yet another gross story...). So to that I say, "Billy should not eat poo-poo, it will make him sick...yuck". That seems to satisfy them for now. I don't actually think either one of them has ever tried to eat any poop...so I'm not really sure where the whole conversation came from...hopefully they aren't thoughtfully considering trying to eat it sometime--GROSS!

The good times, the bad times, and nowhere in between.

Since my last post I can't say much has changed with the girls' behavior issues. We did go through a round of hand, foot, mouth disease and I think that just made their tantrums worse because they already felt horrible. Luckily they are both finally well again and back to the normal tantrums...which isn't much better. I will say that we do have some good times in between the bad. Yesterday, Seth and I were playing with Emily and Savannah in the kitchen and they kept laying on the floor and pulling up their shirts and saying "daddy tickle belly?". Then Seth would tickle them and we all would laugh and laugh. Emily got tired of the tickling and came over to me and climbed into my lap. She likes to stand on my legs or hip bones and give me hugs. This time she buried her face in my cheek and was shaking her head back and forth--kind of like a little baby nuzzle. It tickled a little so I laughed and then Emily laughed and did it again, and again, and again. It was cute.

We have come across a new challenge to our days with the girls. Yesterday in an effort to get Emily to actually go into her room so we could get her dressed I offered her the opportunity to dress her self. She loved it! However, Seth and I are not loving it because it takes forever for her to put her clothes on. Actually I don't think she has yet to successfully put on any piece of clothing, so when we offer to help her it makes her mad. She'll pull the shirt over her head and then take it off in order to put her arms into the sleeves, then she takes it off and tries for the head again...sometimes the shirt is backwards, upsidedown, inside out...at any rate it never gets completely put on. The pants are the same. After waiting over 15 minutes we end up in a huge struggle with both of them in order to get them dressed--Savannah is more accepting of help right now, but it still makes her mad. Emily, just gets almost rageful (is that a word?). I know being able to dress themselves is a skill they need to learn...but did I attempt it to early and create frustrated, uncooperative little girls? We'll see...

What a day...

Today I can honestly say that I got my rear kicked by being a mom of toddler twins. I just spent the last half hour crying and venting to Seth about everything that has been going on. Can I just say dealing with double tantrums is not going well for me? Maybe I'm really finding out how much of a control freak I am and that's why I'm so upset these days. Honestly it feels like all out war sometimes between me and the girls. The mornings now are nothing but round after round of fighting--fighting to change the girls' diapers, fighting to get them to wash their hands, fighting to get the cleaned up after the meal, fighting to get them to brush teeth or allow me to do it for them, fighting to get them dressed, fighting to get them to be nice to each other, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting! I am so tired of it. I know all this behavior is normal for their age, but when will it stop? And will I survive a sane person once it finally does stop? The biggest tantrum I've seen so far happened tonight just before dinner. We decided to take Emily and Savannah out to their kiddie pool to swim and it just snowballed from there. Both girls were scared of any leaf or flower petal that crossed their path between the door and the pool...they played in the pool for maybe 10 minutes then wanted out, but not to go inside, to walk around the patio in their towels, but only if we removed any and every leaf in sight (we have the helicopter leaves from the neighbor's tree that fall on our patio). Finally we got them inside only to smell an awful odor coming from Emily...got her in the bathroom to discover she had diarhea in her swim diaper. I decided to cut it off of her instead of pulling it off like underpants to avoid spreading the poop all over. Put Emily in the tub...Savannah throwing a tantrum because she thought she wasn't going to get to take a bath...get swimsuit off of Savannah, discover poop in her swim diaper...Savannah gets mad and wants to keep her diaper ON, major physical battle proceeds. Savannah ends up flailing her body and screaming/crying to the point she ends up upside down as I'm trying to take off her diaper. Poop is falling out onto the floor, and onto Savannah, the towel underneath her, the wall, the tub, etc. Finally get Savannah in the tub, and now both Emily and Savannah are hysterical and screaming and crying to get out of the tub--all while small poop remnants begin floating in the tub, which freaks the girls out even more. Still more screaming, I'm trying to wash Emily as quickly as I can, get her out of the tub. Seth takes Emily to get new diaper and dry clothes. Empty tub so Savannah will have clean water. Savannah gets even more mad, back in the tub, screaming fighting me. I end up in the bath tub with her trying to calm her down and wash the poop off of her...get her out of the tub to realize she has poop smell in her hair. Take her to the kitchen after new diaper put on and wash her hair in the sink, all while Savannah is still screaming and crying. Finally both girls are clean, Emily wants to eat dinner, Savannah screaming, does not. Mommy and Savannah read a few books then eat, then bedtime routine finally can take place. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For now, I must go sanitize our bathroom and wash a few loads of laundry to rid our house of the smell of poop...I pray tomorrow is a better day.

Behavior issues

Wow, a lot has been going on since my last post. Emily and Savannah are now 20.5 months old and the "terrible two's" behavior is surfacing almost daily now. Get ready for some mommy venting! My main struggle right now is with the biting behavior--mostly from Emily. She's gone from biting out of extreme frustration to biting just for the fun of it. So aggravating for me and sadly for Savannah it turns out to be a painful experience. I don't know why Emily has been biting Savannah so much lately. For the past several weeks it's been very frequent. They both are getting 4 new teeth (2 top, 2 bottom) and so I thought that might have something to do with it, but now that the teeth are in the biting still is continuing and getting worse. Emily will just walk up to Savannah sometimes and out of the blue just take a big bite out of her arm, face, or back. Poor Savannah then cries and runs to me for comfort, all while Emily is LAUGHING! The laughing increases as I try to correct her behavior with a stern "No biting! Biting hurts!" and then often she'll try to bite again, or begin to hit Savannah or me.

This past week has been the worst so far with the tantrums and biting, hitting, kicking, and now throwing toys/books at me or the other sibling. Again...most of it coming from Emily. Savannah seems to give me the most struggle on the changing table during diaper changes and clothing changes, and then when it's time to brush teeth. I get quite a work out in the mornings between those events because I literally have to wrestle with Savannah just to get those tasks accomplished. You add that frustrating experience to 5 minutes later when Emily has chosen to be the "evil" twin and I'm about ready to resign from motherhood for the day. No such luck...no babysitters available ;).

I am going to a workshop tonight through the Parents As Teachers program and I am hoping they can help me resolve the negative behavior. I've found myself spanking Emily more often than I ever planned to have to do...originally I was going the no spanking route until she kicked up the biting a few notches. Now that she's biting me and biting Savannah until she's bruised up and down both arms I thought I need to do something else. Just the verbal reprimand is not working and often seems to challenge Emily to do more of the behavior I don't want, and often at Savannah's expense. Is it a jealously issue? This week I can hardly read of book without it turning into a fight between the two girls over sitting on my lap. Neither girl wants the other one sitting in my lap at the same time. I guess they are craving the individual time? That's the hardest part about raising twins. I never feel like I can give them the individual time they are needing, often because the situation is just not realistic during the day and for some odd reason they won't allow individual time with Seth and seem to gravitate to me when he is home much of the time.

Today I feel like I'm failing in the behavior management area. I just don't know what to do. I don't like spanking my girls and I would like to find a better way of getting a behavior to stop. For those of you out there who believe in the power of prayer, I'd really appreciate if you could send a prayer up for me.

Okay, enough venting. On to more positive happenings. Recently I got to plant some flowers in my flower beds and pots on the patio. I bought two little duck and snail watering cans for the girls so they could help water the plants. They really enjoy getting to do that. It is so cute to watch. So, yesterday while we were watering the plants Emily decided that the dirt looked pretty interesting. So interesting that she took a big handful of dirt and put it in her mouth and started eating it. Yuck! I freaked out because it was potting soil and probably had some type of Miracle Grow fertilizer in it. So we quickly brought her inside, tried to wash her mouth off and washed her hands. This made her really mad of course...hopefully she didn't actually like the taste of the dirt and won't do it again.

Another cute thing they are doing is talking to each other, with purpose. Not just babbling or imitating, actually conversing a little. Usually in a bossy way, but definitely different than a few months ago. They love to sing and sing several times a day, usually Old Mac Donald, ABC, and Jesus Loves Me, and Ring around the Rosy. Sometimes they'll sing a song that we just cannot figure out the words--so maybe they made it up on their own.

Okay, I hear total silence so that probably means they are into something they shouldn't be into...better go see what's going on.

Crazy Day With A Happy Ending

Well today was crazy to say the least. This morning I accidentally gave Emily the wrong bowl of oatmeal...the bowl intended for Savannah was made with whole milk, which Emily is very allergic to. So...15 minutes after eating the entire bowl of whole milk oatmeal, Emily got really cranky and was crying and at first I thought the redness around her eyes was from the crying and rubbing, but it turns out Emily was rubbing her eyes because they were really itchy and starting to swell. Then I noticed her lips were getting larger. Time to break out the Benadryl!! It took almost an hour before the Benadryl really started to work. Poor Emily, I felt bad because I had mixed up the bowls of oatmeal and given her the wrong one, which made her feel horrible. The reaction eventually stopped and she was back to her old self, but then I noticed she kept periodically breaking out in hives, so I decided to give both girls a bath to clean off any milk that might still be on Emily's skin or Savannah's since they like to hug and kiss, and sometimes lick each other's faces.
The girls really enjoyed their bath, splashing around, pooring water on each other's heads and their own heads. They really like to help shampoo their own hair as well as each other's hair right now. The only part of the bath they don't seem to like is the rinsing of their hair. It really makes Emily upset. I've been trying to teach her how to rinse her own hair so that the experience is within her control...so far she can rinse the front part of her hair. Other than that the bath was good. Neither of the girls pooped in the water this time, thanfully--that's always a big mess to clean up and it usually means an abrubt end to bathtime, which doesn't always set well with the girls. No, the challenge today for me was getting them both out of the tub, while trying to get diapers on quickly so they couldn't pee on the floor. Savannah is notorious for taking her diaper off if you don't dress her immediately after she gets a diaper on. So, while trying to get Emily out of the tub, Savannah proceeded to de-diaper herself. Thus the struggle began. I tried to dry Emily off, while also trying to keep her from climbing back into the tub, and also while trying to keep Savannah's diaper on.

Finally I got the girls out of the bathroom with diapers still on and into their room. I quickly dressed both girls and we were finally able read books. Both Emily and Savannah love to read books, although usually not the same book. We've been working on the whole taking turns with books. If they both bring me a book to read at the same time, I'll tell them we can read both, but whoever gave me a book first will be the one to choose the book to read first. Savannah isn't quite as accepting of this yet, but will cry and sit on my lap anyway to read the other book. Emily doesn't seem to be bothered too much if her's is the second book.

Lunch time was as usual...eat a little bit, then throw everything on the floor and laugh. Then try to kick Mommy while she cleans up the mess, another thing I'm trying to teach them is that kicking people is not okay, it hurts! So when I said "no kicking mommy, kicking hurts mommy!" they laugh and then see the dog, Billy, and start saying "Kick Billy!". Yikes, I hope they really don't try that. So, another thing to teach them, no kicking the dog!

Nap time lasted a little longer today, which was nice for me because after our really busy morning I needed a break. I did check my email and the JCMOMS forum for used toys/equipement for sale. I've been looking for a little tikes picnic table and someone was selling one. Yay!! We picked it up after the girl's nap and I cleaned it up just before dinner and the girls really were excited to sit on it. Potential safety problem now is that they want to climb on top of it and stand on the table part. Not sure how to address this as they seem to ignore my warnings of "not safe" "sitting only" "no standing on the table"...so Seth ended putting it away in another room. Maybe after a few times of it getting put away they'll stop standing on it. We'll see happens.

Dinner was chaotic. I often feel like all I do is get up and down, up and down, up and down. I probably could organize our meal better and keep everything within reach, but often when everything is in site, the girls will repeatedly ask for more milk and not eat anyfood or focus on one food and repeatedly ask for it...so I try to keep some things out of site in the kitchen. Which makes my job a little crazier. I'm sure this phase will pass...

My favorite part of today was just before we put the girls to bed. They recently learned the "Ring Around The Rosy" song/dance and they love it when Seth and I sing and play the game with them. They'll say "again" over and over after each "we all fall down!". They just laugh and laugh and have such big smiles on their faces. We played that for awhile then after getting pajamas on the girls, Seth and I pretended to ballroom dance with the girls--me with Emily and Seth with Savannah. We had briefly watched a few dances on "Dancing With The Stars", so the girls really kept asking to dance. It was a lot of fun. I hope I never forget that moment of dancing with our daughters.

Funny baby!

So I had to put this on my blog before I forget. It was so funny at the time. Yesterday when I was trying to get Savannah dressed in regular clothes for the day, she decided to run down the hall to her room only wearing her diaper. About 2 minutes later she came back, totally naked and handed me her wet diaper, saying "here-go". I just laughed and then frantically ran to her room for a clean diaper. While I was getting the diaper I was calling to Savannah down the hall, "please don't pee!". She tried to run away when I put the new diaper on and she has become quite good at quickly unfastening the diaper velcro strips, so I finally got a onesie on her so she couldn't get her diaper off again. I'm sure this is just the first of many unexpected diaperless moments.

The 18th month...

Well since my last post we have all finally managed to stay well. Thank goodness! It's so hard to care for sick babies and yourself. Anyway, these past few weeks have been busy. We made a trip down to Willard to visit Seth's family. We had a good visit, although Emily and Savannah's sleep schedule got a little out of normal. It took a few days for them to adjust back.

We've been going to a Gymboree class for the girls on Thursdays. The class has directed activities along with the opportunity to just explore the equipment freely. Both Savannah and Emily just seem to be more comfortable watching everything that is going on, rather than participating. They have seemed to gain some more climbing skills from being on all of the equipment. They love the slides and are really focused on going up and down the stairs. The hardest part for me is getting to and from the car. We did discover a smaller side parking lot around the backside of the building, so that has helped with the "wandering toddler" impulse--not so much danger there as there was in the big parking lot. I'm working with the girls on holding my hand anytime we are out of the car and not in the stroller. They do alright most of the time, although this last week Savannah wanted to do some parking lot exploring while I was putting Emily into her car seat. I finally had to put Savannah in the floorboard just to keep her with me until I could get her into her seat.

New things the girls are doing now include doing the actions to the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" song, trying to sing the "ABC's" song, speaking in 2-3 word phrases, building block towers, and helping mommy pick up toys and putting them away in baskets or on the toy shelf. Emily is really trying hard to sing the ABC's. Everyday she gets in a few more letters. Seth has been playing his guitar for the girls and singing that song along with several other songs. Both girls seem to really enjoy it when Seth does that.

Oh yah, another new thing is that Savannah has been assisting Emily down the stairs to their little slide/climber. It started last week when I was busy on the phone and Emily wanted help getting down the steps (she likes to try to walk down like a big girl instead of crawl) and so she kept reaching out to me and finally Savannah walked over and took Emily's hand and helped her get down the two steps of the climber. I thought that was neat. Since then it has happened several more times.

This month we are working on getting the girls to learn how to drink from a regular cup without a lid or straw. They never have used a straw before, so I don't know what they would think of that, but the Parents As Teachers info along with the info sheet from our doctor say 18 months is a good time to do this. So, nightly we poor small amounts of water into open cups and allow the girls to drink...or soak themselves. Savannah seems to be getting the hang of it much faster than Emily, but she is so focused tips the cup slowly so I think that helps. Emily doesn't have as much patience for the regular cup right now. She seems to dump the whole amount of water into her face as soon as she gets the cup or she gets interested in the water and ends up dumping the water all over her tray or bib. She'll eventually get it, I know, but for now she ends up soaking wet from neck to knee.

Difficulties this month are their resistance to many things. Savannah's favorite word is "no", which is normal. Emily doesn't say "no" quite as often, but physically she gets really resistant--sometimes almost combative. Teeth brushing is one of the most challenging parts to my day. The girls mainly chew on the tooth brush or try to brush their hair with it. I am using a timer so that they will know when it's mommy's turn to help brush their teeth. They really put up a fight, kicking, twisting, crying, yelling, hitting. It's a major wrestling match! By the time we are done, I am usually sweating a bit and feeling very frustrated. Another difficult part of life these days is the girls' desire to be into everything and to have or gain access to everything. I'm finding myself running out of things to block them with. I recently purchased another gait so that we can block off part of the basement so they can play while I use the computer or try to exercise--although the latter doesn't really happen because I have to stop so often to intervene in many fighting/biting occurences between the two girls. Lastly, both Emily and Savannah gave up one of their two naps all at once! Now I really feel like I have no time to myself and it's extremely hard to get anything done around the house. I am looking forward to warmer weather so we can play outside and go for walks--then I can get my exercise in while the girls enjoy a stroller ride in the park. I must say the last few days have been the most trying for me--the girls are so demanding of my attention and aren't always getting along so I feel like I have to sit with them every second they are awake just to refer or entertain. Somethings's gotta give or I will go crazy! We'll see what happens in the next few weeks.

Until then...

Yet another time of illness...

It seems as though every other post our family has been ill. This time I was the sickest --with a stomach virus. Basically I hid in my bedroom for two days while Seth stayed home from work to take care of Emily and Savannah. The girls have colds, but thankfully no stomach virus. Seth seems to have dodged the illnesses altogether. Five days later and 6lbs lighter I am almost back to feeling normal and can finally eat without feeling sick.

As for the girls, they still have their colds which has made them cranky and sometimes difficult to be around. Plus, it seems like they are acting up a bit more since I was "gone" for a couple of days. The first day Seth was back at work, Emily was so happy to see me she kept coming up to me and saying "Mom-my" and would hug my leg. I think she did that about 6 times in a row, which is unusual for her. Now, she's back to being quite demanding and Savannah seems to have learned the behavior too. The girls are not getting along very well again. I think in the last month or so we've had one really good week were they were constantly fighting and getting mad if I paid attention to the other. I have discovered I have a low tolerance for the fighting and even less patience when they are resisting me. I know part of it is because I'm still tired after being so sick, but I look forward to the day when the girls don't feel the need to hit each other or me whenever I'm trying to eat or hold one of them individually. Anyway, thank goodness it's Friday. I'm also glad that it's nap time for the girls. It's a much needed break for me.

More Snow!

The girls have been totally fascinated by snow this year, and we've had a lot of it--it seems like every week it snows, not tons, but enough to cover the ground. Earlier this year, the girls were scared by the snow. Now, they get excited and say over and over "SNNNNOW!"(Savannah). Emily has recently been telling us "Snow, outside". And one day when we let our dog Billy out in the yard, the girls were watching him from the window and Emily said "Be--ee eat snow, outside". That was when she was 16 months old--pretty good I think. Now the girls are 17 months old, as of February 4th and are saying new words everyday. Emily is a talker. She seems to focus much of her energy on talking these days. Savannah is not too far behind in the number of words she says. They have their own jibberish language--not necessarily with each other, but just in general. It's funny sometimes because you know they are really trying to tell you something by their facial expressions and gestures...but sometimes we just have no idea what in the world they are talking about. A few of the funnier things they've said in the past couple weeks are "More Bach-bach" when they want more chicken to eat, "More gobl-gobu" when they want more turkey. And of course, their favorite "More Hom" when they want more ham.

This week Savannah created her own dance move--it starts at her shoulder and she raises up her shoulder first then her arm follows and she dips down near the ground, leading with the shoulder and comes back up, followed by spinning or bouncing. Two days ago she did this and was saying "dance, dance" while she did it. Then Emily decided she needed some music, so she went over to the activity table and pressed one of the piano keys and it played a short song. It was cute! Emily will dance too--usually she twists and moves her arms up and down. That also reminds me--Savannah developed her own little baby "sign" for lotion. She raises one hand and arm and then the other--almost looks like she's doing "The Monkey" and she sings a little song with the sign "ur-ur-ur-ur". She does this everytime you ask her if she wants lotion on her hands. It is hilarious.

I need to post some recent pictures. Our digital SLR camera is out of order right now...our flimsy tripod broke and so the camera came crashing to the floor, damaging the lens. We sent the lends to be repaired but do not have it back yet. Seth is going crazy. He's really been getting into the whole photography hobby, so he was really disappointed to be without the camera. I'll have to go through our 1,000's of pictures to find a few good ones to post next time.

It's Been Awhile

I think it's been about a month since I last posted. Seth and I went though another round of illness 2 weeks after our whole family was sick. Then the holidays hit, along with ice, more snow, more ice, and snow again. We did end up losing power for about a day. I took the girls up to our church so we didn't have to hang out in a cold dark house. They seemed to have a good time playing with the toys and the climbing gym. I must say it is difficult to have them both on the climber...they both think they can just step right off the top and be fine--not a safe way to get down. So, I found myself trying to corral them to the same area of the climber so I could keep them safe. That lasted for all of 2 minutes and then they decided to be independent and put a fuss if I wouldn't let them venture off on their own.

We had a nice Christmas this year. Our families came to visit us this year, so it was nice to not have to pack up everything and travel and still try to find room to bring home all of the Christmas presents. The toys!! Oh the toys!! We have so many now...I had to buy 3 more storage containers just to keep our house somewhat organized. And the clothes...I'm saving all of the girls' clothes because we haven't decided for sure if we are done having kids. So, their closet is full of storage containers full of clothes they have outgrown. We are running out of room! That's my main challenge right now is finding a place for everything without it taking over our house.

The girls are saying so many new words. They are very mobile now. They love to run up and down the hallway and chase our dog and each other. They also love to run away from me anytime I need to change their diaper, clothes, wash their hands, wipe their noses, etc. Along with that when I finally catch them then they throw a fit and kick and hit me know to let me know they are mad. Not liking that behavior and I am trying to teach them not to hit because it hurts. They hit each other now too. Especially if one takes the other's toy or gets too close. Emily has now hit another child in public--how embarrassing! She was mad at me and was running away and came across another child a few months older than her and just started hitting her. She didn't hit hard, but I could tell it upset the other child. All I could do was tell Emily not to hit, that hitting hurts, ouch! I don't know if it really sunk in or not. It's definitely something I will be asking the Parent's as Teacher's Educator this week.

Okay, it's actually 66 degrees out today and so I'd love to get the girls outside and go for a walk...they are napping, so if they wake up soon then it might be possible. Otherwise, we'll have to wait awhile as the weather forecast is calling for rain and possible snow late this evening and really cold weather for the rest of the week.