Traveling with Twins: the Good

Lest you think the whole trip was filled with crying and wailing, here are some highlights from our two weeks in Oregon.

Flying
We flew Southwest, which I haven't flown in more than a decade. They have an "open seating" policy - you can sit in any open seat when you board. When you're traveling with children, you get to board fairly early in the process, and then you hope that whoever sits by you chooses the seat because they like (or at least don't mind) babies. We had friendly seat neighbors on all the flights plus very helpful flight attendants. One the last leg home, the guy sitting by Baby A and me was just over the moon about A and all his antics. He told me about his flight saga of getting delayed and rerouted then said it was all worth it to get to meet our twins. Aww :)

Visiting Family
Living so far away from family is tough. It was lovely to spend a good chunk of time with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They all were on cloud nine to hang out with the babies, and the babies seemed to like them, too. It was especially fun when DF's mom, aunt, brother, brother's girlfriend, and girlfriend's mom came down for a few days. Lots of laughter!

Catching up with Friends
The boys got to have some play dates with friends' kids, which was pretty fun. It's always nice to visit people who have known you for a long time. Nothing against my new Southern friends, of course! Make new friends and keep the old.

Not Having a Job
This is the first summer in six years that I've been unemployed, and I've got to say, it's glorious. My previous job was super busy in the summer season. I was never able to take more than a day or two off at a time. Even if I was on "vacation" or it was a weekend, I still had to be on-call, and I always got called. I very clearly remember being at a family reunion campout a few years back, standing under some trees early one morning, discussing the case of an exchange student with mumps while my relatives impatiently waited for me to get back to cooking the bacon!

Getting Some Breaks to Be an Adult
With all the extra hands on deck, I did get to relax sometimes. DF and I even got to go out by ourselves once. Whoa! We also hung out with my sister at her hipster downtown loft, and she introduced us to some of the city's new, cool spots. Incidentally, she's also blogging about her exciting life now. Check it out!

Good Food & Drink
Gotta love the Northwestern cuisine and beverage options.

Coastal Living
One of my parents' friends gave us a good deal on a beach house on the Central OR coast. We spent 3 days there early in the trip, and it was exactly what I needed to relax and reset my brain from the stress of travel. Living in Memphis, I feel so landlocked. (The Mississippi River is nice and all, but it's no ocean!) I loved being able to breathe the sea breezes and watch the sun set behind the waves.

Enjoying the Scenery & Weather
I loved seeing all the rolling hills and soaking up the non-humid sunshine of the Willamette Valley!

Traveling with Twins: a Family Trip, Not a Vacation

Yesterday, another mom told me that when you travel with kids, you should call it a "family trip" rather than a vacation because it sets your expectations accordingly. Good advice! I don't think I was mentally prepared for what traveling with babies is really like. Let me try to explain it for those of you who are thinking of having kids, or whose kids are all grown up now and you've romanticized their infanthood...

Life at Home

We have our routines and schedules pretty much set. There's slight daily variation, but for the most part, we do the same things over and over. The boys (and parents!) are used to it. I have all their gear handy and know where it is. I have a plan for what to feed them and when. Nap and bedtimes are predictable. It's kind of boring at times, but since the alternative seems to involve a lot of screaming, I have accepted that this phase of life just comes with a certain amount of boredom.

Life on the Road

When you travel with kids, you have to do all of your regular parent stuff + deal with lots of changes that throw the kids off. Maybe it's partly our fault for keeping them on such a structured schedule at home. It's hard to learn to be flexible and adaptable!

On the one hand, it was nice to have extra adults around to assist in baby duty. Grandma and Grandpa were eager to spend time with the babies, and we also had lots of other visitors and admirers. But, the boys took some time to warm up to all these different faces. So that meant DF and I were doing extra work to keep the boys calm and feeling safe when they got overwhelmed by too many people. Baby A especially is picky about who he'll allow to feed him a bottle, and they were both sick at the start of the trip so were extra clingy to Mom and Dad. 

We visited several different homes on the trip, none of which housed small children usually. So, DF and I were constantly chasing babies around, keeping them from pulling on cords, ripping up/eating paper, and chewing on whatever they could find on the floor. Great Grandma's house was like a minefield of baby disasters waiting to happen. We wound up spending lots of time outside with them where they ate grass, but that seemed better than ingesting the straight pins I found in the carpet...

It was hard for them to sleep in new environments. I can't really fault them for that, as I also have a hard time sleeping in a new place. Unfortunately, their only way to express their concerns is by screeching/fussing/thrashing about. I wish they could understand my soothing words. Instead, we spent many nights holding not-sleeping babies. On the bright side, though, by the end of the trip they were doing a lot better and not waking up nearly as much. Yay for adapting!

Feeding them was tricky, too. I'm used to having a stash of baby-appropriate foods in my fridge and cupboard so when meal time rolls around, I'm ready to go. On the road, I had to plan ahead a lot more, but I wasn't very good at it. So the boys wound up eating a lot of bread/Cheerios. They love carbs and didn't complain, but I felt that I should've been feeding them a more balanced diet!

Now, on the positive side, I think that by interacting with so many new people, they got over some of the shyness and hesitancy around strangers that they had been exhibiting before the trip, particularly A. Baby B has always been a little more friendly, and he seemed to enjoy all the extra attention. They got to play with new toys and developed some new skills, like clapping their hands. I was also glad they were able to spend more time outside. The weather in Oregon was perfectly lovely, and my parents have a nice front and back yard. The boys got to eat fresh raspberries off the bush (a big hit!), play with wind chimes, go on lots of walks, play at parks, and meet some neighbor dogs. We found out they really like animals! Here in Memphis, it has been so hot and sweltering that we hardly spend any time outside. I think they liked the change of pace. 

A Peaceful Sunset on the Oregon coast

Traveling with Twins

We recently returned from two weeks in Oregon with the babies. Wow. Traveling with kids is a whole new ballgame, that's for sure! In this post, I'll focus on the logistics of travel itself. I'll warn you now, it's mostly a lot of whining! I sure hope that traveling with kids becomes easier in the future.

Before Kids
I used to travel for work all the time, so I had a pretty good mental packing list when it came to personal trips. DF and I would wait till the night before or morning of our trip to throw some stuff in our carry-on bags, call a taxi, and arrive at the airport no more than 90 minutes before our flight. On the plane, we'd play on our phones, watch movies if provided, read books, nap, eat snacks, and generally relax. Upon arrival at our destination, we'd either use public transportation or pick up our rental car and head off for adventures. Maybe we'd be a little tired if we had to get up early for the flight, but we caught up on sleep within a day or two of being footloose and fancy free.

With Kids
I started fretting about flying with the babies before we even bought tickets for this trip. About 3 months before departure, I created an overly-detailed Google spreadsheet for everything we could possibly need (including items to pack, buy in advance and ship, and borrow or buy in Oregon), which probably resulted in stressing my parents out as I convinced them to drive all over the Willamette Valley borrowing baby goods.

A week before we were scheduled to leave, both babies (of course) came down with colds. They kept waking up at night and needing me to snuff out their noses. Then one night, A screamed for quite awhile, so I took them both to the doctor in the morning to discover A had an ear infection. B's ears looked fine, but he was still grouchy. When travel day arrived, then, both DF and I were already exhausted from a week of sleep deprivation and cranky, sick, teething babies.

We managed to fit our copious amounts of gear into 3 checked bags and 3 carry-ons, plus our two infant carrier car seats. We almost forgot the snap-n-go folding stroller, but luckily the taxi had only driven about a mile away from our house when I remembered it! We arrived at the airport two hours early and had to wait in line to check our bags. I don't recall the last time I had checked luggage!!

Going through security was rather chaotic. There were no TSA personnel on the "load your stuff" side of the screening zone to tell us what to do with our carseats and stroller, so we just sort of stood there looking confused until someone finally pointed us in the right direction. Once through security, we had to buy some bottled water so we could make the babies' bottles while traveling. We also attempted to feed ourselves, semi-successfully. I didn't really want the boys to crawl around the waiting area eating all the crumbs and dirt they found on the floor, but that meant we each had to hold one, and they weren't super happy about being constrained.

We didn't purchase seats on the plane for the babies (so expensive!) but got lucky on leg #1 of travel (Memphis-Houston) that there were unoccupied seats, so we got to bring their carseats on the plane. Yay, babies napping in flight! We weren't so fortunate on leg #2, the four-hour jaunt. Four hours of holding a squirming baby who refuses to nap. Yeah, that's about as fun as it sounds. I think they were too distracted by all the people who wanted to stop and talk to/make faces at them. I mean, it was nice that the other passengers were being friendly, but they wound the kids up too much to sleep! I just kept shoving Cheerios in the boys' mouths. It was extra tricky because the four of us couldn't all sit in the same row - there is only one extra oxygen mask per 3-seat row, so only one lap baby is allowed. We wound up sitting across the aisle from each other. We survived (barely).

Upon arrival at PDX, we found out that Southwest had lost our luggage. I don't know how they managed to do that because we were on the same plane all the way from Memphis! Apparently someone took our bags off the plane when they shouldn't have. Argh! And then there were a series of car accidents causing big delays on the highway, so a usually 1.25 hour drive took nearly 2.5 hours. We were all cranky and exhausted by the time we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Well, maybe not DF because he has the mental fortitude to decide not to be cranky, but the other 3 of us aren't as capable of controlling our emotions :)

Where is our luggage??

Predictably, I had packed the babies' white noise sound machine and sleep sacks in one of the lost suitcases. So, we all had another long and sleepless night as they had none of their usual sleeping comforts, besides pacifiers. The luggage was delivered to my parents house early the next morning. Hooray, things are looking up!

They Are Not Double Trouble!

I'm sorry I sort of complained about normal, well-intentioned people who make remarks to me about twins at the grocery store and other public places. You know what? If a nice person smiles and asks if the boys are twins, or tells me a brief twin anecdote, I'm going to happily go along with the pleasant interaction.

However, even if you look like a kindly grandma, I draw the line at following us around the Dollar Tree practically shrieking about how this is the best day of your life because you got to see my kids, then when you notice I'm buying a Father's Day balloon telling me a story about some twins you knew where one twin died from eating a balloon that popped... Yes, that literally happened...

And one more thing, strangers: stop calling my boys "Double Trouble." It's annoying! This phrase is almost always uttered with a chuckle by men over the age of 50. But when they say it, the twins aren't causing any trouble. They are sitting calmly in their stroller, watching the world go by. Why can't you just say something banal like, "Oh, twins!"

I didn't know I had this defensive mama bear streak in me. I thought I'd be one of those moms who is like, "Ha ha, my kids are so entertaining and I don't care if you say sarcastic things about them." But then these strangers jokingly call them trouble, and I'm all like, "Oh no you didn't! They are precious gifts from God and don't you imply otherwise!!"

Baby Milestones

Baby A & B are almost a year old. Wow! It's kind of amazing how much they have changed in a year. Since I'm observing them every day, sometimes I don't notice right away when things are different. I better record some of their noteworthy moments before I totally forget all of them :)

Overall, I'm happy to report that their developmental milestones have brought increased joy to the household. But not every moment has been sunshine and butterflies. Just keeping it real here - I'll note the highs and the lows.

Physical Development - Highs

• Able to hold up own head. This one was huge! When they were newborns, it was a lot of work just to handle them because they were soooo floppy. I couldn't really pick up both babies at the same time. I could hold them, if someone else handed me one of them. But I didn't have enough arms/hands to pick them both up very safely.
• Rolling over. I felt less nervous about SIDS once they could roll over both ways independently. Of course, when they first started rolling over in bed, I would flip them to their backs again, which they did not appreciate. Once I had confidence they really knew how to roll, I let them sleep on their tummies if they wanted. And when they were awake, they used rolling to move around on the floor, much to their delight.
• Sitting up independently. This is a recent milestone. It really makes life easier for activities like bathing. Baby B has been able to do it for a month or so, but A really only mastered it in the last two weeks. And "mastered" is a bit of an exaggeration because if they are tired, they both still have a tendency to tip over. They're getting pretty good at catching themselves, though :)

Physical Development - Lows

• Rolling over, early stages. Oh, the head bonking! When they first started rolling, they didn't have very good head/neck control so they were always whacking their heads on the floor. Ouch!
• Crawling. This one is really a high + low. I'm glad they figured out how to move and it is beyond adorable when they follow each other around the house. But oh my word, they get into EVERYTHING now. I can't leave them alone for a minute and 100% babyproofing has proved impossible.
• Pulling up. Another recent development, pulling themselves up has resulted in A LOT of bumps and bruises. Just the other day, I had put their carseats up on a bench, supposedly out of reach, but B pulled one down on his head. Ack! 

Language Development - Highs

• Babbling. It was so adorable when they started making little noises, like "gaaa" and "ooo." Hard to transcribe, but cute nonetheless! It was like they were becoming actual people at that point who were able to communicate with the world. 
• Sound effects. A learned how to click his tongue, and that entertained him for a solid week. B just figured out if he tips his head back and goes "ahhh," he can make this guttural, Godfather-like sound. He thinks it is hilarious.
• Laughing. Is this language? Not sure. I love listening to them giggle!
• Saying "mamamamama." I don't think they've quite figured out that I am "Mama," but whenever they say "mamamama," I look at them and say, "Yes? Did you need something?" so they learn that it's my name. They'll get it soon :)

Language Development - Lows

• Screeching. Seriously, like screech owls. Both of them, simultaneously, for no reason other than they like the sound of screeching. They don't do this very often anymore, thank heavens.
• Morning songs. Ok, yes this one actually is cute and I'm sure once they are all grown up, I'll be like, "Aww, remember how they used to make noises in their cribs?" But the 4AM singing of "gooo-gaaaa-laaaa" wasn't very adorable when the parents were trying to sleep. Now they usually wait till 6 or 6:30 to sing. That's not as bad.

Eating Skills Development - all Highs!

I have no complaints in the eating department. It has just gotten better as they've grown!

• Self feeding. This one took awhile to master, but now that they can do it, wow, it makes meal time so much better. They really prefer shoveling food in their own mouths rather than having to eat off a spoon. Hey, works for me! I just load up their high chair trays and then I actually get a few minutes to feed myself. Win-win!
• Bottle time. Ok, yes I wish they'd cooperate with my attempts to teach them to hold their own bottles. That hasn't worked yet. But it only takes them about 5 minutes to drink a bottle now instead of the 30+ minutes of newborn-hood. And they burp themselves! I don't usually even have to pat their backs anymore.

By this time next year, I predict they will be totally different people, running and jumping around everywhere, talking, and chewing a variety of foods with actual teeth (they only have 2 teeth each still). That's going to be exciting!

People That You Meet

Almost every time I take the kids out in public, someone has to comment on the fact that they are twins, or tell me a story about twins they know, etc. I'm getting used to it. But I've had a couple noteworthy interactions in the last week or so. I will now share them with the world!

(Kroger is our local grocery store, for any non-Memphians reading this blog)

Me: walking past the meat department in Kroger with the babies
Random lady who appears to be 60ish: "Oh, triplets!"
Me: holding up 2 fingers "Nope, just twins" and trying not to roll my eyes at her

Me: meandering slowly down the dairy aisle at Kroger looking for on sale yogurt and narrating the experience to the babies
Random lady who appears to be 80ish: "Oh, twins. How sweet! You know, I'm a twin too. My twin brother just died."
Me: "Oh my, I'm so sorry to hear that"
Lady: "I feel like I lost half of myself."
Me: feeling awkward that this stranger is sharing her grief with me, but trying to look at her kindly
Lady: (to the babies) "You've got a good mama here. I can tell she's taking good care of you."
Me: wondering if telling your kids about yogurt is a sign of stellar mothering, but I'll take the compliment :)

Me: just finished checking out at Target using the self-check machine, heading out of the store
Random lady with 3 boys: "Oh look boys, they are twins just like you!"
Me: noticing that two of the kids look quite similar, "Yes, you used to be small just like these guys and everyone probably asked your mom if you were twins"
Lady: "Don't worry, it does get easier!"
Me: Smiling, "So I hear," meanwhile thinking to myself--I heard your kids making a ruckus and fighting over who got to scan things at the self-check while my two little guys sat contentedly in their stroller chewing on toys...I think that going to Target is only going to get harder, actually!

Jury Duty, Part II

As promised, here is the conclusion to my tale of jury duty. I selected this week to serve at the advice of a friend who said to pick a week with a federal holiday on Monday, since there are usually fewer trials. Good advice!

Here's what happened.

Last week, I had yet to receive a reminder notice in the mail (as had been promised). I emailed the jury commission and then miraculously, my notice appeared on Friday. It included reminders about the dress code, prohibited items, and where jurors can park at a discount. 

I arrived punctually on Tuesday morning to find the jury assembly room once again teeming with my fellow citizens. The jury commissioner went over a lot of the same information from back in December. Then she called roll. Most people were present. Then we sat around and waited.

A judge showed up to give us a rah-rah pep talk about the importance of serving jury duty. He rambled on and on. I figured I should be respectful and pay attention b/c if he saw me reading a book, he'd probably find some way to get me assigned to a sequestered jury case. But then he started in about Memorial Day and how anyone who tries to get out of jury duty is disrespecting those who lost their lives in service to our country. Oh my, that was a bit over the top, and I couldn't help rolling my eyes. Look, Mr. Judge, our armed forces defend our freedom. When you compel/manipulate/force people to do things, that isn't really freedom now, is it? Of course, I hope most people will fulfill their civic duty to serve on a jury, and we have laws in place about that sort of thing, but if taking a week off work to be on a jury presents a legitimate financial hardship, I don't think we should be guilt-tripping people about it.

The judge finally let us get back to doing nothing. Well actually, first we had to listen to the commissioner answer the same questions over and over because, seriously, some people can't pay attention. She also told us that the thermostat in the room was set at a temperature where most people should be comfortable, but if someone was unbearably hot/cold to let her know, and it would go up for a vote with a maximum of one thermostat-adjustment vote per day. Ha! I am betting that policy came up because of some unruly past jurors...

For some reason, they play music in the waiting room. Maybe it was supposed to pacify us. Some of my neighboring jurors felt compelled to sing along. Others were playing games or watching videos on their phones with the sound on. Grrr - audio pollution! I tried to zone them out while reading my book.

Once in awhile, the commissioner would come in and call a group of people to go serve on a jury pool. On about the fifth round, my name was called. I was excited! I had been chosen! I've always wanted to be on a jury since watching "12 Angry Men" in school. Someone has to be the voice of rationality in the room!

The person reading our names off told us to wait in the hallway, but (inefficiently) he did not tell us to stay in the same order that we'd been called. A deputy came out and asked if anyone needed to use the bathroom or move their car. After lots more waiting, she lined us up in our original order and assigned us a juror number. I was #7. There were about 35 in our group. We then walked in our line over to a neighboring courthouse. She also kept offering us bathroom breaks. I felt like I was on a preschool field trip.

At the courthouse, we had to go through a security screening where the guard was befuddled by a juror with a pacemaker who did not want to go through the metal detector or be swiped with a wand. I thought I was going to have to intervene to prevent catastrophe, but they worked it out amongst themselves. Then we slowly made our way up to our assigned courtroom.

In the interim, one of the jurors disappeared. She allegedly had to go move her car because she was parked at a meter, despite multiple announcements not to do that and several earlier opportunities to move her car. We waited and waited in the hallway. IDK if we were only waiting for her, or also for some court proceedings. It was super boring, and it was already 11:30am so I was getting hungry because I usually eat lunch pretty early.

Fiiiiinally, we went into the courtroom - all 35 of us (minus the missing juror). Since I was #7, I got to sit in the jury box. I felt so legit! The judge told us about how important the jury system is, good for you for being here, blah blah blah. Then we had to take roll again. The judge told us a little about the case. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to talk about it or not, so I'll just say it was a civil case/lawsuit. By then it was almost 12:30pm and we got a lunch break. She told us that after lunch, they'd start in on jury selection.

I found a nearby Cuban restaurant that was super delicious. I could hardly pick what to order because everything sounded so good! I decided that if the trial went on for a few days, maybe I'd come back again to try some of the other items. It felt weird to be out and about in the city, by myself, like a normal working person. And I was wearing work clothes instead of spit-up stained yoga pants. Strange!

After lunch, we all got in our numerical line again (including the missing juror, who had reappeared) and filed into the courtroom. I noticed that the plaintiff was no longer present. The lawyers asked to approach the bench. They had a hushed conversation with the judge. Then the judge said some more things to us about how wonderful jury trials are and if we ever have to go to trial, we better hope it's in the USA. She then swore us in as jurors only to tell us that the matter had been resolved and the case was being dismissed. Our jury service was complete; we were free to go. Well, that was anticlimactic! 

In Shelby Co., you only have to serve once every 10 years. I doubt I'll still be living here in another decade, so I guess this was my one day of jury duty. It turned out to be more interesting than I expected but not as dramatic as a legal thriller TV show or movie.

I know last time I posted about jury duty, I was ranting about how little is provided for jurors. I mean, you have to pay for your own transportation/parking, lunch, and child care. You get paid $11 per day. But then I was thinking about it some more and realized that I don't necessarily want to pay higher taxes so that all jurors can have free parking and free child care. It cost me less than $20 for parking two days (December and May) + one lunch. DF had the day off and stayed home with the boys, so no cost for child care. That is really not so bad. If the county offered reimbursements, I'm sure people would take advantage of that system. 

Good luck to anyone else serving jury duty soon. Your country appreciates it, I hear :)