Three Peas in a Pod

How do you do it?

People ask me that all the time, so I decided to keep a good journal for one day. Keep in mind that at this developmental stage they require 1.5 hours of tummy time daily. Nicholas has been diagnosed with torticollis and requires lots of physical therapy. Here's my day for January 6, 2005:

6:20A: Tyler starts fussing. I console hime and give him his pacifier a few times. He goes back to sleep. Nick starts fussing in response to Tyler and is also consoled.

7:25A: Tyler is officially awake! Since it's after 7A, I pick him up and bring him downstairs. Just as I get his diaper off Nicholas starts screaming bloody murder -- he's peed through his clothes. A comedy follows with me trying to console, change, and get socks for babies. We eventually end up on the couch, both babies in boppies, for our morning feeding.

8A: Activity hour begins. I put Nicholas in the batting cage (with a bib strategically placed under his head) while I continue feeding Tyler his last ounce. Then I put Tyler down on the blanket on his back while I wash bottles.

8:10A: Sure enough, Nicholas lost some of his feeding -- but the bib caught it. Score one for Mom! Tummy time begins. I get Nicholas to turn his head to both sides by using the octopus. Tyler is completely intrigued by the busy board. I get a snack of a yogurt smoothie and 2 clementines.

8:30A: Both babies begin to tire of tummy time. I take turns doing baby pushups with them while the other is on his back or tummy. I make sure to do Nicholas' neck stretches despite his protests, and I let him rest on his right side as the physical therapist recommended.

8:50A: Nicholas is really tired of tummy time now. I put Tyler in the batting cage while I give Nicholas a pacifier and snuggle on the couch, but he just keeps screaming. I finally realize he wants more food -- his does his patented "ten sucks and fall asleep" routine. I put him in the nap nest with a baby blanket.

8:55A: Time to put Tyler down. I manage to get another two ounces in him and put him to sleep in the nap nest with his brother.

9A: Astro comes to relieve me for a two hour nap (heaven!)

11:10A: I come down after my nap to find both babies still asleep. Astroinforms me that the are really asleep "again", not "still". They've each been up and had two more ounces of milk and good tummy time, and they just went down. I realize that I'm really hungry and make myself a huge lunch while Astro tells me about her plans for the rest of her day. We each make a "business" phone call to try to get things off our task lists.

12N: Babies are still napping, but Tyler starts making noise. I'm emptying the dishwasher when I realize he isn't going to stop without attention. I go into the den and give him his pookie, which he promptly spit out. I notice that Nicholas is still sleeping soundly and Tyler has tired eyse, so I decide to stay within his sight line while continuing to give him his pookie. I start writing while sitting on the back of the couch. I pull out a banana to defrost so I can make banana bread tomorrow. I also start pulling down dirty clothes, beginning the weekly laundry ritual.

12:25P: Tyler decides his nap is officially complete. His screaming disturbs his brother but Nicholas is mollified with a pacifier. Tyler takes 2.5 ounces before I put him in the batting cage.

12:40P: Nicholas is ready for food. While I get the bottle I notice that I didn't finish emptying the dishwasher. I know that Nicholas won't mind a little extra air time, so I finish now. He eats and I put him in the batting cage.

12:55P: Tyler has pooped his pants. As I change him I realize I really need to refill the wipe container and Nicholas starts screaming. I put Tyler down for his tummy time and pick up Nicholas, who finishes his bottle before I put him back in the batting cage.

1:15P: Tyler tiring of tummy time and having trouble rolling over. I flip him while I take Nicholas' empty to the kitchen and run upstairs for more wipes. Also empty upstairs diaper pail and refill dishwasher.

1:20P: Flip Tyler back over onto his tummy. He's very fussy, so when I put Nicholas down I do baby pushups with him. He really enjoys sitting on my lap and chest. Nicholas is having a hard time with tummy time.

1:45P: Feed Tyler more milk and turn Nicholas over. We snuggle and I put him in his car seat with his arms through the straps, but not buckled. I regret to say this is pretty much my only sneaky mom trick.

1:50P: Nicholas has a complete meltdown. He's been arching his back this whole feed/play cycle so I'm betting he has gas. I give him some tummy drops and we snuggle sitting up until he calms. I put him in his car seat and notice that Tyler is already half asleep.

2P: Tyler completely asleep; Nicholas quietly resting in car seat. Get myself ready for our outing (consignment store for socaks and bottles, then a department store for thank-you cards). Start laundry, package babies, and go on outing.

2:15-5P: Shopping. Nicholas cries at second stop and sucks down half a bottle.

5-5:30P: Astro helps with feeding -- formula this time because we only have one breastmilk bottle left. Tyler had really good eats. Then into the batting cage. I showed Astro all my finds and put the new toys and bottles in dishwasher to sterilize. Neck stretches for Nicholas.

5:50P: Tummy time begins. Everyone hates it.

6:15-6:45P: Air bath. I do footprints for January 2005. Nicholas very wiggly.

6:45P: Sleepy calls -- wants to go to the recruiting dinner. Astro says OK, as long as she's in bed by 11. I dress babies and put them in the batting cage. Go upstairs to get directions.

7:10P: Babies need food before the dinner. Sleepy helps me feed them, and then we're off.

Babies fall asleep in the car on the way to the dinner and don't wake up through the whole thing. We get them home and in bed without and major tragedies. (3) comments

There should really be a set of stick people available for insertion into web pages and presentations. Something like the "string beings", but even more basic ... something that looks like I could have drawn it. It should be easy to change the angles of their appendages, or all variations should be available. I would, of course, make it free and easily available, but I understand that others may want to make money from it.

I mention this because having such a set of stick figures available would make it a lot easier to describe how I just found my babies in the crib.

Also, I'm typing this without benefit of glasses. Sorry for any misspellings.

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Both babies began trying to find their thumbs today, and they are partly successful. Now, by thumbs I mean "any part of my hand to suck on". The problem is that they find their thumb, suck for about ten seconds, get really excited that they found their thumb, wave their arms excitedly (which causes the thumb to pop out of the mouth), and then get frustrated because they can't suck their thumb anymore. It's amusing.

One moment. HalfCat has decided that she must be petted RIGHT NOW! She is going to lay on my fingers until I give in.

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I've decided that "tired" should be pronounced like "tie-red". That way "tie-red Tyler" sounds much better. And doesn't it look like it should have two syllables anyway? English is a very odd language.

I wonder why boys 5 and older have to live in the boys camp at Michigan Women's Festival. How did they decided that five was the age to make the cutoff? Don't kids start knowing their gender at three? I understand the "no penisis on the land" rule, and it kindof makes sense, but I challenge someone to tell me the difference between a four-year-old and a five-year-old penis. I have certainly earned my feminist card and I could argue this until the cows come home. What's so scary about a five-year-old penis that isn't scary about a four-year-old penis?

If the kind folks at Macromedia release an updater that screws up the very feature they sold the version for, what happens? Absolutely nothing, is what. Except I get very frustrated and move all my web services to a different server because no one -- and I mean no one -- can get them to work with the new updater (that we need so something else works) and the folks at MACR refuse to acknowledge and fix the problem. It could be because they fired most of their Cold Fusion developers and hired lots of Flash people. It's this sort of thing that makes companies think that ASP is better than CF, folks.

How can two kids wake up within ten seconds of each other after having been apart for eight hours, and asleep for four of them? It must be that mystical twin connection they keep talking about.

I need to spend more social time with adults. I leave the kids and get into work, but I only have about a half hour with adults (most of whom I wouldn't spend any time with in any other context) before they leave and I'm all alone again. I need to schedule some social outings for myself to reconnect with the adult world. Preferably adults without infants. I don't think I could handle all the advice and "mommy myth" crap at a twins mom meeting right now.

I thank god(dess) for the inventor of the pacifier. Can we nominate this individual for sainthood, or at least a large government pension? I used to say that my kid wouldn't use one, but Tyler really likes it. And I guess he needs it, since he loves it and Nicholas doesn't. He has a high non-nutritive sucking need. It's nice to see the difference between them because then I don't feel like I'm just giving him the pooky to shut him up -- it's clear that he actually needs it. Anyway. As soon as he can reliably find his mouth with his fingers all the binkies will be lost. It'll be a tough few days but he'll learn.

Why do people believe that sucking your thumb is so much better than sucking pacifiers? I sucked my thumb until I was ten! My little sister had her pacifier until she was six. Both of us had teeth so bad they required braces so we could eat normally as adults. Some of us just have bad teeth. At least the thumb is always available. Then again, you're reading a woman who still sleeps with her baby blanket.

Why do pacifiers come in such odd shapes? And why are the odd shapes "orthodontic"? It seems to me that if you're putting something in your baby's mouth it should be as close as possible to the real thing. I've seen lots of nipples (but particularly Sleepy's when she's nursing) and it doesn't look at all orthodontic. I'm sticking with the cheap, nipple-looking pacifiers.

I've spent far too much time thinking, and blogging, about pacifiers.

I guess Nicholas is going to sleep a little while longer than Tyler tonight. I'll go back to bed and he'll wake up. I call it baby juju.

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Man, but these babies are sleeping tonight. Their one-hour walk seems to have been unusually effective. I'm going to have to ask Astro what route she took.

They went down around 7 -- we put them in their carriers for the gay doctor potluck -- and I just now finished feeding Tyler. Nicholas started stirring but never got up. And Tyler seems to be going right back to sleep. Awesome!

It was quite amusing taking them to the potluck. Well, the potluck itself is always amusing. Imagine if you will a house full of gay doctors. We're usually one of two lesbian relationships present; this time we were the only one. And we take the babies, foreign objects to most of these guys.

But the wonderful thing is that when it's just gay guys they can admit that they love the babies! (straight guys love babies too, they just think they shouldn't, and are therefore much less effusive) We spent all evening "guarding" them against intrusion by some well-meaning dude. I swear there were five guys hovering around all night just waiting for one of them to wake up so they could snuggle. Alas, the babies cornered the area around the fireplace and slept through the whole thing. There were cries of disappointment throughout the house as we were leaving for their unsporting behavior. Really, quite amusing.

These potlucks are really enjoyable. First off, the wine and food is always amazing. This always leads to the "what should we take?" quandary (this time it was the pecan bar recipe on the back of a tube of sugar dough cookies -- they liked it.) Will anything I make be good enough for a house full of gay guys? Should I put it on the pretty plates, even though we might lose them? But the thing I really like is that when you say, "They have three moms," there's generally a lot fewer shocked appearances. The most common reply is, "Well, that makes sense. They are twins; you need as many hands as possible!", and that pretty much always makes me feel good.

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They had their two-month appointment yesterday morning, and they are strong and pretty babies. They got four immunizations -- Astro says they wailed but were easily consoled. The doc was surprised that they're both rolling over. They both roll toward their left from front to back; neither are doing it from back to front yet. They were sleepy all day from the shots and we omitted tummy time. No sense in making their days more difficult.

So, creative sleeping arrangements. We started with one mom doing nights (we alternated) with both babies. They would sleep in the playpen downstairs with mom on the couch in front of them. This was nice because it meant that two people got to sleep all night, but the MOD (Mom On Duty) didn't get any sleep at all. One baby would wake up, get changed and fed, and the next one would be ready for a change and feeding. There would be perhaps a half hour of sleeping for mom before the cycle would repeat. As crazy as it sounds we actually did that for about three weeks before throwing in the towel.

Then we decided they needed to get accustomed to sleeping in their crib instead of the playpen, so we moved them upstairs. We tried that for a day or so before we realized that half the problem was that mom wasn't getting any sleep. Did I mention that Sleepy was trying to pump through all of this? Yeah, it wasn't working so well.

So then we went with the "upstairs baby" and "downstairs baby" approach. One mom would sleep downstairs with a baby in the playpen, while the other would sleep upstairs with the baby in crib. We tried this for a while and it was working. However, we made the error of not rotating the babies and Nicholas got really used to me being downstairs with him.

We realized the problem and started rotating the babies, which worked pretty well. Then we decided to further the belief that "nighttime is for sleeping" by moving the playpen to another (darker) room downstairs at night. You see, we felt that it was probably hard to sleep with the lights on and TV blaring at night while your brother was sleeping in calm and quiet upstairs. That worked really well, actually.

But the goal, if you remember, was to have them both sleeping in their crib and all the moms in our bed. So, while "upstairs baby" and "downstairs baby" were both sleeping (a MAJOR improvement), it was still pretty lonely for me downstairs on the couch. [Not that I mind the couch. Quite the opposite; I find it quite comfortable. But I was missing sleeping with the adults.]

So we moved the playpen into the guest room right after Thanksgiving. That worked for a night or so and now they are sleeping together in the crib and moms are sleeping together in the big bed. We alternate who gets up for each feeding. Tonight I took the first one because they let me sleep for, like, ten hours last night AND Astro held the monitor while I took a long shower. Hallelujah!

Life, and sleeping, is going well.


Today is exciting because it's the first day Sleepy goes back to work. I'll have the kids alone all day. I'm a little nervous but I know we'll make it through. It may involve some creative parenting, but we'll be all right. It doesn't help much that Astro's next test cycle begins next Thursday and she has to do well, all while Sleepy is mostly working nights. Ouch. This is going to be interesting.

Well, Tyler seems to be completely asleep and Nicholas didn't wake up for any food. I expected him to, and then I would have fed him instead of making someone else get up. But this pook-and-pat blog session is over.

Sleep well.
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So, it's been at least a month since I've written. Anyone who has waited this long must really like me. Suffice it to say that I've been quite busy.

The facile and fetching Sleepy has declared that I need to blog more (I think she just reads to find out what's really going on in my head) so I'm going to try writing during pook-and-pats.

What's a pook-and-pat? It's that endearing and annoying time after a baby has been fed, but before he is entirely asleep, when he sometimes fusses and needs a pacifier and a pat from a mommy. Ergo, pook-and-pat.

Some other interesting new lexicon:

• Bobbing for boobies: The phenomenon wherein a hungry baby is searching for milk on the chest of the one holding him. The boobies may or may not belong to a woman, may or may not be "functional", and the baby may or may not know what to do with them were he lucky enough to find them.
• magic car seats: Really, these things are amazing. Pretty much no matter how cranky a baby is, as soon as he gets in a moving car seat, he's out like a light. The tricky part is that the magic sleeping powers do not work in a stationary car seat.
• $20,000 pacifier: A car holding the magic car seats in motion.

There's more, but it seems that Tyler is finally asleep. Tomorrow evening perhaps I'll write about "creative sleeping arrangements for twins and their moms".

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