The One with Potty Training

Fair Warning:

This blog contains the topics of poop and pee and all things gross. If you don't like gross stuff, go ahead and move about your business.   

How to Potty Train Twins:

1.) Get all the supplies you need:

     -lots and lots of undies. I would say 15-20 pairs if not more. (We say undies in our household because         the word "panties" is my most hated word of all time.)

     -at least 1 potty chair plus a potty seat to go on the toilet (because inevitably one child will want to go         potty while the other is going)

     -flushable potty wipes (not necessary, but helpful)

     -pull-ups 

     -carpet cleaner, laundry stain cleaner

     -unlimited patience

2.) Get a helper, and get on the same page as each other. Stick together and be consistent. 

-We waited for a 3 day weekend to do this new "potty training boot camp" technique, and it was really awesome! That way, hubby could help me on Monday as well. Here are the techniques of boot camp:
 a) No diapers. Ever. Say goodbye to them and never look back. Don't have any secret hidden ones for emergencies. Pull-ups are for sleeping only.
b) Let them wear only underwear.  This way, they can really feel if that have an accident.
c) constantly ask IF they have to go potty (versus taking them every few minutes). This ensures that they will be able to discern the urge to go independently without being reminded.
d) Constantly ask them, "Is your underwear dry?" so that they are learning to discern wet/dry and know the ultimate goal.
e) Give small rewards for attempts to potty, and larger rewards for potty successes. We did stickers for attempts, and a marshmallow for success!
f) Don't leave the house for these 3 days.


3.) Let the magic happen.
And by 'magic' I mean the utter destruction of your house, your patience, and everything you hold dear in life. Say goodbye to it all. Excited yet? (Don't worry, it will be worth it in the end!!!)

Here is what might happen to you:
Day 1:
Your kid will pee everywhere. All the time. A little bit here, a little bit there, as they have little to no self-awareness. Just change their clothes and remind them to pee in the potty and not in their undies.

Heck, your kid might even kindly save all of their poop for bath time  and yell, "Look! I'm swimming with meatballs, mommy!"  Or one twin might poop all over the floor while another brown-handed twin says, "Here sissy! I found your poop! Here you go!"  There might be a lot of hand washing.  Don't worry, it's just one day. It will be over soon. You can do this.

Day 2:
Your kid finally realizes that peeing all over themselves is overrated, and they decide to sit on the potty. ALL. DAY. LONG.  They have a false sense of urgency, and don't know quite how to save their pee for one larger evacuation. So they pee 1-3 drops every 2 minutes. Somehow this day is worse than yesterday. Maybe it's because you are so frazzled from scrubbing the carpet. Maybe it's because you stayed up late pre-treating Elmo underwear with stain remover. Maybe it's because you just softly wept over the loss of your Pottery Barn throw pillow. Maybe it's because the doorframe of your bathroom is brown and you're not entirely sure why. Probably it's the summation of all of the above. This is the day that you pray for patience.
You can do this. The end is near.

For both of my girls, the night of day 2, something clicked.
They asked to sit on the potty (for the zillionth time) and they peed. More than 3 drops. A real, giant pee. In a potty.
And the heavens rejoiced!!!
This is when you hug your child, and do a dance and squeal and celebrate because it has been the longest 48 hours of your life, but you finally have something to show for it!

Day 3:
This is the day of productivity. You are energized by the previous days' successes, and have a renewed sense of hope for your carpet and sanity.
My kids had no accidents. None. Once everything clicked and the lightbulb went off,  there were no  issues. It was amazing. My kids still sleep in pull-ups, but we will deal with that at a later time.

Hooray for no diapers!!!
Here's to hoping that I get back into the swing of blogging...love you guys!

The One With the Matchy Matchy

Ok, so a few people have asked me about my girls consistently wearing matching clothes.  You see, when I was pregnant with the girls, I SWORE they would never match. EVER. People asked me if they should get me matching clothes, and I was basically offended. How could anyone be that cheesy? How could people strip the identity away from their children by dressing them as one unit? The horror.

That lasted about 5 seconds.

You see, after I had the babies I turned...how you say...neurotic about certain things.  Suddenly, after they were born, they HAD to match. I have no idea why. It literally stressed me out when they didn't match. I think it was because I was trying so hard to get them on the same schedule as each other that I was just dying for them to do something the same. They always had to be in the same room, too. (Which even typing that sounds weird now.)  I just needed this peace of mind seeing my unit of babies together, alive, doing the same thing. I needed some consistency.

Here are my thoughts about twin matching:

-My original plan was for my children to wear perfectly coordinating, yet not exactly matching outfits. As in, the same adorable dress: one pink, one purple. Ha. (I still think this is an adorable, yet unattainable goal.) They don't really make clothes like this very often. You really have to hunt them down. Then you have to hope and pray that these coordinating clothes come in the right sizes. Hunting for cute, coordinating outfits involves extra time and extra money. I lack both.

-When the girls wore non-matching outfits in the beginning, EVERY SINGLE PERSON in public would say, "Oh, a boy and a girl?" Clearly one of those babies in those non-matching dresses is a boy.  It was so awkward. I eventually decided to just agree with whatever conclusion people came up with. It was easier that way.  "Yup! Totally a boy right there! Well....see ya!"

-When putting on 2 non-matching outfits, I always felt secretly guilty that one girl got to wear the cuter outfit. (Let's be real, some clothes are just cuter than others.) I didn't want to have "favorite baby in cute outfit" and "deprived baby in a potato sack."
P.S. I know how dumb and shallow this sounds, but come on! Everybody has that shirt in their closet that you're like, "Sigh, I guess this is the only thing clean."  Now imagine deciding which of your 2 adorable babies has to wear the blah outfit. I felt so guilty. I rest my case.

-IT IS JUST SO MUCH EASIER.
Instead of thinking about 20 different, yet coordinating individual outfits, I just think about 10 identical sets of outfits. Amazing. The end.

-If my girls were identical, then I might not have them match. It would be super hard to distinguish them from one another. With mine, I can easily say, "Emily has hair." If they were identical though, it might be easier on friends/family if they didn't match.

-My girls won't always match. (Unless they want to.) When they are a little older, I will give them the choice in what they want to wear. I'm assuming some days they will want to match, and some days they won't. At that point, I won't care.
Side story: I hope they don't match forever. I was an R.A. in college, and some of my residents were twins and STILL MATCHED AT AGE 19. Same shoes, same purse, everything. Gross. It was a little much at that point.

-Neurotic confession:
I group the babies' matching outfits together in big, gallon-sized zipper bags. Then I clip the bags to a pants hanger in the closet. I do this because:
a) I'm psycho.
b) We don't have a dresser.
c) I loathe hanging things on actual hangers.
d) It's easy for my hubby to just grab a bag of clothes with all the coordinating pants/jackets/onesies inside.

   (Neurotic hanging bags. Hanging clothes on the right are unworn yet. I don't do hangers.)

-My girls look so different from each other that now people in the store say, "Oh, they are so cute! Wait... are they twins? Wow! They don't look anything alike!"  It makes me kind of glad that they are matching.  Maybe otherwise, people would just think they are just buds or something.

So for now, I'm just treasuring the times that my children can match.
It's a phase in life where matching is publicly accepted, endearing, and non-creepy.
Plus, it's freakin' cute.

The One With Baby Adventures

I thought I'd make you feel clean and awesome by telling you about recent adventures.

1. Poop.  I walked out of my bedroom the other day (while the girls were napping) and distinctly smelled poop. You know that smell when somebody steps on dog poop and everyone immediately checks their shoes? That smell was wafting across the house from the nursery. I found Charlotte happily asleep with her entire bed covered in poop.
Moral dilemma: 
A.) wake up your baby and clean her off (although none is near her face or hands) knowing that she will scream, wake up her sister and they both will hate you all day long
OR
B.) let your baby happily sleep in a poop bed while risking the fact that she could wake up at any time and possibly eat/play with her poop

sigh. I cleaned her up.

2. My babies can take off their diapers now. And they're tying to take off each others diapers as well. We put 2 diaper babies to sleep and woke up with 2 naked babies in pee beds.

3. Charlotte was caught almost teething on a used rectal thermometer.

4. I apparently didn't prewash my new underwear. Therefore they dyed the lower region of me fluorescent pink. For 2 days.

5. I Febreezed my jeans because I didn't have time to wash them. And by Febreeze I mean Great Value lysol spray because we ran out of Febreeze.

6. Emily ate a button.

7. I poked Emily in the eye with a baby spoon full of cottage cheese. Ok, she actually head-butted the spoon. But there was a lot of crying and cheese involved.

8. On Tuesday I preheated the oven to make cookies. I found Saturday's unbaked potatoes inside.

9. I tried on clothes in the middle of Old Navy (over my regular clothes) because my stroller didn't fit in the fitting room.

10. I forgot to wear deodorant twice. Sorry, America.

11. As I was about to put 2 naked babies in the bathtub, I found my iPhone floating in the water. (Magically, it still works!)

12. I made an insane trip to Babies R Us in which I pushed my 30 foot stroller while pulling a cart behind me. I felt like I was on Supermarket Sweep. 500 diapers. Baby food. 2 economy boxes of formula. Wipes.
Lots of employees said, "You've got your hands full!!!!" and kept walking.
Thanks. Thanks a lot, stranger. Thank you for your unhelpful, unsolicited comments.

I think other things have probably happened to me that were gross and adventurous, but I forgot. At least I'm never bored, right? :)

                                                              (love my little turkeys!)

The One in Survival Mode

A lot of times I feel like I'm just treading water.  I'm learning that this is ok. I'm taking good care of my babies and they are abundantly loved.

Yet sometimes I think, "Wow, I'm glad nobody is video taping me right now." Here are some tips I learned after my week of desperation.

(Partial TMI warning for those that visualize things. Or if you're a dude that I don't know well.)


TIP #1: ALWAYS HAVE FOOD
I was in Target and the girls started crying. I realized they were hungry, but I didn't have bottles with me. I was about 30 minutes away from being home, so I headed straight for the baby food aisle.  I grabbed one of those baby food squeezable pouches (I've never used one before) and opened it up right there and started feeding them. I felt like a creepy applesauce shoplifter.  I never thought I would do this out of necessity, but I did. Two screaming babies will do that to you I guess.  I fed them about half of the pouch to pacify them, continued shopping, and later paid for the food when I checked out.

TIP #2: GO BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE
My stroller is giant. From the handlebar to the end it is 58 inches.  That's almost 5 feet long, people!
I like that the girls can see me and that the car seats snap inside, but it's pretty mammoth to push. (And draws LOTS of attention.)

                                                                      (my adorable view)

So I'm in Target and I had to GO. I mean GO. Ahem. Think Bridesmaids.
In panic mode, I rushed to the bathroom with my mega stroller. I can't leave them outside of the stall. So I had to maneuver my stroller into the handicapped stall (which is harder than parallel parking). I barely fit inside. Phew. Then the girls started screaming. If one baby screaming stresses you out, try two. They want the rest of the applesauce. Every ounce of my being said, "No, Liz. Food in a bathroom is gross. Don't. They can wait a few minutes."
 No, they couldn't. So yes, I was sitting in the handicapped stall of Target with a 6 foot stroller in front of me, squeezing applesauce back and forth out of a pouch to feed my babies. If thats not rock bottom, I don't know what is.

TIP #3 DON'T PULL YOUR BACK OUT. (BUT IF YOU DO, DON'T BE NAKED.)
I pulled my back this week. I'm not sure how. I had just taken a shower, and then suddenly I couldn't stand up straight or raise my right arm. This might not be a huge deal except I had 2 crying babies in their cribs that had just woken up. I could have called for help, but I couldn't stand up or raise my arm to get dressed. I stumbled around my house in a towel, hunched over, as I tried to think of a way to get the babies out of their cribs.  I'm sure that I looked like a Quasimodo baby-napper as I awkwardly pulled them out of their cribs. They just laughed at me, since this was obviously a funny new game. Thankfully, my hubby came home from work early to help.


Sometimes you just have to make things work, even in rough situations. What things have you done out of survival mode?

The One where I'm a Mom - Snob

I'm pretty opinionated when it comes to raising kids.  I was basically an early childhood development major in college, I nannied all throughout college, and I worked at a family summer camp every summer in college. I saw tons of different amazing families in action, and others that were pretty dysfunctional. Through all of these experiences, I made up my mind on a few points. We could call them ideals, standards, goals, whatever, but I am now finding them pretty unrealistic.

All I have to say is, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Here are some of my standards that have already been smashed, and my girls are only 7 months old.

1. My babies will never use toys with batteries/lights, etc.
I love classic wooden toys, puzzles, stacking cups, rattles, basic blocks, and toys that need imagination. Then Emily had to go to physical therapy because of her torticollis.  She literally couldn't turn her head to the left. We tried everything with no success. But as soon as her therapist busted out the obnoxious light up Winnie the Pooh singing toy, Emily attempted to turn her head to look at it. A miracle! Her therapist recommended we buy something similar so that I could continue working with her at home. My heart sank.  Crap. I swore I would never do it. But when it came to my baby's development, I knew I needed to get one. 98% of the girls' toys are still without batteries, but I know that they aren't going to die if they see a flashy toy.

2. My babies will never watch TV.
According the the American Association of Pediatrics, they say children under the age of 2 should watch NO television. None.  I really do understand why, though. It's not just the content, but also the speed in which the shows move. The way there are tons of camera angles flashing back and forth, cutting to and from different perspectives.  They say that watching lots of TV under the age of 2 increases the factor of ADHD greatly. Another study showed that pre-k children that watch fast-paced cartoons (Sponge Bob, etc) versus slow-paced shows had a much higher rate of ADHD. We still try to avoid TV at all cost.
But can I say that since day one these babies have been attracted to the TV like moths? We would always face them away so they wouldn't look. It's pretty hard to do! I will no longer judge mamas that let their kids watch TV. Our family has finally compromised that the babies can watch a Baby Einstein DVD once a day if they are super fussy. Sometimes its the only way that my hubby and I can eat dinner together without screaming in the background! I like that Baby Einstein has lots of fun colorful pictures and toys, but is slow-paced for babies' eyes. I recommend the Baby Mozart one for the early months! :)
                   *side note: The other day I pressed play and ran off to the bathroom. My girls got to watch  the first 5 minutes of Thor. Oops. Make sure you have the right DVD in!

3. My babies will never drink formula.
My body was not physically able to produce enough milk for 2 babies. Long story. At one point I was taking 16 pills a day to increase my supply, trying all the homeopathic stuff, pumping every hour, and I still made only 1 bottle a day. We needed 14-16 bottles a day. It broke my heart to give them formula, but they needed to eat! Sometimes we just fall short.

4. I will never get a mini-van.
Ok, so we can't afford one, but oh-em-gee I suddenly want a minivan. I don't care how I look. I don't care if it has wood paneling. Just please, get me a car where the doors open for me! Fitting 2 babies, a mega twin stroller, and groceries in my sedan is like the worst game of Tetris ever.  I give up.

I could go on and on. The moral of the story is: never say never. Of course, it's good to have high goals for your child and their development, but sometimes a few things are ok in moderation.
Where have you had to compromise your unrealistic standards?