Mom Blog and Baby Blog | Baby Bunching

the baby buncher club

I saw her standing over the back of her SUV changing a diaper. She kept looking back at a toddler across the parking lot (on the sidewalk). She was frantically changing the diaper of the child in the car. I couldn't tell how old he was, but I knew without a doubt....she was one of us.

We were leaving the playground to go home (more on that later), and I was almost certain of what had happened. Although I couldn't figure out why the older one was across the parking lot, but we Bunchers do crazy things in a panic.

As I got closer--since my car was parked right next to hers--I asked if the other child was hers. She responded. "How could you tell? By my crazy attempt to make him stay there and hope he didn't run into traffic. " Yep, she's a Buncher.

"How old are your kids?" I asked her as I helped her keep an eye on the one across the parking lot. The oldest was two and the youngest 8 months.

I smiled a big smile. "Yep, I figured. The same distance apart from mine."

OK, the ONLY way I remember that is because when my son turned two and my daughter was 8 months THAT was the time people looked at me like I was an alien with four heads. Apparently, THAT must be when it sinks in and people do the math at how close my kids were. So I always remember that spacing for some reason.

The lady sighed a sigh of relief. "Really, wow. That's so nice to know. Do people always ask if you have twins? I just don't get that, but they do. Yours look like they could be." And yes, people do ask that. She scooped up her youngest and gave an even bigger sigh as she turned to her older son.

 "It really does get easier," I promised her. Although I had just spent the past two hours negotiating and running after my own Bunch. I knew for sure it was still easier than where she was right now.

What do you say, or what advice do you give, when you spot another Baby Buncher?

baby bunching it at the pool: what to bring

Nope - the title of this post is neither a mistake nor a joke - it IS possible to take your Bunch to the pool by yourself.  All you need is a little organization and a lot of courage.  With swim season upon us, we thought we'd share some tips on braving a trip to the pool with your Bunch.

There are many things to consider when making your journey (and it really is a journey) to the pool. In this post, we're going to focus on what to bring to the pool.  After all, you should never go to battle without the appropriate weapons in your arsenal.

There is so much you COULD bring to the pool like water guns, toys, diving sticks, rafts, extra change of clothes for everyone, picnic lunch, popsicles, wallet, etc. The list starts to look like a kindergarten school supply list.  Please realize that because you have your Bunch with you, you will probably only actually BE at the pool for less than two hours (in fact, it will likely take you longer to get ready than it will to experience the outing).  Also, you will be lugging two babies plus whatever you decide to pack, PLUS you will have to haul it all back home, so be diligent about what you DO actually bring.  

First things first.   Get yourself a HUGE waterproof pool bag like the Scout bag we're giving away from Pine & Ivy. If you didn't win it, buy one (Linda has three).  It really streamlines pool packing if you have a dedicated pool bag that has your pool stuff in it at all times so you don't have to go hunting for gear every time you want to go swimming.

So here the official list of what you SHOULD bring.

If your kids are under the age of THREE. Make this easy on yourself by limiting your gear to the necessities (which is still a pretty long list).

1) Diaper bag contents, which translates to swim diaper, a regular diaper for babies to go home in, dry change of clothes for children who are likely to fall asleep on the way home (makes transferring to the crib easier), wipes, wallet, keys, pool pass, etc. (Get a small makeup bag to keep all the tiny essentials in one place so you don't have to dig).

2) Plastic bag for wet clothes is nice to have, but you can always wrap wet clothes in the towel.

3) Towels....one for EACH of you.

4) Snacks. Something easy to transport and enough for everyone because pool snacks always seem to become a community affair.  Linda likes to bring fruit so you can avoid allergy issues and nothing is grosser than wet Goldfish by the pool. If your kids are very small, don't risk "mealtime" at the pool. Kids love to eat snacks and if you're not with a gaggle of girlfriends to help manage food issues, just keep it to easy snacks and water. Seriously.

5) Water for everyone and/or bottle.

6) Sunscreen. Linda brings just one bottle because kid sunscreen works for you too.  Cara actually has a sunscreen collection of extra-strength sport for her and the active boys, sticks for faces, enviro-unfriendly aerosol for fast-moving toddlers, and baby-specific for babies.  Overkill, probably, but she is paranoid about the sun's oh-so-fun but damaging rays.  Cara keeps all sunscreen types in a single large Ziploc bag (along with hand sanitizer) for easy grab-and-go, no matter the outing.

7) Sun hats for anyone who will keep them on, but especially young babies.

8) Linda recommends a SMALL assortment of water toys. If you're going to a pool with other kids, the fun is to share your toys so as long as you have some to share, you'll have enough. Make sure you have at least one toy for each of your kids.  Cara recommends skipping the toys altogether - they are too hard to keep up with and there are always extras lying around the pool.  If you must take them, take cheapies that you don't care about and use a sharpie marker to label them with your last name.

9) Any floatation device that you're allowed to use that will HELP you...not entertain the kids. Leave the balls at home as well as the big blow up dinosaur, unless your kid is strapped into it and it helps you manage everyone. Think minimal here.

10)  Water-friendly stroller (Cara uses her umbrella stroller).  You'll need a place to park baby in the shade and strap him in when he gets tired of the water or when his big sis suddenly bolts for the deep end.

If any of your kids are over the age of three, this list will look a bit differently. With these older kids, come more crap.  Add these items on to the above items.

10) Underwear, if you want to change them into dry clothes before you leave.  To keep things simple, Cara does not change anyone except people who might fall asleep on the way home at the pool, but this is up to you.

11) Goggles (labeled with your name)

12) Toys that are small. Once your kids are really enjoying the idea of splashing, around leave the bigger toys at home. Noodles are great and many pools already have these. So keep it to dive sticks or a few little toys.

13) Antibacterial gel. The nastiest thing in the world is outdoor pool bathrooms. Many don't have soap. And there is nothing worse than your kids saying they have to poo at the pool.....only to have the TP stick to their butts and then not have soap. Bring something to de-gross this situation. Never mind the fact that your toddler will try to touch everything or even lick the stall while you wait for him to poo.

14)  Lunch.  Because even though the last thing you want to do after reading #13 is eat lunch, the older the kids are, the easier the pool gets, and the more time it kills.  We hear that someday we may even be lounging poolside reading People magazine while our kids play.

We can all dream, right?

baby bunching battles: church

There are many, many places that you should avoid going to with your Bunch.  For me, church was always near the top of that list.  This was sadly ironic because I found that I often had to invoke the support of a higher power to make it through the daily grind of Baby Bunching, so it was rather unfortunate that my Bunch was driving a wedge between me and attendance at proper formal worship services.

I grew up in the Catholic church, where nurseries are almost non-existent and even the presence of cry rooms are sporadic.  From an early age, Catholics are expected to worship as a family.  But with two children under the age of two, I found that the only thing more spiritually draining than worshiping with my family was to worship with my family AND the family of Baby Bunchers that were inevitably seated three rows behind me.

And yet, like a good Catholic girl, I continued to bang my head against the proverbial wall by trying again and again to include my Bunch in worship services.  Most weeks we left even more exhausted than when we had arrived (was that even possible?!) instead of spiritually renewed.

Finally, I gave up on the whole "worship as a family thing".  Out of sheer desperation, we switched churches and began attending one that offered regular nursery services.  We threw all children in the nursery and only recently has my 5-year old been allowed to join us for services, AFTER he proved that he could keep the ants in his pants under control for an hour.  Our 4-year old attempted to attend with us a few weeks ago, but had a meltdown halfway through the service and was sent directly back to the nursery.  Baby was allowed to sit with us from birth until he started trying to yammer over the sermon and then he, too, was banished to the nursery.  I figure we'll send for them when they turn 5.

Do I feel bad that our family is worshiping in such a fractured manner?  A little.  But mostly I just feel a heck of a lot closer to God now that I can focus on His Word instead of those of my kids.

target: dream or nightmare

I'm not sure if Target is every Baby Buncher's dream or nightmare. When we lived overseas, where NOTHING like Target existed, I often longed dreamed for a place I could go to get everything--food, clothes, baby items, hardware, towels, etc. And while in each place we lived we had some "equivalent to Walmart" nothing was EVER the equivalent to Target. So I bopped around from place to place doing what every other Baby Buncher did pre-Target and went to a million places for all my goods. It sucked.

But in the almost three years since we've been back in this country, I have spent more of our money at Target than anywhere else. Seriously. I really should get some kind of kick back. But since Target is across from the gym and all my friends are also at the gym (where else can we dump our kids guilt free for two hours), Target is also a place to grab a post-workout coffee and casually "run" into friends in the organizing section.

So how could Target be bad if I can get everything there AND entertain my kids? Well, back in the day during that brief time when both my kids would sit happily in the cart and eat Goldfish, Target WAS the perfect place. Actually, I seriously considered it an outing. Mommy gets errands done + coffee. Kids get a snack and maybe even a $1 toy.

But this time period was only a brief one. The problem is Target itself. It's a distraction. I went in yesterday with my husband and kids to get ONE thing. I found myself wandering and lured away from my main goal by their seductive displays. My husband actually had to physically pull me back to the cart and tell me to focus on the task.

Lately I have noticed, since my kids' tolerance of doing ANY errand has actually increased, their tolerance of Target has proportionally decreased. Why? Because I think I have pushed them too far in this Mecca for moms. In the beginning the goal was about getting in and out of a place alive and with kids not screaming their heads off. Now that I know they don't this--instead they run like animals through the racks--I have expected too much of them beyond their knowledge of going in to pick up a few things.

So the lesson learned is now that my kids actually know what Target means: hours of endless of wandering for crap we don't need (even with the probability of a chocolate milk) this outing beyond just an errand doesn't meet their needs any longer, and they can't tolerate more than 10-20 minutes of it. Smart kids.

As a side note, I have heard my kids praise Target. Like when I told them we needed to get new shoes. My daughter's response was: Why aren't we going to Target. They have everything!

Or when I found my kids actually "playing Target" the other day. The game is ride up to the imaginary window on your bike and ask for shoes, clothes, toys, cards, movies, books, shampoo, food, sheets, towels. Target suddenly became drive-thru in their world.

Ahhhhhhh . . . and wouldn't that be a perfect world.

scout: the perfect pool bag & giveaway

Summer arrives and I suddenly become the pool sherpa. I have to able to pick the perfect pool for right time of day and bring along all the appropriate gear/toys and food. My first two summers to the pool I literally looked like a lost bag lady. I came in carrying at least three bags full of toys, diapers, swim diapers, clothes, snacks, water bottles, baby bottles, towels and anything else that may be considered essential to water play....even if only for 10 minutes.

Last summer, I walked past the most awesome bag at a local festival and finally decided it was time for a decent pool bag to tote all the junk to the pool. The bag was worth every cent and should be required gear for any Baby Bunching mom who is at the pool regularly.

The bag is called a Scout bag and Pine & Ivy (who I bought three of these bags from) is donating one for our giveaway. I love this bag because it's huge (19 x 10 x 15 inches), waterproof, stain poof and fun to carry. It's made out of poly-woven tarp material and has reinforced handles so I can get literally EVERYTHING for the pool into one bag.

To enter the giveaway, tell me why you need this bag and give us your best Baby Bunching pool story. We'll randomly select a winner on June 25.

Congrats to our winner Ariel. She was selected by Random.org.

what's for dinner: getting organized in the kitchen

As with other daily chores, such as laundry, the amount of spent in the kitchen correlates directly to the age of your kids. It peaks when your youngest starts eating real food until your kids can sit down at the table with the rest of family. get their own ketchup and eat everything on their plate without whining or spilling.

While you may be in the kitchen all day fixing snacks and playing the role of short-order cook, Baby Bunching doesn't lend itself to actual experimentation of culinary dishes...mainly due to lack of time. When my kids were little I had on average 6-10 dishes that were easy and fast to make. I would often make double and freeze a portion of it. And this was perfect for the stage in my life. I didn't have time for things that involved more than 10 ingredients or took more than 30 minutes.

But things have changed in the past few years. My kids now eat more things, I can move beyond the simple 6 recipes and try "experimenting" a bit. But when it came to actually keeping it all organized in the kitchen for the week, I wasn't able to manage. Every week I made a list of things I thought I would make, then I would forget to take out some meat or be missing an ingredient. Every week I was back to my six staples. I had recipe books marked and stacks of recipes I had printed and ripped out of magazines.

Then my neighbor provided me with the solution to most of my cooking problems.

Here is What Worked:

• Get a 3-ring binder (preferably one with a clear plastic cover that you can slip paper behind.)
• This is the time consuming step, but TOTALLY worth it. Put all your recipes into clear plastic page protectors. If you have some that are smaller and have time to print them out as full sheets, it helps, but it's not necessary. Get everything into protectors. It helps when you're cooking from them so they don't get dirty/wet.
• Organize your recipes by type. I have mine by appetizer, main, side, dessert, drinks, breads. But if you want to do it by chicken, beef, vegetarian, spicy, kid friendly...then do what works for you.

Now you're set. Here's how the system works.

1. Every week sit down and quickly flip through my binder of all recipes. It's helpful to have it all right in front of me. I pick out 6 things to make. (Note: One day is reserved for leftovers.)
2. I physically take the recipes from the binder (still in the plastic sheet) and move them to very front of the binder. 
3. Then I make my grocery list from the 6 items I pulled out.
4. I use the plastic sleeve on the front of the binder to hold my weekly menu so it's there to see quickly. Each day I take the recipe I'm making that day and clip it to the frig so I can see it all day and note if I have to marinate or chop a bunch of stuff. This way come 5:00 p.m. I'm not behind.

I started going this route about a year ago, and it has completely saved me from added evening stress of "what to make for dinner?" The hardest part was getting everything in one location, but once it was set up, it's been easy. Now I just rip things out or print things off and slip them in the binder for the next week.

baby bunching bests

A quick one for this week's Baby Bunching bests.

Jen over at Oscarelli had me laughing almost to tears with her post about how her most perfect outing went awry. I only laugh because I have been there more than once and assume that everyone else has had a similar experience. I'm glad we can laugh from these experiences and hope they make us grow for the next one.

Caitlin over at A Hen and Two Three Chicks writes a very poetic post about One Mother's Work. I love this.

Super Ninja Mommy at Two Under Two is looking for a name for her fifth baby. We've talked about names before and I imagine with each baby the "perfect" name must get more and more difficult.

Tara over at The Young Mommy Chronicles follows up with her birth control choice and how happy she is. OK, I know that's a strange topic for a 'best,' but c'mon, I've polled our readers and know that many of us have gotten into the Baby Bunching predicament as a result of lackadaisical birth control. Just thought I'd share.

vacationing baby bunching style: expectations

As Cara sets off for the mountains with her entire extended family, we're gearing up for a family vacation to the beach. Unlike Cara and her family, my Bunch doesn't travel well when it comes to sleeping so we don't do it often. My crew is high maintenance about where and how they sleep and for the first 2 days no one sleeps so we're all cranky and tired and ready for home.

You can plan for the flight, ride or hotel arrangements, but the other thing is to reset your expectations for what "vacation" really means.

• If you are traveling with two kids (or more) close in age and the oldest is under five, please note: This will NOT be a "vacation." You might be sipping margaritas by the pool, but you'll also be dashing after toddlers, dealing with pooey diapers and likely not getting much sleep.
• If you're going somewhere truly fabulous--like Europe--don't expect your kids to hike around and enjoy looking at museums, historical sites or anything else grown up. As Cara said about her upcoming trip to visit me in DC, the trip is about rockets, dinosaurs and pandas. If she's lucky her kids can wave at President Obama on the way to the Natural History Museum just like my kids do on the way home. This is the main reason our family vacations have always been the beach or the mountains. It pains us to go somewhere fabulous and only ever see the pools, zoos or parks.
• Vacationing with family is deceiving. It makes sense that these people who are bound to you by blood would want to provide you with some relief to make it your vacation, too. And yes, for the most part your family will step up and help out with some of the basics. But know this help is limited. After approximately four days, everyone else is tired out and your kids often become your problem again. So take the help when you can in the early part of the vacation to see, do, read, eat out, relax, etc. before everyone gets exhausted by the chaos.
• There will be chaos. Change in schedules, beds, people, food makes kids out of sorts sometimes. If you have an easily adjusted kid to all of this change--I have one of these--you're lucky. The trick is to be flexible. You may have to eat hot dogs or PB&J more than you had planned. Your kids may have to learn to like couscous or 12-grain bread. You may have to let your kids go without a bath one night. Being flexible can be hard especially if you're Type A like I am.

Keep these three things in mind during your vacation and you'll be fine. Vacation with your Baby Bunch is about:

1) Change of scenery. We all (us and the kids) need a little change in our lives to help us get perspective and grow as person.

2) Being with each other. It's amazing what happens as a family when you're apart from the computer (work or home) and the phone. Yes, leave your Blackberry at home.

3) Seeing new things, places and people. Even if you're seeing another zoo, another garden or another McDonald's, it's something new for you and the kids to experience together.

Happy traveling. (As a side note, we're both out for the week so we've queued up some posts for you to enjoy while we're gone.)

counting 1-2-3 . . . magic

My kids are wild! I feel like I have seen it all from them, and my oldest is not even four. We’ve dealt with the hitting, pushing, biting, screaming like every other toddler/preschool mom. My kids aren’t any worse than other kids, but they are intense sometimes, even relentless.

When my son was two and a half, I was about to lose my mind. We had just moved back to the States, he wasn’t in preschool yet and the pushing and hitting was completely out of control. I would get so worked up I could hear the blood pulsing in my ears. Sometimes I was sure my head would explode! A neighbor recommended the book 1-2-3 Magic by Dr. Thomas Phelan. I bought it and read it within an evening since I was desperate for some change and peace in our house. Within two days, it had worked it’s magic! Not just on him but on me.

I will recommend if you want to do this, you really should get your hands on the actual book. He has some very sound advice and recommendations for following through. He even gives you various scenarios to use it, including just plain whining from a child. But here is the gist of it. You explain to your child first that he will have, basically, two chances to stop doing what he’s doing. By the time you get to number 3, there will be a consequence. You have to be pretty ready to follow through on your threat immediately. I used to give Alex ample room in the beginning like:

Mom: Leave that toy in the car.
Alex: No
Mom: Leave that toy in the car or we’re not going to [fill in blank].
Alex: No
Mom: That’s 1
Alex: No
Mom: That’s 2
Alex: Ok, fine.

So really, he’s had more than two chances once I explained it to him what was going to happen. But as we progressed with this method, I would barely get to 1 before he would figure out it was just not worth fighting it. Sometimes, getting to ‘3’ meant a time out. Sometimes it meant the toy disappeared. Sometimes it meant no TV, music or something related. Sometimes it meant we had to go home or do something else.

Beyond the counting method, is Dr. Phelan’s discussion of lecturing to children as part of the discipline process. I used to go on and on with my son telling him why he shouldn’t do this and that. The author’s point is for a two-year old, beyond the first few words is completely lost. They are kids! And to them hear “don’t do this . . . blah, blah, blah, blah.” So why waste our energy and breath on a lecturing a two or three-year old.

Using this method was never perfect. But 99 percent of the time it worked. One of the fundamental things to doing this is mom has to keep her cool. This is extremely hard for me because I am a very impatient person. But it actually helps me separate myself from the situation. If I’m calm, they are calm. And if in the end he throws a fit anyway, I don’t care as much since I didn’t invest the energy in getting worked up.

Ss a side note, this does not work its magic quite as well with my daughter. I have no idea why. But it just doesn’t. My ROI with her is about 80 percent. Still pretty good odds, just not as effective. Perhaps I need to go back and reread the book with her in mind.

But if you’re looking for a new discipline routine—besides timeouts, screaming, or lecturing—this will leave you less stressed at the end, you might give this book a read (or even a scan). You can get the bulk of it from a quick read.

getting it all done: adjusting expectations

I am a planner and a list maker.  My calendar and to-do list drove every aspect of my life, until I had children and they steamrolled all over my life.

When I became a mom for the first time, it seemed every parenting article or book that I read gave the same two annoying pieces of advice for achieving success in motherhood:  1) sleep when the baby sleeps and 2) adjust your expectations in terms of crossing things off your to-do list.  When I became a Baby Buncher, the former became irrelevant, but the latter became the key to my sanity. 

It took me probably a good year of Baby Bunching to realize that if I was able to complete THREE things on my list each day, I was doing really, really good.  That's not to say that I didn't ACCOMPLISH anything, because I certainly did.  I kept two children fed, watered, cleaned, entertained, and safe.  I kept the household moving forward using basic standards of sanitation (that is to say that everyone always had clean dishes and clothes, if not neatly stacked and put away).  I even worked part-time at a job that generated income.  But when it came to the "extras", such as tackling an organizational project, running an errand, or even making a phone call, it was a max of three things per day and only one of them could be an errand.  And sometimes not even that many, depending on how that day's nap trap and constant needs shook out or if the item involved a trip to the post office (all post office errands stay on my list for a minimum of two weeks).  And heaven forbid someone was sick or teething - then it was Survival Mode and all bets for crossing anything off the list were off.

I did find as my kids got older that I was able to check more things off my list.  But now that I have a baby again I'm back to square one.  Only this time, I'm not even bothering to fight it and it's kind of nice.  I figure he'll be bigger in a few years and I'll be back to blazing through my to-do list (which will STILL be never-ending), so what's the point in knocking myself out over it now?  I won't remember if my floor was clean today, but I'll always remember how hard he laughed when I tickled him during afternoon playtime.