Hoedown at the Farm

Last week, Nana and I took the twins to the family farm for a little outing.  Great timing for us, as the cows had been herded up and in the corral patiently waiting for their annual spring insect control routine. The bull had been separated from his "girls" and paced the corral until one of the cowboys put out some feed for him. The big guy has to have energy to keep up with his cows and all their calves. 
Emma walked to the corral with some help from Nana and I took Nathaniel in my arms to see the cow commotion in the paddock. There was a lot of mooing going on and my mother's dog, Ginger, was not especially helpful. She doesn't know she is a small poodle, not a large herding dog. She tried to herd the already penned cows which just made the cows more antsy. My mother had to take Ginger back to the farm house, leaving me with the antsy twins. 
Emma is my little daredevil, she likes to get closer, she wanted to get in the pen with cows. Nathaniel, on the other hand, is a bit more cautious, and one cow in particular, sent him into tears.  She had a particularly loud, high pitched moo, it startled him. At first, he stuck out his lower lip, pouted and then began to cry. 
It was fun to be at the farm with my mother and have her show my children their roots.  My mother grew up on the farm during the depression and through WWII.  I hope my children get to spend a lot of time with their Nana at the farm. I'd like them to carry some of the history in their hearts.
A couple of days later,  the children and I went to hear story telling at Barnes and Nobles. While we were there, I purchased a Melissa and Doug handmade, wooden with sound farm puzzle and a book, Baby Baa Baa to reinforce their time spent on the farm.   Today, I heard Emma say, "pig, pig, pig" when she was working on the farm puzzle.
Tomorrow, the twins and I are taking Daddy to the Dallas Zoo.  I wonder if I can find a book or a puzzle with zoo animals to reinforce our learning experience. It would be fun to hear Emma say "penguin, penquin, penquin" or perhaps she'll say "tiger, tiger, tiger."
It's off to bed, because tomorrow is Zoo Day!!!

Surviving as a mother of twins

I am a mother of 9 month old boy/girl fraternal twins, adjusted age 7 months.  My life is simple. I feed babies, watch and play  with babies, comfort them, put them down for naps, take them to doctors, feed them, diaper them, feed them, dress them...and so on.

My son has been diagnosed with auditory neuropathy syndrome. He is mildly deaf in his right ear, and moderately to profoundly deaf in his left ear. For a deaf child, he hears remarkably well. He also suffers from wimpy white boy syndrome. When his NICU doctor told us he was a wimpy white boy, I thought reverse discrimination.  But I have since found out, it's a real thing, baby white boys have a hard time their first year of life, they lag behind girls in many ways. His sister beats him in trunk control. She's been standing on her own for a month, and he just flops around.  After 5 weeks of occupational therapy and developmental skill through ECI we are seeing remarkable improvement. He can sit up on his own, and he rolls from front to back and back to front and kneels. He doesn't crawl, but rolls to places he wants to go and he sort of slithers on his belly. His sister hasn't figured out crawling either, she scoots on her back and screams the whole time.

I no longer where nice clothes. I feel dressed up when I wear jeans! I spend most of my time in yoga pants and whatever semi-clean shirt I can find.  Spit up doesn't seem to come out of clothes. I've tried Shout and Oxi-Clean, I'm thinking of just burning the clothes instead. On a good day, I've brushed my hair and teeth at least once, am wearing a little make up, found reasonably clean clothes to wear and had a decent night sleep.  When will my clothes stop being stained by babies? Will it ever end?

Almost every room in my house has something baby related in it, except for the master bedroom and the tack room. Did I mention my husband and I own a horse?  Royal Krew was our baby before I became pregnant.  She is now pasture art. She enjoys treats, the company of her stable mates and not being ridden. We introduced the babies to her after Easter.  She sniffed at the babies while I held them in my arms. I think she understood as she has been a mother to three foals prior to her life with us.

I find time to design jewelry. Working with beads, stones, wire, etc really helps me relax and gets the creative juices flowing. I've made a lot of earrings this year. Earrings don't take as long to design, and assemble as a necklace does.  Chaplets are easier to create than rosaries, so I've made some of those, too. I've got lots of ideas, but not a lot of time to actually sit down and make it so.

This fall, I decided to do some marketing with Out of the Box Samples. I've made a lot of pendants and more earrings the past few months.  I have to package my December samples and get the package out the door for my November 20th deadline.  I decided I needed some time off from making jewelry samples, so I'm taking January off, but will be participating in OOTBS February, March, April and May 2011. Then I'm taking the summer off from OOTBS  but will be sending in samples for October, November and December.

This is pretty much me in a nut shell:  babies, horse, jewelry designer, cooking, church choir,  bible study, my family's farm, gardening (semi-organic), mother, daughter, sister, wife, child of God, native Texan. Prior to my twins, I worked in Residential Real Estate for 14 years. Some days I really miss it and would give my coffee money if I could show houses for an afternoon, talk to an adult, negotiate an offer. Most days, I would kill for a Starbucks Grande Mocha but I'll settle for a home brewed freshly ground Sumatra coffee with vanilla syrup.