Three x Christmas

In 2008 I was in this upstate country house crying because I'd found out on Christmas Day I wasn't pregnant (again). My MIL never offered a single word of sympathy or even acknowledged it.

In 2009 I was hospitalized the day after Christmas and we prepared to have 32 week preemie twins. Other than the fact that I was released after New Year's and the twins stayed put, the best part of the holidays was staying in NYC and not having to deal with my MIL.

This year, 2010, was supposed to be mine. Our first Christmas with Grunter and Whoop Whoop. The first Christmas as a new family. Instead, I was degraded and spoken rudely to by my MIL every single day--to the point that other family members were noticing and making comments about how rude she was being to me and she really should stop.

My MIL got drunk to the point of puking on both Xmas Eve and Xmas. She was of no help the following mornings in her non-child proofed house because she was so hung over.

She was often irritated with my babies because they were crying around her. Their cousin, Luke, is 10 days older and very chilled out. All we heard were comparisons to Luke-whom she favors-to the point I almost screamed to her that my boys aren't Luke and they never will be so just Shut Up. But I held my tongue. For three days I walked around avoiding her, emotionally and mentally "checked out" in order to protect myself.

And then came the blizzard. And we were stuck there another day.

Before we left Chicken agreed that if her mother was rude to me again, she would stand up for me. She did not.

I took the stockings off the mantle this morning and packed them in my suitcase. I don't know where we will be spending the holidays next year, but it won't be there.

My boys deserve better. They are the light and joy of my life. I want more for them. I deserve better.
We're thinking a nice holiday beach vacation next year.
Christmas in Mexico sounds lovely.
Even Christmas with my family would be great after this and that's saying ALOT.

Hope your holidays were wonderful. I can't wait to get home.

This was not the Christmas I dreamed of, but all I can do is move forward and make next year better.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Santa Babies

We always thought it would be the other way around, but no.

It's Grunter who seems to be the dominant one...

I love these shots. They are so typical of twin life!

House of Puke and Poop

A nasty little virus has been working its way around--I know some of you got bit and man, oh man, it chewed its way all through our house.

First Grunter started puking last Sunday night. He threw up again on Monday morning and then had some glorious poo all day long.

Unfortunately, Sunday night was the first night I'd gone to an adult party by myself (well, I went with a friend) since the twins were born. I came home at 10:30pm and both babies were crying which does.not.happen. in this house. Poor Chicken had a huge important business meeting the next day and could not help me out that night and let me tell you--I was pretty much up ALL night.

The nanny had finals on Monday so it was just me and two sick kids. It hadn't hit W2 full on yet, but wow, that was the roughest day in memory. Taking care of two sickies is hard, hard work.

Tuesday Grunter was feeling marginally better and W2 was puking and pooing. Thankfully that day I had some backup help.

Wednesday, I woke up yes, puking and pooing. HN and Chicken took over all day because I was completely useless. I couldn't keep any liquid down and forget about food. It took all of my energy just to get to the bathroom. I couldn't stay upright to even breast feed and there was no pumping (secretly I was happy about that part). That day made Monday seem like a walk in the park. After 24 hours I was finally able to eat something and keep it down. My milk supply plummeted and has yet to be back to normal. To top it off, the day before I got sick I had finally made it to my first full on pilates class since the twins were born so pretty much every muscle in my body was killing me. Good times.

Thursday: Oh yes, Chicken. Thankfully, she only had a single puke. But, this virus just kills you with the fatigue. We both spent most of the day in bed and had HN stay late.

By Friday, we were both starting to feel better but truthfully we could've stayed all day in bed.

We still had no appetite and very little energy.

On Saturday, I 'thought' about leaving the house, but didn't make it.

Sunday, we all finally made it out of the house. It was the first time out in four days for me and five days for the boys.

To say we were all going a bit stir crazy is putting it mildly.

Yesterday, I finally felt like my normal self again. It took five days!

Just like childbirth or sleep deprivation, there is NO way to explain how completely miserable an experience it is to be sick AND have to take care of sick kids (or just kids, period). It's horrible. I never want to do it again. And I know I will, but I hope not for awhile.

We're all good now and back to having fun. I just hope we can all stay healthy to enjoy the holidays!

Hope you are all healthy and had a better week than the house of PufferPuke.

Santa Lady

Classic

PS--and yes, Santa was a lady.

Couch Surfing

No, not that couch surfing, though sans kiddos, I'd probably be down with that.

What I'm talking about is our couch.

Since the babes have been born, there have been many times that Chicken or myself have found ourselves seeking the solace of a place to sleep far from the babies. In a one bedroom NYC apartment, the living room couch is about as far as it gets.

We've taken turns for the past 10 months--whoever needs it the most gets it. Since Chicken has returned to work, she's needed it the most. While we both need brainpower to get through the day, her brain needs to function enough to make money where mine just needs to function enough to entertain the twins and get through the day intact. Different functions for sure.

As a result, there are months where we haven't slept in the same bed!

It also made more sense for me to sleep in the bedroom since I am breastfeeding (and, I LOVE my bed!).

However, these past couple of months we've had a pattern of sleep regression from Grunter that really doesn't seem to be getting any better. (No problems with W2. Thank god our colicy baby is finally giving us a break!) Teething? Sick?

We mentioned it to our pediatrician and he said (as all other twin moms told us),

"Let him fuss it out. He needs to know that 4:30/5/5:30am is not an acceptable hour to get up. He'll learn, but you have to stick with it." (unless he's sick of course)

Oy. Then I mentioned that the crib is a mere 20 inches from my head and his reply was, "Oh. Good luck with that."

Basically they are both so aware now that it's getting impossible for me to get a good night's sleep in the same room as them. When he wakes up in the middle of the night (for whatever reason) he can smell me (the milk) and once his eyes adjust to the dark he can see me and he WANTS me.

Brings a whole new meaning to the song, "Don't You Want Me, Baby?"

When he starts fussing at 3am, my whole body goes into alert stage and I'm scared to move because he'll HEAR me and then he'll really wake up. My blood pressure sky rockets and I start sweating. It's quite unhealthy, I'm sure. By this point, I'm just laying there playing 'dead' waiting until it's all quiet on the baby front so I can move again. It wakes you up. Completely.

So completely that I can't remember the number of nights I've been awake since 3am or 4 am, etc, etc. It's all so very, very blurry.

Finally, after a truly heinous stint last week, Chicken suggested we pull out the sofa bed and start sleeping in the living room. I hate our sofa bed and balked saying I wouldn't get a good night's sleep. But I did it. And then I did it again, because the little stinkers slept until 6am. And I did it again and they slept til 5:30 and I did it again and they slept until almost 6:30....

If they are fussing any earlier, we aren't hearing it and while I was a little freaked out the first couple of nights because I couldn't hear every move they made, I relaxed a bit after that. We don't have a monitor and I've learned to just chill. I don't need to hear every move and every whimper. If they are really crying, I will hear that and that's the crying that matters. I have to remember that our mothers raised all of us without monitors and it was all OK.

So, we're on the 6th night now and I think this is what we're going to be doing for awhile.

We are BOTH getting the solid, elusive stretch of uninterrupted sleep that we so desperately needed and I am feeling SO much better.

It's our ghetto murphy bed. And I'm OK with that if it gets me sleep.

Someday, I'll sleep in my own bed again with my wife.

But for now, I'll just take sleep, period.

Sweet, sweet SLEEP!

One Giant Boob Doing the Goat

At a time when it seems some babies are starting to wean....I am feeling like a giant boob ALL the time. Im thrilled that they love to breastfeed so much....but it's a little problematic that they want to do it SO much.

These days, when I walk into the room, they shriek and crawl to me. When I'm down on the ground with them, they rip at my shirt and cry until I lift it up.

I've perfected what we call "doing the goat". As I've mentioned before, now that they can crawl to me to eat, I feel like I am feeding baby goats.

Well, now I have figured out that I can sit in my Lazy Boy with one baby on my lap facing me, the other baby has now crawled over to the chair because he KNOWS it's goat time and he's not going to miss out on the booby, I lean over--while holding on to the first baby--and somehow lift up baby #2. Now I've got them both on my lap, their legs are straddling mine and they--quite literally--dive in with great gusto.

There is a lot of diving in, pulling off, examining the nipple with great concentration usually in the form of twisting, diving back on, reaching over to make sure the brother is still there, poking a finger in the brother's ear, pulling the ear, pulling the hair, slapping my chest, pulling off, looking around, smiling at me, diving back on again...

You get the idea. It is anything BUT calm, but damn it's cute!

They also know the words "goat" and "magic booby" and you don't want to say those words out loud unless you mean it!

Here we are doing the "goat". You can't even tell I'm breastfeeding, can you?

I've also started a bad habit late in the game....I've been (sometimes) nursing Whoop Whoop to sleep for his morning nap. He was having such a hard time with the standing in the crib I felt so bad for him...then came the virus last week (they are all better now, it wasn't that bad thank goodness) and now, well, um...

He likes it! I like it! He naps! I nap! It's a win-win situation.

We put them both down for their morning nap around 8:30 (yes, they are still very early morning risers) and while Grunter usually 'gets it' within 10 minutes and is fast asleep, Whoop Whoop sometimes does and sometimes doesn't.

Since I can't nap in the room with them anymore (they are too aware that I am there and just cry, cry, cry) I sometimes take a nap on the sofa. But, if W2 is crying too long, I just go in the bedroom, scoop him up and take him to bed with me.

We snuggle in, he nurses happily and if I'm lucky I nap, too.

He takes a much longer nap this way and I love that he's so content. There's nothing like a baby in your bed waking up, smiling at you with sleepy eyes and opening his mouth wide for more booby. This kid has turned into quite the boob man. He wants it all the time and I admit, I just can't say no.

They are growing up so fast and I just want to hold on to as much baby snuggly goodness as I can, any way I can.

Maniacal Jack in the Box and Other News

Or rather our maniacal Whoop Whoop in the Crib....he just keeps popping up!

But, he finally figured out how to get down...two weeks later. Yes, two weeks, for every nap and almost every night time, he did not sit down/lay down on his own, but stood in his crib wailing. I think that added up to about 30 extra hours of crying. I'm not kidding.

I went in one day and he was crying while standing up, with his head on the rail, snot and tears flowing....It was the SADDEST thing I've ever seen. But when I helped him down, he just got up again. You cannot make a baby lay down who does not want to lay down.

It got so bad that the day before Thanksgiving we took him to the pediatrician's thinking maybe something was really wrong. He smiled kindly at us and told us to leave him, stop rescuing him and he would learn how to get down.

"But how long do we let him cry?"

"Well, he's not going to cry for 2 hours."

Chicken and I look at each other.

"No, but he can cry for the entire hour of nap time and refuse to lay down no matter how many times we help him. He just pops back up."

"Really? An hour? Well, I'd say he's a very smart and very stubborn little boy. You're going to have your hands full with this kid and he is going to test you. Starting now."

Boy, you aren't kidding. Both of these babies are s.t.u.b.b.o.r.n.

Until you have a baby like that, you just don't get it! Our mothers didn't. Then, they were like...oh. You weren't like that. Blame it on the donor!

He doesn't look that stubborn, does he?

In addition to the crib antics, he also had a cold he was fighting. Oh, it was bad.

We went away for Thanksgiving to BigGayDad's BigGayBF's house. We were able to catch up with a lot of family members and make ourselves crazy trying to wrangle very mobile twins in a house filled with burning fireplaces, priceless antiques and a massive amount of electrical cords. Oh, and a big dog that terrified W2. Good Times!

I managed to make a pumpkin pie which was delicious and a batch of brie/buttermilk/chive biscuits and they...well, you should never try to make biscuits "healthier" with whole wheat flour but make them as God intended with blasted white flour. And...they don't travel and reheat well. So, we basically had hockey pucks. How embarrassing.

I only got four hours of sleep that night because the guest bed in this house is the kind that ensures guests only want to stay one night. I battle so many sleep problems in my own bed (a tempurpedic, which I love) that I really dread sleeping in other's beds. My bed has spoiled me for all other beds.

We managed to time the car rides perfectly and the boys mostly slept the entire way there and back during their afternoon 'nap time' AND we didn't hit any traffic. Very grateful for that!

Unfortunately the day after we got back Grunter woke up with a fever of almost 104. It ran for 24 hours and 2 days later....Whoop Whoop got it, again for only 24 hours. Then we noticed the blisters forming on Grunter's hands and his crankiness and their general lack of appetite. Dr. Google had us suspecting, but pediatrician confirmed, we've got a case of Coxsackie Virus, the hand, foot and mouth kind. We must've gotten it from music class...it's the only place we've been with other kids.

I imagine we'll start seeing the blisters on W2 any day now....

There's nothing to do except try to make them comfortable and give them whatever they want to eat--which seems to be Greek yogurt and fruit.

All they want to do is breastfeed. One Saturday I started breastfeeding every hour at 4am. On Sunday it was 2:30am. On Monday, it started at 11:30pm. Last night, 4:15am. My nips are the sorest they've been since early newborn days. These poor babies just feel miserable and I'm so tired I'm dizzy.

We will get by. We can do this. But I'm really ready for my healthy, happy babies to be back in my arms.

Hope everyone had a great holiday. I didn't make NamBlo this time...but it wasn't for lack of topics to post! Oh, I've still got things to say!