How you do it Part II

With the help of this sweet-hearted little girl!

Lookalikes

I think its so fun - albeit sometimes difficult - to find out who your children looklike.

People will disect your childs face (and body!) and say its your great-grandmothers nose! Or your great-uncle's hands! Sometimes its so hard to see it, and the eternally adulterous mailman is blamed!

I think with my Henry its quite clear who he resembles...what do you think??

Nice haircut, Sam!

It's so clear, isn't it??

This last one is just for me.

Don't I look cute here? My mom made this outfit.

Are you convinced??

Abgestillt!

Ich habe abgestillt! - translation: I weaned!!!

Sorry, I had to write it in German because it's all I've been talking about lately and since I speak so often in Germany, I thought I would share it here too!

Sidenote: Can you believe I had a dream in German the other night?? And I only remembered it later because I talked to the person I was talking to in my dream, and then looked back on the dream and thought, "Hmmm, I can't believe I didn't think it was weird that I was dreaming in German!". How strange I am...

So, I am officially done being a cow - as my thinksheissodamnfunny husband puts it. In the height of it all I was pumping over 1.5 liters a day. It was extremely difficult though. Pumping 7-8 times a day while caring for twins - alone. In the end, I'm glad I fought through it, but now that it's over I truly can't see where I had the time!! I'm only a week and a half out and already it's overwhelming the time I have - of course only to be spent cleaning, doing laundry, changing poopier diapers and holding crying babies! :)

You would think in this nature-loving Germany that they would recommend you breastfeed your child until 2 or so. But not so! Here, they actually only recommend BFing until 4 months, and then starting with brei (rice or oat cereal). I thought that was a bit early. I had a student who worked for WHO (World Health Organization) and I found her to be quite informed on alot of childrens health subjects, and she told me WHO recommended to BF until 2 years old.

Interesting that German Doctors don't recommend the same - or even just a bit longer than 4 months. I remember when Emma was 15 months and we were in a playgroup and she came to me and wanted to drink, the other mother's eyes about popped out and the Group Leader asked me pointedly how old she was. I felt very judged, but didn't give one s&%t - I sat Emma down and cuddled the hell out of her while she drank. Emma was early with EVERYTHING. Speaking, walking, jumping off tall buildings - and never once sick during the time she was breastfed! I was fine with every minute of it - kinda miss is, actually :(

I breastfed Emma until 18 months and was disappointed it wouldn't work so well with the twins. I definitely know some twin mothers who it works wonderfully until they're well over the age of 1. But for me, for my sanity, and for my body who in the end was fighting a losing battle between sleep/health/milk production...the time is over.

It's the same as any person with their child: I did the best for my kid(s) with what I had, and with what my limitations were (are!). So, now it begins another chapter: learning about formula!! So far, I'm pretty clumsy at it. We're still working out the kinks, but it's going fine.

And even better, I can eat SUSHI again, and fresh unpasturized cheese - which are definitely a great part about Europe! And I can drinkdrinkdrinkdrink red wine and martinis and anything else I want again. Oh Lordy, now if we could only get a babysitter for these 3 kids o' mine!!

Mini-Playgroups

One of the best things about being home with the babies, is actually knowing so many other women with babies themselves. Either from my own (small!) circle of friends, or through the Krabbelgruppe (play groups) I'm apart of!

Even if we're only going to someone's house with one other baby; with my two we are instantly our own playgroup! haha, that's one advantage of twins, I suppose.

Perhaps you remember my friend I wrote about previously here. I'm so happy to report that she has a new addition to her family: Jonas Hendrik was born about 1.5 months ago, and has been loved incessantly everyday thusfar! My friend Sandra was instrumental in getting me through the first few weeks with Henry & Romy, even when she was 8 months pregnant, she was STILL willing to grab a crying baby and hold him (it was ALWAYS "him") as long as it took to calm him down.

We live right down the street from each other, so we see each other often. Like yesterday when I dropped by for a few hours and we cooked, drank coffee & ate cake, and watched our babes have fun together. These experiences are so wonderful, and almost as good for me as for the babies!

So here are our makeshift trio, enjoying some fun times together:

That's Mr. Jonas in the middle!

Here's my kid stealing her kid's pacifier!!

Bad Romy!!

It's great to have good friends, and even better that my kids can start their friendships so early. I know firsthand how important it is to have good, healthy, and longlasting friends. I'm lucky enough to have a few of those, and I hope all my children will be able to say the same thing someday!

Guerilla Knitting

Have you heard this term before?

Perhaps you have some in your city, too?

Here is the wikipedia entry about what it is and a few pictures.

It's basically where people put their knitting around or on objects around the city (statues, poles, trees, etc.). Even outside Museum entrances...and we have alot of Museums here!

I think it's best when it's on a statue! These proper iron and marble works of art of men like Napolean, Goethe, and Proust with a little bonnet on their head! If possible, it actually completes the statue! :)

These are trees along the path leading to the river.

It's actually quite beautiful to see them!

It's all over Frankfurt, and I think alot of other European major cities. How about you?? Have you seen this in your area? I'd love to see some pics! I'll keep taking pics of other objects and update this in case anyone's interested!

8 21 14 20

What are these numbers, you ask?

Aside from being our winning lottery numbers that I will be playing tomorrow...

THESE are the numbers of the date & time that we got ALL 3 KIDS TO SLEEP WITHOUT A PARENT BEING IN THE ROOM for the first time since we had had 3 kids!!!

8/21 at 14 (2pm): 20.

I will remember and consider myself blessed for this date and time as long as I live!!

I have not been in a room with ONLY Christian during DAYLIGHT HOURS since the twins were born. Unbelievable? Nope. Not when you have no one else around.

I did the math, and taking away their sleeping hours, I'm with the babies (awake!) 14 hours a day.

I'm pooped. :(

And I miss my husband. :(

And I'm out.

Recycling Old into New

I already wrote about this type of project here.

Reusing and Recycling what you already have is a great way to spruce up your house (or closet!) and also great for Mama Earth; and those are two things I like alot!

This tie-dyed sheet was made for me by the fabulous Miss Kary for a 70's party I had at my house. I loved the colors so much that when it came time for me to pack up and move to Europe I just KNEW I would keep it and find a new use for it.

That time has come! After a weekend long sick binge by Emma, where she managed to get sick on almost every piece of clothing, bedding, and piece of furniture within a 2 foot radius of her, I realized I need more than one duvet & pillow cover for her bed. Duh, Mom! What happens when you wash it and there's nothing for the comforter??!! Silly me.

So I looked through my fabric (because again, why buy something, when you can make it and ESPECIALLY using fabric that you already have!), and I found a piece that was extremely colorful. I needed a neutral backing, which I didn't have in my stash, so began looking to buy some other fabrics. Low and behold I needed something from the basement, so went down to get it and came across Kary's sheet. It was perfect! It had almost every color of the fabric I had, plus was totally funky! Just my style...

So, here are a few pics of the final result! I think it came out really nice. Very colorful & homemade for my baby!

Check out the flip side!

And in the end when all the kids have grown out of these duvets - you can easily use them again for another project because it's just one interrupted piece of fabric when you break them apart!

So, voila - another way to recycle into fabulousness.

Vielen Dank, nochmals Kary!!

How I do it Part I

I use props.

And done.

What a poser

For some reason, Romy always ends up in the strangest, albeit, posed positions in her pictures! There is something really classical about her looks. Her light blue eyes, her red, pouty lips...and yet that's where all the femininity in this little girl ends.

She is a LOUDMOUTH! **No comments from the peanut gallery about her mother!! :)

She is seriously s0 loud in the morning just squaking and talking that she wakes almost everyone up! But it's always this happy, joyful kind of loudness that is really funny to hear from little babies!

Anyways, here's my poser! Doing what she does best.

"You're stealing my best light, Henry!"

"No one wants to see your Women's Soccer onesie, Henry!"

Editors Note: Cute outfit on Romy provided by Auntie Lala! Mwaaahh!

What do you do all day?

I get asked this question almost daily. If not from friends and family, from total strangers on the street. Part of me finds it amusing because the answer should be quite simple to them.

But I think to some with only one baby they wonder how you can handle (survive!) with two; so they ask. And my answer?

DUH! I take care of babies!

And what do babies need??? Attention, food, clean diapers, and sleep. Not necessarily in that order. The only difference is that I do it twice as much. And try to do one (i.e., getting a baby to sleep, or feeding one) while entertaining, or quieting, or running away from the other one.

Oh, and I pump milk, clean the house, do the laundry for FIVE PEOPLE, and cook. If I do say so myself, I'm pretty amazing! :)

I read something recently which caught my eye while reading about sleeping & twins (because it's a CHALLENGE to get two babies in either ALMOST the same time, or totally OPPOSITE times to sleep!). It read, "He never gives you more than you can handle, I just didn't know I was this strong". Truer words were never spoken (written!) before. I take every day/hour/minute as it comes and know that when it's the worst and I'm just imagining how horrible my life is....the calm comes with the next minute and I think, "Ok, I can do this". My life is a tornado right now, but I just have to believe that I can do it...I AM doing it, and it will get better.

Of course Emma adds triple work. The kid has energy to spare. I love it when people tell me, "take her to the playground to tire her out". Um, HILARIOUS. Anyone who says that doesn't know my kid. They should say, "Take her on the Ironman and then maybe she'll go to sleep ON TIME".

But she is so *AMAZING* with the babies I can't really say one bad thing about her. Maybe that she loves them TOO MUCH, but hell...I'd rather have it that way than the opposite. She helps as much as she can and actually does very well being quiet when we are putting the babies down at 7pm to sleep. I'm so proud of her as MY baby, and a big sister to Henry & Romy.

The truth is that I (and Christian because he is a BIG help when he's here!) am exhausted when I wake up. Sometimes the day ahead of me is so daunting I would rather just be somewhere else.

But I can't. I'm here. This is my life. So I try to look at the positives - like a year to be at home with them, and minimize the negatives - did you know twins means 2???

And somehow, someway, in the immortal words of Donna Summer: WE WILL SURVIVE.