The BIG 3-0 and the 0-3!

Let me just start off by telling you all what an amazing husband I have! Seriously, I know I take for granted how incredibly lucky I am. In addition to carrying the load and stress of being the sole provider for our family, he also some how manages to come home every day and put his daddy and doting husband hat on. No matter how he may be feeling on the inside, he is always there to make sure I get a break and that I don't lose my mind - he keeps me grounded and calm and always tells me it will be ok. Um and did I mention he always gets up for the middle of the night feedings??? Yeah. Can anyone say "Husband of the Year Award"? I know I don't deserve this man but I am sooooo blessed that he has chosen me for his wife.

Speaking of my wonderful and amazing husband... he also managed to put together a little shindig for my 30th bday! He was hoping it would be a surprise, but since he couldn't find all the email addresses he needed, he had to let me in on it. I'm really kinda glad he did, because I was getting a little depressed that my big 3-0 was going to come and go without any recognition :( Not to mention, I really needed a night out and some adult conversation! Jason had arranged for us and all our friends to eat dinner at this place called "The Ranch" in Las Colinas - we had eaten there once before and it was pretty good - and they have bands that play on the inclosed porch/bar area. Almost everyone showed up - I felt so special! Even Lea and Jason came in from Houston to help me celebrate - it was sooooo good to see them! The only drawback was that I felt like I needed to clone myself so that I could sit and talk to everyone, but I think/hope everyone had a good time. After dinner, the few of us that were left went outside to the bar area and listened to some music and hung out with some old friends. I had a whoppin 2 and a half drinks! The me from college wouldn't even recognize the me today! What can I say, I have become quite the light weight! All in all it was a great night. Jason's mom and stepdad babysat the kiddos, God bless them! I don't know if they really knew what they were getting themselves into! I think they may be babysitted out for a while! It does make me feel a little better about myself though, to know that someone else also thinks it's difficult taking care of twins (and there were two of them) - I guess it makes me feel validated in some way. I guess 30 isn't so bad. When I was younger and I pictured what my life would be at 30 - this is pretty much it (although I never pictured twins) - I'm married, we have a house, a dog, two kids, I was a teacher but am now a stay at home mom - I guess the only thing I'm missing is the white picket fence!

About a week and a half after my 30th - my babies turned 3 months old! While there isn't a 3 month well check - here are some of what they have been up to lately:

Max has gotten so much better on his head control - he is no longer our little bobble head! His hair is growing like crazy - we can make a little mohawk with it now! He is completely out of his NB clothes and is into 0-3's - which he has a ton of thanks to Ryan, KC and baby Austin :) Unfortunately, Max got sick right around Christmas with a cough and some vomiting. We took him to the dr and he had bronciolitis, but they gave him some inhaler medications as well as a liquid cough syrup and FINALLY as of this last week - the cough is gone. Since he was sick and congested, that made him not want to eat on top of his reflux, so feedings would sometimes last over an hour before we would give up and put him back to bed. We are finally back to finishing our bottles in under and hour - woo hoo! However, sometimes Max decides he's finished after only eating for a few minutes and will start to swat your hand and the bottle away and if you're not expecting it - he will knock the bottle right out of your hands! Recently, Max has decided to start peeing on daddy again - which it's hard not to laugh - poor daddy! Max has also started to smile more and has started to talk a little -although not as much as his sister! He has started to bat at the little rattles on his play mat - it is so cute - he looks so serious as he stares at the rattle and you can see the concentration in his face. Oh, and the flat spot on his head (from having to share a womb with his sister) is finally starting to round out - yay! I was getting worried that he might have to wear one of those head brace things.

Emma has become quite the curious little girl; she constantly wants to know what is going on around her. If there's a noise somewhere, she wants to see it. This can get a little frustrating when trying to feed her - it's like her head is on a swivel! I'm not sure how much she weighs right now - but I do know that as of yesterday, she is now in the #2 diapers - the little chunk probably weighs about 15 lbs! She has always been the more vocal one, but now instead of screaming, she likes to talk to you. We carry on conversations all the time, especially right after she eats. But of course, every time I try to grab the flip or my phone to film it - she abruptly stops. It is so cool watching her though - so stinkin cute! I'll tell you wants not cute though, and that's the fact that she has decided to start getting up from her naps an hour before she's supposed to - this kid is driving me crazy! I've shortened her wake time, but that hasn't seemed to make a difference - without fail almost every time, she wakes up, then I have to remove her from the room before she wakes her brother up, put her in the swing, and she goes back to sleep until I wake her for the next feeding. All this wouldn't be so bad if the swing weren't in the living room, preventing me from doing anything productive around the house. And more often than not, she somehow knows exactly when I have stopped pumping and that seems to be her time of choice to wake up - she is such a stinker! I would love to let her cry it out in her crib, but I know she will wake up Max. We need a bigger house so they can have their own rooms! 

I'm hoping it will start warming up soon so I can take the babies for walks around the park - I know Lucy is looking forward to that too! It just gets so boring being cooped up in  the house ALL DAY EVERY DAY! I need a reason to get out of my pj's - or get the kids out of there pj's for that matter! I did attend a new moms of multiples group in Flower Mound, and it's much smaller than the PAMOM group, and closer - however, there really weren't any moms there that had babies the same age as Max and Emma, so I think I will continue to go to the PAMOM meetings and this new group - and hopefully I will start to get out of the house more with playdates and such. If nothing else - I know about 8 or so women that are having babies between February and August - so I guess we could all start our own little play groups :) It's so weird to think that this time last year I was taking all kinds of meds and injections getting ready for IVF #3 - and now here they are 3 months old!

We've been bad lately about pictures - but here are a few pics and videos (well it won't let me post the video - so maybe it will be working next time):

Catching Up

Wow - it has been a while... where to start....

Well, these little guys have been keeping me very busy (hense the lack of blog updates). There is one thing I need to get off my chest first though... let me just say for all you moms-to-be out there, no one really told me how hard being a mom would be - I mean yeah we all know it will be hard, but I'm talking about all the moments where you feel completely inadequet and feel like you have no idea what your doing and are left wondering if you are the only new mom to feel this lost. None of your friends share their moments of weakness and insecurity, or talk about how they too have cried in the shower questioning whether they are going to be/are being a good mom. With as much as I lean on my own mom, cousins, books and the internet - I'm left wondering how on earth moms did it back in the day. I guess I thought I would have some kind of internal instinctual switch that would flip on the second my babies were born and I would just know how to do everything - and when I didn't, I felt like I fell short as a mom. I didn't have the "baby blues" or anything, it was just moments of weakness and insecurity - and I'm sure there will be more as I continue on this journey of motherhood - and now that I have talked to my friends and discovered that they too share in these moments, I wanted to make sure that I put it out there so no one else feels like they are the only ones. OK - now that I have that out of the way, here's what's been going on...


Emma has excellent head control, she has for a while - this child is strong - I swear is she like a tank! She can already sit in her bumbo like a champ, even though she doesn't really like it much - in fact she really only seems to like to be held - yay. Max however is still working on his neck strength, he's not quite there yet but he's getting there. Emma is a smiling queen, she loved to smile, especially when getting her diaper or clothes changed or when you make funny faces/sounds at her. She likes to talk too. She does most of her talking during tummy time and after she eats. Max on the other hand seems to be more of the quiet and serious type. He smiles occasionally (mostly for daddy) and will talk sometimes while he is playing on the playmat. I am hoping that he starts to smile more in the coming weeks. They both LOVE to stare at this canvas painting of a tree that is hung on the wall above the couch - I swear I think they could sit and stare at it all day! They also both seem to enjoy tummy time - which is apparently unusual - I guess most babies don't like it. I really think Max will be the first to crawls b/c he will just lay there and kick those legs like he's swimming, he can even scoot himself forward on the blanket! - whereas Emma just lays there like a log. Neither one are attempting to roll over just yet - but we'll keep trying. Another thing Max LOVES to do is stretch - I think it's his favorite thing. Every time we get him up from his nap, he likes to spend a good 5-10 minutes stretching. The only thing he loves more than stretching is kicking!


They are still on their schedule, eating every three hours (except for at night). They had been getting up around 6a, but recently have started extending the hours they sleep at night and instead of getting up at 3am and again at 6 - they have stopped the 3a feedings and are now getting up around 4/4:30 and then again around 8am - so now we are working on adjusting our schedule. They always have their last feeding between 9-10p and are now sleeping about 6-7 hours thru the night :) I have heard that 12 pounds was kind of the magic number for them sleeping thru the night - and that seems to be about right. They recently had their 2 month check up, here are their stats:


Emma
*Weight: 10lbs15.4oz
Weight Percentile: 55% (big jump!)
Height/Length: 22 in
Height/Length Percentile: 30%
Head Circumference: 38.5 cm
Head Circumference Percentile: 45%
Hair color - still blond
Eye color - still a bluish grey color


*we had to go to the dr. again last week b/c they were sick and she weighed in at 11 lbs. 15oz


Max
*Weight: 10lbs6.6oz
Weight Percentile: 25%
Height/Length: 22 1/2 in
Height/Length Percentile: 25%
Head Circumference: 38.5 cm
Head Circumference Percentile: 20%
Hair color - still brown
Eye color - still brown


*we had to go to the dr. again last week b/c they were sick and he weighed in at 11 lbs. 3.4oz


They have both graduated from NB diapers and have been in the 1's for a couple weeks now - in fact they will very soon be moving on to the 2's! I had a very sad moment a few weeks ago when I finally had to admit to myself that Emma did not fit into her NB clothes anymore and it was time to fold them and put them away :( Most of them she never even wore. Which reminds me... another tip for new moms... don't get a lot of NB clothes - they wore like maybe 10 different outfits - at least that was the case for me. Now we are well into the 0-3's for both Max and Emma. I emptied Max's closet of the NB clothes last week :( I didn't know I would be so emotional about it - but it was sad realizing that they were growing so fast! They are both up to about 4.5-5 ounces per feeding and taking 6 feedings a day. I am still pumping after each feeding and am up to 20 ounces a day - which comes out to the babies getting about 1/3 breast milk and 2/3 formula. My supply is still slowly increasing, so hopefully I can get up to half and half and maybe even catch up to them around 6 months when they start eating solid foods - we'll see! I'm still taking Fenugreek, Blessed Thistle, and Reglan everyday to help increase my supply. It's a lot of work, and I certainly have days where I want to throw in the towel, but I just keep telling myself that it's the best thing I can do for my babies - and that something is better than nothing. I really try to cherish the moments I have with each of them when I'm nursing them, since I know I will never get to experience it again.


Max still struggles with his reflux and is taking Prevacid daily to help control the acid in his tummy. As a result of the reflux, feeding times are very LONG - I pray for the day that it doesn't bother him anymore - there is absolutely nothing worse than seeing your little baby suffering and in pain and not being able to do anything about it :( Emma has a little reflux issues too - but nothing like her brother. Her biggest issue is spitting up. The doctor calls her a "happy spitter" since it doesn't ever seem to bother her. This girl can go through some bibs and burp cloths let me tell ya!


Sadly, the babies have been sick for about 2 weeks now :( They have both been congested and Max has had a cough which we found out was Bronchiolitis. Because of the congestion, they can't breathe very well, and when you can't breathe very well, you don't really want to eat - so feeding times have been really fun! They have been averaging about an hour each to eat - which isn't soo bad when Jason is here - but during the day it is brutal! I feel like all I do all day is feed babies, pump, feed babies, pump, etc... until Jason comes home. They are slowly getting better though thank goodness! Max was prescribed 2 inhalers, which he hates, and we have been using vicks, the nose frida snotsucker (look it up - it is a MUST HAVE), and saline spray. Luckily, neither have had a fever - I just pray that this ends soon - I don't like having sick babies!


I have more to write about my solo trip to my parent’s house with the babies and Lucy, their first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, our first time out without the babies, etc - but it will have to wait because it is time to feed babies again!

Here's a couple of pics: