Lost

I used to be a bit of an overachiever. For example, I wrote a thesis my senior of year of college. It wasn't required; I did it for fun and got a B. I entered a music performance competition during my junior year of college. I won. I was the first non-music major in the history of the award to win. I gave a recital in college. Again~I was not a music major. I did it for fun. I pushed myself to the limits in high school and college (law school, um not so much). I strived and achieved.

I've been looking for that me lately. I find myself bogged down with laundry, dirty cat litter boxes, fighting children, filthy floors. I miss the younger, happier me. Granted, I don't miss ALL parts of being younger, but I think what I miss the most is how, even though I was pushing myself all the time, I felt lighter. Of course I wasn't concerning myself with money, kids' health, money (you get the picture) then. My focus was on me and what I wanted out of my life, instead of focusing on the needs of everyone else.

I think I've lost my sense of self. I suppose it was somewhat inevitable, having four children in the last eight years. Children need constant care, support, love. And there's my marriage of almost eleven years. That also needs constant care, support and love. I'm finding that the care of me gets pushed aside to care for everyone and everything.

So I'm taking baby steps. I've been reading more. I scheduled a pedicure with some friends. I have my niece coming to help with the kids once a week so I can take a step back. I know that I'll never be the old me again, nor would I want to. But I want to find pieces of the old me and bring them back and make them fit with the life the new me created. I want to feel lighter and happier. I don't want to be lost anymore.

Potty training con dos

Everything about having twins is uncharted territory. Fortunately we weren't new parents when we found out we were having twins so we had some semblance of an idea of what we were doing. I honestly can't imagine having twins as my first birth. The thought makes me shudder!

But now we're about to venture into new territory: potty training. The girls have been following me into the bathroom to "watch you mama?!?!?" for the last several months and are very well aware of the goings on. They know not to leave the bathroom until I've washed my hands and they fight over who will flush the toilet for me. When we were at Sesame Place I bought some small stickers to use for a potty chart for them. We have two potty chairs for them. We have the box of pull-ups to make life easier for them.

I am so hesitant to begin though. With potty training comes other issues that quite frankly, I'm not ready to deal with. They still sleep in cribs. Using the bathroom/potty chairs will inevitably lead to needing to sleep in BEDS. Sleeping in beds will lead to no naps. I can't live with the girls not napping. My sanity (what tiny shreds are left of it anyway) demand that they nap. By lunchtime they, and Drew, have had enough of each other and the silence that naptime brings recharges us all. The thought of it all makes me a bit twitchy.

I'm unsure how this new venture will go. Meg was trained before she was 2, and Drew wasn't even close to ready until he was just over 3. The girls seem excited about it, as the box of Dora pull-ups sits in the bedroom, waiting to be opened. My approach will be very laid back, as it was with Drew. I wonder though if those with twins have suggestions as to what worked for them, and what didn't. I'm pretty sure that when the time comes, I'll be throwing a "my house is diaper free" party though!

Light House

Because we hadn't spend enough quality time together last week (ahem, cough, cough, silly me) last night we gathered up the kids and took them to Portland Head Light for dinner. We are so fortunate to live in a state that has this on its shore:
Doug and I played paparazzi for a bit while the kids enjoyed watching the boaters.


Don't YOU just want to come visit me?

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N in the summertime

We have returned from our vacation to Pennsylvania (which, coincidentally, the twins can say and it sounds so strange coming from the mouth of a 2 year old). On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rank the vacation as a 6. For sanity sake, let's do this bullet style.

• On the ride down Izzie barfed her lunch all over herself in her car seat. We were on Route 84 in CT, near West Hartford and had to pull off the road and into a business complex to strip her down, clean her car seat. The business' security guy drove up and thank goodness Doug has his Red Sox hat on or I don't think he would have let us stay! The rest of the ride was relatively uneventful.
• Having four kids share a single bedroom is a very bad idea. I don't think I need to elaborate more.
• Sesame Place was awesome! The twins were thrilled to meet their Sesame friends live and in person. Meg rode the Vapor Trails roller coaster probably a half dozen times in the two days we visited the park by herself and loved it. The water park was incredible.
• We had dinner with Big Bird, Elmo, Zoe, Bert, Ernie and Cookie Monster on Monday night. The characters came to the table to visit. The kids LOVED that!
  
• Sadly AndreAnna's family all came down with the barfies and didn't get to do SP with us, which made us sad.
• However, Robyn had a BBQ on Friday and AndreAnna's family joined us. The kids (all 7 of them) played in the yard on the slip and slide and got along famously. It was quite relaxing. I seriously wish my friends didn't all live so far away.
• While we were gone it rained almost the entire week here in Maine. We had great weather in PA. Apparently we brought some nice weather home with us.
  

I took a ton of photos, as usual. Here are just some of them.

• We went to a neat place called Bushkill Falls, which was down the road from our timeshare. I got some cool photos of the falls. I am deathly afraid of heights, so I refused to go down the stairs to get closer to the falls. Still, I got good photos from where we were, right?

• Our timeshare was on the Delaware River. Our unit overlooked the golf course, which was so pretty. We took a walk one day:

• Crayola Factory was a cool place for the kids to play with modeling clay, color, paint and learn about how the crayons are made.

We're glad to be home. My awesome friend Julie and her son Benton took care of the cats and house for us (and survived the torrential rains) and that was a huge weight off my shoulders. I'm not ready to take the kids on another vacation again anytime soon. However, I could use a vacation from my vacation, if you know what I mean!