As you’ve noticed the site has a new look to it.  What you may not notice at first glance is that our photos page has changed.  I’ve changed out the underlying functionality that pulled pictures from our photo sharing site.  The new version will be much faster, more stable and just plain cooler when it comes to looking at the photos.

I am still in the process of uploading older photos to our new image sharing site (Google Picasa).  So hang in there as I get them online.  All the photo gallery here on the site does is pull in the images from my Picasa web albums (RSS feed for you geeks) on our blog.  This saves you from having to remember to check here for posts, there for pictures, etc.

For those of you that are interested in going to our photo sharing site directly, there are some cool things that you can see there that you won’t see there.  For example, as my buddy Bill explains, Google has recently added some very cool face tagging technology where it picks up on who is in your pictures via face recognition technology.  As you can see here, you can browse my albums by who is in them (again, as I add more pictures this will become more useful).

Anyways, I figured I’d share some of the details on the new stuff here.  Stick around, I know we’ve got a few good posts that we’re working on and lots of fun stuff to share!  Hope you all had a great holiday and are ready for another football season!

No, we’re not wasted away in Margaritaville. But a mom can dream…

Earlier this week, we had a playdate at a friend’s house and rushed home just in time for a quick lunch for the twins. Adam was very tired, so after plunking the twins down at the kitchen table with some munchies, I took Adam to his room to feed, rock, and put down for a nap. It’s a quick and easy job when he’s so sleepy, maybe 5 minutes. And the twins are used to eating on their own at that table while I deal with the baby. They’ll wander in with messy hands to tell me if they need something usually.

In hindsight, I should have known it seemed too quiet in the kitchen, I suppose. But I enjoyed the peace and time with Adam. I walked back into the kitchen ready to wipe them off, hit the potty, and do the naptime routine. But I found piles of salt. Everywhere. Like a whole shaker full. On the floor. On their plates. On the table. On their clothes. On their hands and faces. In their hair. Oh, and they were sooooo pleased with themselves. And they were already headed for a late nap even before the mess.

“Who did this????” I asked.

Avery proudly replied, “Avery and Alex did this!” Huge smile. She was thrilled.

Alex added, “Assah needed peppah sauce.”

Oh, well, that explains it.

The real problem is that the salt shaker had been clogged. And I clearly remember last week when Don went to salt something on his dinner plate, found the clog, and cleared it. A little too well, I guess.
Lesson learned.

Tis the season, right? We’ve had a few hellacious weeks in this house for the twins. It started on Jan. 23rd with Avery getting a fever that quickly went to 103-104 even with alternating Tylenol and Motrin every 3 hours. Her first visit to the dr. that Saturday morning revealed nothing, and by Monday it finally broke and seemed both kids just had colds. Alex never got the fever, though. But by Weds., Avery’s fever was back and I had her back at the pediatrician’s, where she was diagnosed with a double ear infection and given a strong antibiotic. We thought we were on the road to recovery and happy kids again. Ha! A week later on Thursday, Alex woke up at 8 pm puking all over his crib, the walls, the carpet… Don was such a trooper and cleaned it all while Avery and I supervised helping Alex to aim for the toilet or trash can each time he got sick. Avery learned a new sentence that night: “Agus pook,” (her version of Alex puke.) 4 hours, 5 changes of pajamas, and many vomiting and dry heaving episodes later, we got him to sleep in our bed. He was fine Friday and then puked once Saturday morning in the hall - too early to have given him milk, I guess. I’m still trying to hunt down a lingering smell somewhere int he hall or bathroom - so gross. Not one to be outdone, Avery did the stomach bug thing Saturday night, only she went from 11 pm to 3 am and wasn’t nearly as cooperative about sleeping once the throwing up was done. She’s been a super cranky girl - crying and having tantrums all the time, saying NO even to her favorite things like holding Beary Bear and watching Mickey Mouse. She was clearly exhausted for days on end, as were we all. All I heard for days was “Mommy, hold” over and over, which I don’t mind doing but she wanted me to stand and hold her non-stop, which kills my back these days. Finally, today, almost 3 weeks later, I had my happy babies back with good appetites and smiles and giggles. I’m praying it continues because I think we were all at the end of our ropes with exhaustion and frustration.

The weather’s been nice enough the last few days for me to load the babies into their little red wagon and pull them through the neighborhood most days before lunch. They look so cute in their little hats, facing each other and checking out the ‘hood. Looks are deceiving, though. More than once, I’ve turned around to find that Alex is pulling on Avery’s chinstrap for her sun hat, or she has yanked his baseball cap off by the brim. Alex also likes to see where he’s going, so he has to be in the back seat or else he twists himself around and half out of the seatbelt to face forward. I’ve been putting toys in the wagon as well, so they have things to chew on and play with, but I’m finding that they aren’t using them for the intended purposes. As I’m walking, I’ll hear a telltale thunk behind me. When I turn and look, I see a trail halfway back down the road of toys, clothes, stuffed animals, and cheerios. It’s not so bad when they throw a rattle or something that makes noise when it hits, but binkies and hats and stuffed Peeps tend to fall silently. Yesterday I think I must have walked 2 miles on the 1 mile walk because I turned around so many times to pick things up. Today I just let them drop it all on the way down the road and I stopped and picked the things up as we came to them on the way back. Much faster that way. “Gretel” came home a few days ago wearing one pink sock…she had two on when we left the house. And yesterday, Don found her pink hat hanging from our mailbox. I guess some kind neighbor found it in the road and returned it.

What else is new? Alex has one top tooth fully through and the second one has the tiniest little bit through and seems to be bugging him tonight, so it must be on the move. Avery has been drooling and gnawing on her fingers, so she can’t be far behind. Alex is cruising along furniture and managed to climb one basement step yesterday. He was pretty impressed with himself over that. Avery is a speedy crawler now and her favorite new trick is that she can go from laying to sitting, so she’s always sitting up in the crib when I go to get her from naps now. It’s funny, she learned how to do that within weeks of learning to crawl, but it took Alex months because he just started to do it too. So now the only thing he can do that she can’t is pull up to standing, and she waves hello but he doesn’t.

Don was away for his work’s annual convention in Kansas City last weekend. I was so glad to see him Sunday when he got home. Pop and Grandma and Aunt Jen all came to visit the twins and help out, but we seem to be smack in the middle of stranger anxiety. Alex warmed up eventually, but Avery just was clingy and cried anytime I left the room. It was hard and made me appreciate all over again how amazing Don is as a dad. I feel like I need to try harder to have the babies be with people other than Don and me much more often.

The twins turned 8 months old yesterday. Do you know that’s 2/3 of a year? It seems nowhere near that long, but it also seems like forever somehow.

Things are as busy as ever in our house. Avery’s bottom two teeth are through and almost as big as Alex’s. They love using them and their gums to gnaw on table food. Soft veggies like carrots, green beans, peas, and potatoes have been a hit, as have pasta, chicken and rice soup, goldfish crackers, and pretty much anything else I can chop up into small enough pieces. Avery is a daintier and slower eater, while Alex is of the belief that the more he can shove into his mouth at once, the better off he is. He loves to steal things from Avery’s tray since she’s so much pokier. Unfortunately, I have to be careful what I give them because we think Alex may be allergic to milk, which is an ingredient in more than I ever realized. I had him at the doctor last week to see if she had any ideas why he was so whiny all the time, and why his reflux wasn’t improving. She suggested the possible allergy and now he’s on special hypoallergenic formula and we have an appointment with a pediatric gastroenterologist next week. She said we’d see improvement within a couple of days if the formula / dairy was the problem, and while he’s not as fussy, he is still leaving a slime trail like a slug wherever he goes. Our carpets are trashed, his clothes are changed about 3 times per day, and this new formula reeks. We’re sticking with it for another few days and then I am going to switch back to see if things worsen, which would help to confirm the allergy.

Alex has also been waking at night again. Sometimes I think it’s just a habit, but other times I think he may be having night terrors. It’s the strangest thing - he “wakes” in utter panic with loud screams and hysterical crying, but doesn’t want his binky or teething tablets or anything else that usually calms him. Even if Don or I pick him up, he keeps crying, and even though his eyes are open, you can tell he’s not really there. It’s scary for us and I hope it’s just a phase. It takes anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour to get him back down and peaceful, if not asleep, in his crib. I did some reading online and there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it if it is truly night terrors other than hope it passes quickly. It breaks our heart to see him so upset.

He’s also turned into a champion crawler and is loving his independence. We used to see the devilish glint in Avery’s eyes and think she was going to be the source of all our trouble, but Alex is holding his own. He has this great skill with finding the one thing in a room that you don’t want him to touch… the laptop computer, our touch lamp in the bedroom, the diaper can and trashcan, anything in the hall bathroom… They say this is the age when separation anxiety begins, but he has no trepidation about crawling out of my site. I ask him to follow me down the hall and he starts to, but then hangs a right into the bathroom to bang on the tub. And when I am changing Avery’s diaper, he slips out of the nursery and into our bedroom to bang on the lamp. One really cute thing he does is to stop at every new surface and touch it, from carpet to pergo to area rug, sort of like he’s testing to make sure it’s safe. I am VERY careful to keep the new stair gate closed at all times. The little bugger has gotten very fast!

Avery has turned into the happiest little baby. She always has a grin for us and babbles “mamama” and “dadada” nonstop. She has no apparent interest in getting mobile. If we sit her somewhere, as long as we stay within her eyesight, she’ll just play with whatever’s around or swing and wave her arms like a fool if nothing is around to play with. On her belly, she can spin in circles or scoot backwards, but there is nothing close to forward movement, so if I give her something to play with, I have to put her with her feet against a wall or she’s backed away from the toy about 2 minutes later and flapping her arms like a bird, trying to will herself forward to reach it again. She still hates naps. She takes them 2 or 3 times a day, but they are always short and I barely have time to eat or shower before I hear her in their room, babbling away.

Both babies have figured out how to push down the bumpers and peer out like little jailbirds to see what’s going on in the room. Alex likes to drop his binkies out through the slats. I guess he hasn’t figured out that they don’t come back when he does that. The other day, he fell asleep waiting for something interesting to happen.

Time to end the post - someone is awake and needs to be reminded it’s bedtime!

Avery’s had a very busy week! She’s definitely a tough little girl, too. Her bottom two teeth can definitely be felt just below the gums, sharp and ready to break through if they haven’t already. They are right at that point where it’s hard to tell. She’s also been really congested and wakes up with this terrible glob under her nose every morning that takes about 10 minutes to completely suck out. She sounds like she’s snoring when she drinks a bottle and I feel awful for her. She has an amazing talent for blowing snot bubbles - so gross. Since she’s been fighting this cold for over two weeks, I finally took her to the dr. today and found out her left ear is definitely infected, and possibly the right one too. She’s on amoxicillin for that and hopefully it’ll clear up soon. I hope she’s not inherited my crummy immune system. I know I had a ton of ear infections as a kid and had to get tubes in my ears. Through it all, though, she’s been as happy as ever. She smiles and giggles and doesn’t act like she’s sick or in pain - such a little trooper. Much different than her brother, who is whining during the day and waking often at night. I think he has a top tooth coming in now. It’s so funny to me how opposite these twins are - teething gives Alex fits, while Avery has sailed through without a complaint. But if Alex falls over from sitting and thunks his head on something, he doesn’t miss a beat, and if she does the same thing, she cries like there’s no tomorrow. Strange…

Avery has also started to very clearly say “Da-da.” She says it ALL THE TIME, much to Momma’s dismay. I know she hasn’t associated it with Don yet, though he insists she’s talking about him. I’ll remind him of that when she’s calling it next time she has a dirty diaper, or on one of her 5 am wake-up days. We have some really cute video of it that we just need to edit down to a reasonable file size before we post it.

And finally, a clear shot of Alex’s bottom teeth. They are much bigger now - this was taken a week or so ago. They are sharp, too. The little turkey viper accidentally bit me at dinner tonight and it hurt!

I’ve been exclusively pumping breastmilk for the babies almost since they were born. I was so committed to nursing when I was pregnant, but after they were born, I realized I just hadn’t assembled the resources I needed to make it work. Alex refused to latch, Avery had thrush which hurt me like hell, and she fell asleep every time she tried to eat on top of that. I was exhausted trying to feed them and had no time to do anything else, like eat or shower or sleep. So I pumped more than I nursed. And soon I was just pumping. And here I am, 6 months later, still pumping. I am really proud of myself for sticking it out this long, because it has not been easy. They each get about 21 ounces of my milk per day, plus a few more mixed with their cereal. They also get one bottle of formula. Pumping is all the work of bottles and all the restrictions and time commitments of breastfeeding without the physical bonding. It’s getting harder and harder to do, with Alex rolling under everything in sight and both of them being more social and less patient with the idea of sitting around for 20 minutes. There are many days when I feel like a dairy cow. I’ve had two really painful plugged ducts and one case of mastitis - 103 degree fevers are not fun when you have two babies to care for. Most days, I just dread the pump time.

With all that in mind, I talked it over with Don and had decided to stop pumping by the end of the year. Six months is a great run, longer than many women make it breastfeeding, and I thought I was comfortable with quitting. I was counting the days to December 13, when I would start to wean. I was excited to have caffeine and wear normal bras again. But I felt guilty, too. That’s a good Catholic mom with her Catholic guilt, I guess. My supply is good. Formula is expensive. The babies are getting so much benefit - they’ve never even been sick, and I think it has a lot to do with breastfeeding. So I started to read and research, and found that even though I am pumping 4 times per day now, I can probably wean down to 2 sessions and still get a decent amount of milk since my supply is well established. And now I am thinking I won’t quit yet. I’ll try the two times per day thing - after they wake up and are fed and changed, and then at night before I go to bed. Basically, every 12 hours. And I’ll see how it goes. Maybe they’ll need 2 or even 3 formula bottles a day once my stash of frozen milk is gone. But that’ll still be cheaper and better for them than all formula, all the time.

I have selfish reasons to continue, too, like the fact that I am 10 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight and still losing. My tummy skin looks like a deflated balloon, but I am skinny and I eat anything i want - cookies, ice cream, etc. and don’t worry about what it’ll do to my ass. And my pumping time is my computer time that I don’t have to feel bad about, because I can’t do anything else when I am all hooked up.

So here I sit, 3 days from the day I had planned to start weaning, and instead I have decided to be down to 2 pumps by January 1, and I’ll see how that goes until January 13th when they’ll be 7 months old. I’m not thrilled with the choice, but I can live with it. Once I really do quit, there’s no going back, and I’d rather not regret that decision the way I regret the one to give up on nursing.

Can’t believe I forgot to write what everyone else is thankful for!

Alex is thankful for binkies and a mom who lets him sleep on his belly now that he can roll onto it.  And he’s thankful his neck swivels, so that being on his belly doesn’t mean he has to hold his head up or lay on his face (as he once thought.)

Avery is very, very thankful for her left foot.  I don’t know why she likes it so much better than the right, but she does.  She talks to it and sings to it and holds it lovingly anytime she can.  I am pretty sure she is thankful for Alex sleeping better too, as it makes it much quieter and easier for her at night as well.

Kenna, Colby, and Luna are thankful the babies can’t crawl yet.

For Thanksgiving this year, we went to my aunt Jimmie’s house, as we usually do. It’s amazing how long it took Don and I to get out of the house with all the needed supplies for a day. We took the swing and bouncy seat so they’d be able to nap at her house. Yeah right - Avery refused, but Alex did take a few catnaps. By the end of the day, after a few tastes of pumpkin pie, they were just fried and she was shrieking from being so exhausted. They did at least sleep on the way home - one more thing to be thankful for! It’s fun to see the babies interact with other people. Alex doesn’t seem to care much who holds him, but he definitely checks you out if you’re new. That look Santa got in the picture in the previous post is what everyone gets. And Avery, well she is more particular and does this little bottom lip pout and then cry when someone new looks at her sideways. She loves my grandmother though - she’ll hang out in her arms all day.
I know it’s a Thanksgiving cliche to reflect and enumerate all you have to be thankful for, but it is the point of the holiday too, right? Don and I talk all the time about how much we have to be thankful for now, how lucky we are to have these little miracles in our lives. We’re so thankful for the doctors and the science that helped us make our dream of being parents a reality. Two years ago, we were being told we might never have our own children, and last year we were nervous and praying both babies would make it to delivery. So this year we’re thankful that our babies arrived healthy and have stayed that way. They are incredible little beings. We’re thankful for every little smile and giggle and gurgle. Our lives are so different than they used to be, but only in the best ways. Thanksgiving this year also made me think about how much I cherish Don, what an amazing father and husband he is, and how lucky Alex, Avery, and I are to have him. Seeing him with the babies makes me love him in new ways. We are blessed with family, friends, health, security - pretty much everything we could ever want, and that made this a very special Thanksgiving - definitely one where the meaning of the holiday hit home for me.

I have so many things I want to fill everyone in on.  But I will admit to being lazy and just not getting the job done lately.  Everyone is fine and happy and growing and learning new things every day.  I’m making a list now and vowing to do a post each day until I get through these topics!

1. Thanksgiving
2. New Skillz
3. Sleep Update
4. St. Michaels - first overnight away from the babies
5. Quitting the Pump

Hm, it seemed like so much more in my head.  Maybe I am forgetting some.  But anyway, I am going to be better about it, so check back tomorrow!