like sands through the hourglass...

these are the days of our lives.

& man, are they flying! i feel like we just brought emma home yesterday, & yet she's almost 6 weeks old. every day is one event after another until we can all crash out for a few hours then start it all over again. & i think that, for me, is the biggest difference in becoming a family of 5, with 3 babies.

i had thought that life with twins was task-oriented, but this is even more so. most days, i am occupied with taking care of another person from the minute i wake until the minute i fall asleep. every. single. minute. & on the days when N is off work (like today) i might be lucky enough to snag a few minutes to myself to shower alone, or make a real dinner, or (like now) get some computer time while doing nothing more taxing than holding a sleeping em.

so far so good, i'm staying sane & manage to escape the house for maybe an hour or so on occasion to grab groceries, & that has been enough. i like to be busy, & i actually enjoy the chaos (to an extent). i wouldn't have so many little kids if i didn't kind of like the crazy. but i am amazed at how little time there is in a day. even on days when the boys are having fits of the screaming-meemees, & emma refuses to exist peacefully anywhere but in my arms, i'm still usually too busy to spend much time stressing over it.

eveyone has had to make some adjustmets in regard to the reduced mom-time, & mostly the boys are doing ok. they're used to sharing mom, just not with a baby as well as their brother, so we've had some hariy moments. N has also had to find some extra wells of patience, since adding to kate's mom duties necessarily takes away a bit from kate the wife.

as much as i might like to fast forward to the part where i can sleep again, or have uninterrupted sex, or even just be able to shower every day, after seeing the way time has been sailing by since emma arrived i don't really want to rush her baby days. i know this will all improve with time, & eventually i will find myself again in the chaos. so for now i'm ok to tread water. i'm just hoping i can keep it up for a few more months before i start sinking.

a stunted blog

i feel sort of tongue-tied on this blog. i started writing on the old one with the intent that it wold be an outlet, kind of like an online journal, so it didn't matter if anyone other than me ever read it. i think i need to start thinking that way again or i may never write again. things have been happening in life that i could blog about, but this blog feels new & weird. it's silly, but the old one was like an old friend i could go confide in, & the conversation has become stunted & awkward since i moved here.

so in the interest of shaking off some dust & getting going, i'm going to ramble for a bit--

i'm still sort of on new-baby-autopilot. emma sleeps about 3 hrs at a stretch, but won't go down until around 1 in the morning. 9-1 is her fussy &/or awake time. so while i'm not totally sleep deprived (nothing like with the boys) i'm not at my sharpest either. i'd have to say overall that having 1 kiddo at a time is WAY easier than 2 (duh). i know this is seriosuly obnoxious of me to say, but it makes me wonder what parents of singletons are complaining about. yeah, every kid can be difficult, but one kid being difficult is a piece of cake. (i'm sure this statement will come back to bite me some day when i think i'm in for a peaceful time with just one of the kids. karma works like that.) or maybe it's that this is our 3rd, & a full term baby & we're just more confident in our own parenting this time around.

N has em right now, & the boys are napping, & altho it's nice (i guess) to have my self to myself, it feels almost wrong not to have a child attached to me somewhere. weird, right?

it's a sleepy sunday....

*yawn*

stayed up way too late last night (at least, too late if you're carrying an energy draining parasite & have a couple of sick kids) & am sleepy incarnate this morning. am currently waiting for the guys to fall asleep so i can sneak back in the room & join them for a nap. since he feels so cruddy, con thinks that mama must hold him & only him at all times today. (heaven forbid i touch, hug, snuggle, hold, carry, or otherwise interact with his brother, his father, or even a kitty... he's not usually such a velcro baby, he's one of those kids who is happy as long as you're in eyesight, so i know he must feel really awful. poor kid.)

oh, & in case any one is wondering, the non-date at our house seemed to go well last night. :)

i'm not ready

i am soooo not ready for another newborn.

val got up at 2 last night (this morning?) & was just miserable. nothing was really wrong with him, it was just one of those nights. (& i think he had to poop. he finally let one go around 6 & seemed to feel better after that.) anyways, i was on my own last night with the guys & usually, despite my b*tching here, i'm pretty patient with them at night when they're fussy, but last night around 4am i just cracked. i couldn't get the boy to stop crying, & was on the verge of tears myself, so i totally gave up on trying to put him back to sleep & just took him into the living room where we watched crappy tv & i let him play with the cats until he was too tired to keep his eyes open anymore.
of course, by that point conrad was up for the day.

the point of this story is that i am tired. very tired. i hate being this tired. i like sleep. newborns don't let you sleep. i am NOT ready for less sleep. i know it's not 3's fault, but we didn't plan on this kiddo right now, & i am so not in the mindset to be ready for another newborn. hopefully i get there in the next few months....

a sleep update

we've moved the boys' bedtime back to 8 , & are letting them nap later in the day, which seems to be working better for all of us so far. They're sleeping 8pm-5am, waking for a bottle, & then going back to sleep til around 8am. & their naps during the day are totalling around 3hrs, so they're getting close to the right amount of sleep, & what's more-- they are putting themselves to sleep!!! we do bottles, a little cuddling & then into their cribs awake/semi-awake, & after a bit of "talking" to eachother, they've been going to sleep! minimal fussing, no crying... it's heaven!
we haven't changed a thing, other than timing. i think they're just ready & i am thrilled that they're doing this on their own. we still have bad nights (as evidenced by my CIO post below) but all kids do, & i think they're mostly attributable to teeth, or tummy aches, or just a plain old bad night for no reason. i'm sure there will still be some back & forth, but i think overall we're making forward progress, & CIO played no part in it. Proof, in my mind, that CIO is soooo NOT the be all & end all of sleep solutions. we may have had (& will have) a few more sleepless nights, but the boys feel secure & loved, know that mom & dad are always here when they need us, minimal hysterics were involved, & the boys get to move at their own pace when THEY decide they're ready. all of which is totally worth a little less sleep for the grown-ups, in my mind.
i also think giving them each a special crib toy helped. val loves his glow-sea-horse (now known as "glowy".... we really need to work on more creative names for these things.) & will use the glow-horse as company, or to help soothe himself back to sleep. it's pretty cute-- i find him curled up with glowy the horse all the time at naps. :) conrad's toy has varied, i really need to get him his own special toy, but i haven't found one yet that says "conrad" to me...

a CIO nightmare

so in a sleep-deprived fueled horrible decision, i gave in to N & tried to let val CIO last night at midnight (this was after a 4 hr cycle of comforting him, only to have him cry all over again when i put him in his crib), & it was awful. i HATE CIO. hate it. it will NEVER be attempted in our house again. i get that some people think its just great, but i pretty much think those people are on crack. (i don't mean the "he fusses for 5 minutes, then falls asleep CIO", i mean the half hour later "oh, he'll cry himself out" kind of CIO.) it's just cruel. how any one can watch their child scream for that length of time is beyond me. one of my goals as a parent is to make my children feel secure & loved, & CIO just screams abandonment to me. i know i might piss alot of folks off by saying this, but i think it's true-- it's just lazy parenting. you're tired, & can't figure out what they need, or you're exhausted & annoyed that they need you to comfort them, so you let them cry. i mean, really, if they need YOU, well, that's pretty easy to give, isn't it?
do what works in your house, but in our house there will be NO more CIO. ever. period.

so here's what happened last night: val has had a couple nights of horrible sleep. i don't know why. wasn't hungry, not teething, no fever, dry diaper, just wouldn't/couldn't sleep. so he just wouldn't go down last night, & after hours of snuggling him to calm/sleepy state & then laying him down, I gave in to N. (i try to let him try out some of his parenting choices.... he IS their dad, & parenting is a lot of trial & error. & some of his ideas have been really good. this just wasn't one of them. anyways...) i let val cry for 3 minutes, then got up & rubbed his back, made soothing noises, etc, for the next half hour. the poor baby SCREAMED the entire time. if i wasn't near, he's cry until he couldn't breathe, but if i was near, he'd at least take breaths. the hysteria just mounted tho, until finally i was in tears too & picked up my poor baby, who hid his face in my neck & held on to me like his whole life depended on it. CIO? never, never again. i cuddled him all the way to sleep & he slept til 6, when he got up for a bottle & then we got him up at 730 with conrad in an attempt to get them both back on schedule.

i don't know why he's having trouble sleeping all of a sudden, but regardless of how long it takes, we will be persisting with the peaceful go-to-sleep methods forever after.

project nap: day 3

they both took a TWO HOUR nap this morning, & con had a 40 minute nap this afternoon (val is still asleep!) i'm afraid to write more lest i jinx our good luck...

(Finally) an EDD and, in baby related news, more on naps!

just to update my own record keeping: baby #3 is measuring 8w3d, & our EDD is 6/6/10. (2 days before my birthday!) although the doc reminded me that the EDD is more of a goal.... he pointed out that i'm still considered high risk for preterm labor, since its already happened with the dudes & bc of the surgeries on my cervix. yay. & i'm a carrier for group b strep, which apparently can increase your chances of PTL as well. so we'll be followed by the high risk mfm again as well as my OB. but for now baby looks perfect! we talked about VBAC, he's open to trying & supportive of it in general, but did point out the risks to me & baby & said we'll have to keep re-evaluating options as the pregnancy progresses. which is fine by me. when all is said & done, i want what's best for the kiddo(s... all 3 of them). in other good news, there is only a low chance of me developing pre-e again. apparently only 1 in 5 women who have pre-e with one pregnancy will get it in subsequent pregnancies, so that's reassuring.

& on to baby news: day 2 of our new nap plan is not going so well... grampa babysat while i was at the doc, so their morning nap routine was messed up & their nap only about 15 mintues long.
val finally caved into sleep around 230, (next to me on the bed of course, so i can't go do anything else!) & conrad is still fighting it. he's in his swing & i have our "nightnight" music on. he *just* stopped complaining about life & i know he's tuckered, so i'm hopeful he'll give in & nap soon.... poor little guys. i'm letting them dictate the timing of their naps, i don't try to put them down until they give me sleepy cues & con actually already fell asleep once, but almost immediately sneezed & woke himself up & has been fighting it ever since. i decided i'm going to stick with this new nap routine for at least a week before i re-evaluate.
on the plus side, bc N left for work at 230 this morning after we fed the boys, they went right back to sleep & slept til 645!!! yay!! i'm gathering evidence that it really IS his alarm doing the damage in the morning so i can persuade him to consider either sleeping upstairs on the nights he works, or find some other alternative that does NOT involve an alarm clock going off in the boys room at 5am.
& now con's asleep :) patience pays off! now i'm just left sitting here until val wakes up.....

Sleeping Babies & Snobby Parents

as i sit here watching my exhausted boys refuse to nap, i am left pondering the politics of getting your kid to sleep. a disclaimer: if your precious little angel sleeps through the night & you are convinced that its all due to your stellar parenting, please quit reading NOW.

for the rest of us sleep deprived parents, ever notice how snobby people are about their sleeping babies? i am firmly convinced that having a child who sleeps through the night before age 2 (i mean ALL the way through... not just 5 hrs at a stretch) is largely due to luck & nothing more. N & i are not high stress parents, we don't always rock or feed the boys to sleep; we roll with whatever their needs seem to be on any given night. they just aren't & never have been, "good" sleepers. more personal evidence that its all luck: my family tends to have lots of kids, & within each nuclear family, there is a consistent mix of "good" & "bad" sleepers. it's really just luck folks, & maybe genetics. it's not bc you never rocked your baby to sleep, or always rocked your baby to sleep, or give them a bottle at night, or breastfed until they were 3. you just got lucky. i wish people would bear that in mind before launching into a "how to get your child to sleep" monologue. every kid is different, & there is not a one size fits all solution.

& while i'm on the topic of sleep, has anyone else noticed how judgemental folks get when you say you don't buy the "cry it out" philosophy? i hate how CIO is considered by so many to be the gold standard of sleep techniques. (if you have been drinking the koolaid, calm down, i'm not knocking your parenting. its a choice every family makes for themselves.) in my mind however, i just don't think it is a productive means of teaching a baby to go to sleep. i don't believe that babies have the capacity to calm themselves when they're so young, & i don't believe that babies have the cognitive ability to understand why they are being left to cry. of course, left to sob long enough, any child will eventually pass out. 1) they exhaust themselves, & 2) its a baby's natural response to a traumatic situation. (any NICU parent can tell you, after traumatic procedures docs often expect your baby to pass out. remember that sleeping little boy handed to you after his circumcision? yeah, that's why. babies can't control their circumstances, so its a defense mechanism when they can't handle whats going on around them--i can't tell you how many times this was explained to N after boys had ultrasounds & scans & x-rays, & tubes put in, etc. but it is still unsettling to see.) in any case, i fail to see how leaving a child to scream teaches that child to put himself to sleep.

how then do we get our boys to sleep? we do whatever they need-- we'll cuddle, or rock, or rub their back, or get a bottle, until they put themselves out. i have to be honest, we don't have alot of trouble getting them down at night. they go out pretty easily betwen 6-7pm every night.
our trouble is the day time sleep. we wake up once at night to eat (they're hungry, this is totally fine with me), but around 4-5am everyday, we start a pattern of restless sleep, where they are obviously still tired, but need alot of help to stay asleep. this means i am usually awake the entire time, until they get up for good around 7-8am. i think this is bc N gets up at 5 when he works, & refuses to turn down his alarm, so the noise & his subsequent rustling around wake them up enough that they think it's daytime. i'm debating moving myself & the boys upstairs (our master bedroom is on the ground floor, the boys' room is upstairs, far away.) i know N will hate the idea, & it will mean i handle nighttime feedings solo, but we need to do something about the sleep situation, bc its just not working for a preggo & exhausted mom, not to mention the little dudes.

& they are AWFUL nappers. they are difficult to get to sleep, & even harder to keep asleep. if their combined naps for the day total 1 hr, we're lucky. they just aren't getting enough sleep & i know it. we're trying a new regime, where we do a "nightnight" routine before naps (when i see them getting tired) & i'm back to letting them sleep in their swings, since at this point all i want is to get them in the pattern of napping. as i type, we are in the bedroom, val has just fallen asleep in his swing & conrad, who is truly exhausted, is fighting it. hard. wish us luck.

i forgot to mention...

val is turning into a devoted tummy sleeper. i promised myself that when they were old enough to roll onto their bellies & back & choose how they sleep that i wouldn't freak out if they chose to sleep on their tummies. con for sure prefers his back (arms over his head, legs straight out), but val likes his tummy. so far so good-- no freak out by mom, but daddy has had a few. the NICU folks really put the fear of God into us over SIDS. which is good, bc we've been very cautious about sleep habits, but it makes the time when they are old enough to control how they want to sleep kind of nerve racking. of course, we always put them down on their backs, but what can i say? the guy likes his tummy.