Maneuvering Life and Motherhood with Twins Plus One
I’m small. I’m 4”9 and in 6th grade, I’m also 65 pounds, I’m small for my age. Its because I have fast or high metabolism. Having a high metabolism means your body burns energy from food at a faster rate than your peers. My mother keeps getting a letter for my school saying that I’m ”Underweight“. To be honest, its kind of annoying because its just the way that I’m built. They keep sending it to her. Its kinda hard at school to be short and small Continue reading “Small & Short”
I have taken for granted the ease and grace for which I handled the chaos, the first three years, of day-to-day life with twins. Not just life with twins in those first three years, but life with twin infants and a toddler. Keeping one child alive was one thing, but keeping a toddler alive and two infants was a whole new set of balls to juggle. My first two requirements were always met each morning: keep the kids alive and keep myself alive. Mom success and I was winning. The number one question my friends and new mom friends ask is, how did I do it. How did I get up everyday and maintain a positive attitude, not completely lose my shit, and still manage to raise three really incredible people? Continue reading “Put on Your Best Face”
Summer time is the busiest time of year for moving. While this is the slowest and most boring for school aged children, this is the busiest time for adults. Our family recently planned a cross country move with a van line due to my husband taking a new job. What was supposed to be a one year timeline turned into a one month sprint. In less than three weeks, we packed our entire house, shipped our cars, found a house, registered our kids for school and somehow managed to keep our sanity while moving cross country. Continue reading “Moving Cross Country”
A few years ago a new sports type facility opened up in our neighborhood here in Mesa, AZ. The place is called Krazy Air. What the heck is Krazy Air, I thought, as I drove by the facility. Well, low and behold, the business is the joy I had experienced as a child, a sea of trampolines to bounce around on. As temperatures heat up here in Phoenix, we all head indoors for summer fun, Krazy Air is offering some crazy fun this summer at their facility. We as a family have spent many a birthday parties and afternoons at the facility to wear out the kids and just have an all around awesome time. I mean, who wouldn’t want to jump on indoor trampolines? Continue reading “Summer Fun with Krazy Air”
This month one of my dearest friends had her very first child. I could not be more elated for her and her fiance. I could not be more ecstatic that she has been reaching out to me for advice as she maneuvers the road of motherhood. In all of our talks what I have found is how our society has created an environment where they prepare us to be a parent in every clinical and technical sense. These parenting classes sell all the beauty and excitement of the new mom smell. Yet all of these parenting classes, coaching, and boot camps fail to prepare parents, especially moms, for the emotional gauntlet that they run in their first hours, days, weeks (and beyond) of becoming a mother. Continue reading “The New Mom Smell”
If you would have asked me how life with twins would look nine and a half years ago I quite possibly would have broken down into a pool of tears. The feeling of reality pummeling me in the gut, wrenching my comfortable existence, instantly changing life with one child to three overnight. However, I found this little piece of the world called blogging as my outlet to share the adventure of life with twins by simply posting updates. The updates were a genesis to keep family far and wide up to date on the excitement and novelty of twins, but eventually our tales became so much more than just updates. Stories about how real life happens in the most simplistic to the depths of emotional turmoil that shape who we are and who our children are to become. So far, that is what life with twins – nine years later – has been for The Chad and I. Continue reading “Life With Twins – Nine Years Later”
Admittedly, I was that parent with the vehement opposition to installing Pokemon Go on my kids’ phone. I thought to myself, “Hell no! I do not want my kids roaming around like zombies staring at their phones. Bad enough we have adults glaring into their phones, now the kids!?” Until, like all my other thoughts and words, I ate those words. Caving to the kid pressures, I allowed my teenage son to download the app to play this game. The decision was probably the best thing for The Chad, I, and our son. You see when G started playing, the kid got outside more. He started walking, and walking quite a bit. He would text me asking me for the conversion of kilometers to miles. The first day G played Pokemon Go, he walked over a mile and a half through our neighborhood. I was sold that Pokemon Go was the exercise app of the year. Continue reading “Exercise App of the Year – Pokemon Go”
Events in our lives, such as the death of a loved one, can seem to bring about great reflection regarding life. We often reflect in a rear facing manner on the “could have,” “should have,” and “would have” in relation to the loss of our loved one but never about the can and will be of the future. The loss of my maternal grandfather resulted in one of many talks The Chad and I have had over the years about our upbringings, our great similarities and triumphant differences. What we found in our discussion regarding family is that love doesn’t flow up. With that idea we both vowed to intentionally raise our children a bit differently, giving them what we did not have in our lives, in our relationships, fulfilling our needs and those of our children. Many parents say they will raise their children different from their parents methods, however they fall short to parenting by default, parenting by what was learned. Continue reading “Love Doesn’t Flow Up”
Conversations with my various friends have been taking place recently regarding kids, their kids, my kids, etc. The consensus was that they either did not like their children at all or they did not like them when they became teenagers. Wondering a bit at what happens when kids become teens that they suddenly are so disliked by their parents, other than the raging hormonal confliction and new found understanding of the world. I also wondered a bit why some parents did not like their children at all, no matter what age. How can you not like your kids? Loving your kids versus liking your kids are truly different aspects, yet I see them as much the same. Continue reading “Loving versus Liking Your Kids”
A conversation the other night at dinner originated from speculation of what Santa would bring children, coupled with the science of his worldwide delivery of presents. As each of my three went about debating their theoretical hypotheses for gift giving and explaining what could be compared to quantum physics to be in two places at once for driving his sleigh, they each shared if they still believed. Evolving the conversation into belief in the jolly old fellow, I was surprised at who maintained faith. What was more entertaining was The Chad’s reaction to my inquiry. Later I pressed The Chad stating that eventually we should “have the talk,” his response was more of what I could expect from Tyler Durden in Fight club. We don’t talk about Santa…what the hell is this Santa Club? We don’t talk about Santa? Why not? Continue reading “Santa Club”