Happy Halloween!

So I didn't actually get the girls any costumes but I did get them these super-cute shirts from Wal-Mart. Only $3 each!

Claire apparently enjoys licking her sister. In other news, Steve's actually at work today so I feel like a real stay-at-home mom. I've even got dinner in the crock-pot and worked on folding clothes.

When it rains...

Mommy and two babies are all sick. Neither baby wants to eat very much because their noses are stuffed up. On top of that, Claire has had two baths in two days because she got poops all over herself. Then when she got out of the bath, she peed all over her dad. Poor Miss Amelia's nose is so stuffy that she has to breathe through her mouth. Makes it hard to take a bottle. You should all be glad you're not at our house.

Tired Times Two

Read it like Chandler Bing: Could the circles under my eyes BE any bigger?

Despite the under-eye circles, we're all doing well. Poor Miss Claire had to go to the doctor yesterday morning. She had projectile vomited twice in about 36 hours and that seemed like enough to warrant a doctor visit. The doc thinks she has reflux and prescribed Zantac. She also told us to make sure to keep Claire upright for at least 15 minutes after feeding her. It seems to be working, no more projectile vomiting since yesterday morning.

Unfortunately when she puked, I was holding her and it got ALL over me. She did the same thing to Steve the night before except that she pooped and peed on him too. Poor guy.

Today is BEAUTIFUL! We have all the windows open and are enjoying being able to hear all the birds and stuff. I absolutely LOVE fall! Fall and Spring are my favorite times of year. I just love knowing that Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming. This year, I wasn't planning on dressing the girls up for Halloween- they're still so small that I don't think I could find a costume to fit them anyway. But then I saw some costumes on etsy.com (if you don't know about Etsy, you should check it out- all things handmade! Its one of my favorite websites) that I'm pretty sure I could reproduce with very little effort. I don't know. They're still so small that it hardly seems worth it. We'll see... It probably depends on whether I'm able to order what I need fairly cheaply online. I am definitely not up to shopping all over town to find the right fabric and things.

Lots of Photos!

Last week, the girls got their first tub baths. As you can see, we cheated a little about Claire's umbilical cord. It was just hanging by a thread so I figured it was fine to go ahead and give her a bath. She kind of looks like she doesn't trust me but both girls actually like getting baths so far. They just don't like it when you get them out. I guess it makes them cold.

Amelia doesn't seem to mind her dad giving her a bath. She's a sweet baby. After their baths, we let the girls relax on one of the quilts that my mom made them.

As you can see, there's not much the girls have that's not pink. While we were in Birmingham last weekend, the girls got to meet their big cousin Leighton. He is their only cousin for now.

Leighton very sweetly petted Claire's hair. Otherwise he pretty much ignored them. He's not quite 11 months old yet so he's not too interested in babies. He still is one! This week the girls have had a little bit of tummy time. Amelia went first-

Both girls' neck muscles are getting a lot stronger- they like to pick up their heads and move them around to look at things.

Today we took the girls to the Botanical Gardens to celebrate their one month birthday. They, of course, slept through the whole thing but we had fun. Whenever we go anywhere with both babies, its like being a celebrity. People always want to talk to us, follow us around and ask us questions. I have renewed respect for people who are hounded by the paparazzi. I mean, they bring it on themselves in a way but still... Today at the Gardens, one of the workers drove by in her golf cart and spoke to us. Then 15 minutes later she was back with her daughter to show her the cute twins. And they are cute! The other thing about having twins is that everyone wants to start pulling twins out of their family tree to tell you about. "My great-aunt Ethel's son's girl Shelley has twins!" And I never know what to say to that because I don't care. I usually go with "Oh that's nice..." and try to keep moving. I'm thinking of getting a shirt that says-

Yes, they are twins.

Yes, they're both girls.

They're one month old.

They weigh about 6 pounds each.

Thank you for your interest. I'm trying to enjoy some time out with my family. If you are interested in twins and what that's like, please ask your great-aunt Ethel about her granddaughter's twins. Thanks!

Its not that I think people are really trying to be bothersome or anything like that, it just gets tiring. Anyway, at the Gardens today, they were having an exhibit (for lack of a better word). People and businesses in the community could put up "scarecrows" for Halloween and some of them were pretty funny. Here are some of my favorites.

 

The Head Chef

Lady Gaga

Not really sure what this is...

Claire enjoying the ride.

Kind of sad

I'm kind of sad for a friend right now. Its not that anything bad happened to her, no one died or anything like that. Its just that she's going through a hard time and I know how she feels. BTDT. But I'm not sure if I'm supposed to know so I can't really call her to talk about it either.

Too I'm sad for my little Claire- she just threw up a lot. I thought we were getting over that. Added to that, I'm also a little sad because I see us making an inevitable slide towards more and more formula. The nursing is not going well and I don't really have the energy to work on it like we should. I know what I need to do, or at least I think I do, but I just don't have the energy or the will to do it.

I feel resentful of the staff at the hospital because I feel like we were set up for failure. I don't know how much is my fault- I had that spinal headache for 4 days and couldn't have taken care of my girls anyway. But I really feel that they weren't supportive of our breastfeeding relationship. It was undermined so early and often that I didn't even get a chance at a good start. And maybe that's my fault for not pushing harder. But I was so sick the first 4 days and without my husband after the first day... Well, it is what it is. The girls are never going to be good nursers and I'm never going to do what it would take to make them be. I know babies grow just fine on formula and I'm still pumping to give them as much breastmilk as I can...

This is such a downer of a post. Things are actually going really well here. The girls' umbilical cords finally fell off so they've had a few baths now. Thank goodness. They even each had a shower. I took them in the shower with me when we were out of town over the weekend. They really like it. We were in Birmingham to see Steve's grandfather. He's doing really poorly- he had to be put on hospice recently and he's not expected to make it much longer. Steve wanted him to see the babies before he goes.

While we were in Birmingham, we had the girls' pictures made. We just went to Portrait Innovations, nothing fancy. They came out ok. I mean, the girls are only 3 weeks old so I couldn't expect much from them. Here are some of the better (or more interesting) ones.

                                                                        Family Shot

We didn't order this one- there was one pretty similar that was better. I just thought it was cute how Claire is yawning.

                                                   Amelia is telling Claire a big secret.

I made the girls' outfits. We got a few cute individual shots of each girl. Little sweetie pies! The girls are doing really well and growing like weeds. Amelia is over six pounds and Claire isn't too far behind.
I'm so proud of my big pretty girls!

We're official!

 Well, the girls are official- I got their Social Security Cards in the mail today. You would think twins would just be one number off from each other but they're not. The cards were the first pieces of mail that the children have received. It was kind of weird to fish something out of the mailbox addressed to my babies! I guess their birth certificates won't be too far behind.

I'm kind of excited- now we can set up savings accounts for the girls!

Its good to be home!

We have been home from the hospital for over a week now. I don't think there is anything like spending 24 hours a day in a hospital with your babies for 9 days straight to make you appreciate being at home. And we had it so easy. Some babies have to stay in the NICU for 100+ days. We were so lucky. Our girls were in the NICU for less than one day (about 12 or 14 hours) and then spent the rest of their time in the Continuing Care Nursery.

When we got home, on of my first priorities was to give the girls a bath. They hadn't been bathed since they were born and they seemed dirty to me. They still (!) have their umbilical cord stumps so all they can get is sponge baths for now but those stumps are almost ready to come off. Here are some pictures of the very first bath. Miss Amelia:

And Miss Claire:

 

 

They aren't the biggest fans of bath time but they have both done pretty well. They've had a few more baths since this first one. They don't particularly like being bathed but they seem to really enjoy having their hair washed. And they just smell so GOOD afterward! I can't wait until their belly-buttons are ready so they can have a real bath.

Here's something you didn't know about preemies- they grunt. A lot. And sometimes they hum. Its really cute when they hum. The grunting kind of makes you feel bad for them. We had to stop sleeping in the same room with the babies because they were making so much noise that we couldn't get any sleep. Its caused by an immature nervous system but it just makes Mommy nervous. Now we sleep across the hall from the nursery in the guest bedroom. That way we can hear the girls if they cry but not hear every grunt and hum. I wish I had a video to post.

(FYI The next paragraph discusses nursing and breastmilk. So if that's TMI, skip to the bottom)

Feeding the girls is still our main challenge. They are both getting lots of breastmilk but we are still working on actually nursing. So that we can actually get some sleep, we are nursing during the day and doing bottles of breastmilk at night. The good thing about the bottles- it takes them about 10 minutes to finish a bottle. When they nurse... it takes them about 40 minutes each. Each! Theoretically I can nurse them both together but its a challenge. Since they don't have much head control it makes it hard. I have come to realize that I care more about them getting breastmilk than actually nursing. So lots of pumping going on over here.  Amelia is our little piggy. She gulps and gulps no matter what you give her. That girl loves to eat! Claire takes her time more and she spits up more. I don't know if she's more gassy or what. The spitting up has really increased the last 2 days. But she seems happy.

My biggest personal challenge is trying not to feel like a bad mom. I feel bad that I can't do everything for each girl that I would be able to do if they weren't twins. But they are healthy and happy so I guess we're doing fine.

When the girls were born, my mom said they didn't look like me at all, but she just informed me that after looking at my baby pictures, Claire looks like me. So maybe she's not the mailman's child after all.