Living with Less

"My life is just plain better than yours.  We have a 5 bedroom house with a yard and you live in a 1 bedroom apartment. Our monthly budget is $9,000 plus vacations and extras."

Can you imagine someone saying that to you?  Comparing who has the better life because of housing size and how much money they make?  Do you compare yourself to others based on these things?

Longtime readers will know that our family

Nothing Say Summer Like a Seer Sucker Suit

I'm terribly behind in blogging--Chicken traveled for one week to the west coast, my mom came to visit and help out that week, the boys got sick, we all traveled upstate and some of us are still a little sick.
There.  All caught up.

Now, for photos of my darling duo with their new suits and haircuts.

Lazy Days in Caribbean Costa Rica

March--

We had quite a few rainy days in CR. It rained almost every day at some point, which was fine, but the days where it rained nonstop made us all a bit crazy and desperate.
Of course, it made it a bit more entertaining to photo document a day like that:

I Want Big Bed

Grunter is ahead of his brother when it comes to language and always has been.  W2 is catching up, but these days it really is all about the funny things Grunter is saying.

Tonight in the dark as I was saying night night:

"I want different bed."
"What kind of bed?"

Teaching Toddlers Days of the Week

In my home we don't have strictly set schedules, but we do have a natural rhythm of the day.  This has come about more or less organically as I've allowed the twins to explore the best times for them to play/eat/sleep rather than set my own schedule and make them

Hunting for Chonies (Underwear)

I really need to do a big write-up on how our potty training is going (or rather did not go in Costa Rica).
But I'm thinking that showing the boys real chonies might motivate them more.
Maybe?
Anyway....where do you buy little boy underwear??
This is the cutest stuff I've found.  I love their clothes so it's no surprise that I love their chonies.

34 Weeks Pregnant with B/G Twins--Update from Amsterdam

A long time ago, I asked your advice for a friend of mine.  After trying to conceive for years and enduring miscarriages, failed IVF's and FET's--she finally did an FET and is pregnant with b/g twins.  She had received a bad N/T scan for one of her twins and was very scared.
Since then, she went on to do an amnio and

Just Another Rainy Day Walk

There's been a lot of rain here this week and the boys are thrilled to be able to wear their rain boots and coats every day.  I am not so thrilled as I'm not the biggest fan of chilly, rainy weather...but they are damn cute in their rain gear.
This season brings a lot of construction in our neighborhood and they gear up the grounds for summer. For the boys, that means getting to watch lots of diggers, tractors and shoveling.  Much better than TV and hours of entertainment!
No matter how many activities I try to plan, I cannot keep these boys inside a full day.  Scratch that, I can't keep them inside even a half day.  Trust me, I tried yesterday and by 10am, they were riot mode yelling, "Out!".  And so out we went.  And it was good.
They keep me from being a hermit on a chilly, rainy day.
And they are really cute (new haircuts!).

Kids Say the Cutest Things

Whoop Whoop is passionate.  Oh my goodness that boy is bursting with energy, love, joy and passion. He smiles most of the day and easily breaks out in giggles and shrieks.  It's hard not to smile when you are around him.  But when he's really excited and/or tired, he bites.
It's not a mean thing or an aggressive thing.  He hugs you and he may bite you.  Yesterday he was hugging the pillow and bit a hole in the pillowcase.  He has bitten a hole in my shirt.  We think he just gets so overwhelmed with his enormous amount of passion that he has to release it.
But it hurts.

Last night, he was having one of his moments in the crib where you just knew if you went in for the hug you would risk being bitten.  But oh, it would be a great hug.  The tightest hug and his entire body would tremble and shake because he has such strong feelings.
I said to him, "Whoop Whoop, I really want to give you a good night hug and kiss but I don't want you to bite me.  It scares Mommy when you bite me.  It hurts."
From the dim darkness I heard a little voice pipe up, "I wuf you, Mommy.  Don't be scared.  I won't bite you."
And there is Grunter, arms outstretched over the crib railing reaching towards me.  I turned to pick him up and got the most precious hugs and kisses from him as he told me over and over that he loved me.
Could it get any better than that?
Just then I hear W2, "I wub you, Mommy.  I no bite.  I wub you."
Melt.

Sweet, sweet little boys.

Transition to Preschool

One of the best parts of our month long trip to Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica was enrolling the boys into Seaheart Waldorf Preschool.
Resistant to most of the early learning programs--and associated costs--here in Manhattan, I was eager to explore the Waldorf play-based method and see how my children would respond to 'school', especially a bilingual one.

My (then) 25-month-old twins hadn't had much time away from mommy and the transition to their nanny had been a very long one fraught with many tears.  In October we'd started attending a church that offered a drop off kids center.  It did not go well.  Every week we'd try and every week they would scream and run after us.  But eventually things with the nanny and the church ended up just fine.

But Seaheart was going to be a huge transition.  We were asking a lot of them.  In five days they'd been in a taxi, a plane, a bus, a minivan, a pickup truck, a bike, 2 hotel rooms and 'moved' into a big house.  And they'd done amazingly well with all of it.  We were all frazzled and tired and hot as hell, but the kids were adjusting to their surroundings and having a (mostly) great time.

The director told me weeks later that my boys transitioned faster than any kids she'd ever had.  I was shocked.  And well...a little proud.  I was really worried about them making it 4 days in a row from 8am-noon.  There were days we walked to school and they both said "no school" but when we got there and they saw Bubbles the bunny and especially the chickens--my God they love chickens--it was usually OK.  Sure there were tears--more from Whoop Whoop than Grunter which was the opposite of what we'd expected--but they never lasted long.

There are a few very big things I never expected from motherhood:

• I never thought I'd have the opportunity to be a stay-at-home mom.
• I never thought I'd be one of those moms who hadn't spent a single night (uh, or full day) away from her kids.
• I never thought I'd breastfeed for a year let alone continue breastfeeding well beyond the 2nd birthday.
• I never thought I would entertain the idea of homeschooling.

Maybe if an affordable, quality, nature/play-based preschool program were available to us here I would be thinking differently.  In fact, I'm sure I would.
I loved Seaheart, I love the teachers, the volunteers and I loved watching my kids grow in the month they were there.  The place was straight out of a granola fairy tale and if we lived there the boys would continue on.
But we don't live there and we aren't moving there and we can't afford the Waldorf preschool here that charges $25K per child.
And while it was nice to have the 4 hour break every morning, by the time they got home it was time to nap and it left very little quality time with them.  When Friday rolled around, I was really missing my boys.
I'm in a very fortunate position to stay at home and I really can't imagine sending them to a program where they are cooped up inside most days.  Chicken, on the other hand, can't imagine spending every day at home with them!  Which means we both have the right jobs:)
Speaking of Chicken, she's not all aboard the homeschooling train.  But she has agreed that for the early years, it sounds like a good idea (so far).  Who knows, by the time they are 5 years old, maybe I will be ready for them to go to school.
I don't know.  But for now, I'm relishing the idea of keeping them right here with me just as long as I can.  To play, to be outside, to explore, to grow, to learn.  To just be kids.
When it's time to transition, we'll do that.  And they will be just fine.

Big Ideas

I've taken a long hiatus.
Some of you are probably wondering if we decided to check out and stay in Costa Rica....
We did think about it, but no, we are back in NYC and loving our life here.  There was the general readjustment period and second-guessing your life but the boys, Chicken, myself and the cat are all alive, well and thriving.
While I'd love to give you some wonderful story about why it's been so long since I've blogged, the truth is I haven't got a great reason.
I spent many days in Costa Rica *meaning* to blog but instead I spent the time lazing in the hammock staring at the sea, watching the birds flit about and trying to spot our elusive 3-toed sloth.
There were many discussions of life and school and travel, both amongst ourselves and also some new like-minded parents/friends.
My head has been spinning with the thoughts of home schooling, long term travel, road schooling and a new (and improved!) focus on health.
And now it's May.  Just like that.
And now it's time to write again.  I've got a lot to catch up on so I'm setting up a daily blog goal for this month.  Might just be photos and a lot of it could be recaps of our time in Costa Rica, but I'm ready to clear my head and dive back in.

See you tomorrow.