Double baptism + giveaway winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway! I loved reading about all your cool traditions and days that are special to you. The winner was Claire Rebecca. Claire Rebecca, please email me at tmcbarber@gmail.com so we can work out getting the book to you!

Frankie and his "twin cousin" were baptized together on Sunday. The ceremony was beautiful!

I had hoped for a peaceful, happy baby, but after sleeping all through Mass, Frankie decided to throw propriety to the winds and scream bloody murder through the ceremony. Silly baby!

Have you heard the superstition that a baby who cries at his baptism is going to have a religious vocation? Frank said, "If it's true that a baby who cries is destined to become a priest, I think our boy is going to be the first North American pope!"

Meanwhile, his sweet little cousin slept angelically through the whole thing!

My sister and her husband were Frankie's godparents. 

And my parents were godparents to my sister's baby.

 

How does your family pick godparents? I was raised with the idea that godparents should be family members, since that offers some guarantee that they will remain a part of your child's life and you won't lose touch with them. But I know a lot of people choose friends or spiritual mentors instead, and really, it's not fair to Frank if we always go with a "family only" rule since none of his family is Catholic. Stuff to consider for the future!

After the baptism, we had a party at my parents' house to celebrate the babies, and took a million photos of all the family members with Frankie.

Here is my side of the family—Frankie with his dad, uncle, grandfather and great-grandfather. As you can see, Frankie was really loving life that day. :p

And with the Barber side of the family—uncle, grandpa and dad:

We did get one picture where Frankie wasn't screaming! He just looks deeply offended. Here are all three of the Frank Barbers:

And here are "the five Franks"—from left to right, my godfather Uncle Frank, my father-in-law Frank, baby Francisco, my husband Frank and my grandfather Francisco. Man, there are a lot of Franks in my life!

 

I also got some "four generations" pictures with my grandparents—here I am with my dad and his mom:

And my mom with her mom:

It was so special to have my grandparents there to meet the babies. They were so happy to meet their first great-grandchildren. My mom's mom never wanted to let them out of her sight!

Later in the day, Frankie calmed down a bit. My new favorite photo of him is this one that Kathryn took, in a darling outfit she gave him:

Aaaaaand last but not least... I thought you guys might enjoy this hilarious picture that my little sister put on Facebook in honor of Father's Day. It's from a family vacation about 16 years ago.

Is my dad not the original hipster? And can you tell which one is me?

What to read when you’re expecting

So I know I haven't mentioned this... but I'm not the only pregnant woman in my family.

There's another pregnant lady around these parts... and she looks suspiciously like me.

Yes, that's right! My twin sister Lillian is also expecting. And she's due in just three weeks! (Although apparently due dates don't mean much in our family.)

Finding out Lil was pregnant too was one of the best things that's ever happened to me. We are loving going through our pregnancies together. We're both so excited to become aunts as well as mothers, and we can't wait for our babies (who we call "the little twin cousins") to be the best of friends.

You can't imagine how long I've been dying to tell you guys. I've been begging her to let me share the news on here, and she finally gave the OK... just in time for her first guest post!

Lillian's read more books about pregnancy than anyone I know. She's read even more than I have, and that's saying something! So I was thrilled when she agreed to share a list of recommendations for her favorite pregnancy reads. Here are her thoughts on "what to read when you're expecting," and I've added my own thoughts/comments in italics.

What to read when you’re expecting

A Pea in the Pod
This was one of those enormous, helpful one-size-fits-all compendia on pregnancy, labor, birth, and infancy. I’m sure your library carries similar tomes. It’s the kind of book that a super-curious mom-to-be like myself would have loved in the pre-Internet age, but now that I can Google questions like “what is round ligament pain?,” a book like this is a lot less necessary. It provides a nice general overview, but nothing you can’t get elsewhere.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting
This is the big mama of all maternity books, and like A Pea in the Pod provides helpful general advice. I personally love weekly pregnancy updates and enjoyed getting them from several Internet sources throughout my pregnancy. WTEWYE provides those in book form but, again, it’s nothing you can’t get online. I suppose for a total beginner to the topic of labor and birth, this book provides a helpful general guideline, but it’s really not as essential as its “classic” status would suggest. I did find the 2012 movie version to be quite entertaining, however, although I wouldn’t recommend it until you hit month 7 or 8—the pregnancy jokes will be a lot funnier and more relatable when you’re further along.

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth
Embrace your inner earth mama. This hippie classic is great if you want to get psyched for a natural, drug-free birth. The book is filled with personal stories (some of which are graphic) and a few pictures (not for the squeamish) and is also full of zen mamas with uplifting if somewhat sappy birth tales (along the lines of “My baby was born with the sun, as a light mist rose over the mountains and enveloped us with its aura.  We named the baby Whisper”). Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but not by much.  It’s an informative read but the average reader may want to take some of it with a grain of salt.

Note from Tess: I adored Ina May's book and found it fascinating and comprehensively informative. I would rank it as one of my favorite pregnancy books—but I think I'm a lot more of a hippie than Lillian is. 

Your Best Birth
I found this book to be somewhat over-hyped. The author Ricki Lake’s movie, The Business of Being Born, is a cult classic for natural birth proponents, so I expected a more educational read. Instead I found a surprising amount of sappiness—I was literally instructed to “embrace my inner Birth Goddess.” The book argued against having medical interventions in birth, which I found a little disingenuous in a book that styled itself as objective. It also came with the distrust of the medical community that marked—some would say marred—The Business of Being Born. Maybe it’s just because my dad’s a doctor, but I don’t think the medical community is out to get pregnant ladies as much as the authors seemed to think. This book is a nice introduction to natural birth, but it’s not the first book I would recommend.

Note from Tess: Your Best Birth was my single favorite pregnancy book. I thought it gave an awesome introduction to birth in general and natural birth in particular, while still being open-minded and fair to other alternatives. But again, I'm the hippie of the two of us. :)

The Birth Partner
If you read one labor book, READ THIS.  It was my hands-down favorite.  It is aimed at the father-to-be, doula, or labor coach but is so informative and helpful that I recommend it for the expecting mama as well.  Because it is geared towards supporting the laboring mom, this book offers lots of very specific coping mechanisms for every stage of labor, complete with diagrams and illustrations of procedures and positions.  It contains everything you need to know for labor in one book, and then some, including possible emergency scenarios.  Unlike, say, “Your Best Birth,” this book admits that medical emergencies can happen or even that you may voluntarily choose an epidural, and then gives you information and tools to handle anything that childbirth might throw at you.  It is truly objective, highly educational, easy to read, and presents all the possible scenarios in a calm and helpful way.  It is also, in my opinion, the best and only book that your husband or labor coach needs to read. 

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
If you want to read 800 pages on breastfeeding then you—like me—may be a birth nerd.  I actually read through this whole book, cover to cover.  Luckily, that is NOT necessary to gain some wisdom from its exhaustively informative pages.  This book is divided helpfully into sections on various topics of relevance to women in different situations (ex: breastfeeding an infant when you are still breastfeeding a toddler; breastfeeding twins; common breastfeeding problems; etc.) so you can pick and choose which sections you feel you need to read.  It’s really not necessary to read the whole thing, but I think that at least a few of the sections would be helpful to any expecting mom.  If nothing else, this book left me with a warm feeling towards the super-supportive La Leche League community and made me feel comfortable reaching out to LLLI members in my area if I need extra help when I start to breastfeed.

And just for fun, these are my (Tess's) favorites...

Favorite comprehensive "pregnancy bible": The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy

Favorite pregnancy memoir: Great with Child 
This series of letters addresses the worries and fears that attend pregnancy while also celebrating the joy of motherhood. And it was written by a Notre Dame grad, woohoo! More about it here.

Favorite book for pregnancy's spiritual side: A Catholic Mother's Companion to Pregnancy
This book offers such a great sense of sisterhood as it walks you through pregnancy with beautiful prayers and reflections. Thank you to Serena for sending me this awesome one!

Favorite lighthearted pregnancy book: The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy
This tongue-in-cheek memoir is a little silly but a lot of fun, and it definitely helped me feel like I wasn't alone in navigating this crazy pregnancy journey.

Favorite book to encourage prenatal bonding: Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method
I didn't expect this book to contain so much information about "what's going on in there," but I truly loved the ideas for bonding with your preborn baby. Awesome stuff.

Favorite book for your inner control freak: One Year to an Organized Life with Baby
This book sometimes made me freak out about being unprepared, but ultimately I found the ideas and suggestions so helpful. It really was chock-full of useful information.

Wow, I read a LOT this pregnancy! Geez. This is actually just the tip of the iceberg—I also read some other books about topics like breastfeeding and prenatal development—but I'll stop there before this list gets ridiculous.

So, if anyone made it all the way to the end of this post, I would love to know... what was YOUR favorite pregnancy book?

Love Story Part 10: The waiting game... until Lillian intervenes

The next few weeks after our first date are best described as me being constantly exasperated with Frank—why? Because he didn’t ask me out again. He didn’t even call me the next day like I thought guys were supposed to do. Instead I didn’t hear a peep from him about whether he enjoyed the night, whether he wanted to go out again, or anything like that. Since I didn’t want to be the one to initiate a DTR talk, I complained a ton about his lack of follow-up to all my girl friends, while not saying a word to him. Very mature, I know.

I did try to see him as much as I could. The day after our first date, an acquaintance hosted a Downton Abbey watch party, and knowing about Frank’s love for that show I invited him to come. He ended up being the only guy in a crowd of 8 or 10 girls, and he had a fine time. Afterward I joked that I’d just brought him along “for arm candy” and we walked back to my apartment arm-in-arm.

A few days later I went to a late-night happy hour at DC’s popular 20-something hang-out McFadden’s. I met some really nice guys there, friends of my friends, and one cute guy graciously gave me a ride home. Since Frank didn’t seem to be making any moves, I thought I might as well be open to dating other guys. Why not? There were plenty of nice guys out there and no sense in waiting around for someone who wasn’t taking action.

In Frank’s defense, I made it pretty darn hard for him to schedule another date. My friend Alex came to visit me the weekend after our first date, and then my sister Lillian and friend Maggie came to visit the weekend after that. I made sure all these ladies got to meet Frank, since they’d heard so much about him by then, but it was in informal group settings planned by me.

Lillian and Maggie were in town for the March for Life, and we took full advantage of their nearly week-long visit to plan a bunch of fun outings. Friday night we decided to go to some club in downtown DC, and I rounded up Frank and some of his guy friends to join us. You might remember me mentioning this earlier in the story, but at the time, I had to work very late on Friday nights formatting the magazine I worked for at the time. We picked a club close to my office, and I resigned myself to bouncing back and forth between work and the club.

I joined my friends for the first part of the night, but around 9:30 pm, I had to go back to the office. Frank offered to walk me back. I felt bad making him do that, but he insisted, so I showed up at work with him in tow. He patiently sat behind me in my cubicle while I tried to get my work done as fast as possible.

“I’m so sorry this is taking so long,” I kept saying, but he just laughed and cracked jokes. “The back of your head is redikulus,” he teased as I sat glued to the computer. I thought he was so funny, and such a nice guy for keeping me company.

The work was taking longer than I expected, so I walked to the other end of the office to check on progress for some graphics I needed. The graphic designer, a sweet married Asian lady, pulled me into a whispered conversation.

“Who’s that guy with you??” she asked.

“Oh, him? He’s just a friend. We were with some friends at a bar close by so he offered to walk me over,” I explained. “We went on a date a few weeks ago but I don’t think it’s going anywhere. He doesn’t seem all that interested.”

“Are you kidding?” she said with a look of disbelief. “He left hanging out at a bar with his friends to come sit at work with you? Oh, honey. Don’t be silly. He must be really into you!”

Maybe I should be embarrassed that it took her saying that to get me to see reason, but when she said that, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. She was right. Of course he was interested.

When I finally was able to leave work, it was after midnight. Frank walked me back to the club and I pulled the classic “my hands are cold” move to get him to hold my hand. I was really excited to realize he liked me and the internal butterflies were uncontrollable.

A few days later, on Lillian and Maggie’s last night visiting me, I invited Frank and my friend Joey over to have dinner with us girls. I remember complaining the whole time before the guys got there: “If only Frank would make a move one way or the other!! I could handle it if he decided not to date me anymore, and I can handle it if he wants to keep dating, but this uncertainty is killing me!” My patience with him was reaching its limits.

After dinner, Frank caught me alone in the kitchen.

“I have this dance coming up at school next month,” he said. “It’s called the Barrister’s Ball. It’s kind of like law school prom.”

“Yeah?” My heart. It was fluttering.

“I was wondering… would you like to go with me?”

Internally: AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Externally: “Sure, sounds fun.”

As soon as I could, I dragged Lillian and Maggie into the bedroom while the guys talked outside.

“Frank asked me to this ball! He said it’s like law school prom!”

“Yay! That’s great!”

“No but this is a huge problem,” I said. “The dance isn’t until next month. How am I supposed to last another month not knowing if we’re dating or not??”

“That’s easy,” said Lillian. “Why don’t you just ask him, ‘Is this ball a date?’”

I’m pretty sure I stood there opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish. That was so … sensible. So easy. Lillian always has been the practical twin.

So that’s what I did, that very night. Joey missed the last train back to Maryland, so Frank offered to give him a ride home, and I offered to come along and keep Frank company. After we dropped Joey off and were alone in the car, I got my chance.

“Frank, I was wondering… that ball you told me about earlier… Is it a date?”

Frank tells me that his blood ran cold when I asked him that. He thought that if he said “Yes,” I wouldn’t want to go, or would give him some line about “Let’s just go as friends.”

“Yes?” he said. “I mean, yes. That’s what I was thinking. But it doesn’t have to be. Not if you don’t want it to be.”

“No, that’s fine,” I said, smiling. “A date is fine with me.”

I kept right on smiling the whole way home.

The next installment of the love story will be the last! I'm so excited to wrap this thing up. Hoping to get it done in time for our two-year anniversary on Sunday.

My Maid of Honor speech

It seems so funny that at age 23 I'm already a "matron," so I've been using "maid of honor" and "matron of honor" interchangeably.

So, my speech. Let me start by saying that I'm a true procrastinator and normally I never plan ahead. But this was different. I started working on my speech almost two weeks in advance. I rehearsed it in front of every member of my family, individually, and I even nerdily recorded myself reading a draft of it so I could play it back and see what I needed to work on.

Why was this time different? For one thing, I'm the writer of the family, so I felt like I had a reputation to uphold. I also feel very nervous about public speaking, so I figured being well-prepared would calm my nerves. Most of all, I wanted to really express how I felt about Matt and Lillian. I love Lillian so much (and now Matt too), and I wanted my speech to do justice to that.

Coincidentally wearing matching outfits when she visited me last November

My goal with my speech was to make someone cry. I mean, that's the sign of a good speech, right? :) And sure enough, one of my aunts told me afterward that the speech made her tear up. "It's what a parent wants to hear," she said.

So now that I gave you that introduction... the speech is after the jump (and you can also listen to my embarrassing recording of it, per my friend Laura's request—apologies in advance!).

The day my twin sister got married

We pulled it off—two weddings in one summer (and by "we" I mean "my parents," let's be real here).

Lillian's wedding was the most beautiful and joyous day. And she was the most beautiful bride in the whole wide world (it's not vain to say that about your identical twin, right?). ;)

My dad took lots of great photos which my mom later emailed to me. Emailed individually. One photo per email. For 68 emails. She told me she couldn't figure out how to send more than one photo per email...

It took me forever to go through them, but I did, because I love ya guys that much. And here is a little photojournal of that day.

Major bragging rights... I got to serve as a "body double" for Lillian's dress. The alterations weren't done and Lillian was on the East Coast, but her dress was here. So the seamstress fitted the dress to me instead. I kept joking about being Lillian's "stunt double." Who knew having an identical twin could be so handy?

^^Note my mom's wedding dress in a photo in the background. Clever!

^^Caroline and Joe goofing around in the limo on the way to the church. There was awful traffic in Chicago on Saturday, so the ceremony started around 3:15 instead of 3:00. As one friend said, "Thank goodness this wedding is running on Cuban time!"

Photos of the ceremony after the jump.

Lillian's wedding is today!

My twin sister Lillian is getting married today. I'm so excited. Hopefully I don't cry all through my maid of honor speech, but if I do, I won't be surprised. I love her so.

Last night we were reminiscing about how I always took on something of the "older brother" role for Lillian where guys were concerned. I was very protective of her. I even made a guy cry one time when I didn't think he treated her right (should I be proud of that or embarrassed?). But I liked Matt right from the start. He's a wonderful man who's perfect for Lillian, and I couldn't be happier to have him join our family.

Here they are at the rehearsal last night:

And here's a quick shot of the church where they'll be married. Isn't it stunning?

We are all so happy and excited. Now I'm off to go curl everybody's hair. Wish me luck! :)

Lillian's burlap and lace bridal shower!

I've been dying to show you guys the pictures and preparations for the shower, but I didn't want to leak anything to Lillian, since she reads my blog. Now I can finally show you what we've been working on for the past few weeks!

Lillian's shower was Saturday July 6 at my parents' house. We decided to get all Pinterest-y and go with a burlap and lace theme, and we served French-inspired food, notably a small army of quiches made by Frank and my mom. We made almost everything ourselves in a true "community effort," and it all turned out perfectly!

Besides making three quiches, Frank contributed a case of champagne, which we used to make more mimosas than I've ever seen before in my life.

So, the how-to of it all. Let's start with the centerpieces.

These babies are my pride and joy. I bought 15 Mason jars from Hobby Lobby for $1 each (they were on sale; you could probably find them even cheaper if you bought them in bulk online, or raided a garage sale or your grandma's cabinets). I also bought 2 spools of wide lace and a spool of twine. Angela and I spent an afternoon attaching the lace with a hot-glue gun and tying the twine around it. Then we filled them with roses from Costco.

Angela was without doubt my right-hand woman. At nine, she's the perfect age where she's old enough to do things well but young enough to LOVE helping. She's the sweetest little helper and I never, ever want her to grow up.

Anyway, here's how the tables looked all set up:

Our next-door neighbors lent us their tent and even kindly set it up for us. Our other neighbors, my mom's good friends, lent us the tables.

I bought all the burlap and half the lace from Hobby Lobby (the rest was from JoAnn Fabrics). The lady at Hobby Lobby very sweetly cut the burlap into 3- and 4-yard lengths to fit our tables.

In the check-out line at Hobby Lobby, two nice ladies behind us told us they'd been trying to figure out what our project could be, with so much lace and burlap. "We're throwing a bridal shower," I explained. "Our sister's getting married." And then Angela and I grinned at each other, because how cool is that?

^^We used our mom's porch furniture to create a little "kid's table" for the girls Angela's age. Angela was pretty thrilled to use it with her friends!

As soon as the guests started arriving, Angela asked if she could pass out hors d'oeuvres. She took her job very seriously, carrying tray after tray of the French canapes my mom had made. It was absolutely darling.

Sadly my one picture of the drinks table is all blurry... but hopefully you can see the punch bowl in the middle and the mimosas on either side. Of course, that's just a tiny fraction of the 200 or so we went through—it was a hot day, and the guests loved them!

Here's a glimpse of the dining room with trays of canapes on it. Later on, we set it up with Mum and Frank's six quiches, plus fruit salad from Lillian's mother-in-law-to-be, and a few other salads that my sisters put together (the shrimp and orzo one was a huge hit).

I wish I had a picture of the full lunch buffet, but that's the penalty of handing off your camera to someone else (Caroline... who is now losing all photographer privileges).

I used 16-ish giant pink and white pom-poms (Angela and I call them "puffballs") to decorate the chandeliers throughout the house and around the tent outside. There's a nice tutorial on how to make them here (and a million other places; just google "tissue paper pom poms") but we got ours pre-cut from Hobby Lobby. All we had to do was fluff (and fluff, and fluff... lots of fluffing. It took us a while).

Here's the dessert table, which we set up outside:

Maria made the chocolate-covered strawberries, and our awesome neighbor made the macaroons (this is the same lady who lent us the tables—she's a clutch find of a neighbor!). Mom bought the cake from the most wonderful French pastry shop in our town. It said, "Best wishes Lillian and Matt."

Here's the party in action:

Our Grandma Elsa came in from Miami for the shower. It's always such a treat to see her. We made sure to take a picture of her with the beautiful bride:

And finally, here's all six of the sisters, right before Lillian started opening presents:

Each of them did their part to pull together as a team, and the seven of us (with our mom) pulled off a wonderful shower.

And can I just say that there is no way this shower would have gone so well without Frank? Not only did he make three of the best quiches I've ever had in my life, but he set up tables and chairs, mixed mimosas and iced tea, ran errands and helped me stay calm. That man is my mainstay.

So there you have it: a mostly-homemade shower, with lots of help from neighbors, family and friends. I'm happy it turned out so beautifully, and most of all, I'm glad Lillian had a good time. Now I can hardly believe it's just over a month until her wedding. I can't wait!