I Survived

Y'all. It has been a week for the record books! I am here to say that I came out on the other side & I'm alive and well!! Before I recount my week for you (and for myself years down the road when I can say, "How did I do all of that?"), let me tell you that for every difficult and stressful moment of this week, the Lord provided me with sweet, special memories to give me balance.

We'll start with a brief mention of Sunday...here we go!

Sunday

Finally received some brief feedback from my professor about my paper & PowerPoint for my defense. Let me know that said defense was scheduled for Tuesday evening. I had e-mailed the paper 2 weeks prior and the PowerPoint one week prior. Made some minor changes to my PowerPoint & paper, but I knew that I'd have more feedback headed my way. Had to plan my lesson for Monday. At this moment I definitely felt the stress of the week, but it was just looming overhead.

Monday

-Get to school early & make copies
-Introduce new topic & manage to get grades uploaded by noon
-Shortly after noon receive feedback from professor that the majority of one of my chapters of my paper must be completely scrapped and redone.
-Speak to professor & determine to still have my defense Tuesday evening but will turn my paper in a few days late.
-Meet in PLC & try to take a breather (ha!)
-Head home & make changes to my PowerPoint while Harper sits in my lap.
-Mitch gets home & Maddex and I head to the Eaglette parent meeting back up at school.
-Come home, heat up dinner, eat, get everyone to bed, then plan my lesson for the next day & make a few more changes to my paper.

Tuesday

-School as usual...head home afterwards
-Feel nerves like I haven't felt in YEARS as I sit in my closet waiting for my professor to call. Spend about 50 minutes on the phone going through my PowerPoint to defend my graduate project. All seems to go well despite my stuttering and nerves :)
-Around 6:00, I head out to go meet my life group for dinner - I was SO thankful for this evening to de-stress after that defense experience!! Mitch was sweet enough to put the kids to bed so I could run to the outlet mall after dinner. Got myself a new dress :)

Wednesday

-School as usual...head home afterwards. Wait - school was NOT as usual! We had severe weather procedures which lasted through lunch and launched us into a crazy schedule. OOH! Let me interject a story here...

The day I found out I was pregnant with the twins we had severe weather procedures. I had woken Mitch up that morning and told him that I was pregnant. Then he got up like normal and took Maddex to Mrs. Vickie's. When he got home, he texted me that it looked like a tornado had come through near our home. He confirmed with me that everything was okay at our house. I think about that morning all of the time...if Mitch had left earlier to go to Mrs. Vickie's, he could have been returning home when that tornado hit OR if he had left a few minutes later, he and Maddex could both have been involved. It gives me chills to think about how close they were to a disaster that morning!

-Work throughout the day/afternoon to make all of the needed changes to my paper.
-Get ready for a community dinner to honor teachers of the year. We loaded up all of the kids and headed to the dinner. It really was an enjoyable evening and the babies were SO good. Maddex was hilarious, but also very good.
-Come home, get all the kids to bed a little late, and head to bed myself. I think at some point Wednesday I finished my paper & sent it to my professor for any final edits.

Thursday

-Get to school and scramble to get part of my lesson today. Get observed, unannounced, first block (of course!)
-Receive final notes from professor and make a few minor changes to paper. Print paper, have Mitch pick up copies, take to Office Depot, bind & mail.
-Submit paper and PowerPoint electronically
-Eaglette tryouts after school & work on finishing a grant that was due at 5:00 that day. Tryouts went well & I got the grant finished 40 minutes before it was due. At that point I realize that it has to be approved by my principal before the deadline! So I shoot an e-mail to Mr. Walker & ask him to review my grant within the next 36 minutes if possible. Big shout out to Mr. Walker for coming through for me!
-At this point, I head home for my most regular evening of the week. Dinner was in the crock pot and I got home to sleeping babies. I actually took a power nap despite 2 cups of coffee!
-I ended the night with chocolate chip cookies.

Today is business as usual and we have the final Eaglette tryouts this afternoon. I'm so excited - I love this day! So, all of that happened within a few short days - throw in full days of teaching and late bedtimes, early mornings, and a few nightly feedings and I'm pretty pooped! Insert comments here like "I don't know how you do it." :)

Now, let's switch gears and talk about the joys of this week.

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22 - 23

It would have been so easy to be consumed this week, but the Lord proved faithful (as always) and gave me new mercies every morning. He provided me with the stamina and energy to make it through each day. He sustained me despite lack of sleep and helped me to stay positive and have a good outlook! He kept me well and made my steps successful. Those facts, in and of themselves, are enough to have made this a great week!! I do have some specific moments of joy amidst this crazy week that I hope to always remember...

-I had a wonderful meal with some of my favorite women! And I got to shop (even if I basically ran from store to store) and get a new dress!
-I enjoyed another evening where my accomplishments of a teacher were recognized. I've been so honored and humbled this year!
-After the dinner on Wednesday, Maddex was hopped up on cake and was hilarious and so sweet. She kept getting Mitch to "fly like a bird" across the room with her (this meant she galloped while flapping her arms). She would get to me & kiss me on the mouth. Then go back to the other side and do it again. Over and over and over. The Lord knew my soul needed those sweet Maddex kisses. Mitch would tell her to count to three and she'd say "one, two, three, four!" I think this memory is my favorite of the week!
-My friend blessed me with some diapers! We still haven't had to buy diapers since the twins were born!!! Wow!
-Mitch brought me lunch yesterday and made me chocolate chip cookies.
-I always love tryout week!
-Today I was made aware of a curriculum plan from the state. I felt like their plan mirrors much of what I do in my classroom but adds even greater material and depth to how I teach. I feel VERY excited about having some direction for next year!
-HELLOOOOOO!!! I FINISHED MY MASTER'S DEGREE!!!
-Finally, I am blessed with a husband and mom who are always ready and willing to help out during weeks like this. They both kept the kids extra and helped out around the house while I've been going ninety to nothing. So a SUPER SHOUT OUT to Nana and Mitch!!!

I'm not sure that list even includes all of the wonderful moments I've had this week. I honestly say that I can look back on the week with relief, pride, and accomplishment. It would be so easy to be caught up in the work, tiredness, and lack of time with my kids, but I choose to remember the good.

  Thank you, Lord, that I am not consumed by the world around me, and that I can trust in your faithfulness and new mercies each morning!

PS - I promise to include some new pictures in my next update!!! :)

Happy Birthday Nana!!!

Big Happy Birthday shout out to my mom - the one and only Nana! I won't tell the world how old she is, but let's just say she don't look it ;)

We are so thankful for Nana! She has given up her days of freedom and retirement to come take care of my babies day in & day out. She gets pooped on and puked on with the best of us! We are so blessed to have a Nana that so selflessly takes care of the twins and Maddex. She's always willing to help extra at a moment's notice! She basically works a full time job (and a tough one at that) for FREE! I'm very thankful that my babies have this special time with my mom & that she has this special time with them.

WE LOVE YOU NANA! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Nana & a just born Maddex

 Waiting for the twins' arrival!

Nana & a just born Major (I think)

Kissing Harper (I think)

 Happy birthday Mom! I love you!

Parenting Advice from Supermom

Recently I've had a few experiences involving other mothers and the "advice" they give. I put advice in quotes because what they've actually offered is a series of condescending reprimands. For example, a sweet friend asked other mothers for some advice or encouragement with "crying it out" in a facebook group. I became very interested in her post because the twins are still waking at night several times at 5 months. While she did receive some encouragement, there was plenty of discouragement, judgment, and just borderline mean responses. Let me remind you that she asked for advice and encouragement. I did weigh in on the discussion with my own thoughts, experiences, and decisions in an effort to provide her with what she requested. I bit my tongue in response to the other moms who offered the opposite.

Very soon after this experience, a fellow twin mom penned this blog. I encourage you to hop over there and read her entry in addition to mine. I plan to echo many of her ideas and style, so I want to give credit to the original post that inspired me. I believe her post was in response to a conversation regarding if twins should be dressed alike (many moms felt a strong opposition to this because it hinders individuality). As a supermom myself, I felt it was time to weigh in on these issues...the Lord has blessed me as a mother, and I do feel strongly about this blessing. I also feel strongly about our jobs as mothers to encourage one another, and that is the basis for this post.

First, a little background about myself & my choices as a parent. I will imitate the style of much of the previously mentioned blog post to list some of my parenting decisions.

1. My babies cry. Sometimes they cry themselves to sleep; sometimes they cry in the middle of the night; sometimes they cry in the exercauser while the other baby is nursing or having a diaper change; sometimes they even cry when I'm holding them! I do not jump at their every whimper. I use my instincts as a mother to determine their needs and make a decision based on that determination. At times it means they cry themselves to sleep, at times it means I hold them, at times it means I nurse them even though it's not the scheduled feeding time, and at times it means I seek to comfort them through some sort of activity.

2. We use disposable diapers. Many of my friends use cloth diapers. I think that these friends are fantastic, economical, and environmentally friendly. I am a little bit lazy and slightly overwhelmed, so disposable diapers work best for me.

3. I breastfeed until at least a year. Maddex was breastfed for 13 months, and I plan to nurse the twins at least that long. We currently supplement the twins with some formula when I can't pump enough and to build up a small stash in the freezer. Honestly, it has turned out that most of my close friends have also chosen to breastfeed for most, all, or beyond the first year. I have friends who used formula from day one - and guess what? Their babies are healthy, happy, and thriving!

4. Maddex wasn't introduced to solids until around 6 months. The twins will be at least 6 months before they start cereal or food. We may even skip cereal and go mostly to food. Breastmilk will still be their primary source of nutrition. I plan for food to mostly be for "fun" between 6 months & 1 year. One of my friends recently fed her 6 month old an "adult sized helping of green bean casserole" (her words) - and guess what? Her baby is healthy, happy, and thriving!

5. Sometimes I wear the twins in a wrap or carrier when they're fussy. Sometimes I change their activity to see what suits them. Sometimes I put them in front of the tv with some Baby Einstein to keep their attention for 30 minutes. I love Baby Einstein.

6. My children get vaccinations at every scheduled milestone.

7. We use antibiotics to treat infections.

8. Maddex is still rear-facing in her carseat. The twins will rear face until at least age two.

9. All of our children sleep in their own beds (except for the early days when they would fall asleep while we were holding them or next to us on the couch). Major still sleeps in a "rock & play." He also sleeps in a closet or bathroom with the fan running.

10. Maddex is two. She gets punished - almost daily. She gets time out in her room and spankings when she's disobedient. Sometimes we speak to her harshly, sometimes too harshly. Sometimes we hold her close and try to talk her quietly through her fit. We are always careful to affirm her with love after a punishment.

11. Personally, I believe strongly in the power of the words we speak to and over our children. I try to be careful how I label Maddex - especially in front of her. I do my best to speak words of encouragement to her. In times of frustration or misbehavior, I try to focus on her actions and not HER.

12. We try to make Maddex eat what we eat. At times, she gets her way and eats macaroni and cheese or just cornbread for dinner. She also eats goldfish, candy, and other processed food. When we're healthy, she's healthy. And she eats cheerios. Lots of cheerios.

These are all facts about how I choose to parent my children. Some choices are made from research, some are from conviction, some are simply because that's what those before me have done. Ultimately, and here's my point - these are MY decisions about MY children. You are free to make your own decisions about your children, but neither of us should be judged or spoken to condescendingly because of our choices. Let me put a disclaimer here that there is a place for discussion about decisions that put children in danger - for example...an infant forward facing in his/her carrier in the front of a single cab truck or allowing your toddler to run with scissors. Even in these instances, conversations should be approached delicately and with motives for encouragement and help. After all, we are all doing the best we can.

It saddens me to hear young mothers say they are afraid to discuss their parenting choices for fear of judgment or backlash. As a community of moms, we know how hard this job is. We should be here to encourage one another.  We must band together to support other mothers when they ask and to provide them with the type of support that will strengthen them as parents. No one should feel bad about a parenting decision they make, whether it's crying it out, vaccines, or when to introduce solids. I'm certainly not perfect in this area; there has been many a time when I've seen a mom make a decision that I don't particular support. In that moment I choose to remember the saying "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all." I am also trying to be better about reminding myself that she is, like me, doing the best she can with this tough job of motherhood.

I'll end with a discussion of my post title. I am a supermom, but this doesn't mean I am a perfect mom. I make mistakes, I learn from those mistakes, and I move on. I make decisions as best I can. I love my babies and try my darndest to do right by them. I want them to know they are loved unconditionally by me, their father, and their Heavenly Father. I work hard every day as a mom to provide for my children. This is what makes me a supermom. Whether you have one child or many, whether they are young or grown, whether you breastfeed or formula feed, whether you cloth diaper or use disposables, whether you vaccinate or don't - hear this: YOU ARE SUPERMOM, TOO! Let's tackle motherhood together, support one another, and be an encouraging force for other moms out there. Next time you feel judgmental toward another mom, remind yourself that she is a supermom. Finally, when you feel the sting of criticism from another, remember you are supermom!

Five months!

Baby Crains are five months old today, and oh how I love them! I am so proud and thankful to have been chosen to be their mom. Cheesy, I know :) Of course there are days and moments that are plenty hard, but double the difficulty means double the reward. It's so precious to have not one, but two, gummy mouths grinning at me! So here's the latest on the twinsies...

Major

• Major man had his first night of being unswaddled last night. He was such a champ! He went down easy and slept his normal routine (up once in the middle of the night & early in the morning).
• He celebrated his five month birthday by waking up happy. Mitch told me that Maj was just a talking when he woke up and then grinned and squealed when Mitch went to get him. Be still my heart!
• My little stud is officially in 6 month clothes. I think he has more clothes than Harper and I love dressing my baby boy. I know people always say it's more fun to dress girls, but when you've already dressed a baby girl, it's fun to have a change to polos and plaid shorts!
• Major LOVES his bouncy. He "giddy ups" in that thing all day long! He kicks his legs and just gets that sucker bouncing. We've started to put him in the exercauser some, but the bouncy is still his favorite. This has earned him the new nickname "Scoots."
• Maj won the award for best baby at church on Sunday. We never even got him out of his car seat!
• My favorite fact is the new faces that Major Man is making. I don't know if it has to do with him teething, but he has been making the BIGGEST kissy lips! And he pooches them out over and over again like he really wants a kiss! I love it!
• Major just discovered his foot. He grabs one foot and hangs on to it. He has also started putting things in his mouth - mostly his bib. Now it's always soaked with drool & spit instead of spit up!
• Speak of spit up, we took Major to the chiropractor 3 days last week. We had a great experience as far as the clinic and people. They were so sweet and loooooved our babies! We are hoping that some visits to the chiro will help Maj's reflux. Personally, I do think he's spitting up less. His bibs used to be soaked with chunky gross spit up each morning, but now they're not near as saturated. He's definitely still spitting up, but I don't think it seems as much. I told Mitch that evidence of this is that I'm doing baby laundry less often! He'll go back to the chiropractor this Friday.
• Major still has a blocked tear duct. This results in "Him's got eye boogers" in Maddex terms.
• He's still about as bald as usual. He gets cuter by the day!!

Harper

• Harper is also in 6 month clothes. It is so fun to see her wearing so many of the outfits that her sweet big sister wore not that long ago!
• Harper is sleeping great in her crib. She seems to enjoy the crib aquarium and has been sleeping for longer stretches at night (hallelujah). She is close to skipping her middle of the night feeding (still wakes up sometimes), but definitely still wakes for the early morning feeding.
• Harpy is still the SWEETEST thing! She is so content these days. She will sit there completely happy & doll-like. When she sees you, she gives the biggest smile! I adore her.
• Harper is so giggly these days. She's super ticklish and laughs and laughs when you tickle her. I told Mitch the other day that I want to bottle her sweet giggles.
• Harper's been really tooty lately. In contrast to Major's nickname, we have deemed her "toots". The gas seems to be bother her less than it used to, but she sometimes will still cry and wriggle with those toots.
• Harper has discovered her hands. She is wringing them and looking at them a bunch. She also loves hugging on soft baby dolls. She gets so happy when I wave one in front of her and give it to her.
• Harper has a Kate Gosselin style hairdo going - its flat in the front & then sticks up spiky toward the back. Her hair's pretty light to go along with her blue eyes.
• I've started supplementing with a bit of formula so that I don't have to be so stressed about pumping and I've been able to start building a small freezer stash. I've been doing an experiment with Harper though...it seems like she naps shorter on days that she has formula in her bottle. I'm still experimenting though, so I'll have to update about this again.
• Harper also went to the chiropractor, but not as many times as Major. She seemed to be more aligned I guess!

It's so hard for me to believe that my babies are 5 months old. They are both drooling and about to enter the teething stage. We'll start food, and sitting, and crawling soon. I just can't believe it. Because the twins are not my only babies, here's an update on their big sis, Maddex, too :)

Maddex

• It's also hard for me to believe Maddex is over two years old. Time truly does fly by!
• As evidenced in the quote above, Maddex has started speaking with incorrect grammar. It's about 5% cute and 95% driving me nuts! We don't speak like that to her or around her, so I'm not sure where she's picking it up! I correct her every single time.
• Mad is turning in to a sweet big sister. The twins seem to be noticing her more, and she's responding with more attention to them. She's tried to pick Harper up a couple of times. Thankfully for us, Maddex is weak and Harper's getting heavy :)
• Maddex has been eating wonderfully lately! She's been eating anything we put in front of her without much, if any, of a fuss. There are still some nights where we will make her some macaroni or something else special, but she has mostly been eating the same meal as us!
• This child is uber silly. The other night while I was getting her dressed for bed she told me she was being a carrot. She points at a bonnet in her room and tells us it's a helicopter.
• She loves playing with her dolls and mimics many of our parenting techniques. We obviously tell the twins "come here" a lot when we pick them up!
• She's becoming independent and has been helping me wash her hair and body during her bath. She also tries to put her own clothes and shoes on most days.
• We are definitely in some form of the "terrible twos" that you hear about. Maddex throws several fits a day (anyone remember the Easter pictures??), and we sometimes have trouble calming her down from them. I know much of it stems from communication issues (which is so frustrating b/c she communicates so well!) and the rest is from not being able to get her way. Sharing is such a difficult concept at this age!
• When she's not throwing a fit, she's super sweet. The other night she had her head on my shoulder and said "Maddex is snuggling Mama." My heart melted to the floor right then and there.
• Fun fact: Maddex still has not had a haircut!

I'm really looking forward to the summer with my babies. After having a week off at spring break, I realize that my house is going to stay a mess, but we are going to have such special, sweet memories. I'm looking forward to the last weeks of school - not just because it's the end of the year, but I usually really enjoy these last 6 or so weeks. It's during these weeks that I feel more freedom in my instruction (no observations or standardized tests to prepare for) and can pull in topics and texts just because I want to and because they're good. I'm also on the cusp of finishing my master's degree (hallelujah, praise the Lord!). My 47 page research project has been submitted. I probably need to do some revisions this week and should have a defense scheduled soon. I'm actually not yet sure if I'll officially graduate in May or August, but either way - I have a minute amount of work left to do! I will soon finally be done with school! For now ;) ;)

As always, I'll end my post with some pictures of my kiddos and five month pics of the twinsies.

Eating M & Ms

Giggling about her M & Ms

Happy to play outside on Easter

Loving the exercauser!

Loving the jumpy exercauser!

Playing

Five months old!!!

Go tigers!!!

Doing some crunches

This isn't the best pic, but I love Major's big smile!

Oh! Hello mom! (AKA Maj being a clown)

Holding hands

Harpy blinded by the flash

Still holding hands. Harpy was so interested in her brother!

"Mom, I am concerned."

Harpy still blinded. Check out that pig nose!!!

Still holding hands :)