Babies First Road Trip

The monkeys had their first road trip to Colorado! It went surprisingly well (get ready for a boat load of photos)!

The purpose of the trip was to visit family members they haven't met yet. The babies have hit the grandparent jackpot. They have:

2 grandmas
2 grandpas and a step-poppo
A great papa and a great poppy
3 great grandmas
1 great-GREAT grandma!



Great-great Grandma



Great Poppy

We drove for 6 hours (7 including a one hour stop for food and stretching) to the farm.



Ever in the car seat, binky in mouth and ready to go



Babies stretching!



This was them stretching out in the front seat of the car at McDonald's. There was a set of just-turned-four year old twin girls there that came up to see the twin babies. It was cute!





Ocean in a wheat field and above the babies with Grandma (my mom) in the wheat field

Since we weren't at home, we had to improvise and the babies had to take a bath in a bucket. Ocean was in a state of shock at the thought:



True to their Earth Day birthdays, they love being outdoors, so we had to invest in some new sun hats:





After spending a few days at the farm, we made an additional two day drive further in Colorado to stay for a few days in the mountains.



Mommy, babies, Aunt T and Grandma



Mommy and Ever ready to go outside



Mommy, Great Poppy, Aunt T and babies at the Arkansas River Walk in Pueblo, CO



Ocean enjoying the fresh morning mountain air in his pj's

It was a fun trip and I was surprised at how well the babies did. They were great in the car. Only once did we have to pull over because Ever was crying so hard. She has gotten so spoiled! She only wants me to hold her all the time. Part of me loves it, and part of me has created a monster! She has been making some seriously hilarious faces and I think I might have my hands full with her:



It was so nice seeing everyone. I didn't get any extra sleep like I thought I would with all the spare hands, with the exception of a 3 hour nap on of the days last week, but I really got to enjoy my babies like I never have before. Why? Because we were staying in other people's houses! I didn't cook, clean, or anything like that. I just hung out with babies and family. Operation Win the Lottery has begun, so I can vacation all the time and have someone else clean up after me. :)

I just need to buy a ticket . . . .

Adjustments

When you have two monkey's you have to make some adjustments in moments of desperation. Those moments usually equal to some kind of situation where one or both are crying. One is in the bath, the other is crying. One is feeding, the other is crying. One is getting attention, so the other wants attention and the list could go on forever. These issues aren't a big deal if there are at least two sets of hands around, but that's not always the case.

I went to the grocery store and left both babies at home with hubby. If they are in good moods we can split them and I'll take one to the store and hubby will keep one. After I left, both got hungry at the same time with only one set of hands to help them.

So I came home to this, the no handed twin feeding:







It was so funny when I walked in and saw hubby calmly looking at the babies while they calmly sucked their bottles while looking up at him with big eyes. I have fed them both while they laid on a pillow or have propped the bottle against something while I burped one, but have never seen them both sitting there with bottles propped against themselves. After I took pictures, we divided them up again and things were back to normal.

In other news, we had a HORRIFYING doctor's appointment. Watching my babies get immunizations almost made me vomit, the poor things were so upset. Ever did better than Ocean, but it was so sad to watch them during the appointment staring at me like "why are you allowing this?" Both my mom and I got peed on during weighing portion. It was chaos! Next one is at four months.

Here are their stats as of 8 weeks and 1 day:



Ocean
10 lbs. 10 oz. - 32nd percentile
23.5 inches long - 74th percentile
He has slept nearly all through the night two nights in a row!



Ever
8 lbs. 4 oz. - 4th percentile
21.5 inches long - 10th percentile
She is a good sleeper at about 4-6 hours in the night. She is an easy night feeder because she can chug a bottle in about 15 minutes.

Aaahhh

That is the sound of sweet relief. Ocean is now on soy formula and his fussing has gone way down. Hubby let me sleep ALL night for the last two nights and I feel like a normal person again! I should say I feel even better than a normal person because I feel like myself but with two beautiful babies to enjoy. Yesterday we all went out to the mall and pushed the babies around for a few hours in their stroller (aka, the short bus) followed by a family dinner at a restaurant and the babies did great and I loved being out of the house. Last Friday a friend called to go to lunch and I jumped at the chance seeing as how I hadn't left my home since Monday and I really couldn't remember the last time I washed my hair.

So Saturday was a great day and then last night I got even more sleep than the night before. I woke up because I desperately needed to pump and Ocean was stirring downstairs so I grabbed him, fed him, and then we cuddled up and slept for three more hours! It is the best feeling in the world to wake up to a sweet baby face, with sweet baby breath making cute dreamy sounds. Even though I know tonight I am back on all night duty, this gives me a glimpse into the future of what it will be like when they do sleep all night and we have perfectly pleasant days.

Babies enjoying outside summer time:

High Maintenance

The maintenance level of the twins has gone up, WAY up lately. They cry more, they are awake more, they make each other cry more and are all in all just more demanding. The good news is that in the last few days they are sleeping more at night, so that's a decent trade off.

The bad news is that we are confined to the house a little more. We ended up not taking the babies with us to dinner and they were babysat for the first time for three whole hours while we went to eat. We didn't want to be that annoying couple/parent that brings their little kids and ruins plans for everyone around them when their kid is screaming or running around. Not to mention it's not fair to the little monkeys to have to be snuggled in the carseat that long because we would miss them, or let's face it, because we love to be with them and show them off (hence the hundreds of photos you've seen on this blog just in the last 6 weeks). I took Ever to the store with me yesterday because Ocean and hubby were sleeping but she started screaming so I pulled her out and carried her while pushing the cart. She started crying again so I left the store with only a third of the groceries I needed. Yikes.

At my OB appointment the other day she asked what type of birth control I was interested in. HA! Have you seen my history to the right? I reaaly don't think that will be an issue. Besides, birth control is only 99% effective at preventing pregnancy, but I would say having twin infants is 110% effective at that. We figured we could start a program for at risk teens and they could come spend the night with the twins and teen pregnancy rates would plummet.

UNTIL . . . we get them calm and look into their little faces and realize they are the most gorgeous babies that were ever born. They have started making the cutest faces and noises and being very observant. They are little snuggle bugs. They are also getting some sweet little baby fat on them and it is super cute. And did I mention that they are gorgeous? So there will be no teen pregnancy prevention program going on around here, or we will single handedly be responsible for an entire season of "16 and Pregnant" and we don't want that.

So we will keep our high maintenance monkeys all to ourselves:

3 Years

Although Wednesday was our anniversary, we are going to celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary today. The sad thing is that we both almost forgot about it, but we have been a little busy around here.

It's way easier to feel celebratory today because I got five and a half hours of sleep last night!! You heard correctly, FIVE AND A HALF straight hours! It was amazing! Hubby listened to my meltdowns and since he doesn't work today he kept them downstairs until 4 a.m. then I woke up, pumped, fed Ever and then we went back to sleep for 2 hours before Ever was hungry again. It was great. He continued to feed Ocean, who slept for 4 hours TWICE last night until the 10 a.m. feeding. Aaahh . . . this is more like it. But I know I shouldn't get used to it.

We are headed down to the Plaza to have dinner at the Melting Pot. It is a feast and I can't wait for it. We are going to attempt to bring the babies which is why the reservation is super early at 4:30. I should have some interesting pictures to share tomorrow. We always go somewhere on the Plaza because that is where we had our rehearsal dinner, stayed the night post wedding and took our wedding photos.

I came downstairs after feeding Ever and hubby and Ocean were sleeping together on the couch. Since we started trying a little before the wedding, you can imagine how sentimental that sight was today after 3 years of being married.

Blast from the past:

Meltdown

Yesterday I had a meltdown of epic propotions. The first one happened at 12:47 a.m. Screaming babies do not wake up hubby, but my crying did this time! Ocean had just had a bottle at 11 p.m. so I could not understand why he was up. I was mad at him. What kind of a-hole gets mad at a baby? So I felt terrible and cried my eyes out. I fed him and rocked him and wondered why my little monkeys will not go more than a couple hours without food no matter how big they are getting or how much more food we feed them. They are piggies! It is exhausting me in the worst way.

The next meltdown occured at 10:45 a.m. followed by a third one at 11:30. I am just so exhausted. With twins, you just feel so inadequate. You hear advice like "sleep when the babies are sleeping." That's a nice thought, but when they eat every two hours and it takes 30 minutes each to feed and then 15 minutes to pump and then a few minutes to clean bottles and pump supplies and then there is the many loads of laundry to do from all the onesies, burp cloths, and blankies that two babies barf and poop on, that advice doesn't always work. I want to switch over to formula so they will be more full and I can cut out pumping time, but Ocean does so much better with breast milk. There is certainly no time for me to take care of myself, eating is a luxury. I gained 32 pounds during pregnancy and have lost 40 pounds in only 5 weeks.

I am also very resentful of hubby. He gets to sleep. He goes to work where it's quiet. This morning he woke up and came down stairs after a shower and 7 hours of sleep and he looked tired. I wanted to kick him in the balls. What does he have to be tired about? I was up with babies all night. But I know that's not logical or fair because he has to go to work. And he tries to let me have naps when he comes home, but I'm so tired I can't even sleep because I am in some weird form of total exhaustion. Poor guy.

Having twins is not a joke people!

Co-sleeping= naughty parenting, great photo ops!





Crazy eyes:



Ever is really not into burping: