u/DynamicDuoMama

Ok big tip especially since you have important stuff to finish. Dad can do night duty too. Divide the night into 2 6 hour shifts. Let’s say 7pm to 7am. Set up a bed in the nursery. Parent on duty naps in the nursery with babies. Parent off duty sleeps in your bed. Each parent gets 6 hours of functional sleep. If breastfeeding pump enough for 2 feeds at night. You will have to wake up in the middle of your 6 to pump but it will just be a wake, pump and sleep situation. Then you can save that milk for the next night. If you can be expected to finish your law degree after having twins and on 6 hours sleep he can work on 6 hours sleep. If you can afford it I would also consider a night nurse for that first month since you finishing your degree will be worth the investment.

If you have a friend or a family member that can come over during the day try to schedule that. My mom came over during the day and that is how I slept because I did nights solo which basically meant I didn’t sleep at night for a long time. Maybe 2 hours if I was lucky. My mom came over during the day and I would literally crash.

This no bake cheesecake is really good and you could even drizzle a little dulce de leche that you can make from one of the other cans over the top of it.

https://cookingwithcarlee.com/no-bake-cheesecake-with-condensed-milk/

I um just spent the last 3 weeks making this derpy costume and if I have to do another stripe I might end up running for the hills lol. Ended up having to pin and stitch double fold bias tape around each stripe. Just did a top stitch on them because I didn’t have the time to hand sew each closed. All the face details were hand sewn and I had to dye the material to get the right colors. I do have extra eyes but I just can’t bring myself to sew more stripes, lol. Plus starting a new job next week do I won’t have as much free time. I also still need to take in my other daughter’s Rumi costume that I was able to buy so it fits her nicer. I did think about it but I just can’t bring myself to do it.

https://preview.redd.it/p5x31lumt5wh1.png?width=1334&format=png&auto=webp&s=12a6fcd13a6e8e90ee8c042d22b50bc723f69e1d

https://preview.redd.it/66ioulquk5wh1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43e3de6d1cf63bbf8382c296dc0bed0102eddace

This is another photo from the website it looks like it is meant to be pretty oversized but I will know more when it gets here next week. Good idea on taking it with me to test options first.

Mostly because she might be 6 (almost 7) but has her father’s stubborn streak paired with her own ideas of “her fashion”. I don’t want to have to argue about if she needs to wear the coat over it or not. She is also a twin do if you argue with one her sister will always back her up. Thus why I want to basically make this a 2 in 1 with this being the outer shell.

I like #2 the best but out of curiosity did you get to see their Celestina dress? Not sure if it’s in the same budget or not it’s the same designer and seems to have the same flowers as #2 with some straps and more flowers.

https://www.veni-infantino.com/collections/bridal/products/69426

Honey break up with him and block him. The sex cannot be that good. I am going to tell you what I told my friend that has been divorced 3 times and had at least 3 other broken engagements but still keeps jumping into relationships with her whole heart with men that just don’t add much value to her life. Technology has come a long way just get a really nice BOB to take care of the pleasure side of things and ditch the losers. Wait until you find someone that can add more than a dick to your life. A BOB might not do the dishes or change the litter box either but it also isn’t creating and dirty dishes, trash, dirty laundry etc. Get a BOB, a countertop dishwasher & a self cleaning litter box (I have a catlink because they seem to be the safest). Those 3 things will be less expensive and do more than your current manchild. Seriously BOBs can’t even knock you up. Imagine if this manchild manages to baby trap you. Then you have 2 kids to raise. Run like Forrest Gump.

I hadn’t until this last year. Went through a long spell of not baking with my regular flour since I was doing low carb or using Bisquick I had bought on sale if making pancakes for the kids. Was out of Bisquick so went to get the flour that was in one of those sealed plastic containers. It was absolutely infested. Yeeted the whole container in the trash because I wasn’t opening Pandora’s box. Checked all the other containers and they were fine. My best guess was the last bag I had added was contaminated and they just bred from there.

For your kids sake she is going to have to try again. Babies and kids are going to do gross things that they can’t control. So she is going to need to learn coping mechanisms or find the right medication. I have twins and have been pooped on, peed on, have been vomited on multiple times (once into my mouth), sneezed into my mouth, hell name a fluid that kids can create and it been on me at some point. When you are down in the trenches it just happens. When they get sick you are using devices to suck out the snot because they don’t have the ability to blow their noses and it needs to get out so they can breathe. Even the cute stuff is sometimes a little gross. The first time one of my kids gave me a kiss my cheek had about a tablespoon of drool one it but I smiled and hugged them. Kissed their cheek back and said I love you too. Then when out of sight I wiped off the drool.

I worked in childcare. Saw one once where they were wear a long sleeved sleeper outfit thing. It went up their neck to their hair, down to their ankles and to their wrists. I didn’t think it was possible for such a tiny baby to create so much poop. Baby had been constipated and mom gave them a bit of orange juice that morning with no heads up. Not that a heads up would have helped but maybe I would have been a little prepared for the inevitable. Baby got a bath in the sink because I was going to use an entire packet of wipes trying to tame that situation lol. Called mom she said to just throw away the clothes.

My own twins once spit up/vomited in my mouth when I was holding them making funny face at them. I was very proud that I didn’t vomit in return. Babies are cute for a reason it helps balance out all the yuck and the sleep deprivation.

Honestly for me when my twins were old enough to start preschool through the school district was when I start to feel like I could breathe. I had to stop working because child care was more than I made. Once they turned 3 they qualified for preschool in our school district. It was only 3 hours a day 4 days a week and like a chunk of that I spent doing pick up/drop off but it was still some time. If its available of affordable I would look into part time child care. They will get some socialization time which is great for behavior issues and language development. You can have time to do the shopping alone. To go sit somewhere nice and read a book in peace. To shower without an audience. Many places have cameras in place for safety now days. Multiple staff on site as well. Ours didn’t have cameras but they had a teacher and 3 Paras for like 15 kids so I felt good about the ratios.

We did leashes with our twins. I didn’t have to to do daycare drop offs but for going literally anywhere they were a must. Mine were runners and had no fear. They would run into traffic in opposite directions. Once in front of our house I had to gently kick one into the grass so I could chase the other one down carry her back like a football to get back to the other before she got up take off running again. Luckily we live on a quiet street but it scared the crap out of me. We had been having a lovely morning drawing on the driveway with chalk and they decided to test my sanity and endurance all while laughing mind you. Ordered leashes never looked back. They were adorable and had fairy wings. We also later got unicorn stuffy ones and dinosaur backpacks. They loved them. They filled the backpacks with snacks and random toys/rocks. Honestly very few people judged and if they did just said they like to run in opposite directions and I cant pick a favorite.

They are only 6 so it’s usually just “please mama?” Or an offer to clean. We mostly nipped it in the bud by telling them they can put things on their wishlist (birthday/Christmas but they are making them all year long lol) and letting them earn money doing chores for stuff before that. Then a couple times a month we a go on special shopping trips where they can spend their chore money. A couple times spending their own money and they really only put things on their wishlists they really like.

Daycare prices priced me out of my job plus I had my premature twins very end of December 2019 via c section so just as I was recovering physically Covid hit the US, lol. So I wasn’t comfortable paying more than I made to send them to daycare. They are in first grade now. Only downside is with the gap in my resume I have yet to get any job offers. Only interviews I get seem more nosey about what having twins is like which is just bizarre. Like they schedule an interview just to ask about twins & that’s it. Happened twice lol. So I just stay home and DoorDash during the school year and do odd jobs for my mom’s rug hooking business. No daycare required to be a hookers assistant lol.

Smaller towns in the Midwest do sometimes have in home daycares that charge less but they are non existent in places with larger populations. Even in the Midwest flyover states if it’s an area with high population/demand prices rise. Simple supply and demand economics. Just like housing costs are lower in small towns in home childcare costs are sometimes lower. Rarely that much lower so probably an older daycare or woman that does it more for the community than to turn a profit.

I only did preschool through the school district but our did a similar thing but just collected everything on the 1st Monday of the month then kept it in a pantry in the classroom. Only had to bring in one big box of one kind of snack to restock the supply. Sometimes they were ingredients for special occasion snacks that month. Usually averaged to $15 a person. It was a free/cheap program depending on if the child had developmental needs or was a peer model so they tried to keep it low cost. It was also only 3 hours a day 4 days a week.

Yeah there is a set phrase that most kids that haven’t been too coddled have memorized by age 4 or so. At least mine and any of their little friends. “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” I also like “suck it up buttercup” but that one’s a little harsher lol. Part of being a parent is teach your kids that sometimes in life you don’t always get what you want. They are going to learn that lesson eventually they can either learn it in a gentle loving way from a parent or life will slap them upside the head with the harsh reality in a much harder situation than eating something you don’t absolutely love. Eating something you don’t like once teaches you to think harder about what you ask for the next time you order.

Try manual pumping or using a Haakaa pump for the engorgement. Freeze the excess. They will start to want to drink more as they grow so sometimes there is an adjustment period. Heads up after you have a batch fully freeze thaw it and taste it. Make sure it doesn’t taste soapy. I found out after stashing an entire chest freezer and regular freezer FULL that I have high lipase and my twins refused to drink it. It was at the early part of Covid so no where was taking donations either. They had weekly breast milk baths for the first 2 years of their lives. If you catch it before you freeze it you can scald it and then freeze it to prevent the soapy taste.

I technically did nights solo but it also kinda made me hate my husband for a long time. Relationship still not fully healed and our twins are 6 years old. Too many hours alone in my feelings while he slept peacefully with earplugs in a completely separate room. Felt abandoned. My mom came over week day mornings so I could sleep for a few hours but weekends he didn’t do that so I just didn’t sleep really from Friday afternoon until Monday morning except for 30 minutes here and there total 1-2 a night max. I lived, I hated it. Do not suggest it if it can be avoided. I was too tired to fight over it at the time. I was fully in survival mode just trying to get from one day to the next.

From being in twin groups for 6 years I highly recommend shifts. Each parent has an on duty time of 4-6 hours based on what works best for them you guys. When not on duty the other parent sleeps. When on duty you can nap between feeds. If I could have talked hubs into it I would have done something like I sleep 7pm-midnight and he sleeps midnight to 5am because he likes watching tv in the evening and he got up at 5am for work at the time. We also put our twins down at 7pm. Also when on duty you can sleep between feeds/wakings.

I did well tandem feeding wearing the my breast friend twin pillow with a baby on each side. I sat on a twin bed with my back against the wall. It has a pocket that can hold 2 slim bottles. I used a mini crockpot on the kitchen counter to warm the bottles. Just kept it filled with water all day long and washed it once a day to prevent limescale. Could hold 2 bottles and faster than the bottle warmer I was given.

NOR and FYI one of my friends ex’s did something similar where he traded in her car to get himself a new car. He left shortly after and she was left with her unreliable car while he took the new one because he put it in his name so it was “his” car. Despite the fact that her car (and tax return… dumbass) went towards a substantial down payment on that car. She then later got back together with the jackass, married him and he left her again. He also claimed her and all her kids on his tax return that year despite them already being separated after like a month of marriage and the entire tax return went to pay off his back child support to his other ex wife (like $10k). Sorry got distracted because of the similarity but yeah don’t do that. Especially make sure your name goes on the title if the money from your car helps pay for it. You have to protect you and your kids best interests over his ego.

I just realized I am even more of a helicopter mom than a realized. I have 6 year old twins and I barely let them play in the backyard “alone”. By alone I mean I am in the kitchen looking out the window about every minute or so as I do the dishes or prep dinner and they play in our fenced backyard. Usually I still sit on the deck and read while they play.

I honestly wouldn’t let him play unsupervised because it doesn’t seem like he can handle the privilege. Or at least put an air tag on him before you release him into the wild. Or one of those kids smart watches so you can yell at him. I would still ground him for a substantial amount of time.

Also they have locks you can add to doors that they can’t reach or alarms.

Yeah I used to do bookkeeping for mediumish sized business that was using PayPal to process credit cards. Someone filed a dispute for an item I literally handed to them and had their signature from on a pick up sheet. They still sided with the customer and refunded them. They also refunded with packages that had tracking numbers showing confirmed delivery. That signature one was the final straw for the owner. We switched to a real credit card processing system.

Spaghetti and meatballs but add sautéed and pureed veggies into the sauce. I like to add eggplant, zucchini, carrots, onion and a bit of spinach. I sauté them separately then pulse them in my blender. I also peel the eggplant first. Then add them to 2 jars of marinara. I also add 1 jar of alfredo and a heaping tablespoon of pesto. I sometimes make the meatballs and sometimes I just use frozen ones. Either way I brown them in the oven first then add them to the sauce. I also use the same sauce but with ground sausage for lasagna. You could also use it for meatball subs too.