burping

Funny how we spend so much time every day trying to get our kids to burp after meals when for the rest of their lives, we'll try to get them to stop.

Karen W., we finally got Rafael's eyes for you!  Well, one anyway.

Happy birthday, dad!

D's birthday is Tuesday and we had planned on going out to dinner then, but since we lost our nanny, decided to go out tonight, while his sis-in-law is here helping out. Thanks, Karen!! Tomorrow I might think a nap would have been preferable, but it was really nice to be out. Of course, it's not about me and I know D had a great time. I don't think it's quite hit us how life altering having kiddos is and how hard it will be to have these evenings out. Now that I've reflected, maybe I am cherishing the time out more than a nap. After all, I'll get to nap off and on all night and some tomorrow.

they're 1! (month)

And perhaps more importantly, they're sleeping!! Smiles all around.

it takes a village

I know I'm going to leave about 20 people out, but we are so incredibly grateful for all of the help that we have received from so many wonderful, generous friends and family members that I want to try to give thanks where thanks are due.  If I forgot you, go ahead and leave a shout out to yourself in the comments.  :)

We are incredibly grateful for our families and the support they've given from middle of the night feeds covered by D's mom, meals prepared by Aunt Diane, grocery shopping by Karen, help with feeds and general sanity from my mom, wisdom from afar from Sonja, encouragement and supplies from Andrew and J, a cheery attitude and conversation about something other than babies from our dads, and just plain old love and tolerance while we're a little crazy from all of our family.

Thanks to all the twins moms who have been inspirational and great resources for all my 1,000,000,001 questions, not to mention suppliers of lots of gear: Heather, J, and Cheryl.

Thanks to Karen W. for setting up the meals calendar and coordinating our spectacular church family.  Also to Suzie for getting choir members involved.

Thanks to EVERYONE who has kept us fed.

Thanks to my feeding helpers: D, D's mom, my mom, Candy, Cathy, Karen.

Thanks to Katie for helping with parking at TCH and NICU encouragement and wisdom.

Thanks to all the moms who have gone before me and supplied endless advice, gear, and answers to crazy first time mom questions: Kathleen, Krista, Heather, Ronda, J, Laura, Elana, Cheryl, Sonja, and Larissa.  Please keep answering my phone calls!

Thanks to our excellent pediatrician, Sari, who patiently puts up with me as both a friend and the patient who probably does every single annoying thing that first time moms do to their kids' doc.

Thanks to all of you for reading along and submitting advice and encouragement through your comments.  A special thanks for the sage and particularly uplifting comments from Anonymous.

And I have to say the biggest thanks to D for loving my babies with all his heart, balancing work with his family, and most of all for loving me unconditionally, keeping me sane, and bringing me endless joy.

no more night nanny

We had another not great night with Sylvia last night, which included my spending 30 minutes calming her when the night nanny didn't do anything to try to make her feel better about her tummy problems.  So, this morning when I asked the nanny what we should do differently to make her feel better, it sparked our nanny to offer to quit and refund our money.  So, I accepted.  She then went on a tirade about what a great nanny she is, about how my doctor is terrible, blah, blah, blah, solidifying my feeling good about accepting her offer.  I've struggled with her since the day she started because I've felt like she did everything to cut corners and lied to me about it.  I decided to keep her on because I didn't think she was doing anything to harm my babies, but I also never fully felt like I could trust her or felt like she was doing what was best for my babies.  I know I'll never find nannies who will do everything just the way I want, but I guess I never got over the fact that she lied to me about what she was doing with my babies.  In any case, now the fun REALLY begins!  Somehow, I'm not really stressed about it, so I guess that means it was the right decision.

The moment that was most irritating, was her parting blow.  Let me recap the morning.  I went in to ask her how we should address Sylvia's tummy pain and crying and fussiness because I don't want to go in every night and calm her down.  Nanny then criticized me and my doctor because she has all the experience in the world and knows exactly what's wrong with Sylvia (and why she doesn't do anything to make it better, I don't understand).  Nanny then offered to quit and I accepted.  Nanny then went on a tirade about all the things that she didn't like about working for me (mostly that I get different advice from my doctor than what she's doing, that she's doing her best, and how dare I WATCH her on the video monitor) she ended with: "And I thought you were a Christian, I really did."  Why do people say that?  First, yes I'm a Christian, which means that I recognize that I'm not perfect.  Second, what exactly did I do that was not-Christainlike, even if you're holding me to Jesus' standard?  Would he have not accepted your resignation?  It was your offer?  If you don't want to work for me, why would I talk you into working for me?  So I can have a nanny who doesn't really want to be here?

So, here we go!  Thank goodness David's sister-in-law, Karen is coming for a few days!!  God knew we'd need her tonight.

family pic

This was taken on the 1st, but since it was on our camera and not my phone, it takes a little more effort to download and then upload.

You can see that I've still got the carpal tunnel going, but it seems to be getting a little better.  Doc said that they don't recommend any intervention until after 6 weeks post delivery, which means to me that for most people it probably goes away by 6 weeks.  We are at 4 weeks today, so hopefully in a couple more, it'll be all gone. 

one week in

We have now had both kiddos home for a week. We have improved our game and are moving slightly past survival mode and into some semblance of a routine. I am only calling friends and family about once a day to ask if I should be worried about this or that or how I should handle the latest conundrum.

The biggest excitement of the day was our first family outing. Since I was on bed rest for 2 months, it was especially nice to be outside. I haven't been outside (except for going to and from the car) since July 4 weekend. The sunshine felt spectacular. Fortunately, the weather was probably the best this morning it has been since July 4, too.





We might need to work a walk into our daily routine. Even if it means giving up on doing dishes and eating on paper plates.

And for Karen, we managed to get Sylvia's eyes. They still are premies and aren't awake much, but we catch glimpses here and there.