Identical-ness

Sandy here:

Whenever I go out in public, I invariably get "twin" comments. I was at the hardware store the other day (it's never too early to teach the girls the joys of home improvement), and had my favorite exchange yet:

"Twins?"

"Yes."

"Identical?"

"Yes, identical girls."

"My brother has identical twins--a boy and a girl."

What could I possibly say to that?

Sleep

Sandy here:

So, at 3 a.m. last night as I was feeding the babies, I began thinking about sleep. One could even say I sometimes obsess about sleep--probably because I'm not getting much of it. It's probably similar to the way a heroin addict obsesses about his next fix.

My thoughts were as follows: My life is now divided into 2 distinct sections-- before the babies and after the babies. Here's how my sleep thoughts have changed:

Before: I'm not going to be one of those parents who tiptoes around their kids when sleeping. They are going to learn to sleep with noise!
After: Be quiet! Do you want to wake the babies? (or my favorite--you wake it, you take it)

Before: I really don't want the babies to get in the habit of sleeping with me.
After: If this will buy me an extra hour of sleep, I'm all for it right now.

Before: We've had this mattress for a while, maybe we should get a new one.
After: This is the comfiest bed ever!

Before: My babies are going to sleep in their crib.
After: Is it worth the fight right now to try to get them to sleep in their crib when they will sleep much easier in their jiggly chairs?

Before: I'm getting them on my schedule, not vice versa.
After: I wonder what time they'll let me go to bed tonight and when they'll wake me up to eat again.

Here are a few recent pics, we'll try to get a new slideshow and a video up this weekend.

Helping Mom make dinner (Analee on the left, Tava on the right)

Analee--look at that smile!

Tava looking at her new BFF the jiggly moo-cow

Big cousin Audrey with Tava and Analee

Laziness

Sandy Here:

We have decided that we're going to stop starting every post with "Sorry it's been so long..." That's just the way it is. We will hopefully get some pictures posted soon--the girls are having more awake time and starting to give you these smiles that just melt your heart (a good thing when they are still awake at 4 a.m.!), and their different personalities are really starting to emerge. Also, they are starting to sleep longer at night, which means I'm starting to sleep longer at night, which means I feel more human and like the newborn fog is gradually starting to lift away from me.

It's actually been a busy couple weeks around here (well, busier than our usual life with Tava and Analee). Scott, Molly, and Audrey were down for a visit, and Molly stayed an extra week to help out with the babies--it was wonderful! Audrey had a good time with her cousins, and it made me more determined than ever to raise good travelling babies so we can continue to go up to Denver regularly. More on their visit later...

As I put the girls down for their early morning nap this morning (really just an extension of night sleep at this point, but I like to call it nap, because then they can sleep wherever they want and I don't feel guilty they're not in their crib), and got my breakfast, I realized that one of the biggest things that separates parents from non-parents (besides the obvious kid thing) is a single word: laziness. As a non-parent, I could say, "Well, I really need to get dressed, do laundry, have breakfast, check my work email and do the dishes. But you know what? I'm feeling lazy, I think I'll watch an episode of "Alias" (my new obsession-thank God for Netflix) instead and do those other things later." As a new parent, the conversation runs something more like this, "Okay, the babies are down, not sure for how long (their naps aren't predictable yet), I have to get dressed, do laundry, eat breakfast, check my work email, and do the dishes RIGHT NOW--and do all those things quickly so I don't leave a trail of half done things around the house--because who knows when I'll get another opportunity to be productive!"

It's a great lesson in productiveness, time management, and those 10 minutes where you can say "Hmmm, I don't have anything to do--maybe I could watch some "Alias"--wait, is that a baby I hear?"

I am a new woman!

Sandy here:

The babies pretty routinely nurse about every 3 hours (sometimes shorter during the day--you know, they get bored like we all do and decide "might as well eat!"). Sometimes we can get random 4 hour stretches between feedings--but it has not happened regularly. Given that each feeding takes close to an hour, that means if I am really focused I can get a maximum of 3 hours sleep in one stretch (of course, no matter how tired I am, I can't "sleep" on command, so the full 3 hours rarely happens). Also, I have learned to "do the math" every time I wake up to figure out how long it has been between feedings (and how much sleep I got). The girls are also suffering through their second round of colds (they're not so good at blowing their noses yet, but I keep trying!), so getting them to sleep for long chunks of time has been challenging.

All this is background information for the other night when, about an hour after their last feeding (at 11:30 p.m.) Tava started crying. I went in to help her out (with this cold she sometimes needs to sleep upright, but has decided the swing and jiggly chair are evil at night and won't sleep in them), and shortly thereafter Analee started crying as well. I hauled both of them on the futon couch with me and we all went to sleep. I woke up at about 4:30 a.m. and my thoughts, in this order, were:

1. These clocks can't be right
2. I must not know how to "do the math"
3. Doug must have snuck in, taken them away, given them a bottle, and replaced them on the futon with me.

They slept until 5 a.m.-- 5.5 hours between feedings. It may not happen again until they go to college, but there is now a light at the end of the sleep tunnel.

Quick update

Doug,

Not much to report, we're just plugging away. But I thought I would put up some pictures:

Tava, upset about the Paparazzi

Analee, pushing 8 pounds now

After one particularly satisfying feeding

Testing the washing machine as a bouncy chair

Me and the girls watching the Duke-UNC game

These Duke onesies are way too big for them...

But we anticipate a run deep into April...
They'll grow into them by the Final Four.

And a new slideshow:

Tava and Analee Week 6

Update

Doug-

Sorry the posts have been so infrequent lately, Sandy and I are discovering that this baby thing is actually pretty time consuming. It turns out they need to eat every three hours or so, and with every feeding taking an hour or so (with burping and diapering and then cleaning up spit-up or poop and then changing diapers again and then finding a new outfit to replace the now soiled one and then changing the changing pad cover and then finishing the feeding now that they are ready to finish and then changing diapers again and then trying to convince them to go to sleep after all of the above activity), we get about 2 hours of downtime (that's if we don't try to play with them for a bit after the feeding, which we do three or so times a day). So you have to really think to yourself: What do I want to do with that 2 hours? Usually its sleep. Sometimes its shower or eat. Occasionally its watch TV. But very rarely is it write pithy observations about having twins on the blog. Sorry about that.

Anyway, just a couple quick updates. No, we haven't gotten rid of them. Yes, they are doing well and gaining weight like champs. At today's weighing (4 weeks tomorrow) Analee had gone from her birthweight of 5 pounds, 11 ounces to 6 pounds, 10 ounces. She seems like such a chunker to us its hard to believe she's still smaller than most newborns. Tava is up to 5 pounds, 5 ounces from her birthweight of 4 pounds, 11 ounces and has almost outgrown her first outfit. I never remember how tall they are, so I won't comment on that. They aren't particularly fussy in general at this stage, but when they decide they want to eat, you know about it. And one thing about twins, all it takes is for one of them to get fussy and your life is shot. Interestingly, we think they sometimes plan to tag team us in advance because Tava will refuse to go down after a feeding and then, after 2 hours of groveling, she will go right down after the next feeding. Analee will sleep like a rock though all of this, but then she will decide she doesn't want to go down after the next feeding. Rarely do they ever fuss at the same time. Now you tell me, is this just coincidence, or is there an evil plot at work?

Tava developed a cold about 2 weeks ago and had to get an antibiotic shot and have blood drawn; that was not good times. Then she developed a nasty yeast infection on her butt, so she has been fighting that for about a week and a half. Its been a rough start for her, but she eats well and otherwise seems fine. They each lost their umbilical cords last week and have each managed one diaper blowout so far. Other than that, not much news to report; they are doing well and keeping their parents on edge much of the time.

I will leave with this. I always secretly suspected that there was a grand conspiracy among parents to lure unsuspecting non-parents into parenthood with tales of how great it is to be a parent, largely for the purpose of spreading the misery around. It goes like this:

New parent: Trust me, you don't even miss the sleep, the free evenings, the night's out, the money, the lost time, the ability to dictate your own schedule, the easy vacations or the ability to leave the house without investing 30 minutes of prep time and lugging 30 pounds of stuff with you because it so rewarding.

Now that I'm a new parent, I know it's true. There is a conspiracy. We get the newsletter and everything now; even learned the secret handshake. And every one of you who doesn't have kids yet, you can expect to start getting some phone calls from me talking about how rewarded I feel.

Here are some photos:

Floor time


First night out




Tava


Analee


Miliya and Analee


Miliya and Tava

Just Desserts

Sandy here:

We have a great pediatrician who has twins herself (although hers are older now--about 10ish), so she's already been a great resource when we go to the doctor. The last time we were there, she shared her reasoning with us about why people have twins. In her case, she said the powers that be realized she would micromanage one child to death, plus her husband would not have let her have another child once he went through everything with the first one, so boom! She got two at once. Perfect.

My friend who is super organized and on top of things that if she only had one set, her husband would not have had anything to do, so boom! She got 2 sets. Perfect.

And us? A lot of our friends have already had kids (some have had 2 or 3 already) and Doug has kept saying "We'll just watch what all of our friends have done and then we'll know what we should (or shouldn't) do. This baby thing is going to be a piece of cake."

So the powers that be looked down and said "You think you've got it all figured out?" Boom. Have two.

And now, a couple pictures of the girls. Soon they'll be a month old! My parents have been in Durango helping us out since they were born. The great thing about twins is that you never have to fight over holding a baby! Tava is with Grandma and Analee is with Grandpa. This picture is a week or so old.



Grandpa reading to Analee:

The Log

Sandy here:

So, one of the things I read about in my twins book was about keeping a log of feeding, pees, poops, spit ups, etc. I thought it somewhat interesting and mentioned it to Doug. Of course, this was back when I hoped my babies would be bigger and didn't think we'd need to do this for very long. What I've since learned is that it's apparently part of some secret twin parent club initiation--almost everyone I've spoken with who is a twin parent kept one of these, and many twins I've spoken with talk about how their parents kept a log. And now, especially since Tava and Analee were born early, we are in the club--Doug and I have meticulous notes (would you really expect anything less?) we take with us to our pediatrician visits. In our defense, I don't know what I would do without the book--I can't keep track of my own life these days, much less when the babies ate.

Plus, it will hopefully make some good blackmail fodder when the girls are old enough to date.

Week 1

Doug,

All week I have been thinking of pithy observations about having babies in the house. However, I have now found that sleep deprivation makes it hard to write down pithy observations. The main thing that has ruled this week (despite the lack of sleep): Poop. Baby poop is an amazing thing. It tells you so much, and when it doesn't come, you worry. When it does come, you just worry that it will come on the changing table in the middle of a diaper change at 2 in the morning.

And about the "black tar poop." I had heard about the black tar poop, I had seen pictures of the black tar poop, I knew about the black tar poop. But nothing truly prepares a person for the reality of the black tar poop.

Finally, just to clarify any confusion, it's Anne-a-Lee and Tah-vah.

Pictures from week one:

Analee is on the left, Tava is on the right.


Tava and Analee


Tava showing her early allegiance to Duke


Miliya the protector

Miliya the protector

And a slide show:

Tava and Analee Week 1

Some more pics

All is good. We will probably be in the hospital until tomorrow so the Twinks can get a good handle on nursing. Here's a few more pics.

Skiny little Tava:



Analee with the chubby little cheeks:



They will only sleep like this:

First Pictures

Doug-

Okay, the first night went well. The Twinkies spent some of it in the nursery and let us sleep a few hours, but they also took a crack at nursing with some success. Everybody is doing remarkably well.

Sandy wanted everybody to know that Tava is the baby we used to call Ethel, and Analee is the baby we used to call Myrtle.

First pics below. Tava is to the right, Analee to the left.





More later.

Babies are here

We are proud to announce the arrival of Tava Marie and Analee Ruth at 4:15 today. Tava was 4 pounds, 7 ounces. Analee was 5 pounds 11 ounces. Mother and daughters are all doing very well and the babies are not in the NICU. Pictures and more tomorrow.

Nobody picked January 15; it kind of took us by surprise as well. But Brian was the closest. Yay Brian!!!!

Arrival date contest

Okay, Sandy's "twin" due date is January 25 (most twins come at 37 weeks, not 40).

Take a guess in the comments about when you think the Twinkies will arrive. The person that gets the closest will win .... well nothing, but they will always be able to say that they were the person that guessed the closest. No repeats, all days are first come, first served.

Bump Update - Week 34

We're a week behind (these are from last week), so without further comment:





And a bonus photo of the rug we got for the Twinkies' room:



Miliya is having to learn to share the backseat with the baby seats.

NST

Sandy here:

Thnking back to when Doug and I first found out we were having twins, we knew it would change the nature of the pregnancy. For one thing, I got this label slapped on me "high risk"--especially when they found out the twins were identical. Sometimes it's impossible to tell without testing whether the twins are identical or fraternal, but in our case the babies are monochorionic/diamniotic (basically they are in one big sac with a membrane separating them and that only happens if the babies are identical).

As everyone who has been reading our blog can see, one of the differences is that I have the pleasure of getting huger quicker. Another fun (albeit potentially a little bit stressful) thing is that we get to have regular ultrasounds of the babies to track their growth. A third thing that started the beginning of December is that I have to go to the birthing center at the hospital once a week for a Non-Stress Test. Assuming they can "lock onto" the babies heartbeats quickly it should only take about 30-40 minutes. I've had 5 of these done so far. (The picture below is from my most recent one--notice the hugeness.)



For the first one, the girls were still small enough that they could hide behind each other and it took 2 nurses an hour and a half to try and find them and get a lock on their heartbeats. It was a busy day with lots of labor and delivery going on in the Birth Center, and the nurses had to leave me for a little bit. So I sat on the edge of the bed and spoke directly to the girls in my belly--telling them that it had been funny at first, but they needed to settle down so we could get this test done and go home--I wasn't looking forward to hanging out in the hospital all evening. When the nurse returned, she was able to lock onto the babies immediately and the whole thing was over in about 25 minutes.

It was my first "Mom discipline moment."