The Lure of Comparison

Okay, I know you aren't supposed to compare kids to each other, and definitely never ever say out loud "why can't you be more like...." but, as these are my first kids, and they are exactly the same age, I DO find myself marveling at the developmental inequities between both my kids, and even their singleton cousin H, who was born a week later. (He was a week late, mine were a week early...I consider them all the same age.) I've heard there are differences between girls and boys at this age, and that girls are often a bit ahead...but Josie is almost literally running circles around August. She's got teeth numbers 5 and 6 popping through, (his 2nd looks like a little rice grain on his gums right now) and yesterday she *stood up* in the middle of the room - not holding on to anything - for a good 7 or 8 seconds, grinning wildly, before plopping down on her butt. She's practically walking! A is cruising, and pretty good with balance, but not really close to this. We just got a video this week of H starting to crawl, so that underlines the wide range at this age. She seems to do everything at lightning speed, whether it's sleeping through the night, (she's done it a couple times - he has never even come close.) smiling, rolling over, crawling, babbling, clapping, etc...and little man gets around to whatever it is in his own time, usually a couple weeks later. It's a bit sad because instead of enjoying the wonder of his development I'm always thinking to myself, "Ok...Josephine did it, now when are you going to do it?"  I know intellectually that he's not "slow" by any measure, it's just that having J around makes him "slowER." I wish I could help from comparing them at all! Are your twins or kids developing at vastly different rates? Does anyone have tricks to keep from comparing or worrying that one is slower?

Adventures in Baby Food

January 1st we decided to try our first batch of homemade baby food: I'm a huge fan of doing the most cost-effective and sustainable thing, and since I got a handy food mill for Christmas, I thought we'd try it out. So I spent a good two or three hours in the kitchen peeling, coring, roasting, steaming, pureeing, sterilizing, filling and freezing. We did peas, organic carrots, squash, pear-apple-blackberry, mixed veggie with organic potato, and "pasta dinner," which the kids loved, the recipe is below. Almost twenty little jars (reused, of course) full, and it lasted....a week. I cannot deny the letdown when I realized how very little the payoff was. The jarred organic food is 15¢ an ounce and readily available..pretty doable.  I had been so committed to this! Not to be daunted, I decided to try again. This week, we made a list and a special trip to the store, and yesterday was another puree-fest. We got broccoli, plums, organic blueberries, pears, apples, beets, sweet potatoes and delicious little delicata squash. Also, sweet peas, lima beans, and black-eyed peas, a little greek yogurt, bananas and avocados, and some baby oatmeal and wheat. After doing the work and the math, I might have a different opinion, but for now the fresh stuff beats the jarred in taste hands-down! The first thing we tried for breakfast was a half a mashed banana with a handful of blueberries, about a tablespoon of oatmeal and a blop of yogurt...it was so good I kept stealing bites! Also, it was quite easy to roast a whole tray of veggies at once - oven at 350º, I scrubbed (but didn't peel) the beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, cut the squash in half, and threw an onion and a few cloves of garlic with a touch of olive oil on the skins, and left them in for a good 30 or 45 minutes, turning once. All the natural sugars rose to the surface and began to caramelize - by the time they were soft enough to puree, everything was really sweet and my kitchen smelled delicious!

"Pasta Dinner" Baby Food:
Half an onion
Half a green pepper
one stalk organic celery
one carrot, scrubbed or peeled
two tomatoes, quartered
one clove of garlic (if your babies like it..my Italian babies seem to)
one big handful whole wheat pasta (doesn't matter what shape; I used rotini)
a tablespoon of squash puree if you have it - optional.
Fresh or dried basil, parsley & oregano (we still had some frozen from the summer crop!)
organic, low-sodium chicken stock or filtered water

throw all the veggies in the steamer, or in a basket over boiling water with a tight-fitting lid. Check them in about 5 minutes, and grab the tomatoes with tongs - they need to be peeled, and the skins should come right off after having been steamed. Put the peeled tomatoes right in your blender, food mill, or food processor. Let the rest of the veggies steam for another 7 or 8 minutes - stick them with a fork to make sure they are soft. If you have enough boiling water left under the steamer basket, throw in the pasta. If not, boil some water for the pasta. Throw it all in the blender and puree with enough liquid to make it your desired consistency. Since there are herbs and spices, and my kids are 8 months, we made the consistency fairly thick - like sour cream.

A note about organics: we are VERY budget-conscious, but some fruits and veggies are so full of pesticides that it's worth the extra money ten times over... Matt has an app on his phone, but for the low-tech, just print out (or *gasp* hand-write) a list of the "dirty dozen" and the "clean 15" to keep ON YOUR PERSON so that when you are at the grocery store, you can reference it. Namely, potatoes, apples, greens, and thin-skinned fruits and berries we try to always buy organic. Also, animal products such as meat, milk, butter and eggs are a good switch from conventional if you can afford. We can't buy the same quantity of meat if we go organic, so we end up eating less meat - which is healthier for us in general. Win!

Twins: how does it even work??

Get them on a schedule. That's the first thing the well-meaning books and articles will tell the mother-of-twins-to-be. In my mind, we would be a well-oiled machine: double nursing, double burping, double diaper changes, and the all-important double nap.  The reason they advise you to get them on a schedule is that ideally, with two babies asleep for a length of time, you would be able to shower, or have a nap yourself - this is key, as the most challenging part of raising twins so far (in my case) has been that I'm just exhausted. More than likely I've been woken up many times during the night, and I'm just really low on energy. These guys take LOTS of energy. I would say my single greatest piece of advice to anyone having multiples is not about the schedule, though, it is this: GET HELP. Ask your relatives, if you are lucky enough to have them close. Ask your friends. You shouldn't have to, but ask your husband or partner over and over. If you are able to actually pay someone to help, I would say this is a wise investment. I'm not saying the schedule isn't important, but don't put too much pressure on yourself: the schedule will happen. We have more of a rhythm than a routine. We know what comes after what, but it doesn't have to be at the same time or in the same place every day. We don't do things simultaneously, mostly because I'm just one person. My particular babies did not enjoy double-nursing. It stressed them out, it stressed me out, and so I did it one at a time until about a month ago, when they were old enough to handle it. I actually enjoyed the one-on-one bonding. "But what did you do with the other one while one was nursing?" Great question. If someone else was around, they would be holding him/her. If not, they were in their crib, asleep or awake playing with toys, or on a blanket at my feet playing, or swinging in their swing - I'm not going to lie - often crying at me. These were the most challenging days. It sounds really rough, but moms of twins, back me up: there's just no avoiding the crying sometimes. They get their diapers changed one at a time, too, obviously, but always one right after the other so I don't have to try and remember who's wet and who's not. And the naps...well....we try to take them at roughly the same time, but it doesn't always work out that way. One in the morning, about an hour and a half after we get up (which these days is usually between 6:30 and 7:30 am.) If this one is incredibly short, we try another one around 11:30 am or noon. If both napped to my satisfaction in the morning, we just play and have lunch and wait until they are cranky, which is usually around 1:30 or 2 pm. Many times, one will go easily to dreamland and the other will be wide awake, at which point I must decide: let the child continue to play happily and get some alone time with mommy, or force it to nap - which involves lots of crying and patting. If it has not napped and it's getting on 3:00 pm, i will force it. If not, I usually let it be. (to avoid the batteries running out at like 5:30, which is too close to bedtime for a nap..) That being said, once Daddy is home it's easy to do the rest of the day in lockstep: dinner, bath, pajamas, stories, bottle, bed. A note about bathtime: before they could sit up by themselves, we did baths one at a time, in the sink. Bathing two by yourself is not a good idea. Even if you could pull it off, why take the risk?

Welcome!

   Hi, I'm J'aime - a fine art painter, world traveler, lover of all things food & cooking, and first-time stay-at-home mother of boy/girl twins, August & Josephine. My husband Matthew is a photographer, and we are starting out at our most humble. I hope to enrich your lives with intriguing glimpses into ours as we try to live the dream: raise thoughtful, cultured, ecologically-minded kids who become happy, self-sufficient adults while building a business we are really passionate about. 

Anyway, It's my first time being at home with kids and I figured I would try to "get a life" by blogging about it, and building relationships in the mom community - especially moms of multiples, who feel my pain. When I was pregnant and searching the web for twin blogs I wondered why there were very few, or they were just about older toddlers...now I know. You don't even have time to take a shower let alone sit down and write for ten minutes! Now that the kids are *sort of* on the same schedule (more on this later) I am able to snatch time for myself throughout the day, I could really use some "adult conversation."

Let me briefly introduce the twins: August and Josephine are 8 months old and as different as pie and cake. While they both got their father's big brown eyes, the similarities end there. August is a sensitive poet who sings heartfelt odes to his blocks and stuffed birdies and is delighted by all animals and jewelry. "Fussy Gussie" has a hare trigger, and can be either the sweetest little thing on God's green earth or a sobbing mass of pathos that must be held immediately. Josephine, the "alpha baby," takes her business quite seriously, which, as far as I can tell, includes grabbing objects, (especially objects her brother is mouthing,) raising them over her head with both hands, hitting them on the table two or three times, giving them a thoughtful chew, and then moving on to the next object. When she laughs out loud, which is rare, it sounds almost maniacal and seems to be for reasons known only to her. Things Josephine has found hilarious include: the stairs, her brother's hair, and my watch. In all seriousness, they are just starting to entertain each other a bit, which is how I have time to blog, and it's delightful to witness. I will try to catch it on video for you.