A successful lunch

Thank you for your fantastic comments and the emails on the s*x post. I laughed so loud at some of them and wow - some of you are doing very well at 3 X a week (tell your partners how lucky they are!!!)

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On Sunday after church we whizzed all the way to The Flowerspot to see if they had some things to pretty up my life.

I came out with 4 rolls of satin ribbon and 2 packs of brown paper bags. I just can’t seem to resist brown paper bags.

They’re just so useful as a quick gift bag and if you add a nice bright ribbon, they look very pretty.

D and I decided on the way over that we’d eat lunch out since it would be 1 pm and my kids are very punctual with the eating and sleeping (they impose it on us, not the other way around).

It would be cute if it weren’t so annoying sometimes. Kendra comes to us and signs that she’s hungry and then Connor follows suit. On the bright side, at least they sign and don’t just scream, right?

So we went to the Mugg and Bean and I’d organised the high chairs and ordered their meals before D and Kendra even got to the table :)

They had a meal called a Funny Face which is French toast in the shape of a circle, a sausage (for the smile) and bits of grated cheese for the hair.

Connor polished off his food and then started on mine.

Kendra also ate most of hers (about 90%) and then we gave the remainders to Connor.

D and I were incredulous (someone said to me the other day, “who says incredulous?” I said, “I DO!”) at how well-behaved they were.

We’d stopped taking them out for about 2 months after a disastrous lunch at Nino’s where they literally FLUNG pizza off their high chairs. D hates being embarrassed and it was BAD.

I don’t enjoy the bad behaviour but I do know I don’t have the naughtiest kids around so I'm quite relaxed about it.

We discussed our definition for success eating out as a family and came up with these three things:

· The children don’t whine and moan
· They eat at least 80% of their food
· Quick service

Isn't it amazing how low your expectations go?

What are your definitions for successful eating out?

P.S. Go read this fantastic post on eating out with twins. This was us for so long it's laughable only because we seem to be coming out of it. I wanted to link it as the blog post of the week on the multiples blog but that weekend they had some other link party.

I've come a loooong way

Yesterday afternoon I went to the afternoon session of the Baby Sense workshops, for older babies.

In South Africa, the Baby Sense range is like a parenting "bible" - they have Baby Sense, Sleep Sense, Toddler sense and Feeding Sense. And, of course, a whole range of lovely, but very expensive products.

"My" Dr S (the kids' paed) is a co-author of the Feeding Sense book which has just been released.

Of course I own the first two and will definitely be getting Toddler Sense and if the kids start messing about with eating again, probably the Feeding Sense one too.

They are all excellent. A tiny bit woo-woo, definitely no crying it out but on the whole, good common sense when you think about it.

Anyway...

It was almost exactly 6 months ago that I went to the Parenting Workshop where Sister Lillian spoke and set me free about the sleep thing.

Yesterday when I was listening to the sleep session, I honestly didn't learn anything knew but this is due to the fact that I own about 10 sleep books so I'm an unwilling sleep expert.

BUT... as she was talking I thought, "I can't believe we've come this far!"

They were 8 months then and I do believe they started sleeping through (by my high standards) at about 9 - 10 months.

If someone had told me when I was first pregnant or when I'd just had the babies that I'd go through 10 months of sleep deprivation, I'd probably want to shoot myself.

Seriously.

I honestly the bad part was from 6 - 12 weeks and then it was plain sailing after that.

HA!

I still think mostly everyone is lying about how great it all is because when I probe, I find out the truth.

Just the other day, I had a chat with a mother of a 4-year-old and an 11-month-old. She is new to our team. She said they STILL wake up at least twice a night, once with each child, on a good night. On a bad night, it's likely once every hour from 11 pm.

I actually shuddered.

BUT she said she does realise that even though they're so sleep deprived, this is the best time of their lives as the bigger the kids get, the bigger the problems get. Oy!

There was a time when I thought the babies would actually NEVER sleep properly. Kind of like that scary feeling us infertiles have when you think, "oh my WORD, I'm never going to have a baby. I can't believe this is my life"

I don't know quite what it was that switched the trigger to "good sleep" - the babies growing up, me relaxing, us being consistent with our routine or God finally deciding to smile down on us? Maybe a combination of all 4?

I'm just so glad that it has happened.

P.S. some trivia from the seminar -
35 000 babies were surveyed across South Africa and 41% of those have regular sleep problems - either going to sleep or staying asleep.

Sleep and nap update

These pics have nothing to do with sleep but they're cute nonetheless and there won't be many more pics with bare-legged babies since we're starting to have more and more cold weather.

I knew I needed to post a sleep update but I didn't realise it had been that long.

After our sleep regression, we tried to make sure they had as much food during the day as possible.

I now don't believe there's any correlation between how much they eat and how well they sleep as there have been days when Connor's had 445 ml and woken once, and also days where he's had 810 ml and still only woken once.

But somehow the bad sleep stabilised a bit. You know you're in a bad way when you're grateful to wake twice a night PER BABY.

Connor always does things just before he turns a certain age. E.g. tooth before 6 months. And in the week just before he turned 8 months, he only woke once 4 times and twice 3 times.

Kendra has also been sleeping better - no more 3 times a night waking.

Well, until the weekend that is.

Kendra woke up 3 times a night both on Saturday and Sunday. There's no excuse because she eats brilliantly, gets her protein, etc, etc.

So we watered down her formula (not by much, just by 1 scoop) and the next two nights she only woke twice.

It's like we just figure things out and then the solution doesn't work any more.

Does anyone have this problem too?

While we were on the watering down kick, we diluted Connor's further as it's now been 3 weeks since we did 1 scoop less, so he now takes 2 scoops less.

He woke earlier that night but still once a night.

Although as I mentioned, they BOTH slept through on 17 th and 18 th March (see how these are MOMENTOUS days) until I told Ilse on Facebook and jinxed it.

D just told me that jinxing is against the word of God. Yes, yes, I know but I'm telling you, the MINUTE I talk about sleep or food going well, they do their telepathic thing and put me to shame.

But things are improving. I am CLINGING to Dr S's words "it is normal to have babies waking once a night until 9 months for hunger"

This was BEFORE

Connor's awake times...........Frequency
1........................................................11
2........................................................16
3........................................................5


Kendra's awake times...........Frequency
1........................................................3
2........................................................13
3........................................................15


And this is the last 3 weeks (24 days) since they turned 8 months (I have The Notebook in front of me)

Connor's awake times...........Frequency
0........................................................3
1........................................................17
2........................................................3
3........................................................1


Kendra's awake times...........Frequency
0........................................................2
1........................................................11
2........................................................9
3........................................................2

So as you can see things are looking up.

The strange thing is as I write this, I know a lot of you are thinking, "she's happy about that?"

Yes, I am!

I have actually gotten a lot of 7-hour stretches of sleep in the last two weeks. If they wake before midnight, it's around 10 or 11 pm when I'm still awake, D does the 4 am one and then they're up at 6 - 6:30.

I've started noting something else down on my summary sheet - the times they wake.

At a glance I can see K wakes often around 10 and C's (mainly) one time is around 4/ 4:30.

As for naps, Kendra naps just the same as she always has - around 2 - 3 hours a day, definitely no more.

Since it's gotten cooler, Connor sleeps better (he is my child - loves cold weather) - now has two naps of definitely over an hour and then a shorter one of 30 - 40 minutes, so he gets in 3.5 - 4 hours a day.

Since my success as a mother does not depend on how well my children sleep, I'm not feeling so sensitive about this subject anymore and I will be brave...

Tell me how your children sleep :)

P.S. We gave them cauliflower with cheese sauce today - Connor loved it but Kendra hated it (and then, since she thought the yoghurt was also cauliflower, refused to have her yoghurt too)

My success as a mother

Since I wrote that post on redefining my success, I've been thinking a lot around my role as a mother.

What does it mean (to me) to be a successful mother?

I've always, ALWAYS, even in the good old days when I thought the journey to children would be quick and painless (ha!), thought that I'd be a good mother.

I had visions of my four children - yes, four - playing together, eating together, going to school, etc, etc.

Then, as I aged, the vision went to three kids, and then two. And finally, when I accepted my infertility, I really just wanted ONE child, any child.

And now I have two :)

Anyway, despite the diminishing vision of a large family, I don't think I ever let go of the romance of parenthood. You know, similar to the twin romance thing I've spoken about before.

I think it's because I've been really good at everything I've ever set my mind to in life (well, except SPORT! Have no co-ordination with ball sports whatsoever!) and naturally, I thought I'd be a good mother too.

And then the reality of parenthood set in...

1. First the babies came early despite me having a really good pregnancy.
2. Then there was the NICU stay.
3. And then there was Kendra. D reminded me of those days the other day just when I was getting misty-eyed about that newborn stage. My word! I honestly don't know HOW we survived. It was by the grace of God (Kendra's second name is Grace, by the way).
4. Her eternal screaming .... and formula issues.... remember she hardly ate a thing for 8 weeks, from the time she came out of hospital until 1 October (otherwise known as The Day We Put Kendra on Novalac AC).
5. And through it all, the sleep issues. Which, I now find out, are really not that bad (but that's a topic for another post).
   

I really had a hard time lining up my expectations with reality. The hard work of twins has almost been a breeze by comparison.

I think it's because of a number of things:

• people don't tell you the truth (also another post!)
• there's a secrecy if you're battling emotionally (I've found that people have no problems talking about the physical work)
• infertiles are supposed to love everything about parenting (after all, you waited so long and paid such a lot of money to get the babies).

I know I felt TONS better when I started talking about the parts that are terrible about this mothering thing. Yes, I felt guilty in the beginning but I soon realised that most people feel the same things but just don't talk about it.

I honestly thought that I was the only one with baby problems because all over Facebook, real life and the blogosphere, I'd hear/ read things like, "oh motherhood is SO wonderful, I love being a mommy, etc, etc" all of which made me feel worse and worse.

Surely I can't be the worse mother in the world???

At one of our infertility group meetings, one brave girl shared that she was on anti-depressants.... turns out 90% of the people there were in the same boat but too scared to say so.

This secrecy thing is killing us!

So, sleeping through the night.

Since the severe sleep deprivation of the early days, my goal and dream has to have the babies sleeping through the night.

And I realised something the other day - the reason I'm so hung up about sleep is not about the babies - it's about ME.

I can't get them to sleep through so I feel like a bad mother and that means I'm a failure.

Which is just crazy. But it's what I've been thinking, deep down.

Because when I looked at my success pages, I saw nothing about sleep - instead my goal is to have healthy, happy, thriving babies.

They certainly are all that and more.

So when my natural tendency to stress about the sleep starts taking over, these days I'm chanting, "my success as a mother is not dependent on my babies sleeping through the night."

And you know what? I feel FREEDOM!

P.S. No pics as this is my 30-minute post for Steadymom

Redefining success

Remember when I wrote the post on balancing work, life and the babies?

I mentioned then that I've been thinking a lot about what success means to me, both in a life context and also with the babies.

The last time I did this exercise properly was probably about 6 - 7 years ago.

If anyone wants to play along, you simply ask yourself, "what does success mean to ME?" and start writing. Or typing. Whichever suits you.

I do it a little bit more in detail with clients to really flesh things out but you get the gist of it.

I've just looked at the little paragraph I wrote then (6 - 7 years ago) and I've pretty much lived it.

This was my last sentence:

To coach and help people reach their goals and put action plans in place to organise and simplify their lives.

Wow. That's exactly my business and I haven't even really thought about it much since.

Now with the addition of the babies, some things have changed. My thoughts are not so self-centred which is also why it's so hard to feel together all the time.

So I also have a coach (most coaches do) and was chatting about this stuff with her. I then had an action plan for that week to write out what success meant for my life and business.

i'm not all introspective normally but once I get going and can tap into my thinking side, then it's like it all gushes out. Can you relate?

And gush it did.

I FILLED 1 ½ A5 pages in my notebook on the general success stuff and another page just on business.

Some big differences are:

• I'm more focussed on D, babies and our family (obviously). I didn't realise I had such opinions or thoughts till they came out though.
• my home is very important to me and, as such, I need to have things organised and in order. part of my definition for an ordered home is providing healthy, nutritious meals for my family.
• even though I have the business on the side, I still want to have rewarding work where I use my gifts and talents

I won't bore you with the business stuff except to say this:

There is not much in life I enjoy more than speaking in front of large groups of people. I absolutely love it. I prefer live talks but have come to love the convenience of teleseminars.

I did my last talk when I was 11 weeks pregnant and stopped taking bookings afterward because I was so out of breath and felt it wasn't portraying me at my best.

That was a whole year ago.

So that's DEFINITELY on my business list - I want to really develop the speaking side of my business again.

Well, what do you know? An old coaching client visited me yesterday and wants me to come do talks to her women's group at church on self-confidence and boundary issues, etc. Of course I jumped at the chance. Dipping my toes back into the water.

Now that I've done the whole exercise, I'm busy working on my vision board. This will probably take months to complete but just the mere fact that it's on the radar means that I'm focussed on it.

So what does all of this mean?

1. I need to learn that good enough is okay. Yes, I'd like to always have a warm, freshly-cooked meal on the table but my freezer meals are good enough.
2. I am not lazy nor a bad mother if I get Nanny V in on a Saturday morning and go out to breakfast with my husband to talk like we used to. I also don't have to make excuses to do so. Because a great marriage is very high on my definition of success list and caring what people think is about number 257 :)
3. It means that when I feel overwhelmed, I can choose to freak out or I can choose a different path and some constructive action. Like making a list.
4. When I'm faced with choices I need to evaluate them against MY definition of success.
5. I need to put relax-type activities on my to-do list as they really don't come easy to me. One afternoon this last weekend I read and then napped for 20 minutes instead of running around working in the house. It felt heavenly.
6. I told Nanny Viola that she's allowed to not iron the babies laundry because I don't want to see piles of clothes to be ironed as they stress me out. An unironed romper, however, doesn't phase me in the least bit.

My friend, Natalie, and I talk a lot about living intentionally. I totally think she rocks at this. She even has her bucket list all done.

When I'm tempted to drift along and just let the things of this world sweep me along, I think about her and tell myself to live intentionally according to my definition of success.

And that's why a corner of my bedroom floor was in a mess for a few days because I'd chosen to spend that time on the floor kissing and playing with the babies.

What does success mean to you?

(if you'd like to write about it on your own blog, please do and link back here so we can all read it :)