Confessions not to worry about

I feel bad that I'm writing and posting this blog a day late.

I am constantly fretting over how much there is to do - 9 month old twins, one with temporary special needs, a new full time job, the house, the diabetes...And I'm fretting about how much isn't getting done.

I worry about my son's health. How long will this last? Will we ever figure out what's going on with him?

And then I worry that I'm not showing him enough fun attention and that I'm not showing Aria, my daughter, enough attention.

I worry about my health. I have let some things go. I still check my blood sugars, and I still bolus insulin with my pump before meals and to correct high sugars. And I still exercise four to five times a week. But I haven't made a few doctors appointments. I've been procrastinating. And I haven't done some basal testing that is long overdue. And I have been eating lots of junk food and drinking Diet Coke again, which I had given up two years ago. My eyesight has gotten fuzzy (which may be allergies). And I haven't been attending to my hip and hands.

I worry about money. But I'm not going to get into that here.

I definitely worry that I'm doing things wrong. Not good enough syndrome. But I guess you surmised that after reading the above.

And then I worry that I worry so much....

And all of this worrying has eaten up a lot of time. And it's kept me from enjoying life more. And it probably is the biggest part of the problem. Because I bet you that everything in my life is just fine. Actually everything is great.

So why worry? I'm not sure why.

I was fretting over what to write about yesterday, surfing the web looking for answers, and I found Martha Beck's March 2012 column in Oprah magazine on 10 Things You Can Officially Stop Worrying About. The article spoke to me loud and clear. My favorite line when she spoke about how you can stop worrying about your children: "Worry teaches worry" and "People blossom when you bring love to them."

The same is true for us. Worry creates more worrisome energy. But feelings of love, abundance, and gratitude bring more love, abundance, and gratitude.

I have seen this materialize in my own life time and time again. Next time I start to worry, I'm going to do my best to remember the simple lesson of love.

Bring love to everything you do, and the worry goes away....

Healthy sleep, healthy body, happy family, happy mom

Boy did we have a rough night last night. We're not sure if Aria is teething, had painful gas, or all of the above. My husband and I spent an hour and a half trying to calm her, then of course we had to calm her brother because she woke him up (and probably the whole neighborhood), and then each other so that we could get back to sleep.

She survived. And after a night of being awakened four or five more times (who knows how many really), I woke up exhausted. And in physical pain, once again.

This may sound like hell, and it kind of is. But the good news is that Aria really is typically a great sleeper. That's how we know that the crazy waking up must be something like teething. And it also gives me a chance to re-visit the importance of sleep for a healthy body - and for a happy me.

This is not new news from the mom of the infant twins world. I don't think I'm saying anything new when I tell you that sleep is important to your health; it's a chance for your body to restore physically, emotionally, and mentally.

All that saying, I have to write about this topic. Because I'm just so tired and that's what's on my mind. And because I feel a real difference in my health when I sleep and when I don't sleep.

Here's a brief example: I woke up two days ago with pain in my left hip. Mind you, that's the hip that has healed. I took a nap at around 4 pm. I woke up, and the pain went away!

I desperately wrote our pediatrician an e-mail asking for advice a few months back when the kids were waking up every two hours. I knew I wouldn't make it if we kept going like this.

What I didn't know it at the time, and now do, is that I was taking on a new family project: Get us all to sleep well. She recommended that I read "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth, which I call 'the sleepy book' for short.

The sleepy book tells us tired, exhausted parents all the reasons why lack of sleep is so detrimental to the health of infants AND adults. Sleep is important for mental alertness, and lack of sleep has been shown to cause fussiness, excited-ness, and an upset baby. It has been linked to attention deficit disorder in older children.

And an Australian sleep study done on adults shows that lack of sleep causes an increase in cortisol – the body’s stress hormone. Cortisol is a hormone that we diabetics are familiar with as it has also been linked to rising morning blood sugars (known as dawn phenomenon) and weight gain. Please check diabetes.org for more information or the links provided in this paragraph.

The sleepy book recommends creating an environment for healthy sleep, which includes: a regular sleep schedule, sleep consolidation - meaning lots of it undisturbed, naps (for children), and sleep duration night and day. His strategies work unless a baby is teething, sick, just received immunizations, or is hungry.

So first there's the schedule: We did this by logging when our kids' natural sleepy times and feedings are and then building a schedule around them. And then sticking to it. The schedule is key. We treat naps as sacred, and we don't keep them awake to play with visitors. Ever.

Undisturbed sleep is also important. Never wake a sleeping baby. Of course this is hard when you are also sticking to a schedule - with twins - but it somehow works itself out on most days. We do wake them up if we need to - mostly because of their feeding schedule, and the sleeping schedule falls into place around it naturally.

Longer night and day sleep results from putting kids to bed when they first appear drowsy. Not stretching them. So when we see Aria starting to slow down or Ethan staring into space, we know it's time for bed. If they're yawning, rubbing their eyes, or getting fussy, it means they're already overtired.

This works for us most of the time. The sleepy book does say that babies start to sleep through the night at around nine months after their due date. So we have some time to go. And I'll tell you, it's not an easy journey. And as everyone told me when this whole thing started, it does get better.

One thing I can say is that I have never been so aware of sleep before. I used to just do it. Now I pray for it and appreciate it when it does happen. I do believe that once the sleeping gets back on track that I'll feel better physically. Healthier and happier. We all need healthy sleep so that we can be healthy and happy. And I hope I will never take sleep for granted ever again...

P.S. I wrote this blog yesterday, Sunday morning, and last night both babies slept the whole night!!! And I slept for nine and a half undisturbed hours!!! I feel better already. My hands feel much better, and my hips do too.

P.P.S. I cannot possibly relay the wealth of information found in the sleepy book. Check out the sleepy book for all of the tips and tricks!

Keeping up with the milestones

Does your baby roll over yet? Sleep through the night? Eat solids? How much does your kid weigh? How much tummy time do you give your baby?

I have been thinking a lot about weight gain and milestones lately. Mainly because just about every pediatric doctor, specialist, and physical therapist that I have encountered has made a point of me thinking about it. And, to be totally honest, because a few friends of mine have given birth to healthy babies, full term ones, around the same time that Ethan and Aria were born. And so I’ve been stressing about catching up my kids to the other full-term babies. On top of that, the doctors give me homework to do with my almost six month old kids and instructions and follow-up appointments. And not to divulge too much, but we see quite a number of doctors and physical therapists as a result of Ethan’s pre-maturity and being born very small.

So now I’m constantly tracking their corrected age in relation to their developmental stages, and then calculating it in relation to their chronological age. And plotting their weights on growth charts. And waiting for a doctor not to say, “We need to catch him up.” But rather, “He’s exactly where he should be.” Let alone, "Wow, your child is a genius. You better start saving for Harvard now!"

I do not take E’s and A’s development lightly. At all. I appreciate modern medicine – A LOT. And I appreciate the experience that our children’s healthcare team bring to the table. But won’t my children learn to sit even if I don’t buy some special sitter? Does it really matter if they roll over at seven months instead of at six months?

We’re in this constant state of playing catch up that I eagerly want to resolve itself. I'm sick of the doctors, as helpful and supportive as they are. I'm sick of the pressure, the worry, the stress. I'm sick of fretting before each appointment over what they will say and have me do this time.

I'd much rather prefer allowing the journey to unfold naturally, going with the flow, but it’s really hard to do when you have a slew of people checking in with you on your child’s development a few times a week.

Here's the lesson I'm grappling with: I am learning to accept the journey - all of it.

Acceptance doesn't mean resigning yourself to your life situation, according to author of Power of Now Eckhart Tolle. You obviously need to do something about it when faced with challenging situations. Acceptance means facing whatever is happening to you - internally and externally. This can apply to any of life's situations - career, relationships, health/diabetes.

And in my case these days, it's about allowing my children to develop at their own pace. When they’re ready to move to the next step (which happens so fast anyway). And I suppose the doctors are a part of that journey too. As are the moms of full-term babies. The appointments, the homework, the activities, and the letting them be who they are.

There's a lesson in all of it. On living life to the fullest. On not resisting what life hands you and your loved ones. On facing what happens to you, accepting it, and doing something about it.

Cooling the flames

I woke up one morning around six years ago and had lost the range of motion in my left hip. It was quite a long road getting my hip back again, but I was able to do it. Well, here we go again – only on the right side.

It started a couple of weeks after my c-section. I was doing yoga one morning, and noticed that I had lost quite a lot of range of motion. To make matters worse, I noticed that if I move it a little bit funny, I am in excruciating pain.

The good news is that I already know what to do since I’ve been through this before. I know that it’s osteoarthritis. I know that it’s a result of inflammation. I know that inflammation is stress-induced. And I also know that alternative medical treatments work much better than traditional Western ones in this case.

Last time, I was sent to an orthopedist, then to physical therapy, x-rays, MRIs, and a rheumatologist. I wound up treating it though with a mix of chiropractic care, yoga, proper diet and sleep, ginger tea, and stress reducing meditation. I visualized myself with a fully functioning, flexible, pain-free hip. I also did body work meditation, which basically means that after quieting the mind through deep breathing, you go to the point in the body where the pain is and ask if there’s a message. I have gained many insights into stress that I have suppressed in my body, and I find that once I’m aware of it, I’m able to work out the tension helping my body feel better. By the way, you can also do this through yoga. Just ask for insights on a particular question, and then let your body do the work. Messages will come to you while practicing the various poses and/or at the end when lying in shavasana or corpse pose.

I have already started, but am finding it harder this time to implement my treatment since having twins. Okay, for one, I don’t really get to decide how much sleep I get on any given night. I’m always tired. Two, I also don’t always get to decide when I do yoga and when I don’t or when and if I get to finish a routine. I don’t go to the chiropractor quite as often. I meditate occasionally. And sometimes I eat whatever is handy – including pizza, pasta, and tortilla chips. I have managed to cut out artificial sweeteners and started drinking ginger tea though.

So what do I do? Well, I can’t change the fact that I have twins, and that I need to take care of them. Nor do I want to. But I can find a way to be more forgiving of myself, to look at what I am doing for myself and focus on that. I am managing to do yoga on some days. I am managing to meditate on some days. And I am managing to still eat vegetables every day. I have already visualized both of my hips as flexible, fit, and agile. And I know that the hip will heal. Now it's about time, patience, and forgiveness.

Relief from suffering and pain and my kids’ vomiting

Have you ever seen a baby vomit? I apologize for the goriness, but Ethan has been vomiting frequently. (More on this in a later blog, but we’re working on figuring out the cause.) Aria vomits too, but not nearly as often.

I was quite traumatized the first time I saw each vomit until I mastered the whole process. But I still worry and stress over the what’s, why’s, who’s, etc. What’s causing it? Why is it happening? How can I make it stop? Who do I turn to for help? And so on. A couple of trips to the pediatrician later, and we now know that Aria’s is nothing to worry about, and we’re still working on figuring out Ethan’s.

As for the process, Aria’s vomit just kind of happens. There’s no prelude or warnings. She vomits, and then looks stunned for half a second. I take her to clean her up and change clothes, and sure enough, she’s laughing and kicking around within seconds.

It’s more or less the same thing with Ethan. Only with him, there’s warning. We run to the sink. He gags and vomits. Sometimes he just gags. He looks as though he’s in pain. He vomits. Maybe a second or third time. He cries. We calm him and soothe him. And then we take him to get cleaned up and changed. And he’s smiling and kicking around again after a few minutes. And that’s pretty much it.

The pain is temporary. Lasts a millisecond with Aria and maybe a few minutes with Ethan. They move on. They’re ready to play again. All smiles.

But not with me. I see the vomit coming. I run for dear life to make sure that minimal damage is done to the house. I’ve had to clean the couches, carpets, my clothing, and their chairs way too many times for my liking at this point. And then there’s the stress of leaving one of them downstairs alone – sometimes in the middle of a feeding - while I take the other upstairs to clean and change. I try to rush to make sure that no one is traumatized or in hysterics because they were left alone while moments before they were enjoying a bottle. And then I think for days about what could have caused the vomit. I speak with the pediatrician and my husband, and we go over all of the scenarios over and over again. To be honest, I don’t even bother calling anymore. I check for temperature sometimes. Nope, no signs of illness. My husband wants to build an excel spreadsheet to pinpoint trends and try to diagnose it. And I pray to God every morning, “Let this be a vomit-free day.”

It totally stresses me out... and they’re playing.

Just to state the obvious: Babies’ brains aren’t as developed as ours; their ego minds haven’t developed at this stage. And so what may seem to be a worrisome event to us is just another blip in time for them. And as a mother who worries – a lot about everything – I am trying to come to some kind of emotional peace with this. I don’t know if I can spend the remainder of my life freaking out all the time about their health. Or perhaps more realistically, I can at least find a way to tone it down. Have some relative peace of mind.

I was thinking about the peace I'm seeking the other day, and I had this gut feeling to Google the word “control” on Oprah.com. And sure enough, I found a really great article by Martha Beck, “Get a New Leash on Life” from the August 2002 edition of Oprah Magazine, which I strongly recommend reading.

In it, Beck looks at different kinds of pain and how we can find some solace. She writes that psychologists call my kind of suffering “dirty” pain. In the case of the vomiting, the kids have “clean” pain, which is what we feel when something hurtful happens to us. That blip in time.

She explains, “Dirty pain is the result of our thoughts about how wrong this is, how it proves we-and life- are bad.” Such as the anguish of why the vomit happened, how we can change it, the should’s and could’s. I must confess that I have turned the vomiting in my mind into a really, really big deal. It may in fact be a symptom of something greater – like reflux or a food allergy – but my thoughts and worry around it does not help.

Beck’s article continues, “The two kinds of suffering occupy different sections of the brain: One part simply registers events, while another creates a continuous stream of thoughts about those events. The vast majority of our unhappiness comes from this secondary response – not from painful reality but from painful thoughts about reality.”

When we dwell, discuss, stress about, create stories that may have no basis in reality. Beck tells us that this happens when we try to control – through our thoughts – what we really can’t control.

This doesn’t only apply to physical pain, but also to emotional pain like from a job lay off, a bad breakup, the stress before a surgery or after you’ve already recuperated, the angst when trying to make a big decision, or fretting over a fight with a loved one. The event itself only lasts a few seconds. But the feelings about it will last as long as you let it.

Buddhists, Kabbalists, new age followers, and yogis have been saying for years, suffering ends when we learn to detach from thinking mind. The way to do that is to realize that our thoughts aren’t the truth. It’s what we’ve created, a story we’ve told ourselves. And the way to detach from those thoughts is through presence – such as focusing on your breath, listening to your heartbeat, observing your thoughts, or observing what’s right in front of you. Is there anything wrong at this very moment? Probably not.

Beck goes on to say that even experiences we once feared and hated may become opportunities to awaken our capacity for joy. Because once you become comfortable with uncertainty, the world opens.

Is this was a long way to go from my children’s vomiting? I don't think so. It's these every day events that show us our true selves and also show us where there's work to be done in living life to the fullest. It’s just another example of how we, how I, create thoughts that aren’t necessarily true.

I’m getting better at handling the vomit. I’m taking it as it comes and dealing with it, although still praying to God every morning for vomit-free days. We’re doing everything we can to help Ethan move past it and feel better. And hey, this could be an opportunity to get some new couches. One thing I'm learning for sure is that the world really does open up once you let go of control.

Savoring each moment

Twins are a challenge to raise. I love them dearly (goes without saying), but I have to admit that I have been obsessively wondering: When does this get easier? When does raising newborn twins, while also trying to somehow take care of myself, a house, and the rest of life, get easier?

I take this question very seriously. I refuse to just give in and be a blithering, tired mom for the next however many years. So I decided to search for the answer.

I started a few months ago (while I was still pregnant) by reading parenting books in search for clear directions on parenting success – and even more so, parenting twins sanely. I read (and am still reading) the oracle of parenting: “What to Expect the First Year,” as well as other books like “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child,” by Marc Weissbluth (sleep is a big deal for newborns and their parents) and “Having Twins,” by Elizabeth Noble, among many more. But alas, even those incredibly popular books gave lots of options and choices without one real true definitive path to sane twin parenting.

I have implemented many of the suggestions, the ones that make sense, and yet, I am still completely and absolutely worn out. And actually, I just read last night in "Having Twins" that things will only get tougher once the kids are eating solids and moving. Solids are tough because it's more work and messy. Moving is tough because they just move in different directions and not know yet that certain things are dangerous. That obviously did not make me feel better.

So I turned to friends and relatives, especially other parents of twins. I received many different answers to the “When does it get easier” question. Some told me that it gets easier when children reach three or four years old when they are less physically dependent, but then the same people told me that at that age, the physical stress turns to emotional stuff. Some say it all gets easier when you start sleeping through the night when children reach two or three years old. Some say when they’re 18 and leave the house for college. While others say when they get married and then it becomes someone else’s problem.

So basically we're talking anywhere from three to eighteen to twenty plus years from today. And I don't think I'll last that long!

I was feeding the twins (at the same time) when the answer hit me: I wasn’t asking the right question. What I should be asking is: How do I make this moment easier?
I keep trying to rush past all of this, and amazingly enough, it’s one of the most fulfilling and joyful times of my life. I’m trying to jump eighteen years ahead instead of simply savoring the moment I’m in.

The twins are growing and developing each day. And this is it. This is my chance to experience what it’s like to be raising these amazing four and a half month old babies. Life is transient. And soon they’ll be five months old, and I won’t be able to go back again to this day. So, I’d better savor it. I’d better live for the moment.