Going Dark

We leave tomorrow morning for the east coast for the holidays. I'm pretty much packed and ready to call it a night, but wanted to post a couple of the most recent photos of the kiddos. Christmas has already started for Jack and Sadie. Their Papa and Grammy sent the fantastic stuffed animals in the top photo. The stuffed animals are called Jelly Cats and are a big hit with the babies. I debated bringing one on the plane tomorrow to keep the babies occupied, but with the 5,000 other items already in the diaper bag it seemed a big excessive. The puppet in the bottom photo was a freebie J. picked up at one of the bi-annual twin clothes swaps we went to. The babies love puppets, or at least they're really into them for about 2 minutes until they decide their hands or feet are more interesting.

We'll be in Delaware until January 1st. There should be lots and lots of photos to post in January. I hope that everyone in the Sadie and Jack fan club has a very merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years until then.

Parenthood just gets better and better

This week was ridiculously busy. We had a visit from Sadie and Jack's Grandpop and Paula. John and Jack really took to each other. It was very sweet.

I had an insanely busy week at work. I'm definitely ready for a break from work. And to top off the all the activity of the week Elenora, who takes care of the babies while I'm work, announced on Monday that there would be a Christmas party at the daycare on Wednesday. Elenora's not much for giving advance notice.

Elenora made the Christmas party sound very causal and because I was slammed with six meetings on Wednesday at work I figured that I'd drop by the party when I picked up the babies, stay for a half hour, and then rush home so John and Paula could get some time with the babies before their bedtime at 7:00. I rushed into the Christmas party at 5:30 and immediately felt uncomfortable. Elenora asked if I'd brought Christmas outfits for the babies. Um, no. One of the dads asked about my work and then proceeded to tell me that he'd been out of work for 7 months and asked if we were hiring. Unfortunately in this economy we're getting about a 100 applications for every underpaid job we've got. Elenora then insisted on watching all of the children and ushered all the parents into her dinning room where there was a full dinner set up. Meanwhile I knew that John was back at our house preparing dinner and wondering where I was with the babies. I ate what I could and then excused myself to go back to the babies. Elenora was feeding Jack a bottle because he was starting to melt down because it was getting to be bedtime. I took over the bottle in hopes that I could feed him quickly and get home. Once he finished his bottle I tried to say good bye, but was told that I needed to wait because another parent had gone back to their house to get a camera so that they could get a picture of all the children together. By this point I was sweating.

I finally said that I really had to go and explained how bad I felt, but that we had grandparents waiting for my two babies who were now both melting down. All the parents said they understood, but then started bringing out presents. Presents! Every other family had bought a Christmas present for Jack and Sadie. Elenora had bought multiple outfits for each of the babies! This is Elenora, the woman who ruminates endlessly about how hard it is to make ends meat every morning as I'm trying to quickly drop of my children so that I'm not late to work. I was mortified. I had no idea that I was supposed to get presents. I found myself apologizing profusely and feeling nauseous as I was showered with gifts. Even the family with the unemployed dad had a gift for us.

I did manage to finally get out of the Christmas party, but it was by far the most uncomfortable experience that I've had as a parent yet. I guess that I should anticipate that this is only the beginning. We inevitably have another couple decades of bake sales, fundraisers, birthday parties, PTA meetings, and million other opportunities to not measure up. The only silver lining to this one is that Jack and Sadie won't remember it.

Sleepy Sunday

We've had a nice weekend with these two. Jack's health is the best it's been a month. He's still congested, but he's not wheezing. Sadie's doing well too. She thrives on sleep and has had a few good days of solid naps (she's napping at this very moment). We've had friends over the past two nights for dinner and today are having a quiet day at home. I've got two batches of baby food in the oven and Jack's busy trying to destroy a few of his toys. Today is everything a Sunday should be.

Guacamole Faces

Sleep Training Baby Steps

This is how I found Sadie in her crib the other morning - perpendicular from the position I'd left her in the night before, wedged in the corner, and stuffing her blanket in her mouth.

My friend Mary posted on her blog a few weeks ago about how she is not the mother she expected to be. As for me, I expected to be the kind of mother who embraced sleep training. That was before I had ever heard one of my children cry of course. I've been avoiding sleep training. It's been easy to do with Jack sick. What kind of god forsaken parent lets their sick child cry it out until he falls asleep?

But with there being no sign of Jack being anything but sick for a while I've had to face the facts: life with infant twins who are not sleep trained could be hell, and these two cuties are going to be too old for sleep training soon. With that acceptance we've gently started sleep training. Our first step is to wean the babies off their sleep aids. We've had to say good bye to the swaddle. It's been frightening to retire the one technique that was guaranteed to put the babies to sleep, but we've gone 4 nights so far with limited or no swaddle and although it takes a lot longer to get them down, they seem to be sleeping longer.

Next week we may have to take the next big step and start putting the babies down in their cribs awake and letting them sooth themselves to sleep. I'm not looking forward it, but it would be nice if we could get through sleep training and all get a good night's rest.