More pictures than you can shake a stick at

I've been lax in posting lately for several reasons.  First, as I mentioned in my previous blog entry, we are not exactly leaving the house much these days.  While I'm sure you are all waiting with baited breath to hear when the twins napped (or didn't) today, I like to cultivate a bit of mystery about my life, so I remain silent instead.  And second, my brain is clearly functioning on "low" these days -- even introspective topics or simple life observations seem farther away than Lindsay Lohan's sobriety.  (Hey, I can still read "People.")  Maybe it's the sleep deprivation, maybe it's the fact that I hear "Mommy, I want..." spoken so often that I'm no longer capable of doing anything else but fetching apple juice and searching for missing Matchbox cars.  But I always appreciate inspiration, so please do let me know if there is anything you want to hear about!  I know I've asked you this before, but here I am, feeling stale yet again. (And I don't mean because I haven't showered in a couple of days. But yes, since you asked, I am feeling stale in that way as well.  Fortunately I am well stocked with Shampowder.)  I have a few posts started that I haven't finished: my chaos-level theory of family size and why we should have one more kid, the joys of babywearing and how to justify another carrier to your spouse so that you both kinda believe it, the personalities of my kiddos and how they combine to make the Superhuman, my Julie-and-Julia cupcake quest that has no chance of being made into a chick flick starring Anne Hathaway as myself...  Anything sound good? Something else? Just shut up and post pictures? Sure.

We went to a kids' cooking class hosted by our MOMS Club, and Bean enjoyed creating (and munching) his own pizza.  At least someone in the house will be able to make dinner.





That Bean, such a hot head.  (groan...)



Found in one of my parents' moving boxes was an alphabet floor puzzle Bean's uncles got him for Christmas last year. He and Bumpa teamed up to knock it out.






It doesn't matter who it is, but the twins strive to make sure at least one of them is unhappy at any given time.



My hobby these days is buying, selling, and trading gorgeous woven baby wraps.  And as a bonus, they actually serve a purpose other than just being stalked online and then petted.




We figured it was time for Bean to start playing video games, because he wasn't watching quite enough television to fully rot his brain.



Gax is my little veggie man.  Here he summons great enthusiasm for DH's pureed carrots.




Bean has had a surge in enthusiasm for play-dough because we let him use the toddler scissors to cut it.  You can also see his beloved Black Car "watching him" on the left, resting on a jar opener pad so he won't roll away.  Grandma thought of this bit of brilliance when wandering Black Car caused many a tear to be shed.  (We are simple folk, no?)



The twins have graduated from the uncomfortable reclining baby bath to sitting in suds in the sink.  It's a family affair.  (But what isn't these days?)

I love taking pictures of Gax because it is the only time I get to see him being still.





Nix is such a smiley guy, even when I put him in dorky pants. Bless his little heart.




When I set the twins down before this picture was taken, they were both on the activity mat.  Not two minutes later, Gax had migrated.  I won't say he is crawling exactly, but he can drag himself around on the slippery floor.  Watch out world, here comes the Gaxinator.  You've been warned.



"I want to wreak havoc on your house."



"And I'm going to giggle about it."



We were supposed to go on a fire station tour with MOMS Club this morning.  (Or as Bean said, "We are going to the fire place to see a FIRE.")  However, Mother Nature had other plans, as she shut down the entire city with a snow storm and we couldn't leave home.  Fortunately, Bean wasn't too disappointed.

The good thing about not having a schedule is the time change doesn't throw us off

The twins just turned 7 months old, and yes, we are still barely on this side of chaos.  Where to begin the update... shall we tackle sleep issues first?

Sadly, I have no miraculous news to report about the twins sleeping through the night.  And really I don't expect that they NEVER wake up for a nibble, but something like 1-2 times a night would be appreciated, and not too much to ask in my opinion.  Every now and then they will tease us and renew our hope that we will eventually get decent rest -- immediately after I lamented to our preschool class that the boys wake every 3 hours on the dot, Nix slept 14 hours that night and only woke to eat ONCE, and Gax didn't do so bad either.  Of course it was then back to status quo, but at least we know the possibility exists.  In the meantime, I just pretend that I don't look like I forgot to take off my zombie Halloween costume.  Trick or treat?

Under the free-for-all that is nap time, I feel there is a schedule struggling to emerge.  Nix seems pretty content sleeping until about 7 or 8 am, taking two decent naps during the day, and going to bed around 6:30 pm.  This works for me.  Gax, on the other hand, prefers to keep things interesting.  He wakes up closer to 6 am, but he's not really ready to face the day yet (who is, really?), so we have this little challenge where he's tired and crabby but 8 am is super early for a nap... I do end up putting him down for an early nap anyway, because I am the poor little dude is exhausted, and it ends up throwing off our entire day.  Gax obviously needs to sleep in a bit longer for all our sakes, and I'm hoping as he gets more mature, that the super early nap will start blending into his wake-up time, and I may actually have two kids that are sort of on similar schedules.  HA HA HA!  Sorry, that made me laugh too.

My parents moved into their house a couple of weeks ago, and we are all adjusting.  They still spend a lot of time over here helping me out with the boys, but I try to hold down the fort as much as I can alone so they can tackle a three-car garage overflowing with boxes.  DH is usually successful getting home by 7 pm so he can help put Bean to bed, although he does work one day over the weekend as well.  When I'm by myself, it is practically impossible to leave the house with all three boys, and because of the aforementioned napping pandemonium, it's nearly impossible to leave the house with all three boys even with another adult.  Do you want to wake a sleeping munchkin and drag him all over town?  The result is that I'm feeling almost as cooped up now as I did on bedrest.  It is getting old -- very old -- to sit around in sweats all day watching Fireman Sam and trying to ensure that no more than one child is crying at any given moment.  My gracious DH still tells me I'm beautiful when I'm not wearing make-up and my hair is smooshed from bedhead because I didn't get to shower in the morning.  It's really tragic how I've eroded his standards when it comes to beauty.  On the other hand, I'm grateful that the same trick worked for cooking meals.

All three of the boys adore their mama, which is a huge compliment and makes me feel so lucky.  It also makes me incredibly exhausted, because there are multiple times a day when each of them will cry if he is not attached to me in some way.  Nix is a born snuggler; and Bean is probably the biggest snuggler of the bunch, but these days it seems much of his neediness comes from competition for attention and not so much a desire for a hug at that particular moment.  Then there's Gax, who doesn't so much want to be held as to be suspended in mid-air so he can practice his audition for Cirque du Soleil.  I swear that kid has more personality in his pudgy little baby finger than I have in my entire body.

Even though I still feel like a mess, I would have to say that the general trend of things is that life is getting easier as the kids get older.  However, I do struggle with feelings of incompetence because I know it's getting easier because they are outgrowing certain problems, and not because I am getting better at parenting twins. When I get more sleep and the fog clears, I know I will let go of that ridiculousness.  I mean, isn't that what parenting is about?  Surviving each challenging stage and praying for it to pass, knowing the next one is right around the corner? But at the moment, in the muddled mind of this mama of three under three, it bums me out sometimes.  That kick-butt Supermom of Multiples that formed in my head during pregnancy has yet to arrive on the scene, and frankly, I don't think she'll ever show.

But to end on a happy note, the twins have started to really take notice of each other and their big brother, and it makes me even more excited for the years ahead with my little men.  When Bean acts silly and all three of them laugh, I can practically feel my heart sprouting wings and fluttering around in my chest.  When they make each other cry -- well, that's kinda funny too because it's usually the result of the twins affection for grabbing handfuls of each other's faces.

I do love them more than I can possibly express, and although it's overwhelming at times to so completely give myself over to raising three small children, I don't want to miss one single precious smile.  Unless it's one of those "I'm pooping" smiles.  Really, I'm totally over changing diapers.