in which i trash talk my kids

My children are crappy sleepers.  My husband and I are also pretty awful sleepers (he wakes up in the middle of the night to eat/wander/scare the shit out of me; I have never had a normal night's sleep without Ambien CR).  I often wonder whether shitty sleeping is genetic or whether it's just that since Scott and I have no idea how to make ourselves sleep we're poorly equipped to help the little ones.

At night, when we peek into Joseph's room we never know what kind of freaky shit we'll find.  Will he be passed out on the storage bench like some kind of vagrant at a bus stop?  Will he be naked from the waist down?  Will he be sprawled on the floor while his trucks are cozily tucked in his bed?  He often wakes up in the middle of the night screaming about sharks and robots.  It takes him hours of babbling and playing to fall asleep. He almost never sleeps past dawn.

Harry isn't actually a horrible sleeper.  He still wakes up to nurse 100,000,000omg000,000wtf times a night, which might be a bit much for an eight month old, but that's relatively manageable.  It doesn't take anything especially heroic to get him to fall back asleep and he actually takes two fairly predictable naps a day.  In this family, he's a sleeping prodigy.

Violet, however, is a mystery.  She only naps in the car or in somebody's lap, which means she barely naps at all.  She will take cat naps in a sling but wakes up when she hears so much as a peep from either of her brothers.  Transferring her to a flat surface is fraught with peril; if she wakes up, her (loudly voiced) feelings of outrage and betrayal will keep her awake for hours.  At night she wants to sleep on my stomach with her head embedded in my neck and her fingers in my eye sockets.  I believe that she would be a happier, less needy baby (and that I would be a happier, less insane mother) if she would get more sleep, but I can't figure out how to make that happen without selling the boys or chaining them to a fence or something so that Violet and I can cuddle all day.

All of this is to say:  I'm so damn tired.  I was hoping that this twin parenting gig would be less stressful by this point, but it most definitely is not.  There is always somebody who is not happy.  There is always something that should have been done already.  Sigh.

training pants

Last month during a hellish, emotionally deadening trip to Target we gave in to Joseph's demands for "truck underpants."  Considering that he had shown zero signs of "potty readiness," I did not have high hopes, but from that point on he's been totally done with diapers except overnight and at naps; occasionally during the daytime he'll surprise us by deciding to pee in some random place but it's in no way a "mistake" or an "accident."  More like "science experiment."

So we still need something waterproof for trips out of the house, especially when we're going someplace where a toddler peeing in the corner would be frowned upon.  Enter the training pants.  I made them from a cloth diaper pattern with the wings/tabs cut off, the side seams sewn up, and the edges bound in fold over elastic.  The outer layer is PUL, the inner layer is an old T-shirt, and sandwiched in between is part of an ancient microfiber insert from one of the first cloth diapers I bought when Joseph was a wee baby.

And on the back I appliqued an airplane, just because.

bathing suit remediation

I would like to be able to throw on a swimsuit and go to the damn beach without feeling like I'm parading around in my underwear.  I'm not ordinarily an especially modest person but I feel very exposed in a bathing suit.  I think my entire family would appreciate it if the car ride to and from the beach could be spent discussing something other than sexism and the male gaze.  I also think I shouldn't have to confront all my body image issues every time I want to go swimming.  It kind of kills the fun.  And yes yes yes, I know I should be proud and confident and all that, which I kind of am when I'm not expected to appear publicly in my underpants, you know?

I should probably just get myself to the store and buy one of those suits that has trunks instead of a bikini bottom.  Instead I made this swim skirt out of half a yard of tricot and some fold over elastic.  Combined with a camisole-style bathing suit top I already have, this ought to keep me fairly well covered.  We'll see how it works.  I suspect that once I hit the water it will float up around my torso, but I can live with that. 

I love that fold over elastic is the answer to so many garment construction challenges:  waistbands, necklines, gathering and pretty much all aspects of diaper making.  A few months ago I bought a few yards in a bunch of colors and it's served me well.

babies in a basket

Makes me smile every time I see it.

wrap dress (vogue 8379)

It's another wrap dress, this time in wearable-outside-the-house bamboo/cotton jersey instead of nightmarish blue polyester. I am so proud of myself for making an actual garment that isn't an elastic waist skirt or a potato sack tunic. It's comfortable, flattering, and nursing-friendly.  Since it's a wrap, it can be adjusted as I lose weight; since it's made of comfy jersey, it's about as cozy as a bathrobe.   There's the unfortunate fact that I tend to forget to readjust the neckline after feeding the babies, so I often have a boob or two semi-exposed, but that happens regardless of what I'm wearing.  I should probably make five more dresses just like this, but since it's a miracle I managed to finish this dress at all, I'll probably just wear this one multiple times a week. Yay.

For the record, I deviated from the pattern in a few ways:
1) I left off the sleeves
2) I bound the armholes and neckline using cross grain strips of fabric (instead of making facings)
3) I gathered the shoulders in little pleats to maximize the drapeyness of the bodice

Good grief I look pale in this picture. I think it's the lighting. Or anemia.

side pocket pants

This is my favorite kind of pocket for kids' pants:  a wide U-shape that I make a bit bigger than the child's hand, placed directly over the side seam.  The size and placement make it easy for toddler hands to find.

I made these navy linen trousers last summer and they've endured a year in heavy rotation.  Right now they need to be worn with the cuff rolled up a few times to disguise the fact that they're too short.

He's my little urchin.

file under dumb stuff people say to me

If you really want to piss off a mother of twins, suggest that she wear both babies at once. Explain that you saw it on the internet. Use a word like "ergonomic" to make it clear you're an expert. For extra added rage, recommend that she learn to nurse both babies at the same time while wearing them. Point out that if she could master these skills (as you undoubtedly would were you blessed with twins) twins would be no more challenging than a single baby.

This week the babies got their first teeth so tandem babywearing was the only way to keep the screaming at a minimum while leaving me with a free hand to help the toddler use the bathroom (which probably deserves a separate blog post, as well as several poems celebrating this triumph). To be fair, Harry was only moderately fussy, but Violet (who is moderately fussy on the best of days) was a terror. Job satisfaction has been at a low this week, you know?

Totally unrelated: so apparently most Americans pronounce "Harry" and "hairy" the same? Really? My mind is blown. They're different in my (northeastern) accent, as are Mary, marry, and merry. Do you all pronounce them the same? Can I just say how grateful I am that Harry's real name is Henry?