Twas a week before Christmas

Whew, what a busy day! Today my sister came over so I could help her with some finishing touches on a couple of her handmade Christmas gifts. I've been dying for a crafting day, where I'm here but Dave does most of the entertaining for the girls so I can get some things made. Well I'm going to have to put in for another one because I didn't get to much of my own stuff done!

But a big accomplishment was getting V & H's stockings made:

And I'm pretty sure 1 of the 2 girls is going to follow in her mom and auntie's footsteps and be a part of the Handmade community!

She was so interested in what we were doing!

Slept like a baby

Ever wonder where the term "I slept like a baby" came from?! Well today I think I may have captured it:

Ahhh, the days of passing out as soon as your head hit the mattress without a care in the world! Nothing to worry about. Life is good. No, it's GREAT!

As an adult sometimes you lose site of those simple things in life. How great would it be to have a carefree, butt sticking up in the air while you sleep, kinda day?!

These small moments in time are so precious I wish I could just pause the growth of our girls.

Undercare?? Overcare?? Smothering....?!

I just read an article on letting your child "cry it out" - lucky for us we got 2 [that's right not 1 but 2] awesome sleepers! Did I just jinx myself?!

But anywho... research done on rats shows low nurturing rat-mommas cause their rat-babies to be anxious towards new situations for the rest of their life. There are also issues that high nurturing rat-mommas cause, which they don't talk about in this article. So what is the right balance?!? Hopefully I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing as a baby-momma. God, the last thing I want is to have any blame in ruining any part of my children's lives.

But that was not what caught my attention most. What was most interesting to me is that a sign of undercare is poor memory. Apparently cortisol released during distress harms hippocampus development. This is earth shattering for me....I don't have early onset Alzheimer's that keeps me from recalling most past memories; just undercare - phewwww!

The article went on about lack of nurturing and the prevalence of parents who put their own needs in front of their kids....So relate-able! Seriously I could go on and on about my F'ed up childhood that just continues to follow me into my adulthood because like I've said in my previous posts you can't pick your family, just your friends. But who wants to re-live that?! As it is I'm reminded constantly how I was the un-wanted child.

And that is why my kids are going to grow up with different issues from this over nurturing baby-momma!

The incredibly weird thing is that these days [post-baby] when my friends complain about how annoying their moms are being I can relate to the "moms" and I try to explain to my friends that when they have children of their own they will have the same exact "ah-ha" moments. WHAT have I become?! A mom I suppose....and I wouldn't give up a single minute of it! (Well maybe just one every now and again -- even the most angelic babies have a streak of the devil in them!)

I get by with a little help from my awesome friends!

They say you can't pick your family but you can pick you friends and it's a good thing I picked such a great group of friends to keep near and dear to my heart because without each of them (they each have their own special roles in my life) I wouldn't be able to deal with all the "crazy" I seem to have to deal with more frequently than I'd like. Seriously people - don't you know I had twins 10 months ago?! Can't you all keep your own shit together?! At least let me get through their first year; I know asking to get through the toddler years would be waaay to much to ask.

And in my efforts to speed edit 200,000 pictures in the last week for Christmas presents [as well as our own framing purposes]...I fell upon this picture:

Half of "my people" the other half are in all different states so unfortunately I don't get to see them quite as often. But our bi-annual summer vacation will be here before we know it! Already counting down...

Oh how I love all my girls!!!

Ho-Hum

I know it's been ages since I've documented anything, after getting all weird about documenting my pregnancy for the blog world I thought I'd be back in full force with many posts about our new and exciting life with twins but I've become a mother hen and I'm not so sure how keen I am on posting lots of things about my girls including pictures for anyone in the world to see (I mean FB is bad enough even being on super-duper privacy settings!) Before we know it V & H will be publishing their own lives online and while that already gives me anxiety I figure I at least have some time before this will become a reality! Besides the minor fact that I just don't have the feakin' time! I have my hands in waaaaayyy too many things and sadly the blog has taken a far, far left back burner....

But I do miss writing. Many days I feel as though my brain has gone to mush so today I had some time (while waiting for Dave to get home from work so I can get to work myself) and as I'm sitting here crocheting a Christmas present on this sucky-ass day in CT I just started pondering whether there was some other state or country I'd be happier living in...

Our yard has been soggy for weeeeekkkkkkksss...this year I'd even say our yard was too wet to let the dogs out to play [without needing baths before coming back into the house] more than half of the year! It's horrrrrible!

And as I've been knitting and crocheting half of my Christmas presents I could totally picture myself legs up on an ottoman in front of a wood burning stove in a little cottage on the coast of Maine. But winters there are a bit much for me! Florida is too humid. California is going to fall off the United States any day. Oregon has always been a dream of mine. Internationally I'd have to say I'd be pretty happy living in Moorea. But then there's the whole issue of leaving behind my sister and best friends. And my ties to them are very strong. So I stay in a state that doesn't thrill me because my special people (who I can't take with me if we move) fill the void with tremendous amounts of happiness and I think part of my soul would die if most of them weren't within a 30 min. drive.