3 months, 6 months, 12 months...

Here's one of those New Mom Advice posts for you...

As a new Mom, you will have too many clothes for your baby/babies!  New, gently used, splurges and consignment or hand-me-down, I have learned the hard way that you NEED to 'manage' your babies' wardrobes!!! Month after month, day after day I unearth outfits that the girls never wore, but that are now too small for them, or are too wintery, or whatever!  And it's upsetting that I didn't have a chance to put these cute and lovely little pieces on the girls!

So.  Here's what I have to offer, that I did wrong on the first go-around.

1.  I decided to fold and place a LOT of clothes into the dresser drawers I had, sometimes placing up to 5 outfits, tops, bottoms or whatever on top of each other inside each drawer, eventually stuffing each drawer with clothes.  For obvious reasons, the clothes at the bottom were usually forgotten.

2.  I decided to fold and place clothes of varying ages into the drawers, with (what seemed a good idea at the time) the littlest clothes in the top drawers, the 3 month clothes in the middle ones and 9-12 month clothes in the bottom.  Again...too stuffed, and why have clothes in drawers that don't fit the girls? Pack those away, and spread out only the clothes that fit them NOW.  If you see them, they will end up wearing them!

3.  Here's a GREAT tip.  In my quest to organize this little house for the arrival of the twins, I did a LOT of packing up of anything that we didn't immediately or often need. Bin after bin got packed. Bin after bin got loaded into a newly-created mezzanine in the garage (fancy word for overhead storage area).  Ultimately?  I have no bins left to pack up clothes that don't fit the girls anymore!  So what's the tip, that I got from a girlfriend of mine who has way too many baby clothes to deal with herself?  Take your diaper boxes (or other small boxes, but these make the most sense) and pack up the overflow clothes into them, labeling them by the age of the clothes inside them.  That way it's easy to ID the baby clothes boxes, and when you have friends looking for clothes, you can pull them out and take them over, and when you are ready to consign, they are also ready to go.

Oh, and just as an aside, have you seen the closet we created in the nursery for the girls?  If not, take a look:

We took off our closet doors (those crappy cheap slidy things) and made some custom curtains.  Bought the rods at Home Depot, and the shelving solution at IKEA.  We connected the shelves to each other and then the wall, and used three small rods for clothes hanging, with the idea that when the girls grow, you can remove the middle rod to hang the bigger clothes.  I will be sad to leave all this behind, but the new house already has custom inserts and so this stays with the house.  But.  It's been a great and practical organizational solution!

What do you do to stay organized?  What are you doing with the superfluous little pieces of clothing? And where do you consign with the best payout and purchasing history?

Losing it - Getting angry with myself now

Okay.  False start.  Totally.  Thank gawd there is no limit to the number I am allowed, but hopefully I will get out of the gates sooner rather than later.  I THINK I am building momentum.

A few weeks ago I blogged about this great seminar I took at Kangaroo Fitness to help me understand the work needed to reduce the diastasis recti issue I have since giving birth to the twins. Today is SUPPOSED to be a follow-up workshop to see our progress and discuss the next stages of the workouts/exercises. 

HA.

I have made at best some half-hearted attempts to do the stomach exercises.  I have put on the splint and worn it so few times I could count on one hand.  #FAIL - I have totally failed myself.

I ask myself why.  I have a LOT of excuses (covered that before), but I think mostly I just don't know what I want to do when.  For example, I know that I can try to mend the diastasis, but it won't look all that much different from now if I don't drop some of the weight I have gained over the past couple of years. I also know that dropping weight requires eating fewer calories and altering the nature of the food I am eating, but there is another but. My breastmilk supply goes down if I eat less, and so I feel like I need to make a decision on when I intend to wean, but am waffling on this; I just don't think I am ready yet. AND if I decide to eat just as many calories, but make them uber-healthy ones (which MIGHT do the trick, although I'm not sure it would), we'd have to be MUCH more organized in our daily meal-planning, which takes more time than I think I have - or rather, I could do that, but then fitting in the exercises etc every day become even harder.

Yeah.  And so what? It's not easy losing weight, Pam!  I'm getting angry with myself for the excuses.  For the laziness. For finding every reason NOT to proceed and make things happen - and every reason why we need to order pizza tonight or pick up McDonalds today because, you know, it was a BUSY day and we just HAVE to eat, right?  If we make something now, well, boy, it will be 9pm before we get dinner!!! 

So.  Am I ready?  Can I make this happen?  I'm going to the workshop today to hopefully get inspired by all the women who HAVE put in the work and are making changes.  I'm also going because I am embarassed and I would usually just beg off and say I'll try get up to speed and then come see the intructor. And I'm going because Susanne, said instructor, cares and wants to help me work out some solutions or answers to my 'excuses'.  Bless her heart.

She has her work cut out for her.  That is all.

Help - do you have some motivating words for me?  A story about your issues and efforts?  How are you/aren't you motivated?

A great play day

Daddy stayed home today.  We had no showings, thus the house was our own (not that we want no showings, mind you, but...silver linings, you know). We had FUN.

Lots of laughs. Lots of smiles. Lots of happiness.  Life is good.

That is all.

Here is what that looked like:

And then the ball cap came out...

Supreme sustenance - super solid foods!

You may recall that I introduced solids to the girls about two weeks ago - just a little rice and oatmeal cereal - and that we captured it on camera and video. It's such a BIG DEAL when you really think about it - these milestones are so emotional for Moms, aren't they? Hailey, as with most things, was so serious!

And today, I made their first real foods.  I'm excited to be able to make their food from scratch and there is so much to choose from!  What to start with?  Well, I thought we'd go standard and cook up some carrot and some broccoli.  We even have this cool little storage tray with inserts for baby-size portions.  Fun!

So colourful.  That's how you know it's healthy! 

And so I tweeted out my first forays into this new stage and posed the question - what else should I look at introducing? - and got great suggestions.  Banana, sugar-free apple sauce, avocado (yum), sweet potato, squash, peas, etc.  I also got a very funny link from my friend Dani who wrote a blog post about HER first attempts at making her baby's own food.  Thought I would share.  Nothing quite that exciting happened here, I'm afraid...

So.  What else did you introduce?  What are your suggestions?  Oh, and how did you all handle the new and fabulous olfactory-stimulating presents awaiting you at the other end?  Holy crapola (pun entirely intended)...!

Losing it - Week What?

I'm losing it, alright...losing momentum. losing steam. losing motivation.  Maybe even losing myself...

I can't believe that I am THAT mom.  The one who looks at herself and can't be bothered.  The one who has a lot going on in her life, and thus uses all of it as an excuse to stubbornly ignore how much she hates her body (and doesn't do anything about it but sabbotage it). 

You see, I have worked hard in the past to lose weight.  I know how ridiculously hard it is.  And now, I have this strange belly that I can't be sure I CAN get rid of. This, by the way, is a very deep-seated fear.  I watched my mom work out every day for decades trying to get rid of her belly. I watched her try to find clothes that looked good on her. I was always so happy I didn't seem to have that issue...

I have that issue.

I also recently went to an incredible seminar hosted by Suzanne at Kangaroo Fitness about how to repair my diastasis recti.  It's AMAZING the tranformation that is possible.  Possible IF one works their stomachs off doing crazy amounts of daily exercises and changes their lifestyle to roll off of couches and out of beds, and never bends over to pick things up, or gets on all fours to do things.  Try doing that with twin babies folks.  I still haven't figured out how the hell that would work.  And the exercises?  Painful due to my serious lack of any core muscles right now.  Crazy hard.  And there is a follow up workshop I have to show my face at in two weeks. I also have a splint that is also uncomfortable.  Maybe it would be less so if I wasn't so damned big, but I'm not starting from the greatest waist measurement, ya know?

And what's crazy is that I am unhappy while being totally happy.  How does THAT work?  I love everything about my life right now, except how I look. 

But sometimes?  That's enough to ruin my day, or cast a pall over the great moments.  And that sucks.

Not sure what I want with all this boo hooing, but I just felt like getting it down and admitting my issue. I THINK at some point I will hit that wall I hit the first time I decided to get fit, and get down to business, but at the moment, I just look in the mirror and am overwhelmed knowing how much work I have ahead of me.

I need a posse, I think.  Thoughts from my blog gallery?

Don't blink or you'll miss something!

Phew!  Things are really moving.  Monday was our new home inspection - went splendidly.  You know you got a good home when the inspectors are just listing off a few "if you want to do A, you can extend the life of B" and that is it! I spent the bulk of the time snapping photos because I had the chance!  Here, a few of the faves. Hmmm...where to start?  Outside? 

The back yard (replete with path to the park behind and a water feature)

The kitchen and family room

Main floor laundry (so awesome - and washer/dryer included)

Foyer, formal living room, dining room and powder room

The fabulous staircase...

And the upper balcony (with a great view of the Bank, and afternoon sun for tanning and sipping wine - you know, while Daddy is playing with the girls...)

Upper level - what is soon to be the baby's nursery (with two big windows, seating area, closet insert)

The second bedroom - soon to be the girls' playroom.  Thinking we HAVE to make a window seat with storage for the bay window for them...what a great place to read! (wall to wall closet insert with shelves etc. in here too)

Upper hallway from one end and double-door entrance to the master!

The master (and closet, and ensuite - finally!!! - with a soaker tub - ahhh!)

And finally, the basement with 4th bedroom (with its own walk in closet) and...a workshop!  Mamma likes that a lot!  The pool table doesn't come with the house...but will become another play zone for the girls.

So.  That's a lotta great living space, eh?  We are so excited, we can't tell you.  And now...well, as of today we are listed on MLS and have the for sale sign on the lawn.  Come hither, all you needy first homey types!!!!

If you know anyone looking for an amazing starter home, send them here!

And...wish us luck.  Hope we don't need it!