The Best Medicine

I had lunch with a homeless man today. I'm not saying this out of self-righteousness. I didn't do it so I could brag about it in a blog post later. I did it to combat all the fear and anger and sadness and hopelessness that was going around today. I did it for me, for my own well-being, because I didn't want to succumb to all the negativity. I needed to add more kindness to the world.

So I walked up to a homeless guy I've seen around a lot, reached out my hand, introduced myself, and asked him if he'd like to have lunch with me. He was receptive and friendly and so incredibly kind. He warned me that he smelled bad! This dude who has nothing but what he can carry in his bookbag, this dude who sleeps on the front porches of vacant houses every night, this dude who clearly has more important things to worry about, was concerned about my comfort. He didn't want to bother me with his stench. Of course, I reassured him that it didn't bother me, and we decided on a place to eat. While I was filling up my drink, he got the ketchup and napkins for our table. We had a lovely conversation and a lovely meal and then we went our separate ways, but not before he thanked me about a bajillion times. 

But here's the thing, I felt grateful. I felt grateful for his company and for the opportunity to do something kind for someone else. I felt grateful for my own fortune, for my financial ability to pay for that lunch. I felt grateful for the nurturing, beautiful women who were watching my kids at that moment, allowing me 30 minutes to have lunch with a new friend. That gratitude renewed me. 

Gratitude is powerful. When my grandmother died this past August, gratitude is what got me through the grief. I asked my loved ones to help me. I gave them each a task. They helped me take care of the children. They helped clean my house. They helped me go grocery shopping. They helped me keep living while that fog of grief surrounded me, and I was grateful for them. Gratitude was the first positive emotion I felt after her death, and it gave me hope that I would eventually be able to feel happiness again. 

I did that intentionally, reached out to other people for help. Partly because I knew they would want to help, but partly because I already knew about the power of gratitude. I learned about it when I was a child, from my neighbor, Ann Marie. When we were new to the neighborhood, she welcomed us. She kissed us on both cheeks and made us family. She fed us and mothered us and looked after us. She became my mother's mentor and best friend. She gave out kindness always, even while she battled cancer. She gave out kindness and gratitude, and she didn't succumb to the hopelessness. When she went home to the Lord, she did it with hope in heart for a good future for her children. And I know she wouldn't be disappointed today to see her children, now grown, carrying on her legacy of kindness and gratitude. 

There are people I have been kind to who wonder why I'm doing it. There's a family with twin boys who were born a year after mine. I give them lots of hand-me-downs and unsolicited advice. They say, "You've been so amazing to us." But I'm not amazing. I'm just a wretched sinner like everybody else. Being kind to them is good for me. It heals me. It renews me. It keeps the hopelessness at bay. 

So many people are feeling powerless today. They're wondering what they can do. They're wondering if there's even anything worth doing. They're lost in the fog of hopelessness. Friends, don't succumb to it. Go out, find some good that needs doing, and get it done. Be kind to someone, and let someone be kind to you. Add more gratitude to the world. Add more hope. This is how we'll heal. 

Peaceful Parenting Victory Moment

Awoken by the sound of crying babies, I shuffled into the nursery and got my baby guys out of their cribs. As I passed Miss 3's room, I saw her playing with her trains on the floor.

"Put some panties on before you come downstairs," I called to her.

I made my way downstairs, closing the gate at the bottom, and got comfortable on the couch with the boys for our morning nursing session. We'd barely begun when Miss 3 got to the bottom of the stairs and started rattling the gate and asking me to come open it for her.

I glanced over and saw that she was still naked. "Go back up to your room and put some panties on. Then I will open the gate for you," I said groggily.

She did not like that answer. She started whining. I stood my ground and firmly restated my position. Miss 3 screamed, "No, just open the gate!" The boys were utterly distracted. Our nursing session was not going to happen until this issue was resolved.

I wanted to storm over there and backhand her. I wanted to yell, "Just do what you're told!" I did neither of those things. I sat quietly and gathered my thoughts, because if you don't have something nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all.

I thought, it's too early for this. I haven't had breakfast yet. I haven't had caffeine yet. 

All the while Miss 3 was screaming, "Mommy just talk to me!"

I thought, it's too early for her, too. She hasn't had breakfast yet. She hasn't hugged her mommy, yet.

So I got up, walked over to her, and hugged her. She calmed down pretty quickly. Then I said, "I have some panties right here in the diaper bag. You wanna put these on so you can play in the living room with your brothers?" She complied. Problem solved.

Positive parenting is not permissive parenting. I still enforced the rule. Positive parenting is choosing peace over violence. It is choosing connection over isolation. It is respecting the power of unconditional positive regard.

I do not always get it right. Frankly, I often get it wrong. But I need to remember the moments that I get it right so that next time I am in the midst of a toddler tantrum, I can look back and say to myself, "You did it right that time. You can do it right this time, too."

Comfort vs. Cry It Out

You can read a hundred articles on sleep training, but you shouldn't do that. It would drive you bonkers. There is no consensus. There are articles written by psychologists about the lasting harm of sleep training, and there are articles written by psychologists refuting them. There are organizations devoted to natural parenting and teaching soothing techniques, and there are pediatricians who offer step by step sleep training instructions. Just like most things with parenting, no one really knows what they're doing. 

In an ideal world, every baby would be rocked to sleep, and if that baby woke up in the middle of the night, he would be rocked back to sleep. Even if it took hours. Even if that baby needed to be held all night. That baby would et all the comfort he wanted. Futhermore, these tasks would not always be the mom's responsibility. Grandparents and aunts and uncles would be around to help. 

But we don't live in that world. We live miles away from our parents. And we have to get up in the morning for work. And our parents are still working. And our aunts and uncles are all working miles away from us. We live as little nuclear families who are utterly worn out from trying to get our babies to go to sleep. 

I'm not going to tell you what's best, because no one knows. I'm just going to tell you what works for my family. 

When the boys started sleeping in the crib, I nursed them to sleep one at a time. This worked most of the time, because I usually had another adult around who could watch Miss Two and the other baby while I was nursing. 

When helpful adults were around less frequently, I had to get creative. I would put one baby in a portacrib and put Miss Two in her room so I could nurse a baby to sleep. Ah but my smart readers, you can already see that this is not the optimal solution. Sure a toddler in her room can't climb on the kitchen counter and play with the knives, but she can still take her panties off and poop on the floor right in front of the door so that when you open said door, poop gets smeared everywhere. Plus whichever baby is in the portacrib waiting for his turn to nurse to sleep is also screaming bloody murder. This means that you are rushing to put the first baby to sleep. And you end up moving him to the crib before he is deeply asleep. And he wakes up crying. But you've already started nursing the second baby. And now no one is sleeping and there's poop on the floor. 

I did that nonsense for months. I really didn't want to give up the sweetness of nursing my babies to sleep. But now we have a better system. 

Now when it is naptime or bedtime, and my boys are rubbing their eyes, I put them both in the crib at the same time. I say, "Good night sweet babies!" or "Take a nice nap!" while I rub their backs for a moment. Then I leave the room and watch them on the camera for ten minutes. Usually they will fuss for a little while and then Little Guy will suck his thumb and go to sleep, and Big Guy will bury his face in his little monkey-blankie-toy-thing and go to sleep. 

I go back into the nursery if: 

• the fussing lasts longer than ten minutes
• the fussing becomes full on crying
• one of them gets a limb stuck between the bars of the crib

When I go back in, if they are both awake, I will tandem nurse them and then put them back in the crib and start over. If only one of them is awake, I might nurse him to sleep, or I might leave him in the crib and rub his back until he goes to sleep. 

You might be thinking to yourself, It makes sense to do this at nap times when you are home alone with the kids, but at bedtime, isn't your husband usually home? Can't he watch two kids while you nurse a baby to sleep? Yes. We did this for a long time. But it is not optimal. You still run the risk of having to listen to one baby cry downstairs while you are nursing his brother to sleep, which leads to the rushing of the first baby's nursing session, and the moving to the crib before he is deeply asleep, and the waking up and crying, etc. Before you know it, you've spent an hour and a half taking turns nursing one baby back to half-sleep while the other baby cries in the crib. 

Plus, consistency is good for kids. Nap times and bedtime should be similar. So I stopped all that nonsense. I put my kids in the crib at the same time. No preferential treatment. No hour and half long bedtimes. No neglecting the toddler in the middle of the day. 

When the boys wake up in the middle of the night, I still nurse them back to sleep. And I soak up all those sweet snuggles.

This is what works for us. It took 8 months for us to figure it out. I hope you and your family figure it out sooner, and I hope you all get some sleep. 

I Can See the Finish Line!

We are two thirds of the way through with the year of three under three! The twins are 8 months old, and my daughter is two-and-a-half. This is the sweet spot. Let me give you a snapshot of life in the McGuire house.

Abilities
The boys can sit up, crawl, and pull up to a standing position. Big Guy can easily transition back and forth between these positions, but Little Guy still needs some help. They love to sit outside in their wagon and just look around or follow me and Husband all over the house.

They also love to pull up on our ottoman. We have a storage ottoman that we use as a toy chest. The tops of the ottoman are cushions on one side and trays on the other (Kind of like this), so we put baby toys on the trays, and the boys enjoy standing there and playing. New abilities and new ways for them to be entertained means everyone is happier.

The only downside to their mobility is that I can no longer load/unload the dishwasher when they are awake. They climb all over that janx.

Miss Two is almost entirely potty trained now. She has accidents maybe twice a week. The most inconvenient ones are in the carseat. I need to get some piddle pads or something. But most of the time she tells us when she needs to use the potty. 

She's also started to dress herself. It's pretty cute. Basically everything is backward. But we should never do for kids what they believe they can do for themselves. So I usually let her dress herself, and I pretend that it is saving us time.

Nursing
We can tandem nurse again! We went through a very sad period of time (~4 to 7 months old) where the boys were too big for the breast friend nursing pillow, and too small to just sit next to me and nurse. I tried a regular boppy pillow, and sometimes they would tandem nurse on that. Usually though, I nursed one while the other cried. It was pitiful. 

But now! At the glorious 8 month mark! The boys can hold themselves up, and we happily tandem nurse on the couch or on the daybed in their nursery at night. It's lovely. I spend much less time nursing. 

Sleeping
Everyone's favorite baby topic. When oh when will they sleep through the night!?!? 

I keep my boys in their crib from 7pm to 6:30 or 7 am. Little Guy usually wakes up twice to nurse. Big Guy usually wakes up once. Some nights it's scattered, and I feel like I'm constantly putting a baby back to sleep. Other nights they wake up at the same time, and we have a pleasant 15 minute nursing session before they go back in the crib. 

I wish I was getting longer chunks of sleep, but I think my boys still need these night time feedings. They are not very good at eating solids, yet.

Solids
I'm not a fan of rice cereal and jar food. As much as possible, I wanted to do baby-led-solids. Essentially, I wanted to give them the same foods we were eating. Sometimes they do really well with this. They can eat green beans and watermelon like little pros. Usually, though, more food ends up on the floor than in their bellies. This is fine when I'm around, because I can just nurse them after meals. 

Husband likes jar food. It's messy and fun and adorable, and it's a sure-fire way to fill their bellies. The boys will take bottles, but they never seem to drink much from a bottle. So when Husband has the kids by himself, he spoon feeds them the mushy stuff. 

The Mom Life
All of the time I'm saving by tandem nursing is now spent cleaning floors and high-chairs. Gotta maintain a safe environment for the little crawlers. Fortunately they enjoy watching me vacuum, and Miss Two likes to swiffer the kitchen floor.

I do find time to exercise. Husband is supportive of this endeavor. He likes a happy wife. It helps that I usually make time to exercise when the kids are sleeping. Jogging during the Saturday morning nap and then coming home to waffles is exactly what I want every weekend to look like. I have another mom friend who goes to the gym in the morning before her husband goes to work. I like the idea of this, but her kids sleep through the night whereas mine do not. Alas. Maybe in 2016 that can be my routine. 

I also find time to write and read and spend time with my lady friends. I even started working part-time (usually only 6 hours per week) as an in-home counselor. All of this is possible because of my supportive husband. He thinks it's only fair, since I watch the kids while he works, and sometimes work sends him out of town. Plus I try not to schedule my things for times when he would rather be watching football. 

I also schedule time for myself and Husband to be alone together. This is essential. If I were out doing my own thing all the time and ignoring him, he would not be happy. So we have a date night just about every other week while my lovely sister watches the kids. 

Life is so beautiful right now. The chaos of the newborn age is a distant memory. There's more chaos in our future, though. I know it. When these boys start walking, my whole life will change. But maybe by then they'll also be sleeping? Pretty please? 

A Few of my Favorite Things

Getting out of the house with no other adult help is tricky if you have a small child. It's near impossible if you have more than one small child. But it's worth it! Think about it. While you are transporting the kids somewhere, no one is climbing on you! When you get to a place, the kids are looking around at all the new interesting things or playing with other kids, and you don't have to be their source of entertainment! Oh and sometimes there are other adults around to talk to. It's pretty great. 

You don't have to be stuck at home. Here are some of the things that helped me get out of the house with Miss Two and the Baby Guys. 

1. The Maxpedition Kodiak Gearslinger 

This is my diaper bag. It's expensive, and it might look like overkill, but this bag is the single best purchase I ever made. It won't slide off your shoulders when you're bending down to pick up kids or tie shoes, because it only has the one across-your-chest strap. In fact, it's made so that you don't even have to take the bag off to access all your stuff. You can sling the bag around to the front of your body to get a wipe for that snot bubble that's about to pop. And no more fishing around for keys! There's a convenient hook on the strap for that. 

This bag has more awesome features than I could possibly list. And I know it's going to last me a long time, because my husband bought one four years ago for wearing while he rides his motorcycle. He doesn't ride the motorcycle everyday, but he does use the bag everyday, and his still looks brand new. 

2. The Triple Wagon 

My daughter never was particularly fond of the stroller. She would sometimes tolerate it, but many trips to the park ended with me pushing an empty stroller while carrying a toddler. What she did love to ride in, and what it seems to me that all children want to ride in, was a red wagon that her grandparents had. She would sit in that wagon as long as they would let her, and she was happy to ride around the neighborhood in it. 

So when I found out I was pregnant with the twins, I knew a double or triple stroller was not for us. I asked for a triple wagon instead. (Thanks Babo and Dado!) The boys weren't able to use it until they could sit up on their own, of course, but now we use it just about every day. The kids pass toys around, Miss Two gives her brothers kisses, and they generally are entertained by each other and their surroundings while they are safely strapped in to the wagon. I can also fold the handle underneath the body and toss it into the bag of my van easy peasy. 

One last anecdote about the wagon: The boys are so happy to just sit in it, that we were able to do a spontaneous ice-cream trip as a family. Miss Two does not eat ice-cream quickly. We sat at a picnic table with the boys playing happily in the wagon next to us for an hour. My husband was in shock. 

3. A Picnic Blanket

Before the boys were mobile, the picnic blanket was my favorite baby item. The guys did tummy time in the shade while Miss Two played on the playground. It was peaceful and lovely and not at all something I thought about when I only had one kid. One baby can be picked up and carried around easily. When you have two babies, you need a home base for baby placement. Hence, picnic blanket. 

4. ARCpark 

This isn't a baby gear item. This is a huge, wonderful, entirely wheelchair accessible park. Wheelchair accessible means wagon accessible, my friends! I can follow Miss Two anywhere she wants to go, even to the top of the treehouse, pulling the boys along behind me in the wagon. ARCpark is my new happy place.

I know it will get trickier when all of my kids want to run in different directions. I'll probably spend a lot of time in the backyard until I figure out the logistics of taking three toddlers somewhere. Until then, I'm making the most of this phase of my life and getting out of the house with the kids as often as I can. 

3 Under 3 and an Appendectomy

We had good rhythm going. The twins were taking two naps a day, and we usually made it out of the house in between. Dinner was at 5, bath time at 6, twin bed time at 7, and toddler bedtime at 8. My mom was about to visit, and I was eager for her to see how well we were doing. 

And then I had to have emergency surgery. UGH! 

Life was chaos again. I was bedridden, and my mother was bringing the babies to me when they needed to nurse. No one was sleeping. We had to call in all the reinforcements. It was like the weeks after the twins were born except worse because I lacked the joy (and oxytocin) of having newborns. 

I'm still trying to look back on the mess and decipher what I was supposed to learn from it all, but here are a few things I can say:

1. Surgeons are bad at recovery estimates. 

We've all seen Grey's Anatomy. Surgeons think appendectomies are routine, run of the mill, surgeries that will keep you from doing your normal thing for at most 3 days. Maybe for a young, healthy person, that's true. For a nursing mother of twins who never sleeps more than 4 hours at a time, that's utter nonsense. When your body has to divide resources between healing you and producing milk, it's going to take more than 3 days to recover from abdominal surgery. When you get kicked in the stomach while you're nursing every couple of hours, it's going to take longer than 3 days to recover from abdominal surgery. 

Twelve days is how long it actually took. I thought I was better on day eight, so I went to the grocery store. That was a mistake. I was in agony after an hour of slowly browsing the store. So surgeons and other care providers, take note. Give better recovery estimates! My mom had to stay with me for two weeks. Not everyone has a mom that can do that. 

2. Build yourself a village.

I'm so grateful for all the help I received. People brought us food and held my babies and played with my toddler and sat by my bed and made me laugh. One generous friend even donated breastmilk, because I was having a supply issue. (I love you forever!) But no one would have known how to help me if I hadn't asked them for specific things. Don't be afraid to ask! People like to be helpful.

I also wouldn't have had anyone to ask if I hadn't already been building relationships with other moms. When I was a new mom, I was terrified of other moms. I thought everyone would judge me for being so young. (I was in college when I got pregnant with my first. Yes, she was planned.) I thought all the other moms would have lost all their baby weight already, and their hair would always be perfect. I isolated myself, and I was lonely. 

Now I am part of a mom group, and I can't recommend it enough. (Shout out to RAMOM!) No one has ever commented about my age or my weight or my hair. We all just support each other. It's beautiful. 

3. Keep a stash of breastmilk! 

Right before this appendectomy, one of the Ramoms was talking about her overflowing freezer. Another mom responded, "Keep it! You could get the flu, and it could wipe out your supply." Unfortunately, this little nugget of wisdom came too late for me. I had just donated a hundred ounces to another mom. I only had 8 ounces in the freezer when I went to the ER. 

I'm not saying never donate. I'm just saying don't donate ALL of it. Keep an emergency stash. Because exclusively breastfed babies don't tend to take to formula easily. 

4. Supply issues suck. 

I don't think I've ever been so stressed about anything in my life as I was about my useless, empty boobs. And it didn't happen right away. It was a week after the surgery. I thought I was in the clear, when bam! Measly little milk supply. It was infuriating and gut-wrenching and terrifying. You're trying to nurse, and your baby is just screaming because nothing is coming out. It's a nightmare. It's what every mother dreads. 

So please be sympathetic to moms who have to supplement with formula. Chances are, the events leading to that decision were torture for that mom. 

Now I will leave you with a funny anecdote. When I was in the midst of this wretched time, I called a good friend and whined to her about it. This is her making fun of me: "Does the sun shine? WILL I EVER BE HAPPY AGAIN?!"   

Can We All Stop Hating On Our Spouses, Please?

Moms, I'm talking to you. Every time we hang out, someone's gotta bring up something stupid their spouse did so we can all laugh. Inevitably someone else has a story that can top hers, and before you know it we've spent ten minutes talking about how useless our spouses are.

Look, I get it. Some of these anecdotes are genuinely funny. And we all need to vent to each other about our mom problems. That's why we hang out. But I need to say something about the spouse bashing phenomenon: If you are unhappy about the amount of time your spouse spends on childcare and chores, you are partly to blame.

First time moms, you ladies deserve some leeway here. You're new at this. You didn't know what to expect. You didn't know how much help you would need from your spouse and how often you would have to ask for it.

If you're on your second or third kid with this man, and he's still not the helpful spouse you want him to be, stop trashing him to your mom friends and go have a conversation with him about it. A real conversation, not a series of resentful remarks.

Here’s the thing, we ALL suck at parenting sometimes. We were all pretty clueless when we started on this journey. For example, I knew diddly squat about breastfeeding when I had my first kid. My attitude was that my mom would show me how to do it. I had an oversupply and leaked constantly for months without thinking anything of it. I could’ve been pumping/storing/donating that janx! What a dodo bird I was!

I remember, too, that my husband had his stupid moments. When our first kid was a couple months old, I asked him to do bath-time. His response was, “I don’t know how.” Seriously?  

OK so we’re both dumb sometimes. We’ve established that. Do you know what doesn’t help us become better? Spouse-bashing.

Here are two things you can do instead:

1. Manage your expectations.

Divvy up the chores and childcare tasks. Ask for set times to do your own thing. Recognize that these are goals to strive for rather than demands that must be met. If he came home and asked, “Where’s dinner?”, you’d be livid. What makes you think it’s fair to ask, “Why haven’t you done the dishes?”

There are going to be days when you have to do all of it because he’s working late or he’s happily playing video games all evening with his friends. But there are also going to be days when he has to do all of it because you are recovering from an appendectomy or you’re wedding dress shopping with your bestie.

The only way it works is if you’re being fair to each other. So be clear about what you want, but realize that it won’t always happen for you.

2. Reward the good.

Sometimes Thank You is more important than I Love You. It’s the best defense against resentment. It’s also one of the best ways to reinforce a behavior that you’d like to see more often.

When we were first married, we used to argue about the dishes all the time. I was becoming a nag, and I hated it!  But saith Shakespeare, “Your gentleness shall force more than your force move me to gentleness.” So I gave up nagging about the dishes and starting saying thank you instead. I thank him every time he does the dishes. Lo and behold! He does the dishes almost every day now!

As a SAHM, it’s super easy to resent your working spouse. He gets to herp-a-derp on the internet sometimes and use the bathroom alone and eat lunch without sharing with a toddler! Work is a glorious place!! And that resentment can become a boiling rage when your working spouse has to work late. But my sweet husband knows this. When he works late, he shakes off the stress at the door and comes in with nothing but gratitude for me. He says, “Thank you for not being mad at me for working late. Thank you for not blowing up my phone and constantly asking when I’m going to be home. You’re so good to me.” And it makes me want to be the wife he thinks I am.

I’m not trying to say that I’m better than you or that my marriage/spouse is better than yours. I’m trying to say that it’s your marriage, yo. You have some influence over it. If you’re not happy, work toward making it better.

My last piece of advice for today: If you want to tell a story that starts with, “I love my husband, but…” Don’t tell that story. Pick a different story. Because seriously, how hurt would you be if you found out he was telling stories like that about you to his friends?

Spouse-bashing sucks. Can we all please stop doing it?