"Flashing Neon Sign" from God?

Well, in my last post I was just wishing that God would send me a big neon sign that would help me decide on the whole baby issue. I think I just got it. Savannah has been very strong willed lately...and at lunch she was stubborn...and then a naptime she was even more stubborn. She wanted socks and so I took out a pink pair and a purple pair and asked her which ones she wanted to wear. Her answer, "Nooooooooo!!!" so I then put them away. Then she says "I want socks". I'm frustrated at this point and tired of catering to her every whim, so I decided today I'm not going to wait around for her to decide when and where and what kind of socks she will wear when I offer her choices and she refuses. If she refuses, then that's it. She'll have to wait until after nap time to get socks. Same thing with her blanket. I offered to put it on her and she screams "Nooooo!!!!!!" and so I put in in her bed and tell her she can put it on herself if she changes her mind. She gets upset and immediately starts yelling "Blanket on! Blanket on!" It's a control issue, I've decided and I'm not letting her get away with it. So I told her I offered to put the blanket on and she told me no, so now she has to be the one to put her blanket on. I tell her good night for her nap and close the door. Now follows screaming, crying, yelling for about 15 minutes. Then just as I've laid down in my bed for my own nap I hear her yelling "I have potty in my bed!". At that moment I was mad because I knew what I would find when I went into her room. Sure enough she had thrown a tantrum, taken off her pants and diaper and peed in her bed. Then she says "Can I go sleep on the couch now?". This made me even more mad. I tell her no. She'll have to sleep in her bed after I change the sheets. Then I tell her no taking diaper off in bed. And I'm still mad. That is what she does when she doesn't get her way. Since I put the crib tent in her bed and she can't climb out, she gets really mad and undresses and pees in the bed. How frustrating!! Basically my feelings toward her right now is that she's being a little brat!

So there you have it. My neon sign. I don't need to be having anymore children anytime soon. We'll see how I feel in 6 months.

To Have Another...or Not?

It's the same question that frequently is either asked of me by others or put in my head by my own doing. Do I want to have another baby or not? I go back and forth on this question a lot. Last week when asked this question, my answer was I was pretty happy the way things are right now. Monday and Tuesday, however, I found myself leaning the other way on that question. Partly due to everyone under the sun seems to be pregnant and about to deliver or just found out they are pregnant. Just this week--4 people at the Baby Gap are now pregnant, will be delivering in the next month, or just gave birth. My small group is that same way--one just had a baby a few months ago, another is due next month, and yesterday another announced her pregnancy. It's all I hear about these days. And everyone seems so happy, etc. So, all that plays heavily on my ongoing indecisiveness. I also think that my desire to stop having kids by age 30-31 is subconsciously putting the pressure on. I'll be 30 this summer...so if I do want to stick to that time frame, I'll have to decide what I want to do soon. Seth and I had a brief discussion about this topic last week. He's fine with one more child, although he's cautious about that because of how stressed out I was for quite a long time. So, last night when I talked about it again, I think he could tell I may be more seriously considering having another one...and suddenly his attitude became hesitant. What's up with that? So, last night I felt really sad. I would like to be on the same page as Seth about our family planning. At one time he made it feel it was up to me to decide because he was fine either way, now it seems he's leaning toward not. So confusing. And, I feel a little hurt because I feel like my previous stress has made him fearful of having another kid. So, in a way I feel like if I do have another one and it is stressful, then it will be my fault if our relationship suffers. That's a lot of pressure!

I have so many things going through my head right now, so if you are reading this I tend to jump around and not make sense, sorry! So, if I were to pursue another child her are some of the things that will be challenging: First, having enough energy to keep up with Emily and Savannah while pregnant--the twin pregnancy sickness lasted 17 weeks and I was miserable 24/7. Not sure how that would play out if I had to deal with that again. Second, where in the world would be put a third child in our current house? We have a 3 bedroom house--the bedrooms are small, even the master bedroom is small. Emily and Savannah each have their own room now due to sleeping problems...so where would we put the third? I told Seth if we had another one I'd rather we get a house with an additional bedroom. He told me he really doesn't want to sell this house. Problem. So if we wait until we have a bit bigger home, I'll be past my ideal time for having another child. Another thing to consider is that we don't have family that lives in town to help us if needed. With my mom having cancer and treatments, she'll not be able to come up as often to visit and help out for awhile. And finally the last challenge is cost--already having two in mother's day out is costing quite a bit, so preschool will be the same and then if Emily and Savannah want to be enrolled in any activities, that will be additional costs...and on into the future we'll have two prom dresses to buy and then two college tuitions to pay at the same time. If I have another child in the next year or so, it's quite possible we'll have 3 kids in college at the same time for at least 2 years. I know, that's way off in the future and our kids could turn out to brilliant and get full ride scholorships to their schools of choice, but just in case, we'd better plan for them needing some help.

There a lot of cons, I can see from what I just typed above...however I realize there will never be a "perfect" situation, so I'm not letting the cons totally rule my decision. The fact that I can't just decide to be totally done having kids leads to to wonder does that mean that maybe deep down I really do want another one? I just wish God would give me one of those "huge flashing neon sign" moments.

How To Traumatize 2 Year Old Twins

Here's how to traumatize your 2 year old twins: Take them through the automatic car wash and watch the hysteria that follows. WOW! Talk about a crying fest. Usually they get a little scared for only a few minutes, but this time--oh my goodness I felt so sad for them both. Emily especially. She was shaking and screaming/crying saying "I'm scared" over and over. I tried to comfort her, but the more I talked, the worse it seemed to get. So, Savannah was fine for awhile, but I think Emily's level of screaming got to be too much and then convinced Savannah she should be crying and scared too. So...for awhile I guess I'll have to wash the car when I'm alone. Poor little sweeties.

Today has been all out of sorts. Not in a bad way, but just weird. Having two 2 year olds makes everything take longer to do. This makes life extra challenging when trying to stick to a routine nap schedule if you have any errands to run. We finally got out of the house today around 11:20am. Went to the recycling area in the Walmart parking lot, dropped of a load of boxes and magazines, then went and did some Walmart shopping...without the stroller. I wasn't too sure how well that would go over, but it actually went well. For most of our trip the girls either walked next to me or held onto the shopping cart. They were very eager to help out anything and everything in the cart. At one point we were walking down the Kleenex and cleaning supply isle and by the time we came to the end of it, Emily was proudly carrying around a bottle of cheryy flavored Nyquil and Savannah had the mint flavored Nyquil. So we put those things back. Then went over to the diaper isle. The girls were getting a bit restless as it we had already been there almost an hour. So, as I'm going through my coupons to see how many boxes of diapers to load up on, Emily and Savannah take off running and laughing. I told them to stop, and of course, they ignored me and continued to run. Yikes--they are fast little girls, by the time I could catch them they were all the way to the electronics area. I catch them and made them hold my hand all while saying "Always, always stay with Mommy in the store". Aside from that little moment, the girls were great, and we only ended up with some weird power bar in our cart by the time we went to check out. Not a bad shopping trip at all.

Busy or Calm Times?

So, I just realized that I have not posted very much lately. Is it because I've just been really busy, or has the chaos with the girls seemed to have calmed down to the point that I'm not always needing to vent via blog? Not sure yet...

Anyway, the girls have been playing together almost all day, everyday since Christmas. Most of the time it's good, minimal fighting, and I'm finding that they don't really want me to be involved in their play time. That makes me a little sad, and worried because I feel like I'm not being a good mom if I'm not playing with them for the better part of the day. Literally from their first day of life, most of my time has been devoted to them--mostly due to actual need for feeding, changing diapers, comforting, protecting, mediating, and entertaining. Now, it seems I have flexibility in my time, although I don't really know what to do with that. Crazy, huh? I guess I have the PAT activities and advice circulating in my head and I feel like I should be engaging Emily and Savannah in the 30 minutes of structured time vs. 10 hrs of free play per day. When I try to do any structured activity, the girls get mad, tell me to go away, or say in a whiny voice "I don't want to...". Even if it's something they normally love to do. If I suggest it, then immediately they don't want to do it. I guess that's just 2 year old behavior.

So, fun moments to mention. I have a feeling Emily will grow up to be a performer in many musical shows. She seems to narrate her daily life through song. It's hilarious sometimes. Savannah will sing, but usually not to the extent of Emily's singing. Emily recently went through a "snorting" phase. She would talk, then end each sentence with a loud snort, then laugh...trailed by a happy sigh. She did that for 2 straight weeks. This week it just seems to happen randomly now. Savannah and Emily have both been very into playing with their baby dolls, their new cabbage patch dolls specifically. Savannah's doll has brown hair with little curls around the face and then longer pigtails. She calls this doll her "curly baby". Emily's doll is basically the same, but with yellow hair instead and she did refer to her doll as "Baby Ann", but has followed after Savannah and started call her doll her "curly baby" as well. For the longest time any baby doll they played with were named "Baby Grace" (Savannah's) or "Baby Ann" (Emily's).

Savannah is still very snuggly after naps, but her snuggle time is slowly getting shorter and shorter. Emily has taken a more recent interest in snuggling. Both girls have taken a huge interest in play-doh and will play with it for almost an hour together. They like to pretend to make cakes and cookies and then pretend to feed their stuffed animals. Once time during a snack, Emily actually tried to feed her stuffed dog hummus and crackers. That was fun to try to clean off. I tried to explain about pretending and not really using real food to feed their dolls and animals. We'll see how many toys end up with food on them.

So Much Fun

Tonight, a friend of ours was kind enough to offer to babysit for us so we could go out on a date, a real date. Seth and I's 7th wedding anniversary was Monday and to celebrate we went out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory on The Plaza and then went to see the Dancing With The Stars 2009 Tour. Talk about fun, it was a blast! Literally--my ears were blasted out for 2 1/2 hours...why do the sound guys at arena's think the music has to be so loud your ears hurt and then your hearing goes a little fuzzy after awhile? Seriously--is it really necessary for it to be so loud? Aside from the overly loud music, it was a good show. Toni Braxton was one of the stars and we got to see her sing twice during the show. Pretty cool, as I used to be a huge fan of hers back in the 90's. I must say, I like her recorded music much better than the live version--her singing mannerism are a bit annoying to me. The dancing was AWESOME!!! Totally cool music, a lot pop and hip hop beats with ballroom routines, so cool! I loved the Latin segment of the show and the hip hop routine with Lacy, Matt, and Derek. The Tango was really good too. Ahh...what a life? Those dancers have the dream job. I'm sure they are tired at the end of a performance, but what fun to get paid to dance like that! I want to do that so bad! I have for a long time...funny that's how I hurt my back. It's so frustrating to be so passionate about something that physically would be really hard on me. I do try to participate in some type of dance when I can, just to get it out of my system. Ideally I'd love to find a place locally that does a really good job of teaching dance of all styles to adults, that allows for periodic performance opportunities, not just as a form of exercise. Hey--if anyone knows of such a place, and it is reasonably affordable, please let me know. Oh yeah, for those of you who don't already know, I live in the KC Metro, so it has to be within driving distance on a week night.

Okay, I'd better go for now. It's late and I'll need my energy for tomorrow so I can teach my girls some fun dance moves. Already today the girls were pretending to be "dancing with the stars, Mommy". They made a pretty good effort for no one showing them how to dance. I think they've seen the actual Dancing With The Stars TV show maybe 3 times. They learn fast!