Clair's (sorta) first day of school!

Today was Clair's first day in the 2s class!

It's so nice only having to convince one child to look at the camera!

I call it her sorta first day, because it was only an hour and a half long, and we were there with her the whole time. *Tomorrow* is the real first day, when she has to stay from 8 to 11:30 -- alone. And then Thursday, she has to stay the FULL day -- until 2:30 p.m., which means she even has to nap there. Yikes.

Poor baby girl. Next week, when the boys start school, her world will be rocked even more, because she will not only have to stay for the full day, but she will also be picked up by a new caregiver, because this is Michelle's last week with us. I'm too sad to talk about that right now - really, it's too much.

So let's focus on Clair's (sorta) first day!

First of all, for one small child, we sure had to bring a lot of stuff.

The class did a gradual entry today, so only nine of the 16 kids in the class were there this morning. Guess how many of the nine Clair played with? If you guessed "not a one," you are correct!

She stuck close to us, not even venturing off to explore all the exciting toys unless one of us was near.

Making breakfast for Daddy.

Mommy's big going-to-school girl!

 She enjoyed decorating her name-tag and putting stickers all over it.

She didn't cry at all, thank goodness, though there was some whininess. But for the most part, I would say she was generally unimpressed with the whole thing.

Unimpressed is better than freaked the funk out, so I'll take it.

Because tomorrow, my friends, is another day altogether.
Pray for us.

Clair is 2!

Our baby girl turned 2 on Sunday!

We celebrated by having a relaxing day, just the five of us. We went to church, came home, the kids had lunch and took a nap. And while they were all sleeping, I made cupcakes, decorated the living room with party-themed goodies and strung up some balloons.

When the kids came down from their nap, they were thrilled!

And we had our very own birthday party, complete with kids music, a few small presents and an activity: decorating the cupcakes with sprinkles -- as many as they wanted! (They took that part to heart, believe me.)

Clair mostly wanted to eat frosting and sprinkles. She enjoyed her presents for a few seconds, but then she wanted more sprinkles. Note to self: Never buy presents for 2-year-olds, no matter how small. All they want is sprinkles. And balloons.

Also at the "party," I gave the boys some pirate gear, which has proved to be a huge hit.

AAARRGH!

My little baby girl is 2, y'all. Two years ago I was still in the hospital, sore and crying because she wouldn't nurse, and soooo, sooo happy that my little Curve Ball had finally arrived.

She has turned into such a beautiful, spunky, hilarious, determined, loud and lovable little person. I am so glad God knew better than we did when we declared we were done having children.

Happy birthday, Clairzee! We LOVE you!!!

(P.S. I haven't forgotten about my promised post about girls' weekend. But I couldn't let my baby's birthday go by un-documented!)

2-year check-up!

Today the boys had their 2-year check-up. Here are the stats:

Cary

• Weight: 24 lbs., 8 oz.
• Height: 35 in.

That's 10th percentile for weight; 60th-65th for height.

Dean

• Weight: 28 lbs. 10 oz.
• Height: 36 in.

That's 50th percentile for weight; 75th for height.

Both boys are doing excellently in every area of their lives. Praise God!

They're good eaters, good sleepers, developmentally-appropriate physically and behaviorally and "well ahead of themselves," according to the pediatrician, in language development. They're off all bottles and ready for toilet-training. They're good big brothers to Clair and curious, verbal, hilarious, normal boys.

The doctor also praised us for being collected, patient and cooperative when it came to handling all three children during the visit, especially in a small exam room, with one child (Dean) not very happy about having to be there; another child (Cary) getting into everything, including fingering the doctor's scraggly, white beard, and one baby (Clair) crying for more milk and a paci.

It's wonderful when your pediatrician tells you how awesome your kids are. It takes it to a whole 'nother level when he tells you how awesome you are! SCORE!

We felt so good about ourselves, we decided to take the whole family out to a late breakfast/early lunch. So off to Bob Evans we went. I haven't been to Bob Evans in years, but we'll likely go back, as they were very kid-friendly, both in terms of price and accommodations.  We sat in a back area, near a pair of friendly older ladies who were chatting and eating. Just before we left, they stopped us to tell us how well-behaved Cary and Dean were, and how impressed they were by their manners and ability to sit and feed themselves quietly, and not behave like terrorists. (I'm paraphrasing.)
 "That speaks directly to your parenting," one said.

SCORE! SCORE!

Feeling really good about ourselves now, we headed on home to get them down for naps. Once in the door, we paid for all that complimenting. :-)
First Dean, then Cary started in with the serious, out-of-the-blue, no-good-reason-for-it melting down. Then Clair started wailing for her lunchtime bottle. Lester drew the long straw and got to feed Clair, while I dealt with the "well-behaved, well-parented" Cary and Dean. Tears were streaming down Dean's face for I'm not sure what. Cary didn't want his shoes off, then bawled because his shoes weren't off. Neither boy would climb the stairs to get to their bedroom, so I ended up having to hoist them both on either hip and carry them, hollering, up the stairs. (Please note the stats above to see that I was carrying more than 50 lbs. of tear-stained babies!) One wanted me to read a book; the other didn't. One wanted his blanket; the other didn't. By the time I got them both moderately calm enough to turn the lights out and leave, I was ready for a drink (and a nap)! (I got neither, btw.)

I write this down here not to complain about toddler tantrums, but to note that with children, it is rarely (if ever) all one thing or the other. They are marvelous and maddening, hilarious and hell-raisers. Just when you think, "Hey, I'm pretty good at this parenting thing!" they'll do something to make you think,"What am I doing wrong?" And vice-versa. If there's one more thing we've learned in the last two years, it's that it's helpful to keep this dichotomy in mind, particularly when they're being less-than-lovely.

Like rainstorms, the worst will be over eventually, and the sun will shine again.:-)

P.S. Clair is 3 months old today! She laughed out loud for the first time yesterday, and we're doing pretty well getting her to bed at 9 or 9:30 every night. So, just before I have to go back to work (Friday is my last day of maternity leave, waaaaaah!) things are inching, slowly, toward a sense of order. I'm not thrilled about having to leave my babies, but at the very least, there's that.

Bonus pic of Clair and her BFF Matthew, from my sister's visit to Baltimore yesterday:

Matthew is catching up!

Lessons learned in the last two years

The boys will be 2 years old tomorrow. I can't believe it. TWO years old. Time really is flying.

Last night, we had a regression moment, back to their baby days. Around 3 a.m., Cary woke up crying and whining. It turned out he had pooped and wanted it off, pronto, something that hasn't happened in eons. Lester got up to clean him up and Dean popped up, noticed that Cary was getting out of the crib, and cried, too. So it's 3 a.m., we have two babies crying, there's a poop that needs cleaning, and Lester and I had to work together to get it all taken care of -- boys tucked back in their beds -- and back to our own beds to catch a few winks before Clair woke up at 6.

We handled it smoothly, and without sniping. No cursing or exasperation. No panicking that a 3 a.m. wake-up call meant certain doom.

This got me to thinking about all the ways that Lester and I have grown as twins parents since the boys were born. And I thought I'd share some of the lessons learned, in the hopes that they might be of some help to parents who might read this later. I know two people having twins this summer, Angel and Elizabeth, and I especially hope to help them even a little if I can. But even new parents of singletons might find some of this useful.

In no particular order, here are my thoughts on the fears, anxieties and myths about having twins:

1. Fear #1: We will never, ever sleep again. One thing we've learned in the last two years is that almost any superlative you use to describe your new state as a parent of multiples will turn out not to be the case. The fact is, you will sleep again. Your babies will sleep through the night at some point. Will you sleep like you did when you were a college student? No. But you will get at least something that resembles a full night's sleep, especially if you sleep-train, but even if you don't, before your child is out of diapers. And that might seem like an eternity from now, but it goes by fast. It really does. Keep this in mind when you're delirious from lack of sleep, or irritated with your spouse, or convinced that you will surely die if you don't get some sleep tonight.

2. Myth # 1: At some point, our lives will get back to normal. Ummm, no. Not so much. Your lives will take on a new normal, but things will not be like they were pre-twins or pre-kids, even. Ever. Even once Baby A and Baby B are sleeping through the night, you will never be able to sleep like you once did -- like a rock, oblivious to the world, waking up in the morning when you darn well feel like it. This is a lesson that is best learned early. The sooner you accept the fact that you need to reimagine what you consider to be a "good night's sleep" (read: Get over it.) the much happier and less resentful you will be. And believe me, it is possible to feel some feelings of resentment toward tiny little creatures with big saucer eyes and nibbleicious toes. But more than likely, you will feel those resentful feelings toward your spouse, or "your life" in general. And those feelings are counter-productive. Accept the fact that your life has changed. Some things are much better (you have created life!) and some things, like a new sleep pattern, are neither better nor worse; they just are what they are. A wise woman told me once that with babies, the days are long, but the years are short. It seemed more like an inspirational quote than a truth, at the time, but I now know it is fact, as I stare down the barrel at two babies who will be turning 2 tomorrow, seemingly overnight. Get over ruminating about how things "used to be" before your world was turned upside down by babies. Get over it fast. And just enjoy things how they are. 'Cause it'll be over sooner than you know it.

3. Fear # 2: We will never leave the house again, or at least not without stress and tension. In the early days, the anxiety I felt around leaving the house was somewhat crippling. Taking TWO unpredictable infants out into the world, not knowing what I would do if one started crying or needed a diaper change or just wanted to be held, seemed impossible. So I mostly stayed in and felt jealousy when friends of single babies told me about all the fun Mommy-and-Me type things they were doing with their kid. Or even just the relative normalcy they were able to keep up: going to the grocery store, going to lunch with a friend, going anywhere that wasn't to visit a family member, at home, with helpful hands and beds around. But once I got over my anxiety, I was able to get out more and more. We both learned how to plan a little better and prepare for the outing. No, we couldn't just grab a baby, a diaper and wipes and roll out, like some of our friends. But we could get out. And as the boys got older and older, especially after they were confident walkers and consolidated their two naps into one, life got infinitely easier in the traveling department. Stressful screamfests in the car got eliminated when we turned the boys front-facing and popped a Sesame Street DVD in for them to watch on long drives. And it is heaven being able to transport the things that they need in one bookbag, instead of schlepping through town with a car full of equipment and supplies. Getting out with the boys now is actually a lot of fun (not perfect, of course) and relatively simple. But if you'd told me this when they were 4 months old, I'd have laughed at you. And then cried from the lack of sleep and the cabin fever.

4. Myth #2: Having twins is double the fun. There's a funny NPR bit where a man with twins tells a friend that "twins" is a cutesy, misleading euphemism for "two f#*$%! babies at the SAME TIME." Truer words were never spoken. Having twins is hard work. If anything, it is double the work. It does have many, many wonderfully fun moments. Don't get me wrong. But it is only double the fun for people who do not have to feed, change, rock, soothe, hold, medicate, clothe and schlep the two effing babies at the same time. It can bring double the anxiety, and double the stress, which means you and your spouse will have to be doubly good at communication. What also helped is that I was blessed to have a partner who readily took on his half of all the work. I had a baby; he had a baby. That's how it worked. He learned to do things just as well as I did, and some things even better. I look back on it now and see that we might never have worked better as a team than we did when we had two infants (AT THE SAME TIME!) Now, people will say to you, when you're out -- in the dumbest way possible -- "Double trouble!!" I disagree with that sentiment. My twins were a lot of things, but they were never, ever "trouble."
Note: Having twins IS double the love. That is absolutely true. Love times 2. And double the sweetness. Now that they're older, they're double the hilarity, too. And I am exponentially blessed.

5. Fear #3: We will never have any money! OK, these are pretty lean times in the Davis household. Vacations are a memory. New shoes for mama only exist in catalogs. But we are not dead broke, much to our surprise. We've been good at budgeting and accepting gifts and hand-me-downs (I LOVE hand-me-downs). We have become better at shopping Craigslist instead of Nordstrom. Freecycle is our friend. Our biggest expense is child care (and that's even more expensive because we chose to have a nanny for the boys, so we sacrifice for that), and we hope to have even that reduced significantly in four to five years (hopefully!) And although we are not able to live it up like the Trumps, we do have all the things that we need and some of the things that we want. I think that's doing pretty good.

6. Fear #4: I am going to lose my mind! The truth is, there will be times when you feel like you will most certainly lose it. But guess what? You won't. You will pull it together and make it happen for those kids, for your marriage, for your job and for yourself. You won't always be doing everything at 100-percent capacity but that is OK, normal, even for the best. You will learn over time to cut yourself and your spouse, friends and loved ones some A LOT of slack. You will most certainly feel more forgetful, so you will learn to be more organized. You will see how quickly the stress of taking care of two effing babies at the same time can eat away at the harmony in your house, so you will work harder to keep the harmony, by picking your battles, and learning to laugh when you want to cry. Humor helps SO much. Graciousness helps even more.

7. Myth # 3: You will have your hands full. If you could get a dollar for every time someone out there in the world says to you, "Boy, you sure have your hands full!" you would be 50 times richer than Oprah. Occasionally, they say it with a tone that implies, "Sucks to be you!" Or they'll just outright say, "Better you than me!" with a goofy grin. What we've learned is that our hands are full, but our hearts are fuller. Our lives are richer. Our love is stronger. We had twin babies, preemies. Two babies needing our love, time, money and attention. We have twin toddlers now who need the same, and so much more. And we not only survived, but we are thriving. Our family is bustling, beautiful, full of the evidence of God's love, and ours. We have another baby now, too, and we're learning still more from her.

 Our cup is so full, it runneth over. And we are happy.