Life With Twins – Two and Three Quarters

I check my Facebook every morning specifically for the post about my memories on that day over the past several years. Sometimes an old post will come up from my pregnancy or the first couple years of the twins’ lives and I like to read them again. It’s amazing how fast time has gone and what I’d forgotten.

In three months, these two will be THREE.

I just read over the last update to jolt my memory on what exactly I wrote about, and even in a short span of three months it’s amazing how much more the twins are like KIDS than toddlers.

We have conversations:

A grocery store trip with Miles:
Mommy, whats that? Chips
What’s that? Chips
What’s that? Chips
What’s that? Still chips
Oh, chips.
Mommy, what’s that? Chips

And so do they:

*Miles roars like a lion.*
Abby: that’s enough
Miles: stop it
Abby: no screaming
Miles: be quiet. 
It’s like I’m listening to myself, only in much cuter voices.

They really are smart. More often than not, they are using full, grammatically correct sentences. I’m talking plurals, possessives, verbs (past and present tense), adjectives, you name it. Yes, they still have bouts of meaningless babble, and that is what helps me hold onto their “baby-ness” just a little bit longer. They can both count to 20. Abby knows all upper and lowercase letters, along with some letter sounds. Miles knows all uppercase and a few lowercase. They sit at the big people table now. They drink out of regular (albeit plastic) cups. They watch movies (I’m pretty sure we’ve seen Inside Out about 50 times – no lie). They draw (scribbly) circles. They “make” pizza.

They’ve started eating a few vegetables again, but still prefer things like hot dogs (sigh) and macaroni and cheese. I make myself feel better by buying the organic kind. Organic junk. Mom of the year. Eggs, cereal, peanut butter, and of course sweets are also favorites. Abby LOVES ice cream.

They go to bed between 8-8:30 and wake up between 6-7, usually closer to 6. They still nap at daycare but not so much at home, unless they are in the car. If they don’t nap over a weekend we will put them to bed around 7, which usually works as long as we’ve been pretty busy all day. They still love to “go to school” but pitch a fit if they can’t “ride in the truck (SUV)”, for reasons that I don’t quite understand. We’ve visited McDonalds often lately to “play on the slide”.

Yes, they still throw tantrums:

It is 6:25am, and we have already had tantrums for the following reasons:
I won’t let them eat ranch flavored veggie straws for breakfast
Abby doesn’t want cereal
Abby doesn’t want peanut butter
Abby doesn’t want to be shut in the pantry
I yelled at Miles for shutting her in the pantry
We are out of eggs
Miles dropped his car
They want milk, like, yesterday
Nevermind, Abby doesn’t want milk

Where is my coffee?

No, they are still not potty trained. Ugh. Don’t even ask. #lazymom I *think* at least Miles is finally getting ready though, because several times he’s complained about being wet. (yet when I ask him if he wants to pee on the potty he screams NO PEE ON POTTY!!!!!)

I mean, they won’t go to kindergarten in diapers…..right?

It was a busy three months with Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays and a trip to Disney.

Picture summary:

• We have family pictures taken

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• My aunt visits and we explore downtown Summerville

 

• We enjoy Christmas presents (though still didn’t quite get the concept)

• Santa and Waffle House were pretty fun too

• Yes, Abby still loves food

• We ride (aka sit on rides) at the mall

• Still making funny faces

• Enjoying birthday parties

• And staying up late
• 

  I am asleep – do I look asleep?

  

  Zzzzz

  And finally, the best of all, DISNEY !

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We Solemnly Swear We Are Up To No Good

There was a debate before the twins were even born about whether they would share a room or have separate rooms. Partly because I wasn’t ready to give up the spare bedroom and partly because I thought they’d enjoy being together, my vote was that they’d stay together. They have been together since conception, after all, why separate them when they are born?

My aunt and I, interestingly, were just recently having a conversation about how long they could feasibly share a room, and what the plan might be for it once they grow out of their toddler beds. A few nights ago, I shared this discussion with Bryan, saying that even if we did separate them, they’d likely keep each other awake trying to get to the others’ room anyway. I would rather they be together until they ask for their own space.

An hour or so later, around 9:30pm (yes, I go to bed early) I headed up to bed myself and noticed the light in their room was on. Great. I have not enjoyed the fact that they are now tall enough to reach light switches without the help of a step stool. I opened the door waiting for them to scurry like roaches, and instead found this:

 

I am asleep – do I look asleep?

I can only guess that this is some pathway to the light switch

Zzzzz

Well, at least they are in it together.

A Walk With Toddlers

After breakfast, some playing, and maybe a movie (that they usually ignore half of) over the weekend, there typically comes a time when meltdowns start to happen and so its time to go outside. Miles likes to “go for a walk”.

Here is what a typical walk looks like:

Miles is excited and happily puts on his coat and shoes. Abby, who usually could care less, runs away. Once I ask Bryan to watch her so I can take Miles, she decides she wants to go, but as I’m putting on her coat, she plops onto the floor, exclaiming “no walk!”

So, I pull out the little stroller and strap her in. We make it down the driveway and one house down, where Abby then declares she wants out.

“I push!”

We, by some freak of nature, make it half way around the block when Miles, who has walking happily 10 seconds ago, decides he’s done.

I convince Abby to turn around and by that time, Miles forgets what he was protesting and joins us. He runs towards me saying “hold hand mommy!” Just as my heart is about to melt a little, I stick my finger out for him to hold and he says “no!” Abby stops to look at some acorns.

Then, he asks to cross the street, and I know what this means. Our walk has turned into a trek to grandmas. “Go to Gee-ma’s, mommy”.

Abby, who has been pushing the stroller still, begins to get frustrated the more it gets stuck, but when I try to help her, I am met with this:

Or a scream. Then suddenly I have the stroller:

That is until Miles wants it. Abby, who didn’t give two shits when I was pushing it, is suddenly chasing him screaming “mine!”

Finally, we make it to grandmas, where we fight over who gets to go inside first.

In the end, we covered 3 tenths of a mile in about 20 minutes.

Who wants to join us next time?

Toddler Cat

So, I’m really more a dog person, but recently I’ve decided that toddlers are a lot like cats.

• They only cuddle when they want to
• They hiss at you when you try to touch them or something of theirs and they don’t want you to
• They are moody
• They don’t like to wear socks
• They look at the food you put in front of them as if it was worse than death

But mostly:

Pee Potty Lollipop

Before the twins were born, I SWORE I would not be someone who waits until their kids are three to potty train. I didn’t want to deal with diapers longer than necessary, and dang it my kids were going to be SMART and train EARLY.

Today, they are 5 months away from turning 3 and, you guessed it, not trained. Miles has had a couple successes, and both will “try”, but largely the sh*t still hits the pull up.

Sadly though, the reason why they aren’t trained isn’t because they aren’t SMART and couldn’t train EARLY. Both get the concept.

Mom is lazy.

I am lazy.

I like waking up in the morning without having to rush someone to the toilet.

I like taking them for walks without worrying about when the last potty break was, or having to figure out how I’m going to run BOTH of them home when we get a block away and someone declares he has to pee.

I like taking them in the car for the same reason.

I like being able to let them play in chick fil a without having to drag both toddlers, one peeing, one screaming, because I simply can’t leave one in the play area alone while I take the other to pee.

Still, this has to happen sometime, right? We did kinda try this attempt once a couple months back, and then once last weekend. What we learned was that Abby is a stealth pee-er, and while Miles doesn’t appreciate peeing on himself, it isn’t enough to motivate him to stop.

Tonight, Miles declares he has to pee potty. Hooray! I think. So we will pull out his potty and he declares:

“Pee potty, lollapop” (lollipop)

Because in the past, I’ve given them one for just sitting on it, and now he thinks all he has to do is sit on it and he gets one.

“Pee potty lollapop, mommy”

“Sorry buddy” I say, “but if you want a lollipop, you actually have to pee IN the potty.”

He is silent

“Peeeee potttttyy lolllllapoooooop”

Sigh.

“Is there pee in the potty? You can have a lollipop if you pee IN the potty.”

He is starting to lose it now.

“PEEEEEEE POTTTTTTTY LOLLLLLLLOPOOOOOPPP!!!!!!”

Sigh.

There was no pee potty. There was no lollipop. My kid went to bed unhappy, and we have reached failed attempt number 2387293649827643.

Hand me a pull up.

The Dammit Diamond

I’ve been saying that I’m impressed with the twins vocabulary. There are days (like today when Miles correctly labeled an octagon) that they identify and label things I had no idea they knew. 

I, too, have a decent vocabulary. Anyone who knows me,though, knows it isn’t always clean. 

Monday morning we are driving to daycare. I make a right turn, accelerate and then hear Miles say:

“Dammit.”

Ugh. This one, unlike the time I swear he uttered the f-word when he accidentally turned the TV off, was completely out of context. Great, so not only is my toddler swearing, he’s doing it for no apparent reason. I ignore it hoping it’s a fluke.  Soon though: 

“Dammit.”

Yup. Mom of the year right here in the front seat. My award is rescinded for all time. I’m just about (silently) curse myself for not watching my more colorful language more closely when Abby says: 

“Diamond.”

Wait. 

Dammit. Diamond! They are talking about the road work sign! He is saying diamond! 

Phew. Mom of the year lives to see another day. 

Life With Twins – Two and a Half

Good grief. Where did the babies go?

you know you cant handle the cute

Since our last update, we have stayed quite busy. Actually, that’s an understatement. Sometimes, I wonder how so much energy can be contained in two little bodies. On the plus side, since sibling rivalry hasn’t really kicked in yet (though they do fight over things of course) they keep each other entertained really well – so much so that sometimes I think I actually get more accomplished having twins than I would with just one toddler.

I’m sure I’ll be eating my words soon since I just said that out loud.

Collectively, sometimes I’m really impressed with what they know and learn and how quickly things shifted from my counting every word in their vocabulary to putting 5 and 6 words together. Mostly, they use 2-3 but I’ve definitely heard some longer ones. Both are officially in toddler beds, which may or may not be contributing to the recent “sleep strike” where they’ve been playing in their room until 9pm and then waking up at 5:30 to play some more. Neither one will touch a vegetable with a 10 foot pole and I’ve taken to making “juice (aka smoothies) in order to try to get them to eat some. We are told by daycare that they eat their veggies there, so I guess that’s something. They’ve almost graduated from high chairs (that they are really too big for anyway) and often now sit at their little picnic table for meals. They still love Pocoyo, Little Baby Bum, and recently “guppies” (Bubble Guppies). Neither are potty trained, and I’m admittedly not very consistent about it. They understand, as Miles once demonstrated as he peed in the bathtub while saying “I pee”, and tell me if they’ve pooped, but we still haven’t gotten them to do anything on the potty yet except “try”, and even then sometimes its a fight (NO PEE PEE POTTY!!!). And they both have this weird obsession with lights and garages (bye bye garage!). If I don’t pull the SUV into the garage, they get upset.

Miss Abby loves to color and can honestly sit for almost an hour just scribbling away in her coloring book. She can read (and spell, I think) her name, Miles, mommy and daddy and recently started making Bryan hold her hand while he wrote out each of the letters. She throws a fit if you give her Miles’ daycare paper (more A-B-Y!) and, as always, still LOVES looking in the mirror, particularly if she has a “so pretty” (dress, clip, bow) of some kind. She continues to be the more laid back of the two for now. Recently she’s started to take interest in the toy cars, and every night she sleeps with her Minnie Mouse and pink bear.

Miles likes to move. He often “wanna go for a walk”, which will either consist of riding on his bike or actually walking. At Halloween, we think he walked a mile or more (Abby rode in the wagon). He really likes peanut butter by the spoonful, so if you come to our house, bring your own peanut butter. He’s starting to ask me to read stories to him, usually at least 3 times apiece. He’d eat a “lalapop” at every meal if we let him. Miles is very sensitive and emotional. Earlier, he was throwing a tantrum and I told him if he didn’t stop I’d put him to bed. So he climbed up the stairs, went into his room, closed the door and cried.

Time for picture overload!

• ❤

Kiss

• Miles demands cake

CAKE CAKE CAKE!

• We do a LOT of running (and post run recover-ing)

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• We pick out and paint pumpkins, then hop on a hay ride

• We go outside during a break in the rain to splash

• We visit “cookie”

COOKIE!

• And enjoy “Happy Day”

It’s a Happy Day!

• Mom stops procrastinating and takes us to the dentist

Don’t be fooled, she hated it

Um……

Get.that.away.

Post dentist treats

• We eat dinner at “home”

• 

  Macawoni and cheeeese!

• And of course, Halloween

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Videos!

• Slide slow-mo

• PENGUIN MILES!!

• Mommy can’t sing

• Dance

Videos!

Disney Marathon Training – Week 5

This week I booked the hotel for the trip and made preliminary plans! Still have some time though, so lets focus on the training 🙂

After spending a couple weeks trying to figure out which time plan to really follow, I’ve decided to have a “Goal A” and Goal B”. It seems I can hit the faster paces in tempo runs pretty consistently, sometimes in long runs but struggle in the speed work, which I feel like kinda puts me between the 3:40 and 3:45 goal and not really strictly one or the other. Goal A will refer to 3:40 pace goal. Goal B will refer to 3:45 pace goal.

Monday: cross training aka swim day. 1600 meter swim with mostly laps and a couple drills. I think I *might* be getting a *little* faster. I did try a “speed” workout which alternated between slow and fast laps in an up and down ladder fashion. So, 1 fast/1 slow, 2 fast/2 slow, 3 fast/3 slow and back down again. I have no idea how fast the “fast” laps were though because I didn’t stop the watch until the end, and my overall pace was still on the slow side (2:24/100m) so I’m not sure if they were really much faster or not. Next time I’ll have to separate the fast and slow laps and see if the intervals are really intervals.

Tuesday: Tempo Run. 6 miles. 2 easy/3 tempo/1 easy. Tempo goal A: 7:35/mile. Tempo goal B: 7:50/mile. I dropped the twins off at daycare and did a 5 mile loop from there with the additional cool down a half mile up the street and back. Easy miles at 8:52 and 8:32. The tempo is where things always get a little inconsistent. My first mile was 7:38, so too fast for goal B and not bad for goal A. I slowed down mile 2 at 7:41, and picked it up at mile 3 at 7:25, averaging about a 7:35. This one at least the cool down mile didn’t feel super hard and I finished that one at 8:48.

Wednesday: Speed Work. Mile repeats. Goal A: 7:02/mile. Goal B: 7:11/mile. I REALLY didn’t want to push the stroller for mile repeats so my parents watched the twins. I do not like mile repeats. (I do not like them, Sam I am). I programmed the workout in my watch (run 1 mile, rest 1 min repeat 3x) and unfortunately that meant that once the repeat was over I wasn’t sure how fast I had done it because my watch just switches to the screen that says “rest 1:00”. I looked at my watch over the course of the mile several times and it was typically in the 7:10-7:20 range so I felt like I was working really hard and going slower than I’d hoped. Mile 3 I died and had to significantly slow down the last 2 laps. It was a warm day for October (about 79 degrees)  too so that didn’t help. I ended with a 7:07, 7:04 and 7:21, averaging around the 7:11 goal.

Afterward we joined the Fleet Feet runners for an 80’s themed get together. I’m not usually one to dress up but I didn’t have the twins and why not?

My “costume” which consisted of crazy neon socks, pantyhose, my one piece bathing suit and a sweatshirt to go with my crazy hair

Thursday: cross train. Ride 10 miles. This was the first time I had been on my tri bike for a real ride (2x on the trainer) since Kiawah and it was nice to ride it again. Another warm “fall” afternoon and a bit busy traffic wise so just took a short one. I also stopped to take a pic of this house that appeared to have been part of arachnophobia with all the ridiculous amount of web used.

Bike ride observation diaries: fake spider web overkill

Friday: rest day!

Saturday: Long Run 15 14 miles. Goal A pace 9:08. Goal B 9:20- this week split in an interesting way, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Plan called for 18 miles, 3 of which I was racing. A friend said this meant I could shorten the long run by 3 miles and still have the same benefits since I was working harder. Whether this is true or not I am not sure but if it made the day easier I was gonna do it. The day looked like this: 1 mile warm up before race, 5k race (recap coming later), 4 miles jogged back (it was a point to point 5k so you could jog back or take a bus), hang out for awards, then 6 miles downtown to finish it out. Except I realized later I can’t count and only did 14. Oops. Honestly if I had realized I had to do 7 I might have quit at 6 anyway. My quads were DONE. I got in the car hurting, but thanks to Plexus, felt MUCH better about an hour later. Overall pace average 8:53 for the 14 miles, which I thought was good considering I’d done less than the 18.

This was advertised as a “fast” 5k course…with 3 hills. Liars.

Sunday: Long Run part 2/cross training.  I had said if I got all 15 in the day before I was going to let the last 3 go, but since I don’t get many miles logged anyway I threw the the twins in the stroller and we did 3 easy ones (average 9:51/mile) and then I attempted a 35 minute Yoga for Runners video in which I was needed for “hugs”, “color”, “more tickle” and “milk” all in the first 5 minutes. 🙂

Miles reaches his foot out for “more tickle” in the long grass during our run

If you missed the post earlier, I’ve decided to dedicate my run this year to Girls with Sole. So far I’ve gotten about 100$ in donations towards the program but would love to see more!

Till the Brown Leaves Town

The twins are rapidly approaching (many would say are probably already there) potty training age. Me, the one who swore up and town she was potty training early, has been lazy. Clearly, dealing with diapers is less annoying than dealing with all of the fun early potty training brings, like wondering if I should even bother leaving the house because one will be bound to say he has to use the potty as we turn out of the neighborhood.

Still, I don’t want the twins to be the only untrained ones in their daycare class, and while we were “trapped” in the house this weekend I thought we might give the”run around naked watch like a hawk and carry to potty when someone starts to pee” method.

Saturday, after my run, I thought.

No, after nap.

Ok, Sunday.

I meant Monday.

Monday I really did finally rip a diaper off Abby and proceed to stare at my 2 year olds butt more than I ever stared before. Ironically, it was then that Miles decided he, too, needed his diaper off. He actually sat on the potty a couple of times but of course nothing happened.

All day long I said the word potty more than I ever cared to. Bryan found potty songs on you tube, and we played them until I heard this:

I feel it, I feel it, I feel it. I know what to do when I have to poop. I go to the potty, pull my underwear down then I sit & wait sit & wait sit & wait till the poop plops down. Then I wipe & wipe till brown leaves town, put it in the toilet & flush it down. Bye, bye poop. Bye bye poop. Then I pull up my pants wash my hands wash my hands & do the potty dance (instumentla)) I DID IT !

I’m sorry, but till the brown leaves town? No. NO NO NO.

No.

I never realized how much time my kid spent sitting on the couch until I found myself hoping she wouldn’t pee on it. It was after the millionth “no pee on potty!” exclamation that I put a diaper back on her before I left town (ha).

Abby peed a total of three times during my experiment. The first time, it was turing the 2 minutes I spent cleaning up lunch, when Miles announced “Abby pee on floor!” The second time was during nap (diaper on, thank you), and the third time was in the high chair.

Clearly they  I am not ready for this.

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