I feel like I spend a lot of time complaining on this blog and I keep trying to make an effort to be more positive but the truth is that things are really tough for me right now. I know things could be a lot worse but I'm physically and emotionally drained and I don't see an end in sight. These babies have been keeping me up at night and I think I'm averaging (on a good night) 5 hours of non consecutive sleep. Often times they're up every hour and even if they alternate hours that still involves me sleeping in the chair in their room dozing until the other baby wakes up and cries. They SEE me in the room too so I know it doesn't help and it doesn't help that they are comfortable sleeping on me either so why would they want to go back into their beds? I'm anti-CIO (cry it out) though they do spend a good amount of time crying when I am tending to one baby and can't do anything with the other. Admittedly we've tried letting them cry for a little while too but I just can't do it for sustained amounts of time and it doesn't seem to help anyway. Plus, usually one is sleeping while the other is crying and inevitably wakes up and then we have two crying babies. I know it will get better. I know this and that's what keeps me going but I'm struggling right now and it's affecting every other part of my life. I'm not enjoying being awake and playing with Maia (who thankfully sleeps through the night) and I'm stress eating and I'm yelling much more than I normally do. Those of you who know me know that I'm a very calm and patient person but lately I've been much more on edge and it's not fair to the kids.
Sorry for the rant. There are so many positive things happening right now and I know I just need to focus on those and this too shall pass, right?
We had Lily's follow-up cardiology appointment on Wednesday. I dropped Maia off at Stacy's house and though I was really nervous about leaving her there she did great! She and Austin had a really fun time and Maia now talks about him all the time. We're sad that he's moving! Anyway, the appointment lasted a really long time. They did an echocardiogram, got weights and heights (13 lbs, 1.4oz, 25.5") and checked for a murmur. No murmur so they did an ultrasound to double check that it had closed (this took a really long time with a squirmy baby!) and it did close! This is great news because it means that we do not have to do any cardiology follow ups in the future and it's just one less thing to worry about. Woohoo! She does have something called a PFO though (which is found in 25% of the population) but it's apparently nothing to worry about and doesn't need any sort of monitoring. After the appointment I took the girls and we went to visit the new NICU at Children's. I didn't see very much of it but now they have private rooms for all the patients. It's pretty great! I saw some people there that I recognized and talked to one of our favorite nurses for awhile (Joyce) and it was great to catch up.
We had a nice weekend. Saturday was kind of low key - we did a family outing to Costco and then grabbed Buca to go. I haven't been to Buca in a really long time and it was delicious! Yesterday we decided to do something fun as a family so we packed up (with the new stroller!) and headed to the Mall of America to go to Underwater Adventures. We bought a season pass (1 year) and Maia loved it! She got to see fish and sharks and touch a starfish and crab. We'll definitely be doing that again and I have to say the inaugural use of the stroller was great! It's cumbersome to pack up and load but it was fantastic once all the girls were in. Maia loved her princess seat. Anyway, we splurged a little bit at the Lego megastore and Maia brought a new plush shark friend home. It was a good day.
We have our Early Childhood Intervention teacher coming over today so we're looking forward to that!
We went in for our rescheduled Synagis shots today for Lily and Juliette. Luckily, Ben took the morning off of work to stay home with Maia because it's difficult to bring her along since the appointments take so long.
Lily is now 13 lbs, 1 oz and Juliette is 15 lbs 2.5 oz. They're both 26 inches long so they're growing! I can't believe that they'll be 10 months old on Friday. Where does the time go? Since Juliette was over 15 pounds it meant that she had to get two shots so poor girl had it twice as bad. I really hope that this latest cold was the last and only sickness they'll get this winter!
Otherwise the appointment was fine. We waited the obligatory half hour after the shots to determine whether the girls had any sort of reaction (they didn't) then went home.
Tomorrow should be interesting. I'm dropping Maia off at my friend Stacy's house while I bring Lilly and Juliette to Lily's cardiology appointment at Children's. I'll have to wake her up early from her nap so she might be cranky but I hope we don't have any problems. At least Maia will have Austin (he's 3) to play with!
Oh my goodness. These kiddos have gotten so mobile lately and now if I
go to do something else and come back I sometimes have to actually look
for them! I'm glad they're on the move but it makes me nervous too
because there are several places to get stuck and bump heads that are
non-removable (dining room table) so hopefully they figure out that
they shouldn't go under there. I can't blame them though, that's where
Maia drops food. I found a piece of chicken in Juliette's mouth
yesterday - whoops.
New milestones:
Lily's second tooth popped through on Friday.
Juliette can now get to sitting by herself (yesterday)
Lily can pull up on low things (like our bouncy chair; she'll get to her knees and then on her feet so she's in a reverse V)
I just can't believe how fast they're growing!
We
have a bunch of appointments in the next few weeks. Tomorrow is their
rescheduled Synagis shots and Thursday is Lily's follow-up cardiology
appointment to check her VSD (hole in her heart). They want to make
sure if has closed on it's own and if it hasn't there may be surgery
involved. We also have eye exams coming up and an appointment with the
NICU follow-up clinic to assess where they are physically and
developmentally. Somewhere in there we also have another Early
Intervention appointment.
This weekend was good. Maia got to go
outside on Sunday since the weather was so nice and it's the first time
this winter that she's been able to go play. The snow was kind of deep
to play in but she and daddy enjoyed just walking around. I hope to be
able to find more baby-free time to let her do that - we're cooped
inside the house all day every day still.
Is it bad to take down all Christmas decorations in mid January or should I have done this much earlier? I really LIKE the decorations and it makes the house look so warm and inviting but I know we're also just slackers about taking them down. This year was different than usual in that we normally don't put UP the decorations until right before Christmas (because we don't get around to it) and then we leave them up until February but this year I wanted to get a head start since we have kids and I wanted to be able to introduce to Maia what Christmas was all about. Not that it's about the decorations but they help set the mood!
Today has been okay so far. Maia decided that she wanted to delay her nap so when she normally goes down at noon she didn't fall asleep until shortly after 1. I wonder if this will be the beginning of pushing naptime back and having a later bedtime? Lily has been all over the place today and already fell off the step for the first time. Hopefully she'll catch quick how to get back down once she gets up. Juliette was up more than hourly last night so I ended up just sleeping in the chair in their room. She better gain 10 pounds or pop a tooth or seven in the next few days or I'm sending her back. Just kidding!
Ben is going to a city planning meeting tonight at 6:30 which means I'm on my own for bedtime. The girls start to go down around 6 so it's going to be tight. Luckily we have Elmo and thankfully my mom agreed to come over and help.
Oh, and all I want to do is stitch but there's not a lot of time for that now. Plus American Idol just started so there's another mandatory time sucker. Maybe I'll have to figure out how to stitch while watching. I can do that.
How do I know this blog has made it big? All the f'in spam. It's only about one spam comment per day but it's enough to be really annoying. CAPTCHA, here we come...
We're still sick. Lily and Juliette have it especially bad but Ben and I are still feeling pretty yucky too. Up until yesterday I think I had a bad sinus infection but it seems to be ebbing today. Ben thinks he might be getting pnemonia (I hope not) so we'll see. We all have bad hacking coughs and we're still having to suction out little noses but things are looking up so I'm very thankful for that! I'm also thankful that Maia got over it pretty quickly. I would not say she is sick right now except for a residual mild cough.
Some milestone updates. Lily got her first tooth - I'm not sure if I mentioned it before but she got it the day after Christmas or so. Juliette got her second one (I'm pretty sure I said that one before) and now she has two adorable little bottom teeth. I think Lily is working on her second bottom tooth because she's been somewhat crabby lately but it could also be the sickness. We'll see!
Lily can get herself to sitting constantly now. She's a pro and can crawl anywhere. She loves to try to climb into our laps and though she's not successful yet it's pretty cute to have a little 12 pound baby pawing at you while you're sitting down!. She crawls under the table, in the little cardboard "house" we have for Maia, everywhere. We have to make sure all of our baby proofing is back up to snuff because it won't be long before she pulls up and can climb the step from our back playroom/dining room to the kitchen and living room.
As of yesterday I would say that Juliette has started to crawl as well. She is still quite tentative about it and still flops on her belly periodically but she can get to where she wants to go! It's pretty exciting and I'm sure she'll be cruising as fast as Lily in no time. She's also trying to get to sitting but can't quite do it alone yet. She does like to sit and play with toys though (as long as she's just woken up from a nap).
Tomorrow we have our Early Intervention teacher coming over so I'm excited to show her all of the progress the girls have been making! Last time she was here Lily was just starting to try to crawl a little bit and I had seen her get to sitting once or twice. She's come a long way since then.
Sleeping has been rough lately because they've been sick and/or teething. I've had to suction their noses in the middle of the night several times sometimes so that they can eat and it's rough. Since Lily has been sick she had been sleeping in the swing again to keep her more upright but unfortunately I think it's spoiled her because now she can't seem to fall asleep in her bed anymore. Even if she falls asleep nursing she'll wake up the second I lay her down in her crib. The only thing that works right now is letting her fall dead asleep in the swing and bringing her to her bed - then she'll be good there for naps or for the night but I hope we can break her of that soon. Plus even though she's little she still probably won't fit in the swing for that much longer!
Today Maia and I baked cookies and had a lot of fun. Well, except for when I realized that we were out of butter. Oops. We had some Smart something spread so I used that instead. Bad idea. Does anyone know why recipes call for unsalted butter versus salted? I usually use salted because that's what we have on hand but I've always wondered.
That's probably enough update for the night. I'm having a great evening. I just got to spend 2 hours of uninterrupted time stitching (a blanket for the girls) and watching HGTV. Happy.
