Is that a diaper bag or a garment bag?
When i take the girls to daycare, this is what i pack:
- 6 bottles
- one container of cereal with two spoons
- 2 pairs of sleepers
- 6 onesies
- 2 pairs of socks
- 4 bibs
- two wrist rattles
- 2 extra blankets
- butt butter
- snot sucker
- little noses
- gas drops
- baby tylenol
More often than not, when i pick my kids up, they are wearing some of these clothes, with the clothes i sent them in in the dirty togs bag due to poop blowouts or drool catastrophes.
my diaper bag is a backpack and when i put in on, i feel like Quasimodo. and when i pick up the girls in their carseats while wearing the backpack, i look like Gulliver being attacked by the little people.
No, I look like Peter Gabriel in the Shock the Monkey video.
Wouldn’t it just be simpler to take their stuff to daycare in a garment bag and be done with it?
- 6 bottles
- one container of cereal with two spoons
- 2 pairs of sleepers
- 6 onesies
- 2 pairs of socks
- 4 bibs
- two wrist rattles
- 2 extra blankets
- butt butter
- snot sucker
- little noses
- gas drops
- baby tylenol
More often than not, when i pick my kids up, they are wearing some of these clothes, with the clothes i sent them in in the dirty togs bag due to poop blowouts or drool catastrophes.
my diaper bag is a backpack and when i put in on, i feel like Quasimodo. and when i pick up the girls in their carseats while wearing the backpack, i look like Gulliver being attacked by the little people.
No, I look like Peter Gabriel in the Shock the Monkey video.
Wouldn’t it just be simpler to take their stuff to daycare in a garment bag and be done with it?
The "Droolys" and my pop culture references
So i decided to upgrade the girls to a new level of nickname. We started out with Trixie and Dixie, graduated to Giggleface and Biscuit, and have now ascended…thanks to a never ending abundance of saliva….to
Drooly Newmar
and
Drooly McCoy
The really hilarious part about this is that one day, i will have to explain to them where those nicknames came from. And then I’ll be reminded that I am old and uncool.
Can’t wait!
Drooly Newmar
and
Drooly McCoy
The really hilarious part about this is that one day, i will have to explain to them where those nicknames came from. And then I’ll be reminded that I am old and uncool.
Can’t wait!
Smiles
I consider myself fortunate in that my kids wake up smiling. Every morning right before i bend down to pick them up, they look up at me and start smiling widely while pumping their arms and legs. And when they are being entertained by company, they look intently into the face of whomever is talking to them and then bust out a giggle. This makes them wildly popular with their dad, my friends, and their daycare provider.
And i gotta admit: it makes the 3 am feeding more tolerable.
When I think of their laughing faces, I think back to the childhood of some of my cousins. I spent a great deal of time growing up with one set of cousins. We were pretty close in age and our mother’s were very close. I remember as we grew up there being a great deal of laughter and joking amongst us all. Even as small kids, we had pretty hilarious senses of humor, evidenced in our rendition of “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang and our placing hair combs in our male cousin’s hair to make it stand up like a porcupine.
But I also remember that when their father was around, there was no laughing, no joking. I remember somber kids who wouldn’t even smile in photographs. And I just assumed that was how it always was and that this uncle was somehow a thief of joy.
My cousins’ mother died of cancer when we were all adults. My cousins were each married and most had children. My mother had come to live with my aunt during her final months and she kept a great deal of old photos of my aunt and my cousins from the early years of her marriage to her husband. I was struck by the fact that in these photos, my aunt and my cousins were filled with joy. Even with her husband behind the lens, I saw photos of my aunt smiling, my cousins smiling their baby smiles, being held and kissed by my aunt and their father.
I was shocked. I almost felt betrayed. How is it that these people I have literally known my whole life weren’t who I thought they were? These were chapters of their lives I didn’t even know existed. MY aunt? Wearing a Halloween costume?? MY cousins?? Laughing and smiling into a camera their father is holding???
When did their childhood joy disappear? And what did my aunt’s husband think and feel when he couldn’t make his children smile and laugh anymore?
Another set of cousins were equally smiley-faced when they were growing up. They were much younger than me and lived in another county, so I only got to see them occasionally. But when i did see them as little girls, it was easy to coax smiles and giggles out of them. All you had to do was give them a squeeze and tell them you loved them and their whole faces would light up.
And the women they are today does nothing to indicate those happy children even existed. One cousin is so filled with anger that she never smiles and more often than not yells at her children in frustration. Much of her adolescence and young adulthood has been characterized by conflict with her siblings and her mother and when you see her, you see a pretty girl who is so angry, it’s like she’s never smiled in her life.
Her sister does still smile and laugh, but still carries a great deal of sadness with her. She is a good person who often does hurtful things to the people who love her the most because she has a sickness. And when you see her, you wonder if the shy little girl she was is still hiding within her, just waiting for someone to once again tell her she is loved…and make her believe it.
When i think of all of these cousins and the unseen events that occurred in their childhoods which seem to have stolen that easy joy they had within them as children, I think about my girls and wonder to what lengths I’d be willing to go to ensure they have happy and secure childhoods. Or, more accurately, to what lengths would I NOT be willing to go.
What i know for certain is when my kids laugh and smile at me, I smile and laugh back. and I want to share moments like that with them for the rest of my life.
And i gotta admit: it makes the 3 am feeding more tolerable.
When I think of their laughing faces, I think back to the childhood of some of my cousins. I spent a great deal of time growing up with one set of cousins. We were pretty close in age and our mother’s were very close. I remember as we grew up there being a great deal of laughter and joking amongst us all. Even as small kids, we had pretty hilarious senses of humor, evidenced in our rendition of “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang and our placing hair combs in our male cousin’s hair to make it stand up like a porcupine.
But I also remember that when their father was around, there was no laughing, no joking. I remember somber kids who wouldn’t even smile in photographs. And I just assumed that was how it always was and that this uncle was somehow a thief of joy.
My cousins’ mother died of cancer when we were all adults. My cousins were each married and most had children. My mother had come to live with my aunt during her final months and she kept a great deal of old photos of my aunt and my cousins from the early years of her marriage to her husband. I was struck by the fact that in these photos, my aunt and my cousins were filled with joy. Even with her husband behind the lens, I saw photos of my aunt smiling, my cousins smiling their baby smiles, being held and kissed by my aunt and their father.
I was shocked. I almost felt betrayed. How is it that these people I have literally known my whole life weren’t who I thought they were? These were chapters of their lives I didn’t even know existed. MY aunt? Wearing a Halloween costume?? MY cousins?? Laughing and smiling into a camera their father is holding???
When did their childhood joy disappear? And what did my aunt’s husband think and feel when he couldn’t make his children smile and laugh anymore?
Another set of cousins were equally smiley-faced when they were growing up. They were much younger than me and lived in another county, so I only got to see them occasionally. But when i did see them as little girls, it was easy to coax smiles and giggles out of them. All you had to do was give them a squeeze and tell them you loved them and their whole faces would light up.
And the women they are today does nothing to indicate those happy children even existed. One cousin is so filled with anger that she never smiles and more often than not yells at her children in frustration. Much of her adolescence and young adulthood has been characterized by conflict with her siblings and her mother and when you see her, you see a pretty girl who is so angry, it’s like she’s never smiled in her life.
Her sister does still smile and laugh, but still carries a great deal of sadness with her. She is a good person who often does hurtful things to the people who love her the most because she has a sickness. And when you see her, you wonder if the shy little girl she was is still hiding within her, just waiting for someone to once again tell her she is loved…and make her believe it.
When i think of all of these cousins and the unseen events that occurred in their childhoods which seem to have stolen that easy joy they had within them as children, I think about my girls and wonder to what lengths I’d be willing to go to ensure they have happy and secure childhoods. Or, more accurately, to what lengths would I NOT be willing to go.
What i know for certain is when my kids laugh and smile at me, I smile and laugh back. and I want to share moments like that with them for the rest of my life.
Have you seen this girl? She's been missing for three months.
I had my twin girls 3 months ago.
In that short time, I’m become a maestro at water-boarding (aka: Little Noses), the ancient art of cotton torture (aka: cotton swabs), simultaneous feedings (aka: Houdini’s last trick), and changing diapers (aka: extreme acts of courage and valor).
And while my little girls mean the entire world to me, I am a little vexed that they apparently have become my entire world to others. Meaning: i feel like i have stopped being a productive employee and fun friend and have become that chick with no husband and two kids.
It seems like simply by the act of having children I have become old, not cool, uninterested in things outside children, and basically and island all to myself. I don’t remember losing that part of myself, but i wonder if anyone around me really sees the fun and interesting part of my personality anymore. And it doesn’t help that my employer is always ready to refer to me as “mama,” “little mama,” eager to remind me “you ARE a single mother of twins,” and to point out in meetings that I “sound just like a mother.”
it is almost enough to make me vomit.
Life really is all about evolving relationships and growing as a person. But how can i find a happy balance between celebrating this new chapter in my life and feeling eclipsed by it?
In that short time, I’m become a maestro at water-boarding (aka: Little Noses), the ancient art of cotton torture (aka: cotton swabs), simultaneous feedings (aka: Houdini’s last trick), and changing diapers (aka: extreme acts of courage and valor).
And while my little girls mean the entire world to me, I am a little vexed that they apparently have become my entire world to others. Meaning: i feel like i have stopped being a productive employee and fun friend and have become that chick with no husband and two kids.
It seems like simply by the act of having children I have become old, not cool, uninterested in things outside children, and basically and island all to myself. I don’t remember losing that part of myself, but i wonder if anyone around me really sees the fun and interesting part of my personality anymore. And it doesn’t help that my employer is always ready to refer to me as “mama,” “little mama,” eager to remind me “you ARE a single mother of twins,” and to point out in meetings that I “sound just like a mother.”
it is almost enough to make me vomit.
Life really is all about evolving relationships and growing as a person. But how can i find a happy balance between celebrating this new chapter in my life and feeling eclipsed by it?
runny noses and crabby babies
- Boca: do you wanna stand in your exersaucer?
- Trixie: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
- translation: no, mother, i'd really rather not.
- Boca: want to play in the play yard?
- Dixie: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
- translation: of all the things i can think of that i'd like to do, that, sadly, falls nowhere on the list.
- Boca: want to sit in your bouncey chair?
- Trixie: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
- translation: whilst that would normally sound like a smashing idea, today...at this moment....'tis not.
- Boca: okay, then everybody go to bed!
- Trixie and Dixie: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!
- translation: you may be bigger than us, Nemesis, but you cannot defeat us both simultaneously!!!
