Why I won’t give up sugar for Lent

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Picture4It starts with the slide of the door along carpet. The little footsteps. My glance at the clock proves right – it’s too early to be up.

Anger rolls over beside me, rubbing its eyes.

We eat breakfast, and the yogurt is the wrong color. The wind is sending ghostly whips of snow across the yard. The twins wake up in the middle of my first cup of coffee, owlish and out of sorts. The laundry pile has reached epic proportions. There’s enough milk for one more bowl of cereal.

Anger simmers, waiting.

And then it happens. My toddler and I square off against something meaningless – not wanting to wear pants, giving up her nook, taking something from her baby sisters.

Anger EXPLODES.

I fear this ever-present emotion that overtakes me most days. Honestly, it makes me want to give up. Until today. Because today, I’m deciding to give IT up instead.

***

Some people give up sweets for Lent. Others give up coffee, pop, or caffeine in its entirety. Huffington Post suggested fried food, cigars, or devices.

I can’t help this nagging feeling that something about this is all a little off. If I give up something I enjoy in order to remind myself of Jesus, and then I start wanting that thing but can’t have it because I’m remembering Jesus, I’m going to get cranky. And if I’m cranky, I’ll start associating semi-bitter or negative feelings with Easter.

That seems a little, well, backwards.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m not strong enough to work past the unhappy feelings I think I’d have if I gave up something I really enjoyed. Weak character? Faulty theology? Blatant misunderstanding? All very possible.

But if Lent truly is a season “to rid ourselves of all that prevents us from living a truly Christian life”, I have to wonder how far giving up little luxuries like sugar and meat and cigars is going to go.

This year, I want to try something different. This year, I’m giving up anger for Lent.

No more yelling.

No more face flushing, fast pulsing, blood pressure spikes.

No more disappointments that burrow into a den of resentment.

I live with the flashing of anger every day. I also eat sweets and drink caffeine. None of them are particularly good for me. Here’s where I see the difference though. I know how to tame my cravings for sugar and coffee into moderation. But anger is never moderate. I never feel halfheartedly mad.

When anger comes, it overtakes everything. It is mental and it is physical. It affects my ability to love those around me, and it crowds out my capacity to carry grace.

If I’m going to give something up to better remind myself of the meaning of Easter, shouldn’t it be something that Jesus himself asked of his friends? For example – in the garden on the night of his arrest, Jesus told his disciple Peter, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52)

Here’s where I’m going with this. I’ve celebrated Easter since before I could eat Cadbury eggs. But this year, I want it to be different. I want more from the story, because soon I’ll be teaching it to my little girls. And in order to be a good story-teller, I need to engage with the story.

I don’t want to just read a few verses, go to a couple of services, and call it good. If I think this story of redemption and grace is important in my life, I need to LIVE in the mystery of the plot. For me, and for this Lent season, that means cutting out something that separates me from living in grace.

Right. So, it’s all fine and good to talk churchy and idealistic, but I also need to have a plan. Here are some tools I’m hoping to employ.

Going to bed earlier. I can’t stop the girls from getting up in the middle of the night. Nor can I convince Ellis to stop getting up earlier and earlier. But mama, it’s light outside! But my ability to rein in negative emotions is severely impaired when I’m tired. So early bedtime it is. Like 9:00 early. Sigh. I’ll clean my house another year.

Void_Space_by_Maandersen Image replacement. This is a little weird, but I want to have an image in my head to replace my feelings of anger when they come. Call it a new focal point – something to keep me steady. My image is going to be a space void. Yep. A big, open, solar void. I’m smart enough to know I won’t be able to replace mad feelings with happy feelings. But mad feelings with nothing? With space? With silence? With void? I don’t know why, but I think it can work.

Deep breathing. This is completely rote, but it also works. If I can remember to close my eyes and take a solid, in-through-the-nose-out-through-the-mouth breath, I will give myself pause enough to assess the situation, think about the void, and slowly back down.

Prayer. Nothing flowery. Straight up “God REALLY please help me out here” will do the trick.

Redirection. Once I’m off the ledge, I want to remember why I’m doing this in the first place. I want to remember the story of Jesus in the season of Easter. Not to be a better person, but to be a stronger believer. A sturdier story-teller.

It’s a tall order, and to be unabashedly honest, I’m not sure how it’s going to go. Anger comes when I’m tired. It rears after the babies having been screaming in tandem for more than five minutes. It’s red hot when Ellis dumps bowls of spaghetti sauce on the floor, or kicks me in the chin when I’m trying to cajole her into pajamas. It stews quietly when the temperature drops and we’re all faced with another day inside the house.

But Lent was meant to be a challenge. A challenge to deny myself for the sake of the cross. So why not deny a character quality I want to prune out? Why not choose something I want to keep giving up after the 40 days of Lent are over?

Why not do something that makes me more like the Jesus I want to remember?

—-

Do you have a great idea of something to give up for Lent? I’d love to hear what it is, and why you picked it.

The trenches of babyland – 4m vs. 6/7m

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Note: Hi friends! I started this deep-in-the-babyland-trenches post in November. Yes, it’s the end of February. The last few months have been the hardest mothering of my life. But here are some of the technical things that were happening for the babies at four months, and now at 6 and 7 month. Sorry – it’s totally a posterity post.

Ugh. I can't believe mom is still talking about us at 4 months.

Ugh. I can’t believe mama is still talking about us at 4 months.

4M According to the professionals: Gabrielle – 14 lbs, Lucia – 13 lbs

6M According to the professionals: Gabrielle – 16 lbs. Lucia – 16 lbs

4M Motor: the girls are starting to move. Half rolls, inchworming, and sitting up in their bumbo seats are a few of the major accomplishments. It is exciting, until I remember that this is all precursor to crawling and walking. They are also pretty interested in their hands, and any toys that we put in their grasp. They are big fans of the Velcro wrist rattles and plastic rings. Gabby may also prove to be a thumb sucker.

6/7M Motor: We are now working on sitting up unassisted, which equates to slowly falling over most of the time. We also practice standing at the activity table and the ottoman.  The girls solidly love to hold things, and will grab anything in their reach. Toys, carrots, and fistfuls of mama’s collarbone skin are the preferred items.

Brown chair comparisons - Four months

 Four months and we got things to celebrate y’all!

4M Eating: This one is big news, folks. We finally mastered the art of tandem breastfeeding. Right around 3 months, I noticed they seemed to be equally as full whether bottle or breastfed. I opted to forge ahead with breastfeeding and start phasing out the bottles. As of this month, the only time they get a bottle is if I’m away for the evening.

In other news, we started solid food. I know – it’s a little bit early. But our doctor gave me the go-ahead for single-grain rice cereal, which I mixed with formula since I’m not regularly pumping anymore. On hungry nights, I mixed the cereal with four ounces of formula. On average nights, I left it at two ounces. The first few feedings were super messy, but after a couple of weeks, they both got the hang of the spoon.

Eating. Yes. We love eating.

6M – Eating. Yes. We love eating.

6/7M Eating: Still breastfeeding. (Hooray!) It’s more challenging the more they move, and tandem feeding is bit like feeding an octopus. We don’t always do it anymore. Luckily, the older they get, the quicker they get. I totally forgot that about breastfeeding, but it’s really great. Meanwhile my milk supply has kept up, so we forge on.

As for solids, we discovered that rice cereal gave the girls gas, so we gave that up after a month of fussiness. Onto bigger and better things, like bananas. Did you know bananas have tryptophan (the same sleepy chemical residing in turkey)? Me either. But now we eat a pureed banana every night before bed. Daytime snacks are mostly fruits and veggies – pureed or whole food (jicama sticks, carrots, celery, and apples go over well.) We also love yogurt. Wow do we love yogurt.

4M Sleeping: Sigh. They were doing really well sleeping seven hour stretches at night… until now. I don’t know if that had anything to do with switching to breastfeeding, but it’s something to note. We usually get up once, if not twice, to eat between 10 pm and 6 am. (This is also where I am super thankful we can breastfeed – it’s a little less of a production to slide into the arm-chair in their bedroom instead of standing at the stove warming bottles with two screaming babies in my arms.)

I think we are going to switch to separate cribs soon. Sleep training twins will probably be a whole different ball game, but I think it’s time to try.

6/7M Sleeping: Sigh again. The girls are getting better at sleeping through the night, but it wasn’t without two months of full-blown, hour-long, cry it out scream fests at 2 and 3 in the morning. We are slowly getting past that stage. The challenge now is working with each baby separately. One or other has started to sleep through the night, but the other one usually has different plans. Someday…

4M Postpartum update: Thankfully, the body is starting to get back to normal at this point. I can wear almost all of my pre-pregnancy clothes (except the ones that were really fitted in the stomach) with relative comfort. My stomach continues to reduce, although the shape of it is still a little off kilter. I try to squeeze in two or three 20-minute segments of yoga off of You Tube (search yoga and knock yourself out – there are hundreds of video classes to try) per week, although Ellis makes this a challenge. Apparently yoga time is synonymous with horsey time.

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Thank you, polar vortex. This is the reality of what I face for outdoor exercise these days.

6/7M Postpartum update: Feeling pretty much the same as at 4M. I haven’t lost any more weight that I can tell, and I think my body is holding on to a little extra while I’m still breastfeeding. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. Exercising sans gym during this particular Minnesota winter limits me to snowshoeing, walking, or doing exercise videos…in the dark. Ugh. Someday it will be green again.

I don’t own a scale, so I’m not sure where I’m at with weight. I’m also usually the one holding the camera, so I don’t have any pictures to compare. It’s kind of like I had twins, and then photo evidence of my existence stopped. 🙂 Anyway, I’m trying not to consider the breast-feeding year a time to get serious about weight-loss. After that, I’ll be happy to pick back up with a regular lifting and cardio routine, but until then, the body gets a little more grace. Besides. Carrying thirty-two pounds of baby and down the stairs numerous times a day has to count for something.

The year I ruined Valentine’s Day

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I didn’t mean to be a jerk on the holiday of love. It just, well, it happened.

It was never destined to be a frosted, heart shaped sort of day at my house. The girls were needy, and I was empty. I slogged through the morning edgy and dry. And then the radio announcer would make a comment, or I’d see my Google search covered in hearts, and something in my brain would cackle that I was supposed to be celebrating my loves.

Vday card 2014We tried. Honest. I took a cute picture of the twins for the grandparents, and made a card on a fun site called Fotor. And when the girls went down for their tiny afternoon nap and Ellis woke up early, we baked cookies. Unfortunately the activity lasted for seven minutes, at the end of which Ellis and I both consumed an unhealthy amount of cookie dough and my kitchen became a shrine to measuring cups and spilled flour.

Meanwhile, my Love with a capital L was in the throes of tonsillitis. He came back from the doctor’s office with a new prescription, a jug of orange juice, and barely enough energy to make it up the stairs before collapsing into bed.

I knew our plans of dinner with friends and snowshoeing were out.  Along with them went my fast-waning patience. The girls cried. The house vomited princess dresses and Mr. Potato Head pieces.

And I wanted nothing to do with this messy, imperfect side of love.

Love was easy in a new dress and candlelight. It readily accepted the flowers and blushed gracefully at the card with its polished sentiments.

Love at 4:17 in the afternoon was grueling. It had unwashed hair and flushed cheeks. It ran out of tolerance as I packed the girls in the van, dropped them off at church’s childcare, and spent the next three hours alone.

***

A few days earlier, it had been my birthday.

If I’m allowed to admit it, I LOVE birthdays. Particularly mine. Because something happens on my birthday that I have a really hard time doing on any other day of the year.

I give myself permission.

Flashback Atlanta 2008, roomie bday breakfast

Flashback Atlanta 2008: roomie birthday breakfast

Let me explain. During college, my roommates and I started this tradition of crazy celebration. The day started with Bruegger’s bagels and bright red strawberries, coffee, coffee, coffee. It ended with the four of us around a restaurant table of really, really good food.

My celebration wasn’t just reserved for mornings and evenings though. One year I ditched class and spent my birthday wandering through the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The next year I planned my way through IKEA. I bought myself cupcakes from Lund’s, buttercream icing piled high. I never, ever, worked.

Slowly, things changed. My roomies all got married and the bagel tradition fell by the wayside. I stopped taking the day off. I realized, in true I’m-a-grownup-now-fashion, that the expectation of celebration needed to be consistent with life’s current circumstances.

So this year, when my birthday started with my toddler announcing (in her best outside voice), “MOM IT’S NOT DARK OUTSIDE ANYMORE. GET UP!”, I decided to institute a new phrase into my day.

So what? It’s my birthday.

I repeated it, even though the words felt dumb. Yes. This would work.

No one drowned!

Birthday swim day – no one drowned!

The twins were jabbering and cooing in the next room already, so I gathered my girls, made some sort of elephant herding maneuver down the stairs, and settled into the kitchen to make French toast. (The nearest bagel shop is probably 37 miles away.)

And when Ellis spilled syrup all over the floor, I said to myself, So what? It’s my birthday.

When we were half an hour late meeting Jules and crew for our swimming play date and the van was out of gas… So what? It’s my birthday.

When we ate lunch out and both babies started to scream and wanted to eat at the same time?

So what. It’s my birthday.

***

I’m not uptight. I think I just get tangled up in the difference of how things should be versus how they are. (Wait, still? Didn’t we talk about expectations, ahem, a year or so ago?) I guess some character follies just keep coming back up, whack-a-mole style.

That’s a problem. I stink at whack-a-mole, and seeing life in terms of should means I’m using someone else’s measuring stick. When that happens, the results are bound to be different.

Seeing life as it is and accepting it as such means I throw out the measuring stick. It means I stop getting upset when something turns out differently than I expected. It means I give myself and the world around me permission to be imperfect. Not unkind, just imperfect.

In that permission, love can survive. It might be messy. It might have snot stains and markers on its pants. But permissive love doesn’t keep track of what went awry – it simply acknowledges that when things don’t go as planned, when the babies cry and the knight in shining armor is in bed with a fever, it’s not the end of the world.

That love says, “So what”, and then goes on with a certain steadiness. Circumstance may prune it down some days, but the results are always a branching (LM Montgomery) that will, eventually, bloom bright.

Defining “Hygge”

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1779301_10152138179680502_1263730929_nEvery year, our annual winter getaway with friends grows a little crazier.

More children. More bags. More dinosaurs, more story books, more baked goods I never, ever want to stop eating.

But this year, I went as a single parent. Jason has been sick for almost a month now, so he (very sadly) opted to stay home. I totally understood, but I was also a little desperate. I needed to double over in laughter with friends. I needed winter sun in my eyes and four feet of snow under my shoes. I needed towering pines.

I needed to broaden the narrows of my winter.

So I packed up three pack ‘n plays, two bumbo seats, a doorway jumperoo, three bags of food, two backpacks worth of clothing and diapers, five blankets, and three children under the age of 3 into the van.

In theory, it was possible. In reality, it was madness. In retrospect, it was very, very good.

***

1239733_10152138170690502_1027633142_n I read a great article a month or so ago about a mystical Danish word called “Hygge”, (pronounced HYU-gah). The word has no direct translation in English, but instead sounds like a conglomeration of emotions: well-being, contentment, camaraderie, coziness. The article says it’s kind of like Christmas, just not limited to once a year.

I was fascinated with the idea – this non-translatable word for something so meaningful. Really – when you have a second, you should definitely read the article. Anyway. I put it on my bucket list of words to study, ideas to play with.

I haven’t started the word study. (Go figure.) But after this weekend, I think I have a new word to add to the mix of not-quite-there-but-close definitions for hygge.

Collaboration.

Because without collaboration, hygge can’t happen.

Without collaboration, I would have driven North alone, praying through clenched teeth that nothing would go wrong. (Instead, I caravanned with dear friends who drove out of their way to let us tag along.)

Without collaboration, I would have made seven or eight trips to unload my van. (Instead, four very kind gentlemen made an extra trip or two each to shuttle in my babies and belongings.)

Without collaboration, I wouldn’t have gotten to snowshoe in the woods, feed babies, make supper, take a shower, read bedtime stories, or ever really just sit down. (Instead, there were open arms and helpful hands in every situation – even the darkness stumbling, nook fumbling, face rubbing, please-just-go-back-to-sleep-for-the-love-of-everything-good-and-holy-because-it’s-bedtime moments.)

IMG_2881But it wasn’t just about helping me.

Collaboration is what makes weekends like this possible. From finding accommodation, to organizing meals, to bringing toys and gear, to caring for one another’s children, it is our combined efforts that create an environment for hygge to happen.

And in that moment, the glow of the fire, the children asleep, the roar of laughter, the pine paneled walls and windows full of stars, hygge comes. It widens our hearts. It fills us with thankfulness. It becomes the thing we can’t describe.

ab377e29-7a2c-4d0f-9c0e-ad7a59cb4d77.1.10Maybe that’s okay. This word hygge, this word with no translation – maybe it’s meant to stay nebulous, a little mystical.

Perhaps hygge’s blessing is simply the bright consciousness of experience, our windows blazing light against winter’s dark, our laughter rising through the chimney and spreading like sweet smoke into the night.

Embrace it?

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Two weeks ago, we got a decent amount of sleep and it wasn’t freeze-your-face-off cold, so we did baths, dresses, scrounged out some hair bows and shoes, and went to church. After the service, I was lamenting with a friend about this current, sleepless phase of life. She looked at me, smiled, and put her hand on my arm. “Someone once told me that whatever phase my kids were in, I should just embrace it.”

My internal hackles shot up. I finished listening to her story, and I think I even smiled Minnesota nice. But all the way out the door I ranted to myself.

Embrace it? Embrace the fact that I haven’t slept more than 3 consecutive hours in over two months? Embrace the bone-tired ache that accompanies me through most of my days? Embrace what must look like some horrible comedy in the middle of the night – the crying baby, the startled eyelids, the tensing of every muscle, the parade of untangling myself from the covers, struggling with my bathrobe, and stumbling in to whoever is crying before the rest of the house wakes up too?

Embrace THAT?

***

IMG_2769

6 months and chubby cheeks (Gabby left, Lucy right)

On average, the girls are still waking up at 12 and 2. And sometimes at 3. I don’t really know what to do at this point. I’m not feeding them in the night anymore, (both girls hit the 65th percentile for weight and 70th for height at their 6 month appointment – clearly they aren’t starving) so it’s just a matter of calming them down and getting them back to bed.

Ellis is also joining the middle of the night fun. The other night, Jason heard noises across the hall around 3:40 am. He went to her room only to find every light on, and Ellis buck naked, jumping up and down on her bare mattress. Her reason? She was just happy, daddy.

Apparently everyone just needs a little calming down lately. The days may be getting longer, but the darkness still slides too quickly into the afternoon. I’m never ready to start the evening’s tearful tango sessions all over again.

Which is exactly what I was doing, two Sundays ago, somewhere in the middle of the sleeping hours.

My bare feet were cold. My ponytail was somewhere off the left side of my head circa 1986, and in my haste to get to the baby, I had put my bathrobe on inside out and couldn’t tie it. I had some sort of back and forth sway motion going, and Lucy was fighting going back to sleep, her hot little fists alternately waving and gouging into her eyes.

I thought to myself, “Ha. Yes. Embrace it Rachel, just emBRACE the moment.”

And then I stopped. I want to say I had some sort of beautiful, shining epiphany. You know. The moon, the comforting sounds of the house, that kind of thing. But I didn’t. Nothing happened. I just realized, in the stupor of being half asleep and half awake, that I was probably overreacting.

That in the grand scheme of things, this wasn’t so bad.

So much of how I see things depends on my perspective. And when I’m half awake most days and nights, my perspective is pretty puffy-eyed and narrow.

Sure, not sleeping sucks. Literally. It sucks every last bit of energy of my living soul and by 4:30 pm every day, I’m on zombie autopilot. But still. I’m up because I have babies. Healthy (albeit not sleeping) babies.

Not so bad.

When things are difficult, I think I have a tendency to mentally hang on the hardship of it all. It’s as though quantifying the difficulty gives me a pass, for the time being, to do X. Or not do X. Anything, really. I don’t feel like I have to hold myself as accountable when circumstances are not in my favor.

But that’s not what good character is, or does.

So every time I leave the babies’ room at night, I pray “please let them sleep”. And then I add “and when they don’t, give me strength.” Just because I didn’t rest does not mean tomorrow won’t lighten the horizon. Ellis will need breakfast, the babies will wake with their own set of demands, and life will explode into chaos in a very short time span if I can’t gather myself up and go on.

Excuses be danged.

***

Meanwhile, “This week has been a disaster, Faye.” (Yes, we recently watched What About Bob?)

It disarmed me starting off – seven hours of sleep in a row on Sunday night. Glorious. But Monday and Tuesday passed in blurs of (what I’m guessing is teething) rage, which totally cancelled out any victory in the seven consecutive hours. Maybe I’m just spoiled – the girls are normally very mild and easy during the day. This week, not so.

IMG_20140118_131418_319

A not so happy moment

I’m talking SCREAMS. And in case you weren’t aware, apparently my girls all have the lungs to be opera stars. These are the red-faced, squint-eyed, inhale with all your power and blast out the most horrible manner of noise possible for a human being to make type screams. The don’t put me down screams. Don’t feed me screams. Don’t stop feeding me screams. Don’t change my diaper screams.

It’s daunting at best, demoralizing at worst.

Whatever that was about, we all caught a break and had a better day today. And tonight, everyone was sleeping by 8:30 pm. Jason included. (The poor guy can’t get enough uninterrupted sleep to combat a month-long battle of being sick.)

I’m not going to lie. I simply can’t embrace this week. That feels a little like opening my arms to a hungry, stink-eyed grizzly. But I will keep trying to remind myself that with a little perspective comes the reminder that it’s also not that bad.

And sometimes, that’s all any of us can hope for.

Sleep Training the Twins

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IMG_20131014_151723_842

Dual Swinging

I didn’t know how good I had it. That’s usually the way it goes, right? We went through our days of infancy on a pretty routine schedule – eat, activity, sleep. Except by sleep, I mean that I put the babies in their swings and let them fall asleep there.

Every. Single. Time.

In my own defense, what else can one person do with two crying babies? I only have two arms. The swings seemed like the perfect way to keep them sleeping and secure. But when I went anywhere that didn’t have my magic swings, the girls had a difficult time taking any sort of nap. I chalked it up to different environment, but what I didn’t realize was this.

The swings had created a monster. (Two adorably sweet monsters, to be exact.)

I have a theory here – and it’s just a theory mind you – that the girls didn’t learn how to calm themselves down at an early age because whenever they fussed, I put them in the swings to calm them down. The constant motion lulled them to sleep, yes, but it took away the need for them to do one very important thing. Self soothe.

This was a problem, as were a couple of other things. So we took a giant leap right after Christmas.

1. We moved the girls into separate cribs

Hey sister-friend, what do you think of the whole arm-out system?

Hey sister-friend, what do you think of the whole arm-out system?

2. We stopped using the swings to lull them to sleep for naps and bedtime

3. We quit swaddling their arms

4. We moved Ellis into a big girl bed (so that now she can climb in and out with ease, open her door, and demand such things in the middle of the night as “a wittle drink”, help finding the tag on her blanket, and my personal favorite, to go poop.

In short, we started sleep training. Here’s why we decided to give it a go.

  • The girls were no longer sleeping through the night. Since four months, they had been getting up once or twice per night to eat. And because Jason had to go to work and Ellis was sleeping next door, I would rush in, feed them as quick as I could, and stumble back to bed. NOT sustainable.
  • When one twin woke up, it was almost inevitable that the other would wake up as well since her sister was literally screaming an inch away from her ear.
  • They were totally unhappy with their arms swaddled. Half the time we’d find them in the morning with one escaped arm waving like a defiant little flag. It was only a matter of time before someone got punched in the eye.
  • The swings… oh the glorious Fisher Price Cradle ‘n Swings. We used the heck of these contraptions until just a couple of weeks ago. In fact, we even had to replace one of them after only two months because we burned out the motor. But the problem that the girls were fast outgrowing my surrogate arms, and something else was gnawing at me. It seemed like they couldn’t go to sleep without the aid of the swing.

All of these things added up to one huge problem. The girls had not learned how to self soothe. Using swaddles meant that they couldn’t reposition themselves in the night if they were uncomfortable. Using swings to fall asleep meant that unless we had the swings with us 24/7, (or Fisher Price decided to come out with the giant toddler version) the girls didn’t know how to get to sleep on their own. And sleeping in the same crib meant that the twins could always rely on one another’s presence as a comfort and sleep aid.

So began one of the longest periods of sleep deprivation I’ve ever experienced.

The first night we tried just putting them in separate cribs. Up five times. Strike One. The second night we tried putting them in separate cribs again. Up six times. Strike Two.

The third night something had to change. It seemed like they were kicking a lot, so I unzipped their swaddles and left their feet out. This is not how swaddles are meant to be used. Miraculously, no one suffocated. The twins were up four times, and Ellis up three. Strike Three.

The fourth night I was out of my mind exhausted. I tried putting them to sleep in the same crib again, in case they weren’t ready for separation. They screamed bloody murder for 20 minutes with a soothing period between until I separated them again. I don’t know how often they woke up that night. I lost count.

Rice cereal rocks. And I'm not even a messy eater....yet.

Gabby thinks rice cereal rocks.

So on and so forth. We tried formula before bed. We tried rice cereal. We tried laying them down earlier. Later. We tried swinging and singing, less pajamas and more pajamas, white noise and pacifiers, stuffed animals and warm bean sacks. It all started to feel a little like voodoo. You know. As in, maybe if I stand facing west, sing three verses of Children of the Heavenly Father, two in English and one in Swedish, bounce 37 times and put you down when your eyes are half-open, you’ll sleep.

I felt like I was going crazy.

Let’s be real. I am going crazy. We’re not out of the woods yet. But we are settling into a few things that seem to work after trial and error. Here they are, in no particular order.

  1. I nurse them and bottle feed them 4 ounces of formula before they lay down between 7 and 8. This ensures they have really full tummies.
  2. I have a fan going in their room for white noise, so if one wakes up, there’s a little background to help keep the other one sleeping.
  3. I no longer swaddle the girls’ arms, and when they grow another inch or two, I’ll stop swaddling all together. They just seem more comfortable this way, and can achieve the touch down position if they want – which, by the way, is an indication of complete and deeply comfortable sleep.
  4. I give them a “dream feeding” around 10 or 11pm – not waking them up at all, but simply nursing them for about 5-10 minutes and then putting them directly back to sleep. My doctor said this was a good transition method, so why not.
  5. I’ve tried to create a little bedtime routine, which includes diaper changes, calm swaddling time, and holding them while I sway and hum a few verses of whatever song comes in my head (usually it’s Peter Pan’s “Stay Awake” lullaby. Reverse psychology.) I give them nooks to suck on and loveys to clutch, and after a few minutes, I put them down when they are mostly asleep but still a tiny bit awake. Apparently this will help them learn to fall asleep on their own, and it actually does work.
  6. Unless the situation is dire (RE: Bombs away double crying madness), I do not nurse them in the middle of the night anymore. I also let them cry it out for ten minutes before I go in and soothe them. Yes, sometimes one twin wakes the other up, and then it’s double duty soothing. But since we started to cry it out, they went from 60 minutes of off-on crying to only 20 minutes at a time now (and always a soothe session after 10 minutes.)

The sad part is that all of this progress combined only yields 6 hours of sleep for me at the most (and that has only happened one time). But after the past couple weeks, 6 hours seems like a gold mine. So it’s my new goal.

In the meantime, Ellis has all but decided to stop napping, the average temperature high has been -10, and I finally mailed my Christmas cards yesterday.

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Plum and Posey design

I’m not complaining. Just weathering the storm. My mom got me a beautiful wax seal cast in a silver medallion for Christmas – it’s a picture of a thistle flower and the inscription reads Dulcius ex asperis (Sweeter after difficulties) – it’s a perfect reminder that difficulty can produce good things if approached the right way.

I’m measuring my approach. I’m exhausted, but I’m praying to be given the strength to do what I can for my girls on the day I’ve been given. Most days, amazingly enough, it comes.

Meanwhile, sleep training continues. Here’s to hoping for a better report soon.

Why I don’t sleep anymore*

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exhausted-cyclist1. Not waking up every hour and a half to two hours to comfort my screaming babies might make me miss them too much. I prefer helicopter parenting, especially at night.

2. The dark shadows around my eyes are kind of like a Vogue smoky eye, which makes me look in the mirror and think, “Wow. I did my makeup today! That’s an accomplishment.”

3. Puzzling why the babies and Ellis are not sleeping is a little like problem solving – so at least I’m not totally losing all my workplace skills.

4. I’ve been needing to get to know the force mechanics of the upstairs door knobs (old house) better ever since the time I put on lotion after holding one of the babies and effectively locked myself in their bedroom. At 2 in the morning.

5. Waking up to my toddler shuffling in the room and proclaiming she’s happy and would like to wake up now just fills me with energy.

6. It’s been cold here in Minnesota – cold enough that after I’m up with a baby, I now automatically go downstairs and throw another log on the fire. This effectively ensures I wake up enough not to burn my hands or my forearms off and can go back to bed wide awake, counting down the minutes until the next cry.

7. I haven’t been sick enough this year. Not sleeping is a great way to get sick. So it’s a win-win, really.

8. I’d be missing out on seeing all the phases and cycles of the moon, hereby planting the seed for my next endeavor: astronomer. After all, I need something else to do.

9. I really like hearing my toddler take on the roll of drill sergeant when she says, “Don’t lay down, mama. Get up. Play wiff me.”

10. Trying to calm the babies before they wake one another or the rest of the household up skyrockets my blood pressure in the middle of the night. I pretend it’s a cardio rush and go back to bed feeling like I squeezed in a workout.

*More on the actual mechanics of sleep training to come.

Holiday Recipe Reviews

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Ok. There are a million holiday recipes that circulate this time of year. And I’m dumb enough to try most of them untested, forty-five minutes before people sit down at the table. So in case you’re wondering, here’s what worked, and here’s what failed. (These are all pictures from the recipe’s websites – links to the recipes are in the titles.)

Image1. Lobster Bisque

Of all the new recipes I tried in December, this was my favorite. Creamy perfection with great lobster flavor. If you are a fan of oyster stew but wish you could still pick out the oysters like you did when you were seven (I know you’re out there), this is a great way to keep it festive and delicious. Don’t pretend it’s healthy, and don’t even start to care. It’s Christmas.

Notes – I used cooking sherry instead of regular, and I subbed in a cup of milk when I ran out of cream. I think I also left out the paprika because that was gone too. It was still great.

Image2. Citrus Salad with Tarragon

I chose this because it looked pretty. Superficial, I know. But when you combine a bunch of different kinds of oranges and drizzle them with an herb infused simple syrup, not much can go wrong. This was a fast, easy addition to brunch.

Notes – Spring for blood oranges – the red innards are what you need to really make the dish stand out. I garnished it with pomegranate seeds because I happened to have some in the fridge. I also used dried tarragon instead of fresh, but I like the idea of using lavender like the recipe suggests. I’d be curious about rosemary as well…

Image3. Cowboy Caviar

My friend Jules turned me on to this amazing dip a few years back. I have some lovely people in my life that are gluten free, so this is the just the thing for them. Plus, the leftovers are amazing on anything – quesadillas, salad, corn muffins – you name it, this dip is up to the challenge.

Notes: I know some recipes call for avocado – DON’T DO IT unless you don’t plan on having any leftovers. This recipe is perfect as is.

Image4. Pao de Queijo (Brazilian cheese bread)

Another lifetime ago, I spent a couple weeks teaching English in Brazil. My favorite local dish during my time there? Pao de Queijo – cheese bread. Go figure. It’s the texture, thanks to the tapioca flour/starch (they are the same.) I’d never had anything so soft and chewy and bursting with the flavor of cheese. There are tons of recipes for this bread, and depending on how you like it, feel free to experiment. The one linked here is the super easy, fast version that can be made, baked, and finished in 15 minutes. Perfect party food if you ask me. PS – this one is also gluten free.

Notes: I topped mine with fresh rosemary, and I loved the notch up in flavor. But don’t do dried – it’ll be like eating sticks on top your cheese bread.

Image5. Artisan bread boules

Thankfully I have never had any issues with gluten, because I’m a carb freak. Kudos to anyone who can successfully cut out bread from their diets because I’m sure it’s the reason I’ll never get below a certain size. But seriously, that’s ok. I love bread. I will accommodate its effects on my body with utter graciousness. PS – this is not a new recipe for me, but it’s so awesome it deserves to make the list.

Notes: This yeast bread has four ingredients – count em. 4. Water. Flour. Yeast. Salt. And the method is amazingly simple. The only thing I’ve decided to change consistently is to mix it in my kitchen aid. I know it’s no-knead and all, but I get better results when I let my dough hook go to town for a few minutes, so that’s that.

***

Alright. It’s not all roses and easy recipes today, folks. Here’s what failed. I’m not going to link or do pictures because that’s just mean. I probably messed something up. But for the record, here’s what didn’t work in my kitchen this month.

1. Black bean dip. This was supposed to be good with crackers and chips, but it really just ended up looking like, well, poo in a bowl. Even a festive red bowl. I had good intentions of trying to make the leftovers into black bean soup, which is probably what I should have done in the first place and skipped the dip. Unfortunately I forgot the bowl in the back of the fridge. Double fail.

2. Peanut Butter Blossoms. Every year someone else makes amazing peanut butter blossoms, and every year Jason and I whisper to one another that we have to figure out how to get this right. And then, every year, we fail. The cookies turn out bready and hard. So if anyone has a great, tried and true recipe for this Christmas cookie favorite, PLEASE SHARE IT WITH ME. There, see? I begged. It’s getting dire.

3. Fudge.  I hope my mom doesn’t mind me sharing this. 🙂 I love you mama! But it was a little bit satisfying to know that I’m not the only one who can’t make fudge. We used Martha Stewart’s recipe and my mom basically manned the task while I ran to the gas station to buy more peanut butter for my peanut blossoms. This was probably not fair, since my mom is allergic to chocolate. But anyway, it turned out hard as a rock for her too. Maybe it’s Martha. Maybe it’s a family trait. Whatever it is, I need a lesson in proper fudge making.

Right.

So, there you have it. The good and the bad, according to one time-pressed foodie-wannabe mother of three. I have one more group meal to go, which is family Christmas Eve. I’m planning on making Ham Balls (even though the name gives me the willies) because I can prep them, freeze them, and then pull them out and time bake them while we go to Christmas Eve service at our church. They are saucy and sweet. Generally crowd friendly. And well, they look pretty fun all stacked up on a platter, and that’s enough for me.

 

Merry, Delicious, Christmas.

 

 

 

Holiday reinforcements

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In life, just like in battle, reinforcements can mean everything.

This has been a month of necessary reinforcement. The girls gave up sleeping through the night about five weeks ago (funny correlation – how long has it been since I posted?)

Gabby's new look

Gabby’s new look

It’s been rough going.

The reason, best we can tell, is teeth. Yep. Teeth at four and half months. Gabby cut her first two last week, and Lucy is not far behind her. And the little buggers must hurt, because once in a while the girls will let out blood-curdling screams that scare the crap out of me at 2:30 in the morning. The only thing I can do is nurse them back to sleep.

This happens once, if not twice, each night. So it’s back to sleeping in two to four hour increments for us. Sigh. The funny part is, we can function like this. Not well, obviously, but it’s possible. And so that’s what we’ve been doing.

Functioning.

Despite our lack of sleep, it’s been a busy month.

Scenes from friendsgiving - yes, that's a pumpkin creme brule pie with a gingerbread crust. And I'm pretty sure Sarah's french silk pie reached hallowed status.

Scenes from friendsgiving – yes, that’s a pumpkin creme brule pie with a gingerbread crust. And I’m pretty sure my friend Sarah’s french silk pie was so good it reached sainthood.

We decided to do a “friendsgiving” the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Jason bought a turkey, I told everyone to bring a side dish (and it didn’t matter if it was leftover or re-purposed from actual Thanksgiving), and we made a big pot of macaroni for the kids. It was not going to be clean or trendy or perfect, and none of those things were the point.

It was chaos of the very best sort. Nine kids to eight adults. Foot traffic everywhere, crumbs and beverages on every surface, baby gates and diaper bags and sweet little hands tugging on whatever pant leg happened to be in reach.

When the meal was over, Jason built up the bonfire in the front yard. The guys went on kid/dish duty so the girls could get outside and have uninterrupted conversation. I snuck out first, face and hands tingling in the cold night air. I watched the kids jumping and chasing one another. There was commotion in the mudroom – hats, coats, boots being zipped. But for a clear, star-filled minute, I was alone in my yard.

I love moments like this. It’s like taking a nap in the living room when someone’s in the kitchen and the gentle activity of the house is a reassuring hum. Observation is rest, is beauty, is worship in its own right.

So I let my head fall backwards. I unrolled my fists in my pockets and let the muscles in my face go slack. Two days after Thanksgiving, I finally I let gratitude wash me, and I shivered at its overwhelming force.

I know the cardinal rule of holidays is being present and mindful. But holidays with babies take that to a new level. Being present means counting the hours since the babies last ate. Being mindful means double checking the diaper bag to make sure every possible scenario is prepared for.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the rush and bustle, the flurry of arms that greet me at family and friend gatherings. But that night, when everything stopped for a collection of star-studded seconds, it was exactly what I needed.

***

10th annual Fellas and Wives party

10th annual Fellas and Wives party

Okay, so throwing a party probably seems a little more like functioning. I get that.  But compared to my days filled with diapers and crayons, discipline and feedings, planning a gathering seems so wonderfully normal.

Cooking becomes my creative outlet. Eating together becomes a celebration, and even the humblest of meals becomes festive when  shared. And as a bonus, having people in my home also means one important thing.

Help. Help on so many levels. (And someone else holding a baby.)

Juliette's amazing gingerbread trifle

Juliette’s amazing gingerbread trifle at Friend’s Christmas

So we keep opening our doors, practicing hospitality even when the floors aren’t clean and the babies are crying. We love collecting the people in our lives around our old Formica table.

We love eating good food (particularly Scottum’s dulce de leche ice cream – not pictured because it was devoured way too quickly.) We love sprawling out around the fire, tripping on toys, and holding our little ones.

We love the waves and hugs at the end of the night, each one like pressing a seal on our time together.

***

Sometimes raising my girls feels like I’m setting out to paint a gigantic church with an old, frayed paintbrush. But then someone comes along with a piece of scaffolding. And another. And another.

Lucy, Lila, and Gabby sporting Aunty Kari's Christmas gifts!

Lucy, Lila, and Gabby sporting Aunty Kari’s Christmas outfits

We paint together for a while, and it gets easier.

A few weeks back, a friend watched all three of my girls while I went grocery shopping. Another friend helped me coral my girls at open gymnastics. Another accompanied me to Target so I could have an extra cart and a playmate for Ellis.

Friends and family have helped me shop, taken me out, come to my home and watched my girls, leaned on the counter, drank coffee, called, texted, and even Skyped.

 

Super grandma to the rescue!

Super grandma to the rescue

My mom went so far as to clear her schedule last week to help with my teething terrors, and Jason’s parents have been amazing overnight babysitters.

Scaffolding, all of it.

Reinforcement.

And we are, as always, grateful.

 

Response to “My Abortion”

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bayfieldI wrote this post a week ago after encountering a story in the New York magazine titled My Abortion. And then I sat on it, waiting. I rewrote section after section. I prayed.

The article is a collection of 26 women sharing the reasons they had an abortion. They look directly at the lens of the camera, their eyes bold and haunting all at the same time.

So are their stories.

“It was my senior year of high school. My boyfriend was homeless.”

“Why give birth to a baby who will die?”

“I couldn’t believe I was pregnant—we’d used condoms—and I was disappointed in myself.”

“This guy forced himself on me. When the woman at the clinic went over my options, I bawled. Society is so focused on women being mothers. I felt selfish for not wanting to be a mom.”

When I hear about abortion, it’s always from an angle – either the left, or the right. The woman in the middle becomes a caricature for whatever side is telling her story. But for the first time, after reading the article, I saw reality from the center of the storm. Two things were clear.

It seems we aren’t nearly careful enough with one another. Adult or unborn. 18 years or 18 weeks.

And when a choice about abortion has to be made, everyone is damaged.

***

I blog about birthing and raising twins, my toddler, and our lives as they relate to one another. It is probably not difficult to guess that I am an advocate for life.

And I get it – I’m a mother. Not everyone wants, or is able, to take on that title. But from this side of the fence, what I saw, felt, and learned from my pregnancy experiences was incredible. I am a different person for having gone through them. I am less selfish. More attuned to others and their needs. I am strongly aware of the significance of the lives around me.

I’ve also seen, week by week, the progress of a baby’s growth in utero. It’s hard to describe the emotions of this (although I attempted it here, in my nine week post about carrying twins, in case you’re interested in the details.) It’s crazy. It’s magical. It’s a little bit unnerving.

And one thing was very clear to me as soon as I knew I was pregnant. Carrying my daughters was my first and foremost responsibility because they were a direct result of my actions.

I also fully own that the situations surrounding my pregnancies were privileged – white, married, employed, insured, supported by friends and family. Most importantly, I wanted all three of my children, even though the word surprised does not even begin to cover how I felt when we discovered we were having twins.

It seems pretty easy for me to speak pro-life, and for that I apologize.

But I’m not blind. My situation is only my own. According to the headline of the article, one in three women has an abortion by the age of 45.

One in three.

***

This is 2013. Americans are still recovering from the Gosnell scenarios, the babies whose spinal cords were snipped with scissors, the babies who were put in jars until they stopped breathing.

Likewise, some of the stories in the article are incredibly difficult to read. One woman wrote [after having her abortion procedure] “When I went home, I got up to pee, and this gray golf-ball thing came out. I thought, So I just flush the toilet?”

As I write, my four month old daughters are asleep in their swings, and I choke back tears at thinking of their lives stopped short and flushed into city sewage.

It is a tsunami of emotions, this issue. Sacred becomes waste. A woman hunches over her knees. Certain dates become the hardest numbers on the calendar.

Every story has a hundred different facets, all of them razor-sharp.

But I realized something after I finished reading the stories in the article. It is impossible to navigate the emotions of abortion without being cut. And that’s a good thing. Because I shouldn’t just be crying for the unborn child.

I should be crying for the woman carrying the child as well. She is not a political pawn. She is not evil. She is not ruined for the rest of her life.

In fact, Jesus told a parable about a similar topic in John 8. There was woman caught in adultery (one of the more flammable topics of that day). The religious leaders captured her, wanted to know what Jesus said about her actions, and if she should be judged. Jesus looked them squarely in the eye and said “He who is without sin should cast the first stone.”

One by one, every one of the leaders walked away.

Everyone, that is, except Jesus.

He turns to her and says, “Neither do I condemn you. Now go, and leave your life of sin.”

In so many of the stories, shame and judgment were motivators for abortion. If that’s the case, I have a lesson to learn from Jesus’ reaction, and his response. So please hear me. My heart is broken for anyone who has endured the circumstances surrounding an abortion just as much as it breaks for the life that was ended.

It also strikes me that if anyone expects a woman to support a life she’s harboring, she herself must be strongly, firmly, supported in turn.

***

I read the stories in My Abortion hoping to find a measure of understanding.

What I found was my own responsibility.

When a woman is faced with an unexpected pregnancy, where are her supporters? Where is the person who comes alongside and communicates in love instead of fact? Who says you are not alone, and shows her she is of value, even in circumstances she did not plan for? Who helps buy groceries, or babysits, or offers rides to doctor appointments? Who opens their wallet and gives out of love? Who promises love instead of judgment, care instead of condescension?

Who is brave enough to say that adoption is the heartbeat and prayer of hundreds of thousands of people unable to conceive?

And is it reasonable to expect a woman to value a life she took part in creating if she herself is not, or does not feel valued?

What if we all truly believed we were responsible for one another?

I can’t know unless I myself promise to pour out that assurance whenever it’s needed.

As though a life depended on it.