Transitioning to Twins: The Toddler Bed

As the big sister, one of Scarlett's rites of passage had to be moving out of the crib. I had every intention of just moving her to a regular twin bed immediately. I didn't want to buy a toddler bed and then have to buy a twin bed later. It just didn't make sense to me. But then someone was selling a toddler bed -- with the mattress! -- on our base classifieds page for $25 and we were sold.

It caught us off guard. We planned on buying a bed over the summer, but this came available sooner than we anticipated, so we jumped on it. We initially thought we would just leave it in the garage until we were ready to move Scarlett. Then our friends gave us some great advice. They moved their toddler bed into their son's room with his crib in there, and let him choose for a few weeks which to sleep in. After about a month he was consistently choosing the bed and that's when they moved the crib out.

We decided to try it. Todd unloaded the bed into the garage and we prepared to clear some space in her room. But once Scarlett saw the little bed sitting in the garage she was immediately hooked. She started crawling all over it, and we were shocked. That night she chose the toddler bed and never went back.

There were some adjustments along the way. The first night we went in to check on her and the entire lower half of her body was falling off the bed. And this is how we discovered her every morning and after every nap for the first couple of weeks. She would grab all the toys she could reach and pull them into bed with her to sleep. I have no idea how this is comfortable.

And then she surprised us again. After sleeping in a pack and play for a couple nights at Grandma's house, she'd had enough. Much to our surprise she insisted on sleeping on the queen bed in the room she stays in. I was convinced she'd fall of the bed, but that has yet to happen. And just like that, cribs of all kinds are done. And just like that, she's all grown up.

Transitioning to Twins: The Pacifier

One of my goals in this process of getting ready for the twins is helping Scarlett grow up a little bit. She needs to be the big sister in the house, not another baby, and getting rid of the pacifier is no exception. I am by no means opposed to a pacifier. I think they serve a purpose, especially for teeny babies to learn to self-soothe. But there is no way I could keep up with three kids' pacifiers. That would be absurd. So it was time to get rid of Scarlett's pacifier.

When Scarlett was approaching her first birthday, I was determined to wean her from it. She really only took it while she was sleeping (nap time and at night), but it was a great way to relax her if we were traveling or having some kind of "off day."

And then I started justifying the pacifier -- "we can't get rid of it until after our trip," or "she needs it to fall asleep at Mom's Day Out." And then before I knew it she was 18 months old. At that point I knew it was definitely the time to take it away from her. But then I just continued with my justification -- we're traveling, she's sick, etc etc.

Sometime in the spring I got really confident and decided to poke a hole in the tip of each pacifier with a needle. I had read this would work great because the pacifier wouldn't have the same suction, and then she would lose interest. But that didn't happen. She still loved them.

We went to Florida the last week of April/first week of May when she was 22 months old. We had a lot of full and busy days at Disney World where she was generally out of control because of the lack of sleep, excitement, and the heat. So we used the pacifier A LOT to keep her calm.

She started requesting specific pacifiers. She referred to them by their colors, "pink one" or "blue one," and when she got upset she would come running to me and say "blue one!" She would ask for a nap at 9:30 a.m., which was really her way of asking to get her in crib to suck on her pacifiers because she knew she couldn't have them unless she was sleeping. It was time to get rid of them.

But Scarlett is one stubborn kid and she has a TEMPER. I just knew it was going to be a fight for days and I didn't know if I had the willpower to stick it out. Plus what if she refused to sleep without a pacifier? Mommy needs her nap too. But I also knew I couldn't have a toddler who was attached to her pacifier and newborn twins on my hands. No way was it happening.

So finally one morning I had the courage to fully snip the ends of her pacifiers. When she asked for one I would give it to her. She'd spit it out and hand it back to me. I asked her, "oh is it broken?" Soon she realized they were all broken and she totally lost her mind. She was mad, kicking and screaming, asking for her pacifiers. At nap time I put her to bed with the broken pacifiers and she didn't want them at all. She handed them to me and told me "broken." I told her if they're broken we should throw them away. So she did. And that was that.

Seriously. I had 22 months of fear and anxiety about this whole situation and that's all it took. She asked for them a couple times over the next couple of days, but nothing major. I would just say, "remember they were broken?" She cried for a couple weeks when she went to bed, but it wasn't more than 5-10 minutes.

And there's another checkmark on my To Do Before Twins list. Hooray!

Transitioning to Twins: The Minivan

After I was done laughing at the doctor for telling us we were having twins, I immediately told Todd we were going to need a new car. A minivan to be exact.

I am not one of those people who thinks minivans are beneath me. If you don't want to drive a minivan because you think they're uncool, fine, but while you're judging me I'll be opening my sliding doors from my key fob and watching my 2 year old crawl in the car without any assistance from me. I love minivans and I have been waiting for the day to finally get mine. We had initially decided that my car (a Toyota RAV4) could hold two kids, so we were going to wait on the van. But there is no way that three car seats were going to fit in the backseat of a RAV4, so it was finally time to get the van, and I was READY.

Todd obsessively searched the internet for days. We test drove a Toyota Sienna at the Toyota dealer in town, and seeing as there were no Hondas for sale anywhere around us, we test drove our friend's Odyssey. We finally came across one in the DFW area with absurdly low mileage and an even more absurdly low price. So off we went at the last minute in the middle of the week to go buy a car. We literally just picked up and left -- if somebody had walked into my house they would have thought we'd been kidnapped in the middle of dinner. But I did not have time to waste in picking up the house -- I had a minivan to buy!

And here it is, the new ride -- a Honda Odyssey. It's your standard minivan blue color. Scarlett's favorite feature is the DVD player where she can watch her Disney movie of choice whenever she wants (long car rides only!). Sure, I know I'm a mom because I have a kid with me at all times, but driving this thing REALLY makes me feel like a mom. It's totally awesome. 

Transitioning to Twins

The first thing I did when the doctor told us we were having twins is laugh. The second thing I did was start thinking of all the things we were going to need to buy, get rid of, and change around our house.

This picture was taken approximately 17 minutes after being told we were having twins. Can you tell our heads are spinning? And can you tell it was Mustache March?

When we thought we were only having one baby, we thought we would just do some minor rearranging to make some room for a crib and changing table in our office. We could keep the majority of the baby items in Scarlett's room. Not much would change and we could go on with our merry lives.

My mind was racing with thoughts like, We have to buy another crib. And another infant car seat. I thought I bought all the big stuff  with the first kid and wouldn't need to do this again? Do I need a double or a triple stroller? Scarlett needs to learn to walk more because I'm not going to be able to carry her. What if I can't potty train her before the twins come? I can't have three kids in diapers. 

Todd and I went to lunch after our appointment and we just sat there looking at each other. We were honestly stunned for about a week and couldn't think or talk of anything else. I was going to hold out telling people until after the first trimester, but we couldn't keep this news in, so I outed myself on Facebook at 10 weeks.

Now that time has passed, the news has sunk in. True to our style, the only way we've been able to cope is by being proactive. I'm consolidating and downsizing and organizing like crazy. I've become obsessed with selling everything on our local classifieds page, because why should Goodwill get the money when I can? Yes, it's a total pain but I have to pay for my Sonic drinks somehow now that I have to pay for three kids in college at the same time.

You know how Kate Gosselin had sextuplets and got all kinds of free stuff like Gymboree clothes, nannies and helpers, and a tummy tuck? Maybe Sonic will take pity on me and award me free DDP for life.