Just Sit For a Moment

I got a phone call from a friend recently.  She just had a baby but needed to go to a class with her kindergartner - where babies are not allowed.  Could I babysit?

Watch a two-week old baby?  Yes.  And yes.

I am not an "Awww!  Sweet widdow baby!  Can I hold your precious bundle please?" kind of person.  I do not have baby envy or need baby fixes.  I like your baby - but I love mine.  You take care of your babies and I'll take care of mine.

But a new tiny baby?  That's slightly different. I babysat for my friend, because that's what friends do.  And I sat for an hour, holding a fresh little slice of Heaven. It was wonderful.

When my babies were this little, I was still healing.  My body was beginning to come to grips with the fact that it needed to shunt resources from growing a baby to feeding a baby.  I was sleep-deprived.  I was fumbly-bumbly anxious to not drop anyone on their head.  I was a crazy mother, trying to take care of a newborn and my other children and my husband and the laundry and a million household messes that pile up those last few weeks of pregnancy.  I seriously think I can (and should) do all of that.

And I sometimes forget to just sit and snuggle the new baby.

So yes, I'll watch your new baby.  And I'll rearrange my schedule so that I can hold still and enjoy the freshness of your little bundle of joy.  Because I know that the laundry can wait and dinner can wait and the messes will wait.  They will still be there when the baby goes back home with her mama.

And my day will be a little bit brighter for holding still for a moment.

Selfie Day 3

I am not a seasoned enough selfie-taker that I can just turn on my phone and snap away.  No, the very thought makes me very, very self-conscious.  It is partly because I don't want to look like I'm taking a selfie (I must think there is something inherently wrong or vain or selfish about it... need to do some introspection there), and partly because I really do not like being in pictures.

But I wanted to show that I did, indeed go out and do something social.  With a group of people who were mostly strangers.  And at a girlie event, no less.  

Yes, I went to a baby shower.  Do not get me wrong - I am all for celebrating the coming of a new life into the world.  I am all for women uniting together in what makes us uniquely feminine.  I am all for cheering a new mother into this wonderful and frightening and joyous journey of family-making.  And I am all for this particular family.  The new baby's mother is a beautiful, gentle young woman, and her mother-in-law is the most kind person I have ever met.  Of course I would do what I could to support them.

But I do not know how frilly pink streamers and silly party games have anything to do with celebrating a new life.  To me, traditional shower games are somewhat of an insult to any shred of intelligence, and the requisite small talk is nothing short of painful.  When I had my first baby and was subjected to the traditional shower, I begged my mother to not force me to play party games.  Instead, we learned infant CPR and tied quilts.  Obviously, I survived being feted, and I adored my extended family for being so supportive and welcoming to me and my new little one.

I do not mind being with people, but it is just more challenging.  Please, do not stop inviting introverts to baby showers.  Just realize that it is more strenuous for me than it would be to an extrovert.  The exertion is part of the gift.  As an aside, I think I shall send my very naturally-gregarious husband and our equally charming and friendly daughter to the next shower in my stead. They would probably love it!

So here I am, standing in the hallway outside the party room.  You can see the dangly pink thingie in the doorway - an invitation to enter, I suppose.  If you look very closely, you might even be able to make out the pile of pinkly-wrapped gifts on the table just past some very kind woman-knees.  See, I can be social sometimes!  Next time, I'll bring some knitting.

Baby Monitor

I was doing some cleaning (and purging - yay!) today, when I found an old baby monitor.  Actually, I found two.  One was a little monitor we had purchased years ago, and the other was a hand-me-down from even more years ago.  Neither of them looked anywhere near as sleek as these models, but it was the same idea.  Little sender unit goes in the baby's room and the bigger receiver unit goes with the parental units.

A few months after our marriage, Jay and I went to visit his sister.  She was married and had two little ones already.  She threw a mattress down on the floor in her little girl's room for us to sleep on, and graciously got all the bedding we would need.  Just before we turned out the light, she popped her head back in.  Aware that we were still newlyweds, she cautiously mentioned that there was a baby monitor next to the little girl's bed, and that she and her husband would be able to hear... everything that went on through the night.

She left and Jay and I erupted into silent laughter.  We may or may not have made various comedic impersonations and sound effects to amuse them.  It all turned out fine, though - our niece slept through the whole night.

I never used a baby monitor much.  We usually lived in small enough homes that I could hear the baby when he started to holler.  Except for our first baby, or course.  I didn't know that I would hear him.  I didn't know much at all.  We lived in a tiny little two bedroom trailer, but I was terrified that the baby would cry and I wouldn't hear him.  I would wheel Alec's bassinet into the bathroom and park him in there while I tried to sneak in a shower during his nap.  I remember peeking around the shower curtain a few times, sure that he was whimpering while I washed my hair.  He wasn't.  He was fine.  And I slowly learned how to be a mother.

Interesting how finding a few old things bring back so many thoughts.  The funny thing was that I found both of the parent models, but neither of the baby sender parts.  Does that mean that I'm still trying to listen, but the kids aren't wanting to talk to me anymore?

Anyone Having Twins?

I'm decluttering.  Feels great!

For some reason, I've held on to boxes and boxes of twin baby boy clothing.  Maybe it's because I'm done having babies and the having the clothes are a security blanket or something.  Maybe it's because they are just too darn cute to get rid of.  Maybe I don't know what to do with them.  Maybe I'm really a <gasp> hoarder!

But... onward they go.  And I'm looking for someone who is expecting boy twins.  I have a bunch of good things to pass along:  clothes, baby backpacks, blankets, baby car seat covers, double strollers...  It's an awful lot of gear for such tiny creatures, isn't it?

You know anyone who is "out to here" expecting double trouble of the boy variety?

About Cloth Diapers

"Being a mother is not easy.  Let me say that again.  Being a mother.  Is. Not. Easy. But I get better at it as I go along.  Some of the things which troubled me as a young mother have become easier.  There are an awful lot of things I wish I'd known when I started.  I can't count the number of times I've kicked myself and shouted, "Why did it take me five (or six, or seven, or even eight) babies to figure this out?"  But I do wish I'd known then some of the things I know now.  Here is another post in a What I Wish I'd Known (or WIWIK) series. 

I graduated from college when I was 6 or 7 months pregnant.  My husband was still in school, though, so it was to a humble college apartment where we brought our first baby.  We were very stingy with our meager finances, and decided to cut costs by using cloth diapers instead of disposables.  My mom did cloth diapers, and I helped with the diapering and laundry of my youngest brothers, and it really didn't seem that hard.  Good enough for my mom - good enough for me.  I remember loading our laundry basket, the diaper pail, and our new baby into the back seat of our old '67 Mercury Cougar, and driving to the laundromat.  Good times.


This post should more correctly be categorized as "What I'm Glad I Did Figure Out," than "What I Wish I'd Known," but whatever.  I'm glad I started out with cloth diapers.  I've saved tons of money with eight babies, and it really isn't that challenging.  I didn't use the pretty all-in-one cloth diaper systems, nor did I splurge on the fashionable diaper covers (which weren't around when I started diapering).  I still would have saved money, but for me, the ultimate penny-pincher, I went all-out-el-cheapo.  

I got the standard old prefolded diapers from SuperBigMart, a bunch of ugly but practical plastic pants, a package of diaper pins, and a smell-containing diaper pail.  I didn't always rinse my diapers out in the toilet (I did shake out and flush loose solids, though), nor did I soak them in a soapy mixture in the diaper pail until wash day.  I didn't use special detergents or lotions.   I did occasionally bleach the diapers back to some semblance of whiteness, either in the sun on the laundry line, or sometimes even with liquid bleach.  I did buy more diapers every few babies when the old ones wore out and got tossed in the rag bag.  Overall, it was pretty plain and simple, and it has worked for nearly two decades.  Yes, I've been changing diapers that long.  <sigh>

Here's my cost breakdown, assuming 2 1/2 years old as the average time before potty-training.  (Prices shown are what I've just looked up.  I do remember them as being somewhat cheaper a few years ago, and a lot cheaper lots of years ago.)


$78
     60 dozen cheap prefold cloth diapers @ about $13/package of 10 diapers
$24
     8 pair of vinyl diaper covers in each of 4 sizes @ $3 each package of 4
$240
     two full loads of wash twice a week for 2 1/2 years according to Mr. Electricity
$57
     laundry detergent @ $.22/load for 260 loads
$5
     used diaper pail at a garage sale

$404 TOTAL for 2/12 years of cloth diapering for TWINS!

Of course, we do use disposable diapers for church or extended outings, and we have used them at night when the output was more than a single cloth diaper could handle.  We would need to increase the amount accordingly for disposable diapers, or increase the washing requirements for double-diapering at night, like I did with my other boys.

But compare this $404, if you will, to what it would have cost us to use disposable diapers exclusively!  According to Consumer Reports, covering a baby tushie with disposable diapers can cost about $2500.  Times that by two please, to show us that we would be in the poorhouse if we had to buy $5,000 worth of disposable diapers for our twins.  And just think of the savings for Mother Earth, too.

Glad I did cloth (and glad, glad, glad that we are potty training and getting close to the end of diapering!)

Sorry, the Dairy Is Closed

I love being a mother.  I love having confidence in my body that it can produce healthy babies.  I love holding  my little ones and kissing them and smelling them (most of the time) and watching them grow - even though they leave behind so many wonderful little memories that will never happen again.  I love having older children, and I am amazed and delighted to experience the next adventure with them.  But I do miss my little babies.

I was thinking this the other night while I nursed my sweet little twins.  They've grown out of their other nursings, but we've held on to the last nighttime mommy milk.  I've been noticing that their diapers are more dry in the morning than they used to be, and they don't nurse as long as they used to.  They aren't getting much milk anymore, and our nighttime cuddle session is little more than a soothing ritual to calm down before bed.  But I've had a hard time giving it up.  They love nursing.  I love nursing.  These are my last babies (I know, this is the third time I've thought I was done.  But I really do think I'm done.).  This is the last time I'll ever get to nourish my babies, my flesh and bone, with milk I produced just for them.  It's a sacred thing to me.  Why would I want to quit?  I don't want to, and that's the truth.

I was thinking these melancholy thoughts while I nursed them, and had the distinct impression that this was our last time.  Freddie fell asleep at the breast, and Trent took him to bed.  Instead of following him with Georgie, I stayed on the couch for a few extra moments, savoring my delicious baby.  I gave them both an extra kiss as I tucked them into bed.

The next night, Trent and I went out to a play.  When we got home, the older boys had put all the little ones down to bed.  It was slightly before the twins' normal bedtime, but they were already asleep.  Without their magical sleeping elixir.  Without their nighttime nursing.  Without me.  We're done.  I'm done.

I can throw away the nursing bra.  I can wear dresses again.  Someone else can put the children to bed without me.  I don't have to take the prenatal vitamins. I can stay out late if I want to.  I'm not a mother of babies anymore.  The only vestiges of babyhood left are the diapers (and we're working on that one) and the crib.

They don't even fit into the crib very well anymore.  They aren't babies anymore.

Freddie patted my breast today and said, "Mine," and signed "all done" with his hands.  Then he patted my other breast, said, "Georgie," and again signed "all done."  Yes, my dear, we are all done.  All done with that beautiful chapter of our lives together.  We'll never be close like that again, but we will stick together for all kinds of wonderful new journeys.  I love watching my children grow and develop.

And I cried myself to sleep that night.

Noisy Boys

Our twins have decided that they don't like diaper changes.  And they don't like me to fix dinner.  And they generally don't like us to do anything that involves ignoring them.  So they scream.  When one screams, they both scream.  It gets pretty loud.  It's getting bad enough that this is an increasingly common sight:

Those nice earmuffs actually live on a hook in the kitchen now.   Whew.

About Snaps That Don't

Being a mother is not easy.  Let me say that again.  Being a mother.  Is. Not. Easy. But I get better at it as I go along.  Some of the things which troubled me as a young mother have become easier.  There are an awful lot of things I wish I'd known when I started.  I can't count the number of times I've kicked myself and shouted, "Why did it take me five (or six, or seven, or even eight) babies to figure this out?"  But I do wish I'd known then some of the things I know now.  Here is another post in a What I Wish I'd Known (or WIWIK) series.

I hate it when I snap a baby into an outfit, only to have it come unsnapped as soon as they wiggle a bit.  Freddie is wearing the cutest little pajamas, so warm and snuggly soft - except that his entire right leg is poking out through the snaps that didn't stay snapped.

I wish I had known that loose snaps are fixable!  Here is the easy solution.  You convince the snaps to behave themselves with a hammer.  I am not kidding.  Do not try this method on your children.

image from Wikipedia, where I learned that snaps have been around in some form since at least 210 BC, and were first patented in 1885!

All snaps have two parts - the pokey-outie (head), and the pokie-innie (hole).  We want the pokey-outie part.  Place the snap, flat side down, head side up, onto a hard surface.  Give it a few gentle taps with the hammer.  That's it.  Easy.

When snaps don't stay snapped, it is because the head isn't big enough to fill up the hole.  Tapping it with a hammer spreads the top of the head back out, and makes it stick - and stay stuck.  Problem solved.

That's all.

About Screaming Babies

Being a mother is not easy.  Let me say that again.  Being a mother.  Is. Not. Easy. But I get better at it as I go along.  Some of the things which troubled me as a young mother have become easier.  There are an awful lot of things I wish I'd known when I started.  I can't count the number of times I've kicked myself and shouted, "Why did it take me five (or six, or seven, or even eight) babies to figure this out?"  But I do wish I'd known then some of the things I know now.  Here is another post in a What I Wish I'd Known (or WIWIK) series.

Freddie, Angel, and Georgie were playing on the stairs with some neighbor kids.  Angel has discovered the joy of sliding down the stairs.  When the bigger boys were little, their silly daddy would put them in cardboard boxes, or seat them on snow sleds before sending them, giggling and shrieking, bumping and sailing, down the stairs.  The middle boys like to take slick sleeping bags to slide down.  The older boys even now will augment this fun by squishing a twin mattress into the stairwell, and then sliding down.  What raucous, wild, boy fun!  And now Angel and the twins have joined in the club, pulling nicely-folded sheets out of our linen closet to slide down on.

There were four or five kids on the stairs, little preschoolers who don't take up much space and slide down the stairs slowly, cautiously.  Somehow in the peewee melee, Georgie got tipped over and stopped himself in a precarious head-down position.  By the volume of his screaming, he must have thought he was going to die.

I hurried down and scooped him up, but he continued to wail, loudly.  When we mothers hold a distraught child, we usually cradle them on one arm, over our shoulder.  The little one screams while we try to comfort.  It is very noisy.

I wish I'd known to protect my hearing.  Position the baby or tyke, over your shoulder, with his ear next to your ear.  It's even better if you can get your ear even with the back of his head, so his head is all the way behind yours.  The little one if facing backwards, you face forwards.  Hold the back of his head with your hand to prevent his head from arching back, if you need to.  This way, the screams go behind you, and not in your ear.

Children scream at about 110 decibels - about the same as a chainsaw!

I'm right-handed, and usually hold babies on my left arm so I can do things with my free right hand.  Consequently, I am a little bit deaf in my left ear.  I'd do it all over again if it was the only way I could have my wonderful rugrats, but I wish I'd known how to keep my ears a bit more safe.

That's all.

What's Been Going On

That's not a question.  I just wanted to show you a bit of what's been going on.  First, the small fry:

These are potatoes that they decided to bake in small loaf pans.  They had a great time playing "put" with them.  Put the potatoes in the pans, put them out.  Put them in the oven, put them out.  I thought their daddy was in the kitchen with them, so I was pretty surprised to walk in and see them sitting on the cold oven door like this.  Gotta be more careful with keeping the oven off-limits, I see.

And now the Angel:

She was sitting in a rounded lid to an electric griddle, spinning around and around while the babies baked their potato loaves.

And then I found this downstairs:

Isn't it nice when the brothers can foosball so nicely together?  But wait, check out the lower-left corner of the picture.  Yes, that is a boy handcuffed to the pool table.  I found out later that he had asked to be cuffed that way, as he was trying a Houdini-like stunt.  But it makes such a great picture!

And this is what has been going on at our house today.

About Folding Baby Clothes

Being a mother is not easy.  Let me say that again.  Being a mother.  Is. Not. Easy. But I get better at it as I go along.  Some of the things which troubled me as a young mother have become easier.  There are an awful lot of things I wish I'd known when I started.  I can't count the number of times I've kicked myself and shouted, "Why did it take me five (or six, or seven, or even eight) babies to figure this out?"  But I do wish I'd known then some of the things I know now.  Here is another post in a What I Wish I'd Known (or WIWIK) series.



We were going on vacation with three little children: ages 4, 2, and a newborn.  As I went to their dresser to pull out some clothes for the trip, I had a little day-dream of what would happen if we all died on our travels.  Someone else would come into our house and have to clean it out.  At that moment, I emptied out the drawers and re-folded every little item, carefully, meticulously.  On subsequent vacations, I obsessively made sure that at least the top items in every drawer were folded to department-store crispness.  Slightly crazy, I think I was, and had more time than I needed.

I wish I'd known that folding baby clothes is not necessary.


I don't fold them at all anymore.  I do sort the sweet little clothes, and put each item nicely in its own drawer: shirts, pajamas, pants, sets or jumpsuits, underthings, socks.  Then close the drawer.  Clothes that are fussy (dresses, Sunday outfits) get hung in the closet.

If I have a screaming baby, dripping wet on my arm, I don't want to have to carefully go through neatly-folded piles of outfits to find the one I'm looking for.  I'd just shove it all around anyway.  Soon, the little crawlers learn to dump out their own drawers, and then I don't have to grumble as I re-fold the clothes for the five billionth time.

 I don't fold clothes again until the little ones are almost three, or when they are starting to learn to fold their own clothes.  Then I fold as I teach, and we do the clothes together.

Go ahead and judge if you'd like, but I'm happier (and quicker) when I don't have to fold tiny clothes.

That's all.  :-)

About Meconium

Lovely title, isn't it?

I have eight children.  Being a mother is not easy.  Let me say that again.  Being a mother.  Is. Not. Easy. But I get better at it as I go along.  Some of the things which troubled me as a young mother have become easier.  There are an awful lot of things I wish I'd known when I started.  I can't count the number of times I've kicked myself and shouted, "Why did it take me five (or six, or seven, or even eight) babies to figure this out?"  Maybe I'm just a wee bit dense.  I'd like to think I'm getting smarter.  But I do wish I'd known then some of the things I know now.  So this is my first post in a What I Wish I'd Known (or WIWIK) series.  I'll add to them as I remember.

What I Wish I'd Known about meconium:

It is sticky and black and somewhat gross.  It's hard to un-goo off your sweet little baby's new, delicate derriere.  It's a real mess.  I've even known mothers who have scrubbed hard enough to give their brand-new babies rashes.

Don't do that.  Babies are supposed to have velvety soft bottoms.  (The upper cheeks are softer and more kissable, in my opinion, but I digress).

Instead, get olive oil.  Put a small, bottle of olive oil in your newborn's changing area.  After every diaper change (starting at the very beginning!), smooth a little bit of oil (it's clean and all-natural and cheap!) on the diapered cheeks.  This keeps them soft and velvety.  And when the meconium does come, it wipes off so easily.  Like a dream.

Now go enjoy spend more time on the sweet baby and less time scraping baby tar.

That's all.

Crawling Out

Was it just a few days ago that I had the audacity to say out loud that the babies didn't crawl out of the crib?  I guess they took that as a challenge.  Little Georgie was the first to figure out how to monkey down the sides and get out.  Freddie was left, alone, in the crib, howling for his best buddy to come back.  Or maybe he just wanted to get out, too.  Well, it didn't take Freddie long to learn how to get out, and now they are both free.  Free!  Free at last!  So we put them down for a nap, close the door, and walk down the hall.  Then the doorknob slowly turns and two babies exultantly explode from their confines.  They are so proud of themselves!

I am nervous about them hurting themselves (or each other) by falling or getting stuck while climbing, so I devised a solution to keep them more safe.  What do you think?

It kept them in there long enough to take a picture, anyway!

We took out the old cribs, sold them on Craig's List, and bought a new, convertible crib.  We have the side rail off so it is a toddler bed, and put a step stool there so they could get in and out easily (and safely).  There goes another piece of their babyhood.  <sigh>  Sometimes I hate that they grow up.

Nursing Times Two

image from cafepress.com

I nurse my twins.  Yes, it's fairly easy.  Not effortless, mind you, but easier than two bottles of formula many, many times every day - and night!  That's not the only reason.  I have loved nursing all of my babies.  Yes, they bite.  Yes, we've had thrush.  Yes, I'm somewhat exposed.  Yes, I've leaked all over the place.  Yes, it's a lot like juggling - while trying not to flash the everyone in the neighborhood.

BUT it's worth it.  I love holding my little ones close.  I love hearing their daddy tell them, "That's the good stuff!"  I am amazed that I can make the perfect food for them.  I love seeing their fat little tummies when they are full.  I love watching them pull off with a big, sloppy, milk-drunk grin.  I love always having food for them. I love how easy and convenient breast milk is.

And I love how the twins kick each other and jostle for position.  I love how they like to twirl hair while they nurse - their own, each other's, or mine.  Sometimes it drives me crazy, and I cut my hair once because baby Angel couldn't leave it alone.  Mostly, though, I like it.  I love how their little fingers grope in the air for something to stroke. I love catching and kissing their little fists.  I love the snuggling.  I love how baby Ben always wanted to put his fist over my heart, and how baby Chris wanted me to hold his hand, and how baby David insisted on running his arm up my sleeve.  I love how excited they are to get milk, fingering my shirt and signing "milk."  And I love how groggy and sleepy they get as they fill up.  I love to love them - and I love to see their love for me.  It makes for happy Mommy moments.

Yeah, I'll nurse the little guys.  I've got two spigots, after all.