Helping Others

With the health care reform passing this week and the amount of people that are against it, I think it's important to teach kids values in helping others. I think there is something wrong with a society who are against helping those who are disadvantaged and don't teach equality.

Joy and I were talking about ways we can teach our kids values in helping others. Early in our relationship, we went to Denny's and they displayed a Christmas giving tree. On that tree, needy children posted a Christmas wish list. Joy picked one child's list and one item was a bike. That night we went to Wal Mart and she bought a bike. We went back and put it under the tree. Joy mentioned last night that she wants our kids to pick something from from the giving tree to give a needy child a present. I couldn't agree more. Even if it's a trip to the dollar store to get a present.

I was listening to a parenting podcast yesterday at work and one guy on the show mentioned that he makes his kids give up a few old toys to charity after Christmas. I also think that's a good idea.

I also want to teach our kids equality. I read an article about a group that's against health care reform that a protest that turned
racist and homophobic. I want teach our kids that racism, homophobia, and sexism is not a value that we support. Luckily, we live in a very diverse area. So I think values in equality will come mostly naturally. But a good talk with boys when the time is ready would a good thing.

Nesting for the outdoors

Spring has arrived! Or at least approaching in a couple of days. Which is time to get the outdoors ready for the boys and for summer.

When we bought our house, the backyard was covered in snow. We didn't realize until right before we moved in, we had a small person-made pond. Last summer, we tried to maintain it. We cleaned it out and bought fish. But as fall approached, we thought about kids and our inability (or desire) to maintain the pond. So we tore it out and filled it with leaves and sticks. With the thought of "in spring we'll fill it with dirt." Saturday is the first day of spring and the day we'll have 3 cubic yards of dirt delivered.

Joy and her mom removed the walkway to the pond and made a garden out of the rocks. They moved the plants that were by the pond.

In the summer time, we'll definitely want to spend time outside. So we're working on our patio. We have an enclosed patio, thanks to screens, however our dog didn't see them one day and walked right through one... And then another.... So Joy took down all the screens. We bought new screens (heavier screens) and new wood boards. We got paint and I'm gonna have my dad help with the electricity.

To give ourselves extra privacy, Joy had the idea of moving a couple of the trees from front yard by the patio. So far, we got one of them moved and working on the other one.

Anyway the patio will be great place to chill while the boys are sleeping too. Their bedroom window is right inside the patio. That will make it extremely easy to see and hear them.

We were very fortunate to get a house on a half acre of land in the city. Now that we've gotten rid of the pond and the walkway. The boys will have plenty of room to run around, have water balloon fights, and be kids. Even though, I'm not much of a sports fan, I'm looking forward to putting in a basketball hoop for them but that will be much later.

Kickin'!

There are a few things that make you feel your baby (or in our case babies) is real before they're born. Of course the big one is the ultrasound. Luckily enough, since we're having twins, we'll be seeing our babies for the third time at the end of the month! But another way is to feel the baby kick. And that's what I felt last week.

We were sitting on the couch and Joy said she felt them moving. I put my hand on her stomach and felt them moving around. It kind of felt like they were tickling the palm of my hand. I responded by rubbing her belly. Now that's one thing. The other thing is to actually see them move. We watched as they moved around her belly. I responded by rubbing her stomach again.

Now whenever she says they're moving, my response is to watch and feel. It makes me really happy to know they're in there moving around. I can't wait to actually hold them in my arms.

I'm curious to see how much they'll kick and how much we'll get to see them move as they get bigger. On the same token, I hope they're not as abusive as apparently I was to my mom. She said I use to kick her in the rib.

On a side note, don't rub too much of the belly. Adding rubbing to an already nauseous mother isn't too pleasing.

Fathering

This blog came about during a conversation with my wife about being a father. After finding out we're gonna have a baby and then more so when we found out we're having twins, I realized there is a lack of info on fathering a child and less on twins. It seems during the day, the father wasn't much involved in the parenting of a child and a father wanting to be involved is something new. I could be wrong, but from the lack of info out there, it seems like it.

Looking around the net, I found it somewhat difficult to come across a decent fathering website. The ones I've found contain mostly broken links (usually for the info I'm mostly looking for) or contains old articles that pretty much sound like common sense or seem to be directed at how a deadbeat father could be a caring father. At least that's what I got out of some of these articles. Also many of the "father" websites seem to be dedicated to the legal rights of the father.

You won't find many organzations dedicated to parents of twins either. I recall reading somewhere when we found out we were having twins to look into a twin organazation for informaton. I thought it would be a good idea to see if we have any around us. The closest one I could find is an hour away and it's designed for mothers. I don't understand why they don't open it to include fathers. Maybe rename their organazation "National organazation of PARENTS of twins?"

I have a disadvantage as I haven't looked into "parenting" books more. The books we've gotten from the library have mostly been pregnancy books. I'm not sure if there's even a book out there that deals with the raising the twins. We had a hard time locating twin pregnancy books in the store (one popular book chain only had two.) We got a lot of books from the library but mostly seem to deal with pregancy to one year. The pregnancy books usually offer one chapter to the father.

While all these mediums do give useful information. I do appreciate the lists that are in most pregnancy books and learning about the development of the baby.) The info listed on webmd and in "what to expect when your expecting" have been very helpful. I just feel like there should be more out there on parenting (including the father).

Feel free to let me know of any good books, websites, or organazations.