Category Archives: Balance

Do What I Say, Not What I Do

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I’m a big believer in teaching by example.

If I’m going to talk the talk, I need to walk the walk. If I want my children to make healthy food choices, I need to make healthy food choices myself. If I want them to treat others with compassion, I need to do that in my own life. If I want them to be honest and open with me, I need to be honest and open with them. Whether or not my children are watching me, I try to model the things I want them to learn.

The problem is that I am messy. Really, really messy. I am good at many things, but tidying is not one of them. I am so bad at putting things away that two of my friends came over to help me move in and save me from myself. While the husband took all our kids to the nearest park to play, the wife walked me through my home, telling me where to put my things.

I’m great at cleaning, but lousy at tidying. In an hour, I can leave a bathroom sparkling and germ-free. My dirty laundry doesn’t pile up. Dirty dishes in the sink? Forget it! However, my bathroom counter is cluttered. When it comes to folding clean clothes and putting them away, I’m an abject failure. My kitchen counters are covered with mail, kitchen appliances, and spice containers. My dining table has a pile of books on it. My buffet is covered with paper. I moved into my house in August, and half unpacked boxes take up half my garage. The last time my daughters had a friend sleep over, she told me that I should really clean my room.

How can I realistically expect my children to clean their room when I leave the rest of the house, inlcuding my own room, a mess?

The one area of tidiness where I am consistently successful is the containment of dirty laundry. My dirty clothes always make it into the hamper. Therefore, I feel that this is an area in which I can insist the children follow suit. They don’t, though. Their bedroom floor is littered with worn clothes.

A month ago, I laid down the law. My daughters are 6 years old and dress themselves. I think this means that they can take ownership of discarding worn clothes appropriately. I would no longer wash clothes that didn’t make it into the girls’ laundry basket. Over the last several weeks, I have pushed their dirty clothes scattered on the carpet to the side of the room instead of helping them into the basket. I’ve only washed what the girls toss in their basket.

The first thing they ran out of was pajamas. These girls LOVE their pajamas, so imagine their dismay at having to sleep in daytime clothes. (I used to make them sleep in school clothes. I’ll tell you about that another day.) Next, they ran out of sweatpants and tights. They live in sweater dresses and tights or sweatpants and T-shirts during Texas winters, so this was The End of the World.

It worked. Last Thursday, M told me that she had picked up part of the growing pile of worn clothes and moved it to the laundry basket. By the time she woke on Friday, I’d washed and folded every last item she’d taken ownership of. I placed them in the bin from which they are supposed to put their clothes away, and she dressed herself in sweatpants in deep gratitude.

My girls aren’t going to do what I say, unless I do it myself.

Now tell me: How do I teach myself to be neat so I can teach my kids?

Sadia fails to keep house in the suburbs of Austin, TX. She is a single mom of 6-year-old twin girls, and works in higher education IT. Her desk at work is disarmingly clutter-free, and her electronic folders well-organized. Her desk at home is another story.

Switcheroo

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My daughter J cried herself to sleep last night, as she had the night before.

The first night, it was because I made her go to bed without a bath after she earned a timeout. She earned the timeout for backtalk and kicking at me for asking her to take a bath. Yes, that’s exactly as circular as it sounds. Last night, the tears were because I didn’t let her finish her science homework because she remembered it (after I’d asked 2 hours earlier and she’d told me she was done) 1 minute before bedtime.

Over dinner tonight, I had to lay out our ground rules again. I’m willing to hear the girls’ opinions, but they are to listen/obey first, then talk.

We’d talked specifically about what had gone wrong last night earlier in the day, after we’d all had a chance to sleep on it. I reminded J that I’d made it very clear that both my 6-year-olds were to be in bed at 8:30, no matter what.

“You didn’t explain that properly,” she retorted. “‘No matter what’ isn’t even words!”

“I know what ‘no matter what’ means,” her twin, M, piped up helpfully from the other bed. “It means, ‘no exceptions!’”

My girls have a tendency to react to bad behaviour from Sissy by being extra-helpful and extra-cheerful. It’s actually a great arrangement from my perspective, since it means that I have only rarely had to deal with both girls crying or acting out at once. Most of the time, they’re both very good-natured and bouncy, so I’m glad they don’t get down in the dumps together.

When I go to the bottom of what was bugging J, it was concern about the next week. Spring break starts tomorrow, and the girls will be driving off with Daddy to spend the week with him in El Paso. They live with me, and this will be the longest they’ve spent with Daddy since he and I separated last April.

Tonight, it was M who cried at bedtime.

“When the overwhelmness fills my whole body,” M explained through her tears, “it makes tears come from my eyes. I’m going to miss you too much. I hate this divorce. Divorce is a ugly stupid word. I wish no parents ever fought ever and there was no word of ‘divorce.’”

J was the one to try to lighten the mood, reminding her sister of a movie they’d watched with their school counselor at ‘divorce club,’ the monthly meeting for 1st graders with divorced parents.

The nutty thing is that, until the last month or so, J has been the one completely in touch with her emotions. She’s been the one who explains to me clearly exactly how she feels about all the recent changes in her life, while M has acted out and needed a lot of help to get to the root of her worries.

This sort of role switcheroo happens all the time with my girls. One will be extremely mature and in touch with her feelings, while the other is a mess with no idea what’s bothering her. After a few days, or weeks, or months, they’ll suddenly switch roles. One will bury her nose in a book 24/7, while the other wants to play, and one day, the arguments will remain exactly the same, but with J and M reversing positions. When they were babies, M was the one who loved to be held and rocked and snuggled, while J would cry to be put down. Today, J’s the one who lists “snuggles” in the “need” column on school assignments on needs versus wants, while M tells me that my goodnight hug was “too much squishing.”

Of course, there are a lot of ways in which M and J are consistently distinct from each other. M can talk the hind leg off a donkey and just be getting started. J takes earnestness to a fine art. M is a picky, picky eater, while J is usually open to liking new things if I can convince her to try them. J has the ability to warm a stranger’s heart with one word or look, while M can leave people writhing with laughter with her wry humour.

I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing conscious about the way that J and M go about reversing roles and maintaining balance, but I can’t help thinking that the sensitivity that they’ve learned from adjusting to each others’ moods and needs will serve them well in personal and professional relationships throughout their lives.

Do your multiples switch roles?

Sadia lives and overthinks matters of parenting in the suburbs of Austin, TX. She is newly divorced and works in higher education IT. She will be at work, not at SXSW, this week. Her daughters, M and J, are identical 6-year-olds in 1st grade.

The Rotten Ringworm Runaround

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M snuggling her new kitten.We adopted this sweet little boy into our family in November. We also unwittingly adopted the ringworm he brought with him from the animal shelter. While our new kitten, Scout, has brought us much joy and laughter, his ringworm has brought with it a reign of tears and terror.

I’ve learned several things about ringworm:

  • Ringworm isn’t a worm. It’s a fungus. Either way, it’s nasty and gross and, like lice, something that can’t be completely avoided just by keeping a clean home and maintaining good hand-washing habits. If your child interacts with others, she runs the risk of bringing home lice; if your pet has ever been outdoors, he runs the risk of ringworm.
  • Some strains of ringworm defy all attempts at identification. Our little boy’s failed to glow under UV light and didn’t initially make his fur fall out, so the vet misinterpreted the lesion I pointed out at our first visit as a bite from another kitten at the shelter and gave the all-clear for him to interact with my kids. I should trust my gut.
  • This stuff is contagious. All three of the humans in our house had a red itchy patch or two within 3 days of the new kitten’s cuddles.
  • Washing bedsheets every night, plus vacuuming and disinfecting even a single room every day is overwhelming and all-consuming.
  • A ringworm infection to the scalp can’t be treated with topical ointments alone. My poor little J had a bald spot on her head, which I’m thankful can be hidden inside pigtails as it grows out. Our pediatrician referred us to a dermatologist, and J now has a nightly bowl of ice cream to mask the taste of the pulverized pill (griseofulvin) she has to take every day for a month.

We’ve literally been fighting this thing since November. The kitten received weekly lyme sulfur dips as well as a liquid suspension of the same meds J is now on. He’s currently completely free of ringworm, but has to stay in isolation in my bathroom. He was clear in January, too, but I made the mistake of letting him interact with the girls, and he contracted a fresh round of ringworm from them. Thankfully, our adult cats have thus far made it without become hosts for this nasty parasite.

M has developed eczema on the spots where ringworm used to reside, and J is beginning to do so too. We’re all using antifungal shampoo, just in case. I’m exhausted, and I hardly have the energy to give the kitten the attention he needs once my human children are in bed.

A pharmacy worth of medications is accompanied by a typed schedule with a column for each of 6 people and cats.I’ve trotted out a technique I used with newborn infants. I’ve written up our medication schedule and posted it by the meds.

I keep reminding myself that all this is nothing compared to what we went through after bringing our 33-week preemies home 6 years ago. The need to keep on top of a schedule and maintain a sanitary environment was much more critical then. I was getting way less sleep. I had far less experience. This ringworm stuff is child’s play in comparison.

When the girls were babies, I had a notebook in which I wrote down every diaper change and every feeding, since in my sleep-deprived state, I feared double feeding one baby and forgetting to feed the other. It also helped coordinate things between me and my husband. I’d take my notebook with me to visits with the pediatrician.

This ringworm thing? I don’t need a notebook to keep track.

This, too, shall pass.

What techniques have you developed to manage parenting multiples? How do they translate to the rest of your life?

The Great Minivan Debate

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I’m sure every parent of more than two children would agree that a minivan is a convenience, if not a necessity, for a family of 5+. They would probably say that the efficiency and ease of loading/unloading children plus gear far outweighs the un-coolness of driving a minivan.

After discovering we were having twins, the Husband told me this. Our friends told me this. Random people at the mall told me this. I fought it for as long as I could. In fact, I wanted to hang on to my beloved little CRV so much that I relocated my daughter’s Britax and installed two infant carseats myself, far enough along in my pregnancy that it was a major undertaking. But they do fit, after some jiggling around, so that’s what we’ve been doing for the 3 months of the twins’ lives.

However, I’ve come to realize this is not the ideal situation. Due the space issues in the backseat, the Britax is in the center, flanked by the two carseat bases. With the carseats clicked into place, everything is wedged in so tight no one is going anywhere. And that’s sort of the problem. The toddler is not quite old enough to get in and out of her carseat by herself, at least, not without taking more time than I’m willing to give her. We did put a little stool in the center to help her get up and down on her own, and when time is not an issue, we let her practice in the hopes that someday she will be fast (good luck with that, I know). So most of the time I’m lifting her up to put her in. And I can say that a 30 lb. kid isn’t easy to sling into the center seat across an infant carseat base. Logistically, it’s also been a pain to make sure we load/unload all the kids in the right order. Sometimes it’s just been easier to install Toddler’s seat in our other car.

I’ve not traveled alone with all 3 by myself yet. I’m sure it will be so much harder to do that I will not want to leave the house. But I’m also sure that if I don’t ever leave the house I will go insane.

So… I’ve been won over to the dark side. We are currently shopping for a minivan. Just the sliding doors alone wins it for me. Add to that all the multitude of seat configurations, and it must be Mommy heaven. And it might just even be “cool”:

Dear MoM’s, what car are you all driving?

lunchldyd is a mom to an almost 3 yr old daughter and her 3 month old twin brother and sister. She is also a high school teacher. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, 3 children under 3, and two neglected dogs.

The Toy Takeover – Part 2

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You can read the first post about The Toy Takeover here.

I was inspired by the TV show Consumed to take another step in tackling the toys in our house.  In this show, families with way more stuff than us agree to put most of their belongings in storage for a month.  After surviving with the bare minimum of dishes, furniture, clothing and personal items, they are supposed to realize they don’t need all the clutter. I thought this approach might work for toys too. 

Before Christmas, I packed up a large cardboard box with all the stuffed animals in the living room. The truth is, I was tired of cleaning them all up every day. I put in the basement with the expectation that I’d be searching through it for someone’s favourite in no time.  After they didn’t mention the missing items for a few days, I thought I’d pick a day to go through it with the kids to pick out their favourites.  That was almost two months ago.  Guess what?  No one has mentioned the missing stuffies.

Since this unplanned first step went so well, I thought we could move further.  I was tired of the toy area being a mess and of the kids being overwhelmed when it was time to clean up.  So, I talked with the kids about how having so many toys meant there lots of cleaning up and not very much room to play. I tried to keep it simple by suggesting that we put some toys in the basement to make more room for playing.  They seemed to agree my idea was worth considering. 

All the toys

(Almost) All the Toys

On a weekend, I set out all the toys for them to look at.  I brought up the ones that had been “rotated out” and were being stored in the basement. With everything laid out, I suggested that they each fill one bin with their favourite toys. I expected them to protest or argue, or at least to negotiate for more toys, but they didn’t.  So, the rest of the toys went in the basement. I made it clear they could bring up a toy from the basement if they took one downstairs. That was about a month ago. Guess what? Again, no one has asked me to trade the toys. In fact, they are playing with more board games and puzzles now.  I think that having fewer options provides a space where they can see what is available to them.

 

R's Bin of Toys

R's Bin of Toys

 

S's Bin of Toys

S's Bin of Toys

 A chose to keep his train set, a hotwheels track, some cars and Perplexus.  

I won’t end with an overused quotation like “less is more.”  But, I will say that less is okay. All three kids were okay with choosing their favourites.  They were okay with watching us take the toy organizer and the other bins of toys downstairs.  And, they are certainly okay with clean up being so much easier.

 

Jenna is mom to a six year old singleton son (A) and 4 year old MZ twin girls (R & S).  She is also okay with less. In fact, she looks forward to moving toys out of the basement for the next multiples clothing sale, but she realizes that will take some negotiations.


Alone Time

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Based on the title of this post, you may think I am going to write about the importance of having some quality Mom time to recharge ones batteries and help us to face our daily challenges. While I could not be more pro “Mom time”, my title actually refers to alone time that your twins get with each parent and the reasons we have decided to set up some one on one play dates during the weekends.

For the first year of my boys’ lives, I vacillated between treating them as a team and treating them as individuals. The literature I read about ‘how to survive the first year with twins’ told me to put the twins on the same schedule as early as possible. I did not adhere to this in the early days (though looking back, I probably should have!). Instead, I let the boys feed in succession and not in tandem and let them sleep and wake as they wanted. This worked for me in the beginning so I just went with it, but around 4 months, they seemed to naturally demonstrate a more predicable nap and night-time sleep schedule. Once this pattern emerged, it was easy to sync them up and I have kept them [mostly] on the same schedule every since.

Now safely across the one-year mark with many milestones behind us (e.g. rolling, walking, talking) it is easy to see how different these little people are and how they have already- and will continue to- develop at different rates. For example, one of my boys is very strong and tough and he likes to muscle his way through obstacles. He is also a huge ham and likes to talk to all the strangers we see. My other boy is much more analytical and he attacks most problems logically by looking at the scenario from all angles. He is outgoing, but tends to say hi and bye just a fraction of a second too late; once people have walked away, resulting in his brother getting more attention. After a couple of weeks of seeing this and noticing difference at home (one guy likes to sing and dance while the other is likes to read and climb on things, etc.) it occurred to me that it is time for my husband and I to start spending alone time with each boy to allow them to express their personalities’ and maybe test out some new skills they have been working on. This may seem like a no brainer, but until this point, it never really occurred to me to split the boys up and spend time with just one son instead of both of them. I have taken both kids on every errand I have ever run. During the day, we move as a pack from one room to the other, playing and padding our way around the house. I feel very confident that I am able to balance the attention I give to each boy but I now I am acutely aware that they may benefit from some undivided attention. Perhaps this will help them to master some new skills or to allow them to fool around as only an only child can.

Since weekend time is precious (filled with errands to run, family time to be had, and parks to be played at) my husband and I set a loose plan of trying to alternate weekends of alone time with each boy. For example, I will play with A and he will play with B for 30 minutes or an hour on one weekend and then the next weekend we will switch. I am excited to try this and see if I notice any difference in my interaction with the boys when I am alone with them versus when the twins are together. I am also kind of excited to think of some fun activities to do on our special “dates”.

I have no doubt that my boys love having a brother. They have played and interacted from day one and I know they will always feel the specialness of having a built in playmate and best friend. On the other hand, I am excited to give them some time to explore their parents and their world, uninterrupted by their sibling’s needs or distracted by the other’s skills. This may reveal some new aspects of their personalities that have yet to be discovered.

Have you implemented alone time with your twins? What made you start and how do you do it?

 

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Mother of one year old twin boys, Carrie is excited to share some of her experiences, opinions, knowledge and laughs after having survived her first year of twindom.   By writing for HDYDI, Carrie hopes to share her early mistakes and gain insight from other moms about the challenges that lie ahead.

Running on Empty

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I have always tried to be a regular exerciser. This was easier during some periods in my life,  largely due to great running partners (e.g. friends, husband, pups) and more difficult at other times (e.g. when writing my dissertation).  The last two years; however, I went from being a bike commuting/recreational runner/weekend hiker- all around fit person- to someone who does not even think about scheudling exercise into her day.  Now though, as my boys’ first birthday approaches, I find myself thinking, “Who is this person and how to I get back to the ‘real’ me?”.

I knew I was pregnant pretty early on, mostly because I felt terrible right away. I tried to kept walking and swimming for as long as I could manage but I was thwarted by the 110 degree Arizona summer heat and general discomfort.  At week 34, I was prescribed bedrest to prevent pre-term labor, making exercise a distant thought and a luxury that I was not allowed to do.

After the boys were born….. forgetaboutit. It was two solid months before I left the house for something other than a doctors appointment. It was three months before I was able to get out for social/exercise interactions like walks with friends.  At month 4, my husband and I packed up our twins and drove across country to visit grandparents and great grandparents (read: I sat in a car, on and off ,for 4 weeks not exercising and not really moving much at all).  After our adventure, we packed up and moved to California and I was faced with unpacking a house and settling into a new life on top of caring for twins.

It has been a long time since consistent exercise was a part of my daily schedule.  Lately though, it has been something I have been trying to add back into my life, partly  to make sure I am healthy, partly so I can go back to feeling my best, and mostly to show my boys how important it is to be active and healthy.

While running recently (using the BOB Dualle to push my new running partners), I have started to realize how much my attitude about running  has changed.  In the past, there were times when I would consider runs of less than an hour not worth it. It would be hard to get me to consider my workout sufficient if I had not done cardio and abs and stretched and if I had lifted weights at least twice that week. In the past, I have been fastidious about how many minutes, miles, laps, rpm I did and would keep track of these things for fun. Now, my focus is completely different. My new goal is just to get out of the stinking house. I consider my run a complete sucess if I have left the house with two babies, a pair of shoes, and my house key. Additionally, (likely becuase I am so out of shape), I stop and smell the roses way more than I used to. There are a couple of scenic trails around my neighborhood, and sometime I even bring my camera and run WITH the camera and the two babies. When I see something interesting, I take a picture and I point it out to the boys.

Instead of listening to tunes, I sing to the boys, breathless and in short sentences but all in an effort to keep them happy and to keep us out there. If we are having a bad day, I don’t berate myself. I just dust off my dirty exercising cloths, re-wear my sports bra, and figure we can try again tomorrow.

Perhaps in the not too distant future I will start running for time again, heck maybe I will just start running for time alone. But for now, I am running to get back to feeling like my old self, to get the boys some fresh air, and to see what is going on outside our front door.

Are you trying to find the balance between taking care of yourself and taking care of your family?  How do you do it?

10 week newbie!

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Hi there everyone!

I’m a new author here at HDYDI and wanted to introduce myself. I am currently 10 weeks pregnant with twins, living in the Chicagoland area. These are our first babies (unless you count our two four-legged ones) after having an early miscarriage in the summer of 2012. So, while I may not be a source of wisdom for many of you who already are employing your superhero skills daily in parenting multiples, hopefully some of my experiences can be helpful for others who are expecting twins.

It has felt to me that our experience of becoming parents has become more and more marginalized the further we got into it. After trying on our own for some time, we were referred to a fertility specialist, which brings a realization that you don’t get to be one of the lucky ones who “wasn’t even trying” and got pregnant. As we got sucked deeper and deeper into the infertility treatment vortex, I felt more and more different from my friends who got pregnant on their honeymoon, or tried for a couple of months. Before you know it, our reproductive endocrinologist was recommending we consider IVF. Again, a realization hits that you don’t get to be one of “those people” who “just needs a little Clomid” or get lucky with an IUI. And while friends and family were amazingly supportive, they couldn’t truly empathize with needing surgery, a boatload of medication, followed by eight weeks of progesterone injections to get/stay pregnant. Much less, after having lost a pregnancy already. Marginalized again.

Two weeks or so after our egg retrieval, on the date of my first blood test, I got the news that my first HCG beta was pretty high and “there might be two in there.” So many emotions! So many things to be grateful for and excited about! So many things to research and be fearful of! But, for certain, another realization that, again, we wouldn’t fall into the normative experience of having a baby. Now, we wouldn’t be the couple who struggled with infertility and did IVF, then rejoined the ranks of the “normal” folk who have a “regular” pregnancy. Indeed, after seeing the first ultrasound of two little beans growing in my uterus, we realized that we’d forever have a unique experience.

There was much frustration in not being part of the norm while trying to get pregnant. In fact, I felt like it made me isolate from friends who were on to their second or third pregnancy and joked that it was “the immaculate conception,” because they hardly even have sex. And, while I’m typically a fairly open person, the experience made me become more selective about what I shared with whom. I was over playing the role of the educator about the IVF process, or standing up for myself and my stress level when people said, “at least this is elective and you don’t have cancer, or something.”

But, for some reason, as soon as we hit the IVF level, or, as another IVFer friend said, “pulled out the big guns,” things started to change. We started to feel grateful. Grateful that we live in a time that this technology is an option to people who cannot conceive on their own. Grateful that we had insurance that covered this option. Grateful that both sides of our family are close and will (hopefully) be there to help. Now that we’re in this boat, we’ve decided to stick to this perspective of the differences in our journey to be parents. While we may be the last of our friends to get pregnant, we’re also the only ones in our (close) group of friends to be pregnant with twins. While, yes, this makes us different, in the right light, “different” can mean “special,” too, right? 

Needless to say, stumbling upon the HDYDI website felt like I was finding a community that could lessen some of the discomfort of the experience of being higher risk, or higher need, or infertile, or whatever other terms you want to use, and increase the excitement of having two blessings come at once. Thank you for your posts thus far and I look forward to being able to contribute!

The Toy Takeover – Part 1

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One of the biggest challenges for me over the last year was keeping the house tidy. We had already hired a cleaner to help with the floors, dusting, bathrooms and kitchen. What was left was the daily clean up the trail of bits and pieces that seem to come with pre-schoolers.

Every time I entered a room, I’d be overwhelmed by the mess: the single sock abandoned in the corner, the hill of Lego pieces on the floor, the stuffed animal dormitory on the couch, the crumpled piece of paper with stickers that was someone’s “favourite craft,” a water bottle without a lid, and a doll shoe.

The girls were are still in their “in and out” phase where they could spend the day filling bags, boxes, containers and bins with bits and pieces.  They would put the game pieces and dice, hair clips, marbles, rocks, magnets and pompoms in a little box in their play purses.  Then they’d put the purses in bags.  The bags would go in a stroller, draped with a blanket.  As they trekked through the house on various adventures, the bits and pieces would be disturbed through the kitchen, under the dining room table, between the couch cushions, and on the stairs – times two, of course. Needless to say, getting everything back where it belonged, or a least off the floor, was more than could be expect of a three-year old with limited guidance from an exhausted parent.  And, I wasn’t much of a help since bending over was certain to make my world spin.  Over time, I gave up my level of tolerance for disorder increased. But this wasn’t a solution; it was just a reminder of where I felt I was falling short of my responsibilities as a mother.

One-at-a-time Cupboard Top Shelf

One-at-a-time Cupboard Top Shelf

So, I borrowed an idea from my mom:  the “one-at-a-time” cupboard.  I filled two cupboards with all the puzzles, games, cards, and toys with little pieces. The kids could each select one item from the cupboard.  When they finished with one toy, all the pieces were cleaned up. The lower cupboard had the puzzles and games they could play with by themselves, while the upper cupboard held the ones that need more parental supervision.

One-at-a-time Cupboard Bottom Shelf

One-at-a-time Cupboard Bottom Shelf

Did this help?  Yes and no.  The kids liked being able to see all the boxes of games arranged on the shelves.  They could easily select what they wanted and often asked to play games. But, I couldn’t contain all of the chaos in one set of cupboards.  I’ll share the next step in managing kids toys, in my next posting.

Waiting for the New Year

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The past three years, instead of writing New Year’s resolutions–that I famously had made and not kept–I have chosen a “theme word” for my year. This word gives me focus for the goals I want to accomplish. Two years ago, my word was OWN: as in owning my time so I’m spending my spare time on things that make me happy such as knitting and running, owning my emotions and keeping them in check, owning the fact that my household of five needs to eat three times a day and working with my husband to make sure that happens!

Last year’s word was LEARN. (You can read about my goals from last year here). I wanted to learn how to be a great parent, learn how to balance everyone’s needs, learn what “I” can do to make our family successful. Looking back, using the word LEARN led to a good year. Our family had its seasons of sadness, including the death of our beloved dog, and seasons of joy, with different  jobs for my husband and myself. I feel that we ended the year in a better place than we began.

Facing 2013, a word for this year has been much tougher to find. In September, my twin boys started kindergarten, and all three kids were in school full-day. I jumped into a part-time job and a few volunteer opportunities and quickly burnt out. A wise mom-of-twins friend counseled me to stop, wait, and think. I learned this lesson the hard way. After eight years of stay-at-home parenting and five years of twins, I needed to sit in my empty house and listen to the refrigerator hum. Wait in silence for what to do next. Wait for inspiration.

So this year I am applying the word WAIT to my life:

WAIT and see if my three kids will stop yelling at each other and solve their problems themselves
WAIT and let my nine-year-old advocate for herself with teachers and coaches, instead of jumping in to solve the problem
WAIT and sit on the sidelines, and encourage, and cheer as my kindergarten twins enter the world of elementary school sports
WAIT before I sign the kids up for every enrichment class, field trip, summer camp or other opportunity offered–they all need their space to breathe.

I hope that waiting will give us a slower and but still full year. I’m excited to get started.

If you would like to learn more about choosing a word of the year, please visit
the website of the wonderful Ali Edwards for inspiration.

Leslie H. is thrilled to be writing at HDYI, sharing the parenting experiences of trying to navigate life with a spunky 9-year-old girl and two loving and adventurous five-year-old boys (who happen to be twins).