A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Aunt Cec was over yesterday and Ethan told her, "My mommy's nice pretty girl"...I love him.

The other day I sneezed and Ethan said, "Bless you, mom"

Ethan will call me "Hilary" if he can't get my attention with a few "Mommy's"

*****

Ethan has a cold...he's all sorts of plegmy and is having productive sneezes....grody. He's always a pretty good sport when he's sick, but today he is super dramatic about everything and Gamma and I have been holding back some laughs...everything is a HUGE deal. I feel sad for him though...noone like to be sick.

All this hand-washing and he still gets sick...can't kill every germ. I'm happy that Dylan and Owen's next RSV shot is coming up though...next Thursday. An added bonus is getting the medication out of my fridge (it gets shipped way in advance and has to be refrigerated)! They will also be weighed on that day and we are so curious to see what our little boys weigh now...I am sure they are both gaining some good weight, but Owen looks so small in comparison to Dylan, who is just a solid chunk. I just need the confirmation that they are each gaining weight at the right rate.

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My mom and I laughed about this while she was in town because we caught ourselves doing it a lot...when you are doing something with one baby, it is natural to refer to the other baby as "the other one"...It's ok most of the time, but sounds kinda bad when you say something like "I'll change Owen, you get the other one"...ya know?!

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This was my 7th attempt at a cute bathtub picture...he finally gave in when I promised to stop following him around with the camera if he'd smile. Every mom needs some bathtub pictures for ammunition in high school...."Don't do drugs or I'll show your friends the bathtub picture!"...see, I'm prepared.


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This was my attempt at the 6-week picture.

Let me add some dialogue...

Owen: "Oh. My. Gawwwwwwd! Noone has touched me for two seconds....pay attention to me NOWWWWWWWW! I need a snuggle IMEEEEEDIATELY!"

Dylan: "When's the next bottle?"

6-week update

Posts are best begun with Ethan funnies...

"Watch out Daddy's coffee and Daddy's pen"...Ethan's warning to Daddy's coffee and pen when moving his cars onto the computer table

"Baby brudder doesn't like tummy time"...who told him about "tummy time"?!

"Baby brudder is going swimming"...watching Mommy give Dylan a bath; we give baths in the baby tub placed on top of the kitchen island and Ethan watches from his Learning Tower

"Daddy's feeding ALL my baby brudders"....yep, ALL ten

*****

We're working on some longer stretches of sleep here!! Longer than 3 hours that is...A couple nights last weekend, D and O ate around 8pm, went to sleep shortly after, and didn't wake up to eat again until about 1am. Then again around 5am. It's not so terrible. Last night was a little different...They ate at 11pm, then again at 3am...and Mommy couldn't fall back asleep for a long time after that feeding and then Ethan was up at 5:30am. He came to bed with us and insisted on sleeping with his face on my face, or with his head in my neck. I love a good snuggle, but cutting off my airway isn't so comfy. This was the second morning of "family bed" of one sort or another. On Monday morning, Dylan wouldn't go back to sleep after the 5am feeding, so I brought him to bed and he fell right asleep. I love snuggling with babies in bed, but I sleep terrible because I am terrified that I will roll on top of them...so I position myself much lower than where their head is so they are above me and then I am crunched into about 2 feet of bed. Anyways, we try not to make a habit of bringing our kids into our bed for sleeping (morning cartoons are ok!) but I like to nuzzle up to them sometimes.

Dylan and Owen were 6 weeks old yesterday!! They are changing every day and we are getting to know their personalities. Just when I think I have them figured out, they throw me for a loop. But most of the time Dylan is laid back (though he's being a little difficult this morning) and Owen is high-maintenance. Owen just really insists on being held. I love to hold my babies so it's ok, but makes it difficult to get things done...I need a sling. Dylan is pretty chill, unless we are doing floor time, which he doesn't seem to like much...On the other hand, Owen loves floor time. They are so different...and look different too. Though they've both moved into 0-3 month clothes and size 1 diapers (graduated from Newborn), Owen is much smaller...he's been doing much better on his feedings (very little spitting up from both of them thanks to the snail-slow bottles we are now using)...but we are guessing he is at least a half pound lighter than Dylan, who has about 5 chins. Dylan's hair looks more red every day and Owen's continues to grow and grow...after a bath it's super puffy and soft and I like to rub my chin on it :>

Ethan's obsession with cars/tractors/trucks has reached a new level. He now insists on having them with him at all times. When we go downstairs/upstairs to play he'll say "Mommy will bring ALL my cars" and start bringing them to you in 3s or 4s...So the other day I bought him a basket so that he could carry more of them at a time. 'Course this led to stacking the basket into a heaping mound of cars/tractors/trucks so that it weighs about 40 pounds and I can barely carry it. But he'll insist on bringing the basket onto his Learning Tower, onto the changing table, into his "little chair"...anywhere he goes. It's sort of ridiculous, but it's his thing right now and it's harmless and pretty funny. However, we do find cars everywhere....just the other day I found one behind the toaster...must have been up on the counter when we were making dinner some night.

Below is a picture of Ethan with his basket in his "little chair" having a snack. And of Dylan (R) and Owen (L) working on some tummy time and head-lifting!!

We needed to do baths anyways...

As I was wrapping up the last post, I heard some curious noises coming from the living room...Dylan was coughing or something, so I ran over to check on him. He was laying in his Boppy pillow so I picked him up and he spit up a little out of the corner of his mouth. He had spit up after his afternoon feeding that day (this was Wednesday) which is really unusual for him...Owen is the spitter (but he's been much better lately) and Gamma Leslie had helped with that feeding and held Dylan up for a long time after his feeding too. Anyways, I picked him up and wiped up the little bit of spit-up and then sat down and as I was getting settled, I felt something wet on my hand...he had spit UP onto my hand. I spazzed a bit because I don't do well with flying bodily fluids and as I stood up, he projectiled all over me, himself, and the couch (thank goodness for slip-covers!). I yelped...Andy was just finishing with putting Ethan to bed so he came down and took Dylan so I could take off my drenched clothes...I really don't do well with this stuff. I've read that parents should remain calm when kids throw up because it's scary to them...I'm going to need to work on that...I'm not that person right now.

We got everything cleaned up and I went to Mr Google to look up "projectile spit up" even though Andy tried to assure me that babies projectile spit up sometimes...which I know they do...it's just that it's unusual for Dylan. So Mr Google convinced me that Dylan has pyloric stenosis and I stressed about that all night. But so far, no more projectile spit-ups.

Wednesday night was a rough one later on too. Dylan was fine...no spitting and slept really well. Owen, on the other hand, was my nemesis. He refused to take full feedings and kept waking up earlier than he should have between feedings and then had a really hard time getting settled after feedings. Despite my better judgement, I brought Owen to Andy during the 2am and 5am feedings because I just couldn't deal with him...he was able to get him to take some more of the bottle at the 2am feeding and then slept with him on his chest after the 5am feeding. I felt like a jerk. Last night went better. We fed them during Grey's Anatomy and then went to bed. Andy fed them around 1am and I fed them around 4:30am. They went back to sleep after each feeding...

We got new bottles the other day...Playtex VentAire...Our theory was that Owen wasn't feeding well because he was getting tired before he was getting full. We'd been using the bottles from the breastfeeding kit...the Medela bottles and nipples...and those nipples are supposed to be similar to breastfeeding so the flow is really slow. The Playtex bottles with the 0-3 month nipples seem to be even slower, but they both seem to do better on them. It takes like twice the time to feed them, but the bottles don't get the vacuum suction or bubbles so they get less gas. They seem to be happier about that. They are also angled so the bottles are more comfortable to hold...and this morning, I was able to double-feed them!! The strategy is to sit in the corner of the sectional with a baby in a Boppy pillow on each side. It works well, unless you have an itch on your nose, which I did.

Ethan and Gamma are off at Sesame Street Live today. Ethan has been so excited...every time he sees the commercial for it, he says "I'm going to see that game with Gamma Leslie"...

I hear that both my babies are awake right now, a rare event...time to exercise on the floor...all of us!!

5 week update

Because I'm tired, let's start with some Ethan funnies...

"Bye bye, dirty water!"...the end to any productive bathtub

H: "Where is the tonka truck going?" E: "To Northfield"...if you ask where anything/anyone is going now, they are going to Northfield (we went to Northfield last Sunday for Emily's 2nd birthday)

"Let's drink it and see what happens"...he said this to daddy the other day as daddy brought him a bottle of milk when he woke up...he was very serious about it...Daddy thinks that he might have said this exact same thing a few times in college

He's also been into rolling his "R"s...this one is hard to demonstrate via writing, but try saying "I want to brrrrring my cars upstairs" while rolling your tongue on the "r" in "bring"...it's hilarious. I've started doing it myself just for fun.

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Last night was a rough one. That's all I'll say. I didn't drink coffee today. In retrospect, I don't know what I was thinking. But despite the bumpy night, I get the chance to take Ethan to school (his ECFE class) while I'm on leave so I went, and was actually able to participate in reasonable conversation with adults on approximately one hour of sleep and no caffeine to fuel me. I decided not to drink caffeine today because last night I had some "you're going to get a migraine" warnings from my body and then got completely paranoid that the reason I was having those symptoms was because that day I had only had one cup of coffee versus four and I was in withdrawal. Who knows. I think I'll try to scale back on the beans.

I think I might have S.A.D....it is frigid cold (like coldest EVER!!) here in MN and it starts getting dark at like 4pm. But we have some things coming up to look forward that will hopefully make the rest of January pass by quickly. We'll have a dinner out with Cec and Chris, a Wolves game, a Happy Hour with old coworkers, and I'm co-planning a baby shower.

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I think I now need to resort to bullet-points as my brain is no longer functioning in paragraph-formation.

- In case anyone cares, in the middle of the night while feeding my babies, I "day"dream about vacationing with my husband somewhere far away and staying up as late as we want because the morning holds no repercussions...we can sleep all day.

-Owen has baby acne/pimples all over his T-zone. It's sad...it looks painful. I want to pop them, but I don't. I googled and Dr Google told me not to, but I resist the urge all day.

-Ethan ate chicken tonight (Smothered Chicken over rice, Mom!). Without prodding and tears...Andy and I aren't sure what we did, but we would sure like to repeat whatever it was tomorrow night.

-It is the coldest it has even been this week and my husband didn't wear a jacket to work because he uses the skyway downtown. Let me ask you this...what happens if your car decides to stop running because it just wants to hide away like everything else in this weather...how do you explain to your wife that you lost your fingers and toes?

-Andy and Ethan went to visit Maddie tonight after dinner and just after they left, both babies woke up for a feeding. I tried to double-feed by propping them up in the boppy pillows and sticking bottles in their mouths and that was the most inefficient way of trying to save time/pacifiy babies that I have ever attempted...it was a disaster and I'm not sure how my husband manages to do it. I need a lesson from the expert.

-Among washing dishes, doing laundry, and "cooking"* dinner...I poured myself a glass of wine and took on the task of emptying 3 diaper genies with poop diapers and several garbages with pee diapers...I don't wish the task on my worst enemy and think it should only be done when you can stop in the kitchen and take a swig of wine between garbage pails.

-Our babies are due tomorrow. Time to take down that creepy ticker!! I can't believe it...they were 5 weeks old last Monday...I can't believe that they are only "official" in all of my stupid baby sleep and development books as of tomorrow. Have we accomplished nothing? I think Dylan and Owen would tell you otherwise. I'm sure they have already learned much from staring at my nose.





*Thawing aforementioned Smothered Chicken

Daddy update

"I'm taking a dump mommy"

Music to any mother's ears, no? I would say that I feel bad about some of the things that E has been saying lately, but I think we are equal offenders of inappropriate language in the house, so we are both responsible for his excellent vocab. Unfortunately he seems to like to imitate his daddy with more enthusiasm.

This seems to part of the drill though, as we are going to try to begin the potty-training. Nothing makes me feel quite as cool as when I am demonstrating the proper technique for my boy. Here's where you grunt son: "Grrrrrr"

Other than trying to get our boy to "dump" in a big-boy potty (see: plastic bucket), life is both repetitive and crazy here. Change babies, feed babies, burp babies, play cars with E, try to sleep, eat something, repeat cycle from beginning every 3 hours, day and night.

People without kids may think this schedule can't really repeat constantly around the clock every 3 hours, and they are absolutely correct. Between 8 PM and 7 AM E does not play cars since he is sleeping, and we also have to add in bathing for child or parent occasionally. Other than that, not much need for a clock. Such is the life of the parents of a newborn.

Now how is this cycle different with twins than one baby? Substitute out the "try to sleep" category and replace with "stare at wall and try to zone out until one or the other is crying".

It's all good though. Occasionally you find some interesting things to see or do when you're awake at 4 AM. Sham Wow!

AS

One month old

I got a babycenter.com email the other day with the subject "Top 100 Baby Names of 2008"...Ethan is #3, Dylan is #16 and Owen is #38. Strangely enough, I would have expected those to be in the opposite order...right after my delivery of Owen, when I announced his name, the delivering doctor and one of my nurses both told me they had their own Owens. We knew we weren't being super creative with our names, but I'm not super excited about being so unoriginal. I think in 2006, when Ethan was born, we found out that Ethan was the #1 name (after the fact)...at least in the Midwest area. Still, I like our names.

Our "little" guys were a month old yesterday, and as of yesterday, were due in one week...on the 15th. Strange. I can't imagine birthing babies of this size. Keeping in mind the fact that they were 7lbs 3oz and 6lbs 10oz last Friday and growing at a rate of 0.5-1oz every day...and the fact that babies grow faster in utero than in the "real" world...holy cow!! They are doing really great...eating well and really getting curious about the world around them. They are having more awake time (sometimes not timed so well) and seem to be less excited about being swaddled up. We'll start tummy time on the floor (the dog is gone!) pretty soon. We've found that at least Owen likes the swing (we haven't tried with Dylan yet) so it's exciting to see that we can do more with them.

Night-time is going ok. We have been sticking with our "schedule" of me going to bed after the early-evening feeding or after Ethan goes to bed...around 8 or so. Andy does the late-night feeding and mom and I have been covering the middle of the night feeding. Thank God for my Mommy!! Last night, they went a stretch from 11:30pm to around 4am...granted, they were not sleeping that whole time, they probably settled down around 1am, but they are taking bigger feedings and going longer stretches in between feedings. Now if we could just get this sleeping at night thing down...we'd be set!! At least for awhile, until another stage starts! :> Until then, I make a large pot of coffee each morning and down about 3-4 cups before 10am...it gets me through.

Below is the 4-week picture of D & O, and the handsomest 3 young men in my life...

Dylan looks a little suspicious of the camera and Owen is ready to throw some jabs.

We took the twins out of the house and survived...

Mom and I took Dylan and Owen to the pediatrician last Friday. It was for their hospital follow-up and since we were supposed to get in within the week, we saw a pediatrician that wasn't the one we'll be going to, but he was very thorough and just fine. Andy had put together our double stroller and put it in the van awhile ago, but I didn't want to figure it out in the cold, so mom and I each carried an infant seat into the clinic...small as they are, I'll be needing to figure out that stroller soon!! With the diaper bag, my purse, and jacket, I couldn't imagine doing it on my own...maybe someday I will have this all figured out. It was a workout as is.

We are a spectacle wherever we go...it seems that everyone feels the need to comment about twins. We got some fleece blankets with pink backing from Andy's grandma for Christmas so everyone thought they were either two girls, or a boy and a girl...boys can have pink blankets too!! They were the warmest blankets we have and I threw them over the top of the car seats to keep them extra warm (I used like every blanket we own to bundle them up!).

Andy met us at the appointment so we were both able to talk to the pediatrician and ask questions. He reviewed their discharge papers and was very thorough with checking them out. They got great reviews. They are both gaining weight appropriately and look really good. Dylan was 7lbs 3oz and 19.9in. Owen is 6lbs 10oz and 19.1in. Both had gained good weight from the last time they were weighed...at their Synagis shot on the 31st...they are supposed to gain 0.5-1oz each day, which they are. Go team!

I asked about the iron supplement they are getting once a day in their bottles and the special 22-cal fortified formula...he said at least through their due date (Jan 15), but we could stay on the iron until it's gone or until their 2-month check (we go in Feb 11) for good measure...so we'll stick to both of those things until they are two months old.

Of course I had to ask about RSV since nothing in this world scares me more. We've had lots of visitors and I've heard of parents of multiples following "RSV lockdown" during flu season (the pediatrician we saw uses April 15th as his "flu season" end date, but has seen cases in May) where they really don't go out or let anyone else in. With Ethan, I don't think RSV lockdown is that practical for us, which he agreed that it's not...but did recommend that we limit our visitors. Baby holding can be in full-force come Spring...please understand.

We've started to have a routine of some sort...Andy has been staying up for the late feeding, whatever falls around 11-1am...then he brings D and O upstairs (they are sleeping in their room now as of a few nights ago). I usually go to bed after the feeding that falls before that (8ish), and then I get up for the middle-of-the-night feeding (2-4am ish)...most nights I am able to tackle it myself if one of the babies is up before the other, but I've had to recruit my mom for assistance a few times (she is awesome!). So far, things have been manageable. 'Course we've had some rough nights too...the other night Andy brought the babies upstairs after the late feeding but Dylan was still awake and squawking so I went into their room and rocked him...he seemed hungry, but it hadn't even been two hours since their last feeding, so I held out for another half hour and them fed him, woke Owen and fed him, then held Owen for about a half hour (this seems to help decrease his spit-ups, which are getting better), and then put him back in the crib...after all that effort to keep Owen from spitting, as I put him back in the crib, Dylan spit up...so I got him changed and back to bed and then went back to bed myself...Not so bad, just lots of baby juggling. I seem to be getting enough sleep if you add it up...it's just that it's really fragmented...So, I'm not feeling totally sleep deprived, per se, just totally out of it.

My mom has been cooking up a storm for us (freezing lots of meals), doing all our laundry, dishes, and is just incredible in general. She will head back to KY on Saturday and we will miss her!! While she's been here, Andy and I have had a chance to get out of the house together, which we really haven't done in so long if you think about how long I was on bedrest even before I had the babies...on New Year's Eve we went to a movie and last night we went out to dinner with friends. Drying my hair and putting on makeup...dressing in real clothes (although I'm still wearing those maternity jeans every time I head outside of the house) makes me feel human again...it's good for my psyche!!