Give Thanks and Praises

Last month I had the honour of being nominated for Voiceboks Top 50 Hilariously Funny Nominated Parent Bloggers – 2014.  It's so incredible to be recognized among so many other talented writers.  The award was voting based, so I went out to you: my readers, fellow bloggers, friends and family to solicit support.

Even though it wasn't one of my new year's resolutions this year, I am constantly struggling with putting myself out there and promoting my writing, my passion.  I posted about the contest, emailed, got on blocked lists  for my obsessive social media campaigning and even shared a photo of Molly and Jack that Chris voted as "most likely to get child services called" to inspire people to vote.   All of this was in attempt to achieve my goal to make it into the Top 10 of this contest and earn a virtual badge.

Today I posted my badge for making the top 10 list and have been recognized with nine other fantastic writers on Voicebok's Award Wall of Fame.  In the end I earned 4th place which truly exceeded all of my expectations.  Thank you so much to everyone for their support and encouragement in helping me celebrate my craft and my twisted love letters to my family.

As a part of this fierce competition I checked out the other bloggers who were fighting for top spot and thought I'd share with you some of the great writiers I discovered in case you would like to check them out too:

Comic Strip Mama - I especially liked this Justin Bieber Strip

Hot Mess Mom - Love her post on all bloggers being narcissistic, self-absorbed douche canoes (her words not mine)

Toulouse & Tonic - I am thankful that Chris is only guilty of 2-3 items on her 10 Things I'll Never Understand About Men List

Again, thank you everyone for your kind words, readership and virtual love!

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Blue Valentine

Last Valentine's Day when we went to pick up Molly and Jack from daycare we discovered that their cubbies were not only filled with the outfits that Jack had painstakingly destroyed that day, but also with paper Valentines from other kids in their class.  As I collected the little notes and stuffed them into my purse I was thankful that Molly and Jack were just a year and a half old and blissfully unaware how their parents had failed at Valentines.  I am almost certain that every other child had participated in a card exchange while we did not.

I vowed to myself that this year would be different, that I couldn't rely on the assumption that they wouldn't understand, that they were the only children not participating in the exchange of pink and red stationary.  In late January I started creeping projects on Pinterest, I had grandiose ideas of toddler friendly hand made cards that they could work on for their classmates, cousins and grandparents.  I even made a shopping list for the Dollar Store complete with glitter, construction paper and enough sparkle heart stickers to make the minions the envy of unicorns everywhere.

Here's the thing...I never made it to the dollar store.  It was cold outside, the kids got sick twice: each, I got sick and then there was the Molly pneumonia scare.   It snowed a bunch and then time passed by.  I should have known better, evenings and weekends filled up with laundry and naps for everyone, not time for craft corner.  I am incapable of mailing a letter most days.

So today, the day before Valentines, I am going to go to a drug store and buy whatever Valentine cards are on sale, then at daycare pick up I am going to write down the names of all of the children in Molly and Jack's class to avoid me just randomly penning "fellow classmate" on every person's card.*  Tonight I will let my children scribble all over them at my parent's house and do everything in my power to ensure that these cards physically make it into daycare tomorrow.  Maybe next year will be different, but probably not.


*There are only eight other children in their class and they talk about four of them all the time, you think I'd have a better grip on names.

The Royal We

Recently I told a co-worker about how I make Molly cry by chastising her every time she calls out her new favourite catch phrase, "Go away!"  She asked me if it was hard to stomach that I was making my daughter cry.  The short answer - no.  First of all, I am assuming that she picked up this annoying gem at daycare because it isn't something that Chris and I ever say.  I'm also fairly certain that colic has numbed me permanently for ITTS (Irrational Toddler Tears Syndrome).  The bottom line, she shouldn't say mean things, especially in the morning, before I've had my coffee when I'm trying to style her hair for daycare and have already spent an eternity negotiating the existential crisis of leggings versus jeans.  I told my colleague that one of the hardest things about dealing with toddler antics is to avoid laughing or smiling when they are doing something naughty, albeit highly entertaining.

Chris and I often blame bad behaviour or annoying traits in our children on each other's genetics.  Any temper tantrums, outbursts of anger or tears Chris claims are passed on from my side, specifically me.  I blame Chris for any stubbornness or any obsessive compulsive behaviour.

Over the past few weeks Chris and I have witnessed a development in Molly and Jack's relationship: the beginning of no holds barred teasing.

Molly can be a little bit emotional.  She can also be a Bossy Bessie.  When people ask me if my daughter is a princess, I correct them: She's "The Queen" and not in a figurehead monarch kind of way, in an "Off with their heads!" way.

For the most part Jack quietly does what his sister says, for example her insistence on him wearing Mardi Gras beads whenever they play tea party.  The rest of the time he tries to ignore her abundance of demands.

A few days ago during dinner, Molly let us know that she was done her spaghetti and that she needed to wipe her hands and face.  She meticulously scrubbed off the sauce and sat back down beside her brother to drink her juice.  Jack dipped his hands into her bowl and rubbed sauce on her face.  She panicked, freaked out, cried a little bit, cleaned herself up and sat back down.  We told Jack not to rub sauce on his sister's face.  Two minutes later he dipped his hand back into her bowl and rubbed it all over her hands and shirt.  He looked at us with an anticipatory open mouthed smile, akin to the face Muppets make when they are trying to be funny.  Chris had to turn around and look out the window he was laughing so hard while I attempted to explain to Jack that he was not to put pasta sauce anywhere but inside his mouth, period.  Molly just wanted us all to "Go Away."  I'd say that teasing runs on the father's side, but I'm fairly certain my siblings would have a different perspective.


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Keep Your Love Alive

In celebration of all things pink, red and lace I've decided to run a Valentine's Contest this month.  This is my chance to let you, my readers, share your stories about keeping the love alive: post pregnancy and beyond as parents.

The Contest:
Email a story to multiplemomstrosity@gmail.com  of 1) how you've managed to keep romance in your relationship after parenthood or 2) Epic failures on keeping the romance alive post-parenthood.*

Entries will be accepted between February 1st and February 11th (midnight).  The winning story (as judged by myself and my charming husband Chris) will be published on my blog on Valentines Day and the winner will receive the lovely pair of earrings below. Limit of two entries per person.

The Prize:

This lovely pair of earrings compliments of Bright Shadows Jewelry: The perfect gift for you the winner, or another special someone in your life.

Notes About the Judges:

One of us is a romantic, the other is not so much, can you guess who's who?
 

IMPORTANT NOTE

In an act of True Romance (or kindness) Bright Shadows Jewelry is generously offering Multiple Momstrosity Readers a 10% discount on all items in her Etsy store. This offer is open to anyone who uses the code Momstrosity10 when checking out their order for the next six months (Until August 2013).  Take advantage of this great offer!

 

 

*Since this blog is primarily about my husband and I and our disastrous attempts at retaining some semblance of sanity as the parents of multiples you can only guess what my entry would look like, but it would likely involve feces from my son and a tantrum from my daughter/Chris or I.





Things as bad as they seem?

I went to my obstetrician's office for my post operative check-up this week and everything appears to be healing well.  As I left the office the receptionist turned to me and said, "Sara, if you call me in 8 months and tell me that you're pregnant again the only referral that you're getting is to a psychiatrist."  I assured her that she would not hear from me for a long time (or ever again) and held up my brand new birth control prescription as proof.  

Seven weeks ago I had fraternal twins.  A girl and a boy, Molly & Jack.  They are amazing, but often the bane of my existence, particularly at four in the morning.  Reactions prior and post arrival, from us, friends, family and strangers have been mixed.  On the drive into work from the hospital after the first ultrasound, when we found out there were two babies there was a definite tense silence in the air.  My reaction at the hospital to the announcement of, "You're having twins!" was to say "Crap." followed by the question of, "Are you sure?", then "Are you really sure?", followed by, "And you're sure that there aren't three in there?"  My husband's was pure silence, until finally as we pulled into the parking lot at his work,  he said, "I guess the decision between one and two children has been made." Until their birth I routinely had nightmares that the ultrasound technicians had made a mistake and there were really more children hiding behind the twins, I began obsessively watching the show Make Room for Multiples looking for some tips on what not to do.

When I called my dad to tell him I was having twins that afternoon (his mother was a fraternal twin, so really, genetically this was all his fault) I was met with hysterical laughter in thirty second bursts, only punctuated by a gasp for air and the statement of, "I'm sorry, but it's just so funny."

Since then, in utero and after their arrival we've been warned by many about how tough things were going to be and how our lives will be forever changed, and essentially how screwed we were, the most ominous of these predictions came from people who were twins themselves.  A colleague, mother of grown twin boys and friend of mine gave me the best piece of advice I've received so far, she said, "Remember, the more horrifying the experience, the better the story later on."  And here we are - welcome to my blog.

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