Work-at-Home Moms: Is Home Really the Best Place to Be?

Hi Everyone! Happy Tuesday!

So as those of you who follow along know, I work part time from home. I work in advertising (copywriting/creative direction), and have been freelancing for 10 years so everything was all set up by the time the kids came along. (Actually, what I do is more accurately termed "permalancing" [great word, isn't it?], as I have long-term clients I do work for on an ongoing basis, vs having to constantly look for work.)

Anyway, I sooooooooo hugely appreciate being able to work from home, I can't even tell you. The advantages are obvious--no commute time, no getting-presentable-for-the-business-world time, I can pop down and see my kids anytime I want, help out with their care if need be, etc.

But there are some disadvantages too, namely:

• Sometimes it's hard for me and whoever is caring for my children to really see me as "at work" because the boundaries are kind of blurry...sometimes I end up trying to work and care for babies at the same time and it's just not a very efficient way to do things
• Sometimes I feel like my work is never done, especially when I'm with the babies a lot during the day but still have deadlines, end up in my home office late into the evening after the kids have gone to bed
• I get lonely. I used to travel for work (primarily Boston and San Francisco) and would spend time in ad agencies and get my work socialization in there...now that I'm not traveling anymore I can feel really isolated, even though I'm on the phone with people all the time, it's just not the same

Overall, I think the advantages to this setup outweigh the disadvantages. However, I've been thinking about alternatives, maybe even for just a day or two a week. Depending on where we end up (we may be moving soon for my husband's work...stay tuned), if there's something like San Francisco's Makeshift Society--billed as "a clubhouse for creatives" where freelancers come together to work--it might be good for me to do something like that. (BTW, I first learned about Makeshift Society on sfgirlbybay...great design blog...check it out if you're into that sort of thing.) I also heard a promo on NPR the other week about how in the next program they were going to talk about a set-up where freelance moms came together to work and childcare was provided...seriously, what a great idea. But I didn't get to listen to the program and I can't find details about it anywhere.

Love the idea of getting out of the house, being 100% work focused part of the time, having other live creative people around me. Any other work-at-home moms out there feel this way and/or have you actually done it? Would love to hear...

XOXO

Image Credit: Makeshift Society.

Grace in Small Things, December 7, 2012

Hi Everyone! Happy Friday!

Some lovely things going on right now:

1) Early morning wake-ups with the kids, 6 AM it's still dark out it's just me and them and I change and feed them and then I make a cup of tea (Lady Gray, the best) and sit and watch the kids turned loose in the living room/dining room, and really just marvel that this is my life, with these two perfect children in it.

2) We're getting a new couch on Tuesday. (Yay! So excited!) My husband got rid of our old couch LAST Tuesday. He doesn't mind not having a couch. "I only sweat the big stuff," he says. I'm trying to look at it as: think of how much we'll appreciate having a couch when it gets here. (And besides, my husband is right. It's so inconsequential if we don't have a couch for a week, I mean, come on...)

3) Amazing hike with my dad Wednesday (Pollock Bench Trail...a trail we hadn't done together since we were hiking all the time getting ready to backpack the Grand Canyon a few years back.) Amazing yoga class yesterday. I'm ONE POUND from my goal (pre-IVF/pregnancy) weight and have been for like a month...driving me crazy that I can't lose that last pound but really, when you've lost 66 pounds, one more doesn't really matter, right? Still...what do I have to do to lose that last pound? I mean seriously...

4) Reading Bossypants. It's so good. It's been so long since I read an actual book...

5) No work this weekend. No long list of chores. No one's traveling. Etc...just me and the babies and my husband and I think it's supposed to rain or snow so we can cuddle up inside, maybe go to brunch, maybe I can read (finish) my book, I'm going to a Christmas concert with my mom Sunday afternoon and Sunday night is date night...it's going to be a fabulous weekend.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Thanks for spending some time here this week. See you on Monday.

XOXO

Image Credit: Society 6: "Audrey Enjoys Her Cup of Tea" by Creature Comforts.

A Sleep Training Success Story

THEN

How sleeping used to go for us and the babies:

• Up between 4 AM and 5 AM (me + kids)
• Naps during the day required someone (usually my husband) to be snuggled up with them on the bed or they'd scream and refuse to sleep. No rhyme or reason to naps
• Bedtime 7ish, but Luke had to fall asleep in someone's arms (usually mine) or he would scream
• Dream feed 10ish
• Up a bunch during the night (especially Luke)...we'd go to them/cuddle them/feed them every time they made a peep. My husband mostly did the night shift, but if both babies woke up at the same time I'd get up too. I was usually up once during the night.

So for me bed at 11 PM, up in the middle of the night, up for the day between 4 AM and 5 AM and no chance to nap because any spare (baby free) minute I had I was working.

The result: some serious exhaustion on my part, and my husband and I covering the babies in shifts with me generally having days (or parts of the day at least) and him nights...doable but not ideal.

And then, when we were at our RE's office a few weeks ago, he asked about the twins and we said they are great except they don't sleep. And then jokingly said hey, you helped us get babies, can you help us get them to sleep? And he said with his kids he followed the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to the letter, and it worked like a charm.

We bought a copy on the way home (actually, we got Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins.)

Followed it to the letter. 

NOW

And now:

• Babies are up at 6 AM, which is totally doable (actually, they seem to wake between 5 and 6, but are often happy in their crib until 6)
• Nap at 9 AM by themselves in the crib
• Nap at 1 PM by themselves in the crib
• Bedtime at 6 PM

And all this happens with essentially no crying--unimaginable a few weeks ago.

Having the twins sleeping like this has truly changed our lives.

So what price did we pay?

Nothing from Zo, who was already sleeping pretty decently.

A few nights crying from Luke, and I'm not going to lie, that was EXCRUCIATING. Actually, the book says that especially in couples who have had a hard time getting pregnant the dads do much better with sleep training. Before we started, Jeff made me PROMISE to do what he said and not to interfere. If I hadn't made that promise I wouldn't have been able to stand the first night or two (and the crying didn't even go on for that long those first nights...maybe 45 minutes when we first put Luke down, another 45 minutes at 3 AM. Still, when you're used to picking up your baby at the first whimper...) 

Nothing in the kids' behavior makes it seem like they've been traumatized in the slightest by going through this. And I had read that if you do sleep training you become desensitized to your kids' crying (the implication being that you turn into a harsher, less loving parent), but I don't feel like that's happened at all.

I was scared to do sleep training because I didn't realize how truly minimal the crying would be/how fast it would go away. If every night was like the first night no way in the world would I put me and the kids through that night after night after night. But they adapted so quickly and they don't cry any longer. And I know overall we are better parents when we are rested/not constantly exhausted. And we had just reached a breaking point where everything was so chaotic and we were getting so worn down and exhausted....actually the last straw was the night Luke was up pretty much all night...he woke in the morning with bags under his eyes, rubbing his eyes first thing in the morning...it kind of became clear then that what we were doing wasn't working for our kids either. Us, I figured it's OK for us to suffer through if we need to. Them, I don't want anything bad for them...and them exhausted in the morning because they haven't been able to sleep...that doesn't feel like we're doing the right thing...

Anyway, that's our sleep training story. Everyone is so different in their beliefs/approach to this, but after eight months of following the attachment parenting philosophy we switched, and it was the right thing for us, no question.

XOXO

Sad About Weaning...And What Is Going on With My Hormones?

So, I am in the process weaning our babies, because we want to try for a third child (aka "Freezypants") next spring, and i need to have stopped breastfeeding 3 months before.

I'm not ready.

The kids are ready...maybe have been for some time, I've had to pump quite a bit the past months when one or both of them refuse to nurse. But when one snuggles up and nurses happily...I love that time with my kids.

The target date for being done nursing is December 15th. The kids will be 9 months old. And I'm glad I've been able to breastfeed for that long, even with all the struggles, especially with the fact that I've never made enough milk (they've always gotten about half breast milk, half formula.)

I know it's going to be fine, weaning...there will be other ways to have that closeness, but I am feeling soooooooooo sad about it. And also, kind of edgy and just feeling weird in general, honestly like I'm on fertility drugs and am not myself. Do your hormones do weird things when you stop nursing? I went to check on Dr. Google, but people are so judge-y about breastfeeding, when I click to find information I get a lecture about how important it is to breastfeed your kids for as long as possible, and I already feel bad, I just can't read that kind of thing right now.

This is the first time as a mother I'm questioning whether I'm doing the right thing. (Although I'm sure it won't be the last.)

And here's the real issue...this is a big step that means they are growing up and of course I want them to grow up and be their own people and have their own lives but how do you let go? This (motherhood, having these babies) is all going so quickly already I don't want to let the breastfeeding stage go. But I need to, and this also isn't the last milestone they'll reach where I need to let go, and I want to be able to do so with grace even though there is pain and loss involved.

Sigh.

It's hard.

XOXO

Monday Snapshot: "I Don't Wanna" Edition

We tried feeding the twins pasta primavera with actual little pieces of pasta the other day. They'd never had food with texture before and clearly, Zoey was not happy about it.

"I don't wanna eat pasta primavera!"

This is the first time we've seen her pout...adorable. :)

Happy Monday!

XOXO

This post is part of PAIL's Monday Snapshot series...click here to see this week's installment.

Luke's Diary: 8 Months

Hi Mommy's Blog Readers!

I'm here with the eight month update! I'm late because I though I could do the update at Uncle Ben's, but once we got there Mommy told me the pictures were all on our computer at home. Anyway, better late than never, right? Right!

We had a really good month going from 7 to 8 months. We're getting so big! Here's Sissy in a top Mommy had when she was a baby:

And me, dressed like a dude as my Daddy says:

One new thing...Mommy has started giving us baths in the upstairs clawfoot tub. Our Grandma Charlotte was here all of October and she got us rubber duckies...Mommy had some for us too so even though you can't really see it in the picture, the bathtub is crazy with duckies. Mommy says it's a ducky armada, but I don't know what that means. What I do know is me and Sissy LOVE baths, and LOVE the duckies!

I don't really like it when it's time to get out, though:

I don't cry much, though...usually I'm super happy-go-lucky, and so is Sissy. We're both crawling now (although I crawled first by a pretty wide margin). Zoey did the "scoot-scoot" (pulling herself forward on her arms while laying on her tummy) for a while to get around...one time she spit up and then pulled herself right through it and then continued to scoot around. She ended up covered with dirt and dog hair...Daddy said she was impersonating a Swiffer Wet Jet.

And, we can pull ourselves up to standing--Grammy says we're doing it super early. And Zoey is talking like crazy, bababababa, mamamamama, and making "ptt" sounds and dadadadada. She also giggles like crazy. I'll giggle too, some (especially if someone wants to play peekaboo with me or tickle me), but I'm more of the strong, silent type myself.

Speaking of peekaboo, Sissy and I played with each other one day, a chair in the middle of us blocking our view. We'd peek around and see each other and laugh and laugh, and then pull back where we were hidden, and then do it again. Mommy said that was the cutest thing ever.

After Grandma Charlotte went home, Grammy Peggy and Grandpa Steve came back from their trip. We even got to spend some nights over at their house with Mommy while Daddy was travelling for work. Grandpa Steve is so much fun. He calls me "Cool Hand Luke," or "Cool Hand" for short, as in, "Hey, Cool Hand, whatcha up to?"

Grammy has been giving us cold carrots to gnaw on (we can't bite anything off so they are safe). Oh, and we have teeth I forgot to say! Sissy has two and I have one!

Anyway, Sissy and I generally are good at passing things like the carrot back and forth, but once in a while we get frustrated with the other for taking something that we think is ours and things end in tears.

Oh, and it was Daddy's brithday near Thanksgiving, and Mommy wanted to make him something from us so we made turkeys out of our handprints. Arts and crafts projects are fun!

So all-in-all, a really good month. We're going to be nine months so soon! Not too far until our first birthday! But Mommy says please grow up slow...I mean, she wants us to be healthy, but she wants this time to last so much, she says it's so wonderful and we pretty much agree.

Love,

Luke

Seven Months

Six Months

Five Months

Four Months

Three Months

Two Months

One Month

Grace in Small Things, November 28, 2012

Hi Everyone! Happy Wednesday!

Really, really busy with work this week, but wanted to pause for a minute to think about what's good in my world:

1. The fact that work IS busy. Always a double-edged sword (because I'd always rather be spending the time with the babies), but so grateful that I am able to contribute to my family in this way. Also, things are busy, but everything is going really smoothly, clients are appreciative, etc., so happy for that

2. Really appreciating this fall the way the summer greenery/flowers are looking now...like the Bells of Ireland today in one of my mom's gardens (above)...beautiful, aren't they?

3. Good stuff is going on with my husband's job hunt...don't want to jinx by talking about it, but...good stuff

4. Nice hike with my dad today...it's been a while since we hiked together between him being gone for a month and me being sick/overwhelmed with stuff/traveling the first few weeks he was back. Looking forward to getting back into going out with him every Wednesday

5. We're getting the kids on a schedule and it's going to change our life, I swear...knowing when they'll be napping, eating, going to bed for the night, when we'll be getting up in the morning, when we can take them out and about vs the random schedule we've been on since they were born...I'm really excited about the change. I do want to talk about sleep training and the other stuff we're doing, but that's a long post for another time...

Hope everyone is having a great day!

XOXO

Monday Snapshot (Which I'm Guest Hosting!): Colorado Babies

Hi Everyone! Happy Monday!

SO excited to be guest-hosting PAIL's "Monday Snapshot" series this week...thanks for having me, PAIL! Click here to check it out.

Back home after a week at my brother's in the Colorado mountains (also the house where I grew up)...we had a great time, except for the part where the babies didn't sleep...the first half of the trip was tough because of that. BUT, we started sleep training and that is actually going pretty well...will talk more about that soon.

Love this photo of the kids taken there a few days ago...feels SO like Colorado to me.

Hope everyone has a great week!

XOXO

CCRM: Freezypants Is a Go!

Hi Everyone! Happy Friday! Hope you (US readers) all had a marvelous Thanksgiving. :)

Today I wanted to talk about our visit this week to the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine (CCRM), and our thoughts on having a third child.

We've got a few embryos in the freezer, and ever since the twins were born 8 months ago, I've wanted another child, who, thanks to currently being a frozen embryo, my husband has dubbed "Freezypants," or "Freezy" for short. And if we're going to have a third child, we want to do it soon, mostly because of my age...everyone has their own number as far as what is "too old" for kids...mine will be here in less than 2 years, so if we're going to do this, we need to get on it. And we definitely just want one, not twins again, which (hopefully) can be accomplished by transferring just one embryo at a time.

Funny though, with the appointment looming, I started having second thoughts. (My husband has essentially said he's fine with two kids, but is behind me if I want to have three, so the decision is really up to me.) Namely:

1. Am I insane? I'm barely holding it together with two kids, how in the world is three going to work? Plus my husband is about to start a new job, and we might be moving...there's already a lot going on...
2. We know we can handle two, three is such an unknown...
3. Maybe I am ALREADY too old to do this again?
4. My body tolerated a twin pregnancy well (in terms of not having any lingering deleterious effects) and is almost back to normal...will I be so lucky the next time around? (This fear includes the fear that a C-section will be needed next pregnancy)
5. My mother-in-law is going to be helping when I work (part-time, from home)...will she be OK with three kids, or will we have to hire additional help?
6. My husband says I'll have to drive a minivan if we have three kids...I just don't see myself as a minivan kind of person
7. Can we afford three kids? I mean, we can, but will there be any money left over for fun stuff?
8. I was so sick with my pregnancy last time...can I stand to go through that again? Especially with two toddlers?
9. Will we be exhausted ALL THE TIME if we have three kids?
10. Do I really want to go through infertility treatments again? All the drugs, all the time (our clinic is not where we live, which makes even an FET complicated), all the getting our hopes up when this may or may not work...ugh...

Essentially, it all boils down to: will we be stretching ourselves too thin? And is that fair to us and the kids we already have?

And yet, I couldn't bring myself to cancel the appointment. And it didn't make sense to do it (go back to CCRM) if we weren't pretty sure about three, because it was expensive and I had to have a hysteroscopy, which in the past I have found to be excruciatingly painful. 

Anyway, we went. About 5 hours, lots of procedures, LOTS of paperwork and the bottom line is everything looks great and if we want to try, we can.

And now, I'm feeling better about three. (Especially after a couple of good nights of sleep...things are changing with the up-all-night bit the twins have been pulling, but that's another post.)

With us thinking we want to do a transfer in March, the next step is weaning, which I have been really, really, really sad about. If we do March, the twins need to be weaned by mid-December. All the trouble I've had with breastfeeding, I'm surprised how sad I am starting to wean the kids. But interestingly, they are making it easier, as at many feedings neither one is interested in nursing. But those feedings where they settle in and we have that time together...it's so precious...so hard to think of stopping that before we are all ready. But I will have breastfed for nine months, and I'm glad I've been able to for so long. And the twins have never breastfed exclusively, they've always had formula supplement, so that makes the whole weaning thing a little easier too, I think.

Three kids vs. two. I don't know...if you list the pros and cons, there are a lot more things in the cons column (see above.) But I love our kids (the ones we have now) SO MUCH, I think my husband and I are doing a great job, they are so fun and why not have one more, how can one more not add to the joy and fun, laughter and happiness we have? So I guess we (meaning me) are not 100% decided yet, but we're (I'm) pretty sure Freezypants is a go. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Thanks so much for spending some time here this week.

XOXO

Hide & Seek

Hi Everyone! Happy Thanksgiving!

At my brother's for the week, in the Colorado mountains, he lives in the house where we grew up and goodness, it's been a long time since there were children in this house. But this week it's been full of them...makes me so happy.

We played hide-and-seek with the babies the other day (one person held one baby and counted, the other held the other baby and went and hid), and I can't tell you how cool and also how surreal it was to hide in the hiding places I used as a child. Made me feel ten years old again, two little brothers, my mom with a beef stew simmering on the wood burning stove and soon she'll be sitting down to read to us, fires crackling, horses out in the dried grass of the meadow...

Love that I'm still able to come home to this house. It really is a magical place...

Hope everyone enjoys today. Can't tell you how excited I am to have four whole days off. :)

XOXO

Image credit: Courtney Burgess (pinned from bing.com) via Pintrest.

Monday Snapshot: How's My Crawling?

Got out without the kids yesterday...lunch with my husband and a friend of ours, a little shopping in Wash Park. Got a sparkly New Years Eve-y type dress, looks vintage, it's very cool, and the cutest shoes for each of the kids...Sissy's are skater shoe style...black-and-white striped with bubble-gum pink skull-and-crossbones on them. They're a little big...actually one has fallen off and Luke is chewing on it right now. But the coolest part about them is the sole...I didn't even see the

"How's my crawling? Call 555-MinM"

text until I put them on Zo and she started crawling away. Hilarious.

Hope everyone's getting a good start to their week.

XOXO

P.S. Thanks for the kind words on my "Overwhelmed" post. Helps so much to know I'm not the only one...

This post is part of PAIL's Monday Snapshot series...check out this week's installment here. 

Overwhelmed

Hi Everyone!

So I usually try to stay positive, in this space and in life, but let's take a break from that today, shall we?

I am feeling absolutely stretched to the limit, and wondering how anybody makes this working mother thing work. And then I feel ridiculous for complaining because:

A) I'm only working part time (well, 6 hours/day right now...will go down to 4 hours/day once my husband's job situation sorts itself out, which seems to be imminent)

B) I work from home

C) Between my husband and my mom and my mother-in-law, I have lots and lots and lots of help

But, on the other hand, there are a lot of extenuating circumstances right now, including:

• My husband has been traveling for weeks what feels like non-stop...he is exhausted from travel and meetings, I am exhausted from being up all night with the kids, the kids are crankier than normal because they miss him, etc.
• We've been traveling as a family, too...great stuff but traveling with twins is not easy (another week-and-a-half trip is set to start Friday)
• I am sick, sick, sick, and have been for over a week
• Work is really busy, things that require a great deal of mental energy plus some super-accelerated timelines and that's always really stressful
• The kids are teething
• My husband has another meeting Monday in Denver (yay!), but I don't know how I'm going to work Monday...and we have appointments at CCRM in Denver to talk about/start the process of potentially having baby #3 (oh yeah, I'm also trying to decide if 3 kids vs 2 makes sense in the midst of all this), so I can't work Tuesday...and then Thanksgiving...I don't know how I'm going to get any work done next week
• We're kind of in limbo as we may be moving for a new job for my husband, so things aren't really set up the way they are going to be with our house (eg we're putting off buying a new crib so the twins are still rooming together) or my work situation (eventually my mother-in-law will be helping me set times, right now coverage for me working is just kind of cobbled together)
• Etc.

So yeah. Today I'm feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. 

My husband's back tonight and will take the night shift with the kids, so that should help.

And if I could just get rid of this cold...

Am I the only one who feels like they are drowning?

XOXO

Grace in Small Things, November 12, 2012

Hi Everyone! Happy Monday!

Some things that are good in my world today:

1. Gosh, I've been sick for a week (sore throat, headache, tired). But a tad bit better today. Plus, the twins don't seem to have it, knock on wood. (I hear they get antibodies through breastfeeding, which is so cool...)

2. We got Pack-and-Plays last week for my mom and dad's house...makes having the twins over here so much easier. I'm actually over here for 3 days while my husband travels...so incredibly wonderful to spend this time with my parents and to have their help...don't know how I'd survive without the help (especially sick)...so grateful for it...

3. Lots of work for me right now, which is good and bad. Bad in that I'd rather hang out with the twins, good in that our bank account will be thanking me (and I've had some slow weeks, so I'm due). Also, some of the work I do is with good friends of mine, and I've got a couple projects going with them right now, which always makes me happy

4. First snow of the season two nights ago...so beautiful...gets me dreaming about snowboarding, although honestly I don't see how that's going to work this year with the twins so young, but that's OK, there will be other years (with them on the slopes with me, too, which I can hardly wait for...)

5. Mom's beef stew for dinner. And Upwords (which I almost always lose at but that's OK). And the other half of a movie we started watching last night but none of us could stay awake for. It's been a long time since I've spent a couple nights at my parents house (because I live so close, I usually just head home)...it's fun. :)

Hope you all are having a fabulous start to your week!

XOXO

A Twin Tale

Hi Everyone! Happy Friday!

So we have just one crib right now, and are trying to put off buying a second until we know what's happening with my husband's job search/our potential move.

In the interim, my husband, engineer that he is, custom-installed a breathable bumper so that each kid has a side--we joke that they each have their own cubicle--so they have their own space and are less likely to wake each other up.

Our daughter, Zoey, is awfully easy to put to sleep at night--solids, bath, bottle or breastfeed and she's out.

Luke, on the other hand, doesn't really want to go to sleep. Often, I'll sit with him in the dark in my office, him on my lap while I finish up the day's work...he'll drift off like that. But the past few nights we've been trying to transition him into being put down with his sister.

Last night, Zoey went to bed no big deal like always. We put Luke down and he screamed and screamed (oh, breaks my heart...so awful). It lasted about 15 minutes and after that, silence. I peeked in to check on him, and wouldn't you know, Zoey had leapt the barrier and was over on Luke's side, the two of them curled up together. 

My husband says she went over to say, "Hey, quiet it down over there! Some of us are trying to sleep!"

I like to think she went over to give her little brother comfort and love. :)

Hope you all have a great weekend. Thanks for spending some time here this week.

XOXO

The "B" Book

Over at my Mom and Dad's this morning, in the living room working and my mom's with the kids in the kitchen. When she starts reading to Luke, I can't help but stop and listen...she has the books she used to read to me when I was little...makes me feel like I'm a little kid again, listening to her read the stories she read to me over and over and over. 

"Big brown bear, blue bull, beautiful babboon, blowing bubbles, biking backwards..." 

Happy Wednesday!

XOXO

Grace in Small Things, November 5, 2012

Hi Everyone! Happy Monday!

A few things that are making me happy today:

1. Thank you so much to everyone here and IRL who left comments, texted, emailed, called, facebooked etc. on my brother Luke's birthday...it is still a hard day, and I appreciate all the support more than you know. Sometimes I feel so alone in my sadness...not after this weekend...

2. I've had my DSLR camera for way over a year and am JUST NOW starting to take it off the automatic settings and really use it. :)

Don't know why this particular picture taken over the weekend makes me so happy, but it does:

3. Friends of mine from Santa Barbara (actually, the drummer in my brother's band) with a pregnancy announcement (congrats Dave and Mel!), friends from San Francisco with an engagement ring (congrats Chris and Kim!), another SF friend of mine down to Baja for a month (so, so jealous...but love that she is always getting to do such cool stuff...)

4. My husband is home! (He's been traveling a ton.)

5. And my parents are returning today after a month-long trip to Europe...I've missed them tons...can't wait to have them back!

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

XOXO

Oh, and PS, three nights of The Voice this week? I'm excited.

And PPS, I have FINALLY figured out who I'm going to vote for tomorrow. I read a phrase in The New Yorker last week about undecided voters being "ideologically incoherent"...love that phrase...that is so me when it comes to politics...

Oh, and PPPS, I dropped my (newish) iPhone in the soapy bottle washing water this weekend...totally submerged but it appears to be fine...how is that possible?!?

Dear Luke and Zoey (Your Uncle Luke's Birthday Edition)

Dear Luke and Zoey,

Today is your Uncle Luke's birthday. He would have been 35.

The last birthday I ever got to spend with him was eight years ago, the year before he died.

It was election day.

We surfed dawn patrol at Rincon...I can remember the faint light in the parking lot and the flowered bikini I was wearing, the weak, crumbly waves that just meant we got to spend more time sitting in the water talking. Someday I'll take you surfing at Rincon, because that's one of the places I feel like your uncle's spirit lives on.

After surfing, he went to work, I went to work.

We met that evening for dinner on State Street and drinks at the Press Room with the guys in his band and their girlfriends.

It was a perfect day.

When I think of you and your Uncle Luke, I always think of how he was with Dexter. You know, your boxer? It was his boxer first...your Uncle Luke got him as a tiny puppy when we were living together and was so sweet and loving and cuddly with that dog. It's weird to compare you guys to a puppy, I know, but you know what I mean...those same looks of devotion and love...I know they would have come over his face when he (your uncle) was holding each of you.

I like to think that before you guys came to me you were with your Uncle Luke in Heaven or wherever everybody hangs out before and after Earth...so you already know him. I like to think he's already laid you down on a hardwood floor and spun you around in circles until you were dizzy, he's already taken you on epic mountain bike rides and taught you to surf. He's already gotten you drum sets and guitars and a bass and taught you everything he knows about music. He's already given you tours of all the cool houses he's designed, just like he used to do for me. 

We all miss him so, so much.

I'm so sad you won't get to know him like you do your Uncle Ben.

I'll always do my best to make him come alive for you, so in some way, you'll know.

Love,

Your Mommy

Luke's Diary: Our First Halloween

Hi Mommy's Blog Readers!

Today Mommy said I could tell you about our Halloween. I thought Halloween was a one-day affair, but I must have been misinformed.

First, there was the visit to the pumpkin patch, after a nice leisurely lunch downtown with Mommy and Daddy at the Rockslide Brewery, sitting outside on their patio on a nice fall day:

Then, there was Costume Try-on Day, to make sure everything fit and that we liked it. Our Grandma Charlotte made these costumes from scratch, can you believe it?!? She didn't have a pattern or anything, she made them up out of her head. As you can see, I was a sock monkey pirate (arrrrr!) and Sissy was a peacock:

Then, last Saturday, we put on our costumes, loaded up in the stroller and went downtown for the Halloween parade! Super fun! (That big buffalo statue in front of Mommy and Daddy's bank...that's called "Chrome on the Range," by the way...)

And then--finally--Halloween! Grandma augmented the mouth on my sock monkey costume so it was even cooler:

After pictures, Mommy and Daddy walked us around to the neighbors we know, so everyone could see how cute we were.

I also heard something about Halloween and candy, but Mommy said we're too young for candy. She said maybe next year.

It was the best Halloween ever!

Love,

Luke

Dream a Little Dream...

I hate the term "Bucket List," I don't know why. But I've been thinking lately along those lines...you know, things I want to do in life, at some point (actually many of these things I want to do now/in the near future, really).

It's funny, it seems like a lot of people think (or communicated to me before I had children, at any rate) that you can either have children OR do other things in life. But I think life is what you make of it and if you want to have kids and do other things too you certainly can. (That said, at the moment there isn't room for much besides kids and work and a few exercise sessions a week. But it won't always be like that and it's good for a girl to dream, right?)

And so, what I'm dreaming about wanting to do at the moment, in no particular order:

• Raising/spending tons of time with my twins (and maybe, hopefully, one more child) and enjoying/appreciating every minute
• Paying attention to and keeping my marriage good and strong
• Finishing and publishing (even if it's self publishing) the four books I have right now in various states of doneness
• Raising the bar on my photography skills
• Having a house that is beautiful and comfortable and us
• Traveling on a regular basis nationally and internationally (I want to go pretty much everywhere)
• Having an old VW camper bus all decked out in cool stuff to do camping/road trips in
• Having a closet full of clothes that are comfortable, make me feel pretty and are appropriate for every situation
• Being able to snowboard again on a regular basis (season pass used multiple times a week kind of deal)
• Surfing again on a regular basis (this assumes someday we'll live by the ocean...which I have a feeling is a ways off...but that's OK...)
• Living in Seattle again (don't know why, but I am so incredibly drawn to that city)
• Having a vacation home somewhere shared with my brother
• Having time to read and reading good books
• Having a good group of local friends (I have great, great friends, but they are all over the place...I need a group of girlfriends I can call up and meet for coffee or a glass of wine)
• Doing something with letterpress and/or bookbinding (I want to make my own little books...)
• Spending lots of time with my parents and brother, whether we live near or far

I know this list is kind of prosaic, but these are the things I know make me happy...

XOXO

Flying Solo

Hi Everyone! Happy (late) Monday! 

(And by the way, thinking of everyone on the East coast dealing with this scary storm...)

My husband's out of town (and will be twice more in the next two weeks), and boy do I miss him...just being around him, of course, but also his help with the kids. I say I'm flying solo, but really I'm not because my mother-in-law is with me and is such a HUGE help. But I won't let her do the baby night shift. And all I can say is I always really appreciate my husband and all he does, but right now even more so, with the babies up last night at 10 PM (both), 1 AM (Luke), 2 AM (Zo), and 5 AM (both), me getting up with them at 6:30 AM, a busier-than-normal workday and today is bank and grocery day so out doing that, and my husband kind of joke-threatening me that if I don't get our daughter a winter jacket he's going to do it (he has great taste in kid's clothes, but I wouldn't put it past him to get something crazy just to make his point about the fact that it's taken me forever to get this [admittedly important] task done).

Anyway, it's almost 10 PM and I'm just now finishing my workday...about to dream feed the babies (with my mother-in-law's help) and who knows what the night will bring but it's OK. I'm the mom. I can handle whatever I need to.

Oh and a couple random tidbits, because that's the kind of mood I'm in:

• Grandma got the kids rubber duckies, and partly so they can play with them, partly because it's time I've started giving them (the kids) a bath in the bathtub upstairs together instead of in the kitchen sink one at a time...they LOVE the rubber duckies (and the bath)...Luke cried when I got him out of the tub tonight...
• Zoe is all about consonants right now...ba ba ba ba ba, ma ma ma ma ma, etc. So cute
• And Luke's special power right now is full-on crawling...amazing
• And they've both got teeth! Also amazing...

Oh, and also, I might be totally off base with this, but I feel like if I was a stay-at-home-mom I could totally handle the kids solo. It's this trying to work from home thing and switching gears and trying to be somewhat available for my clients and not being able to nap when the kids nap because I need to get on a conference call instead...I'm not complaining, I just feel like work just makes this impossible to do on my own (and thankfully I don't have to...)

Anyway, thanks for indulging me in my sleep-deprived mama randomness...

XOXO