Now We're Cookin'

For most of their lives I've occupied Michael and Sophie with something (coloring, stickers, or even a show) while I've prepared meals, and it's been refreshing in recent months to instead make some cooking task that busy activity.


Ripping toasted bread for spinach-artichoke casserole (recipe below)

To eat or not to eat...

Eat.

Since our recipe preferences these days tend to be ones that require as little prep as possible like "cheater soup," there's usually not a ton for the kids to do.  But even while preparing my latest slow-cooker favorite, Cranberry-Chipotle Beef from Better Homes and Gardens, Michael and Sophie enjoyed stirring the sauce in the bowl, counting how many times I chopped the chilis, and helping me dump the onions (frozen in bag--I don't even chop if I don't have to) into the crockpot. 

This week we made potato soup again (recipe below).

 

Spinach and Artichoke Casserole

(adapted from Cooking 'Round the Clock: 30-Minute Meals by Rachael Ray)

Loaf of crusty sour dough bread

Two cloves of garlic, peeled

Olive oil

One can of quartered artichoke hearts, drained

Two boxes of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry in a towel

Salt

3 eggs

3/4 cup heavy cream

Black pepper

Shredded swiss cheese

Slice bread and toast in the oven.  Rub slices with garlic cloves.  Coat bottom of a casserole dish with olive oil, cut bread into bite-sized chunks--or let toddlers at 'em, and place in the dish.  Top with artichoke hearts and spinach and season with salt.  (We often add ham here as well.)  Wisk heavy cream and eggs, season with black pepper, and pour over top.  Sprinkle with lots of cheese and bake at 375 until golden brown (30-40 minutes).

Potato Soup

(adapted from Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook by Dawn J. Ranck and Phyllis Pellman Good)

5-6 baked potatoes

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup flour

2 cups 2% milk

3/4 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. pepper

a bunch of green onions, chopped

package of diced ham (cooked bacon works too)

2 cups shredded cheese

8 oz. light sour cream

Scoop potato from skins letting it break into small chunks and set aside.  Brown diced ham and set aside as well.  Melt butter, add flour, and stir in milk.  Bring to a boil (should thicken significantly).  Add salt and pepper, potato, ham, 1/2 green onion, 1 cup cheese, and sour cream.  Cook for 5-10 minutes and serve topped with remaining green onions and cheese.

I'm fortunate to have two daring eaters on my hands who don't refuse much, but when they've had a hand in cooking the meal we're eating, they beam with pride and seem to eat a little more enthusiastically. Of course, Michael requested yogurt after a few bites of soup when leftovers were served for lunch the next day, but that's life with 2.5+ year-olds.

Look back at this oldie for some more of our favorite recipes!

'Nana Toast

 

 

I'm hoping to make more of a habit out of this.  Over Labor Day weekend, the kids and I baked banana bread.  They stood on chairs, helped me sift flower, scooped and counted the dry ingredients one very inaccurate 1/4 cup at a time, and (as you can see above) helped me stir in the nuts.  Afterwards we played in the sandbox and pretended to sift flower, count scoops, stir our batter, and bake our bread under a lawn chair.  Lunch ended up being banana bread and berries that day because none of us could resist.  The bread was warm with a slightly crispy crust that inspired Michael to rename the treat "'nana toast."  We ate it for a couple of breakfasts and snacks over the next few days, and Michael and Sophie's faces lit up with pride when I reminded them that they made it!

 

This past Sunday, as the kids sat at the kitchen table eating their leftovers from lunch for dinner, I started making some loaded baked potato soup.  It wasn't long before they had abandoned their spinach ravioli to help me scoop baked potatoes from their peels.  Michael and Sophie counted each chop to the green onions, scooped more flour, and smiled gleefully each time I lifted them to see the concoction developing in the pot.  They had had this soup before, but I believe that having made it "themselves" inspired Sophie to request seconds and thirds at dinner the next night. 

 

While these weren't the healthiest dishes we could have made together, I'm hopeful that the more we cook and bake together, the better lifelong eating habits Michael and Sophie will have. 

 

There are more organic bananas over-ripening their hook in our kitchen right how (we just don't go through them like we used to).  I'm hoping the kids and I can carve out some time this weekend to work more baking magic!



Cheater Soup

Somewhere between soggy-noodled, sodium-rich canned soups and the homemade richness of the turkey frame soup my grandma used to make lies what I refer to as Cheater Soup.  I made it for lunch on this snowy day at home with my kids.

Here's the "recipe."

Saute a bag of frozen mirepoix blend (toddler-sized carrots, onions, and celery).  Add a can of diced tomatoes.  Season with whatever (I used Penzey's Pasta Sprinkle).  Pour in two boxes of organic chicken stock and two-ish cups of water.  Bring to a boil.  Add a box of whole grain rotini and cook until tender. 

                                                     

 Since I don't serve much broth to the kids, to them this surely looks like yet another pasta with vegetables and/or meat concoction that I often serve them (our recent favorite of those is penne, ground turkey, olives, feta cheese, and Greek dresssing). 

This one is different to me at least.  What was in my bowl was some healthy comfort food that only took 15 minutes away from this snowy day at home with my kids to prepare.



More peas, please!

Instead of saying my twins are a boy and a girl, I might start saying one's an herbivore and the other's a carnivore. 

Check out the trays, a pretty typical dinner time scenario.


Both kids were given cut up pork chop and fork-mashed peas, and both were asking for "moah" (more) when their trays looked like this.  If you can't tell, Sophie still has plenty of pork and Michael has a toddler-sized handful of peas at his reach. 

They're both good eaters, but they clearly have their preferences!

Hungry Hungarians

Last week while walking through Randazzo's together, a bin of cabbage gave my mom an idea.  Several days later she was at my door with all the ingredients, and she and I made stuffed cabbage over the course of the afternoon, rolling up the leaves while the babies napped. 

Someday I'll try this one on my own, but as my mom pointed out, you really need to make these family recipes a few times with someone who really knows how in order to catch on to the subtleties.  I have a number of memories my grandma measuring ingredients with her palm and seemingly cooking by instinct, so I know what my mom means.

I also have memories of not liking chicken paprikash (usually just called "Hungarian chicken" in my family) and turning my nose up at stuffed cabbage.  I think it's over time that a kid learns to appreciate the smell of onions and paprika wafting from the kitchen.  Boiling cabbage starts to smell like family memories and actually inspires you to eat it, to request it for your birthday, to learn to make it for your own kids.

But in the beginning, one's first taste is likely to look like this,

or this,

and that's to be expected.

Today's mess was brought to you by...

FROZEN BLUEBERRIES!  When baby's first molars and a heat wave arrive simultaneously, frozen blueberries are in order.

Michael and Sophie had moderate interest in these mesh feeders during the first round of teething, but today as you can see, Sophie was thrilled with her frozen treat.  Those molars have been making her miserable.  Michael didn't get quite as into it but seemed as amused by Sophie as I was.   



Road trippers!

Our trip out east at the end of June included two days on the road there, a day at Mike's family reunion in Massachusetts, breakfast with the family, and two days on the road back.  We looked into flying, especially since Michael and Sophie could fly for free for ten more months, but we decided to drive in order to save a little money (trust me, we really did the math) and bring along plenty of gear. 

As tentative as I was to spend a total of 24 hours in the car keeping two 14-month-olds comfortable and entertained, the thought of a family road trip did appeal to my sense of adventure.  When I discovered that the Niagara area where Mike and I vacationed a couple of years ago was a good half-way point to stop, the journey looked even more enticing.  I found an affordable Hilton Garden Inn right off the expressway and a short drive from downtown Niagara-on-the-Lake, an area we knew my mother-in-law would love with its Victorian charm.   With an another affordable but sophisticated hotel (Holiday Inn Express) to stay at in Massachusetts, the trip came together nicely.

Luckily my father-in-law took plenty of fantastic pictures on the trip including the ones in NOTL below.  As many strangers have pointed out over the last year, I tend to have my hands full!  I created photobooks from his pictures and mine that we'll be sharing with family members, so I'm holding off on posting reunion pictures at least until they've been shared privately.

Our trip went smoothly (we hardly missed a beat getting a tire repaired on the way back) and was enjoyable for all.  We were even able to take the babies to the beach and swimming for the first time in the hotel pool (the next post will have pictures) in NOTL.  Most importantly, we made some great memories with family including Mike's parents who caravanned with us for the whole trip and Mike's brother and sister-in-law who flew to out MA from Minneapolis.  Introducing Michael and Sophie to their extended family, especially their great-grandparents, was also very special.

Here are some tips for travelling on the road with young toddlers that worked well for us:

• Plan driving around the usual daily sleep and eating schedule, and expect to stop every couple of hours.
• Pack lots of snacks, sippy cups, and small bowls for serving.
• Bring portable foods for meals like bananas, jars, pouches, and milk boxes to cut down on unhealthy and expensive meals on the road.
• Buy Tiny Diner portable placemats if you haven't already.
• Bring a variety of toys for the car and some bigger ones for the hotel.
• Don't forget the lullabye CD's, especially the ones that are already familiar.
• If the kids are in captain's chairs in the middle of a minivan facing the rear, strap a laptop in the very backseat with a seatbelt for an emergency DVD (Baby Einstein's Baby McDonaldwas our pick).  I also sat back there occasionally, and they seemed to appreciate the visits.
• Pick a hotel on the way that offers entertainment for all to add to the vacation experience.
• Get the kids used to Pack and Plays at least during naps the week before if they're not already comfortable in them; bring extra sheets just in case.
• Create a sleep environment similar to home.  For us that meant bringing sleep sacks and the sound machine.
• Keep the diaper bag stocked with the fundamentals at all times for those many stops.
• Let your type A tendencies run wild in order to keep it all organized along the way.  I used a bunch of reusable shopping bags and nicknamed them "the kitchen,"the playroom," and "the nursery" to keep everything straight. 
• Buy a Chysler Town and Country.  It made our trip very comfortable!

The big old breastfeeding extravaganza

This post is a somewhat rambling reflection on my 15 month breastfeeding experience.  I included some headings to break it up a bit, so feel free to scroll.  There are also links at the bottom to a few other posts on more specific breastfeeding related topics.

The End

Breastfeeding Michael and Sophie came to an end last week.  We were down to the one feeding before bed for about a month, and after our recent road trip during which Mike and I wanted bedtimes to go smoothly, I dropped that last feeding with bittersweetness.

Surprisingly Sophie was the one who was not at all happy to be put in her crib without that bedtime feeding.  Michael laid right down looking up at the ceiling, waiting calmly for sleep.  Sophie cried furiously, and I took her back out of the crib.  I couldn't bear the idea of the end of the breastfeeding experience being painfull for any of us.  Mike grabbed  Michael, we all read some books together, and Sophie and Michael drank some milk from sippies. When we laid them back down, Sophie cried again, but not as intensely.  I was a little bummed out by that and left Mike inside while I went outside to clean up some yard projects.  When I came back in about ten minutes later, she was out.  We had survived.

The next night was better.  Sophie still cried, but it was the moaning kind of cry they both do occasionally when they're just very tired.  She was out within a few minutes.  Night after night, the new normal has sunk in for all of us.

This was the end of quite a journey.

The Beginning

Aside from hearing them both cry out loud for the first time and seeing their little Michael and Sophie faces, my proudest moment of their first day of life was when we attempted the first feeding.  With pillows propped around me and sitting up in bed, Michael and Sophie were brought to my sides.  We stripped them down to their teensy newborn diapers to keep them awake and alert and to get that beneficial skin-to-skin contact.

With all I'd read about latching difficulties and the challenges of breastfeeding newborn twins, these two little champs surprised me by knowing just what to do.  The nurses helped me get started, and soon, after Sophie and Michael had been out of my body for about an hour, there we were, connected again.

The lactation consultant visited later on and urged us to get pictures when she witnessed a tandem feeding the next day in near amazement.  We didn't follow her suggestion, but the pride I feel now, having breastfed twins for nearly 15 months, makes a boob shot seem less nuts than it did at that time.  As I find myself saying a lot these days when a camera isn't handy for a milestone moment, committing some things to memory is just better.

Tandem Feeding

At home I started using my Ez-2-Nurse twins breastfeeding pillow. These days when people say, "I don't know how you do it," I say "We just do." In the beginning, even if they did't mean it literally, I told people about the pillow. It deserves a good amount of credit for the success of this breastfeeding experience as well as our general sanity while juggling the needs of two newborns. 

Tandem feeding became trickier as the babies got bigger.  I had to move to the floor with pillows propped under the ends to prevent the pillow from bending under their weight at around the eight-month mark.  By the time they were 10-months-old, I was feeding Michael and Sophie one at a time.  I didn't love the time this change added to the process, especially in the morning before work.  It also made it complicated to breastfeed without another adult around to keep the unfed one busy.  However, it was fantastic to have that time one on one with Michael and Sophie.

The Supply

In the hospital we were told to start supplementing each feeding with two ounces of formula to bring their weights back up (they tend to drop in the first day or so). Supplementing was a huge pain, especially multiple times in the middle of the night.  Luckily it didn't negatively impact my supply.  This only went on for the first week or two (details from that time are fuzzy) until the pediatrician said Michael and Sophie had gained enough weight to nix the supplementing.  Thank goodness!

Day and night I breasfed every two hours for the first month, twelve times every day, never getting more than an hour or so of sleep at a time.  In the second month we gradually stretched the time bewteen feedings to three hours, and by the time they were four months old, Michael and Sophie nursed every four to five hours.  Every additional hour was a huge relief!

At that point the new school year started, and I went back to work. The babies ate at 6:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m. before bed, and 3:00 a.m (until they started sleeping through the night at around 5-6 months).  I breastfed first thing in the morning and last thing at night and pumped at work midmorning and as soon as we got home in the afternoon to make up for the two 6 oz. bottles (24 oz. total) while we were apart.  Eventually I asked the child care center and my mom to push that 2:30 p.m. feeding to 3:30 so I could breastfeed instead of pump, and that worked fine.  Again, this was a great relief to only have to pump 12 oz. a day.

My supply was adequate before I returned to work, but pumping is just not as effective as breastfeeding, so I didn't always produce the full 8-16 oz. with the pump that the babies needed in their bottles.  Sometimes I pumped before I went to bed and added that milk to the next day's bottles.  Sometimes I dipped into the freezer stash I built up over the summer to make up the difference.  Eventually an occasional bottle of formula here and there, about one feeding a week, was needed to get us through. 

I did notice that I produced more on days:

• after a weekend or longer vacation from pumping
• when I drank lots and lots and lots of water
• after I had gotten a good night's rest
• when I used my hands-free pumping bustier
• when I'd had a dinner with red meat as the main course the night before (this is just one I noticed but never read about in breastfeeding literature)

While I can't say I never stressed over maintaining my supply and keeping up with the babies once I returned to work, I never tried any galactagogues (fenugreek, blessed thistle, alfalfa, etc.) and kept extra pumpings to a minimum.  I don't mind pumping itself, but the cord, the hoses, the pump and bottle parts, the freezer bags, the cleaning and restocking of all supplies really annoyed me.  Avoiding that was worth some bottles of formula and an asterisk in my mind when I claimed to exclusively breastfeed.

Solids

When Michael and Sophie turned four-months-old, again around the time I returned to work, we introduced solids into their diet at the pediatrician's recommendation.  We started with good ol' brown rice cereal about one hour after I breastfed them in the morning. 

At around six months, we gave them a jar of first foods (or a homemade version) about an hour after their 3:30 feeding (like a dinner).  Eventually we added the first foods to the rice cereal meal in the morning and then another solid feeding about and hour after their mid-morning breastmilk (like a lunch).  When they turned one, we began considering these three solid feedings their breakfast, lunch, and dinner and dropped the breasmilk one feeding at a time by replacing it with a sippy of organic whole cow's milk.  I dropped one feeding every couple of weeks or so.  There was no method to that, just what felt right.

Speaking of supply, solid foods did make it tougher to produce enough milk.  Luckily around this time it was appropriate to drop their bottles down to four ounces each instead of six, so I only had to pump 8 oz. a day.

A helpful resource during this time was the book Super Baby Food, a thoughtful gift from a healthy-eating, good friend.  Mike took the lead on making homemade baby food such as organic sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, squash, avacado, bananas, and apples.  He'd have to give you the specific details, but this entailed steaming or baking the harder foods (fruits were typically raw) and pureeing the food in the food processor.  He froze the mashed-up produce in ice trays, popped the cubes out into freezer bags to free up the trays, and took out what we needed a day in advance.  He thawed the cubes in individual baby food cups (ones from store-bought food) sometimes with water to thin it down.  I rarely refill the diaper drawer or empty the diaper pail, and I hardly had to put any thought into where the babies' next homemade organic meal would come from.  My husband is just cool like that.

These days Michael and Sophie eat what we eat (in bite-sized pieces) for the most part.  Tonight we all had whole grain pasta with sauteed zucchini and tomato, olives, artichoke hearts, prociutto, feta cheese, rice wine vinegar, and olive oil.  I usually think they're pretty lucky little toddlers.

Weight Loss

Thanks to breastfeeding I lost all of my pregnancy weight and then some.  My clothes fit horribly all school year and I pinned the waists of my pants knowing this isn't likely to last. Now that I'm responsible for burning my own calories again, I'm glad I didn't go out and buy too many size 2's.  I'm still about 10 lbs. below my pre-pregnancy weight.  I'll do my best to keep it that wway.

Blockages and Candida

If you've read this far thinking, "Ok, she's talking all about her boobs, but it's not so bad," you might want to stop here.  This is stuff only breastfeeding moms and those in the medical community would really care about.  The purple nipple part is sort of funny, though.

With each dropped feeding came a blockage in my left breast.  My advice to anyone who develops a blockage is to address it as immediately as you can.  I found that taking a hot shower, massaging the lump, applying a heating pad for roughly 45 minutes just before a feeding, and putting my most aggressive eater (Michael) to work did the trick.  I didn't act as quickly the first time as I did for subsequent blockages, and it took a few tries to get the works flowing smoothly again.

A week or so after starting Michael on antibiotics for an ear infection and just after a blockage came clear, I experienced a seering pain in my left breast.  If it hadn't always been my better producer, Lefty would really have been on thin ice with me.  I did some research online and self-diagnosed myself with a bacterial (candida) infection.  I endured the pain for about a month while trying every over-the-counter remedy I could find--vinegar, grapefruit seed extract, Lotrimin, gentian violet.  Each of these remedies helped a tad but never cleared up the issue.  The gentian violet also stained my nipple a dark purple and scared Sophie into a screaming mess when she saw it!  I fed Michael with that breast in the dark until the color went away.

Because there were no visible symptoms, just that pain after feeding, and because some online comments said nothing prescribled solved the problem either, I was hesitant to bother with a trip to the doctor.  However, I was taking Tylenol and going to bed early to escape the pain every night.  And like I said, I didn't want breastfeeding to end painfully for any of us, even physically.

Ultimately my doctor concurred with my self-diagnosis and gave me a prescription for Diflucan.  I wish she could have just prescribed it over the phone, but she wanted to do an exam to be sure I didn't have mastitis.  I could hardly believe it, but I took my first dose less than an hour before a feeding, and the seering pain never returned.  Long story short, go to the doctor.

Thinking Back

This ending brings me pride, relief, and a whole lot of sentimentality.  I always thought it was pretty goofy when breastfeeding mothers talked about how much they enjoyed the experience.  I am now one of those goofy moms, remembering the challenges and the tender moments, and cherishing the complex dimension of my motherhood they both created.

Other posts you might find useful...

Those Notorious First Few Weeks
From Mommy to Moo Juice
How did Grandma do it?

You can also click the "breasfeeding" label in the left panel to see all of my posts that relate to the topic.

Teeny Tiny Rotini Eaters

Speaking of what's for dinner, I put my culinary skills to work last night by browning some lean ground turkey, cooking some whole grain rotini, and tossing it together with a jar of roasted garlic tomato sauce.  I'm pretty darn remarkable.

An hour or so before, it occurred to me that the dinner we had planned for the night was just the kind of meal they serve at the child care center, the meals that Sophie and Michael will be eating more and more of now that they've crossed the threshold of one.

When Mike got home, I started cooking, and he stripped our buddies down to diapers (we knew we were in for it) and put on their sleeved bibs typically reserved for eating out.

And here's what transpired:


Yes, those are tomatoey fingerprints on Michael's forehead. 

They really did awesome.  They jumped right in grabbing the food,  and 90% of it went into their mouths.  We were all thrilled to eat the same meal together really for the first time.

Clean-up was a little less thrilling, but it was well worth it!

What's for dinner?

Sophie and Michael are getting to be finger food connoisseurs and sippy cup pros.  They eat cereal and fruit for breakfast, a meat/vegetable mixture for lunch, a vegetable and fruit for dinner, and a couple snacks like Cheerios thoughout each day. Most of their food is organic, whole grain, and is often fresh and homemade.  I've officially started weening them from breastfeeding by dropping one of those feedings a week and replacing it with organic whole cow's milk.  Their eating habits are off to a good start.

The trickier eating habits to maintain are mine and Mike's, but I think we're doing ok there, too.  Here are some habits that work for us:

1.  Like most families, we have some go-to recipes that we turn to pretty regularly because they're easy, healthy, or provide good left-overs.  The slow-cooker is almost a member of our family these days.  Here are a some of our favorites:

Sloppy Joe's
Way better than a seasoning packet or a can and almost as easy.

Alton Brown's Meatloaf
Not simple to prepare, but Mike makes this in cupcake tins for simple leftover lunch storage.  It's so yummy it really needs a name better than meatloaf.

Healthy Beef Stroganoff
Way, WAY better than Hamburger Helper's version...and almost as easy.

Mediterranean Roast Turkey
Half a dozen people asked me for this recipe the last time I made it and took leftovers to work for lunch including my mother in law who ate it with me when Mike was out of town. 
California Chicken

You can keep most of the ingredients on hand for this one to keep grocery lists to a minimum.
Alton Brown's Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip
This is my go-to dish to pass and is always a hit.  I'm happy to share this, just don't make it if I'm coming to the party, too!

2. Every weekend we make a menu for the week and a grocery list. We plan with leftovers for work lunches in mind, try to use food on hand to keep our weekly expenses in check, and both commit to cook on designated nights. We stock up on organic ground beef, hormone-free chicken breast, and other regularly used foods and household items from Costco about once a month to help with that as well.

3. Greek yogurt, 100 calorie packs, Skinny Cow ice cream treats, and fresh fruit are around for snacks. There's usually some dark chocolate stashed away for emergencies as well.

4. Instead of filtered pitchers, a water-cooler, or buying bottled water, we refill gallons of distilled water at the grocery store for 39 cents a gallon. We use tap water for coffee and for the babies, but Mike's not a fan of it for drinking...and he's rubbed off on me.

5. We keep several frozen lasagnas or stuffed shells from our local Italian market in the freezer for nights when our time or energy has run thin. We fall back on grilled cheese and soup or carry-out as needed as well. We don't let dinner stress get the better of us.

Please share any tips or recipes of your own that work well with a busy lifestyle!

From Mommy to Moo Juice

Instead of breastfeeding them at eleven o'clock this morning, I gave Sophie and Michael sippy cups of half breastmilk, half whole cow's milk.  I sat beside them, touched their faces, said what a good job they were doing, and we all did well.

I was under the impression that breastfeeding for the first year was the norm, but I had a remarkably tough time finding advice on how to ween at this age. There's a lot out there about one extreme or the other, either weening in the very early months and introducing bottles, or baby led weening which tends to start around 18 months or older (often much older).     

Advice that I did collect was to ween right to sippy cups rather than bottles, drop one feeding per week (starting with the "least favorite"), and replace that feeding with milk and possibly a snack like Cheerios or crackers for a diversion. Since common wisdom at the moment is to hold off on cow's milk until babies are a year old, one year seemed to be the time to put this into action.

Aside from just being culturally brainwashed, I've chosen to stop nursing at one year for a number of reasons.  For one, breastfeeing is just not as easy to manage as it was when Michael and Sophie were smaller.  Tandem feeding is trickier as they don't fit as well on their double nursing pillow, and neither child is terribly patient when I feed his or her sibling first.  I can rig up extra pillows around me and tandem feed in a pinch, but then there's the issue of ear and face grabbing.  Add in the fact that I've never loved pumping, especially at work, and the stress of getting to the child care center or home in time for the 3:30 p.m. feeding, and one can imagine that part of me is relieved to approach the end of this phase.  Michael and Sophie's first birthday and my week off for spirng break are nearly simultaneous this year, confirming once again that the one year mark is right for us.

Even with some routines in place, today's attempt didn't go perfectly.  When I'm at work, Michael and Sophie get warm breastmilk in bottles while resting in Boppys.  They've also become experts at drinking water from sippy cups with snacks, and they've had a little bit of breastmilk from them.  So today I put Michael and Sophie in the Boppys that they're used to feeding in, but the cold temperature of the drink, the sippy cups for this purpose, and the cow's milk were all changes for them.  Sophie did really well, but Michael only drank about one of the six ounces before handing the sippy to me and climbing in my lap.  After offering it to him a few more times unsuccessfully, I put the milk in a bottle instead, and he did great.  However, when Sophie saw the bottle, she wanted one too.  It looks like we'll have to take this in phases.  Maybe by Friday they'll  be drinking just whole cow's milk from sippy cups.  We'll see.

There are three more feedings to drop, and we'll play it by ear a bit as to how quickly we'll go through his process.I'm looking forward to the relief this transition will bring, but I'm also glad that this will not be an overnight event.

The last weekend

I start back to work officially tomorrow, but we enjoyed some nice family time on this last weekend of the summer.

At Sophie and Michael's four-month well visit, their pediatrician gave us the green light on starting solids.  She said to start with rice cereal.  A friend sent us a copy of Super Baby Foods , and we do intend to make some of our own baby food, but since babies less than six months old aren't ready for homemade rice "porridge" as the author calls it, we chose a boxed whole grain brown rice cereal for the time being.  Gerber's was on sale at Kroger, so we went with that one.  After three to five days we'll introduce some orange or yellow veggies, probably some sweet potato on Friday.  Our pediatrician and the book both encourage waiting that time to watch for food allergies.

Here's their first meal that we gave them on Saturday morning:

Mike fed Michael, and I fed Sophie.

They did really well.  Starting solids usually occurs between four and six months, and I feel confident that Michael is ready for this step (he's waking often at night after previously sleeping through, has doubled his birth weight, and ate very well).  However, I'm not certain we would be starting Sophie this early if she was our only baby.  She has just about doubled her birth weight but not quite, she still sleeps soundly at night, and she got a little fussy during her first feedings.  She doesn't seem to like waiting for the spoon, preferring the steady stream of milk she's used to.  I had to stop feeding her each time, concerned she's literally going to inhale the cereal while crying.  One concern with starting solids too early is respiratory problems, possibly caused by this kind of issue.  So we're taking it slow with her, just feeding her until she fusses.  Solids right now are just snacks between meals to get the babies used to the taste and texture, and a little trial and error is to be expected.  By six months the pediatrician expects Sophie and Michael to eat two solids a day, and I feel we're on track for that. 

Mike took the babies to his parents' house for a few hours on Saturday, and I stayed home to get some cleaning and organizing done around the house.  Michael and Sophie got some good Grammie, Grandpa and even Great Grandma and Grandpa time!

Mike and I enjoyed some good feedings of our own this weekend with the babies watching from their stroller.  We went for another pizza on the patio at The Pizza Cutter in Northville on Friday night followed by ice cream from Kilwins in downtown Plymouth (thought we'd change it up from our usual Rebecca's in Northville).  On Sunday we took the babies to Ann Arbor for the first time, eating on the patio of Grizzly Peak and walking around downtown. 

I can't resist dessert these days so we finished our A2 visit with some iced coffees and dark chocolate covered pretzels from Shokolad (we got some dark chocolate peanut butter cups and clusters to go!).

Gearing up for going back

I took the babies in to visit their child care center again today after visiting last week for about an hour and a half.  On that day Sophie and Michael met two of their three caregivers, drank expressed milk from their bottles, and had some floor time with their new, gigantic friends.  The other babies currently in the infant room are all six months or older, sitting up, crawling, and occasionally tackling anyone in their paths.  Sophie and Michael did great that day with all of that excitement and even better today.

I planned today's visit so the babies would be ready for a nap while there, and they both slept for about 30 minutes in their assigned cribs.  Those aren't very long naps, but I'm thrilled Michael and Sophie were comfortable enough to fall asleep, even with the noise of their classmates playing just outside a curtained wall.  Sophie was a little unhappy when I first put her down in her crib, but in her Swaddle Me with her hands at her face like she likes and with a little soothing she dozed off.  Michael fell asleep in his primary caregiver's arms, but he woke up when transferred to the crib (pretty typical of him).  He didn't really fuss, just stared up at us with big, bright eyes, telling us that method just wasn't gonna fly.  I sat in a rocker with him, patted his back like we do at home, and Michael too drifted off.  He didn't stir at all, even with all the noise nearby, when I wrapped him in his Miracle Blanket in his crib.

I hung out with the three caregivers and the other babies while Sophie and Michael slept and felt a little nostalgic for my own child care work experience.  I worked for two years at a similar center in high school and college.  I started there as an assistant in the front office but spent most of my days there as a travelling sub and summer camp teacher.  By the time I left to work privately for a local family, I knew every kid and family there, was a highly requested sub in the building, and I knew I wanted my kids to go to a center like that one day. 

As much as I cringe at the portion of our income that will go to Sophie and Michael's center, I'm glad it is one with educated and professional caregivers and where they emphasize play-based learning, age appropriate curriculum, and lesson planning even at the infant level.  The super cool playground and organic meals that Sophie and Michael will enjoy soon enough also make us happy with our choice.  The fact that this is the only center in our area open from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. allowing me to drop off before work when necessary is also key.  I've considered in-home centers and nannies, but I'm most comfortable with the flexibility, reliability, and professionalism of this option. 

When the babies woke up, I fed them again from bottles to get them used to eating that way there.  We left shortly after that, stopping in at the front office to confirm the details of their enrollment.  They'll be attending three days a week with my mom coming to care for them at home on the other two.  Generally with twins there's a rate for the first child and a discounted one for the second (like with any siblings), but back when we visited in December I negotiated to get the discounted daily rate for both.  It's not a huge savings, but every little bit helps!  I left today knowing that when I'm sitting through a full day of professional development back at work, as much as I'll long to be with my little buddies, I'll be able to fully picture what they're experiencing and will breathe easy...probably.

Back at home, Sophie and Michael have been napping quite a bit, making up for what they lost at the center.  I took advantage of that time to goof around on FB, return some emails, blog, and....watch my DVR'd episodes of General Hospital.  They did a sort of retrospective on Soapnet last night to gear viewers up for the return of Brenda today. 

Having spent several hours in a child care center and then some time watching GH from 1997, I'm feeling a bit like a time traveller.

Baptized Buddies

Michael and Sophie were baptized yesterday.

When we returned to my parents' house for a luncheon, I fed the babies, and they fell into their milk coma pose, made even sweeter by their white attire.

(They're on their EZ 2 Nurse pillow on either side of my waist.)

Like I did before getting married in a Catholic church, I did some soul-searching before the baptism.  I was raised Catholic, but I don't really identify with the religion beyond that.  I know it's not uncommon for people like myself to participate partially in a religion, but I was raised to see that as inappropriate.  For a long time I felt it was best for me to let go of my connection to my family's religion completely, but starting my own family has made me question that total separation.

The conclusion I've come to is that the line between faith and culture is a little blurry when it comes to religion.  Although Mike and I don't really practice any religion, we'd like to share some aspects of Catholicism with Sophie and Michael since it is a part of their family's culture.  Getting married in a church and having the babies baptized were not givens for us, and where we go from here is something we'll continue to feel our way through, hoping our openly one foot in/one foot out approach isn't terribly offensive to the truly faithful.

I've spent time with both my mom and my mother-in-law since the babies were born discussing our beliefs, and I feel they fully respect my appreciation for my religious upbringing and what my spirituality looks like today (there's certainly more to it than what I'm sharing here).  Mike and I chose our moms as the babies' godmothers - my mom for Sophie, Gail for Michael - since they will naturally model the faith for the babies.  We were pleased to learn that Gail's Grammie was her godmother as well.  My brother Joe is Sophie's godfather and Jeff (Mike's best friend since childhood) is Michael's.  We know these two guys love our babies deeply, they know our values well, and they will always be part of Sophie and Michael's lives.  Our babies are lucky to have these four people as their godparents. 

Although Mike woke up with a miserable summer cold yesterday, we enjoyed the ceremony and the gathering with family and my mom's church friends afterwards. My aunts Rose and Janet came down from Marysville, and my Aunt Sharon and cousin Gary drove in from Pennsylvania. Aunt Sharon mentioned that it was hard for her to imagine my mom as a grandmother, my brother as an uncle, me as a mom and so on. Gary called it the changing of the guard. These gatherings help us all to see the joy and changes that Sophie and Michael have brought to our family. I found myself really looking forward to the holidays!

I keep finding myself too preoccupied with the babies to get many pictures at events like this, but here are a few I did manage to get.