Foggy Night

Both outside and in my head. Luckily my darling husband put on the history channel's Beatle's show, because I'm obsessed. I'm not really learning much or taking anything new in, but I'm soooo in love with them that I'll watch/listen/buy just about anything. Hence my hard drive being overloaded with every recording ever made by them as a group.

Anywho...back to business!

Do you see this face?

It's not looking like this face soo much recently. We believe the culprit is small, white, and erupting through the gums of her lower jaw. That's right, teeth. I'm afraid that dear, sweet, Emma has turned into screaming, monster child. Luckily it's just spurts of inconsolable tears, but for a mama not to used to whiney babies it's really taking it's toll! I'm deathly afraid it will cut into our sleep schedule which I work so hard to maintain! Wish us luck!

Hope everyone enjoys their Turkey Day tomorrow!

Another First

This time it isn't the babies first though, we have a sick Mama. Sick, caring for two babies, two obnoxious dogs, a crazy cat and doing laundry while simultaneously trying to beat a friend in farmville is more than I can handle. So maybe the dogs aren't that bad and the cat does stick to himself, I guess farmville isn't a necessity but still, being sick is no fun. Right now I am thinking it's just a cold, a cold I'd really rather not have but lets just hope it hurries along and the girls don't get sick. In a fog today I considered drink some bm to cure me. Yes, it was really foggy in my head today but follow my logic! Babies can nurse while your sick and not get sick because the milk doesn't pass germs. The milk actually contains antibodies to help the babies immune systems and prevent them from getting sick! So, I was thinking if I boosted myself with some booby juice I'd be instantly better! I refrained though, I don't think I could make myself drink it, I'm weird like that. Although now that I think about it I should totally run with this idea! I'd create a human milking plant and develop health drinks! I'd be rich! Ha ha!

So this Sunday was a family day. We went to DH's niece's and what started as a little meet and greet with the girls and her family turned into an early turkey day with extended family. It was nice to see everyone but very weird to be baby-less! I wasn't sure what to do with myself! We also got tons of leftovers so I've been eating well this week! Monday an old friend dropped off some toys for the girls so I spent a part of today cloroxing them to death. The girls need to be a little bigger before they can really use it but I sat them in it anyhow! I am going to love the exersaucer! It's a free babysitter! It's a let-me-go-switch-out-loads-real-quick-without-running-babies-all-over-the-house-sitter! FANTASTIC! Hopefully tomorrow I will finish the girls' shoes and start piecing together their christmas dresses. I am really torn on whether to put a lining in them or not. I specifically had DH pick fabric that could be worn for more than just christmas but they ultimately won't wear the dress for more than a few times because who dresses up for tummy time?

I still need to sit down and discuss christmas and picture scheduling with DH. He agreed to pictures but didn't really give me a time. Christmas is looking like slim pickin's this year, I have no idea what to get anyone, nor the time and energy. We might just have to hit walmart's gift card display. Hopefully I can knock this cold out with an outrageous amount of vitamin C and a good night's sleep-hear that ladies?? Traveling from PA to VA and back home to MD on Turkey Day will likely kill me if I'm sick, and working the next day will be miserable. I think such traveling may be banned in the future....

Picture Help!!

The girls will be 4 months tomorrow. 4 MONTHS! I have yet to taken for pictures, what a horrible mom. I'm sorry I missed out on the super cute newborn pics but I have plenty I took myself. I wasn't about to risk their health for a picture.

That being said I found out today the penneys does online scheduling. So exciting! But this has lead me down a slippery slope! What to wear? How to pose? Props? Family shots? I just don't know what I want! I'm sure I can find something to wear, maybe even change clothes too. I'd definitely want family shots since we have NONE! However the issues of poses and props is bothering me. How do you pose twins? I want to express their individuality, and I'd prefer nothing corny. Of course they aren't sitting on their own just yet so that limits us. I refuse to go girly and really want something unique.

Any thoughts?

Prematurity Awareness!

I spent 13 weeks on bed rest to see these faces. We were hoping to spend 18 weeks in bed. Perhaps hoping is too strong of a word because anyone who has ever been sent to bed knows it's not a walk in the park and very little "resting" is done.

We had known it was highly likely that they would be joining us earlier than they should but who doesn't hope that their overly experience peri is wrong for once?! After 3 days of laboring on and off our ladies greeted us at 9:32 and 9:33 a.m. Monday July 20th-7 weeks early. 7 weeks is a cake walk compared to the plight of some babies but it was plenty scary for first time parents. Thanks to steroids, wonderful doctors, compassionate and caring nurses and the thoroughness of NICU operations our girls are now 17 week and show few signs of their premature birth. While no parent is ever totally prepared for the NICU experience I feel like it made us appreciate our miracle babies that much more. Leave the hospital without the babies and scheduling life around hospital visits and pumping schedules wasn't parting of my PP plan, but I'm so thankful that I had babies that survived their premature birth and for the technology and medical advances that allowed them to survive.

Send in your monies and count your lucky stars!

Off my soapbox...

Don't Be Lazy

HA!

I'm lazy everyday now! I'm full of excuses and lacking proper motivation. Why clean the house if someone else will dirty it? Can you believe DH had the gall to remind me to "not be lazy", yes I might have called myself lazy but I'm the only one allowed to call myself that! While I had every intention of getting up after the 6 o'clock feed I just laid back down for a second....then magically it was 10 o'clock and time for another feed! Any motivation I had is now gone. So we'll grocery shop instead, let people look at my gorgeous children and hope they don't notice my sloppy mom attire.

Last night we went to the drive-in and the night before I went to a bull roast. It was a very busy weekend. Hopefully I'll have some more time to blog later, dogs are whining and babies are crying the the growl that came from my stomach was unreal!

What a Night

Drive-In......SUCCESS!

It's now 9:28 and DH is asleep, Emma is asleep, and the life of the party Claire is engrossed in the Wizard of Oz with me. As anti-tv as I tend to be, how can I deny her a classic? Bedtime after we pass through the poppies-promise!

I love family time!

Did I Say I Would Clean?

I bathed the girls and myself, that was about the only cleaning that got done today. I was so lazy and am so behind in laundry that I went out and bough a shirt to wear to work! That is horrible-but I got a good deal! Maybe I'll do some cleaning on Saturday...

I'm not sure if it's since the babies have arrived or if I have always been this way, but the weather is really playing into my mood. REALLY REALLY playing into my mood. I had no energy or motivation today. I just wanted to lay in bed with them, and did till about 11. When I dropped them off with mother I really wanted to cry. If I hadn't already spoken with my boss and got a favor with next weeks' schedule I think I would have called out. The boss man texted me, and I asked for early this Sunday. His normal hoo-ra ensued but I'm almost positive he gave it to me. I can't wait to hit the drive-in with the girls. Maybe I should sneak in food in the diaper bag lol!

So now I'm pumping before I pull on some work clothes for a crap shift! 6 hours isn't worth the effort of getting the girls and myself ready! The only upside to this other than money is that when DH has the girls by himself he tends to be wide awake and stays up late with me! Hopefully we'll have another good night! The girls slept straight through till 6 this morning and had to be roused for their 10 o'clock feeds!

11:51 p.m.

I'm sleepy. Very sleepy. A little hungry. A little sad. Very excited. Somewhat confused. A tad angry and a good bit carefree. I'm all over the map right now. Rebecca, I'm following your lead-censorship has set sail from this blog!!

The over nights with the girls are getting easier, I'm just at the end of my rope. They'll sleep 6-7 hours but that starts way to early and leaves me getting up a 3 a.m. with them. If I laid down at 8 with them it wouldn't be a problem but I'm not 73 yet and this house needs to have some sort of order before I can rest! I need to accept that I can't do it all, and I need to make priorities and stick to them. I need to learn to stick to things. So far I'm sticking to this new schedule with the girls and it seems to be working out rather nicely. We're only two days in so I'm not head over heels yet. I just can't find a way to get them to sleep from 12-6! I really feel like work is more of a hinderance with the girls schedule and is aiding in my grumpiness. Working 3 days a week is killer, the long 4 day break gives my body time to settle back down which makes those three days hell. It would be nice to have a little more help with the girls when I need it but I don't know where to turn. It's nothing I can't handle, but I would love to sleep 8 hours straight! Naps are great but there is nothing like uninterrupted sleep!

As much as I would love to sneak off to the basement for a full night of sleep, I don't think I could leave the girls with DH. He would sleep through their screams till they were in full inconsolable breakdowns-if he woke up at all! Is it wrong to complain that he never gets up with the girls? I'm torn between feeling guilty and feeling neglected. He does work and I for the most part don't. When I do work, I still have the girls in the morning before I work and they're handed right back over when I get home at night. Even on the weekend I take care of the girls over night when I have to work and he doesn't. Sometimes I feel so angry I want to scream at him! I even tell him off while he sleeps, luckily he sleeps deeply! I think he could do a little more, maybe just on the weekends, but I know it won't happen.

So that leads me to this weekend, I'm working a crap shift tomorrow so I can try and make up for not being able to work Saturday. DH has a bar mitzvah and I couldn't find a sitter so I had to take myself off the schedule. I'm going to a bull roast that night and feel horribly guilty leaving him with the girls while I go out. I really wanted us to go as a family but DH was uninterested as usual. So I'll try to enjoy myself for a few hours. I'm sure I'll feel awkward and annoyed with all the questions about the babies and end up leaving early. It seems like almost ever weekend he has something to do, I'm trying to convince myself it's just the time of year and things will settle down. I'm hoping to convince the boss man to get me an early shift Sunday. The turn around that night will be killer but I would love to take the girls to the Drive-In and see Where the Wild Things Are. DH has promised to take me to a drive in for the last 2 years or so and I'm tired of waiting for him. This wasn't suppose to be an I-hate-DH-post!!

So I have decided to take advantage of my mother tomorrow. I feel bad doing so. I'm dropping the girls off at the regular time so I can come home and clean. Hopefully I will still have the motivation. Then off to work and back home to my family. I need to write out this new schedule I'm trying with the girls so DH can continue it. I'm tired of always finding the girls in the pack-n-play when I get home, it makes me worry. Everything makes me worry. Alright, 12:15. Feed them and put them back down and **everything crossed** 5 hours of sleep for this mama!

Clean-Up At The Totswap!

Clothes, bottles, and baskets-oh my! The best part-mom paid for it all! Had I known in advance I would have picked up more! The totswap was a success and mother wants to go back in the spring which I am game for, especially if she is paying again! I ended up getting a few outfits, two pairs of shoes, some bottles, some soft blocks and toys, BOOKS!, baskets and mother found herself some clothes for the girls to keep at her house, a swing, a shoe rack, and some other odds and ends! There was a tupperware vendor and mother ran over, literally ran with Claire strapped to her, at the sight of the shape-o. She was exclaiming to the sales lady that I had one when I was little and how the girls needed one. So the lady asked which one she wanted and mother bubbled over because she though she had to order it and wait. Ours is green and yellow with orange blocks. While I'm excited to have it, I know the girls have AWHILE to go before they can actually play with but I'm glad it brought mother joy. While we were waiting in line we decided that mother would pay for everything and I'd pay her back when we got back to the car to save time. When we got to the car all she wanted was lunch and $20! AWESOME! Someone remind me how happy I am now when I'm bitching about how much money she dropped on my sister in the future!

Yesterday while I wasn't working at work my phone reminded me that the girls have another appointment on the 30th. More shots. Why am I so worried about shots? I go back and forth inside my head till I'm sick! I don't want any ill effects but I know that this is the only way to protect them from horrible childhood diseases. I think that they don't need so many vaccines. I think diseases have their place in nature and that nature shouldn't be too fooled around with. What's wrong with not so horrible diseases like chicken pox? Yes you can die from it, but usually not and with modern medicine almost certainly not. Mother was harping on vaccines concerned that I wouldn't get the rest of the girls' vaccinations. I asked her if she was vaccinated and she replied that when someone got sick, everyone came over to get sick with them and that was their form of vaccination! Now I don't want my kids to get polio but what's wrong with chicken pox? I try and talk to DH and express my opinions, which are poorly formed I know, but he just leaves everything up to me! I think I said I wasn't going to vaccinate them at all and just home school them and turn our house into a bubble he might have a thing or two to say, but I'd have to go to extremes to get the man to speak! I just think that they are so small and under developed, they don't need to be bombarded with micro-doses of dead viruses! And I especially hate the government telling me I have to but that's another post!

So to keep or cancel the appointment, that is the question!

I need a sack of money and a new couch, but other than that life is good. I'm hoping that we can get away again soon! I would love to skip Turkey Day but something tells me that we might be moving to the every other holiday system unless my Aunt in Falls Church stops hosting events and we leave it all to my cousin. Taking a minute to pause...I'm glad these are my major problems!

I'll leave you with a picture of the girls, they are getting hefty!

Oh, Turkey Day...

So the division of holidays has begun. It's nothing new, but now it has meaning. There are babies involved, babies everyone wants to see. As my SIL put it, "we want to fight for you too", and by you she means babies. She's fighting my Aunt. They both live an hour and 15 minutes away, in opposite directions.

My SIL is the better cook and will have the better meal, and I'd love to see the in-laws. However SIL's husband's family is usually there and sometimes the mood is quiet and awkward, although I'm sure babies will cut through that.

My Aunt's will be much more lively, more people. Probably more food of a different variety. Seating will be an issue and everyone getting along is never a guarantee. My cousin will be announcing her pregnancy so that will be fun. We also draw names for the christmas gift exchange and I'm dying for some of my Aunt's pickles.

I'm just not sure how to handle holidays. If it weren't for the girls DH and I would be at the beach chowing down on some Cracker Barrel-which is still a viable option. I don't know why this is such a big deal for me. What do you do for the holidays??

Totswapt

I should be working on a pair of pants, and some new shoes for the girls. I need to go down and make the evening bottles and figure out where this funky smell in my bedroom is coming from but instead lets talk about the totswap!! I invited mother to go to this totswap with me and it is turning out to be the best idea that I ever had!!! Now mother and I are not affectionate at all. We're more along the lines of coworkers in terms of our relationship, maybe close neighbors. However she has taken this grandma thing to new levels in terms of shopping. My mother has always been cheap-not frugal or thrifty but down right cheap! Now that the girls are here, she suddenly has all this money to buy them things. Did I mention she was to be laid off on Halloween? That didn't stop her! Luckily she found another job.

So Friday we're going to the totswap, basically this giant consignment sale at the state fair grounds (MD) and they have vendors there as well. My musts list include new diaper covers and maybe some new diapers if I can find a deal and a new wet bag if I can find a deal. All the consignment stuff is just gravy. Today went we visited dear mother she was dancing around the house with Claire singing to her about going shopping and spending all of Poppy's money! She even sang about buying me things!! It turns out that Friday my father is getting an uber paycheck for work crazy hours at work, I think it was 65, and she is getting her severance package, and she can take her christmas club money out. So I think I need to make a list of everything the girls will need for the next YEAR and pull my "I'd love to buy this for them but I just don't have the money" and see what I can get.

Does that sound awful?? I think of it as reimbursement for everything I was denied that my sister received. I'm bitter but only to the benefit of my children. I'm so excited I don't mind if she brings the she-beast along. The sister creature is have her tonsils out and all the drama might be a bit much for me to handle but again I stress the fact that my mother could potentially be spending large sums of money on my children, I may have to suck it up and be a big girl!

So ladies of blogland....what is everything twins will need from 3-18 months? Don't skimp, these are my babies!

Halloween

No we didn't dress up. No we didn't go trick-or-treating. But yes we did make our now annual diner trip. We're diner rats.

Shirt were the extent of holiday festivities in this house. People at work kept asking if we were dressing them up and taking them out. Why would I take a 3 month old out?? First of all, it's too cold and it was rainy. Secondly, they're just weeks old. I wasn't going to drop dollars on some super cute costumes that no one would see or be one of the asses that take their baby out so they can get a goodie bag. That can wait, I have the rest of their childhood to steal their candy!!! There was a woman at work who was taking her 5 month old grandson out. Are you kidding me? IT'S COLD, WET, and FLU SEASON!

Instead we were our shirts. My mother bought these back in August and luckily I remembered. I'm sure that she'll be asking to see the pictures from halloween in hopes I forgot and she can go on a small woe-is-me-I-try-so-hard-but-no-one-sees shpeal.

I think our last trick-or-treat rolled through around 6:30 bringing our grand total to 7 maybe? The first 5 or so being from the same family down the street that DH taught. So looks like I can pack a few more pounds on to these thighs with the leftovers!!! We were both starting to drift around 8 because we've turned into old people so I brought up the diner! The diner is our go-to, our feel-good place. Last year we went on halloween and discussed our then upcoming IVF cycle. It turns out we're regulars! The wait staff was coming by to see the babies. They were surprised they were ours, and didn't remember me being pregnant. Well that was because I was stuck in bed for 4 months but I let that part slide. Maybe we'll start getting free food?? HA! Or maybe when the girls are old enough I can let them ham it up!

Off for some breakfast! Thanks to my ladies for another 6-hour night!!!!