three things: dancing emily-style

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It has become apparent to me today that Frank and I desperately need dance lessons.

This is not just for us – it’s for everyone who has to watch us dance.

And it’s not because of Frank.  Standing at 6’9″, Mr. Frank can cut a rug seven ways until Sunday.

No.

If you know me, and you know Frank, then you know that the source of our dance move mojo… issues… is me.  And here is my amateur diagnosis of what goes wrong on the dance floor…

thing 1: rhythm

A major element of dancing is rhythm.  You know, keeping a beat.  It’s a fundamental element of dance. As in, required. Oddly enough, my inability to keep a beat (and carry a tune and sing & clap simultaneously) was a leading factor in my decision to end my orchestral career after 8 long years of torturing a variety of dedicated musical professionals. Tonight, for example, there was a song playing and everyone was clapping along with it.  Some people were even stomping and clapping.  Me?  I was clapping.  Was I clapping at the same time as everyone else? No. And I certainly wasn’t stomping at the same time as everyone else.  As a matter of fact, I probably wasn’t even dancing to the same song as everyone else on the dance floor.  It probably looked like I was having a stroke.

thing 2: mah moves

I think that dance class would be beneficial in helping me develop more than four moves. “What are your moves, exactly?” you might ask.  Well, generally my “moves” involve looking at the people dancing near me and trying to do what they are doing. If I can’t do what they are doing, I do some sort of variation on aggressively stepping to the left and right, twitching, anxious hair adjustments and grinding on my husband’s leg.  The last dance move has been banned in some of the more conservative states in the Union, but my lawyer is appealing on grounds that I can’t help myself.

thing 3: leadership skillz

If you thought that my lack of rhythm or any dance skillz at all would’ve stopped me from trying to lead on the dance floor, then you’d be wrong. I have serious control issues that manifest themselves in trying to take over during slow songs.  Frank, being the alpha male-type that he is, often fights me for control.  Lucky for him, I also don’t have a good sense of balance, so usually he can regain the lead while I am trying not to fall on top of the cute 80 year old couple doing the foxtrot next to us. Our struggle for the lead has resulted in a lot of clenched smiles as we hiss at each other “one-TWO-three-FOUR” and “NO! ONE-two-THREE-FOUR!!!”

So… any suggestions on where to take dance lessons?  We still have three more weddings this year (although one is tomorrow, so we are probably too late on that one).

every good & perfect gift…

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is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ~ James 1:17

Today was a day that reminded me that God is always good.  Not just good in the ways that I want Him to be (read: convenient for my comfort), but good in the way that I need Him to be.

the girls: five month update

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Another month has gone by!

And finally, the girls are sleeping through the night.  Sure, “through the night” appears to be a fairly approximate term and really means “5+ hours consecutively” but I cannot complain.  The girls are eating between 6 to 8 ounces and are starting to enjoy their oatmeal with pro-biotics (hey, when you have girls with BM issues, you take whatever advantage you can get!).

But more than just sleeping and pooping, the girls are starting to get more defined personalities.

Ellie is our more reserved, seemingly introverted baby.  She loves the mornings and always greets me with a large gummy smile.  Her red hair appears to be permanent – even her little eyelashes are still red.  While she seems to have a fiery Irish exterior, she has a more stoic Scandinavian interior. Something that I’ve noticed recently is that if I am watching TV while I feed her, she is craning her neck to get a good look at the action.  She really seems to like watching reality TV, probably because they show so many faces.  And also because she has good taste in TV like her mama.  Needless to say, I will be turning off the TV more frequently while feeding them – no need to get them hooked early!  In other Ellie news, she rolled over for real over the weekend.  Sometimes babies roll over “accidentally” when they have acid reflux because their bodies are so tense.  Now she is rolling over because she really wants to, which is awesome!

Carrie is smaller than Ellie and very bald.  While they both have sparkling blue eyes, that is about where the similarities end.  Carrie is a ham.  While Ellie makes you work to get a smile out of her, Carrie thinks everything is absolutely hilarious.  Both girls started to belly laugh over the past month, especially when their daddy makes them do funny dances, but Carrie really lets loose.  While Ellie loves the morning, Carrie seems to be able to party well into the night.  She loves looking around and engaging in her surroundings.  She has yet to roll over, but she definitely wants to.

What has been really cute to see is how the girls are starting to interact.  They are starting to look at one another, grab at each other’s hands and play a little bit together.  As you can probably tell, it is hard to describe one baby without inadvertently describing what the other is not.  I suppose that is a hazard of having twins, but also a joy.  I hope that as they grow up, even though they are likely to be so different, to enjoy each other as much as we enjoy each of them.

Mom, Dad, Ellie & Carrie

twins, unplugged

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Oh, how I wish this was a post about our dear daughters acoustic stylings.

Alas, it is not.

To really understand the full scope of what I am referring to, I must begin with what transpired on Friday night.

My dear, sweet, lovely cousin was in from Oregon.  Considering that I hadn’t seen her in years (perhaps as many as five years), I was really looking forward to catching up with her and introducing her to the twins.

In my mind, the meeting would be fit for heaven: my twin cherubic delights would be angelically smiling and cooing whilst my cousin oohed and ahhed over their perfect blue eyes, creamy complexions and amazing ability to grasp toys with their sweet little fingers.  It would be the makings of a Norman Rockwell portrait.

What transpired instead?  My eldest twin was, in fact, angelic.  She cooed and slept and was a delight.  My youngest twin cried – nay – screamed for the better part of an hour.  We took turns rocking, singing, cuddling, walking and soothing her.  The only pause in her blood curdling scream was to inhale and start over.

While my primary and initial thoughts were, “What is wrong with my sweet baby??!!” I must also confess that in the background of my brain, I was thinking, “What is wrong?  WHAT IS WRONG?? Why won’t the crying stop? We are going to be THOSE parents.  The ones that can’t control their children.  If our children turn out to be wild teenagers, everyone will point back to their infancy and this particular night and say, ‘Yes, we all saw it coming.’ Holy heckfire – please stop crying! I’ll buy you a pony!  I’ll buy you a car! I will tell everyone publicly that you are my favorite!  Please, please stop crying!”

It’s a good thing that those thoughts were only running in the background of my brain because the rational thoughts circulating in the foreground included, “Oh my gosh, what if she has a tumor that is rupturing and I’m sitting here trying to tell her to calm down and this is an EMERGENCY! Maybe we should go to the hospital?  Would I sound crazy if I suggested that we go to the hospital? Can tumors rupture? Ahh!”

And of course, my devoted and loving husband stood next to me, his brow earnestly furrowed saying encouraging and helpful things in a hissed whisper like, “What in the world do you think is wrong with her? What should we do?  Feed her? Change her?  Over stimulation?  When did she poop last?  Should we get a Q-Tip?”

Did I lose you at “Q-Tip?”  For seasoned parents, you may be familiar with the age-old parental horror show of using a rectal thermometer to stimulate, ahem, the bowels.  When our doctor first told us that the only option to get things moving in our preemie newborns was to gently insert a rectal thermometer, we both gagged silently and thought, loudly, “one-two-three-not-it!”

The first three day stint of no-poopies almost resulted in the use of a rectal thermometer.  We held baby Ellie in our arms and told her how much we would sooo appreciate it if she would get things moving.  Miraculously, Ellie ended the stand-off with a BM that resulted in Frank sending me the following text, “POOPIES!!!”

We breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Turns out that was a bit premature.

A week or so later, Ellie went almost four days.  For some reason the thermometer seemed too harsh to us, so we opted to go for the Q-Tip.  And it worked like a charm.

And so, last Friday we found ourselves trying to remember the last time we changed a poopie diaper.  Three days?  Four days?  Hmmm.

Out came the Q-Tips.

But no dice.

We decided to pack up the girls and head home.  By the time we got home, Carrie seemed to be in better spirits and went to sleep easily.

Saturday was fine.

Sunday seemed like it was going to be OK.  The girls slept almost 12 hours.  We had K-Fam time and I started getting ready to go to a bridal shower.

You know, an event with adults, lunch, punch, copious amounts of female giggling and cake.

I love cake.

In between finishing my make-up and taking my rollers out, Carrie lost her ever-loving mind.

I tried everything.  Frank looked at me and I looked at him.

“Q-Tip?” we were hopeful it would work.

Nevermind that we were up against a serious deadline – my sister was coming over to babysit while Frank got ready for work and I left for the shower.

Q-Tip: Fail.

Then we googled options and there was a site that suggested a baby enema.

I can’t even explain how that is executed.

Enema: Fail.

At this point I was sweating from rocking and “shhing” and going up and down the stairs.  There was no way my stick-straight hair was going to hold the curl today.  It was the least of my concerns.

Oh, and Ellie had decided she did not like all of the raucous crying and started whining.

I made a very adult decision: I could not go to the bridal shower. No cake for Mama Bear.

We called the doctor’s office’s answering service.  They doctor’s office’s answering service called the doctor.  The doctor called us.  Dear, lovely, wonderful doctor suggested a suppository.

When she explained to Frank how to administer said suppository, he replied, “Oh, our poor girl!”

The doctor chuckled.  “More like, poor you! I think the suppositories are worse for the parents!”

Lovely.

Frank went out and bought the suppository while I told Carrie that if she pooped now, she could make this all go away.

Reasoning: Fail.

We marched Carrie upstairs, administered the suppository (some things are left unexplained) and waited.

Let’s just say, Carrie is feeling much better tonight and slept for the rest of the afternoon.

Moral of the story?

I don’t really know.

I just need to write this down so that when I am arguing with the girls about curfew, I can at least be grateful that this era of my life is behind me.  Well, it better be behind me.

human trafficking: the story continued

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It has been a month since I started investigating human trafficking. What have I been up to?

I spent some time speaking with some wonderful people at Not for Sale ministries to find out more about human trafficking.  Specifically, things that can be done on a local level to abolish human trafficking.  I will write more about that in the coming days.

Some of my dear friends have their own dear friends who are missionaries in this field.  Among them are Katharine, a woman who is a missionary in London who works with International Teams and a missionary named Christopher whose family’s mission field is Thailand.  Their stories are amazing.  Their hearts are full of a desire to love like Jesus loves and to reach into darkness and be a light.  I hope to write more about what they are doing in the coming months.  Please be praying for them!

I was surprised to receive a message from a girl I went to High School with and who was on Track & Field with me.  Her message is below and reminds me that human trafficking is an issue that is very real, even though it is so easy to ignore.  I’ve made some grammatical edits/clarifications where necessary since this was all a conversation on Facebook.  I plan to release more of her stories and insights down the road, but here are a few bits and pieces of our fascinating conversation:

Most people dont think about this as an issue and it really is quite serious. I just wanted to let you know about a special that is on CNN about trafficking. It seems pretty interesting and not sure that you knew about it.
I worked as a civilian military police officer on a military base. We were informed and made aware about trafficking through a DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) officer who was also a highway patrol man (he was both, career in law enforcement). What drug cartels are now doing in Mexico is human trafficking into the US since the US is hitting them hard with all of the drug busts and repossessions they have had in the past year or two. What the cartels do is abduct citizens in their own vehicle or get in your with you in it. Then they tell you that they will kill all your family members if you do not do what they tell you to do (since they take your identification from you).  They also threaten to kill your child if your child is in the car with you. Eventually you know that you will die if you do not do what the abductors say and they will not take your child with you. The abductors will leave your child in the car they took from you to die. (Its very sad makes me cry just thinking about it). It is easier to make money this way then getting drugs across the border.
There was a marine I worked with whose wife was at the blood donation center donating blood. She was feeling dizzy so she thought she would get some fresh air. So she went to the side of the building and stood there for a few seconds when a car pulled up asking her if she wanted to make money. She said no. The guys in the car kept talking to her telling her that she would be perfect and she was felt like there was something wrong and started to walk to the front of the building. As she started walking one of the guys tried getting out of the car to pull her in. She ran to the front, still dizzy and told the front desk. The cops were called, she gave a description of the individuals.  Apparently these two men were known for abducting girls into Mexico for trafficking, but they just haven’t been caught yet. These abductors change vehicles, used missing persons’ vehicles or stolen vehicles.

It is hard to believe that something like human trafficking hits so close to home. I have heard from multiple sources that drug cartels are switching to human trafficking because it is more lucrative.  While drugs can only be sold once before they have to get more supply, the drug cartels have discovered that men, women and children can be forced into labor or the sex trade many times over.

In an effort to illustrate that human trafficking is something that hits closer to home than we think, the folks over at Not for Sale Campaign have created a slavery map that shows reported instances of slavery occurring throughout the United States and the world.  Check out the map.  You’d be surprised to see how many reports are coming from our own backyards.

Have suggestions, questions or comments?  Leave them in the comment section or shoot me an email at tallgrl98(at)aol(dot)com.

gratuitous baby pics

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Yeah.  I love my girlz.

They are cute and snuggly and starting to be very funny.

Ellie at 4 months at the 4th of July Parade

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love that they are going to bed early and sleeping mostly through the night, but I find myself wishing they stayed up just a bit later to play with their momma.

Carrie looking serious at the parade

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They are such little joys.

That is all.

happy 4th of july…

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As I am sitting here, waiting for my brother to arrive so that we can take in the 4th of July Parade, I was listening to my girls babble in their car seats.  The babbling got slower, with long pauses in between, until Carrie slipped off into sleep.  Ellie is still awake, quietly sitting in her seat, staring off into space, waiting for a nap to come.

It is the perfect kind of peaceful quiet on a hot July morning.

My heart is full.

Thanks to all of the men and women who have fought, and continue to fight, for our independence.  I know that these moments are possible thanks to you.

the girls: four month update

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I am amazed at how quickly time flies since the girls were born! I am sure that time feels like it has passed quickly because of the lack of sleep and mind-numbing schedule of feeding the twins every three hours.  I am happy to say that as the girls hit their fourth month of life, their puking has subsided to only a “special” occasion occurrence (Carrie puked “Happy Father’s Day” in vomit all over her daddy – how sweet!).

Their laughing and smiling has evolved into cooed conversations where both girls try very hard to tell us very important things.  I try to imagine what they are saying, “Mommy, stop breathing on me – your breath is horrible” or “You will never guess what I just did in my diaper!”

At their four month appointment, the doctor was very pleased with their muscle tone, shapes of their heads and neck strength.  While they are still a bit “bobbly”, they are getting stronger and stronger every day.

Since the girls are still not sleeping through the night (love me some Starbucks), our doctor suggested that now would be an appropriate time to start feeding them oat cereal (rice would give them even worse constipation than they already have).  Enthusiastically Frank went out and bought organic oat cereal with probiotics and we went about the business of learning how to feed our girls.

Oh heavens.  It was a mess!  We don’t have high chairs yet, so we set them up in their bouncy seats.  While you or I might know how to use our tongues to swallow food, our girls are more interested in pushing food around their mouth.  The result is more food caked around their lips than actually makes it into their tummies.  Every feeding gets a little bit better, though.

We are also trying to work on a sleep schedule.  We had been letting the girls sort of settle into a natural sleeping routine, but now we are becoming more intentional about it.  We have a bedtime routine and we have been slowly moving their bedtime forward so that we are getting them ready for bed closer to 8:30 or 9 p.m.

All about Ellie:

Ellie wearing a special Father's Day bib for daddy!

Ellie’s red hair seems to be here to stay!  I love to snuggle Ellie and tell her how luscious she is.  She has the most beautiful, healthy-looking cheeks and perfect little lips.  She wants to be entertained when she is awake and loves to play on her activity mat.  When I lay her down on the mat, she kicks her feet wildly and swats and grabs for toys.  She especially enjoys the activity mat with the blinking lights.  Ellie is a great sleeper and is now officially sleeping in her crib and not in her car seat.  I love going into her room in the middle of the night to see what position she has worked herself into.  Ellie seems to have a very sweet disposition and loves to have mommy and daddy time so that she can babble away.  At Ellie’s four month doctor’s appointment she weighed 14 1/2 lbs and was 24 inches long (approximately 50th percentile for four month old full term babies, and 95th percentile for two month pre-term babies).  Miss Ellie is certainly thriving!

All about Carrie:

Carrie in her matching "Chicks dig pilots" bib!

Carrie loves to laugh and smile!  Even in the middle of the night, she often grins when we walk in the room and giggles at us.  She is very chatty and will talk to anyone who will listen.  She does not like to sit still and is working very hard on rolling over.  Like her sister, she is also sleeping in her crib and travels from one end to the other throughout the night.  Carrie is also very amused by her activity mat.  She especially loves bright toys that she can hold and study.  Carrie is very strong and when held up with her feet on the ground, she will stand as straight as an arrow.  She is certainly a lively baby and makes her likes AND dislikes well-known.  We are fortunate that for now, her likes seem to outweigh her dislikes.

Father’s Day

This year was Frank’s first father’s day!  To honor him, the girls (via me) made matching bibs that said “chicks dig pilots”.  When Frank was in college, he was quoted in the collegiate newspaper as having said, “chicks dig pilots” in response to the age-old question, “why did you get into aviation in the first place?”  The reporter used that particular quote as a call out for her story on the aviation school.  Frank never lived it down and was tickled when he saw his own chicks wearing these matching bibs.  The girls also gave Frank extra-long neckties, a sports massage at a local spa and brag book full of pictures that he can share with flight crews wherever he goes.  As an added bonus, the girls and I also had the car washed inside and out – nothing says “Happy Father’s Day” like a tidy baby-mobile!

evolution

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For those of you who were guessing that my post would be an announcement of another pregnancy – you are very wrong.

Frank would lose his ever-loving mind if we had another child barely a year younger than the twins.

Nope.  This is not a clever blog announcement about a pregnancy.

I started this blog the same month that Frank and I became engaged to be married.  I was 22 years old.

I had been out of college for less than one year.  I had been working for less than six months.

I am not even really sure why I started the blog, other than that I had a weird fascination with the idea of having a diary.  And I’m not even sure why I had that weird fascination.  I’m a terrible correspondent.  Ask anyone who has tried to correspond with me.  I found letters from my darling college roommate, Kelly, and nearly wept at the beautiful notes she would write me.

I doubt that she could make the same claim about the letters I wrote her. Because I didn’t write.  I was a horrible pen pal.

If you look at my blog from 2003, you will find that it was nothing more than a documentation of shopping excursions, what I ate and how I felt about it, and who could forget my rankings of area shopping malls?? (answer: just about anyone and everyone could and should forget it)

I don’t go back to those early postings very often.  Sometimes I do re-read various posts from our wedding planning.  But truthfully, my most pressing concern (if I’m being honest) was finding a tube top so that I would tan evenly.  Heaven help me if I had strap marks while wearing my strapless wedding gown!

I look back on those early years and I wonder at how Frank and I managed to make a life together.  I mean, considering how seriously the odds were stacked against us (under the age of 25, for starters) and then reading my blathering thoughts at the time, it’s a wonder that we managed to move across state lines, find full time employment and not critically hurt ourselves in the process.

But here we are.

I look back on those early years – my immaturity and my self-absorbed interests – and I am struck not by how much I’ve changed, but how much more aware I am that I haven’t changed as much as I should have.

Yeah, this post is not about patting myself on the back.

“Way to go, self, you managed to generally stay clear of the Emergency Room for most of your adult life. Bravo.”

No.

I think a lot of life is about peaks and valleys.  Peaks offer a moment of clarity where I get to see where I am going and where I have been – and realize that the road in both directions is long, winding and generally uncertain.

And valleys remind me of my own humanity.

I think that I am on a momentary peak.

The K-Fam, for all intents and purposes, is doing very, very well.  Frank is employed.  I am employed.  The girls are healthy and growing and developing and have clean diapers on (at the moment).  We have food and shelter and enough extra cash to afford a brand new Starbucks addiction (as long as I keep brewing at home…).

Our coffee cup runs over.

But in this rare moment of clarity, I see my life as it is.  I’m not sad about it or angry or hurt or feeling guilty.  I am just aware that I was young and like pretty much all young people I know, I was blissfully unaware.  And now I am approaching middle-aged.  Or, if I am honest, I am probably middle-aged already (I’m 30 – does that count?).

Whatever.

The point is that I see myself driving home from church, work, wherever – I see the sun shining and the wind rustling the leaves on the lush green trees and even though I have many responsibilities, I feel unburdened. I feel light.

And I am becoming aware that being unburdened is a rare, precious gift; I feel that while I am in the sunshine, enjoying the beauty of this world, there are people whose burdens are great.

Reading the news is a buzz kill.  You are bumping along in life all concerned about what is for dinner or wondering whether or not you remembered to pay the water bill, when all of a sudden a news anchor calmly, matter-of-factly explains that 32 girls in Ghana were rescued from a baby factory where their brand new babies were sold into slavery or as human sacrifices.

The juxtoposition of my life and theirs is hard to grasp.  How can my brain comprehend such disparity of the human existence?

God has been working on my heart, opening my eyes.

Am I going to end human trafficking in this world?  No.

But how can I do nothing?  How can I enjoy a warm summer day spent going for a walk or teaching my baby girls how to build sand castles, while other men, women and children are in such total darkness?

Many children find themselves sold into slavery because their families cannot afford to eat.  They are sold so that the rest of the family can survive.

And yet so easily, I can go to McDonald’s and enjoy a fruit and yogurt parfait, oatmeal or a warm cup of coffee.

While I am contemplating ways I can get involved (more to follow over the next few weeks), I cannot help but realize how mindlessly I eat.  I think very little about what and how much I put in my mouth.  After fertility treatments and a twin pregnancy, this is definitely starting to show.

I have a lot of weight to lose.  Fifty pounds to be exact.

Yeah, that’s right.  Fifty.

Not fifteen.

FIFTY.

Ugh.

What’s sad is that I’ve lost pretty much all of the baby weight.  The weight I have left to lose crept on slowly at first.  I slowly gave in to the weight gain.  “It’s just a pound.  Or two.  Or five.”

Or fifty.

Working out my body is just as important as working out my mental muscles.  The discipline I use for walking and running (and not eating dessert after every meal) helps me be more disciplined in other areas of my life, like time management or finances.

Getting involved in helping to stop human trafficking isn’t going to happen over night.  I won’t find a solution by writing a check for $5.  Big problems like this require persistent and unrelenting action.

In 2001 I started Weight Watchers.  I lost 60 lbs over the next 8 or 9 months.

I did not lose all 60 lbs in the first week.

Every week I lost a little bit and it all added up.

It’s that kind of discipline – making one more person aware, getting one more person to care – that adds up.

A little bit of kindling added slowly builds a big fire.

My goal is to become more disciplined and aware of what I eat, which will simultaneously help me work out the mental muscles needed in order to be dedicated to a cause as important as ending human trafficking.

It’s a weird way to connect two things, but it makes sense to me.

If you ask my mom, she’ll tell you I’ve always been annoyingly persistent. When I want something, I usually find a way to get it.

For every pound that I lose, we (Frank and I) will donate $10 to end human trafficking.  It’s a weightlossathon.

If you want to join me in this effort – either by losing weight yourself or donating money for every pound that I lose, please do!  Let me know in the comment section if you are “in” and what you are doing.

And if you aren’t interested in joining in, if you could keep me in your thoughts and your prayers as I go down this road – both weight loss and figuring out how to help raise awareness of human trafficking issues – I would be so grateful.

Thank you.

where is my heart?

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Like most wives, my heart is with my wonderful husband:

And of course, as a new mother, my heart is also with my sweet girls:

Ellie.

Carrie

And today I would’ve bumped along just fine with out anything else to put on my heart.

My heart was feeling quite full.

But then I came across my friend’s Facebook page.  She wrote about human trafficking.  She wrote about young girls who experienced horrors that I cannot even begin to comprehend.  My stomach turned.

And the thing is this: I’ve heard about human trafficking before.  Occasionally a story will make the homepage of CNN or MSNBC  or some other news website.

I will often feel a tug.  A sadness.

And then I will move on.

But the stories stay with me.  They always have.  As I read my friend’s page, all of the other stories I’ve read over the years came flooding back to me.  Stories that people told at church. Stories I heard about on the radio.  So many horrible stories.

I looked at my sweet babies sleeping peacefully and I am relieved that my girls are safe.

And then…

And then I think of all the sweet babies that are not safe.  And the mothers that are either powerless to do something about it – or choose not to… or both.

How can I not be moved to action?  Even if the action is only spreading awareness.

But I can’t help thinking that there must be more than spreading awareness.

This. Must. Stop.

 

Are you in?