Bumper Twins

Aubrielle has suddenly become a human rolling pin. As her rolling-over skills have improved, the crib that the girls have been sharing seems to have become too small.

Daniel and I are often asked if the girls ever wake each other up. Up until recently, our answer was a grateful "no," but I knew that would not last forever.

And then it happened. I put the ladies down for their afternoon nap and went downstairs to begin one of the million things on my to-do list. Midway through whatever-I-was-doing, I hear both babies screaming in the monitor.

Aubrielle had managed to roll her still swaddled self into Emberly, wedging her into the corner of the crib. Emberly was rightfully pissed, being that she was awoken by her sister trying to roll through her, pinned into the corner (although this is a familiar situation for Emberly as this was the same way they were position for months in utero). Aubrielle's roll-a-thon resulted in her laying on her tummy still swaddled without her arms free to support her. She was apparently angry about this.

Sidenote: Aubrielle also seems to have an affinity for sleeping on her tummy despite that it scares the crap out of me. No matter how many times I roll her onto her back, I find her tummy-down. She does have excellent control of her head but still...

Due to the increasing number of bumper twins episodes in the recent weeks, Daniel and I decided to put the girls in seperate cribs this weekend. So, here we are. Night One, Hour Four. Status: so far so good.

Hiking with Babies

There are only two short windows of time in which hiking is possible out here in the Mohave desert: beginning of spring and the beginning of fall. I missed out on hiking this fall because, well, I looked like this:

And I missed out on hiking last spring because I spent my first trimester with my head in the toilet. Sadly, I don't have a picture of that. So after a year without hiking (one of our favorite activities) it was no surprise to Daniel when I suggested we take the girls for their first hike this past weekend.

It turns out hiking with 4.5 month old twins really was a good idea. I definitely needed to be out of the house (and not to WalMart again. this town really does need a Target.)

We invited Daniel's brother along. I'd be lying if I said we were so on top of things that we invited him along should we need help because I'm pretty sure we would have gone even if he had declined our invitation.

Hiking with a baby strapped to the front of you is a nice challenge. Now, I've always had a little meat on my bones but am usually in decent shape, meaning that I could hold my own on some decently challenging hikes. Considering, however, that my ab muscles separated to accommodate carrying two babies and I had a c-section, I was a little worried if I could hang. I felt pretty good about how I was keeping up, that is, until I fell on my ass. Aubrielle, who was strapped to me in a Snugli, was shaken up by the fall, but was fine...as long as Daddy was holding her.Fortunately, Uncle Pete was there to carry Emberly.

I wish I had an extra two retractable arms like Disney's Stitch. Sure, I would look goofy but life with twins would be sooooo much easier.

I'm still alive

The girls are awake a lot more these days which means limited blogging time for me. I've started three posts only to be distracted and when I attempt to finish I cannot remember what I was saying. I thought I was spacey during pregnancy but "mommy brain" is much worse. So quickly before they notice that my attention is not focused on them...

They're huge!

Emberly and Aubrielle on Valentine's day

Big events in the last few weeks (that my mommy brain can remember...):

Our Healthy Families representative did a developmental assessment on the girls last Friday and they're developing normally.

We took the bassinet out of our room this weekend. It was about time too since my little ladies have been sleeping through the night consistently and in their nursery since the beginning of this year. They transitioned fabulously, I on the other hand had some trouble letting go. Completely unfounded considering they are across the smallest hallway but I just love them so much.

The girls' set their own nighttime routine, which I'm glad they did because schedules aren't my thing. Daniel arrives home at 6:00 from work, they have playtime for about an hour. If it's a bath night, we bathe them around 6:45. Then we feed them, swaddle and give them pacifiers and they're out by 8:00-8:30. Sometimes Aubrielle wakes up around 4:00, sometimes she wants her pacifier, other times she's hungry. Emberly rarely wakes up until the morning.

Our daytime schedule isn't as concrete because, as I mentioned, I'm not good with schedules. I want to start putting them down in their cribs for morning and afternoon naps instead of letting them nap on their own. Anyone out there have any tips?

One last comment: I'm giving mad props to Idoia at Two Makes Four. She's my hero for posting this. Check it out.

Shortly after I began working at Portola Plaza Veterinary Hospital when I was 18, a cat named "Tank" was brought in to be euthanized because he had a horrible habit of urinating outside his litterbox. His owners had done everything in their power to deter this habit but could take no more. Dr. R refused to euthanize him and his owners signed him over to live at the hospital.

Tank is the most social cat I've ever known. He spent most of his time on the counter by the front window. Over the next three years, I fell in love with him. When I finally moved out of my mom's, it was only a few months before I asked Dr. R if I could take him home with me. He thought I was crazy because of his potty issues but I told him I knew what I was getting myself into.

For the last three years that Tank has lived with me, I have simply cleaned up after him and enjoyed his company. After the girls arrived, his peeing became more frequent and in more areas of the house. More clean up wouldn't really bother me. Sure I'm strapped for time as it is but this is Tank.

It was recently brought to my attention that the girls would be crawling soon and the potential sanitary issues I would be facing. I was warned that my perspective would change drastically after I became a mother...

So, I put it off for about a month but eventually saw that my home was no longer the best home for Tank. On Saturday, D and I packed his stuff and drove him down to the rescue. My mom offered to take him for me but although it was extremely difficult, I felt that I needed to be the one that took him and said "Goodbye." I never thought I would have to do this. I miss him.

It's easier not to think about how horrible I feel when I look at Emberly and Aubrielle because I know I did what was in their best interest. But it's obviously keeping me up at night...

Merry Migraines

So I must have been naughty last year because for Christmas I got MIGRAINES!

Two days before Christmas I was at the sink, washing bottles when my vision became blurred and my head started pounding out of nowhere. I took a couple Motrin, whined to Daniel, and went to bed with my head feeling like it was going to explode. I woke up the next morning feeling back to normal.

The day of New Years' Eve, Daniel and I were getting ready to run a few errands with the girls, when again out of nowhere my vision blurs and my head starts pounding. This time I also feel extremely nauseated and my right arm goes numb. My wonderful husband tucked me into bed, shut the blinds, brought me an ice pack for my head, and took the girls downstairs to let me nap. When I awoke, I had only a dull headache but still felt queasy. This time I wrote it off as an oncoming flu.

We had a wonderfully cozy New Years' Eve at home with the girls. Our first as a family- it was amazing and yet so different than those of my past. And let me add, it was a nice change to not be hung-over the first day of the year.

The 2nd we set off to California to visit Daniel's family. I was terrified of how we would manage a 6 hour drive with two 2 month old babies, but D insisted that we would have to make the trip eventually and "what better time than the present" and all that crap. And I must admit, it went much better than I had anticipated. We left after the girls' first feeding of the morning, stopped midway when they got hungry, and arrived in time to feed them again. Diaper changes were more interesting, but nothing too traumatizing.

We were having a wonderful time in California when I awoke Sunday morning with another terrible headache. This time my arm and half of my face went numb. D and I agreed that this was definitely something to be concerned about and I would call and set up a doctor's appointment first thing when we arrived home. We had planned to meet up with some friends of ours who had had a baby boy 2 weeks after our girls arrived. As we're visiting and joking about which of our girls will have a crush on their son when they're teenagers, I had to run to the bathroom to vomit. Then I became so dizzy that I couldn't even sit up and D decided he was taking me to the ER.

I will spare you the details but they ran a bunch of tests and concluded that I was having migraines most likely brought on by the spinal block I had for my c-section and sent me home with some prescriptions that they assured me were fine to take while breastfeeding but I'm hesitant.

I remember having migraines back in high school but they were never to this degree. Back then my Mom had taken me to a chiropractor who re-aligned my spine and I haven't had even a bad headache until recently. I think that the pregnancy may have strained my back more than I thought and I'm hoping that adjusting my spine will help my migraines without the need for medication.

Leaving the house with Emberly and Aubrielle is a pain in the ass. We no longer leave the house, we mobilize. But for sanity's sake, we do it. And I dare say, we are getting much better at it.

Now that we've figured out how to leave the house in under an hour (I may be exaggerating but it definitely felt like it took an hour), we've encountered a new problem: people. People who insist on stopping us and chit chatting. Yesterday, D and I needed to go to the local Super WalMart to finish up our Christmas shopping, pick up a few groceries and some baby necessities. Our WalMart is the second largest in the country, so it takes a long time simply to navigate through the store to find what you're looking for. Add in time for everyone and their mother to stop us and ask us a bunch of questions about the girls and we're looking at spending 2.5-3 hours there! And let's not forget that the girls still eat about every three hours during the day. So as we're trying to finish grabbing what we needed, the girls start to get hungry...and cranky. So then D gets cranky (he hates being that guy with the crying baby, in our case, babies...I think he needs to get over it). And I'm stuck with two fussy babies and a grumpy husband, trying to calm all of them while not losing my mind. Exhausting.

Stupid comments and questions aside, most people just want to tell us how beautiful our babies are or are curious as to how we manage, and I am very flattered. But knowing that most parents of one newborn are sleep-deprived and beyond tired, why would you stop parents with two newborns? And if you just cannot help yourself, why not keep it short and let them go on about their business? Since this is not likely to happen from our experiences so far, I suggested to D that we dig out our punker clothes from our teenage years, put all of our piercings back in, and generally make ourselves as unapproachable as possible.

Ok, I'm done ranting. On a more positive note, let's talk infant massage. My friend, who is currently 6 months preggers, and I took an infant massage class on Tuesday and I tried out some new techniques last night. The girls LOVED it! Aubrielle cooed the whole time and even gave me a very clear "A-goo!" Emberly, who is typically not as vocal, kept eye contact and smiled a lot throughout her massage. And as if that alone wasn't reward enough, they slept for 6 glorious hours!