Tandem Nursing Preemie Twins

Today I'm happy to be blogging over at Baby Bellies! If you remember, my youngest two daughters are twins who were born at 33 weeks gestation. After a rocky start, I successfully nursed them till they were almost two years old. So, head on over here, and read my top five tips for nursing preemie twins! (and please do feel free to pass on the link to new twin moms who might need it. Thanks!)

-Jessica Snell

links: nursing twins, Harry Potter, Advent and more!

Shannon Hale wins at the internet. This may be the best blog post I've ever read.
Next, christianaudio.com is having their biannual sale, and all of their books on mp3 are $7.50. Our family got a bunch of great mp3s the last time they did this, including this awesome recording of The Count of Monte Cristo (47 hours for less than 8 bucks! that's a lot of dish-washing time well spent!) and this of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, both produced by Blackstone (Blackstone's work is consistently excellent). They also have Peter Dennis' recording of Winnie-the-Pooh, and I can't tell you how many times over my kids have listed to that. (Be sure to check out his readings of the Milne's poetry too, which my husband and I both love.)
Okay. I don't usually link to sales, but my family has benefited so much from their last audiobook sale that I just had to pass it on. Now, to other things!
Starting with the terrifying and infuriating: Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners.  This is one amazing piece of journalism. Not just a copy of something from the AP wire (not to diss the AP), but some real anecdotal-yes-yet-compelling journalism. Pretty amazing stuff, and not in a good way. Also, a very lucid explanation of the foreclosure mess.
Even though it looks like (looks like!) Advent's going to be celebrated more faithfully in our house this year than it's been the last couple of years, I still was really encouraged by And Sometimes Tea's post "Confessions of a Domestic Church Slacker".
Check out this cool and easy pajama pants tutorial over at Learning As We Go. Great for Christmas gifts for the kids.

If you go read this day-in-the-life post by Susan Wise Bauer from 10 years ago, you are going to want to retroactively buy the excellent woman a drink. And then you're going to feel like falling onto the couch in sympathetic exhaustion - until you realize you are already on the couch due to your own real exhaustion and that, unlike her, your four children under the age of nine are still four children under the age of nine.
I thought this post positing the question: "what if an unschooler's parents found out their child was accepted to Hogwarts?" was hilarious.
That's it for tonight - enjoy!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

the more it stays the same

When you want to go shopping with newborn twins, every bit of preparation - every get-your-shoes-on, make-sure-I-have-the-list, does-everyone-have-a-coat bit - is timed so that you can nurse them right before you walk out the door. That way, maybe, they'll make it without needing to be nursed again before you get home.

When you want to go shopping with two-year-old twins, every bit of preparation - every get-your-shoes-on, make-sure-I-have-the-list, does-everyone-have-a-coat bit - is timed so that you can have them go potty right before you walk out the door. So that maybe they'll make it home from the store with dry pants.

It's not that you have to stop paying exquisite attention to your timing. It's that what you're trying to time correctly changes.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

a bit on fasting and gluttony

I think I mentioned on this blog that I'm looking forward to Lent this year because it's the first Lenten season in a long time that finds me neither pregnant nor nursing, so I can participate in the fasting.

I think I also mentioned that I couldn't figure out how to blog about fasting, given that we're not supposed to trumpet our fasting about. But then I thought: well, why am I excited? Honestly, just because I get to be part of this part of the life of the church again. So, I think that it makes sense for Christians to blog some about fasting. Not to toot their own horns, but just to remember, "hey, this is what we do", emphasis on the we. I wouldn't know anything about fasting if other people hadn't taught me what it is and means, or reminded me that there are times to do it and times not to. One of the biggest things I've learned (and this is so simple, but so important), is that we do it because Christ did it. (And we don't expect ourselves to do it as well as he did it.) In other words, writing about fasting isn't boasting if you write about it in the context of the life of the church. Because it's not "hey, look what I am doing", but it's "I'm reflecting on this thing that we are doing." So, I hope it's okay that I'm blogging about it. (And curious: what do you think? Is fasting a bloggable topic, or am I way off here?)

Anyway, I seemed to recall that it's traditional to fast more strictly on Wednesdays and Fridays. I could figure out the Fridays (in memory of the crucifixion), but couldn't figure out the Wednesdays. But, looking around a bit, I found this article by Frederica Mathewes-Green, and learned that it's because that was the day when Judas betrayed Jesus.

Then I got to reading the rest of the article. Wow, it's good. Good to think about not just going into Lent, but anytime.  And one of the things it talks about is how fasting is just something we're supposed to do pretty regularly, not as earning salvation, and not as earning special favor but just, basically, because it's good for us, like exercising or taking a bath is good for us. 

The other thing that article talks about is gluttony (the fasting part actually comes in as a discipline that can help to curb that vice). Here's a bit from the end:

The law of the jungle is "Eat or be eaten." Indulging in gluttony seems like a private vice, a "cute sin," a matter between only the tempted diner and the eclair. But undisciplined indulgence in the pleasure of food costs us more than we dream: coarsens and darkens our minds, ruins our powers of attention and self-control, of sobriety and vigilance. It hobbles and confuses us. It makes us prey for another Eater.

The one who bids us to His marriage supper will not devour us, in fact he promises to feed us. But there is more; he does not feed us only with the good things he has made, or even the goodness of supernatural food like manna. He feeds us his very self. It is this other bread we must learn to eat, not "bread alone" but the Word of God himself. At the Communion table this becomes, not just theory, but a true encounter—a feast that binds hungry sinners together, and links us to the One who alone can feed our souls.

Isn't that good? Mathewes-Green always is. (Read her!) Anyway, I'm a little intimidated, but over all, I'm looking forward to Lent.

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

nursing mother sculpture

My husband took this picture for me at the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. We've been there many times - we started going there together with a group of friends before we fell in love, then we went while we were dating, then after we were married, and now we go with our kids. But I don't remember seeing this before. Or perhaps I did, and I just wasn't at a stage of life where I would have noticed. But isn't it lovely? It's done in bronze, and the plaque beside it said it used to hang on the door of a nursery armoire.

If you want to see more detail, I believe you can click on it to make it larger.

Last time we went, I also got to sit for awhile and stare at my favorite painting in the world. The link doesn't do it justice; the real thing is huge, and what's striking about it is how all the activity in the foreground only serves to draw your eye to the small, bright church spire in the background. In the background, but nonetheless, at the center of the whole world. It's an amazing painting. In real life that church spire is astonishingly bright and clear. I also love the woman walking on the bridge, and those huge trees bending down towards the water.

And now I need to make a plan to go back there again. Man, I love that place.

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Finished Object: Breastfeeding Faux Dress (McCall's M5105 and a half circle skirt)

First, forgive the silly expression on my face - my husband was making me laugh as he took the picture. But here's the project:
The idea? Well, I love wearing dresses, but they're not very breastfeeding-compliant, and with twins, I usually don't go more than two hours without nursing someone (if that). So I had the idea to make a shirt and a skirt in the same fabric, to get the look of a dress without actually wearing a dress. This is my first attempt. (Well my first attempt was to adapt a real dress pattern into a nursing dress, but that didn't work so well. This is my first attempt at the matching shirt-skirt thing.)

I like the result, but, um, I think I actually like the pieces better as separates. The top looks great with a black skirt; the skirt looks great with a green shirt.

I heartily recommend the McCall's M5105 pattern I used for the top. It's a pattern that gives you a sleeveless top, a t-shirt and a long-sleeved shirt pattern, in a couple of neckline variations. I've already cut out fabric for a t-shirt for my next try at this pattern. It's super-easy and fits really well. I love sewing with knits! (A note on McCall's M5105: the pictures on the pattern envelope are really goofy, because they added weird embellishments to the example shirts. But just leave off the embellishments, and you're left with simple, lovely, basic knit shirts.)

The half-circle skirt was also easy, and I pieced together a couple of internet tutorials for that one.

I think I'm getting addicted to sewing my own clothes.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

a few numbers

So, I'm a bit of a nerd. I embrace that though. :)

Anyway, I've been noticing recently that I drink a LOT of water. I have a 32 oz. Nalgene bottle that I just keep refilling all day long. Why? Because as soon as I sit down and latch Lucy and Anna on, and they start nursing, I get really thirsty. Really, really, really thirsty. Instantly. It's very weird.

So I got curious enough about it that I decided yesterday to keep track of how much liquid I drink in a day. The answer?

TWO GALLONS. Yep.

But wait! I have a reason to do it!

I don't know exactly how much milk I'm making a day, but I estimated based on the girls' weights, and came to the conclusion that I'm making about a half gallon of milk a day! Or about a quart per baby. That's a lot.

And just to add (ha!) one more set of numbers to that:

When I cut my kids' fingernails and toenails, it takes awhile. When I stopped and thought about it, I realized that's because I have to cut EIGHTY nails before I'm done. (And if I do mine too, that's 100.)


Okay. Nerdiness done for now. I'll go back to qualifying rather than quantifying my maternity.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

aw . . .

I just wrote that last post while nursing the babies. And when they finished eating, just now, they looked up at me with half-closed eyes, and gave me each a very happy, sleepy, milky smile.

Oh, so cute.

Can these little chubby girls, with their bright blue eyes and double chins possibly be the same little babies I used to visit (visit!) every day in the NICU, all tiny and alone in their isolettes? Wow. Praise the Lord almighty, who surely has showed His glory in the lives of my daughters. Thank you, Father.

nursing twins

It's like a light switched on. In the past 24 hours or so, the girls have figured out how to latch and suck and (most of all) STAY latched on.

So now I'm nursing twins. I think. If there isn't any regressing.

I'm trying not to panic.

This is what I've wanted for the past two months, to have both baby girls happy, able nurslings, and now I'm scared. What if I can't make enough milk? What if they're not getting enough? How will I know without checking the bottles afterwards to see that the milk level that was at 5 ounces is now at 2 1/2?

Weird, right?

I'm constantly amazed at my ability to catastrophize. Especially after this year, which has taught me how God can take care of me and mine through situations I would never have dreamed up, let alone seen the way through.

God is good. I await seeing Him work here too.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell