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.