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: