“Just ask Cinderella; the right pair of shoes can change your life!”
I once gave my fashionista sister a card that said that, but I think my Etta baby would agree. Girl is shoe OBSESSED.
While many parents battle toddlers to get shoes on and kept on, mine is constantly bringing me shoes, holding up her tiny foot, and demanding I put it on. Sometimes her shoes, sometimes mine. Today, she took the silver patent leather Birkenstocks right off my feet. And she’s not too concerned with matching shoes, either– one shoe, two different shoes, these are valid options.
I’m not kidding about the tiny feet, either. She’s 17 months old, and she wears size 2 shoes, or a 6-12 month size. We’ve hung out with other kids her age, and their feet are no joke, twice the size of hers. This means occasionally, shoes fall right off her feet. Just the other day, I had to go back out to some steps, where little Cinderetta had lost a silver slipper.
Wearing one red sparkle shoe, wielding a toothbrush, fleeing a very giggly speed-crawling Claire. Just a typical afternoon in the Bufflo home.
A picture of me from the very start of my pregnancy, guzzling water, a pregnancy book beside me.
I was just reminiscing on social media that this day two years ago was the day I woke up and confirmed what I suspected: I was pregnant. I had told a friend, Savannah, that I thought this might be the case, what with the sudden onset of fatigue, extreme thirst, and sore boobs, and she called me while I was still staring at the plus sign, which appeared IMMEDIATELY, completely freaking out. This is how she came to know I was pregnant before my husband did, because he was out on a 30 mile bike ride. I also believe I hung up on her abruptly when he walked in the door, and I remember saying “We’re having a baby!” and insisting he go look at the test on the bathroom counter. He took a picture of it, but don’t worry, I’m not the sort who posts pictures of things I’ve peed on online. That picture exists in one place now: a book I made for the girls about my pregnancy.
I remember the anticipation and excitement of that day. I sort of laugh at myself then, blissfully unaware that in a few short weeks, the TWINS?! bomb would be dropped on me, and all my visions of myself with my ONE BABY would go out the window.
I’d like to think I was picturing mornings like the one I just had two years later: waking up with the girls, bringing them into our bed for snuggles and bottles, moving to the den for playtime, getting Claire to her preschool where she went smiling into her teacher’s arms, returning home to Etta eating cereal with a spoon like a grown person while wearing red monkey pjs and watching Dumbo with her daddy.
I fired up my laptop to write a blog post about the crazy ride I’ve had since then, and was slapped in the face with a great big SIGN.
Google is my homepage, as it is for zillions of people. And today’s Google doodle is a beauty– you should check it out. In honor of composer Claude Debussy’s birthday, his piece, “Clair de Lune” plays over a short animated film.
I had no idea it was Debussy’s birthday, but of course it is. Of course the day I found out I was pregnant is the birthday of the man who wrote the song that gave my Claire her name. You see, when we thought we were having ONE BABY, we were going to name her Etta Laine, after my grandmother LeaEtta and Jon’s grandmother Elaine. When we found out we would be having TWO girls, we decided to give each one a grandmother’s name, so they’d be Etta and Elaine. But I didn’t want them to have the same initials, so it was decided that we’d use Elaine as a middle for “baby B”. While we tried to think of a good first name, Jon sat at the piano, playing Debussy, a favorite of ours. He was playing “Clair de Lune” when he stopped and said, “What about Claire?” I loved it, thought Claire Elaine sounded lovely, and it was settled. (Etta’s middle name is Jane, for Jane Austen, a favorite author of mine who shares my birthday.)
And now, two years later, I find out the man who gave us the song that gave her her name was born on the day that my journey as a mother began.
It’s just perfect. It’s just a sign. It’s a little window into the story we’re living, often unawares.
These days, I hear “Clair de Lune” almost every night– it’s on the girls’ lullaby playlist.
The title of this post is something I’ve been asked by twin parents a little behind us in the journey. It’s something I asked other twin moms when I was lost in the sleepless fog of new twin babyville.
And oh how I want to hug all new parents, but especially twin parents, and just say, yes, it gets easier. Because sometimes you just desperately need to believe it will.
But really, the thing I keep thinking, about life, about parenthood, is not that it gets easier, but that it gets different. And each time it gets different, you get different too: you learn, and adapt, and find strategies, and just as you master whatever it is, it gets different again. But the thing is, through all the changes, you get stronger, tougher, better, and you’re able to more confidently deal with all the change.
A friend reminded me on Facebook recently of a phase I did not love. It’s that point where your baby figures out how to pull up to stand, but still can’t get down. And baby is SO EXCITED about this new standing skill that she wakes up in the middle of the night just thinking about standing. So she stands in her crib. And then she realizes she is stuck and freaks the freak out. Which means lots of midnight wakeups for dear old mom and dad. And so, for a few weeks, we had to keep lying her back down, patting her back, singing her songs, while she struggled to get up and stand again, over and over, until she finally crashed. It was really frustrating.
But here’s the thing: that never happens anymore. Now we’re just getting middle of the night wakeups because Etta’s too busy cutting teeth and thinking about walking to sleep, and Claire’s been sick, and, well, see what I mean? It got different. It’s still hard.
I think the key, the thing that I can tell new parents, singleton and multiples, though, is that the rewards get greater through all the change and all the hard. In the very beginning, you’re just living for the point when they finally finally just smile at you. And that smile is amazing. It’s like the payout for 2 months of sleeplessness and spit up and practicing all those 5 S’s.
And it only gets more rewarding from there. They, your favorite little humans, just keep becoming more fascinating, more capable, and more interesting, more like actual people. The biggest thing for me as a twin mom is, my kids are becoming actual siblings who talk to each other and play together, and that bond forming is just a joy to behold. Sure, there’s lots of hair pulling and fighting over toys, but that stuff is far outweighed by the heart-melting awesome that is watching my two kids pass food back and forth in their high chairs, babbling to each other. Or when Claire actually asks for Etta by name, and Etta turns to her, and they laugh and laugh.
So maybe it does get better. Still not sold on the easier, though ;)
Teamwork: working together to open the drawer and remove all the diapers inside. Sibling love!
A friend asked on Instagram if I’d consider doing a post about the bufflogals’ toys, and her wish is my command.
She noticed that the gals’ toys are generally wooden and rather atypical from what is generally on the market for babies and toddlers. This is by design. I want our home to be peaceful and happy, stimulating but not overstimulating, full but not cluttered. And if it’s not too much to ask, I want the stuff we bring into it to look good! This extends to the choices we make for our girls’ toys. While I have only begun to educate myself on things like Montessori and Waldorf, my general inclination and instinct is that their toys should be about them using objects to educate and enjoy themselves, not just being entertained by lights and music and bells and whistles. For us, this means nothing that lights up or makes sounds, pretty much nothing battery operated, and very little plastic. Again, this isn’t because of any particular ideology, but just the result of me following what feels right for me and my kids. I’m not in any way saying other sorts of toys are bad, but this is just where we’re at and what we want for our home.
Etta and Claire have two main play spaces, their room and our den. In each space, it was important to me that the toys be arranged where they could get them out themselves (and eventually, put them up themselves), and to have things displayed and accessible rather than buried in a bin under a million other things. Things they can see actually get used, whereas things in a giant pile get forgotten.
Here you see the girls’ play space in our den. The shelf and tent are both from Ikea, and my mom found the chairs at a flea market. They have a little white table that goes with them, but it’s being used as a side table until we find an actual side table to go next to the couch. Also pictured is the Little Wheely Bug, which I found for a steal at a local consignment sale. Etta’s just now able to really start to use it at 15 months, and it’s the smaller size. The green-sided walker was a Christmas gift, but I have to say, I’m not as crazy about it as I thought I’d be, as it seems more prone to tipping, though they still sit in front of it and play with it. I REALLY love the walker wagon Claire’s kneeling with, which is a brand called Janod from Oompa.com, which along with Amazon is one of our main toy sources.
This is the contents of the musical instrument box. Most are Hape, purchased via Amazon. The shaker eggs aren’t actually toys but legit musical instruments, but the girls love them.
I really love these alphabet blocks from Janod.The Janod walker wagon in action. As you can see, it can support Claire’s weight, and even without anything in it, is super stable for kids just starting to walk, not prone to tipping.We’re big fans of this collapsible tunnel, a gift, which folds nicely when we’re not playing with it.Here the girls are playing with our one and only noisy toy, the flowers, which are Lamaze brand. You can see the Hape shape sorter and some Melissa and Doug food. Our Ikea baby gym, now useful as an object to pull up on, is in the background.Little Wheely Bug in action, with a push from sister.A rare exception to my no-plastic rule: this Little Tykes rocking horse. It’s perfect for little toddlers because it’s low enough that they can get on and off themselves, and the seat has a back, which keeps them on it. And I think it’s not bad looking.
Here you can see the girls’ very messy room, and the toy shelf their daddy built for them. In the bin on the bottom left are wooden blocks that belonged to me as a child, and in the bottom right are little things we’ve collected along the way, like Ikea stacking cups, a Melissa and Doug pull toy, their Kathe Kruse dolls, and their Taggies toys. You can also see some soft books, a Melissa and Doug bead maze, a Skip Hop stacker pull toy, and an Ikea stacker toy. (Also, please note that Claire has pulled herself into a kneel, a big deal, which is why this picture was snapped in the first place.)
Basically, what I look for in a toy is this:
Is it kid powered? If it requires batteries, I don’t want it. (I took the batteries out of these toy keys before I ever gave them to the girls. They still love them.)
Is it used BY the kid, or does the kid just watch it go?
Does it help hone skills or encourage creativity or imaginative play?
Does it make noise? I’m fine with instruments the girls use to generate noise, but I don’t want to hear bad midi files of classical music. I’d rather put on my old iPod, which I’ve loaded up with tunes for the kiddos.
Is it possible to find this made of wood or other natural materials?
And, generally, is it fairly gender neutral? I’m fine with the girls playing with dolls, etc, as they get older and ask for such things, but in the meantime, I see no reason to push them toward gendered objects.
A few people who have visited our house have asked how we got all the grandparents and other relatives on board with this plan. The truth is, I grew up with these sorts of toys, so my parents were all about it from the start, and everyone else has been pretty happy to shop from the Amazon wish list I keep constantly updated for Christmas and their first birthday.
If you’re following me on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, you’ve already seen the bragging, but I have to share this with my blog friends too: Claire crawls now.
She’s been trying for a long time, months, and working on her skills in PT, but all she was really doing was lunging forward, ending up on her belly, scooting backward when she meant to go forward, and barrel rolling. She managed to combine those skills to get pretty much everywhere she wanted to be, but she watches Etta, and she knew crawling was the way to go. (Etta’s not walking yet at 15 months, though she cruises like a champ and could let go and walk right this minute if the thought actually seemed to occur to her.)
Then we got the shunt exactly a week ago, which removed a lot of pressure from her head/spine, and her neurosurgeon told us to fully expect faster progress in the mobility department. Which, I’m not saying correlation equals causation, but it sure seems to have worked. Yesterday was the first day her PT noticed her using her hip flexors, and yesterday she finally got her legs into the crawling equation and took off. She’s got forward motion and is also pulling up to her knees using the furniture.
Yesterday with her braces on and her therapist holding her arms, she also took actual steps, demonstrating she has all the components necessary to walk someday. Which just makes me want to say “HA!” to a certain rehab doctor who, about a year ago, after a VERY short exam, and ignoring our statements that Claire moved her legs intentionally, declared she would never walk. (Meanwhile her orthopedists have long said that she would, so we chose to believe them.)
I’m confident that Claire has had these abilities all along. It just took her a while to make the connections and figure it out, and while she may need a little extra help, she gets there. And she’ll keep getting there.
Just woke up from as good of a sleep as one can hope for in a hospital, cuddling my Claire Bear all night. She came through surgery like a champ, waking up happy after anesthesia, and generally being the most chilled out kid who just had brain surgery anyone has ever seen. Her surgeons say everything went great, and judging by the pressure her cerebral spinal fluid was under, it really was time for us to do this VP shunt. She probably has been having a headache from the pressure lately and we didn’t even know it. Now, her head should stop growing so quickly and the rest of her should catch up.
We’re super grateful for the excellent care we’ve been getting, as well as all the love and support from folks like you. It looks like we will go home this evening.
I’m back from an amazing weekend in NYC helping my sweet sister Jessica shop for a wedding dress. Now it’s back to reality in a big way because Claire the Bear is having surgery tomorrow. She’s having a shunt placed to help treat her hydrocephalus (the fluid that builds up in her head because of her spina bifida), which has gotten to the point of causing fluid to build up in her spine. This is called a syrinx, and because it could compromise her mobility, we have to finally do the surgery this time, almost exactly a year after we first thought we’d be getting it done.
I’m glad we could wait this long. Since she’s older, the procedure is much less risky than it would have been on a tiny baby, and that’s always good news. We trust our surgeon completely and know she will be in the best hands. All you lovely folks: please be praying for or sending positive thoughts her way, whichever you do. Thank you for always cheering Claire on. She will be in the hospital overnight, but it should be a fairly quick recovery, so let’s hope that’s true!
It’s been a while since I updated all of Claire Bear’s fans on how she’s doing these days. Most readers know that she has spina bifida, that she had surgery just days after birth, and that we’ve been sort of waiting to see how much her spinal defect will affect her.
The short answer is: she’s doing great. She’s a chilled out, happy girl who is a bit of a ham. She can charm any stranger with her bright eyes, big smile, and penchant for waving, giggling, and clapping. She is also a very observant little person, and seems to constantly be watching and figuring the world out. Even though she’s not into eating solid food yet, she loves to swipe pieces of it off her sister’s high chair tray, and before she got moved into the older room at daycare, would sit on the mat and swipe toys from smaller babies as they crawled by. She even figured out, on her own, from observing Etta, how to get from sitting unsupported down to her belly so she can roll around to wherever she wants to go. Where I used to be able to count on finding her wherever I left her, now she’s known to roll out of her room and down the hall. They even call her “the mechanic” at daycare, because she likes to roll under all the cribs and appears to be inspecting and fixing them.
Medically, she is doing really well also. She had a looooong day at the spina bifida clinic yesterday, and we saw rehab, urology, and orthopedics. Ortho continues to be impressed with how much function and sensation she appears to have in her legs considering the location and severity of her spinal defect, and the good news from urology is that we don’t have to start using catheters or anything at this point (bladder issues are very very commonly associated with spina bifida). Rehab, formerly a sore spot for us since one doc declared “she will never walk” after a very poor examination even after we said that she supports her weight on her legs for short periods, went OK too. We actually got to show the doctor how she can stand with support, and we got our first prescription for some AFOs, essentially her first pair of leg braces, which we hope will support her ankles and knees and help her learn to crawl, stand, and walk.
She’s been going to physical therapy for a couple of weeks now, and we are so happy to finally have that started. The therapist turns out to be the older sister of a friend from high school, and I have to say I just love her. Despite a very teary first session in which Claire *wailed* the entire time (her stranger anxiety has really ramped up lately– she also recently wailed at ZaZa’s, a local pizza joint, when the most grandmotherly, sweet-looking woman in the world dared to approach her), Claire has realized her PT is pretty cool and has neat toys, and now only cries when tired or frustrated with an activity.
Because Claire needs 3 PT sessions per week, 3 OT sessions per week, and now we’re talking about adding in speech therapy to help with her oral issues, we are working on getting her into a developmental preschool where she could receive all these therapies on site. With another one year old to wrangle, coordinate care for, and generally deal with, taking her to and attending that many sessions per week myself would really just be a logistical nightmare, and we’re so thankful this is even an option, that I could drop her off and know she was getting care from folks who don’t have a single issue accommodating her needs. Much as we LOVE LOVE LOVE our current daycare, the fact that she’s the only kid in her room who can’t feed herself or take a sippy cup is a bit of an issue. Even better, the preschool takes siblings, too, so if I get a job in the fall, Etta could join her. And the best news of all? Claire’s Medicaid TEFRA, a benefit she qualifies for because of her disability, for which we pay an income based premium, which covers basically all of her care not covered by the insurance we get through my husband’s work, would completely cover the cost of the preschool for Claire. AMAZING!
So, now I’m on the hunt for cute shoes that fit over AFOs (I’m thinking a sweet pair of mint green Vans might be my choice), and just generally excited that our sweet girl is finally getting the help she needs to make some progress in the mobility department. She’s starting to realize that Etta can do things she can’t, and it has her raring to go!
It’s hard to believe the Bufflo Gals have gone from this:
To this:
And as they’ve grown, things have changed with the way we feed them around here. Some things have worked great, others haven’t worked out.
I really wanted to make my own baby food.
And then I met my babies. One wants nothing to do with being spoon fed (as I mentioned in an earlier post) and the other vomits the minute she tastes my homemade food. Not just spits it out. Vomits.
At first, I was sort of offended by this. I thought I had a picky baby, since she would happily gobble down jars of purees both veggie and fruit, and then immediately gag and choke on my homemade stuff that, to my eye, seemed exactly the same as the stuff in a jar. In fact, I remained irritated and offended by this for a few months.
And then I finally googled “spina bifida texture issues” and learned that this is common to many babies with spina bifida, and often requires occupational therapy to fix. And then I felt like a jerk.
We’re looking into our OT and PT options and will be getting a referral soon, but in the meantime, I have accepted that homemade baby food is just not our thing. I can make a few very thin varieties that she will eat (like tomato carrot!), but, since straining every puree through a fine mesh strainer is a huge hassle, I will just be buying jarred purees for Claire. There’s a huge variety of organic Earth’s Best foods available, so that’s mostly what we’re going with. I even got over my aversion to pureed meat, because if she’s gonna be on these things for longer than average, I want to let her have some proteins, and the only other option is lentil dinner.
Meanwhile, Etta is doing a sort of half-assed version of Baby Led Weaning. I haven’t read the books, but I’ve read about it on the internet, and, like most of the rest of my parenting, am sort of doing what feels right. She gets soft chunks of things cut into pieces she can hold in her fist. Sweet potato, pasta, carrot, watermelon, cantaloupe, cheese, and toast are all favorites. It’s going pretty well.
Etta loves eggs. Or did. Until she had an allergic reaction this morning. No more eggs for a while.
Next step: transitioning from formula to milk in about a month, and also trying to transition from bottles to sippy cups. Anyone have tips on that? Both of my girls still have issues with fast-flow nipples, and they nearly drown in sippy cups.
See, when we got our first dog Bessie, we just went to a shelter one day, found a pretty cute pup who seemed playful and friendly, and took her home. There was some puppy chewing of throw pillows and Playstation controllers, but for the most part, she was a freakishly good dog– well behaved, friendly, easy to get along with. Naturally, we thought this was all our doing. We’d go to other people’s houses and encounter unruly dogs who jumped up or begged for food or used the bathroom in the house, and we’d leave thinking to ourselves, what is wrong with them? They’re clearly doing a terrible job as pet parents! We’d think, if only they were as good as we are, they wouldn’t allow that behavior.
Then we got a second dog.
Olive, it turns out, is a vastly different dog, despite our clearly superior dog parenting abilities. In the years we’ve had her, we’ve been completely unable to teach her not to put her paws on us or attempt to climb in our laps or onto the furniture, both places she isn’t allowed. We have had to come to a very shocking conclusion: it’s not that we’re amazing dog owners, we just had a really amazing first dog.
This is a realization I think more first time parents need to come to. It’s a realization we’ve come to yet again as we parent twins who, at every turn, seem determined to remind us that they are very distinct individuals. It started when Claire began sleeping through the night on her own at about 3 months old. Etta still hasn’t mastered that feat. Baby sleep in particular seems to be an area in which everyone fancies themselves an expert. Particularly if they have one kid, the baby equivalent of a Bessie dog, they’ll happily tell you that all you need to do is exactly what they did, and you too will have a baby who sleeps through the night. I hope their next baby is an Olive, every time. Because even though we use the exact same techniques and parenting styles on both of our girls, one sleeps and one doesn’t. We can’t anymore take credit for Claire’s awesome sleeping abilities than we can the blame for Etta’s lack thereof.
The same thing happened with food. Claire took happily to purees quite easily (around 6 months), while Etta has always refused to let us spoon feed her. Several months later, at 10 months, and Etta has only recently decided that while she still hates purees, she’ll willingly chow down on any food she can hold in her own fist. Truly baby-led Baby Led Weaning. I can’t take credit for how either of my girls eats, really, either– they each just do their thing, and I figure out what that thing is through trial and error.
So, you parents of one baby who think you’ve got the whole sleeping and eating figured out through your superior skills? Your kid is probably a Bessie. The next one just might be an Olive.
erniebufflo's south & west kitchen 