The Twinkies

Poker has a post up bemoaning the fact that his daughter still doesn’t sleep through the night. God, how I sympathize.

J not only doesn’t sleep through the night, he isn’t night weaned. That’s right, he’s almost two and he still gets up and demands to nurse at night. Oh, you are thinking, smugly to yourself (and don’t you deny it) just wean him and everything will be better. HAH. He screamed for TWO HOURS last night. That’s right. No, he wasn’t alone, crying in his crib, sadly waiting for his cruel mother to come to him. Oh no. His father was with him patting and soothing and loving and it didn’t matter because that kid wanted to nurse and he was going to scream until he got to nurse and nothing was going to stop him.

I mean, you do kind of have to admire his persistence. It would be an admirable trait if it weren’t so directly connected to everyone else’s lack of sufficient sleep.

It took ten minutes when I finally just gave him the boob. And ten more minutes for his sister who had been woken up by his endless shrieking - go figure - and figured if she had to be awake she wanted tissy too.

“I want tissy too.”

In our house the sentence “I want _____ too” comes out of her mouth a lot. Fill whatever J has in the blank.

“I want to get up and get attention showered on me as I keep everyone awake and ensure that no one will have energy the next day too.”

This wasn’t, I confess, typical. In a typical night he gets up three times, nurses, and goes back to sleep.

“I want sleep too.”

Our new cute thing is that when they are done nursing they pull my shirt back down and say “Bye bye tissy!” F also once lunged at me across the bed after I got my bra out of the way and cried “I’m coming tissy!”

We call nursing “tissy” rather than the more standard “nums” or “milkies” because I think it sounds like they are saying “titty” with a lisp, which is as neat a summation of my sense of humor as you are likely to find.

You know, that one who is getting attention for nursing her 8-year-old at the mall? What’s the cut off when you stop being normal and move into freak?

And, now that you are resisting the urge to tell me that I am already in the freak zone ¹ here’s a cartoon to amuse you.

¹ And, yes, I’ve had at least one person who pretended to be super supportive of the twin breast-feeding call me a freak show behind my back. Oops on my finding that out.

Before breast-feeding at bedtime, which is done lying on the floor of the nursery, both kids like to get their blankies and have for a while. A new addition in the past two weeks has been their “bow-wows”, which are stuffed cocker spaniels that a friend of mine gave them when they were born. In the last few days they have added teddy bears.

Tonight Fi also demanded another blanket which her father handed her. She carried her whole stash over to me and made a nest by my side which she then promptly ignored so she could lie on top of me.

Toddlers are so funny.

J climbs into his car seat when we go to school in the morning he is so eager to get there.

Yesterday when I was picking the kids up I asked F to go get her coat. She was far more interested in climbing all over me and ignored me but J went and got it for her and brought it to her.

Yesterday I was getting set up to nurse. F had settled in but J went to go get not only his own blankie to hold while he nursed but F’s as well which he brought to her.

F is a boobie hog. She tries to grab the breast away from J and if he stops nursing she moves to his side right away. Today she was nursing on the right side and he was on the left. He stopped to read so she moved over and grabbed the left. Then, a few minutes later J decided he wanted more. First he tried to get his mouth on the same nipple F had, then he walked around to the other side. F lunged over and grabbed that nipple so he couldn’t have it. I looked at her and said, “You’re a boobie hog” and she actually laughed.

Today I gave both J and F a bit of ice cream sandwich. J popped his in his mouth and looked around for more. I said, “Maybe F will give you a bite of hers” and he looked at her and she held out her piece for him to take a bite.

In the bath tonight I asked F if she could give her brother a kiss and she leaned in a gave him one.