Grunt 'n' Squeak

Time Flies

I can't believe that we are nearing the boys' 6 month birthday.  They are such amazing creatures!  And this journey has been far more difficult, and far more rewarding than I ever believed it could be.

This past month has been a little difficult, the boys have been sick with RSV, not a happy thing, but they are weathering it well, all things considered.  I'm continually grateful that they are strong and healthy enough to take on this nasty cold.  Their mommas are feeling sick as well, and we are all exhausted from fighting this bug for over three weeks now.  We keep wondering when it will end, and quit morphing into new and bizarre snot life. 

In better news, Amy is becoming official mommy on March 4th.  We were able to get her guardianship established in December, just in time to take advantage of the tax breaks.  And we got the wonderful news that our judge for that hearing would go ahead and allow a second parent adoption.  After another month of scrambling to come up with lawyer fees, we were able to apply for the second parent adoption, and our hearing date is coming up soon.  She is such a great mom, and she deserves to have the rest of the word recognize her as such.  I love you my darling, and I'm so glad that everyone will know on public record that you have two beautiful sons who love you dearly.  And who would want to deny these cute faces anyhow?

It takes a village

Last week we went on a wonderful trip back home to Salt Lake to introduce the boys to their long-distance village.  We had such a great trip, with quality time seeing everybody, and it was a huge sigh of relief to have enough hands around to take care of the babies with the kind of attention and devotion that each one deserves for once.

You'd think that two parents would be enough for raising twins.  Really I think you need four, at least in the beginning.  Think about it...if one couple has one baby that leaves two pairs of hands for taking care of that baby.   One pair of hands can be consumed by the baby, while the other pair is free to do things around the house, like pick up the mess, and make dinner, and do otherwise useful non-baby things.  With twins, both of you are occupied with baby, and no one is left with free hands to do those other things.  I pointed this out to Amy and noted that we really need four of us.  She was wondering why three people wouldn't do, and I have decided that really, it takes four.  The ratio is just better.

This parenting thing has been so much harder that I ever imagined it to be.  And I'm sad to say that it really is just because there are two babies, and only one of me.  Poor Amy spends so much time working, so we can survive, and the long hours are exhausting for her I am sure.  That means that I spend all of my day and most of the night taking care of the babies with little down time.  I'm torn about not being able to take care of all their needs at the same time, and having to let them cry more than one little baby should have to.  Our trip home was such a wonderful break, having more people around for support.  My mother is a wonderful grandmother and baby sitter, and my sister is also a wonderful mother and aunt.  If I could only get them to move here...or if I could only get the housing market her to make a drastic turn-around so we could sell out at a gigantic profit and move back to where our family lives. 

As hard as it is, these two little guys are just so worth it!

Ben was such a great traveler, we even got a few smiles out of him on the way.

Grayson was adorable as well.

And here are a bunch more from our time there:

My sister Jen, and her daughter Mary above

Baby fest 2007, Us with Amy's cousins and their children

Halloween

So we had good plans to dress the boys up in their costumes and take them to the neighbors' houses for Halloween.  It never happened.  Amy had some stuff come up at work, and she ended up not making it home until after 8 pm.  I had juggled two crying boys and the doorbell all night, and by the time she made it home, I didn't have it in me to wrestle the boys into their costumes and take them out.  So their first Halloween was more or less a bust. They are too little to care, but I was kinda bummed.  Therefore, we look forward to next Halloween, where their costumes are planned, and yesterday I found the perfect component at the yarn store for it.  So I bought two kits to make adorable boots for future lawn gnomes.  Ha!  They are going to be so incredibly cute next year.

In better news, we are happily looking forward to a trip to Salt Lake to see all our family, and most importantly, take advantage of the plentiful baby sitters.  This week has been incredibly long, doing the SAHM thing, and after a seriou melt-down on all our parts last night waiting for Amy to come home and rescue us, this vacation couldn't start soon enough.   We are excited to see Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Vergil again, and the rest of the family.  But I know Grandma Kathy is particularly looking forward to seeing them.  She is going to be amazed how big they've gotten.  Wish us luck driving there...we are hoping for a drive less than 10 hours logn. 

Holy Crap, You're Cute!

So when my sister Jenny was in town after the boys were born, she heard Amy say to one of the boys "Holy crap you're cute!"  It made Jenny laugh to hear her put it that way, but it's true, and here's the proof:

 

We took the boys to get pictures taken of their Halloween costumes.  For the first half an hour, it was fun, but then it just got tedious for all involved.  Six-week old children are not easy to photograph.  They don't smile on command, if at all, and they can't sit up.  Mostly they cry, and must be heavily manipulated by their persistant mothers to get something decent.  And it doesn't help that there are two of them.  If one isn't crying and is looking in the right direction, it is inevitable that the other one is doing something to ruin the shot.  We got a few decent ones, though, and are so excited about their cute costumes. 

Happy Halloween!

Red or not?

**edited to note that this post was really written on the 9th, but it took me this long to upload the picture for it.  I'm a dork, and I'm busy, what can I say.

Every day I look at the boys I try to decide what color their hair will be.  I am bouncing back and forth between red and blonde, though the truth will probably lie somewhere inbetween those two.  I'm pretty sure in most of their pictures what little hair they have looks fairly blonde, but then a picture like this creeps in, and there is no denying how red those little tufts look.

We took the boys to Costco yesterday.  That was a fun adventure.  They behaved well...stayed asleep the whole time, but it was a fun little exercise in "guess who's the mommy".  I was pushing the cart, and Amy was pushing the stroller.  Twins just naturally attract a little extra attention, and it was  fascinating watching women approach Amy to take a peek in the stroller and ask her all about her beautiful babies.  It's a little bit strange taking that back seat as far as the role of "mom" goes, when I have been the focus of all the mom attention up until now, just by default.  I have to admit that there is some internal struggle when you want your partner to truly be embraced and a full-fledged mommy by herself and others, but you also want to jump in and get that credit for having carried those twins, gone through the birth, and now are the one with the nipples that look like ground hamburger.  I did my best to let her field the baby questions, to let her be the mom, and to bask in the pride that I have in our family.  She did a wonderful job showing off our children and 

Two cute for words....

...which is good, because I haven't had enough sleep to put together a post that makes a bit of sense.  The boys are not sleeping regularly at night.  It's possible they've hit some sort of growth spurt that is making them hungry pretty much every fifteen minutes, and all that nursing is taking its toll on my sleep and on my already-sensitive baby-feeding girly parts.  It also doesn't help that poor Amy still has to go to work and function behind the wheel of a very big truck most days.  So I do my very best to let her get sleep while I work on feeding and settling the boys.  I still have to get her up to help me when one or the other of them starts wailing while I'm glued to his brother, trying to get a feeding done.  She's pretty good at popping a binky in their mouths and cuddling them in bed until they both fall asleep again.  Then when I get the first one settled, I'm able to steal the second one away from her to start the process all over again. I can't imagine the monumental amount of sleep mothers of singletons must get!

I've had to give in and feed them a bit more formula the last couple of days, either because they seem to be starving despite my best breastfeeding efforts, or because I'm so sore and exhausted that I just need a fast and easy way to get them what they need.  This tends to work well with Ben who seems to go back and forth fairly seemlessly between the bottle and the breast.  Grayson, on the other hand, seems to have a hard time with the switch.  If I get a good latch with him a couple of times on the breast, he can't seem to figure out how to suck the stuff out of the bottle.  And once he catches on to the bottle well, he seems to have a hard time getting latched on the next time I breastfeed him.  I'm hoping this will improve with age and size, because it really is a big help to be able to pass them off to someone else to get them fed once in a while. But I don't want to give up on the breastfeeding just yet, either. 

In other news, we are shopping for health insurance for me and the boys.  Amy already has a private insurance plan, but of course we can't be added to her plan as family members, what with the no marriage business.  This wouldn't be a big deal, except that this means we have one deductible for her, one for me, and one for the boys if we buy another private family plan for me and the boys.  I added the boys to my Cobra coverage, and the premium went up to $825 a month!  So there is pretty much no way that we will be able to afford that for any length of time.  Not to mention the fact that Cobra is only a short-term solution, for it will run out eventually.  So we are shopping for a plan, and hopefully will be able to find coverage and not have to change doctors once we make the switch.  I think I've found a network that has the boy's doc and my OB/GYN, both of whom I love love love.  The boys doc is the main concern right now.  I don't want to switch from the pediatrician we chose, because he really is great.  So hopefully I will have good news about the insurance front soon.  Not that forking over hundreds of dollars a month is good news, but I want coverage, ya know?

 

 

All things baby!

Welcome to Ben and Grayson's new blog!  Well, mostly this is to keep family and friends up to date, and finally separate the content of my other (knitting) blog from all things baby.  There's no more maybe baby, and now it's all about the kiddos here, so tune in for pics and my thoughts on mothering twins, being a two-mommie household, and more pics.

Here's Ben's first bath, after officially becoming Ben "unplugged".  He lost his cord finally and we promptly stuck him in the tub.  He didn't really know what to think, until he decided that it was definitely not for him.  I'm hoping he hasn't established a pattern here. 

Grayson wasn't so sure of bath time either, but I'm hoping it will get more fun for them as they get older and they can interact more, and play with the million bath toys that we got from our showers.

The boys are almost three weeks old and I can't believe how fast the time has flown, and how much they have changed in just that short time.  From day one they are so distinct in their own little personalities and never fail to assert themselves as their own little people.  They are truly amazing, and exhausting, and wonderful. 

Ben is known as Li'l Grunt.  This name comes from all the cute noises he makes, while sleeping, nursing, and taking life in.  He makes little grunty noises that just melt my heart.  He's my fussy little man, who is only consolable if he's being held.  He loves being in our arms, and wants to be loved on and rocked at all times.  If he's laying down, he certainly wants his brother by his side to keep him company.

Grayson is known as Li'l Squeak.  All of the noises that he makes, while sleeping, nursing and checking everyone out, sound like squeaks.  Even his cry is more of a squawk than a cry.  While he, too, loves being held and rocked by anyone willing to pick him up, he's also more laid-back and okay to be awake and on his own. He has an incredibly sweet soul that just lights up my whole day (and night).

I couldn't be more in love with these little guys, or more exhausted.  I can't believe how often they need to eat!  And I can't believe that no matter how much they keep me awake at night, I still love them to death and want to jump out of bed to take care of them when they need me.   Now if only I could grow an extra set of arms to hold them both when they cry at the same time.