Yay babies!

I've been thinking about doing a post with all of the neat things we've learned about the babies, and today seems like a great day because I'm so super proud of them the last few days. Last night I did bedtime by myself, and they both finished their bottles and went right to sleep in their room by 8:00pm - I didn't have to go in there once! Jake woke up for about 30 seconds at 1:00am and again at 3:00am, but I blame myself for that because he was busting out of his swaddle and I knew it was too small for my big guy. Other than that...they slept until 6:15am! We had breakfast, we played a little, then we went back down for a nap in our cribs right away...amazing. I love it. I almost feel bad when people tell me they don't know how I do it, because Jake and Abby make it so easy on me. They're the reason I can do it!


So Jake is turning in to the happiest, smiliest baby ever. He has started "talking" and gets SO excited when I make noises to him that he can repeat. His big open mouth smile is so adorable. Right now his favorite thing is to be on the play mat that we have for them, which has a toy that they can kick to play music and lights. They both figured out how to do it, and he LOVES it, especially because he can kick it and look at Mr. Octopus above him at the same time which is just the best. He is also obsessed, as he has been since basically day one, with the bird mobile over the swing where he naps during the day. Sometimes when I put him in there he'll fuss for a second until the birds go on like he's waiting for it. The other day he was falling asleep, and after he closed his eyes he would peep them open for a second to make sure the birds were still there, then smile when he saw them. Seriously? That's awesome. He is starting to get enough control to suck his thumb instead of just shoving his whole hand in his mouth. If he wants to be a thumb sucker, I say have at it - no more me hopping up to replace a pacifier! We'll worry about how to get the thumb out of his mouth later! My sweet, happy boy. Such a cutie.

Miss Abby could be the easiest baby of all time. She wakes up in the morning when Jake does, and she plays happily by herself on their playmat while he eats breakfast every morning. Last weekend when I was feeding Jake, I had to tell Jeff to go ahead and feed her because I knew if he was waiting for her to cry for her bottle, he would be waiting a long time! She is so patient. The only time she really cries is when she wants some company. She is definitely a napper that likes to be held sometimes. Yesterday I was trying to get some things done around the house, so instead of holding her I put a little stuffed pig, Peppa, in with her during nap time. She was totally fascinated, and every time I peeked in to see how she was doing she was calmly petting Peppa, and then she'd see me watching her and smile. It just about melted my heart to see her, it was the sweetest thing ever. She also likes the playmat a lot, and the past few days she's started to wiggle around more so I bet she'll be rolling over like Jake in no time. She is such a happy baby too, and has this hilarious smile where she sort of tips her chin down to the side and grins at you from the corner of her eye. Such a flirt! Although my singing voice leaves a lot to be desired, singing silly songs to her almost always makes her smile. I think she's going to turn out to be such a girly girl. Jeff won't stand a chance against her! Who could say no to that face!

Life's pretty great. I read somewhere that when you have kids, the days are slow and the years are fast. We have rough days - like Sunday, when Jeff texted me while I was at the mall to tell me that he had a new respect for me because he got the pleasure of spending four hours with them when they would. not. be quiet - but we have great weeks. I can't believe it's been 3 months since the day we brought them home from the hospital. I've come a long way since that day when I yelled at Jeff for leaving the room to go to the bathroom while one of them was crying because I didn't know what to do by myself!

Four month appointment and holiday pics

We had our four month appointment at the pediatrician last week and got another great report card! Abby was 10lbs 2oz, officially over TRIPLE her birth weight! She moved up the growth charts from .5% to 2.5%, so exciting. Jake was 12lbs 2oz, and moved up from 5% to 20%! Since this compares them to babies that are 4 months old that were born at full term, it is GREAT news that they continue to grow quickly to catch up to their "peers". As for their milestones, they are supposed to hit those somewhere between their actual age (4 months) and their adjusted age (2 months) and we seem to be on track there. After a few weeks of practice, Jake finally rolled over the other day! Even though I was two feet away from him, I missed it because I was reading a magazine because they were driving me crazy. Bad mommy.

Speaking of driving me crazy, WOW have we had a week with these two. We had a fun weekend last weekend - had people over most of the day on Saturday and Sunday - and boy did we pay for it. They didn't nap well on Saturday so Saturday night was rougher than usual. Then they didn't nap well on Sunday and Sunday night was even worse. Then they didn't nap well on Monday, and after two nights of bad sleep and one day of too many mimosas (oops), I was NOT happy. Monday night was bad again and I honestly thought on Tuesday that I was going to lose my mind. Thankfully the tide started to turn, and we had good naps again yesterday and pretty good sleep last night. It's funny how when we first brought them home we were expecting them to not sleep a lot so it was exhausting but not "want to jump out of your brain with frustration" awful. Now that we KNOW they are capable of sleeping great at night, it is brutal when they don't.

We are looking forward to Pajauskas family Christmas tomorrow! I keep talking to the babies about Santa but I'm 99% sure they have no idea what I'm talking about. Maybe next year? Or the year after that?

We got the rest of our holiday pictures from Katie Ryan and they are awesome! Would have been more awesome if Jake and Abby would crack a smile, but there's always hope for their six month pictures. Enjoy!

Four months old

Happy four month birthday babies!

We celebrated with the longest stretch of sleep we have gotten from one of them yet...Abby went to sleep at 8:00 last night right after her bottle, and had to be woken up at 6:00am this morning to eat! Amazing. Jake is a busy guy these days so he didn't sleep *quite* as much. He is either teething or just fascinated with his hands, because they are constantly in his mouth, which wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that he doesn't like when they knock his pacifier out and he hasn't quite figured out what to do about that. We could prevent that at night by keeping him swaddled, but he is also super close to being able to roll over, so we had to go cold turkey on the swaddling to make sure he doesn't get stuck on his stomach. The result? It takes awhile to get him to go to sleep - because sucking on his hands and trying to roll over is so fun! - and he wakes during the night needing his pacifier replaced. Since we still get significantly more sleep than we were getting a few months ago, we'll take it!

We have a good routine going for our days now, and they are easier now that Jake and Abby wake up without screaming for food immediately. Their awake time stretches are getting longer between naps too - about an hour for Jake, and a little longer than that for Abby. Here's how our days look now, give or take an hour or so:

7:30am - Up for the day. It's so fun to go in their room when I hear their little chirps and see smiling faces!
8:00am - Breakfast bottles. When they came home from the NICU, Abby was taking 2 ounces of milk every 4 hours, and Jake was taking 2.5. Now Abby takes 5 ounces of milk 4 times a day, every 4 hours during the day and 3.5 ounces once overnight, and Jake does the same with 5.5 ounces during the day and 3.5 ounces overnight.
9:00am - Morning nap. This is the easiest nap of the day, especially for Jake who can barely keep his eyes open long enough for me to put him in his swing. See our 4 month photos below for proof - he was NOT happy that I delayed his nap to take these! He passed out within 30 seconds of me putting him down after the pictures were over.
11:30am - Lunch time!
1:00pm - Afternoon nap. I think Abby is going to be a daytime TV fan, because a few times a week she decides that the only way she will take this nap is on the couch with me. Since Jake NEVER sleeps on me, and I like afternoon naps too, I am okay with this.
3:30pm - I like to think of this as Dinner, Part 1. This is usually their longest stretch of awake time during the day so we get some good play time in. I'm excited for "us" to get some new toys for Christmas! Mr. Octopus can only entertain me for so long, but they seem to love it every day.
5:30pm - 3rd nap, usually the shortest and sometimes for one or both babies, practically nonexistent. Since they get two other great naps during the day, and they seem to sleep well at night regardless, I try not to stress about it too much.
7:30pm - Pajamas, then dinner, Part 2, then bed!

Jake's overnight requests for pacifier replacement notwithstanding, we still have some seriously easy babies on our hands which we are grateful for every day. Jeff and I got to experience a first this week - Christmas shopping at Toys R Us! Dear Lord that place is a madhouse. I think when the babies get older I'll leave that part of the Christmas shopping up to Jeff.

We have our four month pediatrician appointment on Friday so we can see how big everyone is - yay! - and get four month shots and December Synagis - boo.

Here we are at four months!

Let the holiday season begin!

Jake and Abby had a great first Thanksgiving. We went to the Downs' house and enjoyed our traditional family Jeopardy, our traditional family argument over Jeopardy (Jim vs. Jeff, Jeff won), and "our team" traditional victory. Jeff and I were busy feeding, changing, and tending to babies, so I'm still not sure exactly how he found time to get in an argument over Jeopardy, but it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it. As always, all hard feelings ended with the game, and we had amazing meal. We cut our holiday short this year to make it home for the babies' bed time, and they rewarded us with their longest sleep of stretch so far, which was great.

Jeff and I stayed up a little later than usual decorating our Christmas tree for our holiday pictures, which we took the day after Thanksgiving. I know I'm biased...but seriously, our kids are adorable. Here are some samples, also appearing in our holiday cards this year!

 

I wish I could say everyone was sunshine and light during the photo shoot...but they would not smile AT ALL. Jake kept spitting up, and I kept saying, "He never does this!" and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, he would spit up again. Katie still got some amazing shots, and you can view some more of them on her blog here. Once we get the full CD, we will upload them to our Shutterfly site.

Which reminds me...we have a Shutterfly site! We started this so that not only can you see all of the pictures we take (although I'm assuming only the grandparents, and possibly my sister, have the patience to sift through hundreds of pictures of our kids) and also buy pictures directly rather than going through us. You can access the site here, and if you have any questions on how to navigate it or use it just let me know.

Now that the Christmas season is officially here, I can't wait to bust out all the Christmas pajamas and take some more cute pictures! The babies get more and more awesome every day. Last night they went to sleep at 8:00 and didn't wake up until...wait for it...4:30am. It was crazy. I got 7 hours of sleep in a row, and Jeff had enough energy to work out today. It feels great to be shaking off the sleep deprivation! Jeff is going out of town this Thursday night, and although I still hate staying in the house by myself (apparently you can still be afraid of the dark at 31 years old), I definitely have taking care of the babies overnight by myself under control. 

Coming up in just over a week...our four month photo shoot!

Sleep, glorious sleep

In case you can't tell by now, I am obsessed with sleep. I think about sleep more than I think about food. Our sleep, the babies' sleep, even Ollie's sleep because it now drives me crazy when he wakes me up in the middle of the night.

We are still having a great run here of only waking up once overnight for a bottle, and our new normal of going to sleep around 9:30 and waking up around 6:30 with only a one hour wake in between for feeding is leaving me feeling great every day. We also survived the magical "six weeks after due date" this past Wednesday, with a little help from Ang since Jeff was out of town. Of course, not everything that Ang did was helpful...

Jake and Abby were in bed around 7 and I fell asleep around 9:30 with Ang watching TV next to me. Abby woke up to eat at midnight, so I fed her and then Jake and Ang slept through the whole thing - I was pretty proud of myself for that. Then at 4:00am, I woke up suddenly to her whispering my name. Here's how the conversation went:

Ang: (Whispering) Dre. Dre.
Me: (Wakes up startled) What? What?
Ang: It's 4:00 and the babies are still sleeping.
Me: So?
Ang: So shouldn't they be awake by now?
Me: They woke up to eat at midnight. You slept through it.
Ang: Oh. Do you think you should check on them?
Me: (Looks at video monitor, everyone is asleep) They're asleep. Did you even look at the video monitor?
Ang: Yes! They weren't moving!
Me: Because they were asleep! And now you have jinxed me and they're going to wake up in 5 minutes.
Ang: But Abby made a noise! I heard it!
Me: I'm going back to sleep.
Ang: (Long pause) Well now I can't go back to sleep. Do you want to talk?
Me: NO. Go back to sleep.

To answer your question Ang, no, Hallmark does not make a "Sorry I woke you up needlessly at 4:00am, new mom of twins" card. But they should. The punishment fit the crime - Ang fed Abby when she woke up at 5:30am while I fed Jake, and then she had to watch me go back to sleep for another 3 hours while she got ready to go to work. (FYI, she did try to hang out with me while she was getting ready, but I was having none of it).

In non-sleep related news, I got my first smiles this week! So now I can breathe easy, both babies' intentional first smiles were directed at me. They have developed a new love for their bouncy seats that have a little bunny rabbit hanging at eye level in front of them, and it's so cute to watch them grin and swat at it. I have some pictures to prove it too!