Big Chip 2016

One Good Day (aka Day One)

{Mom and dad are running around like crazy, packing up ALL OF MY THINGS, and all I want to do is swing.}

{Arrival: ready for action.}

{Life jackets: also handy for kid control.  Who needs a leash?}

{You have fun in that 52-degree water, daddy.  Imma stay right here with my camera, a good book, and a baby.}

One Rainy Day (aka Day Two)

{Not needed.  Whomp-whomp.}

{So...coloring?  I was informed that the above was a portrait of Caden.  Given that it looks like a scribbled whirlwind/tornado, I'd say that its accuracy level is high.}

{Rainy day don't care.  Okay that didn't rhyme.  But this guy didn't care.  Wash-outs are better with cute babies.}

{Who take rainy-day naps on big-person beds.}

{Rainy days also = a visit to the winery.  My fave was the You Betcha Blush, doncha know.}

{First time bellying up to the bar.  We start 'em young up here.  What happens at the lake stays at the lake.}

{Well, until your mom puts it up on her blog.}

One Perfect Day (aka Day Three)

{Feeding fish.  Fun fact: they enjoy Ritz crackers almost as much as toddlers do.  Almost.}

{You're welcome, fishy, fishy, fishies.}

{All the heart eyes.}

{It's called a Lily Pad.  As the below photos will show, the kids absolutely hated it and no one had any fun at all.}

{Nope, no fun at all.}

{"I dwive?  I dwive it?"  Oh yes, he drove it all right.  "I dwive boat!  I dwive boat!"}

{Noon = margaritas.  I love lake time.}

{"My turn!  My turn!"}

{First time dipping his toes into Big Chip.  HE LOVED IT.}

{At the very least, he didn't hate it.  Unlike the Caden and Brooklyn of two years ago.  One more sign of his absolute mellow-ness.  Chalk it up to being baby #3.}

{Trying to figure out sand.  And the sunlight glinting off the water.  Mind = blown.}

Day of Departure

{"We're going to go back to our blue house!"  Caden: "No blue house.  Big Chip!"  Brooklyn:  "No bye-bye!  I Big Chip!"}

{Breakfast on the way out of town.  I remember stacking condiments during this yearly breakfast, too.  Glad to see that the tradition has carried on.  We can call this a family tradition, right?  An event that happens annually?  Sounds like a tradition to me.  No matter how weird it might be.  It's all part of the Big Chip experience.}

The Reset Hour

Mornings can be a blur.  Breakfasts eaten, teeth brushed, pajamas off, clothes on, snacks packed, diapers changed, and (most days) time spent out of the house at playdates or running errands.

Afternoons are usually the opposite.  They often seem to drag on and on and on.  Once we hit 5:00, I KNOW that Daddy will be downstairs soon, for the blessed routine of dinner-baths-bedtime, but those few post-nap hours can last FOREVER.  Is any hour longer than the 4 o’clock hour?  I don’t think so.

But naptime?  That’s my time.  I’m lucky enough right now that Nolan, currently on a three-nap-a-day routine, usually takes his second nap at the same time that Caden and Brooklyn go down for theirs.  Unless someone's schedule is really off, there is absolutely no one demanding anything of me during those moments.  But the clock has started ticking.

It starts with lunch.  I'm usually starving by the time everyone is finally down.  Breakfast is barely a memory and despite all my best intentions, I usually haven't had a chance to eat much of anything for several hours.  It's also the only meal I have each day all to myself. No jumping up to refill plates, sop up a spilled (er, thrown) glass of milk, negotiate over taking just "one more bite" of veggies or a protein instead of cheese or carbs, or listen to the endless chitter-chatter of a couple of two-year olds.  Plus there ain't a person in this world who doesn't need a break after putting three small children to sleep.  It's quiet.  It's simple - usually just leftovers from the night before, or a fried egg with toast and an  avocado.   It's pretty quick.  No more than 15-20 minutes, tops.  

Reset.

I move on to clean up.  Wash up the lunch dishes, pick up the toys that haven't made it to the appropriate bin or shelf (read: ALL OF THEM), wipe down counters, sweep floors, bake bread or start any other prep necessary for that night's meal, assess the state of laundry.  I need this general tidying up out of the way before I can move on to anything else.  Clutter and I do not get along very well.  In The Hunger Games, "beauty base zero" is described as a very natural state of beauty, looking "flawless but natural": hair washed and brushed but not styled, very minimal makeup.  This is what I do to our home during this time (okay, "flawless" might be a bit generous here).  Usually another 15-20 minutes goes by, as I adjust our home back to it's own beauty base zero.

Reset.

Next comes a bigger task.  Depending on the day it could be bathrooms, floors, or a scrub-down of the entire kitchen.  A shopping list for the next day.  Occasionally it's an errand or phone call that needs to be made.  Something that really needs to be done, but wouldn't get done unless I really force myself to.  Having set days to clean certain areas of the house helps.  So does listening to podcasts that are funny or mommy-focused (or even better: both!).  Sometimes these tasks take 15 minutes, more often it's 30 minutes to an hour.  Hopefully this gets completed before the kids wake up.

Reset.

On the best days, there is time left.  All three kids are still out.  If I haven't already poured myself a glass of water or, more often than not these days, a cup of coffee, I do that.  Maybe eat another bite (something with chocolate, hopefully).  I sit.  Read a book or a page in my devotional.  Catch up on this blog or photo-editing.  I should probably move this step up in the routine.  It's so hard when there are so many other things to be done.  It's hard to force myself to sit and rest and recharge myself BEFORE completing the things that "really" need to be done.  Sometimes, very occasionally, when the night was really rough, the morning too early, the toddlers too whiny, or everyone just too dang clingy, this might be all that gets done during naptime.  And, however long I get, this step never seems quite long enough.  

Reset, reset, reset.

Naptime, I will mourn your loss when you disappear.  Or when Nolan moves to a two-nap schedule, which will probably perfectly sandwich Caden and Brooklyn's lone nap of the day (joy!).  Right now, I love my reset hour.  Resetting the house to a mostly-livable state is such a nice way to start the post-nap afternoon.   Resetting myself with food and (hopefully) a break helps the afternoon seem to not drag on quite so long.  Having time where it's quiet is such a welcome break to have in the middle of the day.

Here's hoping you get your own chance to reset today, mamas.

Post (Fourth of July) Weekend

Sandbox time:

Driving in the car time:

Dinner date time:

(I mean, sorta.  It counts as a date when you're only out with 1/3rd of your kids, right?  It sure feels like it.)

Playground time:

Patriotic time:

The best we can could do for a family picture with three squirmy children time:

Papa and Nana time:

Dinner time:

And, most important of all, first batch of fresh homemade ice cream time:

(Seriously, go buy this one.  Best thing ever.  You will not regret it.  Until your waistband starts expanding from eating homemade ice cream every day.  Even then it's probably totally worth it...)

On Potty Training Success...and Failure

The thing with parenting twins is, we're often juggling different strategies at the same time to deal with each child.  Okay, so I realize that any parent with more than one kid has to deal with this, but somehow it's different when your children are at the exact same stage in life, and yet polar opposites in some situation or another, so you basically need ALL THE ADVICE RIGHT NOW.  As similar as twins can be, they can also be completely, totally, ridiculously different from one another.  Almost like they are each their own individual little people or something.  Huh.

From talking to parents of one child, or even children who are several years apart, it seems like it can be easy to think that your child represents all kids at a particular age.  Your baby sleeps through the night?  All babies must sleep through the night, what is everyone complaining about?    Your child was talking at 10 months?  You assume all kids are talking by 10 months.  Your toddler only eats the purple box of mac & cheese?  Why do they even bother making the other kinds, just stock the shelves with purple boxes, please.  While you might know that this isn't exactly true (hello, that's why there were 4723 parenting advice books/columns/posts written last month alone), it's also hard to imagine it being any other way when you only have your own singular experience to go on.

While it can often be like that with twins, too, (Caden and Brooklyn are very similar), sometimes the reality of parenting  two individual, different little people can smack you straight upside the head.

Take...potty training.

As I wrote after our "potty-training bootcamp" weekend, Caden caught on like a champ.  No struggles, no look back.  You might have thought he'd been doing it for months, instead of mere hours.  He's still doing amazingly well.  Underwear all day (including for nap), pull-up all night (I don't want to interrupt our recent success with sleep by doing nighttime training just yet), has gone on several different "big potties" when we are out in public like it's no big deal, etc.  Sure he's had accidents, and doesn't usually want to stop playtime just to go sit on the potty, but nothing out of the ordinary.  He's...potty trained.  (Fist bump.)

Brooklyn never made it there.  That's okay.  Our potty training bootcamp was kind of an experiment, to see if all the signs of potty training readiness they were each showing were actually accurate.  Tuesday morning after our potty training weekend found myself in the bathroom with Brooklyn, pleading with her to stay on the potty just a little bit longer so she would actually go.  Nolan was in my arms, wailing, because he wanted to be fed.  Tyson was back at work.  And Caden was wandering around the house taking full advantage of the chaos and getting into God-knows-what.  That's the moment that I took a look around and decided to quit.  We were all miserable.  (Well, except for Caden.  I'm sure he enjoyed his relative freedom while I was stuck in the bathroom with Brooklyn.)  Potty training had turned into a battle of wills between myself and this little two-year old girl (who apparently has the world's strongest bladder), and I was certainly not going to win.  I knew this wasn't sustainable while I was on my own, with three kids, and Tyson back at work.  So...we'll try again in a few months.  And maybe again a few months after that.  ("Me potty," Brooklyn keeps saying, "No yet."  Alright then.)

My point is, twins can really show you the full spectrum of it all when it comes to parenting.  I can relate to both extremes, at the same time, at least in the potty-training world.  I celebrate with you, happy moms, whose kids sat on the potty from the start with no issue, accepted their M&Ms and impossibly small new underwear as their reward, and never looked back.  And I commiserate with you, frustrated mamas, who just can't believe the absolutely epic stubbornness all wrapped up in one little toddler.  We've read the books, done the stuff, tried the tricks.  It didn't work.  I get it.  We WILL win in the end.  I raise my glass of wine to all you mamas, both in celebration and in defeat.  Come to think of it, maybe I need a glass of wine in each hand...

Caden and Brooklyn's personalities can be so.  dang.  similar.  In fact, this is the first "milestone" that they haven't really hit "together".  Rolling over, walking, talking...they did all of these things within days of each other.  This is a very different type of milestone, though.  And the older they get, the more we see their differences, their individuality.  What makes Caden, Caden is his rule-following, doesn't-think-twice, perseverance.  While Brooklyn has a more healthy sense of fear, combined with a generally sunny disposition, friendly attitude, and a bit of a stubborn streak.

So, at least I had three in diapers for just four months.  Now we're back to two.  Though I'm not quite sure if that's a step forward, since I now haul size 1 diapers, size 4 diapers, AND an extra set of shorts and underwear all around in the diaper bag.  Is this an improvement?  Maybe not...