Thankful...Saturday...

My, have I ever been forgetful! Two missed Thursdays in a row.

I had a fantastic day on Thursday. Mostly due to the sunshine, so this Thankful Thursday is devoted to sunshine. In the bleak winter months a bit of sunshine does me wonders. But a whole day of it?! We've practically had a whole week of it! It brightens up everything, including my outlook.

The boys and I took advantage of the sunshine and headed out to the zoo. J always loves the zoo and got so excited when I asked him if he wanted to go. A and W don't usually care one bit; they just sit quietly in the stroller and enjoy the ride (yes, I do count myself extremely lucky to have been blessed with twins who don't mind sitting in a stroller!). But this past trip they actually seemed to take notice of the animals. In the past week, W has been very excited about animals. He seems to especially love dogs...maybe that's because it's the only animal noise he can make so far. He would squeal and jabber and point at all the animals he saw. It seems that A only has a fondness for rhinos and cougars, as well as a fear of elephants. All in all, it was so nice to have an outing with the boys where all of them enjoyed it. And it was all made possible by sunshine:)

Well, that and the fact that my husband works hard and earns money, some of which was put toward a zoo pass...and the fact that we have a van that will transport all of us to the zoo...and a double stroller because we all know that I couldn't carry two kids through the entire zoo...

Thank you sunshine! and Daddy and van and stroller:)

The Tipping Bucket

So...I have no idea what this contest is and whether or not this means that whoever doesn't win isn't able to go forward with their project, BUT this sounds pretty awesome so I'm going to link to it and hope you follow it and read all about it!

A friend has entered her idea in this here competition and I'm all for it. The idea as I understand it, is to take advantage of the social networking systems to raise awareness and $$ for special projects. It's titled, "Changing the World: One project, One Day, One Dollar at a Time!" Honestly, go read about it and vote. You can also get more details about it here.

You will need to register to vote, that takes all of twenty seconds since all they want is a username, password, and email. Then just scroll down until you find the "Changing the World" explanation and click on the "promote" button on the left.

Cheers!

Freedom of Choice Act

I was just made aware of this petition and I'm not sure whether it's too late to have my signature accepted or not. The blog associated with this group says that the deadline was Feb. 20, but the site still let me sign...so it's worth a shot I say!

Please take a few minutes to head to the Fight FOCA site and sign the petition.

One of the things that irks me to the core about the abortion fight is the pro-abortionists trying to pull the wool over my eyes by calling abortion a woman's choice. That laws against or limiting abortion are taking away women's ability to choose. Pregnancy is the consequence to the choice you made beforehand, sister. Freedom of choice my eye.

Huh?

While running an errand today I spotted a license plate cover that said-

"Give Blood- Get Married"

Whaaaaaaaaat?

If they're trying to send a message, I don't get it. Are they making fun of marriage? Are they all for it? Are they just trying to squish two things they are passionate about on one license plate cover? Are they equating marriage with giving blood? Why? How?! Maybe they're saying marriage sucks the life out of a person, which I whole-heartedly disagree with. Or maybe they're saying that people should give blood and get married; two good things in life, two ways to give of yourself to other people.

Anyone have any clarification to offer me?

How poetic

Way back when, I came across a poem about being a mother of twins. It was nice, but a little too (for lack of a better word) sappy for my taste. Don't get me wrong, I love sappy things; but this poem was trying just a little too hard to make you say, "awwwwww." Though it's been known to happen, I'm rarely in the mood to be coerced into saying, "awwwwww." I'd much rather come to that conclusion all by my onesies. And yet, I really liked it. Mostly because it contained the sentence, "Why was I chosen to be a mother of twins?" This is a question that I am often asking God. I don't question nearly as much as I used to. But I tell you what, those first few weeks in newborn twindom had me constantly asking God different versions of this question.
"Why did you send them to me? I can't do this!"
"Do you really honestly truly think I'm capable of doing this?"
"Are you sure you didn't confuse me with some other woman?"
Honestly, in the beginning I was having a constant conversation with Him in my head. Fairly one-sided, but still...it's a good thing He's patient with me:)

Anyway, in a strange state I read that poem again and decided to build on it. I tweaked the first half, and threw out the second part which was replaced by my own creation. The original was by the infamous "Unknown" so I suppose this new collection of words can be credited to me and Unknown.

I am by no means a poet. And though it's slightly embarrassing to post a poem that highlights my ineptitude at poetry, I'm doing it anyway. So with out further ado, here it is:

There's two to wash, there's two to dry.

There's two who argue, there's two who cry.

One's in the mud having a ball.

The other holds a crayon, another marked wall.

Some days seem endless, my patience grows thin.

Why was I chosen to be a mother of twins?!

It's hard not to question, when the going gets tough.

It helps that God thinks I've got the stuff.

If He says I can do this, I suppose that I can.
With His help, I can raise great men.

And here's a scripture I love, to add to the message:

Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things.

Alma 26:12

P.S. I don't consider myself to be any different from your run-of-the-mill mom. I know that it's a challenge to raise children, whether they come more than one at a time or not. So, even if you moms reading this don't have twins, consider this an ode to you and a reminder that we're not in this alone.

P.P.S. As for myself, I haven't had much experience with twins getting into trouble yet. The majority of my experience with the first part of this poem comes from my oldest, who may as well be triplets.

Thankful Thursday

It has come to my attention that I am not as clever and original as I thought I was. "Thankful Thursday" is some other blog writer's creation and I am infringing on copyright. Okay not really, but somebody else thought of it before I did. The blog has something to do with chocolate...I can't remember what the name of it is...Jen knows, ask her!

When I decided I wanted to do this weekly-counting-blessings post, I thought I should come up with a name for it. Of course the alliteration came to mind and I thought, "Nooooo. That was so easy someone else is bound to have done that already." But, I couldn't think of anything and I have yet to devote more than five seconds of brain power to it so Thankful Thursday stuck. Should I ever come up with a cooler name, I'll change it. Odds are though, that everything under the sun has already been used. It's basically impossible to be original anymore. For Pete's sake I think I went through 50 different blog addresses before Blogger approved this musings one as available. Definitely not my first choice.

But now I am babbling so I'll sum up by saying, "Phooey on whatever chocolate came up with Thankful Thursday first. I know I'm clever!":)

And so, on to business. Today I am thankful for dish soap and hand lotion. Yes sir, you read right. My hands may be temporarily dry and cracked, but my dishes are sanitary! This crazy concoction gives us a bit more of an edge in staying healthy on top of making it oh-so-much easier to get food off of dirty dishes. And when I'm done putting the dish soap through its paces, I've got the lovely invention of hand lotion waiting to make sure that my kids don't get mad when I stroke their oh-so-soft cheeks:) Kudos to the people who brought us dish soap and hand lotion. I love you guys.

Home sweet home

Every so often I come across a woman (sometimes a mother, sometimes not) who will tell me how she doesn't know how I don't go crazy being home with my kids. How she'd go insane if she stayed in her house more than half the day.

I have to say, well we just don't understand each other. I for one can't understand how she doesn't go insane being out in the world so much.

I love my home. I love being home with my kids. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be shut up in the house for the rest of my life. I love going out; I really love coming back, too.

Regularly, I get to the point. You know the one- "I must get out of this house without children or I'm going to explode!" Yeah, that one. On days like that, I go run an errand when Bret gets home or after the kids go to bed. That's all it takes. Out in public: where the air smells like cigarettes, the strangers around me swear like it's going out of style, grumpy people glare at me just because I'm there, family members yell at each other. Yeah, 30 minutes of that and I'm scampering back home as fast as my minivan will take me (within the speed limit of course:))!

Maybe the trick is to go to a park and get a few good swings in, instead of heading out where cranky people are running their errands, too...

But on the whole, I'll take being home any day.

An unexpected lesson learned

This last week did not go according to plan. Didn’t backfire, but it was more of a misfire and the end result is still fantastic.

Here’s the thing: the majority of the time I spend on the Internet is during naptime and after kids go to bed. If I get on while kids are awake, odds are I’m doing business and off again in minutes. So my goal was to use the time usually spent on the Internet or reading to regroup, organize, etc.

Day 1 went great! I devoted quiet time and brain power to creating a new weekly schedule for myself. It’s a good blend of structure and flexibility. Then, I even got a fantastic break in the form of girls’ night.

Day 2 went not so great. W was up crying from 3 am on. That day was spent holding my little sicky. A trip to the doctor confirms an ear infection, though both ears were infected and I had only suspected one. I learned that evening that my grandma had passed away. A bummer of a day if there ever was one.

Day 3 was a Sunday spent at church and dealing a still unhappy W.

Day 4 was much the same as Saturday. W still demanded to be held almost constantly. You’d think that rocking a child would mean, once naptime came along, that you’d be raring to get up and go. Not so. Rocking for hours on end takes most of it out of me. By the time the little guys were asleep and I managed to convince J to stay in his room for some quiet time, I gave up. I crashed on the couch and read. I know, I know…

Day 5 started to see a bit of light. I managed to tackle a few projects during naptime. But the rest of the day was devoted to cranky kids.

Day 6 was a productive morning and come naptime A took the place of his twin in the role of hold-me-now-Mommy. He was also found to have an infection in each ear. He had quite the rough time of it that evening.

Day 7 found all three kids feeling fine and dandy and me…not so much. Oy.

Thus (isn’t that just an awesome word?!), the things I am normally able to accomplish while kids are awake had to be undertaken during naptime this week.

But, as I said before, this week was a misfire, not a backfire. Here are the two main things that I learned this past week:

In this day and age, you can’t turn your back on the Internet. There was no way around it. I had to get online to pay the mortgage.

Yet, the biggest thing I learned in this experience didn’t happen until I actually got back online at the end of the week. I suspect that this is the goal that my Heavenly Father had in mind, knowing that I wouldn’t have the time to get organized like I thought: I’ve become disenchanted with the Internet. I don’t feel the pull to get online anymore. I started reading things that I’d missed, felt so “meh” about it, and ended up just getting back off. Hallelujah!

Now, don’t get me wrong, the Internet is a wonderful thing. It keeps me in better contact with people since I am not a good letter writer. It’s an excellent resource. It’s a great link to the “outside world.” It exposes me to all sorts of people, things, and ways of thinking that I would never know otherwise. It helped me finish my degree without having to haul a baby to class. It’s great and I love it. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. That’s what it became for me. When I got back online after my week long absence, I realized that I didn’t really miss it.

And so, I didn’t accomplish all that I wanted to this past week. But the addiction is broken. I don’t think I’ll ever break myself of the reading habit, but the time I spend online will be greatly reduced from now on. And that is a welcome blessing!:)