October 20, 2020

On this lovely fall afternoon, the boys, Jayce and Kayden and I were heading down one of our usual trails, them on their bikes and me with the stroller. We adopted Jayce and Kayden, who are identical twin 2 year olds, just last month even though we’ve known them since birth, more to come on that later. We walk past Turtle Park and are in front of Maggie’s home and the boys decide they want their snack now, right on the bike path! So we pull off to the side a little and put out their blanket and they pull their snack bag out. Maggie (who we just met at Turtle Park a few weeks ago) is also out with her kids who are Maddie (age 8) and Wynn (age 1) and Maddie’s friend Ruby who was born just 4 hours apart from Maddie! They see us with our blanket and snacks and decide they want to join us, so out comes their blankets and snacks and pillows. Of course, we are pretty far apart and all have our masks on. Meanwhile, walkers and runners and bikers and dogs are going right between us and them as the path is in between us. I remember one prancing dog, those ones that are so light on their feet, and a beautiful golden as well. The boys yell “puppy” with each one. So nice to have a brief but nourishing conversation with Maggie while all the kids snack and play over or under their blankets. Little Wynn waddles over to the boys and has this precious sweet little laugh. The boys see Maddie and Ruby’s bananas and want one, so they give them one and their eyes light up! As they finish their raisins, graham crackers and pistachio nuts … I teach them how to say “pistachio.” And then off we go again on their bikes and Maggie yells back “thanks for the impromptu picnic!” I still cannot believe they are my sons.

Doing What Works for You
November 19, 2020

I was at work yesterday and Christopher picked me up after with the boys, and he said, “We went to Target to get diapers and wipes and stuff.” I'm thinking, gosh, he's so courageous, more courageous than me taking the boys places like that where I feel like it could be a little challenging. I asked him, “How did it go? Did they go in the carts or what did you do?” And he said that they each wanted to go in their own cart. So, doing what works for you, he's like well, who says I can't use two carts, right? instead of trying to make them both go in one. So he's like I'm just gonna use two carts. He only bought a handful of things, but there he is pulling around two carts in Target, Jayce in one and Kayden in the other. He said that he wished he would have done a selfie of that. I just can't imagine. And they both had on their little knitted pumpkin hats that they got from one of our friends Tanya. So it's just this sweet story and I was just like, wow, how did you do that well? So that was fun. I wanted to share about doing what works for you, instead of forcing something that you would normally do like just go in one cart.

And then today, he's with them now and I'm doing some work here and they’re out there pulling the rake and the broom around the block. Just picture this - here goes Jayce dragging this rake, and here goes Kayden dragging this broom. And they're going around the block, which is like, again, doing what works for you because you know most people probably wouldn't let them drag a broom and a rake around the block, but they grabbed them and just start dragging them and my husband (and I think I would do the same thing) is just like, well, I'll just go ahead and let them do it. It was just adorable walking away this morning and seeing one with a rake dragging one with a broom dragging. And off they go around the block, which the neighborhood has seen them do a few times now. They get activity, they get movement, and they're proud to drag it. It's like three times as big as them. And so, back to this doing what works for you, versus what you think you should be doing like, they should be on their bikes or their scooters, or we should only let them rake or sweep in the yard or the driveway, but just letting them be unorthodox and do something different. Just let it be, let it be creative, let it be fun.

So “do what works for you” is raising these twin two year old boys. From no kids to twin two year old boys is a big shift right, it's a huge life shift. How do we go about our lives in this new way we’re not used to, and how do we make it work for us? Do what you need to do for you. Do what works for you for your soul, your heart, your specific beautiful life.

Beautiful Morning with My Boys
December 5, 2020

When I woke up this morning the boys were playing with their Papa, hanging out in the kitchen. They're starting to help him more and more in the kitchen now. It's pretty sweet. My sister, Lynn, is a Waldorf toddler educator, and she helped us kind of guide them down more of the Waldorf path. So they have these little stools that they use, and they have these little mini cutting boards, and these little mini, safe knives they can use. They get up on their stools and Papa’s usually in the middle, or Mama, but it's usually Papa in the kitchen. He has his cutting board with the sharp knife, of course, and they're all cutting carrots. Christopher's having to be really careful, of course, with the sharp knife, and telling them no fingers on Papa’s board, and then they're on their little sweet boards cutting their carrots. It’s just the sweetest thing to have them be involved in the kitchen, at two and a half years old, to learn how to cook, to learn how to nourish oneself, even at that young age.

The other morning, he was making scrambled eggs with them. Just envision each of them with their little mini stainless steel bowls. They each have an egg that Christopher teaches them how to crack, and they say, ”Uh-oh, owie” to the egg. So cute. Then they each have a little whisk, so they can whisk their eggs and watch Papa put them in the skillet and just see how this works. They love eggs, and it's just so sweet to show them where they came from and to have them involved in the kitchen.

After breakfast, we got dressed. It was Saturday morning, so Papa was doing a yoga class with our Kulu on zoom, and Mama and the boys were headed out to Verona to go to Badger Prairie Park. It’s a very special park for Christopher and me because we got married there five years ago, under the trees. We had a reception and dance under this big white tent, and everything we had dreamed of for our wedding happened. It was so great. So it was really special to take the boys to the little playground there. Before we got out of the car we had to have a snack, of course, so I parked the car and we had their little snack in the back of the hatchback in our Honda CRV. I kept the car running so they stayed warm and spread out the snacks. They had cheese sticks, carrots, pistachio nuts (which they love), graham crackers, and apples. 

I had been telling them and getting them excited about going to Verona and going to this park. So here we are sitting in the parking lot having their snack. They can see other kids walking to the park, and they can kind of see the park from the car windows. After we finish our snack we get our hats on, and we get our gloves on, and off we go. First, they check out the slide and the swings. Then, the Ice Age Trail runs right through this park, so I decided to take the boys on it for a little bit. There’s beautiful prairie on either side of the trail. I take them up a little way on the trail to right, exactly where we got married. I kept telling them, “A little further and you're going to see where mama and papa got married.” And they’d say, “Married.” It was so sweet. It was early enough yet that there was frost. I think we might have had a hard frost last night, so half the trail had the sun on and was kind of greenish-brown, and the other half of the trail was frosty yet that sweet, white frost look. I knelt down to touch it and I told them, “frost.” They sat down with me and checked it out, and touched it with their hands. It's such a sweet moment for them to see and understand frost for the first time in their little lives. Then off we went. We got to the place where mama and papa got married, under these beautiful trees, and I got to show them that. 

Then they found sticks. They always love to find sticks, and they usually like to throw the sticks in the water. So they say, “Wha wha, wha wha” like where's the water? There wasn’t any water right there, but there was a beautiful prairie that was dried and kind of just standing up for the birds for the winter. So I said, “Let's throw the sticks into the prairie”, and they got pretty excited about that and started throwing sticks into the prairie. And then we went along, back off the trail to the playground. We had fun throwing the sticks down one of the slides because they just love to see the sticks fly and then running around the structure a little bit. They love to jump; so we found some places for them to jump off of pieces of wood that are built up higher. When we got to the other play structure there was a higher-up, twisty slide, and there was also frost on this slide so they said, “Wet, wet.” So Mama decided to go down, with her long winter coat, stayed pretty dry, and kind of wiped off the frost. Then they each come flying down this slide just so proud, and so happy. Some other kids came to play at the playground so they got to play with this little boy for a little bit, all of them going down the slide.

After that, we headed over to the swings and they weren't the kid swings, these were adult swings. Jayce and Kayden are pretty little yet to sit and hang on, but they did it for a little bit and then they’d kind of slide off. One of their favorite things, though, is going on their belly. Imagine you walk up to a swing and you just kind of stand and plop forward onto your belly so your arms and legs and head just get to hang (which is really some lovely traction, so perhaps us adults should try that). So they were doing some little swings on their belly, and it was just such a special moment for me to have - them on these swings, as they overlooked the park that I just showed them, where we got married, and now we have these beautiful little pumpkins in our lives, that my husband and I just adopted, coming up on six months ago now.

Another special moment of the morning was when I was cleaning up the snack and locking the car, and the boys had already run off to the playground. I looked up and I saw four geese flying above. Whenever I see things in fours I say it's my four pumpkins, my little babies that I lost in pregnancy - Britta, Ella, Grace, and Saylor. It's my babies up flying high in their spirit bodies, saying, “Go, mom, go!” Here I am with my little earth babies now, and those are my spirit babies flying high. It was just a surreal moment to stand there and overlook the boys, overlook the wedding area, and to see the four birds in the sky and what that represents for me.

We rounded up our beautiful morning by stopping at the pharmacy. That was kind of the reason we decided to go out to Verona, which is just outside of Madison a little. We have a pharmacy there that we still work with from when we used to live in Verona. It's a small dad and son run practice, and we just feel a nice kinship with them yet. So, “Off we go to get Mama and Papa's medicine,” I said. Both of us take medicine to help us with depression, anxiety, and OCD. I talk very openly about these things in some of my other writings here, or you can watch my Facebook Lives if you want to dig deeper into some of those things. After we picked up the medicine, I explained to the boys, “We're getting our medicine. It’s something that supports us on this journey.”

Then we headed home. It was snack time again in the car, of course, so I'm driving and handing them carrots, and apples, and graham crackers. Then Kayden decides when he's done with this apple he's just gonna throw it. It hits mom in the back of the head, and I had to try to explain to him that it was an owie for mama, and please don’t throw your apple when you're done. Jayce, we say sometimes, is a little more melty. He was just starting to need to get home and be ready for lunch and a nap. A couple times he dropped his carrot, and then he dropped his cracker, and I was driving along on the busy road and he just started screaming about how he couldn't reach it. So I pulled over, and I got it out for him, and then he didn’t have to cry. He had his snack, and he could self regulate. It's really a beautiful thing. Just taking that time to pull over and support them in their development right now, which is quite different from many other two and a half-year-olds. I'll explain that more in a Facebook Live as well as some other writings on my website here, where they're at developmentally, and how we have to work with them in different ways, in different situations, as they continue to heal from their traumas.

So that was my beautiful morning with my boys. When we got home Papa was ready to have lunch with us, and then we went down for naps. While the boys were napping Mama and Papa decided to sit on the couch and meditate, and take a nap, too. It was a really special morning with my beautiful boys.

Christmas Vacuum Monster
December 26, 2020

COVID-19, and having just adopted our two boys, meant we were at home for Christmas this year. The morning started off just getting through the boys' morning routine and having breakfast together. As many of you first-time parents know, it's really a challenge to even get a shower in sometimes. Many days can go by without a shower because it's pretty all-consuming having twin two-year-olds to take care of, love, and just totally be with 100%. Sometimes it can be challenging to get our self-care in, even just something simple as a shower. So, at about 9am, the goal was for me to take the boys outside for an hour. It's pretty cold here now with temperatures in the 20s or lower, so we have to get them all bundled up with their awesome snow pants, hats, great new winter coats we just got them, their fun boots, and their new gloves. The process of bundling them up, especially two of them, takes quite some time. When you're talking about an hour's worth of time, a good 15 minutes is just for dressing both of them. Once we get outside, it just kind of depends on the energy of each one of them, and kind of what the weather is doing, how long we can be out there, or what activities we might do. 

We had so much fun sledding when the snow was around. I think it was their first time sledding and they just did awesomely. There’s more snow coming this new year's week here and we'll be really excited to get out there and sled again. But until then we might do some walks around the block or give them a ride in their wagon together. I did let them ride the bikes a little bit the other day, even without their helmets, just because they have so many layers on their head; I don't even think we could get the helmet on. We just have these little activities they tend to do, not far from the house, so when they get too cold, we're able to just come right back in the house. 

So the goal was for Christopher to have from 9:00 to 10:00 and for me to have 10:00 to 11:00 - a full hour to shower, to do our wonderful oil massages that we give our bodies, and to take some time to breathe and just not be responsible for them.

Another thing we do outside this time of the year, with it being cold, is drive around in the car. They love riding in the car. They run up to the car and say, “Car, car, car.” They're so ready. So, oftentimes, we'll take them for a ride in the car with the music on. They say, “Music, music, music” because they love having the music on like their Mama. It's kind of like surround sound when you're in the car, so I really like putting the fun dance songs on and turning it up, and dancing in the car. That's a lot of fun, and we do that for sometimes up to half an hour just driving around the city, dancing, and singing, and looking out the windows. They always recognize the moon or look up to see if an airplane goes by, and we see lots of dogs out walking. We often go by both of the lakes, Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, and the Yahara River, and have them say the names of the lakes. 

So, that was going to be the plan. I was going to have them out driving, perhaps playing outside a little bit on the front and back end of the driving, and Christopher, Papa, was going to be able to have an hour to himself and shower. And then that second hour, Christopher would take over and probably do the same thing - play with them outside. Christopher tends to run errands with them sometimes so they'd maybe go pick up some cat food, and then come back, and Mama would have a full hour to shower, to just have some downtime and take care of herself.

Well, here's where the title comes in - Christmas vacuum monster. We had this all planned, and you know, people say kids throw your plans out the window all the time. We kind of joke that we have this plan A, plan B, plan C, which aren't really like set plans but just kind of on the fly adjustments. It’s like, “Well when that happens I guess we'll go to plan B. Well, that just happened. Let's go to plan C.” 

We had a bag of cat litter, which is cat pee and cat poop, in the foyer, all bagged up, tied, and ready to go out to the garbage. We all come into the foyer because that's where all of our winter clothes are and we are going to all get dressed. That’s when the boys find the litter bag before we have an opportunity to catch them, and they throw it down the stairs. And it tears open. And there's kitty litter, and kitty pee, and kitty poop all over the stairs, all over the floor where the boots are by the front door.

So here we are, so ready for some time, ready to take showers on Christmas Day, to maybe finally get some lights on the tree and get some of the presents wrapped. They had opened a few presents on Christmas Eve, and plan A was to wrap the rest and do them on Christmas day when they got up in the morning, but the morning didn't work out that way, and by mid-morning we’re already on plan B, and then all of the sudden we're on plan C because there's poop and pee and litter all over the floor. 

Out comes the vacuum, and we turn this into a Christmas vacuum monster morning. We have all this to clean up now, and we just decided, since it was kind of a bummer to have to be on plan C already by nine o'clock in the morning, that we would just go with it, and as a family we would vacuum this all. The front stairs needed to be vacuumed anyway so it was like, ok, here we go. It was kind of sad because it was Christmas morning and it was not going at all the way we were thinking, but we were on plan C, and here it is. We have had our twin two-year-olds for six months now, and we recognize that it's often plans A, B, C, D, E on a given day. So, we vacuum this all up as a family, and the boys are just so excited at this toddler age. They'll be three in February and they just love to help. They just want to be a part of everything and want to learn. It's super precious. So we all decide to do this together, and the monster part is that the boys are just having so much fun because they are like, “Wow! What is this thing that sucks up stuff?” And they just get excited. We’d suck one piece of litter up and they'd say, ‘Yay!” 

So it turned from being really frustrating to see that all over the floor. I kind of knew it was just a matter of time before they would get to the litter bag before we had a chance to get it to the garbage, and it would go all over the stairs. Well, that's what happened Christmas morning, and we cleaned as a family. And it turned into this little Christmas vacuum monster morning because the boys had so much fun. We were able to do some really nice cleaning of the front room and the stairs as a family, which we wanted to have done anyway. They had so much fun with it, and it allowed us to have fun with them and flow. 

So the story today is about being able to flow. Notice when you have a plan A or plan B or plan C, and then maybe you have to pull out of your back pocket plan D. How can you go with the flow? How can you let yourself gracefully, easily flow from plan to plan when the universe gives you something in front of you that you have to deal with. We always have a choice to get really upset about it, to be really frustrated with maybe a goal that we had set. That’s one way to handle it, but it’s more reactive. If you want to be active about it, you're able to recognize, you're going to go to the next plan and the next plan, and allow yourself to laugh about it and have some fun with it. You never know, you might get a part of your house cleaned that you've been meaning to clean for a while. 

When you go with the flow, the other things come along. We were able to shower during their nap. Then, after their nap, we were able to open presents and have their Christmas still, which was very fun, and they loved the new things they got. So it all turned out beautiful. Recognize in yourself this ability to flow. Where might you be able to flow more? Where can you let some of the plans go and let the fun in, the creativity come in? Welcome that flow.