Happy Birthday!!!!

What a difference a year makes....

Just how was vacation?

Yup, they hated it. Especially the swimming pool.

(as an update, Z slept through last night 7:15-6:30 and would have continued sleeping for at least a little while had her crabby sister not woken her up. C had to be rocked to sleep, per usual, but was only up around 2am and then again at 6. Tonight, same deal so far. Z sleeping by 7:30 C in the glider until almost 9. sigh)

Updates on Screaming and Boobies

last night everyone screamed from 1-2am. Then I gave in and nursed them. I think I will try Eva's suggestion/ previous experience and make a "no boobs before midnight" rule and then go from there. I think this is a rule of thumb everyone should follow. Regardless of your lactation situation. There is rarely a good reason for boobs before 12. I speak from experience.

On another, not totally unrelated front, I am breast pump free at work today. There are some big girls at my house today whith whole milk in a sippy cup.

I know, gasp, shock and awe. Also, how big are your boobs today.

Gi-Freakin'-Normous. Seriously, I had to borrow a safety pin to keep them contained. I thought about using it to deflate them, but I have feeling I will only spring a leak.

The Night of 1,000 Screams

 

Or "Wherein We Teach Chloe That Her Crib is NOT Made of Lava"

 

Just to catch everyone up, Chloe has decided that sleeping in our bed is much preferable to her crib (which is made of fire or some other extremely painful surface to sleep upon, after 12am). I gave in on this over last week while we were on vacation (from which I have some of the funniest pictures of them dealing with sand), but since we've been home, it's only gotten worse.

So H and I decided that last night was D-day (or night, whatever, I'm tired). And since we are sleep training we might as well night wean. I didn't say this was a smart plan…

I went out to twin club dinner after helping get them into PJs. I nursed them both before I left and H was all prepped to put them to bed around 7:30.

At 7:30, Zoe was rubbing her face and sucking her thumb. She went right in the crib, grabbed her blankie and passed out. Chloe was lying on the floor sucking her thumb, but the minute her back hit the mattress she was pissed. Red faced, screaming, 'how could you do this to me?!', etc. H let her scream for 15 minutes, but, as he put it "I didn't know anyone could scream that much and derive extra energy from it. It was like the crib was fueling the anger". So he gave in and picked her up. They went back to the living room where she chewed on the TV remote until she fell asleep. Don't worry, H gave her stunt remote, but not until she had changed the channel and turned the DVD player on and off a few times. Then he tried to put her in the crib again. This time her meltdown woke up Zoe so poor H wound up taking both babies out to the living room to rock them in the glider. After around 45 minutes, they both fell asleep and he had to maneuver them through the house and back into the cribs without waking them. (Note that I do this quite frequently and let me tell you, it ain't easy to haul two dead weights through a small hallway without wacking their heads, tripping over a walker or kicking the cat)

I got home around 10:30 and H was just finishing his cold pizza, he looked like someone had beaten him. Apparently they had. At 11:30 I was headed to bed when I heard Zoe creeping in the crib. I decided to wait her out before going in there to go to bed. HA! You cannot outwait a hungry baby. She freaked and I wound up sitting with her in the rocking chair. But without the nursing. This is like poking a tiger. She was screaming and pulling on my shirt. At one point she tried to nurse through the shirt. It was a thin shirt and it might have worked, so I gave in. 4 minutes later she was in a coma. But not Chloe.

She didn't want to miss out on the all night scream-a-thon. H took her to the kitchen to get her a sippy cup with milk. She drank (reluctantly) an ounce or so. He brought her back to the bedroom and she went nuclear again. In an effort to not re-wake Zoe, I took her and held her on my lap. See above re: angry tiger. So she nursed again at 12am. After about 5 minutes, she was drifting off so I handed her to H to put back in her crib. HA! Again!

She grabbed my arm and was screaming like we were sending her to camp for the summer. And not just any camp, EVIL CRAFT CAMP where they make you macramé all your clothes and paint ashtrays.

H wrestled her away from me and plopped her in the volcanic crib. She screamed for another 15 or 20 minutes. How Zoe slept, I have no idea. But then the screaming stopped and she must have fallen asleep. I refused to get up and find out. Also I had the non-baby side of the bed at that point and I wasn't giving it up. She could have spit flaming arrows and it would have been H's problem.

Zoe was back up again at 5:30. I figured this was close enough to morning and I nursed her and put her back in the crib. She went back to sleep until 7:45. Chloe got up at 6 and managed to convince me that sleeping the next hour or so in bed with me was worth the extra sleep. She is very persuasive.

So final scores look something like this:

Babies:

    2 rounds of nursing

    1 baby sleeping in the big bed for an hour and a half

Parents:

    1 cold pizza

    1 wet T-shirt

    10 toes kicking me from 6-7:30am

    5 straight hours of sleep

 

Who's winning? I have no idea.

    

100th Post!

and it's going to be about how I feel like the naptime nazi right now. being the holiday weekend, all our schedules are off. Yesterday C refused her afternoon nap and then had a meltdown in the bathtub. I couldn't even finish snapping her pjs on. She was so mad and screaming her face off. Then she couldn't fall alseep and wound up in bed with me from midnight to two.

this morning they didn't wake up until after 8am (dont' worry, they still had the 4am demand-to-nurse!) and Z was so hungry she actually ate her oatmeal. I know, shocking.

Now it's 11am and I think C finally stopped screaming in the crib. now she's just moaning and sucking her thumb. I really didn't want the morning nap to get pushed too far back, but a nap needed to happen.

It's absolutely horrid to stand here and listen to the screaming....

so i'll tell you what we got done so far this weekend:

Saturday we rented a truck to pick up two swingsets a friend was giving us (one for us and one for grandma's house). Since we had the truck, we carted a washer and dryer of my mom's over to the town recycling center and ran into a guy who was on his way to sell two girls toddler beds to consignment. He also had twins so we scored to brand-new looking beds for $50. Then we moved some of my grandfather's furniture back to mom's for her guest room and scored ourselves grandpa's rolltop desk. However this took all day and resulted in baby meltdown in the car circa 7pm

Yesterday we went to sears and bought a new dishwasher with food disposal system (joy and rapture) and H bought a crazy electric lawn mower. he is very excited about battery powered green mowing. I could care less, as long as I don't have to do it. Who am I kidding? I'd be happy to pay the kid down the block, but H is into his mower. During naptime (in the morning, C boycotted the afternoon nap and spent it with me in the glider watching curious george) we re-organized the basement and made a space for my laptop and printer in the kitchen (more joy and rapture)

Today H is off to the Home Despot to buy some supplies to fill in the gaps in the hardwood floor made by pulling out an extraneous doorframe (don't ask) and to re-sheetrock over the now exposed 1870 wood frame of the house. Babies love to scratch their little fingernails on this super splintery wood and we won't even mention Petey (MUCH joy and rapture)

Well, it sounds all quiet on the bedroom front so maybe I can sneak in and steal a load of laundry to wash while babies pretend to nap. Or not. someone just complained again. it's going to be a long day.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday and going to parades and eating hotdogs and drinking beer. Think of me and my naptime struggles while you lay about in the grass and eat potato chips...

some awesome things about twins

ok, the most fantabulous thing about having twins is....

THE TWIN CARD

I play this most exalted of excuse cards whenever I don't feel like doing something. which if you are me, is most usually always.

for example...

don't feel like trekking out to a house party or other social gathering? "uh, sorry, can't make it... the twins don't travel so well"

don't feel like making phone calls at work? "oh, gee, the twins kept me up all night, I'm really not coherent enough to speak"

don't feel like taking a shower? "oh those rascally twins, no time for hygiene today. Nary a tooth was brushed"

don't feel like talking to your husband? "can't really pay attention to your woes from work, honey, those nutty twins ran me ragged today"

This works on anyone, except for other MoMs. If you play this card on a fellow club member, though, they are usually nice enough to realize that you just don't feel like doing whatever it is and most likely won't call you out on it.

Because it might be true. Or you just might be anti-social like me. But for me, it's awesome. I now have a built in excuse for being a fat lazy lay about. I used to blame my mom ("oh, sorry, I can't drive you all to the party, my mom won't let me"), now I can transfer it to my kids.

little positives here people. little baby steps. since no one sleeps through the damn night and nursing is the #1 nightlife choice for the 9-12 month old set.

Why oh Why...

...does the village still have a fire whistle that goes off from the firehouse RIGHT BEHIND MY HOUSE everytime someone burns toast?

and why oh why do the good citizens of Fishkill feel the need to burn toast at 5:30am when I have babies who have basically slept all night and are in no danger of waking before 7?

There is a God. He is laughing at me. I would go outside and shake my fist, but it's nap time and I'm afraid he'll set the bell off again.

grrrr.

But, they SLEPT! a little crankiness in the early evening, but by 9pm all was quiet on the bedroom front.

and they've been down for a nap for an hour and 40 min.

i am typing as quiet as possible, but I fear I will not finish my coffee. and decaf is worse cold.

almost human

last night Z took a "nap" from 6:45pm to 7:30. She then refused to go back to sleep until 9:30. But she did finally go to sleep and then C got up at midnight. H put her back down after a few minutes of cranking. She got up again at 3am to nurse. Z got up at 5:30am to nurse and went back to sleep. C got up at 7, nursed for 2 minutes and was so happy to be in my bed, she grabbed onto my shirt and fell back asleep. Z got up for the day at 7:45.

So I have two babies who "sleep through" but on slightly different schedules.

And I wonder why I look like I do?

Here's some pictures of people who look waaaay more well rested than me. I think that's juice dripping off Z's face, but it could be drool. I know, I'm a bad mother letting her drool all over herself... we won't even talk about the horrors I put her through yesterday, but her head-bump is going away.

bad bad blogger

i don't get a lot of computer time these days. but that's because there is a lot going on around here.

I had a physical therapist come out to the house to give us an evaluation. Turns out that I'm not crazy and the girls are a little delayed in their motor skills. but not enough to get us any free services, just enough to make me feel bad and give me a new job of SAHPT. so in addition to keeping house from falling apart, cat from shedding everywhere, babies from starving, falling, rolling into stuff they shouldn't and/or being too filthy, I am now in charge of increasing gross motor skills.

which in reality means a lot of tummy time while I cruelly move toys out of reach. and you can just imagine how much they love that. so there's never any crying here.

which leads me to the great sleep fiasco of 08. no one wants to sleep in a crib. well, that's not true, I think H may opt to sleep in a crib soon. Friday night I hit my breaking point. I slept the whole night with C on my arm and when I tried to roll over or even move, she would scream.

So saturday she learned how to sleep in her crib like a big girl. it took her 45 min to fall asleep while H sang to them and then she screamed from 3:30 to 5:30. yes, two hours of shrieking. Z slept through the whole thing not 2 feet away. Petey did not. he was pissed. he kept licking me and batting at my arm as if to say "get up and get that thing to shut up" but I refused. H went to the crib every few minutes when she would spazz really badly. She was a very tired girl yesterday.

But last night I put them to bed myself. I just sang until they both were quiet. C was sleeping, but Z was still awake when I left the room. and she slept until 7am! not a peep. C got up at 3 to nurse and went right back into her crib no complaints and got up at 7 as well.

A few more nights like that and I might be human.

So it looks like we have "sleepign through the night" in the near future and possibly crawling as Z is up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. She also has a nice gash and egg abover her right eye as some stupid mommy thought it would be a good idea to practice crawling on the changing table. Needless to say, Z face planted onto the metal hinge on the table top.

That should look awesome for the baptism pics on saturday.

Sleep chronicles, part 2

I am a wimp. I admit it. here. freely. to the whole wide web. I have given in to babies and have been sleep trained by them. They clearly have read more books on the subject. There must be some hidden messages in Moo Baa LaLaLa that tell babies how to wear down poor pitiful mothers so that they will, after only a week or so of training, submit to your will.

'Crying it out' in our house should really be called 'puking it out' as that's what they do. Z specifically. and I am tired of changing pjs and sometimes crib sheets.

I also decided that this cannot possibly go on for ever. They are 9 1/2 months now. C shows little to no interest in nursing during the day and I'm pretty sure that once she discovers the true functionality of the sippy cup, I will become obsolete in her world. She is also working on crawling... right now she looks like a little green army man with epilepsy, but she'll get there. When she does, I will have to tie a rope around her to find her. Z may hang in there for a few more months, but I have a feeling both babies will be self-weaned by the fall, if not sooner.

Of course, now that I've said that I'll be back complaining in august.

But since they are really only getting up twice a night and it isn't likely to last much longer, I've given in and I let them nurse for the two minutes they want and snuggle in bed with me. I'm trying to soak up all the 'baby' I can these days. They are looking more and more like big girls and I know I'll miss the baby days in the not so distant future.

And NO, this will NOT make me want more. I said I will miss those days, not that I've had a complete frontal lobotomy. I have pictures, this blog, and a paper journal to remind me of what it was really like.

a basketful of babies

sleep chronicles part 1

they refused to go to bed last night until H came home. at 8:30. I gave them a bath at around 7, put them in their pjs, nursed them both. They weren't the slightest bit tired. so we read some books on the bed and sang some songs. still not a yawn. I put them in the crib. Petey left the room as his ears are more sensitive than mine. I gave in and took them to the living room. I put them onthe floor and put all the toys away. Then I sat on the couch and read a magazine, ignoring them. they rolled around and sucked their thumbs. When H finally got home, they cracked up laughing and he put them to bed one at a time, with nary a complaint.

Chloe got up at 12:30 for a quick snack and a cuddle and then there was not a peep until 6am. At 6 they both nursed and got clean diapers. No one would go back in the crib. I made a baby sandwich and we all fell back asleep until 8:45.

So needless to say there was no morning nap. by 12 there was freaking. crying and sobbing and eye rubbing and yet, hungry for lunch. I fed them yogurt through the blubbering.

Now they are napping. let's hope I get a good two hours out of this as it's likely to be the only nap they take today.

Do you think they really could be waiting for H to come home to go to bed? Or is there something fundamentally wrong with how I place them in the crib? Oy.

Babies who won't sleep

am I the only one who has this model of baby? If I had known there was an option for the "sleeping baby" model, I would have ordered it. I certainly would not have ordered TWO of the non-sleeping model.

They are 9 months old. I feel like they should be able to sleep more than 4 or 5 hours at a time. They eat three decent sized meals of solid foods and nurse 4-5 times a day. They have a nightly ritual with baths and pjs and nursing that's been going on for months.

So why did bedtime begin at 7:15pm and end now-ish at 8:45? It's not even really fully over as I can still hear someone periodically shriek from the crib.

I have dear dr. ferber's book and the man would probably be a genius had I had only one baby. even one of the non-sleeping models. But I simply cannot let one baby cry for several hours while the other one is inches away. It gets on her (the other baby's) nerves. And by that I mean, causes her to join in the cacauphony of screams. Which makes me want to run away. literally. I feel like a terrible mother as I am at the point where the crying doesn't make me feel bad, it just annoys me.

I can't move them out of my bedroom since the other bedrooms in the house are upstairs and there is no way on god's green earth that I am going to be dragging my fat ass up the stairs 4 and 5 times a night. I don't even want to do it once a day. There are weeks where I don't venture to that floor of the house at all :)

So I'm tired. and I have no quality of life as I live in fear of bedtime. The whole day could be great with laughs and giggles and fun and when 6:00 rolls around I go into a mild panic about how to get them to go to sleep and leave me alone. so I can have 5 minutes to myself. until petey parks himself on my lap.

Apparently I'm not allowed to have no one touching me.

Sleep, glorious sleep

we are starting sleep training and night weaning. pray for us. or fear for us.

Big Girls Don't Cry

Babies who look cute for Easter DO NOT like having their pictures taken:






In case you wanted to guess, C is on the left and yes, she has gel in her hair as she woke up looking like a rooster. or stegasaurus. Z is on the right and is apparently annoyed that the photo shoot is taking so long. I told her to talk to her sister.

Break-out Babies

Tell me this doesn't look like they've just recently escaped...

Or that C is trying to steal Z's toy. 'Cause that NEVER happens here...

So Long...

My grandfather passed away yesterday morning. To say we will miss him is an understatement.

Pretty pretty Princesses!!!!

I know everyone with boys is jealous now! I also challenge anyone who says they "always know" to tell me which baby is which. Just try :)

update

We went to visit my grandfather yesterday. He has made a somewhat miraculous recovery and they are talking about sending him directly home, not even to a step-down rehab center. We are not really sure what happened. Even the doctors are shocked. I'll just say thanks again.

Can't sleep

sleep is never a problem for me. I can sleep anywhere. When H and I first met he played on a dart league and I used to go and sleep in a booth in the bars while they played. I've slept through babies screaming and through major construction.

Tonight I can't sleep.

My grandfather is dying. Not in the "we're all going to die; he's 90, etc" sense, but in the very real sense of dying. Minute by minute. His kidneys are no longer functioning, his heart is failing and he's had at least one stroke. Second by second his life is ending. I can't sleep through it.

My grandfather is a patriarch in the true sense of the word. If it weren't for him, my entire extended family would have parted ways long ago. He had four children and four wives. I'm not sure who caused more trouble. His investments helped me buy my house and take 6 months off with my babies. He paid for my room and board my first year at college to make sure I went away to school. He bought me my first car. and my second. He bought me my first diamond earrings and ring. He never missed my birthday, although sometimes he'd remember in October. He had a fantastic garden and grew the biggest squash in westchester county. He would always stop for a hotdog and as late as last year bought me ice cream cones whenever I drove him to the doctor. He basically built my mother's house and just a few years ago, she came home to find him underneath her kitchen sink, fixing the drain. He was 86 and was tightening the pipes by hand. That year he also built her a pool deck.

He told great stories about his younger days. Most of them involved him getting arrested or beating someone up. A few months ago he lamented to H that he could no longer make a good fist, so how on earth was he going to punch anyone. We didn't mess with him. He once pulled the phone out of the wall while my mother was on it. She was a teenager and she talked too much. She still does. He kept us all in line. One year at Christmas my aunt complained that she should get a larger gift since she was the oldest. My mother threw a fit and didn't speak to her sister the entire year. The next Christmas, he gave everyone their gifts and told my aunt hers was more since she was the oldest. She got an extra dollar.

He taught us all how to behave and how to be respectful. You didn't enter without personally greeting him or leave without saying goodbye. He danced at my wedding and complained that I couldn't keep up. He stuck around to see the babies. Actually, we blame him for them being twins. When we told the family last Christmas that I was pregnant, he said, "Good, it should be twins. It's time for more twins in this family". I told him that was a terrible thing to wish on someone. Three weeks later, I had an ultrasound with an extra baby. He thought it was very funny. When the babies were born and they were in the NICU, he made my mother drive him the hour to see them. When they got to the hospital, she offered him a wheelchair since the NICU was in the back of the building and not an easy walk. He made it in on his own two feet and held both babies for almost an hour. We gave him a picture of him holding the two tiny bundles and it's sitting on the table next to his recliner where he spends most of his time these days. He told my aunt that they keep him awake at night; he can hear them crying. So for Christmas this year I gave him a picture of them laughing. It's sitting right next to the first one.

When he dies, there will be a lot of blame being passed around and I'm sure my mother and her siblings will come to blows about who should have done what to help him. But I know he lived a hard life and he's tired. He's been too tired to fight for a year or so now. I don't want him to go. I feel like there are so many things that I want to ask about his life. Stories that no one else will know now. He was the youngest of 10 children. His father came from Italy and carried an anvil in his arms up the train out of the city to start the iron works. His mother was the sister of his father's first wife and she came over to raise her sister's children when she was ill. She married her brother-in-law and had a baby 6 months after her sister's last child. No one talked about it. There was a set of fraternal twins, but I don't know which sister's children they were and I don't remember if they were girls or boys. I wish I could go to the hospital tomorrow with a notebook and write everything down. But it's too late. And I feel guilty that I haven't seen him since Christmas. I feel that I should have done more. Mostly I feel like I ran out of time. There couldn't be enough time to thank him for everything he's done for me. If it weren't for him, I might not have gone to college, I wouldn't have bought this house and I most likely wouldn't have had twins. If I tried to thank him, he'd just shrug it off anyway. As far as he's concerned, that's what you do for your family.

So in honor of my grandfather and his last few days here with us, here are some photos of the man who taught me what family was:





Thank you.