Moms of multiples tell it like it is

I now understand why January is full of messages of lighter living and organization. Our family has had a great winter holiday! Rich food weighs us down, sleeping-in and late night fun put our kids off bedtime schedule, we have great new toys to explore, and enjoyed family visits. But all this fun has wrecked havoc on our lives and bodies–is there such a thing as too much fun? My house is a giant “before” picture. But now we are back to real life–back to school, work and schedules. Time to set some goals:

1). Eat right;
2). Exercise;
3). Keep the house cleaner;
4). Cook nutritious meals.

Same resolutions every year that fall by the wayside in February. Try again:

1). Cure picky-eater-ness;
2). End sibling bickering;
3). Enforce good table manners.

Now I’m just dreaming.

I have so much to learn in 2012. Starting with striving to make our mornings smoother. I have schedules posted all over the house, bans on T.V. during the week, and when I am really on my game–both breakfast and lunch made before the kids get up. Yet every morning it feels like a race to the finish with a lot of cajoling to get everyone out the door. It makes for a stressful start of the day and I wish I could figure out what key ingredient I am missing to fix the situation.

Next, I need to learn how to take my kids (all with different skill levels) biking safely: an 8-year-old with a brand new mountain bike, a 4-year-old daredevil on a balance bike and a hesitant 4-year-old on a trike who longs to catch up with the other two but is not confident enough to try. If you can imagine me running around the neighborhood after this crew, dodging speeding cars, then you can understand my need for a new plan.

Finally, I need to figure out new and interesting ways to teach my boys their letters and numbers. They attend a fabulous play-based preschool and are learning social skills everyday and kindergarten requirements somewhat by osmosis. However, September is fast approaching and while we have a great (but competitive) elementary school, I feel the need to catch them up a bit so they go into kindergarten as prepared as any other kid.

What this really comes down to is learning how to accept and thrive in the challenge of:

1). how to be a great parent to an 8-year-old girl and two four-year-old (almost five!) boys;
2). learning how to balance the talents, needs, and desires, of everyone in the family so that my husband and I can reach our full parenting potential.

My goals all relate back to one thing “I” need to accomplish for success in my family. So I have chosen a word of the year to help me keep it all in the front of my mind: LEARN. I need to learn new skills in both parenting and time management in order to be a great parent this year and fulfill my goals. Do you have new year’s goals for yourself or your family?

Leslie H. is a freelance writer and parent to three great kids (two happen to be twins).

As I’ve written before I was born to be a Mom. I enjoy my children. I take parenting seriously. I invest time and effort to it. And up until couple months ago everything was going pretty well.

I’ve had a challenging fall. I’ve felt inadequate as a parent. I’ve had unloving, impatient and even angry feelings towards my children (like that night when Beth was screaming uncontrollably for what seemed like ‘forever’ for no apparent reason and I so wanted to throw her down the stairs). I want to assure you that I haven’t acted on most of these feelings that have been racing through my head but just the realization that I am not always (this fall very seldom) that kind of mom I aspire to be has been a humbling (and maybe even a good) experience. Humbling because I don’t like to ‘fail’ and good because no growth or chance can happen if there’s no need perceived.

I’m not entirely sure why it’s suddenly been so difficult but my guess is that it has to do something with having 2 three year olds in the house. (I don’t understand the talk about ‘terrible 2’s’ .. it’s the ‘almost unbearable 3’s’ that get you) .. but whatever the reason I pretty quickly realized I had to make some changes so that I wouldn’t dread every day when I stayed home with them.

The first change was to make sure I get a ‘quiet time’ in the morning to read the Bible and pray. In those times my heart and mind was gently conformed from angry-to-neutral-to-kind-to-loving towards my children.

Secondly, I decided to push back starting some online courses as well as continuing my sign language classes so that I would be mentally more available to my kids. (I’m excited to be starting this month!)

The third change was not to care so much about the appearance of our home but rather spend time on the floor playing with the kids like I had for the first three years of Nathan’s life ..( and had really looked forward to the time when they would ‘self play’ and I could get ‘stuff’ done.) So play I did, and with the decision not to stress about much else, I found that I quite enjoyed it. And the kids loved it!

In few weeks it seemed we had found the harmony that I had gotten accustomed before. Not to say that our days are not interrupted with fights over toys or space on Mom’s lap, intentional instigation and bugging of each other or full blown tantrums over ‘NO’s. But most of the time we enjoy the days we have with each other and when the children get out of control I take time to listen and be involved .. you know, like a good mom would.

I for one am much more content and happy. So I think I’m going to continue like this until we hit an other challenging phase .. which I’m sure there will be in the future.

(And in case you were wondering how I handled that desire to throw her down the stairs … I carried her downstairs, asked softly what she would like (at 3am!) and then watched her eat her yogurt. She said she’d like to go watch a show and I said that would be fine but I was going to go back to bed. She chose to go back to her bed also. I tugged her in and she told me she loved me).

What are some challenges that you have dealt with or are in the middle of now? How did you pull through? 

Hanna is a mother of three, Nathan 4, Beth and Joshua 3 and is learning to cherish and enjoy every moment with her children. Her awesome husband doesn’t have the struggles she has but that’s because he doesn’t get enough time with the kids .. or that’s what she tells herself anyway  

A year ago I was in my kitchen, trying to get ready dinner on the table when I heard this song for the first time.  It stopped me in my tracks and gave me goose bumps.  I stood there, trying not to cry, while my 7 month old babies rolled around on my living room floor.  I couldn’t help but long for the days when I felt them inside my skin. 

The Christmas before I was carrying twins, but I didn’t know until February.  I missed the chance to enjoy this feeling of two beautiful babies at Christmas.  I ignored the signs that there was more than one and focused on the single baby I insisted was there.   I look back at that Christmas and it feels distant.  I can’t help but feel like I missed out on something special. 

I have a tendancy to wish away whatever is happening right now.  I want to rush to a time that is easier, a time when things are smooth and confortable and not so rocky.  With 3 small children it’s easy to focus on what we don’t have, what we can’t do.  I daydream about the days to come, when they are a little more independant.  The every day responsibilities weigh me down and I look forward to an easier time.

This song brings me back to the moment I’m in now.  This is the last Christmas, the very last Christmas I will ever have with my four year old son and his 19 month old sisters.  I will never get this Christmas back.  And even though we may not make it to a Christmas play or through the Christmas Eve service, I don’t want to wish this Christmas away. 

So I sit back and I watch them play.  I try to memorize the way they move, their reaction to the Christmas tunes constantly playing in our house.  We talk about Jesus and Santa and reindeer.  I watch their eyes light up when the see Christmas light and trees.  I breathe in their joy and excitment.  I focus on the things they seem to care about, particularly my son, who is enjoying this Chrismas more than any before.  And I try not to loose that feeling that this is the last one I have with them exactly like this.

Wherever you are, whatever stage your in right now, take a moment to really breathe it in.  If you’re expecting your twins or knee deep in double the diapers, or chasing toddlers or keeping track of preschool activities, take a minute to let it sink in.  Look at your children.  Memorize every dimple and bump.  Commit this Christmas to memory, it’s the last one you have exactly like they are right now.  It can be so much harder with two, but it’s so much more rewarding.  Time moves quickly.  Before you know it we will be putting together a Christmas for 2012.  Don’t let this one slip away before you have a chance to really enjoy it.

You can listen to the song here

AmberD, also known as dollimama, spends her days keeping track of her 4 year old son and 19 month old twin girls.  You can read about her Life Not Finished or follow the crazy on Twitter.

My friend’s wife, Maria, was on bed-rest for the last few months of her twin pregnancy. They live in Cyprus. I’ve been checking in with them on Skype, every other Thursday. It gets down to numbers – be it weeks, days, weight, length, or contractions.

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“30 weeks. Woooo hooooo!”

“So far so good! Maria is doing well. Bored, but fine.” he replied.

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“32 weeks – great news! What’s the latest?”

“Doctor says all is good. We’re aiming for the 22^nd of December; 36 weeks.”

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And last Thursday: “34 weeks, how’s it going?”

“We’re scheduled for a C-section in about 3 hours.” They were at the doctor’s clinic, waiting. “The smaller one has plateau’d at 1.7 kilo; the bigger one is 2.4 kilo. The smaller isn’t growing anymore.”

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Friday on the phone with my friend: The little one is doing well. It’s the bigger one though, he cried when he was born, and then suddenly stopped breathing. I was asked to leave the delivery room at that point. They held him upside down. He was blue…I panicked.

I remember the worry that gripped me every time I was asked to leave the NICU. Either Rahul had gone into yet another sleep apnea; for what seemed like a little too long, or they had to set, and then re-set an IV into an already rebellious Leila’s miniscule, 1.2kilo body-weight, hand or foot. The screaming, the suffering you hear from a creature as tiny as she was, through the thickest hospital walls, is heart-wrenching.

My friend and his wife seem to have their emotions under control. I clearly remember that it wasn’t easy to stay level. But I had to, no matter what. I seemed unemotional, distant, “strong”, because otherwise I would break down. That meant I barely spoke to anyone, other than minor, somewhat polite interaction with the medical staff and with my parents and mother-in-law, who had moved to Hong Kong to help me during those 6 weeks, and after. I managed it the best way that I could. That’s it.

I hated my phone more than ever before. I couldn’t stand to see Maher on his. It had to be off in the NICU. And if I wasn’t at the hospital, and it rang – it was one of 3 options: Maher, someone I didn’t really want to go into any detail with, or the NICU. Luckily for us, it was never the last option.

Regardless of the calm my friend has portrayed, I’m contacting him daily, but apprehensively. You never know with this: one day the milk feeds are up, the next day they’ve been stopped because it seems there is a fatal infection brewing in the intestines. One day Twin 1 is moved out of the NICU into the slightly bigger babies room, the next day the baby in the bed next to Twin 2 dies.

One of my initial, harder moments was on a Wednesday afternoon, the third day after the birth. It was the day I left the hospital. I walked out, free after months of bed-rest; but I was leaving my babies behind.

Maria will only see her babies on Sunday, after she is discharged. On Thursday, she gave birth at the clinic, and the babies were rushed off in an ambulance, to an NICU. I realized that what my doctors did, what seemed obvious then, makes much more sense – they put me in an ambulance at the private hospital where I’d spent the last two weeks of my pregnancy, waiting out contractions, so that I could give birth at 31 weeks, at a major, public hospital, that had a state of the art NICU on its 6^th floor.  I didn’t see my babies until they were 17 hours old, but they were in boxes, safe, somewhere in the same building.

In the hour after I saw them for the first time, when I saw and heard Rahul cry out – in pain – and I couldn’t do anything, not even just pick him, I realized that I would have to find the deepest of my strengths, love, and compassion to get through this.

She was 2 weeks old when we saw Leila’s face for the first time; Maher and I happened to be next to her incubator when a nurse changed her sunglasses. Both babies had jaundice when they were born, which is quite normal. Leila’s dragged on for a while though. It is treated by phototherapy – a light that shines on the babies – front and back. The babies wear a white mask to protect their eyes. On most babies in this ward, the patches are as big as their faces.

I tried to spend every moment possible with my babies, visiting hours for parents only, were from 9am to 12:30pm, and then from 2pm to 8pm. I spoke to L and R, sang to them – out of tune, and during the week, when Maher was back in Chengdu I played an Mp3 of him singing for them. I caressed them, and when they were stable enough, I clumsily changed their diapers, and even attempted to breastfeed them.

The medical team of this hospital, The Queen Mary, HK, knows what it’s doing. From the moment we arrived – me contracting and making guided decisions in labour, Maher figuring out the administrative details, we knew we were in good hands.

But the NICU staff didn’t always explain a lot to us, nor were they particularly nice. Of course the team is very busy giving life to babies; giving them a second chance. They don’t have time for frantic, lurking parents; at least that’s how we felt at our NICU. They deal with immense fragility scientifically; they attach ventilator’s to tiny babies, insert IV’s, measure and inject milk feeds into a tube that goes straight into the baby’s stomach, and then suck out and measure the undigested material through the same tube, they monitor and record every minute change on a tight, 24-hour schedule. Not easy for any parent to handle. And oh yeah, they let the babies cry.

There was one nurse though, who made the difference. She always smiled. She not only encouraged me to breast-feed, but she also advised me and gave me pamphlets about it. She’s the nurse who organized a parent support group one Sunday afternoon. That meeting opened us up. Her kindness and compassion made my visits a little easier.

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At the NICU in Cyprus, my friends are only allowed to see their babies between 1 and 2 pm, and then again between 5 and 6pm.

A friend of mine had to send her 2 month old baby to an NICU in Chengdu, for pneumonia. No one was allowed in. Full stop.

On the other hand, a friend of mine in the UK would go in to see her baby in the middle of the night be it because she was gripped by anxiety or because she had a strong urge to stay close to her baby.

The NICU rules everywhere seem to differ. What was your NICU experience like? What were the visiting hours? Was the staff pleasant, and helpful towards the parents? Did they encourage breastfeeding? Who was allowed in?

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Natasha lives in Chengdu, China with her husband Maher. She is mum of  twins Leila and Rahul, and was an Ashtanga Yoga teacher until her little yogis became the teachers. You can find more of her thoughts and stories at Our Little Yogis.

In Canada, we have a national organization called Multiple Births Canada (MBC).  We are currently in a competition to access grant funding, and we need all the supporters we can get. We would use the grant money to update our website and translate materials for parents with or expecting multiples who speak different languages.

Many of our resources are accessed by families from the United States including our fact sheets, many of which are free to download.

I’d like to ask you to take a minute to vote and show your support for families of multiples everywhere. All you need to do is click here or watch either (or both) of the following video and click on the link at the end.  If you have a Facebook account, you can vote using it.  You can vote once a day for an idea, so I encourage you to vote daily.

Thank you on behalf of families with multiples, and those who don’t yet know they will be families with multiples.

Help Us Help Them

MBC Supporting Families

This is my boys’ 3rd Christmas, but the first that they really have any idea what is going on around here with the tree in the living room and the lights everywhere. They were born at the beginning of November, and as anyone with twins or more babies knows, the first few months are a blur. We didn’t put up a tree their first Christmas, and we didn’t even wrap gifts. There was a big pile of Amazon boxes we just opened up Christmas Eve. I knew when we had kids I wanted to really enjoy the holidays and make it magical for them. That first year, though, was tough. We did dress the boys up in holiday outfits, took the requisite photos, and we did the one thing I knew we couldn’t skip: We took them to see Santa.

It was incredibly cold out, and our local Santa is outdoors (He has a little hut that is heated.) I think Santa was a little surprised when we handed him two one-month-old babies. We snapped our photo, wished him Merry Christmas and left. Easy peasy. Sure, it’s not the best photo, but it was their first Christmas and it was on my must-do list. The rest, the tree, the wrapping, the hoopla, we skipped out of necessity and exhaustion.

The second year we did put up our tree, which interested our not-yet-walking one year olds but not anymore than a cardboard box might. And they opened their presents Christmas Morning (which were wrapped!) However, our must-do photo on Santa’s lap was sort of a fiasco. We went to see the local Santa again, which was a no-go since there was a crazy line and it was snowing sideways. As time ticked by, I realized that I would regret not getting the photo so I went to the mall on the 23rd of December and the three of us waited in line for, and I am not making this up, FOUR HOURS. I had to text my husband and have him bring extra provisions since we had exhausted the milk and snacks I brought along.  It was insane, but it was something I knew I wanted to do and would be completely bummed it we didn’t. I wanted my kids to be able to look back and see their visits to Santa every year since they were a month old. So we waited. And they were amazing, they sat in their stroller, waited patiently (I pretty much just kept a steady stream of snacks going in their direction.) and we got the best photo I could have asked for.

So this year, I got smart. We went to visit the man in red even before Thanksgiving. Early? Yes. long lines? No. All day leading up to the visit, my boys were saying, “See Santa?” and were really excited. We talked about how the visit would go, I asked them what they wanted to ask Santa to bring for Christmas and was repeatedly told, “Cheese.” And then the big moment came. And, well, it didn’t go as picture-perfectly as last year. But it’s honest and true and I love it.

I love that we’ve created the tradition of visiting Santa. And now we’re putting up decorations and making cookies and decorating Gingerbread Houses. It took a couple years for us to get our footing with the holidays and start making our traditions with our boys. Now that they are really starting to understand the world around them, the things we do this Christmas may shape all our yearly traditions to come.

But no matter what, they will have their Santa photos, and hopefully memories of the fun things we’ve done together as a family for Christmas.

You can read about our adventures on and off Santa’s lap at goteamwood.com.

I fully admit, I am not as far along in my holiday shopping as I had expected. This is new to me, as in years past I am generally finished early, adding a few Black Friday deals as icing on the cake. I swore that this year I would buy the boys each different toys that suited their personalities, and then I caved, or was caved, by the Imagintext Batcave.

As my boys approach five, I am torn between buying them the same gifts as I have done in years past, or buying slightly different ones that can be played with together. It starts as twinfants by well meaning family and friends who buy two crinkly toys, two bouncers, two walkers, and moves on thru the toddler years where two ride on toys become a necessity to prevent their fighting and Mom’s headaches. I had hoped that this year I could follow their interests (helicopters and police cars for one and batman and spiderman for the other) and buy them individual gifts instead of treating them as a unit, but as much as I hope this would work, I must admit defeat. While only one boy is interested in the batman Imagintext products, they will both be receiving them because they are just too super cool to just have one in the house. Jealousy would abound.

I do pat myself on the back for purchasing complimentary Playmobil pieces: an ambulance, a police car, and a plane for big sister. I know that many hours of imaginative play await. And since I’m not quite done with my shopping, I am open to any and all ideas for imaginative, creative gifts for almost five-year-old boys.

Lest you think our holiday plans are all toy related, I leave you with an image of a recent crafting session. As my kids get older, crafting gets more “doable”–projects are completed successfully and with less mess. Here we are making salt dough decorations. The recipe is simple and very similar to homemade playdough:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water

Stir to combine. Roll out on a floured surface, cut shapes, be sure to poke a hole for stringing. Bake at 250 degrees for two hours. Enjoy!

How do you manage gifts for your multiples?

Leslie H. is a freelance writer and mom to a spunky 7-year-old girl and police and ambulance and batman loving four-year-old twins.

I love the holidays.  Holiday music, baking opportunities, community events, Christmas lights–all of it makes me smile. I don’t enjoy shopping during the holidays at all, though. The crowds give me headaches, so I’m usually done procuring gifts well before Thanksgiving.

One of my favourite activities at the end of the year is sending out holiday cards. Since becoming a mother, I haven’t been nearly as good at keeping in touch with friends around the world, and our holiday greetings are an annual opportunity to remind the people we care about that we love them. For nearly six years, I maintained a public blog, but there are plenty of folks for whom the blogosphere is a huge mystery. The act of addressing and stamping envelopes, filling them with our family’s good wishes, is very satisfying. I know that Christmas cards end up being a chore for many people, and I’m very glad that I find the whole experience to be fun!

I usually order photo cards with a photo from the year. When my husband is home for the holidays, I send out a family photo, but more often the picture is of our twin daughters alone. After all, my husband and I look pretty much the same year after year. Getting nice family photos is a challenge all its own, and after the first year, I elected to leave it to the professionals. A couple of years ago, we invested in an amazing photo shoot with the talented Brandi Nellis, but most years, we just hit up the Sears or JC Penney photo studio.

Although our nuclear family celebrates Christmas’s religious significance, we have many relatives who are Muslim, several friends who are Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist, and many more friends and relatives who are altogether secular. I try to pick a winter-themed photo card rather than a Christmas one, and add a handwritten note to recipients who we know will be celebrating Christmas or Eid, if it happens to fall in the winter.

Along with the photo card, I include a family letter, describing the highlights of our year. The majority of the letter usually ends up being about the children’s interests, milestones and accomplishments. This year, I invited our daughters to make their own contributions to the annual letter, and they each drew a picture and wrote a few sentences about the holiday season this year. It was pretty amazing to see them as excited about reaching out through the mail as I am every year.

How do you handle holiday greetings, and do you include your children in your efforts?

Sadia, her husband and their 5-year-old girls, M and J, send their holiday greetings from El Paso, TX, where they have just experienced their first Texas desert snow. Sadia’s husband told her about desert snow during his first tour of duty in Iraq, but it has to be seen to believed.

What do you do when you observe an uninformed parent putting her child in danger?

No one likes unsolicited advice, especially when it comes to parenting. Strict routines work for some families, and not for others. Breastfeeding works for some mother-child pairs, and not for others. Discipline comes in as many flavours as there are children in the world.

However, there are times that it’s difficult, perhaps even immoral, to stay quiet.

My husband and I recently observed a young mother picking her child up by the head. Her thumbs under the baby’s ears, her pinkies at the base of his neck, she lifted his entire body to kiss him gently on the forehead. His body swung from the neck. To us, this screamed of possible cumulative spinal injury. We communicated our concerns to the mother. Her response was, “I don’t see the problem. I do this all the time.” We found some documents on spinal injuries in babies and gave them to her, although nowhere were we able to find a clear directive forbidding this sort of lift.

We may have very well destroyed our relationship with this mom, whose son we adore, but we couldn’t have lived with ourselves if we didn’t say something.

What would you have done?

Thanksgiving is time to count our blessings. My heart is full of the gifts all my children have given me. I am especially thankful to have been given the gift of multiples. Having two kids at one time has stretched our family in new ways that we have never thought possible. I will fully admit–and friends will agree–that I was a not myself during the newborn days with twins an a three-year-old. But as the kids get older and relationships change, I am able to look back with pride and nostalgia for all that we have accomplished together, growing as a family, as well as look forward to fun years ahead.

In the book, “One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are,” author Ann Voskamp encourages readers to look beyond the day to day grind of lives and to keep a counting of our blessings. These three children have given my husband and I so much to be thankful for–my heart is full. A recent counting of my families’ blessings include:
The ability to walk my older daughter and her friends to and from school. Pickups that become huge playdates with friends and their siblings

Legos and polly pockets and imagination games that all three can play

Loving the old dog

Boys and dog in the stroller

Halloween and Holidays. Busy-ness and slowing down. Time flies

The ability to stay at home these beginning years and trying every day to remember to enjoy each minute

Wanting, needing, demanding time with Daddy, especially when it involves hitting golf balls or hammering nails

Kids Meetings (where they scurry away to have discussions and usually involve filched treats like potato chips or candy). I try to be mad because I think I *should* but it is just so cute!

“Mommy, I need to be outside, or I’m just going to die!” My nature-centric kids

That twins and an older sibling play together, love each other, need their time together without Mom or Dad interfering

From our family to yours, wishing you a heartful Thanksgiving Season.

Leslie H. is freelance writer and mom to a spunky seven-year-old and rambunctious four-year-old twin boys.