Twin Questions

Today I wanted to share some of the questions and comments I've received when I've been out and about with the kiddos.  You'd be surprised with the questions complete strangers are okay asking you.

First of all, I tend to draw a little bit of attention when I am out running errands with all four boys.  These days at Costco, the twins ride up front (thank goodness for their oversize double seater carts!), W rides in the back and D walks with the cart.  At other stores if they do not have the special carts with the extenders where the twins can sit, I have to put one twin in the front, one in a backpack, W in the back and D walks with the cart.  Remember I said you have to learn to improvise?

The first one I get usually at least once a trip out in public is:
"Are they twins?"
Nah, I just picked up an extra baby in the parking lot - thought it might be fun. 

The one I get ALL the time and I am completely tired of hearing is:
"You must have your hands full!"
Not really, my hands are empty, the kids are in the cart.

Then people tend to get personal.
"Were they natural?"
Nope, they're put together from spare parts Frankenstein style.

"Did you have a c-section?"
Really?  You want to know if I had a major surgery to have my babies?  What was your appendectomy like, care to discuss your last bowel movement?
"You had them naturally?"
Yep, that's me.  Super woman, pushing out 13 pounds of babies through my hooha.  Maybe I should get a t-shirt printed.

"Do twins run in your family?"

My cousins are twins and I do believe they are able to run.

I also love how people who don't have twins always wanted twins and think they would be so much fun.
"Oh twins!  How much fun!"
Yep, feeling like a milking cow with two babies hanging from my chest, two babies screaming at me in unison, two blowouts at the same time, bathing two toddlers at once, one baby climbing the fireplace while the other simultaneously tries to squeeze between the couch and the wall.
I might start selling tickets so people can come experience my kind of "fun."

Then there's the lovely comments and questions I get when I'm out with all four boys.
"Wow!  Are they ALL boys?"
Last I checked they all have peepees.

"Are you going to try for a girl?"
And disrupt the harmonious balance of testosterone I am surrounded by.  I think not.
Seriously though, I'm not sure I'd know what to do with a girl.

"Better you than me!"
That's probably true.

"I don't know how you do it."
Me either.  What year is it and where am I?  Do you have any coffee?  If not it's best to back away slowly and not make any sudden movements.

All joking aside, we are truly blessed and it is not as crazy and bad as I sometimes make it out to be.  You learn to do what you have to do to survive the day and preserve your sanity.  You get by.  Parents of twins have double trouble, double the cost and need double the energy but we also get double blessings, double the kisses and hugs and double the love!

Until next time!

Twins

TWINS

People love twins.  Maybe it's the sight of two little adorable babies cuddled together, the giant stroller carrying two massive carseats, or the cute doubles of everything.  Whatever it is, I can attest that people love twins.  But as much as people love twins there are a lot of misconceptions and old wives tales out there about multiples.  When we found out we were having twins I knew nothing about the subject and I'm pretty sure I read every section in pregnancy books and my Google searches were full of twin related topics.  So today I thought I would talk a little bit about how multiples come to be.  

Twins, that magical, mystical, super rare occurrence of more than one baby at a time.  Ok, so it's not so rare anymore.  Since 1980 the birth rate of twins rose 76%, 1.9%in 1980 to 3.3% of all births in 2009.  (CDC)  Here's a link to a scientific paper on the CDC's website for those of you that are into that sort of thing, which I totally am: 

Three Decades of Twin Births in the United States, 1980–2009

It's pretty interesting reading.  What are some reasons you might ask that the number of twins being born has increased so dramatically as compared to 30 years ago?  Two major factors have been identified as contributing to this rise:  the increasing age of women having babies and the increase in infertility treatments. 

"Twin birth rates increased for women of all ages over the three decades, with the largest increases among women aged 30 and over. From 1980 to 2009, rates increased 76 percent for women aged 30–34, nearly 100 percent for women aged 35–39, and more than 200 percent for women aged 40 and over." (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db80.htm#summary)

So the older you are the more likely you are to have twins!  Why is that?  This is because women over 30 are much more likely to release more than one egg during ovulation, called hyper-ovulation.  These days the average age for women to have their first baby is 25.  More than likely due to women waiting longer to get married and become established in their chosen career before having babies.  I myself had our first child at 25, our second at 28 and we had the twins at 31.  

In my mind 31 is not that old and when I talked the hubby into baby number three there was absolutely no way in my mind that we could have twins.  The only twins in my family are some cousins on my dad's side and their mother married into the family.  Why would this matter?  There is a gene that can cause a woman to release more than one egg during ovulation and that gene comes from your mother.  So if there are fraternal twins in your mom's family you are more likely to have multiples yourself.  What about identical twins?  Scientists have not been able to find a gene that can be linked to identical twins.

What is the difference between fraternal and identical twins?  Fraternal twins are the result of two eggs being fertilized and identical twins are the result of a fertilized egg splitting in two and becoming two developing embryos.  It can be a little more complicated when you start discussing identical twins and on that subject I do not even begin to believe that I know a lot about it.  We were lucky in that our little guys were fraternal and we had the least risky of the different types of multiples pregnancies.  

Are you wondering why so much research has gone into multiple births?  There are several reasons: multiples tend to have greater chances of different health issues, they tend to born much earlier than singleton babies and thus resulting in lower birth weights and stays in the neonatal intensive care unit, and the general healthcare costs for multiples is much greater.  I can definitely attest to the bigger healthcare cost for twins and ours were very healthy.

V getting his treatment for jaundice

Phew!  This was a basic overview of how multiples come to be!  Having twins is something that those who don't have them can never truly understand.  It's like a club.  An exhausting, rewarding, rollercoaster ride of a club where you discuss nursing two babies at a time (it can be done), getting the babies on the same sleep schedule (often difficult), and all the tips and tricks to make life with multiples easier.  All I have to say is improvise.  

Next time I'll share the story about how we found out we were having twins!

Until next time!

Feeding Twins

So we've covered how twins come to be and how we found out we were going to be blessed with twins.  Lets talk about some of the quirks of having twins, and one big one is feeding.  When you become a parent to multiples you quickly learn you have to roll with things and improvise if you are to survive. 

When our boys were born there was 45 minutes between V and H.  By the time H was born they wanted me to breastfeed V so they asked if I could do both at the same time.  Huh!?!  You want me to do what??  I had difficulties nursing with my singleton babies and now you want me to do two at once?  I told them no, but later discovered if I was ever to have any time for anything other than changing diapers and feeding babies I would have to learn to do two at once.  I made it a little over a month breastfeeding, which happened to be longer than I thought I would, and I became quite adept at positioning for the double nursing experience.  Lots of pillows, that's all I have to say.  I would just sneak away to the bedroom with the boys - there is no being modest at all when nursing two at once - and the hubby would help me get going.  It became quite the time saver.

After we had moved on to bottles I had to figure out a convenient way to give both babies their bottles at the same time.  So I would sit on the floor between my two nursing pillows and set the boys in them and prop the bottles up with burp cloths.  Of course this is something I never left them alone doing but it was pretty handy!

H having his bottle

V having his bottle

It was when they started having more control of their hands and heads that things really became interesting.  It got to the point where I would have to hold each of their bottles while they were eating to prevent them from ending up on the floor.  I reached out to our multiples community here and was given two bottle holders by a wonderfully generous woman with triplets.  There was a ring to go around the bottles and on the other end of an adjustable arm was a clip to fasten it to either the carseat or reclining feeding chairs at the table.  These were a godsend and we completely wore them out or I would have passed them on to another struggling mother of multiples!

 

For awhile each of our boys was on a different formula.  H had stomach issues so we put him on a sensitive formula which helped and V stuck with the Kirkland formula that I had used with each of the older boys.  So during this phase each boy was assigned a color, H's bottles were blue and V's were green.  That was the only way to tell the bottle apart and to this day each boy does have his own green and blue sippy cups but those are quite interchangeable.

When we first started solids with the boys I was naive enough to think that I should use a different spoon for each baby just to keep things separate.  It took one or two feedings like this for me to say screw it.  They can share a spoon and if one is sick the other was bound to get it anyway, I just might have hurried the process along.  They would sit in their three stage reclining feeding chairs strapped to the dining room chairs and wait for food.  

Then we discovered the hanging highchairs!  We were hooked!  They were such space savers!  We bought one new and one used Inglesina chairs and we love them!  We still use them and they are easy to take down and take with you!

I do have to say that as the boys have progressed in their level of eating I have tried a few different things and come to the conclusion that if they can't feed it to themselves they aren't going to get to eat it.  It may mean that they are missing out on oatmeal, soups, and sometimes macaroni and cheese (unless daddy feeds them) but I'm ok with that.  If I spent all that time spoon feeding my 17 month old boys nothing else would get done.  They eat chicken nuggets, sandwiches cut up, crackers and lots of fruit.  I do typically give them whatever we are eating for dinner - unless it has to be fed to them, then they're out of luck.  After each meal I always have to clean up what I typically refer to as the food explosion, there is usually about a three foot radius of food on the floor under each of the boys.  It is quite impressive.

We do occasionally go out to eat at restaurants, but being as we live in Montana some of the restaurants surprisingly do not have more than one highchair.  We have run into this a couple of times and after attempting to make it work one time without a second highchair we now know that it cannot happen.  If a restaurant does not have more than one highchair they will not be getting our business.

I hope this has given you some insight into improvisations when feeding twins!  Next time I'll cover some of the questions I and many other parents of multiples get from the general public.  There really are such things as stupid questions.

Until next time!

Twins - Part Two

I can still vividly remember finding out we were having twins.

My doctor wanted to do an ultrasound around nine weeks to do a gestational age, just to make sure I was as far along as I thought.  This was new to me because with D and W I had a 20 week ultrasound and maybe one or two others later on.

 This is me early on - getting big quick!

I was nervous and excited!  The first time you see your little baby floating around on that black and white screen it's amazing.  I used to work in x-ray at the hospital where we went to get the ultrasound and I knew there had been quite a bit of turnover in the ultrasound department so I wasn't sure which tech we would get. 

We ended up with a traveler - someone who works for a company that will send them to different places when hospitals have shortages, and she was unaware that I was an x-ray tech and would have a vague idea of what I was looking at.  I lay down on the stiff hospital bed in the darkened room with the hubby sitting in a chair by the wall with the "could we just get this over with" look on his face.  You have to remember that we had done these kind of things with two other pregnancies and it was still early on.

So the tech goes through the exam, taking all the measurements of our new little baby, not making much small talk but never letting us see the screen.

"There's only one right?"  I jokingly ask her.  "I had a dream about a month ago that I was having twins.  Crazy, huh?"  I laughed to myself.  Oh those crazy pregnancy dreams.

She responds in a flat voice "We'll talk about that at the end."  

WHAT!?!  Not funny! "We'll talk about that at the end"??  That is not the correct response to my question!  Acceptable answers would have been: "Yep, just one!" "Oh, that's a crazy dream!  Just one cute little baby in there."

I'm now on edge.  My heart rate increased.

She finishes up her exam and turns to me and says "So I probably can't let you leave here without showing you-" she pauses and moves the probe around, I feel like I might throw up, she turns the screen so we can see it now, "Here's Baby A."

Wait, did I hear that right - Baby A??  If there's a Baby A that means there's a...Baby B.  My heart rate is now through the roof.

"And here's Baby B."

Palms sweaty, stomach drops, tears start.  I start laughing hysterically through the tears.  Strange combination of happiness, sheer panic and utter terror.

TWINS?!?  That is not possible!  I turn to look at the hubby.  Sitting in his chair, eyes the size of silver dollars and his jaw on the floor.  I see the panic in his oversized eyes and I cannot stop laughing and crying.

My first thought was that he was going to kill me, I talked him into baby number three.

The tech is a little wary of us based on our reactions, and tells me I can go get dressed.  At this point I am numb.  Somehow I manage to put my pants back on and stumble back into the exam room where the hubby sits with his head hanging down.  All we can do is laugh.  Is this really happening?  We need proof.  Nobody will believe us.

The hubby has a history of pulling pranks - and boy would telling people we were having twins would've been a good one - except this was real.

We manage to take pictures of the screen with the image of two babies on it for proof.  Then she turned us loose back into the world with life changing news that I'm not sure to this day has ever really sunk in.

We did get quite a few interesting responses to the news of twins.  People knew we were expecting but like us never thought twins were a possibility.

Ben and Hillary just broke out maniacally laughing, my grandpa asked if we were sure there were ONLY two, and my best friend Jaimie said "Oh honey, I'm sorry, I'll have to call you back when I think of something I can say that would actually make you feel better - right now I got nothing."  She gets me.

Many people thought we were kidding and that's why we had the picture.  Proof.  Proof that our life was never going to be the same.

This is how our adventures in twindom began.  It has been a crazy journey but I wouldn't trade it for the world.  I get double the kisses, hugs and snuggles.  If one is being stingy with affection, chances are that the other one will oblige me.  Then there are those amazing moments when I catch them playing together, laughing and giving each other hugs and kisses.  It melts my heart and as crazy as they have made our life we really do love it and wouldn't trade it for the world.

Until next time!

Friday!

Ah, Friday.

That last day before the weekend where everyone gets two days off and can all relax and do whatever we want.

Oh, wait - I'm a mother, I don't get days off.  Saturday and Sunday are just like any other summer day.  I still have four crazy, energetic boys to take care of.  The only difference is the hubby might - MIGHT- be home on the weekend.  He works a lot.

Today though, my older two are with their Grammy getting to go to a special movie premier.  So at the moment the twins are napping, I am typing away and watching shows that are not appropriate for the older children to watch.

It's hard to catch up on shows like that because the older two are always around on summer days, even when the twins are napping, and even though the hubby and I like a lot of the same shows there are several I love that he despises.

So I take these few opportunities without the older two to catch up on a few things.  The house is so quiet.  No one yelling at me that they're starving and need a snack, or D and W fighting over something that is actually a baby toy.  You know those are much cooler than their age appropriate toys.

D and W will be back tomorrow, and I will miss them by the time they come back, but I will also enjoy my time with them gone.  They get Grammy time and I get me time.  Time to read, watch tv, catch up on some laundry, put my feet up so I don't overdo it (still recovering from surgery), think about life and most of all enjoy the quiet.  A time when the twins take a nap I actually don't have anyone else to take care of - except me.

Until next time!

Look at me! I'm making cake pops! Wait a minute - oh SH**

I had one of the most epic mom fails of all time today.

It all started with the best of intentions and could've had the worst possible outcomes.

Tomorrow is D's eighth birthday.  

A couple of years ago he was officially diagnosed with a peanut allergy.  He never liked peanuts or anything with peanut butter in it; he said it made a mouth "spicy," so we just avoided them just to be sure.  Now we carry around an epipen.  God forbid.

Back to my mom fail.  It's hard to find birthday treats that are safe for peanut allergies.  Everything is either processed in a facility that also processes peanuts or has trace amounts of peanuts in it.  We used to be more lax about the "processed in a facility that also processes peanuts" label until Ocean Spray had their major recall of greek yogurt covered craisins that had been accidentally interspersed with yogurt covered peanuts.  Now we avoid those labels too.  So in my search for allergy friendly birthday treats I found an easy tutorial for making cake pops so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Bought the ingredients a couple days ago, cake, icing and chocolate candy melts in a lovely green and blue.  I even took lots of pictures because I bought I would write a post about making them! 

Here's how I started: baked a cake from a box and crumbled it all up.

Crumbled up the baked cake.

Put in 1/3 cup frosting.

Mixed it all together and rolled into little balls.

Everything is going great, this isn't as hard as I thought.

 

Melted some of the candy melts to secure the lollipop sticks in the cake balls.

This is when I hit my road bump.  Halfway into inserting the chocolate covered lollipop sticks I thought to myself: hmmm, I really should double check this.  And then I found this:

WHAT!!!

Did I really do this?!?

How did I buy these?  Not even "processed in a facility that processes peanuts," but "MAY CONTAIN TRACE AMOUNTS OF PEANUTS"

So I just spent two hours making birthday treats for my soon to be eight year old that could potentially kill him.  

Are they still taking applications for Mother of the Year?  I might be a shoo in.

So I brought him up and explained what I had done, and he was bummed but kept reassuring me that it's ok, he thinks I am the best mom ever!  That just made the self-induced guilt trip that much worse.  If he had eaten hem he probably would've been ok but there's always that chance of an anaphylactic reaction.  Happy Birthday D!  Here's some cake pops I made ya, let me know if your throat starts swelling. 

So I tried taking a few and replacing he use of the chocolate with the cake icing:

  Nailed it.

Not effective, not pretty, but he will get to eat these. 

I finished the rest with the possibly-peanut-containing chocolate melts for the other kiddos.  

 Some didn't quite work out.

I'm also taking him to the farmers market to get a special allergy friendly great from my amazingly talented friend Melissa from Pippin's Gluten Free Pastries tomorrow!  

I think I'll leave the cake pop making to my other super talented friend Jenny!  

But seriously, when is the Mother of the Year voting done?  I got this one in the bag.

Until next time!

Counting down

I woke up today to the sound of the older kiddos playing in their room/family room.  H was starting to stir and I looked at the clock and it was 6:40 am.  I made myself get up to take a shower because otherwise I was pretty sure I wouldn't get one - and it had been a couple days.  Don't judge, sleep is more important than showering sometimes.

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but when I first woke up today one of my first thoughts was that I was looking forward to bedtime.  Yes that's right, at 6:40 am I was already counting down the hours until bedtime.  I can't wait to settle into my soft mattress in the quiet house with all the kiddos asleep and either read a little or fall asleep to the tv - bad habit I know, but it happens quite a bit.

But to get to bedtime I have to survive the day.  That's probably not the right way to view the day: survival.  Right now my optimism and sunny disposition has gone on an extended vacation and I'm not sure when it's planning on returning.  So as a result I take it hour by hour and try to survive.  

I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I am doing the single parent thing at the moment.  As hard as it is for the hubby to travel and work his butt off in my opinion it is just as hard to be the only parent at home and never get a break.  Bedtime is my only break.  That's if it goes smoothly - which almost never happens.  I always hope kiddos are asleep by 8 pm, and the twins usually are but the older two refuse to give up until it's been dark for awhile which this time of year is way too late.  

Two nights ago, I thought they were all asleep when I got up to use the restroom and discovered the older two had locked themselves in the bathroom.  W was using the restroom and D had decided that 9:30 pm was a good time to "clean up" the bathroom to help me out.  I informed him that as nice as that was, the best way he could help me would be to get in bed and go to sleep so I could sleep!  That was a late one and he next morning was one of those where you walk around in a daze, lucky to have a bra on, hair a mess and unable to focus clearly for at least 30 minutes.  AKA: mombie.  

So I prioritize what is important on days like these and things get pushed to the side.  Kids get fed, twins get naps and diaper changes, and we survive.  

Only ten hours and counting until bedtime.  

Until next time!