I’ve mentioned it before, but when my kids were about five weeks old, we started a new mom class. It was at an awesome local maternity/child center, and a perfect baby-safe first outing. There were nine of us new moms. I was the only one with twins, which I’m actually grateful for. (They have since added a twin-specific new mom group, but I’m glad I took the “normal” one. I had enough twin mom friends, it’s nice to know other people, too!) We all showed up that morning, I seem to remember it was an early class, like 9:30 in the morning. Everyone was frazzled, but I think we were all thrilled that there were little seats set up on the floor for us, a Boppy for everyone, plenty of space for carseats, no worries about boobs left and right. I think the entire first class was spent with us all going “oh, your baby does that, too!” It was such a relief.

Our teacher, Carole, was the greatest. A registered nurse and lactation consultant, plus just the nicest manner and greatest group facilitating you could hope for. As the first class wound down, she told us, matter-of-factly, that we should all go out for lunch together. Right now. We all just kind of looked at each other, shrugged, and did exactly that. We did lunch after class every week for the six weeks of the class. It was great! She also told us to try to get together mid-week, and we sometimes managed that, too. It was a perfect kick-start that you need when you’re clueless and sleep-deprived.

One of the things that I marveled over the most was the dynamic of our class. Of the nine moms, the only thing we all had in common was state of residence and the birthdays of our firstborns. Different ages, different backgrounds, different professions. And yet, we all got along really well. We didn’t even have the ubiquitous “annoying person” that tends to mess up group dynamics. (Unless… crap… unless that obnoxious person is me. Um, if it is, sorry guys…) We were a totally random set of people thrown together, and it just plain worked.

And continues to work. We’ve tried to get together periodically for brunches, though I’ve missed the last few due to a strange illness curse that strikes just when we’re about to do something fun. I worried it would happen this weekend, too, but with only a very slightly runny nose on Rebecca, I decided we were a go.

7 of the 9 moms made it, and the only two who didn’t either had family in town or a tiny newborn.

We had such a blast, you’d think we got together every week. Pot-luck brunch seems to always go well. Nice time of day for the kids, plenty of kid-friendly food. The kids played, the dads pulled them around in wagons, and we even shut the door and had a mommy check-in for the first time in ages.

We marveled at the fact that our once-tiny-newborns are now about to turn two. Since our class, the group now has two more babies, and I suspect there may be a few more in the next little while (no, not me!).

And, yes, we bribed them with donuts just to try and get a group shot. With marginal success. Better luck next time.

So, a huge thanks to K/C/C for hosting, and a big hug and kiss to all of the moms. Can’t wait for a group second birthday party. I’ll make cupcakes.

Yesterday we started our Sign & Sing class! It’s a 10-week series to help learn sign language with the kids. Not only do I think it’s a good thing to learn as far as language development and improved communication, but it’s also a fun outing for all of us to do together. Joining groups and taking classes is not usually M’s thing. I’m definitely more of the extrovert, more likely to seek out activities and things. But he likes the idea of sign language, and we agree that it’s not the kind of thing that would be very effective for me to go learn it on my own and then come back and show him. Plus, I’ve really been itching for something that all four of us can go out and do together on the weekends. We’re kind of homebodies, and also end up doing a lot of baby hand-offs on the weekend (i.e. he hangs out with them while I go to the store, etc). That works in some ways, but I wanted something that was fun and out of the house for all four of us.

The class was great! It’s not too early in the morning for Mr. Not-a-morning-person, starting at 11:45. Makes for a slightly tricky afternoon nap situation, but it’s alright. There were a total of six babies in the class. I was worried that we’d have the youngest ones, as the stated age range for the class is 8-24 months. Thankfully, they’re almost all around 8 months, with the oldest being 11 months! Whew. And, lucky for M, there’s even two other dads there! That was my other worry, but I think the fact that it’s a Saturday helped us. Anyways, most of the signs are done in the context of a song (as the name of the class might suggest), which seems to be fun for the kids and helps the adults remember the signs. There were toys to play with, and the big hit of the day, bubbles. At 45 minutes long, it was just enough to keep their interest, and end before they totally lost it.

Language is a funny thing. You think to yourself that it’ll be plenty just to learn maybe 3-5 new signs, that it would be hard enough to remember that many. But when I look back and remember all of the words we did, it was closer to 15-20! Hello, happy, here, mom, dad, bear, mountain, see, what, music, more, all done, silly, clown, ball, jumping, blocks, bubbles, high, low, sky, goodbye… many of them are obvious and intuitive, and the teacher had some good cues and associations to help the rest make sense. I think the trick now is to make signing a habit, something that I just do, without having to think to much about doing it on purpose. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyways, after the class, we decided to be bold and go get lunch (plus, it was 12:45 and we were hungry). We walked down to a casual burger joint, grabbed sandwiches, and had a nice time. Daniel got fussy, so we fed him, but otherwise it went pretty well. Especially given that it was rather past their normal nap time. I definitely enjoyed the family-of-four outing, and I think M did, too. I think it’s good for him to do things like this, because while I’m used to being out and about with the kids, he doesn’t do that as much. I think it helps him get a sense of what they’re (and we’re) capable of, and what their (our) limits are.

A good time was had by all, and this will be our Saturday morning until early June! Wow!

My kids have entered a whole new phase. On the one hand, they’re a million times more fun than they were back in the dark days of 6-12 weeks. They interact, they smile, they laugh. They play with toys, they play with us. They think daddy is pretty funny. They think the dog is nothing short of hilarious. Sometimes they even find me amusing. But since I’m doing a one-woman show for the majority of our days, I’m feeling a bit of pressure to keep the hits coming. And the down side of this phase is the fact that they now seem to get bored. Oh dear.

Play groups help. Seeing other babies and other adults helps to amuse them, especially in those tricky late-afternoon hours. But outings are troublesome, especially in relation to the nap schedule. Going out before the morning nap, well that’s just not going to happen. I’m still in my PJs. Maybe, when it gets warmer, we’ll manage a short walk with the dog, but that’s it. In between the morning and afternoon nap is when we frequently have invitations to go somewhere, but it’s not always such a good thing. By the time they’re up from their nap, fed, packed in the car, and ready to go… it doesn’t leave a lot of time for much “playing.” And then, when we inevitably make a hasty exit due to tired meltdowns, they fall asleep in the car. Just long enough that, when they get home and wake up (as soon as I get them in the house, usually), they have no interest in “finishing” their early afternoon nap. And thus, the rest of our day is shot to hell, because their naps are all messed up and they’re tired. No, at this particular moment in their young lives, the ideal time for an outing seems to be about 3PM. Post-afternoon-nap, they’re fairly wide awake, but also likely to be nearing boredom. We go out, we are amused, and if they fall asleep in the car around 4:30PM, no problem. Just enough of a catnap to get them all the way to bedtime.

But still, I can only crash my friends’ houses so often. We need another kid-centered activity. And so, I’ve signed us up for two classes! This is at the same maternity center where I took my two new mom classes back in the fall. I felt a little burned out on them at the time, but I’m ready to have a regular outing at a baby-safe location. They both start in a few weeks.

The first class we’re doing is sort of a developmentally-centered playgroup/class. Babies in the class are about 6-8 months old (at the start of class), and there are age-appropriate activities like songs and parachutes, as well as some discussion with the facilitator and other moms about development (gross motor, language, etc.). It’s an hour long, and best of all, it’s at 3PM! It’s at a center slightly farther from my house, but I couldn’t pass up the time. All of the other classes were around noon or 1PM, which is just too much messing with the nap for me. Can’t wait.

And the second class, drumroll, is going to be all four of us. Yes, that’s right, M is actually going to come to a baby class. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great dad, very involved, loves the kids more than anything. But let’s just say that joining groups is not really his thing. A few weeks ago, I took a single-session workshop with a friend of mine on Infant Signing. I knew I wanted to use sign language with my kids, but this gave some good suggestions for how to do it. My interest was piqued, and M thought it sounded cool, too. Since I have no interest in going to the class by myself and then having to pass along second-hand info, we found a Saturday class, and we’re all going. 10 weeks of sign language! It’s done with a lot of songs and games and things for the babies. Ours will probably be among the youngest in the class, but I’m not too concerned. It’s just as much for me and M to learn as anything else. But I hope we all like it, and I hope the kids take to it…

And now, I must run. Playgroup this afternoon! Thank goodness.

Today marked the beginning of my second mom/baby group. What a difference from nearly eight weeks ago when I started my first one. Back then, all nine moms looked a little ragged from the effort of making it out of the house. Half of the session was spent gasping in relief, exclaiming “oh, me too! My baby does that, too!” It was so good to know we weren’t alone in the strange first weeks of mom-and-babyhood. The babies were small, relatively quiet, and slept a lot. The oldest one in the bunch was a whopping 9 weeks old.

Fast forward to today, and it was quite a bit louder in that very same classroom. A different group of moms and babies (inclusive of another set of twins), and entirely different activities. Now we have songs and books and parachutes, not to mention a whole lot more noise from the more alert babies. Now the youngest is 10 weeks, the oldest 4.5 months. We’re a slightly more confident bunch, or at least not stressing about the same old things. There are plenty of new milestones to worry about. But to watch the 4-month-old rolling over, I know we’re in for an interesting month at my house.

The babies really are changing. Rebecca is all smiles a lot of the time, seems so very close to really laughing, and in general is the much better and easier sleeper (so there go your theories about weight and sleep). Daniel is so big, and a little more reserved with the smiles. Today was a happy exception, and he was smiling and chatting away on the play mat for 30 minutes this afternoon. I even notice him starting to twist his body a bit, possibly in preparation for that first roll. They are both getting better every day at getting a hand to find its way to the mouth. But they’re so angry when that hand disappears!

For today’s pictures… a happy Daniel works on getting that hand where he wants it.

This is my third solo week with the twins, after having quite an onslaught of visitors last week. For as much as being alone makes me really appreciate it when I have extra hands, the converse is also true. Having a (very) full house for eight days has also made me realize that I actually sort of enjoy being on my own with the babies. It’s hectic and stressful at times, but it’s nice to only have to worry about the three of us, and not wonder when other people are coming by or what they’ll want to do.

I’ve also gotten pretty darn good at getting us all out of the house when we want to. To do it well, though, takes some advance planning. If we’re going somewhere, the ideal time to leave is immediately after both of them have eaten. But that means by the time they start eating, I need to have already decided what we’re going to do and prepped/packed for it. There is very seldom a spontaneous trip outside of the house. But I do generally manage at least one excursion per day, whether it’s a walk around the neighborhood or an organized event.

For instance, I started a developmental class/group at a local maternity center yesterday. It was a blast, and I’m really glad I’m doing it and looking forward to next week. But the class starts at 9:30am, so I knew I should leave the house by 8:45. There was no earthly way I’d shower in the morning, so I had to shower and pack my diaper bag (change of clothes, blankets, burp cloths, diapers, food, etc.) the night before. Then, after they ate at about 6:30am, I could begin final preparations. Get everyone (including me) dressed, diaper bag and stroller in the car, drive a few towns away, extract all of us and our stuff from the car to the center, get settled… it’s a production. Several of the moms expressed astonishment that I had gotten out of the house with two babies, that they had a hard enough time doing it with their singleton. And I’m sure that’s true, that they find it a challenge to leave the house with their baby. That said, I doubt most of them started planning the outing two days ahead of time.

So yes, I make it out of the house with the babies nearly every day, pretty much unless it’s raining. And some people seem to find that impressive. But this “impressive” feat is necessary to my sanity. I had very real concerns before the babies were born about how I’d do at the stay-at-home thing. I worried about being out-of-my-mind with the combined chaos and boredom of taking care of two pre-verbal infants. And that worry is not gone. But so far, my plan to be proactive about seeking activity is paying off. Sure, the fact that they still eat roughly every three hours tends to make the day blur quickly by. But one outing a day is enough to make me feel downright busy.

So, impressive? I don’t know. Definitely not effortless, but also not that difficult with a little advanced planning. And absolutely worth it.