Sunday, January 31, 2010

Twins 1st Play Date

Here are the Burns Twins and Larson Triplets hangingout with each other for the first time on the couch. The twins were due to eat and therefore pretty cranky--ie all the mad faces. We actually went to visit them on Friday for their first official play date and meant to take some pictures, but to both mommies surprise, the babies (yes all 5) pretty much slept the whole time. When we got together Sat. night they were all very good again, not that i'm complaining, but right before we left to go home, we woke the all up and took pics of the crew. Pretty funny stuff!

rt. to left: Holden, Blake, Nora, Brooklyn, and Benjamin
Nora front and center looking straight at me like "what is going on, there are more of us??"Brook and Blake taking a 1, 2 punch towards Nora....its all in love i'm sure!A position switch , but Nora doesn't seem to thrilled--Ben on the other end though is proud to show off that he's the biggest...although, Holden's catching up fast!
Our Larson friends
I attempted to get a 2 month pic, not smart to do right before they need to eat... so here's my mad baby...so pitiful huh?

and Nora is checking things out...kinda looks like she has something to say..probably something like "don't take a pic of me mommy, my diaper clashes with my dress" but then that's because she pooped in her matching bloomers earlier!

and then together...totally NOT having it...and Mommy and Daddy got to listen to this ALL the way home! That's my sweet babies! haha.

and for your viewing pleasure

Our 2 Babies are 2 Months Old!


In honor of their two month birthday Mommy and Daddy took some one on one time with our babies.

Mommy and Nora went to a luncheon hosted by some friends at our favorite restaurant, Auntie Pastos. This luncheon was a 'make-up' for what was supposed to be a baby shower, but Mommy was hospitalized the day before. Nora was very good at the restaurant and got quality time with all her "aunties".

Daddy and Holden spent the day together running some errands, eating lunch and watching a WWII documentary and Myth Busters. --A very "guy day".
Tonight we all went to the Larson Family's house to eat dinner and hang out. The Larson's have triplets the same age as our twins. We had BBQ ribs and cheesy potatoes...well the parents did...the babies had their usual...MILK, but they seemed to enjoy it!

Now our 2 month old babies are sound asleep in their cribs after their long day--and Mommy and Daddy are right behind them!

Their 2 month appointments are Wed. so i will post their "specs" later in the week!


Thursday, January 28, 2010

Just Not Natural!

Does anyone else find this just gross and unnatural? a greasy burger in a tortilla wrap? yuck.

Mommy Challenges

So i am in the middle of my second week "flying solo". As expected there are good days and then the "not-so-good" days as well. Today in a brief interval of quiet-time, i was talking to my new friend and triplet mom, Kristi, once again discussing our struggles with finding the best way to handle/train our multiples.

and our conclusion...who knows??? we're just going at it day by day trying to figure out what works best for us.

Having two newborns is quite challenging because most times there just isn't enough of me to go around. They both always want to be held and loved and i really wish i could do that for them, but its just not physically possible. I seem to always be worrying and second-guessing myself. Sometimes just doing what i need to do to meet their basic needs takes so much time that i feel like i don't have enough time to just hold them and love on them. And then other times when i do have time to hold them i worry that i am doing it too much and they might get used to it and expect it all the time and i can't have them expecting to be held all the time, because i just can't physically do that and then they get upset and cry...A LOT.

Which brings me to the other issue...crying. Man oh man, what a long day of non-stop crying can do to a person. It is frustrating and nerve -wrecking just because its crying but then it is also frustrating because as a mom I want to be able to fix the problem...make them both happy, but that's not realistic. They reality is, twice the babies = twice the crying. One baby crying will many times start up the other one and i can't let it bother me--although many times it does.

I have read countless articles about the effects of crying it out, the ferber method, baby wise, attending to every cry immediately, etc and everyone seems to have their own opinion and i can see pros and cons of each. I can't really judge anyone on how they handle their baby because i believe every baby/family has different needs but I do believe though that a little crying never hurt anyone and in house of multiples crying is just a fact of life. The babies have to learn/be trained to wait, share, be patient and be independent--especially in a one-parent household which we are the majority of every day since Mike is gone around 14 hours a day and then will be for sure in a few months when Mike deploys.

For now we tend to lean toward the teachings from Dr. Marc Weissbluth, the author of Healthy Sleep Habits, which uses a form of "crying it out" with a time limit. When all basic needs have been met, like diaper, feeding, temperature, boogers, etc we let them cry in hopes that they will soothe themselves. After about 45 mins to an hour we will go in pick them up calm them down and try again. Most of the time, thankfully they quiet themselves. All the articles about how letting your babies 'cry it out' will cause them to have emotional problems later in life seems a bit harsh and is quite scary to a mom of multiples who just can't attend to every whimper and cry.

Geez...being a mom sure has got me second-guessing myself a lot. It's amazing that you can love someone so much and want to do everything you can for them and it gets you worrying about whether you are doing the right thing or not...i know, i know i have at least 18 more years of this...i better get used to it!

Monday, January 25, 2010

Movie Monday

So, if you are a blogger reader you may know that many people participate in Wordless Wednesdays by just posting pics....i am going to initiate Movie Monday's instead, although today should really be titled "Messy Monday"...before this incident I had already changed clothes 3 times....oh the joys of motherhood!


Daddy's Girl

Just one more reason why Daddy can't wait to get home from work!


So Focused!

Having a funny conversation with Daddy


Daddy, teach me how to whistle!




Friday, January 22, 2010

Flying Solo

It's my first week flying solo...parents gone and Daddy's at work. So far it hasn't been too bad although we do have our moments...see below.

*this morning the babies stank---basically they sleep best when swaddled in 2 blankets...one light and then a heavy one on top. This is great and all except that they sweat a lot and between that and spit up they just plain stink. So, this morning i decided baths couldn't wait for the night and we went ahead and did it.

We used our bath tub Auntie Kim gave us for the first time. Nora loved it because it allowed her to soak in the water. Holden seemed to like it about as much as he likes any other bath--not at all! Here are some pics of Nora. Sorry, none of Holden--he was crying too much!





After their baths, i desperately needed one too. So, I layed them down together in the crib for some twin time and all seemed to be going well.

When I got out of the shower, I heard this.



and then I went to get dressed and less than a minute later it happened again.


So, hoping Holden would nap, i moved Nora downstairs since it was obvious she wasn't in the mood to nap. But apparently she wasn't in the mood to swing either. If you listen closely in the quite lulls, you will hear Holden upstairs crying now too.



Finally after i got the laundry folded and the downstairs in order i sat down with Nora and got her straightened out. Just the way she likes it...all bundled up. About 20 minutes of arm bouncing and butt tapping at the same time...no variations...and she was out. i put her back upstairs in her crib to nap. Holden thank goodness already put himself to sleep by the time i got there.



2 hours later i go to wake them up so they can eat and get ready for their first Moms of Multiples meeting and i found this...

sweet Holden, napping on his belly--which he seems to prefer the past few days.



and funny nora...completely hidden in her "magic blankets" with Dressy Bessy watching over her. When I left her, you could see her face--she wiggled her own self down into the blankets!



just a P.S.--please don't judge me about how they are sleeping. I know all the rules about belly sleeping and swaddling and so on...but this is how they like it and we all need sleep and peace and quiet once in a while--plus i have a video monitor.

Tonight Mike is actually on staff duty and won't be coming home, so it'll be my first night alone with the twins. Hopefully all goes well...so far so good..its 11:30 and they are both down in their cribs asleep...Wish us luck and a 6 hour sleep would be nice too!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Sneaky Sneaky

So this morning Mom needed a nap and Dad needed to clean up some, so the babies got to spend some quality "twin time" together in Holden's crib. When we went to get them later, here is what we found....
Nora out of her swaddle blanket while the swaddle was still in tact, turned perpendicular to her brother and kicking him in the head! Obviously Holden was not happy!
Here is Nora looking at us like "what guys? i didn't do anything."






and then there were 4

Tonight my dad and step mom had to leave and go back home. It was so good to have them here and spend time together but also their help with the babies was invaluable. This week will be my first week at home alone with the babies all day and in all honesty i am super nervous about it. It is absolutely impossible to attend to both babies and all their crying all the time. Although i am quite aware that a little crying never hurt anyone...i am worried about what a lot of crying is going to do to all of us--but i will leave all my thoughts on this to another blog. For now i will stick to the visit with the Grandparents.

Anne was here for 2 weeks and was a great help. She hit if off with Nora quickly which was wonderful cause our little girl has quite a set of lungs on her and uses them often. Anne also cooked dinner for us almost every night. I know Mike really appreciated that after his long days at work and i appreciated it just because otherwise we'd prolly just be eating cheese toast. Dad joined us after a week and then we had one more set of hands. Dad and Anne would take the "morning shift" so i could get some uninterrupted sleep and that was a wonderful way to start off my day.

We didn't do anything super spectacular while they were here. Just hung out at home with the babies. Although we did go on quick outings to Jamba Juice, grab some lunch or go shopping a quick baby shopping trip. It was fun just to see Dad and Anne interact with the babies and be "grandparents" instead of parents...and what they say is true...grandparents are such softies!
On our last day together, we got dressed up and went to Sears to get a few family shots. The last family picture i have had with dad and anne was back in high school sometime--and then with the babies here, it was definitely time to update. Being such "new babies" still, they were completely uncooperative, which i completely expected but apparently our photographer didn't. Our two crying babies completely threw her off her game...but if i may say so, i'm not sure she is ever "on her game". Still, we did get some good shots and overall i think it was a successfully first photo shoot and believe me, there will be plenty more--we even joined Sears membership program.
Here are some of our pics from the time here with the grandparents and then our studio pics as well.