Joyfully

Recently one of my favorite blogs wrote an entry challenging her readers to write their joyful stories about motherhood.

Since Brian was away for the past two weeks, I was on baby duty every night and on the weekends. The thought of being by myself with them for that long was very overwhelming and scary. I knew that I would have lots of help from our awesome family and friends but at the end of the night, it was my responsibility to love them and manage them and keep them alive.

There were some challenging experiences (read - two trips to "walk around the mall" and dinner at Olive Garden that solidified my conviction that we will not be doing those things again for a very long time) but we have survived.

What I have found in the last two weeks is that I really do know my babies and I am excited and proud about that. I know their schedule. I know their cries. I know the unexplainable things.

• I know when Stephen is just so tired that he can't stand it and that Annabelle is in a clingy stage where she will follow you around until you pick her up.
• I know that in the morning Stephen will take a nap and then as soon as he wakes up Annabelle will fall asleep. Maybe I will get lucky and it will overlap for 15 minutes.
• I know that even though it seems like they don't like their vegetables or meat, they will, in fact, eat all of it if you make them.
• I know that when Stephen wakes up between 3:30 and 5:00am, all you need to do is give him a bottle - like just hand it to him - make sure he isn't wet, and go back to bed.
• I know that if you don't make eye contact with them while you are washing dishes or checking Facebook, they will play contentedly but as soon as they see you see them, they want you.
• I know that if Stephen is crying I can sing him "his song" and he will stop and smile at me real big.

I literally feel like every day I am more excited to go into their room to say "Good Morning" and I feel a little more urgent to get home to them after work. Like I can tangibly feel love grow. It is crazy.

They are just the greatest little people. I feel like watching them grow and change and learn and develop is the most exciting thing and also a little heartbreaking. Because they will never be this small again. They will never not know how to scoot or fit in to their 0-3 month clothes or be 6.7lbs again. I will never get to live the first day of their life again. But I will get to live lots of other firsts and I am excited for that. I just hope that I can savor each moment and love them better each moment and that at the end of my life, I will be able to confidently say that I did not waste this time with them.

6 Months of Loving My Babies!

I wrote this post way back in February but have been delinquent in posting it.

Month 6 in the Life of Annabelle Rae and Stephen Michael

This month, Annabelle and Stephen have really shown us some personality. I think they are definitely becoming more aware of each other. They will grab each others faces and give “kisses” on the head sometime and laugh at each other. Every once in a while it seems like they are talking back and forth or like one of them is trying to antagonize the other one. The other day Stephen was falling asleep in his swing and Annabelle kept scream/laughing and waking him up. He would whine and she would do it again.

Both babies can completely hold their own bottles; eat peas, green beans, applesauce, pears, bananas, carrots, and oatmeal. They love the exersaucers and being upright. They hate their bumbos.

Annabelle

• Does this scream/laugh that is the cutest thing in the world
• Has the best smile ever
• Has become an official daddy’s girl – following him everywhere with her eyes
• Examples: one Friday night, Brian came home while I was giving the twins their bottles. He came over and said hi to them and then went in the kitchen. Annabelle stopped eating and cried until he came back and fed her. Later that night we drove to Bible Study and Annabelle screamed the entire car ride which is very unlike her. We even stopped the car to change her diaper. Every time I would say her name she would just keep crying. Every time Brian would say her name she would scream even louder. I think it was because she wanted his attention.
• One night Annabelle was incredibly fussy. I was holding her and she was squirmy and inconsolable. I handed her off to Daddy and she stopped immediately. He tried to hand her back to me and she cried. So it begins…
• Is officially too long for pretty much all of her 3 month clothes
• Likes to have us blow in her face
• Is pushing up on her hands and knees
• Kind of does “The Worm” to get to stuff
• Reaches for toys
• Loves to grab and touch faces
• Loves when I put her fingers in my mouth and pretend to bite them
• Her bald spot on the back of her head is almost gone and her hair is coming in much lighter than we thought it would.

Stephen

• Smiles a lot
• Is officially out of 3-6 month onsies and on his way to being out of the 6month clothes. I put a 3-6 month gerber onsie on him the other day and I could barely get it over his head and then it wouldn’t snap at the bottom. I thought I was going to have to cut it off him
• HATES HATES HATES getting dressed and screams like you are torturing him.
• Is getting better at tummy time
• Laughs at Brian a lot
• Stephen likes raspberries blown on his tummy
• His legs are like giant hamhocks
• We started putting Aquaphor on him as lotion b/c he has baby eczema and now he has the softest skin ever
• Has to sleep with a lovey touching his face
• This month we started giving him a bottle in his crib when he wakes up at 5am and he will hold it, drink it, and go back to sleep until at least 6:30. This is a welcome change from bringing him in to the bed with his so we could hold the bottle for him.
• He also pushes up on his hands and knees a little bit.
• His hair is coming in really blond and after a bath he kind of looks like an Albert Einstein Teddy Bear
• One evening I was feeding the babies in their high chairs and Stephen was clearly pooping. I thought nothing of it until I picked him up to change him and realized that he had an explosion that went all the way up his back. I didn’t know what to do so I took him upstairs to give him a bath. I didn’t even know how to get the onsie off without getting poop all over his face. So I just stuck him under the faucet in his onsie but forgot to turn the water to warm so it was ice cold. He didn’t like it. We were all a hot mess. But it turned out okay.

Mom

• I can run 2.5 miles without stopping.
• I have lost 7 pounds on Weight Watchers.

Sleepy Time

I know I need to update this thing more. And I will. I think I even wrote a blog about the babies at 6 months but never actually posted it.

Anyway, I had a revelation that I wanted to share.

The thing that I hated the most when I was pregnant were all the comments about sleep.
"Get your sleep now!"
"You will never sleep again"
"Sleep while you can"
EtC

I realized that what people should REALLY say is, "Enjoy your uninterrupted sleep, catching up on sleep, and sleeping in."

I think we are blessed with babies who sleep well but I also think that people build up the sleep thing so much that I literally thought I would never sleep again. So I am pleasantly surprised to find that I actually get more sleep now on the average night than I did before I had kids.

I think part of this is the fact that I treasure it more so I will go to bed at 8:30 instead of staying up until 12:00 or 1:00 in the morning.

The thing that is hard is the fact that even with good sleepers, they don't sleep in. And I inevitably have to get up at least once every night (between 3:30 and 5:00) to give Stephen a bottle or change his diaper. It takes 15 minutes and I fall back to sleep pretty quickly but I just miss the uninterupted, lounging in bed, ability to "catch-up" on sleep when I need to. Now, if I want to "catch up" I have to go to bed earlier b/c I am definitely not going to get to sleep later.

I am writing this at 11:00pm when I should be working. So I know tomorrow is going to be hard. But perhaps, tomorrow night, I can get my sleep now.