Alternate Identity

So this past week, Savannah started referring to herself as "Rae Ann". Rae Ann is the name of our hair stylist. The girls have been pretending to give each other haircuts (just involves hair brushing thank goodness). It started out that Savannah would say "I'm Rae Ann to my baby" and she'd pretend to give her baby doll a hair cut. Now, she says, "Mom, I'm Rae Ann, not Savannah". She has taken it so far that she often will not do what we tell her to do unless we call her Rae Ann. Each morning when she wakes up, she says, I'm Rae Ann. When she's talking to us and describing what she is going to do, or telling us about her day, she pats herself on the shoulder and says, "Rae Ann is going to play with her baby", or "Rae Ann played at the park today", etc., etc. It's funny. Sometimes Emily will ask us if she is Rae Ann, or if Savannah is Rae Ann now, and I tell her that Savannah's pretend name is Rae Ann, but her real name is Savannah. Then Savannah will tell me that Emily is Rae Ann. So, funny. I'm wondering how long it will last. So far it's been just over a week, and I think it will probably continue for at least another week or so. I can't wait to tell our hair stylist about it, she'll get a good laugh about it.

Garage Sale Info

Johnson County Mothers of Multiples

Children’s Sale

Saturday, April 25^th, 2009

8:00am – 1:00pm

Indian Creek Community Church

12480 Black Bob Road

Olathe, KS 66062

Children’s items from over 25 families

with twins and triplets, including:

• Name brand clothing sized infant through 16
• Furniture, equipment, toys, books, videos
• Kids décor, bedding, and bath accessories
• Maternity clothes

CASH ONLY!!!

No strollers before 10:00am.

(For more information about JC MOMS, go to www.jcmoms.org.)

Why is this so hard?

I really almost got out the other set of clothing I had been planning to save today and got ready to tag it...but I just can't. No matter how rational I think about it and convince myself I don't need to save it, that it's just taking up a lot of extra space in our house--I just cannot bring myself to sell it or even give it away. Why is this so hard? Does it hold that much sentimental value? Or, am I afraid I might need it later on? Right now, Seth and I are both leaning more toward the not needing it...but what if I change my mind? What if we do need it? If I get rid of it, then I'll have to buy all new clothing later on...is that practical? Or is taking up lots of space in my house practical?

Seriously, I was about in tears when I started looking through the storage boxes of their outgrown spring/summer clothing. Is that normal?

The World From a 2 Year Old's Perspective

Quotes from Savannah and Emily: "Look Mommy, the tree changed colors!" (Savannah talking about a red bud tree).

"We are keeping our door closed so the dinosaurs don't come in" (Emily).

"Big brown lady nipples!" (Savannah's observation when mommy was changing clothes).

"Does the fan have eyes?" (Emily)

"Do birds talk?" (Savannah)

"Was he driving crazy?" (Savannah, after everytime I break while driving the van).

"Is Daddy a man? Are you a lady?" (Savannah)

"Is that Grammie's house?" (Emily--pointing to our neighbor's house).

"Hey Big-Kid, can we slide down with you?" (Savannah speaking to an older child at the park...then I tell her that kid has a name) "But I don't know her name! Big-Kid, can we play with you?"

"I don't like ants to be in our house, mom. Ants no coming in our house!" (Savannah)

"What is here, Mom?" (Emily, whenever anyone comes to our door).

"Where are we going today?" (Emily, each morning after I get everyone dressed).

"I'm scared of the Bummer, I don't want the Bummer to be here". ( Savannah after anyone says the saying, "what a bummer! or oh,bummer"...guess she thinks it's someone or something to be afraid of. ) It's hard to explain sayings to 2 year olds.

There are many more...just can't think of them right now.

Easter Firsts

I've been meaning to write about this, but we've all been sick, and I just forgot. So here is a little bit about our Easter weekend. We traveled to Seth's parents' house to visit them and the rest of his dad's family. The weather was really nice on Saturday, so we had a little Easter Egg hunt for the girls. They really got excited about it and kept asking if they could hunt for more eggs even after they found all of the eggs that we had. They had great fun dyeing eggs with their Grandma Terry, and amazingly they didn't make a huge mess. The best part was after the eggs dried, they got to put silly faces and hats on the eggs.

Doug and Terry have a "stray" cat (they buy cat food for it, so I guess they consider it theirs now) that gave birth to three kittens in their attic a few weeks ago. Doug brought them down in a box so the girls could see them. They have never seen a kitten in real life before. Savannah was a little scared of them. Emily liked petting them. They were cute little kitties. One was gray and white, another was brown, black, and white tiger striped, and the other one was brown and white, with a brown smudge of fur across her nose. We let the kittens out in the yard for a short while to see if the girls would play with them. They preferred to watch them from a distance, and if a kitten approached Savannah she would yell, "No, go away kitty, go away!" and then she's get really upset, so I told her to run the other way. That helped. I guess she hasn't realized that she's a lot bigger than a kitten, and the kitten is probably afraid of her too.

Easter Sunday we went to church, then had a big family dinner at Seth's granparents' new house. The girls got to play with their three cousins, Kinley, Kyle, and Anna. It was long day. The girls didn't get a nap until we loaded up and began our drive back home--around 4:30pm. It was a fun time, the girls were sad to leave. They love visiting grandparents.

Code Yellow

Code Yellow...know what that means? At Target it means missing child or in my case, missing children. My mischievous girls got out of those really neat two-seater carts and ran away from me. By the time I got to the end of the isle--they were no where in sight--they run fast. I called their names, told them to come back--but nothing--not even a sound from them. So, I start to get annoyed, then nervous as I search the surrounding areas of the store. I finally see a sales associate and ask her if she's seen my girls and she radios a Code Yellow to all the other store employees. Want to know where they caught up with the girls? The FRONT DOORS!! AAAHHHH! Thank goodness they were together and people noticed them running freely out the door by themselves. This is the 3rd time this has happened since November. I am really considering buying those harness/leash devices for little kids.

A Better Week

Last week was great! I honestly can say that I actually enjoyed most moments of being a stay-at- home-mom of 2 1/2 year old twins. Savannah is starting to improve on her nap time issues. The sticker and Smartie bribe is working. Of course, I'm still afraid to let her nap without backwards zip-up jammies. I think I'll wait a few more weeks before we try napping in normal clothes again. I did return her toys to her room and so far she's been very good to just stay in her bed and sleep instead of throwing everything all over her room. In fact, I think I got in a good 2 hour nap 4 days in a row last week. What a change!

Now, Emily is starting to up her misbehavior as Savannah has improved--good thing my PAT counselor gave me a book that addresses that kind of thing. It's an identity issue. The good child now does not stand out so much once the misbehaving child begins to behave. So, now the "good" child will act out to get more attention. It's supposed to be temporary, so I'm hoping it won't last too long. Mainly it's just defiance and spitting. What's up with the spitting? Whenever Emily doesn't get her way, she starts spitting all over the place. It carries over to all situations. I recently had a PAT visit and asked my educator about it and she told me to make one location in the house okay for spitting. So, this is what I'm trying--whenever Emily starts spitting I pick her up, take her to the bathroom sink and tell her no spitting all over the house, we may spit in the bathroom sink. I've had to do this three times, and I do think it has cut down on the duration of spitting. Now, if I can only figure out how to get her to stop biting Savannah. Emily is a biter. She quit biting for a long time and has recently started it up again, only now that she's bigger, she bites a lot harder. Today, she bit Savannah so hard it made her shoulder bleed. Yikes! I took away the sticker and Smartie privilage because time-out did absolutely nothing. We'll see if that works.

The Dentist

Well, today Emily and Savannah had their 2nd dentist office experience. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, as Savannah has been telling me for the past two days that she was going to be scared of the dentist. I think she's really just scared of the chair because it moves up and down. Anyway, when we go there we had to wait awhile, and then they wouldn't let me come back with the girls this time. What's with that? I guess since they are a little older they clean their teeth in the big room with several chairs and several hygienists, so maybe there really isn't much room for moms to go back there? I was nervous that Savannah was going to freak out, but she didn't. I think I was a little apprehensive about not getting to go back with them because of a Dateline report I saw a few weeks ago about a chain of dental clinics that didn't allow parents in the room with their kids while they were being treated. Many of those horror stories were very unsettling--dental work that didn't need to be done, putting the kids in restraints to keep them still, etc. So, as I'm sitting in the waiting room, I'm trying to tell myself to relax--I'd been back with them during their first visit and I felt all the staff was very nice and trustworthy. Still--my girls are only 2 years old, and I guess I just expected to be able to go back with them for the next year or two. After 30 minutes, the girls came out with smiling faces, bags full of dental goodies--their favorite being chapstick...and then the hygienist hands them an Otis Spunkmeyer cookie. Uh-oh...Emily already saw the cookie, and she can't have it--milk allergy strikes again! The hygienist felt bad, I told her to just give me both cookies and that I'd "save them for later". Which really meant, when we got home, I then had to make some dairy-free cookies. I have a great recipe for Apple Sauce Oatmeal Cookies--they are lowfat, but still taste good. The only substitution I had to make was non-dairy margarine (Earth Balance). That seemed to be fine with Emily and she happily ate two cookies for snack.