Pete and Repeat were in a boat.

I've already posted this recipe, but I feel the need to now show off my stellar photography skills and share the epiphany that was the version I made last night. Fasten your seatbelts—it's devil's food cake, another time.

So it doesn't look like much. Who cares? How many times have I had a pretty little bit of pastry or cake and it tastes, well, bad? This is not gorgeous, no, but it will make your tastebuds sing.

So what did I do differently?

• The fat. Butter, my friend. Butter.
• The cocoa powder. My go-to cocoa powder is the Dutch-process cocoa powder from Penzey's, but I haven't had the occasion to stop in the store or place a mail order recently, so this time I used Hershey's Special Dark. But here's the thing—I haven't liked the results of the Penzey's cocoa powder much. Hershey's Special Dark is a blend of Dutch-process and natural cocoa powders, and maybe therein lies the difference, as different types of cocoa have different levels of alkalinity. Whatever happened this time around, the chocolate flavor was richer than other attempts at the recipe.
• The flour. Because I'm a sucker for a low price-per-unit, I've been baking with Ultragrain flour from my beloved Costco. I've had pretty good results with it. The texture of the finished products can be crumbly, as with whole wheat, while at the same time becoming tough easily. It's a tricky flour to use, but it worked with this recipe.
• The sugar. Due to an unfortunate run-in with red wine vinegar, my white sugar met an untimely demise, so I used brown sugar.
• The icing. Since it's not likely that I have unsweetened chocolate and cream lying around my house, I threw some things together and ended up with the icing I wanted all along. It's pretty much a whipped ganache, but it is made of much less fancy ingredients than you'd expect.

Some might say I've created a whole new recipe. I say it's just an improvement. 

Beatrice's devil's food cake, improved

Cake: 

2 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. butter, softened

2 eggs

1/2 t. salt

1/2 c. milk

3 heaping T. cocoa

1 t. vanilla

1/2 t. baking powder

2 T. baking soda

3 c. flour

1 c. boiling water

Icing:

1 1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

3/4 c. half and half

1/2 c. brown sugar

3 T. butter

1/4 t. vanilla

1. Using a stand mixer, cream the brown sugar and butter. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add salt, milk, cocoa, vanilla, baking powder, and baking soda and mix to combine.
2. Mix in the flour at a low speed, one cup at a time. 
3. Gradually mix in the boiling water. Mix until smooth.
4. Pour into a prepared 9x13 pan (greased/floured or sprayed with nonstick spray). Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. 
5. Meanwhile, make the icing. In a saucepan on medium heat, combine the chocolate chips, half and half, and brown sugar. Bring to a boil, and boil for four minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in butter and vanilla. In a stand mixer with a wire whip attachment, whip the icing until it is cool and begins to become fluffy and lighter in color. This should take at least 15 minutes.
6. Cool and spread icing on the top. 

My summer bucket list

I have SO MANY DREAMS, guys. SO MANY. I gave myself an entire year off from anything but the bare minimum, because you really can't do much more than the bare minimum when you have two babies at the same time. But now it's go time. No more messing around. Let's make this summer count.
Here is my summer bucket list, as in what I want to do before summer kicks the bucket, not me.

1. Brew some beer. I'd love to shadow one of my several friends who homebrew to see how their process goes and pick up some tips and tricks. I'm confident I can master the process; it's just that I've already done plenty of hobbies where there's a massive investment in infrastructure and where I've learned that much of the infrastructure is unnecessary. 
2. Increase gardening space. My backyard is home to three 4x4 "square foot gardening" boxes. I've never managed to get a decent yield from this setup and would prefer a more haphazard and fun method of gardening. Liz @ Food Snobbery is my Hobbery has a great garden to which I aspire. I'd like to double the size of my raised beds.
3. Re-contemplate chickens and—is this too ambitious?—take some real action on getting them again. It seems absurd that I spent years whining about wanting chickens, finally got two ladies (the picture is a rare one of them—I miss you, Mabel and Beatrice!), and then had to find them a new home. This time I'm going to do it the way I should have in the first place—permit from the city, a coop built by us, and lots of hens.
4. Go camping. Even if it's just one weekend, or one trip out to my mom's boyfriend's cabin, we're going to pitch a tent and sleep under the stars with a thin bit of nylon between us and them. 
5. Preserve ALL THE THINGS. Okay, not all of them, but some. One thing I will skip is canning apricots, aside from a bit of jam, as even with very, very heavy syrup they ended up sour. I must remember to make dilly beans, as the eldest child devours them whenever she can.
6. Do some sewing. My mom helped me buy a really sweet sewing machine as a Christmas present two years ago. Have I used it? Hardly. I have a bunch of materials to make diaper covers and two babies who are growing out of their medium-size covers. I have quilts I could make and dresses I could stitch. 
7. Exercise, exercise. I've kinda-sorta started up Couch to 5k again. My bike needs some work, which needs to be done soon because I am eager to start biking to work again. The downside of this particular item on the list is that it requires so much stuff. I have to fix my ripped or purchase a new set of saddlebags so I can transport things to work. If we want to go biking as a family, we need a second trailer (or, in my dreams, a Madsen). I need new running shoes and running clothes (five-year-old maternity capris don't really make you feel like an athlete). I exercise because it makes me feel good, not to lose weight, but the monetary expense it sometimes entails cuts down on those good feelings.
8. Cook a lot/bake a lot. Some people may not want to cook or bake when the temperature rises. I'm the opposite. My oven will be going all summer, and I am eager to take fresh, local produce and turn it into amazing food, especially after this year of too much pizza and too many frozen chicken nuggets.
9. Write more. I have a bee in my bonnet to start blogging about lactation, postpartum care, and a little about pregnancy and parenting on my business website; I find I have too much to say about these things to keep it to my Facebook page. Then there's this space, which I'd love to fill with more recipes and snapshots of our oh-so-exciting lives. Maybe, just maybe, if I distract myself with writing actual words I can pull myself away from all of the one-liners I feel compelled to leave on the ol' book of faces.

Should be no problem.

A little jar o' sunshine

It's been a very, very long time since I've put up some food, but I managed a dozen jars of orange marmalade recently. The task kept shifting further down the to-do list until I realized that the oranges were starting to look a little weary and my lemons were threatening to turn to mush on the counter.

It's nothing fancy, just something from the Ball blue book. Since I live on the edge, though, I roughly doubled the recipe and didn't use quite as much sugar as called for, because I like a tiny little bit of bitter (or sour) with my sweet.

We had a rare day of sunshine and I had to take a photo of a few jars basking in it. The sun has been such a tease in Minnesota, hiding behind clouds in the morning only to pop out in the afternoon and then disappear again. The snow is finally melting, although temperatures are once again below freezing today and dirty bits of ice hang on still.

The weather has not been cooperative for sugaring, that's for sure. I've collected a few measly gallons so far, and half of that—four hard-earned gallons, precisely—fell victim to a 3.5-year-old boy as they sat on the back stoop. I'm sorry, sap, that you were fed to the driveway instead of boiled down to delicious, sticky syrup. The weather forecast looks ideal for collecting sap in the coming week, but since three of the five taps are barely producing, I'm not going to hold my breath.

My grandma's Amish cookies

My grandma was (well, is) the kind of grandma who had a jar (or, more accurately, a giant, green Tupperware container with a ridged lid) of cookies on her counter for hungry little hands to place into hungry little mouths. Her standards were chocolate chip cookies and these "Amish" cookies, which are flaky, tender sugar cookies. She would use a glass to press the cookies down, leaving a starburst shape on each.

But now, it's the end of an era. Really, the era's been gone for awhile, because my grandma hasn't been baking like she used to, but now it seems the door is officially closed. My grandma has moved out of her house, which has now been sold, and her stuff has moved out as well. My mom hauled a bag of goods to my house, and this bag included two cookie stamps—one of a bunch of tulips and another of the sort of owl that was retro before it was cool. In retrospect, I wish I would've told my mom I wanted one of those glasses. The cookie stamps are nice, and since there are two of them, my older kids could do the stamping without any arguments, but they just aren't the same.

Since I'm a sucker for old-fashioned recipes, I'll reproduce it as she wrote down on a recipe card long ago. The "double it and share" suggestion always gives me a chuckle. I did exactly that the first time I made the cookies, and it was certainly a batch that was worthy of that underlined "a lot."

I did not have margarine in the house, so I used butter. They would be better with margarine, since it lends a lightness. Shortening might do this, as well, but might not have the right flavor. (But, go ahead, use butter-flavored Crisco. I won't judge.) I baked these at 350 degrees until they just barely started to brown at the edges.

My Grandma's Amish Cookies

Beat 2 eggs and set aside.
Beat 1 c. oil and 1 c. margarine, 1 c. powdered sugar, 1 c. white sugar, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 tsp. soda, 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar. Add eggs and 4 1/2 c flour. Cool. Roll into balls and press with cookie stamp or sugared glass. Makes a nice sized batch. Double it and share. It makes a lot.

The logistics of twins: Part II—Breastfeeding redux

I'll be sharing some of the logistical problems and solutions we've had with twins. I'll be speaking solely from my own experience, without trying to touch on all of the many options available. Please feel free to chime in with your own experiences. Part I, which talks about our earliest days of breastfeeding, is here.

Time flies

While having two babies at the same time (plus two older kids) hasn't been quite the nightmare I expected while at my most pessimistic, it hasn't been all fun and games, either. Case in point: The babies slept oh so well as newborns. Then they turned four months old. As if on cue, sleep of a several-hour stretch became the material of the dreams I was no longer able to have because I wasn't allowed to reach REM sleep. Coupled with an inability to sleep on their own, it was pretty hairy. While I have mostly avoided being touched out, I remain an introvert, fortified by time alone, preferably time alone where I don't have to catch up on the chores that never get done anyway and that happens early enough in the evening that I am not a total zombie.

That is all to say that time has flown. The last part of this series was written almost five months ago, and things have changed quite a bit. I'm happy to report that now, at almost nine months of age, Josie and Ozzie are letting me sleep more than an hour at a time, and usually sleeping on their own for decent stretches in the evening. I feel my sanity gradually creeping back.

Some things change, some stay the same

Our basic night-time routine has not changed, although the babies have been long out of swaddling. (We stopped swaddling when I became uncomfortable with it because they started rolling everywhere, and this likely contributed to the less-than-ideal sleep experience.) Babies get diapers (disposables, as I've never had much luck with cloth for nighttime and don't have the spare cash or give-a-darn to test drive options), pajamas (several layers now that it's cold), and are tandem nursed. At this point, we've entirely ditched the nursing pillow. The babies are just too big. I did, however, enjoy the laughs provided by a baby rolling off the pillow onto the bed, snoozing away the whole time.

Without the pillow, I tend to sit on the bed with my legs spread far enough to nestle each baby into my arms in a cradle hold. Their legs are piled up onto each other and it's quite snuggly (and Josie would say too warm, as she tends to get sweaty and overheated while we do this).

When we're not doing bedtime, I tend to feed the babies one at a time. They are both very content to play with toys (or the most inappropriate objects they can find, such as the millions of bits of paper their big sister leaves in her wake). The times we tandem feed tend to be before sleep and when I come home from an outing. The basic setup tends to be me sitting on the end of the couch with two throw pillows on the other side of me for my elbow to rest in comfort, one baby in a football hold next to the couch's arm, the other in a cradle hold, and my feet up on a footstool.

For a long while, I attempted to have naptime. Imagine, getting two babies to take a nap for an hour or two while I accomplished things around the house, or spent more focused time with my bigger kids! The babies' response to that was, "Waaaaaaaah!" Instead of sequestering us in the bedroom in a vain attempt at naps, we now just nurse on the couch and they sleep on me. I enjoy the snuggles (I think they do, too), and even if my big kids are still watching TV (so they're not jumping all over us), at least I'm in the same room.

Nursing in public, then and now

Even as a seasoned breastfeeder, nursing in public has had its challenges. When the babies were tiny, nursing often and almost always tandem, it was essential to have another adult around for outings. There were plenty of times this wasn't an option; this usually resulted in lots of crying and frustration for all parties. At times, using a wrap or ring sling helped; I could hold one (sleeping, if I was lucky) while the other nursed. Most of the time I counted on getting about an hour where they'd sleep or be otherwise distracted by the scenery; after that, it was switching one baby for another for the rest of the outing, but being cooped up all the time was worse than this.

Since both babies handle being in the stroller well, I haven't had the need to tandem nurse in public. Thank goodness, since it shows a lot of flesh, and even confident-about-feeding-her-hungry-babies-where-they-need-to-be-fed me isn't keen on that. I do, however, often need to feed babies yet still keep older kids under control, so there have been many times I've sat in parking lots feeding one baby, then the other, while everyone else is strapped in a car seat. I've gotten some smiles from older ladies doing this, although I hope I'm not sending a message that nursing in public is something to be hidden.

Josie and Ozzie will be nine months old on Monday. It's hard to believe that just 53 weeks ago, I didn't even know (for sure) that I was carrying two babies. The shock still hasn't quite worn off.

How to help your child be a civilized person who uses the toilet in many steps

Ike is semi-officially out of diapers. That is to say, we are out of the disposables we've been using for him overnight, so he has to be out of diapers out of necessity. Out of the past week and a half or so, he's wet the bed once overnight, and that's it, including having two nights with his grandparents. I declare this a success. *throws confetti*

Now that I have TWO children out of diapers, I can share my method for potty training. (You can call it "potty learning" if you like; I will only judge you a bit for this.)

My method for two children has been as follows:

• Introduce the potty early. Get excited when s/he gets excited about using the potty at such an early age. Predict that child will be out of diapers before 2.
• Get tired of cleaning up accidents. Keep child in diapers and bemoan how s/he will never, ever learn how to use the potty like a civilized human being. Occasionally make effort to take off diaper for child to use the potty and savor the glimmers of hope. Self-flagellate re: what a terrible, lazy parent you are for not trying very hard at all.
• Get determined that It Is Time To Use The Potty. Spend days pushing the issue and making a big deal out of things. End up cleaning up a lot of pee and/or poop. Persevere.
• Give up again. Once again bemoan lack of civilized behavior. Ditto, lack of drive and determination.
• Notice the diaper is staying dry. Say to self, "Hm." Start to leave off diaper, without making a big deal out of things. Notice that pees and/or poops are ending up in the potty more likely than not. 
• Try underwear after a couple of days of the above. Be dismayed that it doesn't work. Try being bottomless again.
• Suddenly, notice that underwear is coming down BEFORE potties are sat upon. Maybe do some clapping, because parents clap when children pee/poop in designated out-of-diaper areas (it's in our contracts).
• After much of this, attempt zero diapers outside of the house. Rejoice in successes. When success is not achieved, remind self that most people are out of diapers by the time they get to college.
• Eventually, forget to put on a diaper overnight. When diaper is dry in the morning, try another night. Continue until you're unsure when you last put on a diaper at night. 
• Do a little dance, but don't get too cocky, and possibly make signs against the evil eye, depending upon your superstition level, as you do not want to wake up to anyone covered in poop. 

Now, teaching kids to use the "big potty," as we call it, is another story. Nora took to it easily. Ike is reluctant and, as a result, I end up settling down to nurse two babies right as he's taking a big dump in the living room (the usual location of the "little potty"). Ah, parenthood.

The logistics of twins: Part I—Breastfeeding at home

I'll be sharing some of the logistical problems and solutions we've had with twins. I'll be speaking solely from my own experience, without trying to touch on all of the many options available. Please feel free to chime in with your own experiences. This may or may not be a continuing series, so I'm starting with my pet topic.

The challenge of feeding babies like any common mammal

The babies had several advantages when it came to the Battle of the Boob:

1. I've successfully breastfed, without needing to use fancy equipment or formula, two other (singleton) babies.
2. They were born full-term, at good weights, and did not need any sort of interventions (which was achieved partly by believing that twin pregnancy is not high-risk until something actually goes wrong). 
3. Bottlefeeding for reasons other than absolute need is not an option for me.
4. I know  lot about breastfeeding and normal newborn behavior.

I see many of the challenges of breastfeeding twins to be the same as breastfeeding single babies. Those things are mainly having the right support (people experienced with and good at lactation support, as well as support with day-to-day tasks or in-the-moment needs) at the right time and understanding what a normal newborn acts like. The difference with twins is that you're more likely to have to deal with difficult circumstances due to early delivery—babies in NICU, having to pump, underdeveloped suck reflex, etc.—and that you have two babies to contend with. 

Having two babies means that you're dealing with two individual beings. No two babies are exactly alike, even if their genetic makeup is. They will have different personalities; if you're lucky, they'll be personalities that work well with each other and you. Josie seems to be the more dynamic of the two of my babies; she has very definite opinions about things. Ozzie is a bit more laid-back and willing to adapt to what Josie needs.

The early days

Especially in the early days (as of writing this, the babies are almost 14 weeks old), we tandem nursed. I would put both of them on the My Brest Friend Twins Plus pillow and they'd nurse, and sleep, and nurse again. Diapers would get changed on both babies when one would need one, which happened after a dirty diaper or roughly every two hours during the day, and during wakeups at night until they were done having dirty diapers at night, after which time they were outfitted with an enormous, fat, super-absorbent diaper that usually stays on all night. Mostly, I sat on the couch (or bed) and fed babies.

Now, this isn't fun, especially if you have older kids, but after giving birth, a body needs to heal. A woman's two jobs after giving birth are to allow herself to heal and to feed her babies. A baby's job is to eat, poop, and sleep. Other people can take care of running a household. We are blessed with a great community that provided us with meals (using Food Tidings) for six weeks after the babies were born. For me, a person who likes to do things, this lying-in period is sort of like psychological torture, but letting go of the idea that I needed to do things helped immensely. (Even now, I have to stop to remind myself that I do not need to do some things. Almost everything can wait. This is why I have three raised beds full of weeds right now. But, oh, what a splendid weed harvest it will be!

That reminds me of another thing that is important in the early weeks of breastfeeding (and mothering/parenting in general): Telling moms that, yes, it really sucks. You will feel drained and tired and it will be hard. It being hard does not mean you're doing it wrong. And, furthermore, it is okay to think that it sucks and to even say so out loud.

Pumping

Some will insist that you will need to pump in order to have a large enough milk supply. Some will say that sort of thing even if you have just one baby to contend with. But the fact is, unless one or both babies is unable to latch and transfer milk properly (and assuming all of your systems are go), all you need to do in order to have enough milk is to breastfeed on demand. Sometimes the demand is constant (and it's not just about milk, either—here, read this: The Normal Newborn and Why Breastmilk is Not Just Food). 

My advice is to avoid technology until there are problems and, even then, use technology as a second line of defense, not the first. Most breastfeeding problems—assuming they are actual problems, and not just perceived problems—can be fixed by low-tech means alone. Pumps are best used for establishing/keeping milk supply when a baby cannot latch or transfer milk properly or for collecting milk while a mother is away from her baby or needs milk for when she will be away. Pumps are not as efficient as a baby at removing milk; having a baby do the work makes more sense than having a pump do it, especially since adding time to pump and all of the time spent cleaning pump parts will add a significant amount of stress to an already stressful time.

I have a Bailey Medical Nurture III breast pump, which I shall review in detail at some point. I pump while I am away at work and occasionally on mornings/evenings/whenever if I need additional milk. I tend to pump exactly what I "should"; that is, I'll get about 1 ounce per hour that I've not nursed. My left breast consistently produces about double what my right does.

Basic logistics: How we sleep and how we tandem feed

As far as sleeping arrangements go, we have two queen-sized beds on box springs on the floor, which takes up roughly one-half of our bedroom and extends nearly from one wall to the other. The softer mattress, the one we have had for years, is where my husband primarily sleeps (occasionally, a big kid will climb into bed next to him). The firmer mattress is where the babies sleep; for now, they sleep swaddled (using fancy swaddling blankets, since neither of us are good at swaddling) and right next to each other in the middle of this bed. When I tandem feed in bed, I am using a nursing pillow and sitting on the mattress, with my back to the wall; when a baby falls asleep, I can move him/her to the mattress, and if one needs some additional nursing, we can do this side-lying. I sneak away after they fall asleep, and they will sleep for quite a long time (usually five hours, but up to EIGHT—I know, I hate me too!). These days, I often crawl into the softer mattress to go to sleep, and move next to whichever baby needs me as needed at night.

Want to know one of the most challenging things about twins? It's where the heck you put them all. When they were very tiny, I could put them on the couch, parallel to its length, and lift one and then the other onto my nursing pillow. Handy tip: While it is possible to bend over slightly and pick a baby up from a bouncy chair, you can only do that when you have ONE baby unless you are feeling very lucky with balancing babies on your pillow or shoulder. I don't recommend it. Use a middleman, such as the couch or another adult's arms.

Right now, they are too large and too wiggly to lie on the couch together without extreme vigilance. Ozzie can be placed on the couch without much worry, but Josie manages to roll and kick herself into awkward and potentially dangerous situations. My standard approach is to put one, usually Ozzie, on the couch, strap on my nursing pillow, and pick up the other from the playpen or bouncy chair. We settle in, and then I pick up whomever is hanging out on the couch.

Insert specific bulleted lists

Here are some specific bulleted lists about what's gone down at specific times. Any breastfeeding relationship is going to change over time; that's one good reason to stick things out when the going gets tough, because it will change, for better or for worse (but probably better) given enough time.

First eight weeks

• Almost always tandem feeding using a large support pillow, nearly constantly during the day, with naps for the babies happening on my chest.
• Babies would sleep on husband/other adults who were around when I needed a break; occasionally, they napped on their own during the day.
• Babies got a lot of food dropped on their heads. 
• A bedtime routine was established fairly early: Babies diapered, swaddled, nursed on the pillow, and moved to the bed when asleep. 
• When babies woke at night, the husband would change diapers and provide a freshly swaddled baby to me; I would then tandem nurse them, since they usually both woke up during this period.
• For about the first two weeks, my nipples were very sore, and I'd cry with a lot of feeds. I had two babies learning to nurse, not just one, and lots of bad latching happened. The soreness miraculously went away with religious application of Motherlove Nipple Cream over a period of a couple of days.

Eight weeks to twelve weeks

• Maternity leave ended at eight weeks, so things changed a bit; babies began to receive bottles when I was at my part-time job.
• When I was around, still almost always tandem feeding, though when one baby would be content to sit in a bouncy chair (rarely), I took the opportunity to have one-on-one snuggly feeding time with the other.
• The bedtime routine looks similar, though babies no longer wake up at the same time at night as much. On the rare times that happened, tandem feeding happened. On those times I couldn't deal with more tandem feeding (because if you do it all day... guess what!... you don't want to do it all night), my husband would rock, snuggle, shush, or attempt to shove a binky into the mouth of the other. (Neither of them likes pacifiers. *sigh*)

Twelve weeks to now

• Babies are getting a bit more willing to be set down; they've even had a small amount of tummy time (Josie can ROLL already!), so I do much less tandem feeding, because even if I want to sit and nurse babies all day because it's a little bit easier, I have to at least attempt to keep house occasionally. 
• Babies are starting to want to take actual naps. Josie wants these more than Ozzie and will put up quite a fuss if she decides it's naptime, and this fuss can only be fixed by putting her down for a nap. 
• It often happens at night that one baby, usually Ozzie, will be content to be swaddled and simply wait to be fed. I can stroke his/her head (which I think I established as a sleepy cue because I like to sit and stroke their sweet little baby heads as they nurse together) to settle him/her while I'm feeding the other, then flop over to feed that baby. Sometimes I need to go back and forth for a little while before both are settled.

I still feel like I'm nursing a baby almost constantly. The times where both are happy to be on their own are few and far between. I relish them. While tandem nursing is getting more difficult because the pillow seems to be shrinking, I still think it makes a lot more sense than trying to feed them one at a time all of the time, as some people do. By the time you've nursed one baby, then the other, you've got to do it all over again. 

So far the journey has been more enjoyable than not. Seeing sweet little faces smiling sweet little smiles makes up for a whole lot. That said, I'm looking forward to seeing how things change and eagerly awaiting the six-month mark, where I hope the introduction of solid foods means I'm in a bit less constant demand.

FAQ (yes, just the one)

Q: So, do you assign a boob to them for the day, or what?

A: No. They tend to get the same boob at night, since they stay in place and I flip back and forth on either side of them, but during the day I try to switch breasts for each feed. Usually they are content to take only one breast per feed, too, but sometimes one (usually  Josie) will want to switch, so we do.