It takes a village!

We had such a wonderful time at Todd and Julie's this past weekend! I think I could have stayed forever. It was great to hang out and raise kids ... ha ha

Leads me to the thinking that raising kids in the "village" environment really is best for all involved. I felt the same when Karen and Andy and their clan was here. It was much more fun for me to have everyone around... different adults approaching kids in different ways... gives the kids different perspectives and learning experiences and mixes it up a bit for the parents! I wish we all lived close and could get together all the time... I mean even when we live in the same area we do our own things and the "village" isn't as tight as I wish it could be... I'm talking all the way back to the days when families all lived in the same little area... the kids all ran around together and the parents all watched out for all of them.. not living across town from one another and not living in different states for sure!

Anyway.. not the way our lives are, but just thought I would share my ponderings. I love the chaos of having everyone around! :) Sharing responsibilities and what not.

Here is a link to Todd's pics: (which are quite a bit better than mine!) http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmsweet/tags/madisonmounts/

I miss them already!!! :( It's so quiet around here today w/o Cooper running around and chatting up a storm!!! Tom! Phoebe! Baby! Ball! Outside! Some of his favorites from this weekend! :) Never once said my name w/o prompting, but loved to say Tom! ha ha And then the new learned word from my new favorite children's book Skippy John Jones: AAAACHOOOO PICHU! :)

Love ya kiddo.. can't wait to meet your baby sister!

Babywearing

So this pic isn't great, but it's the best I can do on my own...



I discovered this great group called NINO - Nine Months in Nine Months Out. It's centered around babywearing and I am so lucky to be able to go to a meeting once a month and to meet other like minded women.. get help w/ using different types of baby carriers and borrow from the library (which is where the pretty little purple number J is in came from in the pic above)...

this is the latest carry they have helped me w/... it's so fun to be able to wear them both. I just walked to the bank and got a coffee. I got a lot of "oh so cute"s and a couple of "your a freak" stares, but it was fun... I always thought.. well if I had just ONE baby I could just wear it around.. well now I can. Granted this won't last long as they get bigger, but hey.. hands free baby wearing for right now.

one of the women from NINO is going to sell me two mei tei (sp?) type carriers that she makes. I'm SO excited. :) Her site: www.madisonbabywearing.com

Karen, I tried the ergo.. I liked it for back carry, but wasn't crazy about it for front carry.. I like the mei tei much better. :)

New name, fresh look

Okay... I was sick of "authentic living" and liked Karen's pdxmounts so I followed her lead and gave us a regionally appropriate update... along w/ a fresh new look! :) The address is still the same.. I'm glad I was able to change the name w/o changing the address!! Hope you enjoy!

So the sleep thing... ugh! We're still in the "hard" part. The days are going okay, but the nights.. damn. I'm so disoriented (ah sleep deprivation) at night when I am woken that I can't remember times.. we put J back in his crib last night to cry when he woke up only a couple hours after nursing.. (he wants to suckle to fall back to sleep) and he finally calmed down, but then I don't know/can't remember how long it's been since he ate and whether or not he starts crying b/c he wakes up hungry or just b/c he wakes up... so confusing. Poor baby, I feel like he spent a good part of the night crying.. I guess we're going to have to work through this to get him used to the idea of not waking up w/ a boob in his face... probably harder on mommy than it is on J.

They are starting to talk to one another

Yesterday L and J started to talk to each other!!! :) It's so cute. And J loves to grab at L's head. :) They will look at each other and smile and babble a bit. I'm so excited!



And here is a cute pic of L that I couldn't resist posting... try to keep it even w/ L and J, but this is just too cute. She's having a 'bite' of monkey's banana.

unsuccessful???

So I received my Clemson Alumni magazine yesterday and was reading through it last night.. 1. Clemson is now ranked #30 in schools.. that something ( I can't remember what the exact criteria was for the ranking )... okay.. good thing it was a school for "dummies" back in my day! I'm pretty positive I couldn't get in now.. and 2. what the hell was I doing back then? What the hell am I doing now.

As I read through and saw all the cool developments going on there - academically, not in regard to the number of keggers (which is where I spent a lot of my time) - and read about what the kids (did I just call them kids?) are doing and accomplishing I felt that all too familiar feeling of dread and emptiness. What have I done in the last 30 years? Where is my life headed? What do I WANT to be doing? What do I want to have done w/ my life when it's all said and done? Why have I wasted so much time? I feel like I've done everything in life kind of half assed... why? I guess half-assed isn't the way of putting it, but I've been passionless about most of it. What was my motivation in it all?? What kept me going on certain paths and what caused me to say ENOUGH.. this is not it!

There was a bit about two students from my major that were getting some award for developing a metallic ink that will print on corrogated board and my first response was to laugh. (No offense guys.. good work!) I lauged b/c I thought Who gives a rip, then I thought, wow, there are people out there that really get jazzed about that stuff. I'm not one of them.. yet I dedicated 4 years of my life to learning about that crap. (Again boys, crap to me.. not to you.. one man's trash is another man's treasure! ha) How could I get through something like that if I cared so little about it. Thinking back there were things I enjoyed about it I guess. Working w/ my hands and having a product or something to show for it at the end of the day. Working in the lab late at night w/ my friends and w/ someone in the same boat. I, for some reason, enjoy some amount of "pain".. not physical.. I guess more of a challenge and being the one that has it the "worst".. why I have NO idea. We worked our butts off in that major, but it wasn't always just late nights looking at some dumb text book and notes. It was doing WORK. Work that produced something.. a project. I wish I could figure out what all of this means in regards to finding meaningful work for myself some day. Work that I can get excited about instead of work I do to pay the bills.

For those that have known me for a number of years you know this is not a new struggle for me... since the start of the pregnancy my brain kind of shut off these worries... well, here they are back again. YIPPEE!

I'm happy and satisfied w/ being a mother for the time being, but I know that as the kids get older and start to have their own things leaving me to sit idle these thoughts will overwhelm me again. I guess in the meantime all I can do is keep my ears, eyes and heart open to new people and ideas and hope that along the way I stumble upon my "thing". And maybe one day I will look back on this post and these feelings and smile at myself as I do when I look back at all the pain, worry and heartache over being able to have children. :) All that struggle and now here I am.. w/ TWO beautiful wee ones......

Thank you!!

Saw this quote today:

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss

Wanted to say THANK YOU to all my friends out there that allow me to be myself.. to say what I feel.. to be comfortable enough to know that you are my friends and love me for who I am and allow me the freedom to be that person w/o fear of judgement and ridicule!

I love you guys!!!

There were no babies in my butt!

Okay.. so I've noticed of late that my butt is um... flatter then before. Mom says it just "fell" .. what the hell .. I'm only 30!!!! Okay almost 31... why would my butt change post pregnancy??? There were no babies in there... boobs being saggy, I get that... belly jiggling a bit, i get that... BUT my butt being flatter/lower.. I DO NOT get that. Now I thought that I would enjoy having a flatter butt as it popped out and FELT huge pre-preg... hmm.. not lovin' it! Oh well. Guess I'll have to start doing lots of lunges along w/ the many crunches my abs are in desparate need of!

This walking the dog every day seems to be helping on the weight loss front ... again. I'm down a few more lbs.. of course who knows if a few lbs are just water loss over the EXTREMELY dry night... damn furnace!

Slowly but surely the body comes back... certainly not it's former self, but getting better anyway. It will never be the SAME, but that's okay.. I like change. hee hee And not being the same doesn't mean it's worse... it's just different.. shaped different overall... see butt comments above.. my hips are different as well... not bad.. just different. (don't want to freak the current preggos out!... and you know I will be honest about what's going on.. I mean I really don't love the look of my belly right now.. but hey!! THERE WERE TWO BABIES IN THERE 5 SHORT MONTHS AGO!)

Happy 5 months babies!

I think they grew...



and 4 months for reference:


Notice how J is sitting up better.. a result of his chiropractic care... gotta run. L needs a nap!

A bit better

It went a bit better last night.. it didn't take so long for them to fall asleep. L slept in the co sleeper until midnight.. then went back in until 4am. J came into the bed around midnight as well and woke up at 2am for whatever reason.. he went into his crib at that point.. cried for about 20 mins then fell asleep until 5am. We were baby free for much of the night last night. I still enjoy waking up in the a.m. to 2 sweet dreaming faces... well I guess it's usually one crying one and one dreaming one. :) But all is well after the crying one is fed. This a.m. L slept in till 7:45 am - she had been waking at 6:30am. I went to wake J after changing L's diaper and he wouldn't budge.. I didn't try REAL hard.

L was back down for a nap an hour after waking and J just went down 45mins after waking... so we are making some progress I think. And so far they don't seem to hate me for letting them cry! ha ha Now that they are older and I know they don't feel abandoned and I know they aren't hungry I feel much more confident in the sleep "training" (hate that word).. how about sleep TEACHING. I know they are just fussy b/c they want to spend time w/ me and not sleep.

The one thing I'm unsure of is the swaddling thing. They are still swaddled and when I've tried to put them down unswaddled they flail about and can't seem to settle down enough to sleep - I think it's the developmental stage they are in... they are learning to grab things and put them in their mouths and they just can't stop doing it to go to sleep. The problem is that if the pacifier falls out of their mouth they can't get their hands in their mouth (though L is so pissed she won't even try) and they can't grab at anything for comfort... same ordeal when they wake up. I'll keep trying the unswaddle off and on until it works I guess, or I suppose they will let me know when they are done w/ it by not being able to calm down when they are swaddled.

I'm just LOVING this stage. I love to watch them play w/ their pacifiers, or whatever, trying to grab them then trying to get them in their mouth. It's so cute. After a while J will get so frustrated! He also gets frustrated w/the keys/beads on the exersaucer. I think he's trying to pull them off to put them in his mouth, but they only slide back and forth.

L is trying SO hard to scoot on the floor... they'll be moving in no time. I've slowly started to child proof the place!

The new drill - the babies and the willis

So it's time.. the babies are old enough and I need to do the hard work of parenting. We have decided to fight the sleep battle. It's what the babies need and it seems we are starting to be controlled instead of us taking the helm and setting the ground work. So thank you Meghan for your great advice.. we started last night.

I put J down after nursing... he was asleep around 6:30pm. While Idid that L fell asleep in Tom's arms. We put her down. As usual they woke up w/i the hour.. I think around 6:45pm. We started the "program" (haha) ... we let them cry, but went up to put the pacifier back in for them every so often (around 2 to 5min) and to soothe them if they were really over the top. After they settled down to just some whimpering we left them be to figure it out. J in the crib and L in the co-sleeper in our room. They cried on and off for about 2 hours or so, but were still awake in their perspective sleeping locations. L just laying loooking around and J babbling away. We went to bed around 9:30pm and left both babies to figure it out. L woke around midnight for her first feeding, J around 2 am, then L around 4am and J around 6:30am. It's now 7:30am, L is up for the day and as soon as I'm done here I'll wake J. Today I'll do the same for naps, but will only allow the crying to last an hour and we'll do it all again tonight. It was nice to get a little sleep by myself. I even put L back in the co-sleeper after her midnight feeding.. she was there till 4am.

It was really hard to hear them cry, but I know now that this is best for them.

Phoebe has a new drill too!! Poor willis is getting so stir crazy lately.. she really needs more exercise. So thank you Mom and Cesar Milan - Dog Whisperer. While mom was here she was reading through his book and on his suggestion bought Phoebe a lovely doggie back pack....





It works like a charm!!! It was tough getting it on her the first couple of times, but this a.m. was much easier.. she's starting to get that she gets to go for a walk when this thing comes out. The new drill is that I feed the babies and get up and take Phoebe for a walk before Tom leaves for work. :) This helps her to be more relaxed during the day and gets her (and I) some much needed exercise... and me some alone time as well.

This a.m. during our walk we walked RIGHT BY this big black dog that is chained in his front yard. In the past I would avoid the street entirely.. then when we first started "whispering" (training) her I would walk by the dog on the other side of the street to correct her when she got worked up. Today I walked right in front of the dog. He jumped up and barked at Phoebe as we walked by and she only needed ONE - O.N.E. - small correction as we went by.

So that's the new drill at the Mount household. Please wish me luck that this sleep thing works. It's going to be tough on me... Meghan said it took her's two weeks to get it.. Julie and Todd.. I hope my kids get it in a week so we aren't going through this at your place. I know we are running the risk of having to start all over when we get back from Tday then again at Xmas, but I've got to stop w/the excuses as to why I need to wait.. these kids NEED TO SLEEP!

totscicles!

So.. we got our bill for our two little totscicle.. when I first opened it I thought.. gosh, we should decide now what we want to do about this... we could save some money not paying for the storage of these things if we are D-O-N-E... but I'm just not ready to say I'm done... Tom seems to be, but is willing to humor me and allow me to keep these little babies on ice. I know I won't be ready any time soon.. like not for the next couple of years... but I MAY want to do this again.. see what it's like to have one baby at a time. :)

It's only Nov. 10th

Well, Yesterday it was in the mid 60s... TODAY it is in the mid 30s and SNOWING!! Ah the midwest! Hopefully this isn't starting the trend for it to snow every time Tom is out of town!



Julie and Todd are sad to miss this while are in Seattle I'm sure!!! ha

Congratulations to Jennie and Brian on their baby BOY!!!!

A good quote!

Just wanted to share this quote that I saw today...

The purpose of life is not to be happy. The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

-Arthur H. Prince

My name is Laura....

... and I'm an internet-aholic. SERIOUSLY I need to move this computer into the office and only allow myself to be on it when the kids are napping. I find myself pushing them to play on their own while I check email, check up on friend's blogs, search the web and post here.. (they are napping right now.. just for the record!).

this thing is making me a bad parent... I need a 12 step program!!! AHHH!

He's trying so hard.

Jason is working so hard at picking things up and getting them to his mouth. Last nigth we were sitting at the table and J's pacifier was on the table. He actually picked it up and got it in his mouth FACING THE RIGHT DIRECTION on one try! Ah So proud of my little man. It's so cute to watch him concentrating so hard and slapping his hand on the table trying to grab stuff... get it and put it in his mouth. Oh the things we think are so cute when they are done by OUR kids. I'm sure the novelty will wear off when he is grabbing at EVERYTHING! ha

Here's a pic of his handy work.



L is working hard at it in her exersaucer, but hasn't figured out she can grab stuff off the table.

Every now and then I offer them little bits of food.. like a small piece of mashed banana or avocado on my finger... so far, not interested. I'm planning to wait until they are showing interest... here's hoping it's not till we get back from Seattle in December.

Car Seats...

Thank you all who chimed into my 'which car seats' emails! I went and looked at them and have done some research.. I was dragging my feet on it until I saw this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azgBhZfcqaQ&NR

We got our car seats for free from my SIL (thanks K and A) ... they don't have the latch belts so we use the seat belts and now I'm all freaked out ... so I ordered to convertable car seats.. which I will replace when the kids reach 40 lbs.. then I will buy a booster seat that still uses the latch system.. neither Cosco or Britax offered this. Britax got to 65lbs w/ the Latch system, but I would still have to replace them w/ another booster so I went w/ the Eddie Bauer Alpha Omega Elite and got TWO for the price of one Britax from this website: http://www.specialtybaby.com/eddiebauer.html (Thank you Allyson for the link) Free shipping and no tax!! YIPPEE!!!

Please please please secure your children w/ the latch system. Learn from this woman's loss.. do not let her son's death be in vain..

love and hugs to all you!

A running buddy!!!

Looks like I found myself a running buddy! YIPPEE!!!! We may run tonight, but we are definitely running on Wed. She ran a marathon about 6 years ago and is now trying to get back into running more often. She has two boys.. one 4 and one 2.5 (I think that's right) She's commited to running the Crazy Legs 5k in May (I think it's in may) and I told her about the Mad City half.. she said she might be able to be talked into it! I'm so excited! We're going to try this evening running thing to see if it works for our scheduled... at least the weather is going to cooperate this week! It's going to be in the high 60s.. woo hoo!

I'm still on the hook for the Jingle Bell run on Dec. 9th... even though I haven't been running at all. I promised Kelly that I would do it even if I have to suffer through! ha

Seeing all the coverage of the NYC marathon has got me jonesin' for a long run!! Jennie, what year was it that we were there when you ran?? I can't remember.. 2002? I'd love to do that race sometime too... what are the odds that we would both get in for the same year? Guess you aren't thinking too much about running your next marathon huh? :)

Okay... gotta run.. mom's still here.. J is napping and mom is working on getting L to nap. Just finished some sushi from Trader Joes.. God I love my neighborhood!

Am I really that sensitive

So I woke up to this comment today regarding my post titled "Holy Crap":
Anonymous said...
Geez, that is so rude to compare yourself to a now pregnant lady. Get over it and for once, stop thinking about yourself.


So now I can't stop thinking about it.. am I really so sensitive as to let a comment by an unidentified person get to me so much? Somewhere deep down inside I must really think that I need to get over myself or I wouldn't be letting this comment bother me so... part of me feels that this person should keep their comments to theirself if they have nothing nice to say... and part of me feels like maybe I needed to hear it?? I just don't know. I mean this person is entitled to their opinion... to send their negative words into my home, my heart and my head.. right? I thought about not publishing it to the site then decided what the hell.. Maybe others feel this way???

Julie.. and other preggos out there.. I'm sorry if I offended you by showing my belly 'compared' to Julie's. Seeing Julie's belly caused me to look mine up and I was floored by what I saw and thought I would share my amazement... now that I had something to 'compare' my 26 week belly to.

Anyway.. not making excuses b/c I don't really think I did anything wrong, but wanted all to know I meant no harm. I know each pregnancy is different and each has it's own struggles... :)

So now I'm left wondering.. am I self centered?? I must think I am to a degree or, like I said, I wouldn't give two craps what ANONYMOUS had to say about me. I suppose I'll get over it. :) HEE HEE

Much love and hugs to my preggo friends .... non-preggos too!

HOLY CRAP!!!

So my friend Julie is pregnant... her pregnancies have gone like this.. first part: Sick as a dog, lose weight, middle part: getting the nausea under control.. last part: gain some weight. She sent an email saying she popped and felt HUGE... and commented saying "am I having twins?" ha I decided to go through my pics and find my 26 weeks shot to assure her she is not... WOW! Then I started thinking.. how could I get any bigger so I looked up one of my last shots! OH MY GOD i was huge! I look at that and it looks painful. It wasn't great, but wasn't as bad as it looks. I can't believe I was that big. Here are some pics for your amusement. :) Not trying to make Julie feel like she's got it easy.. just can't believe how big I was. :)

36 weeks:


26 weeks:


Julie at 26 weeks:

All snot all the time!

L, J and I have been fighting a cold since Monday. I think I got the brunt of it and I think it's finally starting to clear up. Poor L and J are congested... I'm not sure if that's why they are being so difficult or if they are just tired. They didn't sleep as well as they usually do (naps) while the girls were here.. had some people to see and hang out w/ and they are not ones to miss out on a good time!

Then there was the cold.. then Tom left. This morning they were finally back on a nice morning nap schedule and seemed to sleep well. L even nursed really well today - we've been struggling w/ that a bit lately. J took a 2.5 hour nap this afternoon (a rarity) so I thought things were going well. L didn't nap this afternoon, but that's not unusual for her. We went to Sam's after nursing / changing when J woke up from his long nap. I figured L would nap while I wore her around the store. They were great on the way there.. J cried a bit, but not too bad. In the store they were fantastic.. looking around and getting lots of compliments on their cuteness and questions "are they twins?" L fell asleep after the sample of apple pie (5 mins before we checked out so about 15 min before we had to get in the car)... she went quietly on her own. I had to wake her up - or drive home w/ her in the sling and risk getting arrested!!! She SCREAMED bloody murder the ENTIRE way home. J chimed in here and there just for kicks! We got home and nursed and thought they would take another little nap. Well, we were WRONG! We got home around 5:30pm and spent the next 3 hours w/ them back and forth asleep then up crying. They are doing this really neat thing now where they want their mommy! They won't calm down for Gma...they just look at me and scream as I am working w/ the other baby.. so we go back and forth. Gma tries to calm one.. I get the one I have calm/sleeping then take the other while hoping and praying that the first stays down. Poor Gma has spent much of her trip w/ a baby screaming in her face/ear! :) We appreciate you gma!

It's so amazing how we go out and about and the babies are happy and looking around (for the most part) everyone comments on how adorable they are.. I'm all proud of myself and them.. we get home and BAM! They are devil children! ha I guess they are entertained / distracted by everything when they are out and about that they forget they are so tired they can hardly stand themselves.

So right now J is asleep in my bed after having caved and given him the boob.. and L is asleep in the co-sleeper w/ a cloth diaper on.. I put her in cloth at 6pm thinking she might snooze for 30mins or so then nurse then change dipe.. then bed, but no.. three hours later... she's finally asleep and I'll be damned if I'm waking her to change her diaper. Two things mom has to remember w/ her foggy head cold in the middle of the night.. change baby girl's diaper and give baby boy his medicine!We'll see what happens!

All I really want to do right now is go finish off an entire pumpkin pie (stress), but I won't.. I had a piece (okay and an extra not so little sliver) and will save the rest for the stress case I'm sure I'll have at some point tomorrow! Did I mention that I haven't run in weeks and it was 20 degrees here (w/ the wind chill.. w/o it was a balmy 27)..... how many years till the kids might go ONE WHOLE day w/o crying???

Calgon take my children away.. I mean take me away! ha So if I continue nursing after the 1 year mark do I get to go on vacation sans kids then, or do I have to wait until they are completely weaned?? Do I let that be a factor in what I decide around that issue??? ha ha I'm SO tired right now.. maybe I should have just gone to be w/ J at 7:30pm.. stop laughing.. I do that!