What do you call a household with two sets of twins under the age of five? Twinfinite Chaos, of course. Join us for our interview with our Mama Blogger of the Month who is a sleep-walking mama of five!

Tell us about your “Twinfinite Chaos” clan.

Well, we’re a family of seven, which is just crazy to me. Even though they’re all mine, I still find it hard to believe there are five kids under this roof! My oldest, Kayley, is 13. We have boy/girl twins, Pablo and Mallory, who will turn 5 next month. We also have fraternal girl twins, Lexi and Nikki, who are 3 1/2. My husband Paul is a civil engineer and I’m a stay-at-home mommy.

How do you best handle all the chaos?

The key to keeping a lid on the chaos, at least in our house, is having a specific routine and schedule in place. We literally have a laminated schedule on the kitchen wall to keep us on track, straight out of Supernanny. When the kids know what’s expected of them and what’s going to occur throughout the day, it just makes life easier. And the best thing that ever happened to us was Three o’Clock Cleanup, which was my husband’s idea. At 3 p.m. every day, we turn off the TV, turn on some music, and clean up the living room and playroom, where we spend most of our time. And when we’re all done, everyone gets a nice, neat little snack at the table.

Still, even with the routines and schedules in place, it’s completely nuts at our house. Every day is like playgroup. The noise is always at a level that scares people who aren’t used to being around children. It’s a lot of fun, and I love the life I live, but I am THRILLED when the kids go to sleep at night and I have an hour or two of quiet time all to myself. My absolute favorite thing to do late at night is to just sit on the couch with my husband and watch Family Guy!

Writing is also an outlet for me. I author several blogs, contribute to a few more, and I’m writing a book about parenting multiple multiples and a child with autism. I also have a great group of girlfriends, most of whom I met through various parenting groups. I have to give a shoutout to my twins club, Darling Doubles – they’re such a great resource for parents of twins.

What actions have you taken since your son’s autism diagnosis?

Our son was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 1/2. We always knew there was something different about him, especially since he’s a twin and we had his sister to compare him to. She was meeting developmental milestones right on schedule, while he was not. I brought it up with our pediatrician, who suggested a “wait and see” approach – after all, some kids are just late talkers.

This is the WORST approach you can take, though, when it comes to autism. There’s a precious window of opportunity between ages 2 and 3 where you can get a child in speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy and it can literally make the difference between them being verbal or not. Once kids pass a certain age, though, it’s very hard for them to develop those neurological pathways. I don’t understand why, in this day and age where every magazine cover and news report is shouting out to us that 1 out of 150 kids has autism, pediatricians aren’t making a bigger deal out of it. Why aren’t they handing out a pamphlet at the 18-month checkup that lets parents know they need to be proactive about this sort of thing?

The checklist for autism in toddlers only has about five questions. I found it on my own online when I had concerns about my son. Why isn’t it being shoved at parents at every opportunity? And why is the information about Early Childhood Intervention so hard to come across? I had to get the phone number from a friend in my twin club who had a child with autism, after I tried to find it on my own and couldn’t get through to anyone. I’ve tried to make it my own little crusade, informing people about autism, the warning signs, and the agencies to get in touch with.

You confess to being a blogaholic. Tell us about your different blogs.

I am a blogaholic! I’ve been writing almost every day since April of 2000. When I started writing, my oldest daughter was five years old, and I mostly wrote about my day-to-day life with her. Since then, I’ve gone through a divorce, remarried, and had two sets of twins. Many of my readers have followed along with me throughout all of that. I can’t imagine stopping now! My main blog is called LaLaGirl – Twinfinite Chaos . I have a subset of LaLaGirl at reviews.lalagirl.org where I do product reviews and contests. I have another blog where I document the home improvement projects my husband and I have done, and it’s at enginerdandwife.com. And I write about autism and stuff related to it at autismisbeautiful.com.

You recently blogged about the fact that you sleepwalk. What is your craziest story?

Oh, jeez. Well, the best story lately is the one I blogged about, where I tackled my husband in the middle of the night while he was trying to go to the bathroom. The story my daughter always loves to tell people, though, is the one that happened after we moved into our house. I had spent an entire Saturday hanging pictures throughout our new home, and while I was asleep that night, I got up and removed every last picture from the walls and stacked them in a nice, neat little pile in the hallway. I was so mad the next day when I had to hang them all back up! My husband says he wants to put a bells on my pajama pants, so he can hear me when I wander!

Popularity: 27% [?]