What a difference 3 years makes.

 Do you use the Timehop app?  If you're not familiar, it's an app that pulls up your social media history each day.  If you're not huge on social media, you may reap many benefits.  My history from over 4 years ago is a bit light, but man, since then I have lots of ... history.  Specifically, 3 years ago.

As you may or may not recall, 3 years ago I had two 7 month olds and a 2.5 year old.  So, life was a bit chaotic.  I had a hubby who worked all the time and was home alone with my chaos all the time, so social media was the way I connected with the world.  This was also the time that I was deep in fight against postpartum depression and anxiety, so I love to reminisce and see how far I've come in the last 3 years.

Yesterday's Timehop feed really hit me.  I posted to Facebook 6 times in one day.  SIX TIMES.  Reading through everything, it's painfully clear that I was feeling lonely and in need of someone to talk to.  But this was also a very momentous day.  I will never, ever forget this day in my entire life.  It was the day that I got my Mommy-Groove back.

See, the day started out being very, very crazy.  So crazy, in fact, that I posted this at 9:43 a.m....

I'm sure it got worse before it got better.  I'm sure that the 2.5 year old was whiny and the babies were chaos.  I'm sure that I cried.  I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember the exact moment that I decided that we were getting out.  I was in the kitchen, Brennan was hanging on my leg, Beckett had just woke up after only 30 minutes sleeping and had woken up Kiernan with his screams, and now they were both screaming in their beds which I was frantically trying to get lunch ready for Brennan and bottles ready for the cranky ones.  

It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE.  Like, now.  So after they babies had bottles and Brennan had lunch, I packed up the crew and headed out the door.  I clearly remember trying to decide where we were going.  Park?  Too chaotic.  Grocery store?  Not necessary.  Zoo.  The zoo!  I place I could push the littles in the stroller and let Brennan roam without getting too far from me.  So, to the zoo we went.  

We strolled through the zoo, treated ourselves to some Dippin' Dots, and I remember thinking to myself, "Wow.  WOW.  I just did this.  I DID IT!"  I was on such a high from my new found Mommy-Groove, that I had to tell Brian about it in person, so we even stopped by his office on the way home.  I just remember feeling so ... PROUD.  

And apparently all of the pride continued, because I also shared this gallery of Twin Pregnancies over on Babble ... which my belly and I happened to be featured in.  

Oh, and then there was a storm!  Because that's what happens in Florida -- sun one minute, thunderstorm the next.  

Then some cute babies ate some dinner and smiled a lot afterward.  

I'm sure Brian came home super late that night while I was dead asleep.  Or maybe I was awake, I probably talked his ear off until we both fell asleep. I really don't remember, but those are really the only 2 ways our evenings went back in those days.  Regardless, I will always remember that day.  The day that I finally felt like I could wrangle my babies all by myself.  It was a beautiful, beautiful day.  

Any time I have a crazy day, I think about my life 3 years ago and remind myself that I've been through much, much more chaos.  At least now leaving the house doesn't require an hour of preparations.  At least now I can tell my kids to jump in the car and buckle up instead of carrying everyone to the car and buckling them myself.  At least now I can drink my sorrows away without worrying about the pump-and-dump.  Hehe.  I mean, I miss the cute, chubby baby stage, but my sanity is oh so sweet.  

Celebrate the little victories.

Another post from the Drafts folder.  This one is from July 13, 2013.

It's funny -- most of the Drafts are unfinished, some with a few words and some with a few paragraphs.  But after reading this one, it feels finished, which makes me wonder what was missing when I wrote it almost 2 years ago.  One thing is for sure, it all rings true!

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"Three boys!  You must be busy.  Are they triplets?" asks the young Target cashier.

I smile.  I get this question almost weekly.  "No, big brother is 22 months older than the twins."

"Wow.  Really, you must be so busy!"

Sometimes statements like this bug me, but we aren't exactly a calm bunch in the Target checkout lane (or ever, really), so the comment doesn't bother me.

Then the lady behind me pipes in with an "I remember those days."

She's probably in her 80s.  Her smile is warm, but her statement was missing the wistful tone that usually accompanies statements like that from most women over 50.

I smiled and gave my usual reply.  "It's a very busy life, but I wouldn't have it any other way."

Her reply?  "I had 7 in 6 years."

::blink::blink::

I stumbled over my words and think I said something to the effect of "Oh wow.  You must have had some multiples then?"

"Three sets.  A set of twins, then triplets, then twins again.  Obviously they run in our family.  I have 19 grandkids and 20 great grandkids.  There are a few sets of twins and a set of triplets among them."

I still wasn't sure what to say other than "Wow.  I guess you know exactly what I'm going through then ... except way more.  You know, the risk of having another set of twins is why my husband isn't too keen on the idea of trying for one more."

She laughed and shook her head with wide eyes.  "Well, that's what we did.  Twice.  It was hectic.  My biggest piece of advice to my kids and grandkids who had multiples was to just get through it and enjoy it while you can.  But don't stress yourself out over enjoying every second.  Motherhood is hard and what we have is even harder.  Just enjoy the parts you feel like enjoying and get through everything else.  And focus on the small victories when you're having a hard time."

I smiled back as slid my Target card, tried to make sure that the Brothers stayed in the cart, and told Brennan for the 463 time to put the mini Nerf blaster back on the shelf.

I thanked her for the kind words and she wished me luck as I headed out the door with my crew.

The interaction left me thinking for a few days.  Do I celebrate the small victories enough?  Or do I dwell on the stressful parts?

I celebrate the big victories plenty.  Took the boys to Chick-Fil-A by myself (with no stroller) and had a relatively stress free meal.  Huge win.  HUGE.

I goal for the next few weeks is to focus more on the small stuff.  Have a smooth bedtime?  Sweet.  Successfully execute a fun learning activity?  Excellent.  Get everyone to not only survive, but enjoy a walk around the block?  Fan-freakin-tastic.  Celebrate it.  Because it's the little things that make motherhood what it really is.

And then I blinked and my babies tripled in size.

In July I sat down to write a post about the "lovey wars" that take place in our house during our sleep routine.  Three times a day, I would sit in the rocking chair in the nursery with Beckett and Kiernan on my lap and feed them their bottles before putting them to bed.  The peace and stillness of the room at that time was only ever disturbed by the battle of the lovies, arms flying around while little hands grabbed at pieces of fleece and satin.

But just 3 months later, times have changed.  There isn't much snuggling that goes on before nap time anymore. In fact, it's really just a bit less chaotic than the rest of the day.  The 3 of us walk to their room, hand-in-hand.  I sit in the rocking chair and pull Beckett onto my lap as Kiernan goes to pick out a book for us to read.  I read as much of each page as they'll allow, before someone turns the page.  We point to things on the page, name colors and animals, and when we finish a book, Kiernan slides off of my lap to choose another one.  Three times a day, we settle down for sleep by using this routine.  It's certainly not as calm and peaceful as our pre-sleep routine used to be, but it still feels good to have a lap full of my sweet boys.

Entertaining a baby (or 3) while pumping.

My twins have never been exclusively breastfed.  We've struggled long and hard with breastfeeding and milk supply issues.  (It's a very long, very frustrating story you can read about here if you're interested.)  Because of all of our issues, I've spent more time than I'd like to admit hooked up to my lovely breast pump.  At one point, I was pumping every 2-3 hours around the clock, plus nursing and bottle feeding.  That doesn't leave much time for anything else.  But unfortunately it's what my body requires to keep up my supply.

It's time consuming and having 3 little boys under 3 is also time consuming.  With the exception of the first 3 weeks of the twins' lives, I don't have any help during the day.  So being hooked up to a pump for 20 minutes is not exactly ideal.  When the boys want attention while I'm pumping, 20 minutes can seem like 2 hours.  A visitor recently asked me when I was disappearing to my room to pump how I manage doing it when I'm here by myself.  After clearing up her assumption that I pump in my bedroom when I'm here by myself, I started thinking that it might be fun to list my crazy tips for keeping my children entertained while I'm hooked up to the milking machine.

Really? It bothers you? That's weird. I enjoy hearing my babies cry.

{look out folks ... there's a rant coming ...}

People are stupid and annoying.

Life with multiples is different from life with one baby at a time.  It just is.

When you have one baby at a time, generally if that baby is crying you are able to pick him up while dealing with older children.  But guess what?  When you have two babies, sometimes one of them has to cry for a few minutes.  It's not fair.  It's not enjoyable.  But it happens.

Booooooobs.

I've been thinking about writing about my breastfeeding journey for awhile now.  I've become quite the pro at troubleshooting issues, have lamented to many of my girlfriends along the way, and have been a sounding board for many others.  When my friend Lorryn wrote about her experiences making "skim milk", I decided that it was time to get it down in writing.  It's a long post kids, so hang in there.  And if talking about boobs and nipples makes you squeamish, this is totally not your post.  Go back and read the one about how daylight savings time sucks or something.

Mothers against Daylight Savings time.

George Vernon Hudson can suck it.  Apparently he's the one to blame for this whole time change thing.  Or at least that's who Wikipedia tells me to blame.

I used to love the time change.  It was nice to shake things up a bit with "spring forward" and "fall back".  The most it affected me was to make sure I wasn't working the night of "fall back" when I'd be helping catch babies for a looooong thirteen hours instead of a manageable twelve.

Life as we know it.

I was talking to someone the other day about a typical "schedule" for a 3 month old.  I knew that I had written a "day in the life" post a few months ago and when I went back to read it, so many emotions came rushing back.  In one sense I'm so proud of how far we've come.  The boys were 9 weeks old when I wrote that post, and I remember life feeling like chaos.  My help had gone home, the twins were still tiny, and Brennan had just barely turned 2.  In those days, I told myself that as long as all of my kids were fed, dry, and provided with a moderately clean living environment, that's all that mattered.  As hard as that was for me to swallow, I learned to accept it.

Fast forward to now.  The twins are 6 months old.  Brennan isn't quite 2 and a half, but he seems to have matured so much.  Our days have the same "bones" as they did in November, but the "meat" is different.  It still feels like chaos, but a controlled chaos.  Sure, some days are just bad, especially lately with Beckett's sleep issues, but for the most part, we're getting this down.  And it took reading that post for me to feel that way.  Yes, I can do this.  I AM doing it.

Most parents of multiples will tell you that you just need to survive the first year.  Just.Survive.  Most days I feel like we're surviving.  And some days, I even feel like we're thriving.

I want to write down another day-in-the-life post.  I want to have something for my future self to read in a few months so that I can see how far we've come again.  And I want to have something my future self can read in a few years and look back and laugh at.  And something that my future self can read in a few decades and dream about the days when my boys were babies.  And if another twin mama happens to get an example or a sense of reassurance or even a sense of superiority, that's a bonus.

Here's a peek at what those surviving days look like.

6:30-7:00 a.m. - The babies start to wake up.  I get the coffee going and bottle feed Kiernan (and nurse him if he'll have me).  When he's done, I nurse Beckett.  Commence baby playtime (which is includes physical therapy exercises).

7:30-8:00 a.m. - Brennan wakes up.  I get him his milk and get in a quick pumping session while enjoying my coffee.

9:00 a.m. - Time to start soothing babies to sleep.  While Brennan is watching Mickey Mouse, I head to the nursery with Kiernan.  He drinks his bottle fairly quickly and we rock in the dark room.  He goes into his crib awake and I give him a few minutes to fall asleep on his own.  Meanwhile, I make Brennan some breakfast and strap him into his high chair to eat. Usually by now Kiernan is almost out and I head to the nursery with Beckett.  He drinks his bottle and falls asleep in my arms.  I put him in his bed.

9:30 a.m. - Get myself and Brennan dressed.  Make and eat oatmeal.  Playtime with Brennan.

10:30-11:00 a.m. - The babies start to wake up.  I bottle/nurse Kiernan and nurse Beckett.  Playtime.  Maybe head outside to get some vitamin D.

12:00 p.m. - Lunchtime for Brennan.  Pump time for mom.

12:30 p.m. - Get Brennan ready and put him down for a nap by 12:45-1:00.

1:00 p.m. - Time for babies' afternoon nap.  Same ritual as morning nap.

1:30 p.m. - Lately I've been jumping on the treadmill before or after I eat a quick sandwich.  Some days I clean.  Every once in awhile I'll treat myself to a nap.  Sometimes I pump.

2:30-3:00 p.m. - Babies start to wake up.  Bottle/nurse Kiernan and nurse Beckett.  Baby playtime.

3:30-4:00 p.m. - Brennan wakes up.  Snack time for him.  Pump if I'm lucky.

This is where I start to follow baby cues.  The evening can go one of 2 ways - either the babies cat nap for about an hour at 5:00 p.m. and go to bed around 8:00 p.m., or they're still going strong at 5:00 and I just put them to bed for the night at 6:00 p.m.  More often lately, they've been out for the night at 6:00 p.m.  And when this happens, they usually sleep all the way through the night.  YAY!
6:30 p.m. - Brian gets home.  Dinner.

8:00 p.m. - Get Brennan ready for bed by 8:30.  Bath, PJs, brush teeth, read books, etc.  Brian usually does this while I start cleaning the aftermath of the day.

9:30 p.m. - Toys picked up, dishes done, bottles washed.  Collapse on the couch.  And then pump.

Of course, this is a perfect world scenario.  Many days are different.  But it all gets accomplished one way or another.  I keep reminding myself that it's only temporary.  And that one day I will look back and laugh and miss the days I got to spend snuggling my babies all day long.

One-on-one.

Every book I've read on twins stresses one major point -- schedule, schedule, schedule.  They say that if you don't establish one early and stick to it, you'll never survive.  For the most part, I agree.  Days when both boys nap at the same time, for similar periods of time are so much easier for me.  There's less chaos and more structure and I feel more in control.  But having 2 babies with very different sleep needs and habits makes it hard to accomplish this. 

Many of my days are spent juggling kids and trying to remember who ate last and when.  These days exhaust me.  Emotionally, physically, mentally.  I'm drained.  By the time everyone is in bed at night I feel like I could collapse.  I don't like feeling like I'm chasing my tail all day long.  It's a control freak's recurring nightmare.
But lately as my little boys are getting older and showing more personality (and maybe I'm becoming a bit more sane too ... yeah, probably not) I've begun to take these days in stride.  There is only so much I can do to change how the days go.  So instead of fighting and struggling to get "back on track" I'm learning to let go.  And in that process I'm discovering that these days are a blessing.  They allow me more one-on-one time with each of my boys.

During that precious time when one is awake while his brothers sleep, I learn more about the people they are and I dream about the men they will be.

I've learned that Beckett is slow and methodical in his actions and seems to need permission and encouragement from mom before playing with certain toys or rolling over.  He thinks before he acts, studying and concentrating objects and movements.  And he doesn't like sleep.  That's been very easy to learn.

I've learned that Kiernan is a "do-er".  He's adventurous and energetic and doesn't like to feel like he can't do something.  It seems that if he feels that way, he's bound and determined to prove otherwise.  His emotions are intense.  When he's happy, he's blissful.  When he's upset, he's ragingly angry.  And he loves his sleep.

I haven't learned too much about Brennan that I don't already know.  Instead, I've been able to enjoy seeing him learn and grow and become more independent.  And during our one-on-one times he finds my lap free and takes advantage of the opportunity to just snuggle.  It's something we used to take for granted, but something that is rare these days.

So on those hectic days, I'm learning to let go and instead embrace the time that I get with my boys.  Because I'm blessed to have them in my life and honored to be able to call myself their mom.  

Having two babies at once.

I realized the other day that I never wrote about my labor and delivery experience with twins.  I've encountered more and more people getting pregnant with twins and it has made me look back on the last year and revisit a lot of the new emotions I've experienced.  Maybe reading my story might help someone else facing a twin pregnancy and delivery.  And if not, at least I have it written down so I can remember it all after having my brains sucked out by my darling boys.

Having been a Labor and Delivery nurse for almost 6 years, I've seen plenty of different scenarios of twin births -- which is probably why I had mixed feelings on it.  I've seen beautiful, straightforward vaginal deliveries.  I've seen scheduled C-sections.  I've seen vaginal deliveries for the first twin followed by C-sections for the second twin.  I rolled with the punches as the nurse, fully comprehending the fact that, as I always told my patients, the only guarantee in labor and birth is that there are no guarantees.  But when it comes to my own life, I have a fear of the unknown.  Because my boys were vertex/vertex (read: both head down), I knew I had the chance for one of those "beautiful, straightforward vaginal deliveries".  And luckily, it all worked out the way I planned.  I'm so blessed to have been able to experience a twin pregnancy and delivery the way that I did.  And I want to remember the day my sweet boys came into this world, so I better get it "on paper" now before I forget the details!

I made it to 38 weeks, which in "twin world" is full term.  The babies were getting big and Baby B (Kiernan) was getting harder to feel move and had experienced some funny business with his heart rate during a few monitoring times.  So my doctor and I determined that it was time for them to come out.  My cervix was still only a fingertip (read: less than one centimeter) dilated in the office, so we decided to use Cervidil to soften it. When I arrived at the hospital in the evening for the Cervidil, my cervix was actually 1-2 centimeters dilated and very soft, so we decided to forgo the Cervidil and head straight for pitocin.

Still pretty comfortable.

I planned an epidural for a variety of reasons.  One of the biggest reasons was the safety of Kiernan.  If for some reason I needed an emergent C-section for Kiernan, and didn't have an epidural, I would have had to be put under general anesthesia for his birth.  I knew I didn't want to be put to sleep and miss the birth of my baby.  Plus?  My epidural with Brennan was HORRIBLE and honestly, I wanted a good epidural this time.  

With Brennan, my cervix dilated from 4 centimeters to 10 centimeters in less than an hour.  So when I got to 3 centimeters this time around, I wanted to get the epidural placed.  By 1:30 a.m. I was comfortable with my epidural and my water was broken.  My poor nurse spent the next 4 hours chasing my babies around with the monitors.  I helped as much as I could, but she was amazing and just kept telling me to close my eyes and rest.  LOVED her.

Feeling pretty good after my epidural.  

Thrilled to have gotten comfortable because I never really did with Brennan.

Four hours later, at 5:30 a.m. I was feeling lots of pressure.  My cervix only had a small "rim" (read: it was about 9.5 centimeters dilated), so they moved us back to the operating room to deliver.  The boys were both born vaginally, but like most twin deliveries, it was in the operating room in case of emergency.  I pushed for about 20 minutes and out came Baby A - sweet Beckett - at 6:07 a.m.  

A very fresh Mr. Beckett

When Beckett was born we didn't get much time to get acquainted as the focus quickly shifted to Kiernan's well-being while he was still tucked into the top corner of my uterus.  I desperately wanted that skin-to-skin time with Beckett, but the L&D nurse in me took over and I allowed the NICU team to take him over to the warmer to evaluate while we focused on Kiernan.  The neonatal nurse practitioner gave Beckett a clean bill of health, but declared that it was too cold in the OR for him to wait for his brother to be born.  My sweet nurse put up a fight to let him stay, but she also had to focus on Kiernan and eventually lost.  Beckett was whisked away to the nursery to await the arrival of his brother.

Baby A - Beckett - 7 lbs 3 oz, 19.5 inches

 Looking back, I wish I would have refused.  I wish I would have looked at the NNP and told him where to stick it to turn up the heat in the room and put an extra blanket on my baby.  But I was wrapped up in the moment and desperately trying to focus on pushing out the baby whose heart tones I could hear dipping significantly with each contraction.

Kiernan was born 28 minutes after his big brother, at 6:35 a.m.  I got a few minutes of skin-to-skin with him before the NNP struck again.  At this point, I decided that I would just get the skin-to-skin time when we returned to our room.

Baby B - Kiernan - 6 lbs, 19.5 inches

We returned to our room and reunited with Beckett.  Then we both got to work with skin-to-skin contact and  breastfeeding.  It was an amazing feeling to be all back together again.  I felt so at peace having the four of us in the same room, but at the same time it made me miss Brennan terribly and I couldn't help but feel a bit incomplete without him there.

Mommy and Beckett

Daddy and ... Beckett again?  I can't tell :(  I promise Kiernan got lots of skin-to-skin too!

This is where the "beautiful and straightforward" portion ends.  As I said, I'm blessed to have had such a great experience.  I see at as the calm before the storm.  I'm working on gathering the words to describe my breastfeeding struggles, as I know I'm not the only one to experience them.  While I work on that, I'll leave you with pictures of my sweet boys reunited outside of my belly.

Kiernan, Mommy, & Beckett

Beckett & Kiernan

Sleep is for the weak.

   

Beckett sleeping with Daddy ... for 15 minutes at least.

When Brennan was a baby, our soothe-to-sleep routine was very simple.  He ate, burped, we read a book, and then snuggled.  When he was tiny, we'd rock him to sleep.  But at about 5 months old, he got to a point where he'd wake up the second we put him down in his bed.  I bought all of the books on infant sleep and we tried a million things.  After deciding that "graduated extinction" (read: Cry It Out, in increments) was the way to go for us.  After about 2 nights, he was going down awake and soothing himself to sleep very easily.  Easy peasy.  I thought I had it all figured out.

Mr. Beckett has proven me wrong.

I always said that after being blessed with an amazingly "easy" baby, my second child would give me a run for my money.  Because he was born first, Beckett is technically my second ... and he definitely has me running.

Overall, he's a very mellow kid.  But he's also very stubborn.  A few weeks ago he decided that he didn't want to fall asleep.  And when we could get him to fall asleep he didn't want to stay asleep.  Naps were especially a problem.  If he went to sleep, he would wake up screaming 15-20 minutes later.  By bedtime, he was so overtired that he could barely stay awake to eat.  He'd doze off and be up minutes later screaming.  It took 4 hours to get him into a sound sleep.  And then he'd be up 2 or 3 hours later, screaming again.  This was especially an issue because another little person sleeps just a few feet away from him.  Kiernan is a champion sleeper, but the poor kid could only sleep through so much.

Finding out the problem was easy.  We had straightened out reflux issues.  We knew he wasn't hungry or too full or wet or poopy.  The minute we would walk up next to his crib, he'd stop.  He just wanted someone near him.  Brian joked that we needed a cardboard cutout of one of us to put next to his crib.  I totally looked into it.  Desperation people, desperation.

Totally uninterested in sleep ... unlike his parents.

Needless to say, we were an exhausted clan.  And of course exhausted = cranky.  Oh, the crankiness.  We decided we needed to do something.  I talked to other experienced Moms.  I hauled out all of my parenting books and book on baby sleep and poured over them.  I Googled it all.  Babywise, Ferber, Sears ... they all have ideas on getting your baby to sleep well.  And none of it was new to me.

The idea of rocking my babies peacefully to sleep is a beautiful one.  But the reality of our life is that it's physically impossible.  There are 3 of them and one of me and if I attempted to rock them all to sleep there'd be more crying and less happy awake time with them and my butt would be fused to the rocking chair.  And crying it out seemed impossible to accomplish and unfair to Kiernan.  We needed a concrete plan to stick to.

We decided to resurrect "graduated extinction", but this time needed to use it for naps too.  I really like the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth.  I'll be honest, I don't think it's well-written at all.  But the concepts within it work well for our family and make sense to me.

So we separated the boys for nap times and let Mr. Beckett cry a bit.  At bed time, we left them in the same room and poor sweet Kiernan fell asleep despite his brother's screams.  It took a solid week of screaming day and night, but day by day the crying periods were shorter and shorter.  And finally, he started going to sleep beautifully and staying asleep.  Sometimes he falls asleep during a pre-sleep feeding, but when we put him down in his bed he soothes himself right back to sleep.  He wakes up once at night to eat, but it's usually before we go to bed.  So he's more rested, his brothers are more rested, and his parents are more rested.  All in all, I feel successful.

It just goes to show that no two kids are exactly the same.  And it's incredibly humbling as a mom to be reminded of that.  It took a lot of patience, tears, and beer to get through it, but we figured it out.

Post-nursing milk coma.

Buying stock in scented candles.

You know how when you start to smell poop and you have multiple kids in diapers you start sniffing butts? And the first one you check is positive, so you change it, but you still smell poop? And you're not sure if it's just in your nosehairs or if someone else actually went so you check the next one and he did it too? So you change him and you still smell it and your positive it's just in your nosehairs but you check the third one anyways and he went too? So you change him and now you're convinced that the stink has permeated your brain and that's all you'll smell for the next 3 days? Then you go outside to take the trash out and the smell goes away, but hits you like a brickwall when you walk back into the house?

Yeah, that.

Helllooooo scented candles.

Cheese!

You know how newborns "smile" in their sleep? And how it's very often accompanied by some passing of gas? Yeah, I don't count those as "first smiles". Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in the fact that you can write down whatever you want in the baby book, because really, it's your kid and what does it matter? But my definition of a "first smile" is when your baby looks you in the eye while wide awake and purposely gives you a big grin.

Today, while enjoying some one-on-one time with Beckett, he took a deep breath, coo-ed, and gave me a big grin. It melted my heart to a big blob of mommy love. Then, a few hours later, Kiernan was sitting on his Daddy's lap and while I stooped down to say hi to him, he gave me a great big smile too. It's moments like this that make it all worthwhile.

2 year olds are LOUD.

The twins are growing out of that super sleepy newborn phase and (especially lately) are getting to be a bit high maintenance when it comes to sleep. I spend so.much.time. rocking, bouncing, shushing, and soothing them to sleep during the day that I get a bit neurotic about protecting that sleep. Which would be fine ... if I didn't have a 2 year old too. Is it just my child, or are all toddlers unable to control their volume? I'm guessing it's probably the norm. And if it's not, let's just pretend that it is, for my sanity's sake OK?

Today both babies fell asleep on the family room floor while propped in their Boppies. After I picked up my jaw off of the floor, I spent the following 30 minutes trying to keep big brother "quiet". We played the "shhhhhhh" game for awhile, where I put my finger to my lips, tell him to shhhh, and tip toe obnoxiously around the house. He thinks it's really fun for about 5 minutes. Then I tried to get him to go on the back porch to play in the sand and water table, which is usually a HUGE hit. Um, no dice. Then I suggested we go out front and ride his trike. NO WAY MOM. He wanted to "fix" things, which means walk around the house and bang his hammer on everything. And apparently we really let things go around this house lately because everything needed fixed, especially things that were within 5 feet of the twins. So while I was trying to get him to do something else, he started to throw a huge tantrum. Needless to say, their naptime was very rudely interrupted by big brother's workmanship and mommy had to make a huge effort not to reach into the fridge and grab a beer at 11am.

Same stuff, different day.

I've been chomping at the bit to get back to writing, but every time I have a few seconds to sit down, I can't seem to decide what to write about. My life is literally consumed by caring for my family. I eat sleep breathe them. It takes every ounce of energy within me to keep going, and by the time I have a spare moment to myself, I don't have the mental ability to decide what to do with it. So, here's a very rough "day in the life" post from a SAHM with a 2 year old and 9 week old twins. Get ready, it's a bumpy ride!

(All times are a pretty rough estimate...)

• 5:30am - One baby gets up to eat, then goes back to bed.


• 6:00am - I get the next baby up to eat, then goes back to bed.


• 6:30am - I pump. Then I get in the shower and get started with my day. Occasionally, if I went to bed really late and I'm extremely exhausted, I'll go back to bed. But if I do this, my whole day is thrown off, so I try to avoid it.


• 7:00am - Maybe a shower, then make the bed, empty the dishwasher, wash bottles and pump parts from the night time. Vacuum the family room and try to squeeze in some kind of cleaning, but usually all I get to do is laundry.


• 8:00am - All 3 boys begin to wake up. I get Brennan his milk, change his diaper, and put on a TV show for him. If one baby wakes up before the other, I'll put him to breast until the other one wakes up. In order to feed them, I prop them each in a Boppy on the floor, prop a bottle in each of their mouths, and pump while sitting on the floor in front of them. This way, I can burp and change their diapers while I pump. Then it's playtime for everyone.


• 9:30am - I start to try to put the babies down for a morning nap. This process is sometimes long, sometimes short, sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Lately, Beckett fights sleep and Kiernan drifts fairly peacefully. In between trying to get them to sleep, I feed Brennan breakfast.


• 11:00am - Diaper change and snack time for Brennan (I have to make it a point to change his diaper when I feed him, otherwise I forget to do it. Poor kid). Hopefully the babies are sleeping. But they probably are not, so I'm usually trying to soothe the one that isn't sleeping. I try to pump at this point too.


• 12:00pm - Time to feed the babies again. Hopefully, it's a tandem feed while pumping again. If not, then one and a time.


• 12:30pm - Lunch time for Brennan. I try to pump if the babies are happy.


• 1:30pm - Diaper change and naptime for Brennan. Time to start soothing babies to sleep again too. This is always the toughest part of the day to get them to sleep for some reason. And lately, Beckett is very fussy in the afternoons. Putting him to breast sometimes helps calm him and sometimes just frustrates him. He also is so tired that he won't take a full feeding, even from the bottle, and falls asleep. Then, he wakes up hungry in 20 minutes. I'm lucky if I can get him to sleep on me, but even then I can't move or make any noise or he'll wake up. If Kiernan is having a fussy day too, you can imagine how bad it is. I also try to wash bottles at this point.


• 4:00pm - In a perfect world, the babies would be waking up from their naps and eating now. We'll see if that will ever happen. But Kiernan is usually awake by now and ready to eat. I feed whoever needs to be fed and attempt to pump.


• 4:30pm - Brennan wakes up and is ready for milk, a snack, and a diaper change. (Yes, he takes 3 hour naps. It's my saving grace).


• 5:00pm - I start to think about dinner (in a perfect world). Playtime for all the boys.


• 5:30pm - Attempt to put babies down for naps. This usually doesn't work and by now their both insanely cranky and overtired. The swing sometimes helps at this point. Then attempt to cook something.


• 6:30pm - Brian gets home, changes Brennan's diaper, picks up any baby slack I need him to, and we eat dinner. Then I attempt to pump.


• 7:00pm - Start cleaning the kitchen. Start baths and bottles for babies and a bath for Brennan. This is pretty chaotic and is an insanely long process.


• 8:30pm - Bedtime for Brennan. Babies may or may not be in bed; if not, we keep trying. Clean up the family room, finish cleaning kitchen, and continue laundry. Brian and I either spend time together, do work around the house, or he does work and I go to bed early.


• 11:00pm-4:30am - The babies usually wake up once or twice during this time to eat. I feed one, then the other, then pump. The process takes at least 1.5 hrs. If they wake up at the same time, Brian will feed one.


• Whenever they wake up in the morning (usually around 5:30), I start the process all over again!

So that's life. I'm probably forgetting something (or several things). And these times are all INCREDIBLY estimated. Most days, there is no rhyme or reason to what happens, no matter how hard I try.

Right now, it's chaotic, and made more chaotic by my/their inability to exclusively breastfeed and therefore the necessity of fitting in pumping sessions. This is a very sensitive topic for me and someday I'll write about it, but I'm not ready to yet as I feel like the story is not complete. And it's also very difficult for me to get them to sleep during the day. Unlike Brennan, who as a baby liked to be cuddled a bit, then laid in his crib to sleep, they need to be swaddled, rocked, shushed, bounced, soothed to sleep. It's time consuming and the 2nd one usually gets fussy and starts crying before the first one is ready to sleep. The swing sometimes helps, but not all the time. To get out of the house is difficult. It takes an insane amount of time to get them ready, even for just a walk, and by the time we're ready to leave, they need to eat again. So, we don't get out much. Just the occasional walk around the block.

I keep telling myself that they're only 9 weeks old (7 weeks adjusted age) and that babies this age cannot be expected to be on a schedule yet. I know this, but at the same time, I YEARN for some kind of reguarity, just a taste of a routine. I want to be able to devote time to Brennan again. I want to be able to feel like my house is clean. I want to be able to exercise and feel like I'm making an effort to lose this twin weight. I want to be able to do crafts and cute memory things for the boys. I want to be able to go grocery shopping, or meet up with friends, or just to go SOMEWHERE. But, I keep reminding myself that it's only been 2 months. I just need to be patient, which is very frustrating. But I do it because I love my boys. All 4 of them. And I'll continue to run on this treadmill called life in order to make their lives better.