"Maddie dressed all by self."

I let Maddie pick out her own clothes a lot. She really enjoys it and has a lot of opinions about what she wears, and it cuts down somewhat on the getting-dressed-related tantrums for her to have control over that element of the dressing process.

I in no means intend for the following photo to be construed as criticism of Maddie's fashion sense, because people who live in glass houses blah blah blah. I just love this picture because the outfit is, to most adult eyes including my own, a bit, shall we say, unusual, but she looks adorable in it and she's clearly so proud of it:

We had a great weekend. There was some freaking out on both the Mama side and the baby side, but there was also a lot more calm and joy than there has been in a while. I just felt different, more aware. That rage post was really cathartic for me, and I think just the act of expressing some of that stuff was helpful in regaining my cool. The couple of times I did lose it—most notably at bathtime tonight when I was actually just really thirsty and vaguely dehydrated and in need of a glass of water and I snapped rather than getting it—I talked about it with the twins and we all moved on.

I also gained some good perspective from other moms this weekend. We met another twin mom at the park this weekend, and she was kind enough to bring bagels and cream cheese for all and coffee for her and me. She brought a tub of cream cheese, and when I got there, I slathered up a bagel for Maddie and Riley to share. Predictably, Maddie just wanted to eat the cream cheese, which was fine when she confined that to eating it off her bagel. But she wanted to eat it out of the tub. With a plastic knife. Eating out of the tub just seemed rude, and the knife seemed borderline dangerous, but our friend was not grossed out by the shared tub and she let her twins use the knives, so . . . I just let Maddie go for it. And she had a great time. And no one got hurt and everything was fine and sometimes I just need to chill out.

Similarly, Maddie wanted to take all of her clothes off at our backyard BBQ today. I was fine down to the diaper, but she wanted that off, too. The daughter of one of my friends was taking her clothes off, too, and let her daughter take off her diaper. So I let Maddie have hers off, too. Guess what? Once again, nothing bad happened and Maddie had a great time. So there. I will now proceed to put that relaxed attitude in my pipe and smoke it.

We tried a really fun thing last night: Stroller Jammies. I put the kids in their PJs on the early side, then loaded them into the jog stroller with their milk. They drank, I power walked. They loved it. They thought it was hilarious to be in the stroller in their pajamas (they insisted on being covered with a blankie, too), and I loved being out on a nice, warm evening. I'm going to try to do this a couple of times a week for either a walk or a jog. Maddie and Riley slept better than they have in a long time, and they just thought it was so much fun. Score!

This is one of those posts that feels like it must only be interesting to me. We had a fun weekend! I didn't freak out too much! I feel calmer and more in control! Maddie and Riley are cute! That pretty much sums it up. It's just a revelation to me to have had a weekend—and a long one at that—that I don't really want to see come to an end. I'm usually so, so ready for a break from being Mama nonstop all weekend, but this weekend, I'd be happy for more of it.