hedgehogs!

 

 

 

 

 

So, yes the boys got two costumes. We originally were going to do calvin and hobbes, but I felt bad that I only made one of them an outfit. Then I found a cute idea of hedgehogs and had to do it!

Happy Halloween! (a little early...)

G is hobbes, and C is Calvin (of course!)

This may not be their only costume... more on that soon.

I only made the Calvin outfit. I found the tiger outfit at a thrift store in Aug and had to get it. 

"I dunno How do you do it!"

"I dunno how you do it with two!" 

This is a question that I run into almost on a daily bases now. I know the people that say this will never read this, but for my own need I am going to answer this here. :)

Here is what our day is like. (Probably with more detail then you like!) 

Its hard to say when the day begins, but for the sake of this lets say 5am. Its around this time that the kids want more food again. Typically its Marcus that gets up and takes care of it. I am awake though, because I have to pump. I do try (but often fail) to cover the rest of the night, so he takes this one. He will feed them then hang out for a while making sure they fall back asleep before he jumps in the shower. 99% they don't fall back to sleep so into the bed they come. 

They are super cute at this hour, and I don't really fully appreciate their cuteness. Instead they lay next to me on our huge bed kicking and squirming while I attempt to fall back asleep. As I drift off, they decide cute time is over and they need their pacifiers back in their mouths so they can go back to sleep. So I listen to them make all sorts of sounds for a while and help sooth them back to sleep as we approach 6/6:30. Eventually we are all back to sleep and on really great mornings we will sleep until 8:30 when one of them decides its now morning and we must get up and play. And on not so great mornings, I will have been up since 3:30 dealing with them and want to murder them by this point. 

So off we go to the computer room. Typically they want more to eat so they get a meal. They get feed one at a time and whoever is the loudest gets first dibs. (If they are both loud, then I try to make two bottles and place them in seats that I can feed them in.) Between feeding two kids this is about an 30-45 minute event. Once all is settled I proceed to turn on some awful day time television, eat my cereal, and check my e-mail and take care of computer things (costume/etsy stuff, pay bills, make calls, etc) while the boys play with their toys. All the while I am pumping. (this consumes my life!! Guess what I am doing right now :).... ) The morning time is where I can get the most time uninterrupted so I try to get important things done.

Around 10/11am (depending on the time we got up) they are getting cranky again and need anther bottle. And then off they go to the swing or bouncing chair for a nap. Unless I have errands to run and then we do that and they nap in the car. Once they are down for a nap, I run to the kitchen cause I only have 15 minutes and I eat everything I can find. Oh, I also wash all the bottles.

By the time I have done this nap time is over. Back to rotating between toys. 

The Race car chair

The boppy lounger

The play mat

The activity center

The Johnny jumper (not used a whole lot yet)

And when all else fails.. to the bath tub we go!

The game of rotating continues until they cry enough that I figure out they are hungry. Which these days seems like all the time. And then after I feed them they are still crying cause they are tired. So I will walk around the house with one while the other is in the swing. Its getting easier to figure them out at this point. The hard part is if I want to get something done that has to be done standing (ie- cook, wash dishes, sew, vaccum, etc) it can be a challenge. If I leave them for long they end up fussing a lot. At the computer I can hold one and bounce the other in a chair. So getting costumes done was hard and frustrating at times. I hope one day they like to take longer naps. (Disclaimer: Some days they do take longer naps, but never at the same time)

When all else fails, I get on the floor and play with them until they crash

Then we wait until marcus gets home... 

Once he is home, around 6pm, we cook dinner together, or one has the kids and the other one is cooking. By the time we finish eating and feed the kids again, they start to relax and crash (around 7). So then we can clean up the kitchen, do the dishes, and then head to bed or get other things done. 

The house is not always clean (see table in the picture below), but its easy to do a quick run through. We try to keep up with it so that it doesn't become too much. Though with me doing more costumes, I did let it go some. And I am now entertaining the idea of having someone over once a week for 3 hours to hang out with the kids while I take care of anything that hasn't gotten done yet. 

Then once everything is taken care of we go to bed... sometimes at 7:30pm. 

The kids are still not sleeping through the night, but for the most part have more good nights then bad. We can get the occasional 4-5 hours of sleep. But when we have a bad night, we are up every half hour or hour. Usually one of us will do it for a few hours, then the other person will get up. Lucky, the kids never scream all night. They just want their pacifier back and so we have to go back in and put it in. And as they are learning to roll over, they are getting on their tummies and are confused and sleepy and need us to turn them back over. 

That's kind of a quick run through of what our day looks like. But I feel as though I neglected some feedings, so just think I feed them every 2-3 hours during the day. And at the same point pump too. Between those two things, that take a minimum of an hour. That's not including washing everything that I need too. And when they eat every two hours- It leaves very little time. (Disclosure- I DO NOT pump every 2 hours. I could barely handle three, so its somewhere between every 3-6 hours. I am much happier with this arrangement and have continue to provide breast milk much longer then I would have if I had to pump every 3 hours or less) 

So some other tricks I use- 

I have arrange so that we have guest spread out so that I can have breaks occasionally. 

These rock n plays where a life safer the first couple of months. They slept great in them and they also were very easy to travel with. We still travel with them actually. 

If I can't settle them down or both are screaming. To the car we go and we drive around until they are asleep and I then go to a drive thru starbucks and get coffee :)

The stroller has worked too, but its now getting too cold to do that. And if they are screaming too much its sort of embarrassing to be out walking with them. Though they don't scream unless they want something when they are in the stroller. 

Though nothing is worse then running errands and they decide the car is lame and scream until you get home. This is rare, but does happen. At which point I pull over and feed them and re-pacifier them and try again. You just learn to be prepare-- always have food and a pacifier-- and be flexible. I don't start driving if I can tell they are going to be hungry. I make sure our bellies are full first!

The green pacifier leashes have been a life saver! When the kids were younger, they loved spitting the pacifiers out... well they still do.. and I spend half my time bent over picking them up and washing them. (You would think with all that bending I would have an awesome 6-pack already... but no) Well no more! And its harder to leave the house without them since they are attach to them. At night its easier to find them as well. In the car, its easier to reach back there and find them too. Everything is easier with them since the kids calm down so much when they are sucking on it. 

Maybe we just don't know better since we have never had one kid. But life really isn't that bad. Yes, I have my moments where I complain to marcus that the kids are going crazy and I can't take it. However, when I just have patience and wait it out it usually will pass. One of the harder parts of caring all day for them, is that I have limited adult interaction! I am looking forward to when they are old enough to play in a park and I can go to play dates with other parents so I can have more adult interactions.

We do wonder what it is like to have one. And what different challenges it poses... We do like that they have a built in friend and hopefully they will be great friends that will entertain each other soon. (And we dream about how they never get in trouble together...)

I am sure I will have to revisit this topic as the kids become more mobile. I am sure I will be eating my words. But 5 months in and this is how it is. 

Sneak Peak

... Testing the costume out! 

What?!? 5 months!

Tons of photos this time around!

Where did this month go? October went by so quickly and so now the boys are 5 months old. Lots happened this month for them.

We ended month three, started mouth4 with a trip to the pumpkin patch. Nothing too exciting happen here, just some pictures and picked up pumpkins.

Then mom tried to take our pictures with said pumpkins.  But it was hard to convince us to sit up. So she tried to put pumpkins between our legs to help.

Then we made a quick trip to blacksburg to see grandma and help with a race. 

Then during the week we have to be a handful so mom will hold us. We are getting bored and so ready to be on the move. 

Then dad comes home and is silly with us. And we love it. 

We have also spent time this month perfecting the roll from back to tummy. We are pretty good at it now. 

And a big milestone is that we just started to eat real food this month. We love bananas! We also tried some squash. Not as awesome as bananas, but when mixed with bananas we will eat it. We also prefer to suck on the food instead of eating from a spoon. 

We also got to go to the NC state fair this month. G was all about people watching, he refused to nap during that time because there was great people watching to be had. C was all about the nap though. 

We also moved to size 2 diapers. Which we probably could have done sooner, but mom and dad was trying to finish up a pack of size 1s. 

We babble ALL the time now. We love it when people will talk with us. 

We also got costumes made for us... (Pictures to be revealed soon!)

We got a new toy that we love.

When we step, it makes music. This was one of the few toys at the store where we could reach the floor! We are soo short for our age. 

We also started to notice each other play with each other this month. 

So a few months back mom and dad said we were the stinkiest kids ever. We decided to trade that in now for the droolest kids ever. (These kids don't do anything half-hearted!!!!) Don't get us wrong, we are still pretty stinky. But we now focus our time on producing drool. 

 (Notice big wet spot on sheet)

(Or the big one coming from C's mouth in this one)

So we've had bibs on all the time (which end up soaking wet soon after)

We are drinking 4ozs or more at a time now. 

That's all for now. Halloween pictures to come!

BANANAS!!!!

The boys are changing fast and I kept thinking about posting something about them but I haven't been able to take any good photos recently.

C got to try bananas today. G was too full when we tried so he was not interested.

 

I can hold it by myself

But finding my mouth can be tricky

OMG BANANAS!

Besides snacking on bananas, the boys have been practicing rolling over. We have found them over night on their tummys, but they haven't rolled over consistently on the floor yet. But they do spend a lot of time trying!