What's your secret?!

Maybe it was my upbringing, but I never understood how some parents could let their kids run around stores and be little hellions. Don't get me wrong, our kids sometimes act up but never to the point that I want to sell them on Craigslist. Recently we were at the pharmacy getting Hunter's medicine, it was taking much longer than I had thought it would and I had seven of the nine with me. I decided we would go look at the toys, they knew we weren't going to get any so there wouldn't be any hurt feelings when we walked away empty handed. As we were looking at the toys an older couple came over and asked the usual questions-are they all yours, how many sets of twins, and so on. They then asked what my secret was because my kids were so well behaved. Honestly, I'm not sure. I think they just caught us on a good day, but as I thought about it aside from one time when Brooke was two and throwing a fit in Target we never really had a meltdown in public. I guess they realized I wasn't against leaving my kids behind-I walked about 5 feet away and could see her but she couldn't see me. There's not really a secret to controlling this many kids though, you have to figure out what works with each kid individually even though they're siblings the same punishment is rarely used for all of them. With that being said, our kids are five million times more well behaved in public than they are in our house and honestly I'm completely fine with that, but it makes it even funnier when someone walks up to me and asks my secret. As much as I would love to say I have the secret for perfect parenting it's very far from that, but I'm glad it looks like we have it together because when I get home I constantly feel like I'm failing as a parent, so to the couple who stopped us at the pharmacy thank you so much. It means the world to me.

Eating Disorders

It just came to my attention that this week was actually Eating Disorder Awareness Week. This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, not only do I have an eating disorder, but my daughters are at risk for having them. Let's have a selfish moment first where I talk about myself and my eating disorder, we have to go back in time a little bit when I was about 16 and was in the hospital for a disease called "gastroparesis" which is a fancy way of saying that your stomach is partially paralyzed. Sounds fun doesn't it? Yea, you're pretty much right not being able to eat much and keeping track of my weight was super fun, until I realized I was keeping track of my weight a little too much. My "magic number" was 100 pounds, it was the number I needed to reach to keep doctors off my back and a feeding tube out of my nose. It was the number that made sure everyone knew I was healthy, but it was also the number I feared the most. I was terrified of being 100 pounds, it was three digits, it was considered heavy in my mind. If I saw the scale go to 101 I would force myself to vomit. I would starve myself, go for a run, I would do ANYTHING to make that number go down. Now don't get me wrong, 101 isn't anywhere near heavy, it's perfectly healthy and I realize that now but if I were to step onto the scale and see 101 it wouldn't be pretty. It wasn't until last year I realized how it effects my daughters. My then three year old, Brooke was standing near me while I was getting ready and she put on her pants and said she was fat. Yea. My daughter said she was fat when she was three years old. That right there made me realize that I had to do something to show my daughter that she wasn't fat and she was beautiful. Since then we have banned the word "fat" from our vocabulary and she is allowed to yell at me if I call myself fat. I started calling her beautiful everyday, something that I was told not to do because it puts too much pressure on looks, but I realized that by not calling her beautiful I was doing more damage than good. So far, over a year later she hasn't called herself fat and seems pretty confident with her body. Callie on the other hand, is the one I'm really worried about developing an eating disorder, she has this image of what a perfect girl looks like-think Lucy Hale mixed with Rowan Blanchard with a little sprinkle of Jazz Jennings. We've been warned by her therapist that she may develop an eating disorder if we aren't careful because of the amount of time she spends thinking about how she looks. We were actually watching Ellen when she was talking about the "plus sized" model and Callie asked me what that meant, I explained that it meant that the model wasn't the size they normally use and was a little bit larger. Callie looked at the model and then informed me that she didn't see what was wrong with being that size-yayy! Then she added"but if she's fat I am too." I told her "fat" wasn't a good word and that she wasn't fat at all, she didn't say much for a little bit and then said it again. I realized at that moment that how our society views women and is allowed to label them as "plus sized" has a huge effect on our children, that's something I'm not ok with. A four year old shouldn't be afraid of being fat, no one should. We shouldn't be allowed to label someone we weren't made to pass judgment we were made to be kind to each other, so to everyone sharing how proud they are of the plus sized model I'm going to be honest, I'm not proud of the plus sized model. I'm proud of the model. The women. She's not plus sized, fat, skinny, anything. She is a women just like me and just like my girls will be one day.

She's too young to know

I've realized recently, despite all the blog posts I make and all the research they have available people still don't get it. Anytime we tell someone our daughter is transgender we get told she's too young for that and honestly it is the most annoying thing you could say to us. Literally I would accept anything else, I would be fine with you saying you don't support our decision, I would be fine with you saying transgender isn't a real thing, I would even be fine with you running away screaming. But, to tell me that my child is too young for something like this just irks me beyond belief and I can't explain it to someone without getting fired up. Studies show that at 2 years old children began playing with "stereotypical toys" so boys would play with cars and trucks, girls with dolls and princesses. They're dressed in gender specific clothes, Callie would wear blue jeans and a flannel shirt and her twin brother would wear the same thing in a different color. At around 3 years old they are aware of what gender they are and can tell you if they're a boy or a girl, if I wear to gather a room full of preschoolers they could all tell you if they're a boy or girl and how they know they are. The same thing applies for a transgender child, they know they're a girl because of A. B. and C. and they are in fact a girl. A lot of people have argued that I pushed this onto her, I'm not going to get into details, but  you can't force a child to be something they're not, trust me I tried to have her wear boy clothes for years but it wasn't worth the yelling, crying, and fact I was told kids commit suicide over these things.  So, to all the people saying she's too young maybe you should think about the fact I had to choose to have a dead son or a living daughter. What would you have chosen?

Infertility Struggles

Our society seems to put so much emphasis on what it means to be a mom. Some argue you aren't truly a mom unless you give birth, some will say it's about your heart and the woman who takes care of the kids and is there for them every single day is the mom. I obviously agree with the latter of the two for so many reasons. This has become even more near and dear to my heart because of being unable to have children with Jason. This is something we found out about almost a year ago and it's something we've been trying to deal with since then. There are so many options available, we could adopt-did it, we could just not have kids-YEA OK!, or we could try to use some form of fertility treatment. We've looked into so many different forms of treatment and finally decided on one. The main issue were having now is finding out how to afford it, no I am not asking for money just using our family's blog for it's intended purpose to document our journey and this is part of it. The other issue is my fear of it not working. We had a miscarriage prior to finding out what was wrong and it honestly killed a huge part of both of us, the fact we were having a boy and Callie had just transitioned played a big part of it I'm sure but I know I won't be able to handle another loss. I realize that no matter what path we choose it's going to be a hard journey, you don't always end up with a baby at the end when you adopt and it's the same thing with using IVF so I guess if I'm going to chance it I want to do it right. Don't get me wrong, we both love all our kids equally, but there's something about being pregnant with your husband's baby that seems pretty awesome, I know it's such a weird thought you can thank the world for giving me those ideas. I'm hoping for the best and I hope you guys are ready for this emotional journey.

How many sets of twins?

When you go in public with five million children people ask questions, lots of questions. The number one question we get is "How many sets of twins?!" when we tell them we only have two sets of twins they then try to guess which ones are twins. It can be comical at times, especially when Tyson and Zayden aren't guessed to be twins, they're identical twins. Normally though people guess that they're one set and as for the second set it varies, most people guess Ryker and Skyler others guess Estella and Callie. None of which are even biologically related, but you know that's besides the point. Jason and I have pretty much come to terms with the fact no one will ever think Hunter and Callie are twins, which is kind of depressing seeing as they are actually twins and actually blood related, but you know that's ok. If people think our kids look enough like each other to be twins that's fine with us it makes this blended family thing work a lot smoother when people don't ask things like "how many dads?!" which is almost always asked when they see young parents like us walking around with anymore than about five kids so I guess this is the lesser of two evils. Hopefully one day though people will see a family as large as ours and not think twice about how many sets of multiples, how many parents, if they're all ours, and so many other things that go through people's heads.

She wore pants!

If you've been following our blog you know that Callie has been having an issue wearing pants in public-for obvious reasons. If you had no clue, go read "Clothes Shopping" then come back here when you're done. Anyway, she finally got the courage to wear pants in public! Jason and I assured her if anyone points stuff like that out they have bigger issues then she does, I'm not sure if that's what actually helped her wear pants but as her parents it's our God given right to take credit for everything that happens in her life. I have to admit though, I was surprised when she came out of the bathroom in jeans and a hoodie, granted it was freezing cold out so I was in the same thing, but she is so girly that I never expected that. Since we were going to school I asked several times if she was ready-I was NOT about to be blamed for her wearing pants to school if she didn't want to. She said yes and grabbed her lunch box and backpack and headed towards the door. Well, that settled that she was going to school in jeans and a hoodie, she had a super girly Frozen t-shirt on under it so I guess that made up for it. When I texted Jason about her wearing pants he immediately told me to check her temperature that's how big of a deal this was to us! I'm sure to all of you a little girl wearing pants isn't a big deal, but to us our little girl was finally comfortable enough being herself something that takes most people years to do. Heck I'm in my 20s and I'm still not 100% comfortable in my own skin so I'm slightly jealous my four year old knows what she wants in life and is finally feeling brave enough to wear whatever she wants-within reason! As always, thanks for following our journey I look forward to sharing another achievement with all of you!

When it rains, it pours

I never really thought much of that saying, until I woke up to a text from Jason saying we need to talk. He was at work so I still don't know what he wanted, but I then got a text from my mom saying to check the hallway because she thinks there was a leak. She was right. Oh boy was she right! I pretty much went swimming in my apartment hallway and realized there was a hole in my roof inside my apartment as well as the hallway outside of it. Luckily I rent so I don't have to fix this, but it's still worrisome. I have kids, if it keeps leaking into our house we can get mold, mold and kids don't really mix that well especially one with no one immune system and babies. I'm hoping someone will come fix it soon-hopefully today or tomorrow. If anymore of my roof starts leaking I'm going to be harassing my friends and family to let me sleep at their house-YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! Now, I have to go find somewhere for my kids and I go to go to stay warm and dry wish me luck!

"Mom, will anyone love me?"

Jason and I have vowed to always have open and honest conversations with our kids, no matter what the conversation maybe. This can lead to interesting topics depending on which child you're talking to and can range from legos, to movies, and sometimes super serious things like love. I can honestly say talking to my four year old about love wasn't something I was expecting, I was expecting this conversation to happen eventually but not right now. It was pretty innocently brought up, we were watching Frozen and Hans had just told Anna no one loved her, which honestly I didn't realize how rude that sounded until my little four year old looked at me and said"Mom, will anyone love me?". When I asked what she meant by that she told me she was afraid no one would love her because of how she is. She sat there and told me how she was afraid that no one, boy or girl-she didn't go into details-will love her because her body isn't perfect. I'm not positive if she meant love in a romantic way or just a friend way, but it didn't make a difference to me. What mattered at that moment was my daughter was feeling insecure and scared about something that no four year old should have to worry about. She was feeling afraid that people won't look passed her being transgender before judging her. I assured her that the right people would love her no matter and used the fact I look passed Jason's flaws as an example. She seemed to accept that answer and didn't bring it up again....until her Valentine's Day part rolled around and then she asked it again. I guess love was sort of in the air, her brothers were buying their"girlfriends" special treats and her sisters were talking about their "boyfriends", mind you I highly doubt my kids know what a boyfriend or girlfriend is, but they seem to all think they have one. The pressure seemed to be getting to her so I finally sat her down and talked to her about this love thing, we also talked about how hard it is for transgender people to find love. As much as I want my daughter to find love, I know how hard it is going to be for her. I have heard too many horror stories about transgender people getting murdered by someone they're dating for simply being transgender. I know the right person won't judge her, but I can't stop worrying about this. I'm hoping and praying that children grow up with more acceptance so I don't have to worry about this in about 12 years.

No more cupcakes?!

Recently a few of our kids have been having stomach aches, we decided to mention it to their doctor who tested for celiac disease. Well, two of them had it and one has a dairy allergy. We told them that this would change their lives a little, but it would be ok in the end. Their big concern however was how they would eat cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes. They didn't care that eating this way would make them feel better they wanted their dang cupcakes! I've been slowly finding good gluten and dairy free alternatives to make them, but haven't found any good cupcakes yet, so we've been living off of scrambled eggs and allergy free cookies. This is honestly harder than raising a transgender child, at least I know how to do that! So this is more of a plea than a blog post today, does anyone have any super good delicious and easy-I'm not known for my cooking skills-recipes? If you do I'd love to hear them! I'd also love to know your favorite gluten free/dairy free snacks, my kids lives depend on snacks when we're at Brooke's gymnastics practices and they become those evil little hangry kids without something good to eat. I promise, Sundays blog post will be a better one, but I've worked everyday this week and couldn't post what I wanted without Callie-you'll see why on Sunday! See you guys then :)

Transgender Death Rate

As a family we have vowed to make sure our children are protected, loved, and taken care of no matter what. Because of everything going on in the world, the protected part is what worries me. Just a few days ago there was a story about a transgender teenager with Asperger's was killed by the police while they were threatening to commit suicide. I don't blame the cops, that's not what this is about, I love the cops, I support them. However, they kept referring to the man as a girl and using her girl name, he was probably scared by that and it made it worse. It's the little things like this that can honestly make a huge difference in the life of a transgender person. The transgender death rate is higher than I would even like to talk about, but because it affects my daughter I'm going to use this platform we have built to try to make a difference. My four year old fortunately never had to express concern about killing herself to become a girl, but I have read so many stories where kids around her age will say things like "How can I get to heaven to ask God to make me a boy?" or they would try to do the gender reassignment surgeries themselves, often with scissors or razors. This isn't something that a parent should have to worry about, especially when the answer of how to help these children is right in front of us: Acceptance! Honestly acceptance would make a HUGE difference in the lives of anyone dealing with this. It's as simple as calling them by the name they want to be called by not the name they were given at birth. This is literally why Jason and I constantly remind ourselves we have two options with this situation: A dead son or a living daughter. My heart and prayers go out to Kayden and his family during this time and to anyone else who is struggling with their transition, it gets better.

Moving Craziness!

We have been in the process of moving for a few weeks now, we just closed on our house so it's like 110% official and I can't believe it. Everyone keeps asking five million questions about how were doing this, when were doing this, and so much more. First thing first, we are not pulling the kids out of school to move them right now, we are going to let them finish the school year where we currently move, but they will go see Jason on weekends and school breaks when their schedules allow for it. Brooke however is in competitive gymnastics and I refuse to pull her out until there is an opening in the new gym she would be switching to. She's on their wait list right now! Yes, gymnastics is that important to her that I am willing to stay behind and let her do her thing while the rest of the family is in a different state. Luckily the state we are moving to is actually closer than some towns in our state so it's not a huge deal. When I mention this to people they look at me like I have four heads and it's normally followed up with "Don't you love him?!" yes I love him, but when he met me he knew that my kids needs would come first and I knew his kids needs would come first, it's part of our unspoken bond that keeps us together. I'm not keeping the kids here because I hate Jason, I'm keeping them here because making them switch schools in the middle of the school year honestly seems like a punishment to me, I've switched schools mid school year before and trust me it can be super hard to catch up and it's really awkward if they're on a different lesson than you are. This is something we both decided would work and besides the exhausting part, it seems to be ok. I've been a single mom long enough to know how to take care of kids on my own it's actually easier for me when he's not around to parent-sorry Jase! Hopefully this answers everyones questions about our moving craziness, wish us luck!

Religion

There seems to be this thought that everyone has, you can't have religion and support equality. I will admit it often seems like that's the case, but I can promise you not everyone shares that belief. For example, our family is religious and we obviously support equality. This started well before Callie, I'm not actually sure how or when it started, but we have supported equality for a long time now. Everyone asks us how we balance the two, I'm not sure what that means, yes I'm aware that the Bible states that marriage is between a man and a woman, but it also says we should stone people to death for having sex before marriage. If that's the case let me go make my will. I feel like sometimes people read The Bible and pick and choose which parts they're going to practice, mainly because there are several quotes in The Bible about not judging other my personal favorite is“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."-Matthew 7:1-15   
I'm honestly not sure if it can get any clearer than that, God is the one who will judge on judgement day that's not for me to do. As for Callie and supporting her decision God sent me this little girl for a reason, I honestly think that it was to teach others that it's ok to be different, that you should embrace yourself, and that you should never be afraid of what other people think because you are being the person God intended you to be. God doesn't make mistakes, He made her in his image and likeness it just so happens He wanted this to be a teaching lesson for us all. I hope that we can teach this lesson to everyone one day. 

Birthdays

As it gets closer and closer to our kids birthdays and other various holidays we always come back to how we should blend traditions. In Jason's family, birthdays are mini Christmases(mainly because his birthday IS Christmas), in my family they are a big deal but, not that big! His family goes big for every holiday is what I have slowly realized, they do Valentine's Day boxes for the kids, they hide thousands of Easter eggs, even Halloween is huge in his family. My family loves holidays as much as the next family, but we mostly use it as an excuse for us to be together and eat a lot of food. How do you blend the two? Well, it's kind of been decided we'd start our own traditions. Because his kids have been through so much and lost their mom before they should have I decided to keep all of the traditions their mom kept in place and use them for our kids as well. This means on their birthday they get  donuts for breakfast, breakfast delivered to them, a special date with mom and dad-we actually switched it to my kids get a date with me and his kids with him so they know they haven't been replaced, and the whole day is about THEM! When you have nine kids this is vital to make them each feel loved and special, something that people always tell us we could never possibly have any time for. I will admit, it gets hard when you have two sets of twins to spend one on one time with them even with the birthday day dates for the obvious reasons and as they get older we're going to have to work out all the kinks, but for now we just do one on the day before and one on the actual birthday switching off every year so they don't feel unloved by getting stuck with the "unbirthday". I must say though, this is something our kids look forward to every year. My daughter's birthday is in August and she has already told me what she wants to do on our date, what she wants for breakfast, lunch, dinner, desert, and anything else she can think of. It really is that big of a deal to them and I'm glad they have something to look forward to and we look forward to finding more ways to make them feel special on their birthdays-after all they only happen once a year!

Why Nine?!

When we go out in public as a family we always see people counting our kids. Yes, there are nine of them. Yes, they're all ours. No, we don't run a daycare. Just a few of the millions of questions we get asked on a daily basis. "Why nine?" is without a doubt my favorite. We're a blended family, I had my one kids, he had his four kids, my ex was in jail and I was granted custody of his three kids. That right there gave us eight, it was easy with eight we had it all figured out and handled it like champs. Then I got a call from our social worker. My daughter's dad had a son who needed a home like NOW! They had him in temporary foster care, but the family who had him were just days away from losing their licenses with no plan of renewal. I sat down with Jason and talked to him about it, we decided to get guardianship of the little guy. Our intent at the time was just to take care of him until his dad could get out of the situation he's in. Unfortunately for all parties involved-well maybe not us-his dad isn't going to be able to take over custody so we are starting the process of adoption. Because this is such an interesting adoption case it isn't really like any other adoption I have ever heard of at least. It's considered a "private family member adoption" which can either make things more complicated or easier. Right now it seems to be making it easier, the only thing that could stop us now is if my ex decides to get custody back. We just moved states so I'm not actually sure the law on that, but I do know of states where he can change his mind at any point and fight for his kids. Hopefully our new state isn't one of them because we already love the fact that it has transgender rights so I don't want this to bring us down! But to answer the question "Why nine?" it's because nine is our number, it might not be a permanent number-who knows maybe we'll add kids or sell a few!(clearly kidding!), but for now the number is nine. Nine little Butlers.