RIP Gracie

Our kitty is gone. She had been sick for a while with either liver or kidney disease. We had actually planned to take her to the vet this week to discuss putting her down. I guess she wanted to go on her own terms. She must have passed last night or early this morning.

She will always have a special place in our hearts because she came into our lives right around the time we got married. She had been a stray that decided to wander into our apartment one day after we had started feeding her outside. We like to say she adopted us. :)

Our sweet little Gracie. At least she's not in pain anymore.



(Gracie is the tiny gray cat on top of the couch)

Crunchy vs. non-crunchy

It's funny. When I was in high school, I wished I had been alive in the 60's so I could experience what it was like to be a true hippie. I did the best I could to recreate that lifestyle as a suburban teen in the early 90's. I became a vegetarian, tie-dyed everything I owned, and lectured everyone I knew on recycling and protecting whales and dolphins. Throughout college and early adulthood, I mellowed out and left my hippie tendencies for a more mainstream and conservative lifestyle.

Nowadays, there seems to be this push towards "crunchy" parenting. It's called crunchy, I believe, because of the tendency of "hippies" to enjoy granola :) Crunchy parenting is a loose term that includes many different things, but the big ones seem to be:

*med-free delivery
*breast-feeding
*staying at home
*co-sleeping
*cloth diapering
*making your own baby food

To me, that sound a lot like the parenting of our grandparent's generation. I am NOT knocking any of those choices, but I find it funny that so many advancements have been made to make things more convenient for mothers, and now so many people want to go back to "the old days". Again, I am NOT knocking any of these choices. Frankly, I think anyone who can commit to all this is a better person than me. Maybe I'm selfish and lazy, but I am happy for the modern conveniences. I understand why these are big trends - cloth diapering is better for the environment, breastfeeding is healthiest for baby, pain meds can slow down labor and cause unnecessary C-sections. However, they are not the only or even best way to do things.

So what makes me "un-crunchy"? Let's see where I fall on the above list:

*med-free delivery - Planned C-section, complete with spinal.
*breast-feeding - FAIL. I tried but the twins have been on exclusively on formula most of their lives.
*staying at home - I work 45 minutes from home and leave the babies in a daycare.
*co-sleeping - Babies have been in their cribs since Day 1.
*cloth diapering - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Pampers are my best friend.
*making your own baby food - I heart Gerber.

I think what bothers me the most is the pressure placed to favor one method over another. I have come to terms with the decisions I made about raising my children, and they were personal decisions, not up for debate amongst anyone else. Why does anyone give a crap how I feed my babies? Why do I care if you cloth diaper or not? I don't know why there has to be so much pressure to do things one way or another. Every parent has to make the decision that is right for their family.

Adventures in solids

The twins have been eating solids for a couple of months now. We started with rice cereal, but Danny had some issues with it being too binding. So we switched to oatmeal, and they like that. So far they've had sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, peaches, pears, green beans, peas, banannas, and applesauce. They're not picky eaters at all! We tried some of the mixed fruit containers and those have been good - with the exception of pears and pineapple. Danny broke out into a rash the day after we tried that. Since he's had pears alone and been fine, and there were no other changes (detergent, clothing, etc.) to cause an allergic reaction, I have to assume it was the pineapple. Of course, once I started reading about food allergies, I learned you're not supposed to give citrus fruit til one year because of the high risk of allergies! Glad I found out now!

I'm looking to start table foods within the next few weeks - maybe egg yolks, pasta, or waffles. We'll see how that goes!

Stats

Danny
Birth stats:
5lb 0 oz
18"

6 month stats:
14lb 6.2 oz
25.5"

Kate
Birth stats:
5lb. 8 oz
16"

6 month stats:
13lb 13.9 oz
24.025"

They are growing so quickly!