Today, however...not so good.

She did it again! Yes, Savannah resisted her nap with a vengeance today. And, stupid me forgot to put her in backwards jammies--so, after 2 hours Savannah is yelling and crying that she pottied on her floor and bed. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!! WHY? Why does she do this? It makes me so mad. She's done this about 6 times now and her carpet is starting to stink! I even try to clean it with the pet stain spray...I think maybe she's pottied more times than I'm aware. This happened at 2:30 today--it is now 5:00pm and I'm still mad. I just really don't want to have much to do with Savannah today. She's been uncooperative, mean to Emily (who is sick by the way), and the whole pottying thing is just ridiculous. My own fault partly because Ieft her in regular clothes. But seriously! I think I should be able to trust her to keep her clothes on and not pee on the floor. Wrong I guess. On top of that she trashed her room again. So, I just now finished cleaning out her room--all of her toys are now in the basement except for a few stuffed animals and a handful of books. I even took shelves out of her closet so she couldn't try to reach the top shelf--yes, she's still trying to pull everything down. Tomorrow will be interesting...all that's left for her to do is empty out her dresser. If she does that, then I'm moving all of her clothes into Emily's room--not sure where I'll put them, but I'm determined to win this one. No more distractions in her room. I want it to be as boring as possible so that she'll have no choice but to give it up and take a nap. (Sigh......).

Yesterday a good day

Aside from Savannah getting into my purse yesterday morning (I did get really, mad, but I put her in her room before I verbally vented), yesterday turned out to be a good day. We met a friend at a consignment sale and did some shopping--without the stroller! The girls did really well staying by my side. We found some neat puzzles, but no clothes--not much to choose from in the 3T section, plus I bought ahead last year and find I'm not in great need of toddler clothes right now. Anyway, the girls were happy until we got in the long, long, long, checkout line. We made it to the de-tagging area and then Savannah started fussing, but every other child in the room was also fussying and crying.

After that we went to get the girls' haircut. They always do so well, they never fuss or squirm, it's so great. They love Rae Ann. They frequently request to go get their haircut with Rae Ann.

After the haircuts we went to the library to pick up a book for Seth. My girls are NOT ready to be at the library for longer than 5 minutes. This is how the experience was: "Girls, when we get inside we need to use quiet voices and stay next to mommy". As soon as we entered the building, the girls took off down the aisles and started squealing and laughing and chasing each other--all the while looking back at me with mischievious grins on their faces. Time to get the book quick! Oh no--the librarian tells my card is inactive because I haven't used it in 3 years. Yep, that'd be about right. The last book I checked out was natural birthing book I think it was called The Bradley Method. Anyway, if that tells you how often I've gotten out since the girls were born...
They graciously gave me a new card--verified it off of Seth's account since my ID has my old address on it, and the girls were really squirming. Thank you to the nice librarian for cutting me a break!

Back home for lunch, and then a nap--yes, both girls napped without a fuss. Amazing. Then after the nap, to the doctor's office for me to get my allergy shots. The girls were good there too. What a great day!

Praise! My mom came to visit!

I am so thankful that my mom is well enough to come help me out during this challenging time with my girls. She drove up Monday and stayed until Tuesday night to give me some extra help with the girls. Emily and Savannah love their Grammie. They had a lot of fun, and so did I. It was nice to be able to run errands and get tons of housework done without having to stop every 10 minutes to break up a fight between the girls. Plus, when Grammie visits, the girls only want her to help them and play with them, so the pressure was off of me to be the primary care giver for a few days. God has blessed me with a wonderful mom, and I am so thankful to him for keeping her here with us despite her cancer diagnosis.

My mom is actually doing very well. She just completed the last of her 6 weeks of radiation treatments a little over a week ago. She has been back to work for about 2 weeks now, as a high school counselor. Her hair is finally starting to grow back, so that has made her happy. We joke we'll have to find her a hip--maybe almost punk grandma hair do for awhile until the length is long enough to style more normally.

It was a good two days. I feel refreshed, calmer, and more ready to take on my twins behavior. I've modified our sticker chart in order to hopefully make it more motivational for Savannah. Bedtime is going well now. So far this past week she has not taken off her jammies at night and she stays in her bed. Naptime...well, we still have to take half her things out of the room, and put her in backwards jammies, but she at least stays in the room--sleeping once in awhile, but mostly playing or singing. I'm hoping giving her a sticker and one Smartie after each nap will motivate her to actually stay in her bed long enough to nap. We'll...see.

Naptime battle continues...

AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I am so frustrated! I just went into Savannah's room because she was crying, and AGAIN, I find her naked and then she tells me she pottied in her closet. After I clean up that mess, she then tells me she also pottied in her room, by her babydoll stroller. Grrrr........I just don't even know what to say. So I pick up Savannah to put her on the changing pad to put on a new diaper, and she's saying over and over "I don't want a spanking". I took a deep breath and told her no, no spanking would happen. I again, told her no taking off diaper, no pottying on the floor, we potty in the potty chair or in the diaper. So then she tells me she didn't want to sleep and that she had pulled out several items from her closet that she has been told to leave alone. I finally took everything off of her dresser, changing pad and diapers included and put them in the hall for now. I tried to put as many things out of reach on the top shelf of her closet as I could. She's figuring out how to climb to reach things...so I think I'll have to keep removing things from her room if she keeps that up. I did take her rocking chair out of her room because we figured out she was using it to reach the blinds and had been pulling them down, or getting on top of her dresser.

Emily, on the other hand, calmly lays down and goes to sleep. She doesn't throw a tantrum, she leaves her clothes and diaper on. She doesn't seem to have the desire to totally destroy her room. I guess I should be thankful that she is at least cooperative right now and I'm only having to deal with Savannah's naptime misbehavior. I just want to know WHY? Why does Savannah keep doing this? We've been trying the sticker chart, and it seems to be working at nighttime, but not naptime.

I'm expecting a call from my PAT educator. I'm hoping she'll have some new suggestions. Until then, Savannah will be required to wear backwards, one-piece zip-up jammies for all sleeping occasions for the next month. I keep giving her chances to earn the right to just wear what ever she wants to bed, but each time I do, she disrobes and then pees all over the floor or bed. It's a viscious cycle.

Hey--I'm proud of myself for not getting all raging mad this time. I was frustrated and told Savannah so, but I didn't yell, and I didn't spank, and I didn't throw anything this time. Small step toward progress.

God's Humbling Forgiveness Through The Actions of Children

This evening, I wasn't feeling very good and just didn't even feel like eating dinner. Emily and Savannah took on little care giver roles and joyously offered to check on me, asked me if I needed some food to help me feel better. Emily brought me one of her little play kitchen cups of pretend water and asked me if I needed a drink. She then offered to go find me some medicine to help my tummy feel better. After awhile I just had to lay down on the couch. The girls concern for me grew. Emily asks me if I want a blanket, I tell her sure. She then says, "stay there, I'll be right back with a blanket for you". She runs to her room, gets one of her baby blankets and then covers me up, asking if I want my feet covered. She then runs back to her room to get another blanket to cover my feet. Savannah, also brings me a third blanket and asked me if I want her to read my a story. I say yes, and so she goes to pick out a book. She chooses her "Jesus Book" (it's actually a child's bible story book, but that's what both girls call the book). She then begins paraphrasing the stories in the book. Emily, also gets her "Jesus Book" and begins to read some of the stories--again, paraphrasing. I'm amazed at how much they were accurate about in many of the stories. I had not realized they had been paying that close of attention. They then go to get their favorite book, Llama Llama Mad At Mama, and Emily recited the entire book to me--word for word. She was so proud of herself, and I was proud too.

Even after I was so horrible to both of them today, they amazed me, and humbled me by their caring efforts to help me feel better. God's hand was in all that.

Mixed Emotions

I know, I should be in bed right now, especially after the day I had. Waking up in pain from my epidural injection was not the greatest start to my day. The girls woke up really early today too...so that meant no extra sleep for mom and dad. Seth stayed home this morning to help with the girls since I was still hurting a lot. That was really nice, and I'm so thankful he is able to that from time to time. He took them to the mother's day out program they are enrolled in. So, I had a nice break this morning. Upon picking the girls up, they were GROUCHY. Not unusual--they always seem to be grouchy when I pick them up, but because Seth dropped them off, I think they were a little mad that he didn't stay with them. Who knows...

Naptime was a battle again today, as I wrote previously. I finally ended up duct taping Savannah's diaper around her waist 2 times. She wasn't able to stretch the diaper enough to get it off this time. She cried for 30 minutes and then it was quiet, she finally fell asleep. I got in maybe a 20-30 minute nap before the phone rang. Of course, I forgot to take the phone off the hook...and so I get ANOTHER stupid automated phone call from "Cardholder Services". I'm not sure if that's a real organization or if it's one of those scams going around. Either way, if you really want to talk to me, you'll put an actual person on the other end of the phone instead of a stupid recording. They never actually say what the call is regarding...so I think it's probably a scam. Either way, "they" are one of the main reasons I take the phone off the hook during naptime--their calls happen that often.

After the phone rang, Emily woke up and started singing her mother's day out version of the "Itsy-Bitsy Spider". It was cute. She was so happy when she woke up. She wanted to wake Savannah up, but I told her not yet. Not after all my efforts to get that girl to sleep today. So she had a snack and then was content to play on her own for awhile, but several times would ask to go check on Savannah. Finally when I actually heard Savannah playing in her room did I allow Emily to see her. From them on, they were fighting, fighting, and ignoring me of course. What is with that? They act like they miss each other so much when one is still asleep, and then as soon as they are together again, they can't be nice to each other. Emily kept hitting Savannah on the back of her head as she ran by their little table in the kitchen. I would tell her to stop hitting, hittin hurts, etc. So what does she do? Yep--continues the hitting, only this time she gets a toy and uses it to hit Savannah. So frustrating. So again, I pull Emily aside and tell her no hitting, hitting hurts, please go play with your toy in the living room. Emily's response: "No, I don't want to." Then runs by Savannah, hitting her on the head...ARRGGHHHH! Our whole afternoon went that way, with Emily saying things like "No Mommy, don't tell me, don't talk to me". Mouthy little 2 year old wouldn't you say?

So, the best moment of our day was during bathtime--which is usually a conflict time, but today it was good. I don't know if God was gifting me with this moment of happy, peaceful, harmony with the girls, or what, but thank you! So, after that we went right back to 2 year old defiance. Bedtime was hard--lots of stalling with both girls tonight. I put Savannah in backwards one piece jammies, and again told her how to earn her sticker, gave her kisses and then she started requesting to give me more kisses, after two I told it was time for bed. She then went into tantrum mode, so I told her goodnight and closed the door. She cried loudly for 30 minutes. Emily, on the other hand chose to throw her book down and refused to pick it up off the floor to put it away, so she got book reading taken away for tomorrow night. Then she would not get in her bed, so I turned out the light, told her goodnight, and shut the door.

That was the end of my "mommy" day. So for the rest of the evening I've been on the couch half watching boring T.V., and going over some of my frustrations in my head. I tried to talk about some of them with Seth, but he's so easy going, it's hard for me to get him to really understand why I get so frustrated and angry with the girls. He finally offered this observation: Our girls are rarely in compliant and happy moods at the exact same time. So, what goes on in my house all day long is me battling for control constantly with one or both of them. This is why I've had it at the end of the day. I think he's probably right. He also thinks that I'm taking all this negative behavior a bit personally. I know they are only 2, but sometimes it really feels like they are just mis-behaving to see how I'm going to react, or to see what kind of reaction they can get out of each other. And now all the demanding and backtalking is getting to me. Problem is I'm trying to reason with them...I know, probably not realistic, but what else can I do? If I just let all the bad behavior slide, then they will never learn what is appropriate and what is not. The other thing I can truly say that works against me is my temper. I'm one of those people who will get mad on the inside, but try to hold it together for as long as possible and then after all the little things that make me mad build up, I just darn near explode in a temper tantrum of my own (ie. slamming doors, yelling in the basement, or yelling at the girls). It's like the more I try to keep my cool, the worse it gets as my buttons continue to be pushed all day long. I don't like that side of me. My dad was that way, and I know what it felt like to be the kid on the receiving end of it...so it's troubling that I can't keep it together to prevent my girls from having to experience that. Sometimes I just feel like my girls are going be all messed up because their mom can't just roll with the punches. I've tried counseling, it helped some, but really not enough.

I think I'm just angry to an extent that I don't even know why. I've felt like I've had an experience raising my twins from day 1 that many other moms, just will never know what it's like. I have a resentment I think. That everything for me is often twice as hard, takes twice as long to do anything, etc. and yet I'm supposed to function on the same level of moms who have children of different ages. It's hard to live up to that standard. I don't know why I feel that pressure. Honestly, if I just didn't ever go anywhere, I'd probalby not feel so stressed and angry becauseI wouldn't have the girls to contend with while trying to get out of the house--and I would never have to see other moms who seem to have it all together and act like what's the big deal?. Okay, I know I'm rambling now. I just feel like I'm not enjoying my children right now as much as I should be. Other moms seem so much more positive, and talk about how much they love taking care of their kids, etc. So what's wrong with me? I want to feel that way instead of my constant frustration. I want to have time for hobbies and for a social life. I can't even talk on the phone anymore because the girls are always fighting, and harming each other. Even my mom will get off the phone quickly so I can break up the fight.

So I find myself right now saddened, after looking back at their baby pictures and remembering how much I liked that phase so much better--even though it was hard because all I did was nurse all day...things were much more peaceful back then. So I find myself asking how did I get to the place that I'm at right now? How can I get back to happier times? Am I depressed? Am I just stressed? I have no idea...so thus the title of Mixed Emotions for this posting.

The Sticker Chart

After polling my mothers-of-multiples group, I have decided on a new plan that will hopefully motivate Savannah to keep her clothes on and stay in her bed and sleep when she's supposed to. So, I am implementing a sticker chart. Each time she stays in her bed and goes to sleep and keeps her clothes and diaper on, she earns a sticker. I started this two nights ago and so far Savannah has earned 2 stickers for staying in her bed/pajamas at night. She earned one for staying in her room during naptime while we had a babysitter here yesterday, although we also found she had taken the chart off the wall and torn it into 4 pieces. Not sure what that's about.

Today, we discovered the sticker chart torn into 7 pieces--Savannah stayed in her bed, but tore up the sticker chart. Frustrating. We've tried to explain if she tears it up then we won't be able to count her stickers. If she earns 10 then she gets to pick a treat or somewhere fun to go play or eat. I'm still having a hard time at nap time. I just went into her room because she was singing as loud as she possibly could "Lady Bug, Lady Bug, come into our house!! Lady Bug, come!" Cute and hilarious, but at the same time frustrating because she's supposed to be sleeping. So, I go in to her room to remind her to lay quietly, and what do I find? Savannah sitting on her bed, pantless, and diaperless I don't think she pottied on the floor...but I didn't do a whole room search either. She told me her diaper was wet. I asked her if that's why she took it off and she said yes. However, she won't sit on the potty chair before naptime when we try to get her to do it. What do I do? Both sets of footless zip-up pajamas are dirty, so we put her down for naptime in regular clothes, but I guess she's not ready to be trusted in just clothes. I think I may have to buy some more pajamas to cut the feet out of so I can get them on backwards...I hate having to do that, but so far it's the only thing keeping her diaper on. Oh yeah--on my way out of her room she matter-of-factly tells me she painted her dresser white with diaper cream. I look and sure enough--finger prints and marks all over the dresser. Just one more think to hide and put out of reach--so long to convenience!

I told Savannah she did not earn a sticker for nap time because she took her clothes/diaper off and was being loud instead of laying down quietly. It didn't seem to phase her much. So, who knows if this sticker chart will actually work. I'm hoping once Savannah sees that Emily is earning a sticker everytime that she will change her ways and try to get more stickers so she can pick out a treat too. We'll see...until then, I'm still going crazy and not getting my mommy nap.

Naptime/Bedtime wars continue.

I am absolutely going out of my mind with frustration. Savannah is still not staying in her bed for naptime or bedtime. She has gone from coming out of her room to staying in the room--however she has repeatedly chosen to take off her jammies or clothes everyday/night when it's time for bed. The past few nights, she'll cry because she's cold--and she cries for almost an hour. We eventually go in to check on her and find her in only a diaper or no diaper. Today, she took off her pants and diaper and peed on the carpet in front of her door. We have told her over and over and over, no taking off diaper at nap or bed time. I tell her she can pee in the diaper or on the potty chair, no pottying in her bed or on the floor. This only happens when she is expected to take a nap or go to sleep at night--no other time does she take off her clothes or diaper and have the potty issue. I'm back to putting her in backwards jammies...but that doesn't keep her in her bed. I am so tired of cleaning up extra, (in my mind unnecessary) messes!