Photo Essay

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Today Nora rolled from back to front, and back again! Then she did it three more times. Way to go Nora!

I'm currently listening to her on the monitor. She's been talking and banging things around and generally refusing to go down for her nap for the last half hour. Holding her just gets her even more riled up, if that's possible. Ah -- and she just woke Milo. At least her non-napping time is providing lots of valuable rolling practice!

End of the Road

Before Nora and Milo were born, their pediatrician told me that women can't make enough colostrum to feed two babies, so they would need formula supplementation in the beginning. I didn't like what I heard, and challenged it, and she reassured me a number of times that the goal was to get both babies breastfeeding exclusively. That was a goal she supported, a goal that the hospital supported, and one that formula supplementation should enable because otherwise, she explained, the babies would not get the calories they needed, and they would get too sleepy to eat, thus interfering with breastfeeding.

I wanted a supplemental nursing system for the formula supplementation because I wanted the babies to focus on nursing. After all, I was going to nurse both of them, simultaneously. Throughout their infancy. That was the plan.

HA.

So Milo and Nora were born and all of that flew out the window because neither baby could even nurse at all in the beginning. They couldn't suck. The lactation consultants came in and visited me a couple of times a day and they wrote little instructions onto the white board in the hospital room. The instructions said something like "1. 10-15 cc in a bottle. 2. Put to breast if alert and interested. 3. Pump 15 minutes. 4. Complete within 45 minutes." Getting them to drink even 10 cc (1/3 of an ounce) was an enormous challenge in the beginning. The babies had a hard enough time staying awake long enough to suck from a bottle, much less try to nurse. The whole process usually took between an hour and a half to two hours. I was never able to finish in 45 minutes.

So bottles it was, from the day they were born. My concern with exclusive breastfeeding moved to the back burner because I was so concerned with getting them to eat anything, period.

Over the next few weeks the doctor, the lactation consultants, and the lactation nurses worked with me to transition Milo and Nora to nursing. When I first started nursing each baby exclusively for a feeding (without giving a bottle afterwards), I was terrified that they weren't getting enough to eat. But they were, and eventually we reached the point at which for each feeding, I nursed one baby exclusively and the other baby got a bottle from Jake. We traded off babies each time. Thus we entered the successful phase in which I no longer had to give anybody a bottle, ever. I just nursed them. I was able to nourish both of my babies, and it was beautiful, because it was something I was able to do for them, finally. Something my body was able to do right, after so many things going wrong.

I never made enough milk to feed them breastmilk exclusively. At my peak, when I was taking both Fenugreek and Domperidone, I made enough for about 1 and a half, maybe 1 and 2/3 babies. I spent a lot of time frustrated about my supply, and pumping around the clock, but I learned to accept that formula was part of the picture.

Then reflux came our way, then a nursing strike, then mastitis, then a respite in which things rebounded again, and then, and then, they just decided to...stop.

Not all at once, so it's not a clean break. But 9 times out of 10, if it's daylight, Nora and Milo won't nurse. They behave the same way. They'll latch on and nurse for about a minute, maybe two, and then break the latch, turn away, twist their body away from me, and cry if I try to reintroduce the breast. I'll switch them to the other side, and they'll cry. I'll give them a break, burp them, put them to the breast again, and they'll cry. And cry, and cry, if I keep trying. They'll just refuse, and cry. Then I get mad, and then I make a bottle, and give it to them, and they drink it down as if they've been starving.

This has been going on for a long time.

Longer than it should have been, I think. I'm starting to see that now. It's not healthy for every feeding to be a power struggle. I keep saying I'm going to quit, and then I keep trying, and pumping, struggling to keep up a supply that is dwindling every week. What keeps me trying is that 10th time. Every now and then, for some reason, once every couple of days, one of them will actually nurse. And that small margin of success has kept me going. But most of the time, it doesn't work, and I'm tired of fighting with Nora, and I'm tired of fighting with Milo. I'm tired of being so mad and sad about it. I'm tired of not being able to accept that we've reached some sort of impasse here.

I don't know exactly why it is so hard for me to just give up. If I give up, we can all move on. Feedings can cease to be a negative experience. I get my body back. I get my time back, time I can spend with the babies instead of pumping every day. I get to go back to bed in the middle of the night 20 minutes earlier, because I'll no longer be pumping after the 2 a.m. feeding. There are so many things that would be, will be, nice about giving up. So why is it so hard to just give up already?

Aside from my natural stubbornness I guess it's just hard to admit defeat on this one. Public service announcements aside, it was just...lovely...to be able to feed Nora and Milo the way they were supposed to be fed. It felt like a gift I was giving them. This somehow reached such heights of importance in my mind that I have let it overcome other issues, like the fact that it's not healthy to try to force them to nurse all the time when they don't want to, and it's not healthy for me to get mad about it all the time. So they're going to be 6 months old soon, and I think at that time, unless something drastic changes, I'm going to stop trying. I'll still nurse them in the middle of the night, when for some reason they seem to accept it, but otherwise, I'm going to stop fighting them. I'm ready to spend more time just enjoying my babies. And I need to remember that there is more to parenthood than how I feed them. A lot more. I'm really looking forward to moving into the stage in which parenting has nothing to do with my body.

[Update since I wrote this: Aaaaaand now I have mastitis. Again. That's a real supply killer.]

Rice Cereal

So the avocado met with mixed reactions, but the kids liked the rice cereal, especially Nora. She really started to go for it and I think she got the hang of eating it. Milo sort of tolerated it but didn't seem overly enthusiastic. I think he was eating it, though. Nora, on the other hand, started to open her mouth and enthusiastically chomp on the spoon, and by the end of the feeding session she was just cracking up. Laughing and laughing, about what I don't know, the joy that is rice cereal?

I love how she shakes her head before chomping down on the spoon.

Bird versus Bird

What a hard day Sunday was. Nora and Milo both didn't want to go down for their morning nap, and we only got them to sleep an entire hour after they were supposed to sleep. There is just something about TWO crying, fussy babies at the same time to make you go nuts. I had to leave the room at one point, I was just so frustrated. For the afternoon nap, Milo went down fine and Nora wouldn't go down at all. I took her into bed with me and that didn't work either. I was so tired, and Jake took her. I fell asleep and 20 minutes later woke to her screaming her head off. Turns out Jake hadn't put her down at all, he'd just put her in a bouncy seat to play for 20 minutes until she finally got so tired that she was going ballistic. I took Nora into bed and she fell asleep immediately. For the evening nap, Nora just skipped it entirely. She wouldn't go down at all. After more than half an hour, we gave up. On top of all that, neither baby would nurse all day long. I wasn't able to have any successful nursing sessions and it seems that we're down to middle-of-the-night and early morning as far as successful nursing goes.

On the bright side, summer seems to have arrived, and Sunday was wonderfully, delightfuly warm and humid. Exercise is good for anger management, so I took them out in the jogger in the late afternoon. As I was plodding along I went under a tree and felt a gentle "plop" on the top of my head. A bird had taken a crap on my head. Fortunately, I was wearing a hat.

When I take the babies out I always get a lot of remarks from people. Yesterday I heard lots of "oh how cute!", and "look Taylor/Madison/Jayden/Niko, two babies!", and "You've got a full house", and "Congratulations!". Lots of smiles, which is lovely. Also, I passed one older lady and she took a look at me and the babies and said "they're going to get some red toes out like that!"

Oh my gosh, it was my first mommy drive by!

The funny thing is that I had actually been worrying about their feet. It was a hot day, and it was late in the day (5 p.m.) and the sun was low in the sky. The jogger has a good canopy but it's not good enough to cover them 100% when the sun is so low. So their feet were poking out into the sun, and the path I was on was about half shaded and half in the sun as we ran in and out of trees. I was concerned about their little feet poking out, but the problem is that they don't keep socks on. They kick them right off, and shoes too, and blankets as well, plus it was hot out. So the old lady's comment bothered me since I'd already been feeling concerned about their feet in the sun. (They can't wear sunscreen before 6 months).

Then I figured oh well, it's 5 p.m., for crying out loud, in a northern state, and we're in the shade half the time anyway, they'll be okay. It's funny how much that busybody's comment bugged me. Their feet are fine, of course. And if I had to choose whether to take shit from a bird versus an old lady, I'd choose the bird.

Professor Belly-Pat Strikes Again

Professor Belly-Pat, wandering into my office: Where are the kids?

Me: They're at home.

Professor Belly-Pat: What kind of mother are you, here without your babies?

Me: Ah, hah hah hah! (Look how cheerful and good natured I am about your ribbing, please remember how nice I am come tenure time!)

My internal response: A mother trying to get tenure so she can keep her job and continue to feed and clothe her children, asshat.

Sleep Statistics Week 2

Night 8: Holy cow! The babies only woke up twice! Milo woke at 1:36 and I gave him a pacifier, and then Nora woke up at 3 and that's when we fed them. How did that happen? What was the magic thing that we did differently? They napped very well that day, so maybe it was a "sleep begets sleep" issue. Or maybe it's because they had sleeveless sleep sacks on so they weren't too hot. Who knows. Can we repeat this magic?

Night 9: 5 wake-ups, the first at 1:17. We fed them at 3:30 which was late, but that's when they woke to eat. All of the non-eating wake-ups were Nora. Ah, Nora. Nora, Nora, Nora.

Night 10: 7 wake-ups, I think, 6 Nora and 1 Milo. Nore woke first at 11:36. Between about 11:30 and 1 she seemed to be suffering in some way, or something was bothering her sleep but we couldn't figure out what it was. We changed her and held her and she finally fell asleep at around 1:10 and they both slept until 3:10 at which point they woke and we fed them. The only thing I've learned so far is that if the first wake-up happens early, like before 12:30 or 1 a.m., then that means a bad night is coming. Then our twin whisperer came and told us that her other baby (her Tu/Thurs baby) now sleeps from 7:30 p.m. until 6 or 6:30 a.m. and this kid is only 3 months old! (Although he already weighs more than Nora and Milo). There is no justice in the world of baby sleep.

Night 11: 3 wake-ups, the first around 12:30. Nora woke up and needed to be nursed back to sleep, and then she woke up again at 2 and Jake was in there with her. I was in bed listening to her fuss, and then cry, and then scream, as if Jake was poking her with a sharp stick or something. So I finally gave up and got out of bed and stormed into the nursery saying "WHAT is the problem? Why don't you just feed her?" "It's too early," he retorted, "I don't think she's hungry." So I took her and rocked her until she was juuuust about asleep, and then Milo woke up and started fussing. I thought I could lay Nora down and pick up Milo and feed him, but of course she started to scream the minute her body hit the crib mattress. So Jake came in and we fed them. Milo woke once in the early morning, but went back to sleep fairly easily.

Night 12: 4 wake-ups, the first at 11. Nora woke 3 times before the feeding and twice had to be held and rocked to go back to sleep. I fed Milo at 2:45 and Jake fed Nora at 3:20. Milo woke at 6:30 but I convinced him to go back to sleep for another 45 minutes.

Night 13: We have attained the holy grail. Just one wake-up. Nora woke at 2:15, we fed them at 2:20, and they slept until 7. How do we do that again? Did it happen because Nora went to sleep a little later than usual (8 p.m.)? Did it happen because she had a hard time and cried for about 15 minutes that evening while Jake tried to soothe her? Or was it just a coincidence?

Night 14: 3 wake-ups, the first at 12:41. First it was Nora, who needed to be rocked back to sleep, then it was Milo, then they both fell asleep and didn't wake up again until 3:15 at which point we fed them. Not too terrible.

Last night I went to bed late because we had friends over for dinner. It is awkward to do that because we have to spend the hour between 6:30 and about 7:45 feeding the babies and putting them down. So we can either eat a super-early dinner, which we tend to do, or eat a super-late dinner that I can't even start cooking until 7:45, which we did last night. Then our friends (who are great) wanted to stay for a long time but did eventually leave after I took out my contacts and put on my glasses, and brought my water jug down to fill up, among other various hints. But anyway, we still went to bed about an hour and a half late so this morning when Milo woke up and started talking at 6:40 I thought, no way, it is WAY too early to get up. I need another 20 minutes! I tried to give Milo a pacifier but he wanted none of it, he just wanted to talk and play, so I left him alone and went back to bed for 20 minutes. Except I fell into a deep sleep and 20 minutes turned into 45 minutes, at which point Nora started making noise and woke me up. I came into the nursery to see that Milo had turned himself 90 degrees and had fallen back asleep, which made me a little sad. Jerky mama was too tired to get up so she abandoned her baby to play by himself, at which point he gave up waiting and went back to sleep. Oh well -- it's not like he cried or anything.

Back in the Saddle

It's been over a year and a half since I did any running. I ran through the fall of '06, but then when it got cold and miserable outside, I started focusing on other exercise more than running. During the late winter and early spring of '07, my life was about making the upcoming IVF work. So I didn't drink alcohol or caffeine, I practiced relaxation techniques, I took my prenatal vitamins, and I didn't do any running. I'd read obscure studies linking exercise more strenuous than walking to lower success rates. I switched to walking only, and stayed that way until I got pregnant. Then I got sick and even walking went out the window, then I got huge, then I had the babies, and then I spent time recovering from the c-section, and then I started walking again.

So it was long past time to bite the bullet and start running. It's hard to figure out when to do it because ideally I'd take the babies out when they're awake but not hungry, with enough time before and after to change, stretch, shower, etc. That is not possible but I think it is possible to run with the babies if I skip the before-run stretch, do a very quick after-run stretch, and delay showering until after I've fed them post run.

Yesterday we headed out with the jogging stroller. One thing about me as a runner is that I really, really suck at it. Really. Before grad school I wasn't even able to run around the block without getting a stitch in my side. I was active and healthy through my life with other, non-running activities, but running always eluded me. Then in grad school I decided it was dumb that I couldn't run, and I should just do it, albeit very slowly. So I started up very slowly, and kept increasing my times slowly, and the first time that I ran for an entire half hour without stopping I did a little Rocky-esque victory dance, punching the air and humming "Eye of the Tiger". I kept at it and eventually ran a half marathon. My only goals were to finish, to not walk, and to not be the last person across the finish line. The last person gets followed by an ambulance, just in case, and I didn't want to be followed by an ambulance. I met my goals and that day was one of the highlights of my life.

So back to me sucking as a runner. The primary way in which I suck is that I am very slow. Yesterday being my first day back in a long time I was extra slow. I was so slow that everybody else jogging on the bike path passed me. Little girls on tricycles passed me. Then this old grandpa type who was walking his lame dog passed me. I mean literally lame. This dog was a fairly small lap dog type who must have had a spinal injury of some sort, because his hind legs were completely paralyzed, and he was hooked up to one of those carts with little wheels, dragging that thing along, his hind feet bound up so that they didn't scrape as they dragged along the ground. I am not kidding. THE LITTLE PARALYZED DOG DRAGGING THE CART PASSED ME.

But that's okay. The great thing about doing something that you know you're bad at is that performance doesn't matter, and you have license to be lousy, and just doing it at all counts. That is what is great about me and running. I can leave behind any need to actually be good at it, and instead just do it.

Doing this sort of thing with babies in my life is kind of hard. The very minute they were up from their nap I whisked them into clean diapers, threw them into the stroller, and we were on our way. I knew I had 45 minutes tops before they'd start yelling for food. All was fine, it started to sprinkle a little bit but the babies didn't mind too much, so I decided to keep going to the next intersection. It started to sprinkle a little harder, and Nora started fussing a little, so I knew it was time to turn back. Nora started fussing more, and I thought okay, it's pacifier time, let's see here OH MY GOD I FORGOT THE PACIFIERS. Then I really picked up the pace. Milo started fussing too. The babies were hungry. I picked up the pace some more, and actually passed the lame dog dragging the cart this time. Step, step, breathe became step, step, breathe, say "we're almost there kids", step, step, breathe, "look there's the ramp up ahead", step, step, breathe, "you're being so patient." By the time we got home Milo and Nora were not amused. But we made it home, I ran maybe a little faster than I'd intended for my first time out, and Nora even let me stretch for 5 minutes before I fed her. So all was well.

Like a Monkey on Crack

Okay Nora, what the fucking fuck.

I'm worried something is wrong with Nora. She seems to be unable to even put herself to sleep in the crib now, and this is after she's been able to go to sleep by herself in the crib since she was, what, 3 months old? 4 months old? A long time. Milo keeps getting better and better at sleeping. Put him in the crib, awake, leave the room, and he just goes to sleep all by himself. It's like magic. Nora needed the pacifier and did better if she was close to drifting off before I exited the room, but she was still good at going to sleep by herself in the crib.

No more. Not only does she wake constantly, but now she can't even go to sleep! We just had a missed evening nap because she couldn't fall asleep. She wants the pacifier, but as soon as she gets it she tears it out of her mouth. Then yells. Repeat 20 times. She wiggles around like crazy and bangs her feet on the crib mattress over and over again. The other night I heard that from the other room and I thought it was fireworks. No, it was just Nora going to town on the mattress. Seriously, are there drugs in the water? Did I take speed and forget about it? I'm no longer taking any caffeine in my diet, although I doubt that the one soda I allowed myself at lunch every day really mattered. But it's gone, okay Nora, it's gone, and I'm seriously thinking about a glass of wine every night instead. All for you, honey.

She couldn't nap, and I left her in the nursery to grouse and complain, and then went in again, and gave her the pacifier, and she tore it out and smiled to see me, and I left, and she complained, and I went in again, repeat for about half an hour. Finally I went downstairs and said that's it, she can complain and maybe she'll wear herself out and go to sleep. But no, her complaining eventually got louder and turned to actual crying, and as soon as it turned to crying Jake went up and tried to help her go to sleep yet again, and apparently that didn't work as the crying just got louder and louder until he finally gave up and took her out of the room.

Poor Milo wakes up and gives us a cross-eyed look every now and then through all of this racket.

I'm worried Nora is developing some sort of weird neurological abnormality. It's like she's got ADHD without the, uh, AD. She's just got HD. At bedtime. And naptime. She's currently sitting on my lap rubbing her eyes because she's TIRED, duh, and Jake and I are a couple of class-A idiots for letting this get so bad. This kid rules the house and it's not doing her any good.

Avocado!

Okay, probably only a grandmother will find this video interesting. The babies ate their first solid food -- reviews were mixed.

What Would You Think If I Sang Out of Tune

Thanks heavens for friends who hold your babies, change their diapers, play with them, bring Indian food to the house, validate your cranky moods, tell you to give yourself a break, listen to your boring stories about not sleeping, tell their own interesting, funny, and engaging stories about their lives, crack jokes, and generally make life awesome. Holy crap am I lucky to have such a wonderful group of women in my life!

Sleep Statistics Week 1

Every night Nora and Milo are asleep by about 7:30 - 7:45 p.m. Here is how it's been going:

Night 1: 11 wake-ups, the first at 12:36, spread out between both babies. Fed them at 2:30 or so.

Night 2: 5 wake-ups, the first at 1:41, spread out between both babies. Fed them at 2:50. This felt like a good night after Night 1.

Night 3: 6 wake-ups, the first at 10:11, which was a bad sign. All Nora except when Milo woke to eat. Fed them at 2. Nora seemed to have something wrong with her and needed to be held and rocked between about 12:30 and 3 a.m. Jake suspected constipation. I practiced physical relaxation techniques in order to remain calm and accepting. I suspected that taking a shot of vodka (or a Percoset) would have been a more enjoyable technique.

Night 4: 4 wake-ups, the first at midnight. Half Nora and half Milo. Fed them at 3:10 sort of by accident (intended to feed them at 2:30 when Milo woke up but we all fell back asleep until 3:10). This felt like a good night.

Night 5: Was it 4 wake-ups, or 7? I lost count.

Night 6: About a hundred thousand wake-ups. First one before 11 p.m. Both babies woke many, many times; the longest we slept in a row was 90 minutes. Fed Milo at 2 and Nora at 2:20. Worst night since they were born. Was there crack in the water or what?!?

Night 7: 7 wake-ups, the first at 11:46, all Nora except when Milo woke to eat. It felt okay after night 6, especially since each waking was a short one that we corrected with the evil pacifier. Sigh.

I haven't really learned anything yet, other than the fact that there doesn't seem to be any discernible pattern. Nora has a little more trouble than Milo, but I already knew that. Are they teething? Are they having a growth spurt? Is this a phase or are we doomed forever? Will I ever stop being obsessed with sleep?

Good Things

Good Thing #1: Milo rolled over today from his back to his belly for the first time!

Good Thing #2: Professors/Moms group in my division at the university. People have helpful advice to give, an ear to lend, and strategies to dissect. Having kids really does link you in to a whole community of support. Maybe somebody in the group will clue me in about how to get tenure while taking care of two babies. Or, more realistically, how to prepare myself for not getting it.

Good Thing #3: Tuesday neighborhood new moms' group. Actually some aren't new moms, but everybody has a small baby and so far they're fun to hang out with. Most week we meet in the park right outside my house and go on walks or play on the grass.

Good Thing #4: It is finally, finally, finally warming up.

Good Thing #5: My teacher friends are coming this weekend. Nothing makes me happier than a weekend with them.

Good Thing #6: Nora's latest development is that she likes to look at you from across the room, trade smiles, and then start giggling maniacally. Despite the fact that this child never sleeps, she still somehow manages to be a very happy baby.

Anecdote

My secretary's roommate had a baby last week. All went well and the baby was full term and healthy. The mother tried to breastfeed her baby for two days, but the baby never succeeded in latching on, so she switched to formula (provided for free by the hospital) and gave up trying to breastfeed. So that's a scenario where it strikes me that more support for the mother could have made a difference. She didn't have any visits from lactation consultants. She had access to free formula and bottles to make the decision to give up trying to nurse an easier one than it might have been otherwise. She didn't have access to valuable information about the benefits of breastfeeding, both for her and her baby, as well as the economic benefits. (That formula sure is pricey). Also, she didn't have a breastpump, so she had no way to build up her supply while waiting for her baby to figure out the whole latch thing. So those kinds of supports could have really helped her, but she didn't have them.

Nora and Milo couldn't latch at all for the first couple of weeks. They were just too tiny. It took a lot of stubbornness on my part, a very high-quality breastpump, and tons and tons of help and support for me to make the transition to breastfeeding them. It wouldn't have happened without the support, especially one wonderful lactation specialist nurse at the doctor's office. This whole nursing thing is just hard, period. It's hard for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. People just need help making it work, I think. Those who don't are lucky.

Oh, and Milo has now decided he doesn't like nursing. It's like he and Nora have traded places. This whole thing never gets any easier.

What's it Really About?

So, apparently it's news that Similac Organic Formula is made with sugar. Some formulas use corn syrup, but Similac Organic uses sucrose, which is made from cane sugar and is sweeter than what you find in other formulas. Yeah, that's why we chose Earth's Best organic formula instead; it is sweetened with organic lactose instead of corn syrup or cane sugar. The article is kind of dumb -- if you're going to make a decision to buy organic formula, which in our case costs 2.5 times as much as Target-brand formula, then you'd think you would bother to actually read the ingredient list and do some research. Organic formula is ridiculously expensive, so it's worth thinking hard about what you're buying.

The NYT article raises concerns about the sweetness of the formula, suggesting that babies will become accustomed to the overly-sweet taste, which could lead to overeating, rejection of other formulas and foods, childhood obesity, chain smoking, and puppy torturing. Has the reporter ever tasted breast milk? It's sweeter than any formula.

What I found really interesting, though, were all of the readers' comments on the article. There were, of course, the "breast is best" comments, then the "but I couldn't breastfeed" responses, then the "sure you could, you were probably just too lazy and selfish to stick it through, you self-centered cow" responses to the responses. One of my favorites is this one: "One thing we forget is that there is much more to breastfeeding than the milk itself. Breastfeeding is to breastmilk as making a baby the usual way is to in vitro fertilization. Feeding a baby breastmilk in a bottle is just not the same thing as breastfeeding."

Hey, great! I'm glad to know that Nora and Milo are just not the same thing as babies made the usual way. A few months ago, reading all of these comments about how formula is pure evil and parents who use it are abusing their innocent babies would have sent me over the edge. Nobody has tried harder to breastfeed than I have. When Milo and Nora were born, I felt like I had three babies -- my son, my daughter, and my breastpump. I spent about the same amount of time with each. Almost 6 months later I am still pumping around the clock. I have taken Fenugreek and Domperidone to help my lousy supply, I have struggled to keep breastfeeding through nursing strikes, reflux, and mastitis, and I have shed many tears over how much milk I've been able to produce. I'm still breastfeeding, but I'm also still supplementing, and I'm done feeling guilty about that.

But you know what, I've never actually felt guilty about feeding the babies expressed breastmilk in a bottle, for crying out loud. That comment above, aside from its shocking lack of compassion, doesn't actually surprise me much because it seems to speak to the hidden agenda behind some of the politicization of breastfeeding. Of course we can't accept expressed breastmilk fed via a bottle as an acceptable alternative to nursing around the clock, because that alternative frees the mother. Many of the militant pro-breastfeeding comments are closely linked to a need to turn mothers into martyrs. We need to breastfeed because it is best for our babies, and it just happens to also hamper our ability to return to the workplace and maintain economic independence and viability. Why do militant breastfeeding advocates berate individual women who resort to formula (often for a number of very real health and economic reasons that are dismissed by those more fortunate), rather than, say, turning their efforts towards lobbying our government to support women's ability to breastfeed? If you want more nursing mothers, you need to provide paid parental leave to all mothers. You need to legislate access to clean, secure pumping facilities in the workplace. You need to provide free access to lactation consultants. Spreading blame and guilt for not breastfeeding isn't going to be as successful as enacting legislation that would mandate supports to actually help people breastfeed.

I know that my hunch that breastfeeding militancy is linked to our cultural need to oppress and control women might seem paranoid, but think about this: how many of those who push so hard for breastfeeding spend as much energy concerning themselves with what babies and children eat after they start to wean? Breastmilk is the most healthy food for babies, but you know what, breastfeeding and then taking your kid to MacDonald's for the rest of his childhood isn't going to do him any favors. Shouldn't we be just as concerned with the kind of jarred babyfood that we feed to babies? What about the artificial snacks filled with high fructose corn syrup that we give our kids? Just a wild guess here, but I'd say that many of the health and IQ benefits linked to breastfeeding could also be linked to eating a healthy diet of natural whole foods free of pesticides and bovine growth hormones. Where is the outrage over feeding toddlers non-organic milk? Where is the outrage over giving kids sugary cereals? Oh, yeah -- those things are important, sure, but moms can feed their kids healthy foods without having to give up their jobs and provide free boob access 24/7.

(This post was brought to you by the Medela Pump In Style breastpump. I pumped for 25 minutes while typing it and got a measly 2.5 ounces. My babies are eating 6.5 - 8 ounces every feeding. So yeah, I'm glad that formula exists so my babies don't, you know, starve.)

Sleep as a Research Project

Well, when I can't solve a problem I'll do what I know best: take data on it. So I've decided to track what the kids are doing with sleep, starting last night. Last night their first waking was at 12:36 a.m. after going to sleep by 7:45 p.m. They woke 11 times through the night. I got up for 8 of those 11 times, Jake got up the other times. So now tonight I can approach their waking with some element of curiosity. Will they wake more than 11 times or fewer? Will there be a trend up or down?

Tonight, in the quest to begin weaning off the pacifier, we put both babies down to bed awake and without pacifiers. Then we left the room. I thought that'd never work with Nora, but lo and behold she sort of chatted to herself for about 5 minutes and then went to sleep. Milo just went to sleep without any chatting. Neither of them did any crying. I have no reason to believe that this will repeat itself tomorrow.

Even though the babies woke 11 times last night -- and by waking, I mean a wake-up that requires us to get out of bed, i.e. something that has them fussing or crying -- I count the night as a vague success because nobody (i.e. me) lost their temper. Also, nobody (i.e. me) felt the urge to kill her sorrows with, say, a late night gin and tonic. If I'm going to wake up constantly, I figure I have two ways I can deal with it. I can either get frustrated and mad and freak out about it, or I can just accept it and remain calm. Either way I'm awake, but it's probably nicer to be awake and calm than awake and struggling with the urge to throw things and scream.

Sunny Day Photos

Well, they might not sleep but at least they're cute...

A Boring Topic Nobody Cares About

Okay. I totally get why people do Cry It Out with babies. I get it, and if things continue like this, as soon as we feel confident that they're able to make it through the night without having to eat, I bet we'll do it.

Because I can not. take. this. anymore.

The babies' sleeping, which was never terrific, has gone to crap. Last night we put them to bed as usual. Nora needed a pacifier, so we gave her one and she fell asleep. Milo didn't want one, so we put him down and he fell asleep. All was well.

11 p.m., Nora woke. I gave her a pacifier and jiggled her and she went back to sleep. Midnight, Milo woke. Same for him. 12:20, Milo woke. Jake went in, put him back to sleep, slipped back into bed, and before the covers were up Milo started fussing again. I went in there, gave him a pacifier, stood there for 5 or 10 minutes until his arms stopped swiping at his face, inadvertently knocking the pacifier out, waking him up, and making him cry for it. He fell asleep. 12:45, same thing with Milo. He went back to sleep after 5 minutes or so. I went to bed. 1:50, Milo woke up again. He was wide awake and thought it was playtime. He was talking and cooing and so loud that it woke Nora up.

At which point Jake came in and said "I guess we should feed them" and I screamed "IF WE FEED THEM NOW NORA WILL WAKE UP AT 5:30 IN THE MORNING AND I CANNOT HANDLE THAT!" Milo screamed. Nora slept. I gave up and fed Milo, changed him, put him down, he went back to sleep. It's now 2:45. Nora woke. I fed Nora, changed her, put her down with a pacifier, she went to sleep at 3:30. I went to sleep at 3:30.

Nora was up for good at 5:30 a.m.

This morning, I put them down for their naps, and right after half an hour like clockwork, Nora woke up. I thought, this is insane, she can't have this little sleep. She needs more than half an hour nap, she was up at 5:30! I went in, gave her a pacifier, jiggled her, she was wide awake. I picked her up (which I rarely do during sleep/nap time), and rocked her until she fell asleep because I really, really wanted her to have more than half an hour nap. I put her back in the crib. She woke up from the transition. She smiled. She loves to wake up and see me there, she wants it to be play time, not sleep time. I am now typing this while she's fussing in the crib because I am just so pissed off that she won't fucking sleep.

There. I said it. I'm mad at the babies because they won't sleep. They need sleep. We need sleep. NOBODY IS SLEEPING AND THEY ARE 5 MONTHS OLD ALREADY AND WHEN IS THIS GOING TO END OH MY GOD I AM GOING INSANE.

And this wasn't even the worst night. These days, it was an average night.

I see many problems here. One is the pacifier. If we keep giving them a pacifier to get them back to sleep, then of course when they wake up they're going to cry for a pacifier, at least Nora. I watch Milo put himself back to sleep without a pacifier all the time, so I don't know WHAT Milo's deal is when he wakes. Another problem is obvious. When they wake up, they get to see us, and they're delighted. They smile at us and coo and they're basically rewarded for waking up and making noise. So what is the incentive to stay asleep when instead they could get mama or daddy jiggling them, or patting them, or giving them a pacifier, or picking them up? What's the solution? Pantly's stupid "pick up put down" thing doesn't work, they don't even need to be picked up most of the time. I guess one thing is to teach Nora to go to sleep without a pacifier. That doesn't solve Milo's problems. Neither of them sleep well in bed with us, they're restless as hell that way, and I can't accept the idea of safe co-sleeping with twins all in one bed anyway. I can't think of anything else to do. They wake all the time, and I'm out of ideas. So that is why people do the cry it out method. Because nothing else works! Nothing is working.

I Wouldn't Want to Clean That Up

It can be impossible to maintain an argument with Jake because he's always coming up with comments that make me bust out laughing, despite my best intentions. And then it's hard to stay mad when you're cracking up. Like last night:

A: If I weren't the one being responsible around here and making sure that everything was taken care of, things would just go to hell!

J: People would start crapping in the sinks...

WTF?!? It's Jake's bizarre sense of humor that is going to allow us to survive this year.

Five Months

The kiddos are 5 months old now. Spring is here, even though it's a wet, cool spring. Everything has bloomed late this year, and the tulips and daffodils are still hanging on. I only just now got my annuals planted in pots, which makes me about a month behind. Nora and Milo go out for walks in their stroller all the time now that the weather is nice. The only time we stay in is when it's raining. They both seem to like their walks, and they either gaze around at the scenery peacefully, or they doze. Last weekend Jake took them both out for a walk on his own. This was a big milestone for Jake; it's the first time he's taken them both anywhere on his own. Anyway, for the first time since they were born, I had an hour by myself at the house. 15 minutes of that was wasted by pumping, and then when I was done pumping my brain started going "Aaaaaa! Time to myself! Hurry! Vacuum! Clean the bathroom! Pull weeds! Aaaaaa!"

Milo and Nora are on a pretty predictable schedule now. They wake up at around 7, they eat every 4 hours or so, and they're usually asleep by 7:45 or 8. We feed them once in the middle of the night. That's not to say that they only wake once; two nights ago, for instance, Nora woke about 84 thousand times. Last night, she only woke once to eat, but Milo woke 3 times before it was time to eat. It's almost like they take turns. Man, having one baby would be a piece of cake. Nora and Milo "nap" once in the morning, once in the early afternoon, and once in the late afternoon. By "nap" I mean, they either sleep for an hour to an hour and a half, or else they doze for 20 minutes and then decide to have a party. I never know which it'll be. And to all those baby book authors who swear that the key to getting babies to take long naps and sleep through the night is teaching them to put themselves to sleep, SCREW YOU. They put themselves to sleep just fine. They just don't put themselves back to sleep.

Anyhoo, they've made it to 5 months, and so have we, and we're all still alive! Not only that, but we continue to remain alive despite the fact that my mom is no longer here 24/7 to do our laundry and hold crying babies! We're really making progress here. Also, only getting up once in the night to feed the babies is rocking my world. I'm still tired but it's just normal tired, not "if a bus hit me that'd be more or less okay because at least I could sleep on the way to the hospital" tired.

Milo continues to be the eternally startled baby. Yesterday when I was burping him Milo startled 4 different times in the span of a few minutes. Each time daddy was ripping a velcro tab on Nora's diaper, and that noise caused Milo to jolt upright, open his eyes even wider, if possible, and look around wildly as if to say "what the hell was that?" He'll be way too easy to sneak up on and startle when he gets older. I can just imagine him playing happily in his room and I'll sneak up to the door, say "Milo", and he'll jump through the roof and shriek like an old woman. This is going to be so fun.

The world just sort of constantly surprises Milo. Milo is so wide-eyed that I fear he's inherited my bug-eyed look, the look that causes random doctors at parties to approach me and ask if I've had my thyroid checked. This is the look that I sport while interviewing students, when I'm trying to be all cool and casual and pretend that the crazy thing the student just said wasn't incredibly weird or surprising, and I leave the interview congratulating myself on how I pulled it off and the student had no clue that she'd just uttered a nut-job type of remark, and then I look at the video of the interview and realize that my huge buggy popping eyeballs gave me away. Yeah. That'll be Milo. He's going to suck at poker.

Milo takes it all in, looking around at everything, expressing his opinion with his big eyes. He gets bored and impatient if he has to just sit there and look at the same thing for any length of time, so forget about sitting down while you're holding that baby. That is not acceptable. Milo has to be on the move, he has to look at something different every few nanoseconds. He's highly observant and so even at this young age Milo has figured out that there is a difference between mama and daddy and twin whisperer and people who are not mama and daddy and twin whisperer. And those other people? They should go away immediately and not cause Milo the extreme pain and anguish of having to gaze upon a face that is not of his choosing. Much less be held by one of those offending non-familiar people; that is just too much to ask.

Milo loves playing with his toys, and he easily rolls over onto his side so that he can use both hands to fondle a toy. If he's really interested in that toy, he won't be all that thrilled at my presence; he'll glance at me politely, and then turn back to his toy, as if to say "Yeah, you? You're pretty cool, but you're not going anywhere, and when am I going to get a chance to play with this super-awesome toy again?" Like all babies Milo loves to stick everything he can into his mouth, although his aim isn't always so great and he sometimes end up bashing himself on the head. Milo has recently been practicing his rolling from back to front, and by practicing I mean getting 99% of the way there, but not completely there, and then trying again and again about 40 times in a row. The other day he finally completed the roll, and found himself stuck on his belly and unhappy about it. That's odd because Milo is good at rolling from his belly to his back. Just whisper the words "tummy time" within a mile radius of Milo and BAM, he'll be on his back.

Milo's eating has improved a lot. When he's hungry he can down 8 ounces in 5 minutes or so. He's good at chugging it. He must get that from his dad. Hopefully he won't apply this skill at college fraternity parties, but there won't be much I can do about that so the less I know, the better. Milo is still more or less completely bald and it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon, so I guess we'd better be careful about keeping him in hats to protect his little baby scalp from the sun. I didn't even think it was possible for Milo to get any cuter but I think he's still cutening up every day. That'll probably last until, what, adolescence? Or is it just girls who become pains in our asses in the pre-teen years? At any rate, he's more and more fun with every passing minute, and I can't wait to see what the next month holds.

Nora is having an easier time with life this month than she was when she was just a young tyke of 4 months. She is on a medication which has improved her reflux a lot, so she no longer screams in agony with every single feeding. She is also back to nursing after a massive strike that lasted so long that I was sure she was done for good. I have no idea what caused her to come back to nursing, maybe it was the medicine, or maybe she just matured a little bit, or maybe the phase of the moon has shifted, who knows, but I'm not complaining.

Nora has discovered how much fun it is to pound her feet down onto the crib, or the ground, and make the world shake. She likes to pound, and wiggle, and smack her arms against her belly in sheer excitement. The other day I turned on the mobile so that she could watch it while I fed Milo. I don't use the mobile much, only in those times when I really have to hold one baby over while I'm feeding the other, so it remains my secret baby-distraction weapon without getting old and stale. Nora still loves that mobile and when it stopped, she started pounding her feet and wiggling, pounding and wiggling, trying to make it start up again. That didn't work so Nora decided she'd turn on the charm and maybe that would make the mobile start up. She cooed at it, smiled at it, and even giggled a few times. I saw her flirting with that mobile and I thought, man, this little kid is already good at manipulating, look how sweet she is with that mobile to get what she wants! She does the exact same thing with us!

Nora can roll from front to back and she can roll from her back to her side. She is even less of a fan of tummy time than Milo is. I keep thinking we need to make her do it even more than we already are so that she can get stronger, rather than just sort of doing a sad little face plant after a minute or so and starting to cry. Nora much prefers small-body movements to large-body movements, generally. She can entertain herself for a long time by handling a small toy or rattle, moving it from hand to hand, and trying to get it to her mouth. Yesterday she sat in the Bumbo seat for a good 15 minutes playing with one small toy. Nora is also pretty happy being held, and she's not particular about who is doing the holding. Mama, daddy, random stranger down the street, it's all pretty much the same to her.

When the babies were first born I avoided the use of pacifiers for a couple of reasons. I don't like the look of older kids running around with pacifiers in their mouths, and I didn't want to become a slave to the pacifier, running to replace it in the middle of the night. Well, one night the babies were screaming, and some pacifiers had made their way into our house, and we popped a pacifier in and...silence. Golden, happy, non-screaming peace. That was it. From then on, we have become pacifier servants for Nora. Milo doesn't care about the pacifier that much anymore but Nora needs it at night, and sometimes she'll wake up without the pacifier and this fact disturbs her a great deal. What causes Nora to wake so much? I don't know if it's her brain activity, or if it's that some gnat 2 miles away flapped its wings too loudly, or what, but Nora wakes, and if the pacifier isn't there, watch out. So we find ourselves running into the bedroom at 3 a.m. replacing her pacifier, cursing ourselves for our boneheaded parenting decisions 3 months ago that have resulted in this situation. I'm trying to help Nora fall asleep more and more these days without her pacifier, which sometimes works, but hey, Nora's a baby, and she likes to suck. Who can blame her? I have a weird feeling that we'll end up with a kindergardener who doesn't want to give up her pacifier.


In general, though, as long as it's not sleep time Nora is a pretty mellow, happy baby. She likes to go in the car, she likes to go in the stroller, she likes to go in the sling, she likes to be held, she likes to sit in the bouncy chair or the Bumbo seat, she likes to take a bath, she likes to play in the crib or under her activity gym -- it's all fun for Nora. When we eat dinner these days, which by the way happens at the ridiculously early hour of 5:30 (I feel like I should be at my grandparents' house, eating at that hour, pass the apple fritters please) Milo is usually taking his last nap of the day and Nora is usually up refusing to nap. So I eat dinner with her sitting on my lap, and she's generally happy just to talk to me and watch me eat. She'll sit in my lap and stare at the fork as it makes its way from the plate to my mouth and back to the plate again. Every couple of minutes she'll glance up at me and smile, as if to say "Here I am, look how cute I am, don't forget about the cuteness, give me a kiss!" She's even remarkably tolerant when I do things like, uh, drop a piece of baked potato onto her face, not that I'm copping to having done that or anything.

That's the beauty of having a couple of babies. You can drop baked potato on them and they don't even sigh and roll their eyes at what a clumsy idiot you are. Happy 5 months, kids.

Weird sleeping

Our cat has decided that he likes to nap in the tub. Our daughter fell asleep in the carseat in the midst of doing the wave. Or maybe she had a big stretch and fell asleep before she finished.

Laughing

This entry features a video of the babies (well, mostly Milo) laughing at daddy. They both like to laugh now; Milo likes those little peek-a-boo games, and Nora thinks it's hilarious when you kiss her belly. She also breaks out the laughs right at bedtime, turning on the charm until the next thing we know it's 5 or 10 minutes later than we'd intended to put her down.

Today was Mother's Day. One thing I've learned about Jake (and about most relationships generally) is that if I want him to do something for me, I've got to ask for it. Specifically. Hoping that he'll read my mind pretty much never works. I'm a hard person to surprise because I'm always concocting elaborate fantasies about some grand gesture that Jake will do on my behalf for a birthday, or Valentine's day, or whatever. I'm on the lookout for those grand gestures -- or I used to be -- and I'm always thinking things like "he's just pretending that he hasn't done anything for this holiday, so that I'll be extra surprised this evening when he pulls out the fancy cake that he somehow managed to secretly bake and then, uh, hide somewhere in the fridge so I wouldn't find it. Hmm. That seems unlikely. I know! He's been hiding the cake in a friend's fridge, that's why there's no cake in our fridge!" And so on.

Asking directly makes a lot of sense because Jake typically wants to make me happy. It's a lot smarter than waiting around for him to get a clue, and then finding that he never did get that clue, and then getting resentful over it. So anyway I decided that I would ask Jake to get up with the babies when they woke this morning. The way we do it now is that they wake up to eat at around 2 or 3, and we both get up and feed them. Then they wake at around 7, and I get up with them while Jake sleeps for another couple of hours. That's actually the best-case scenario. Lately Nora especially has been waking an extra 4 or 5 times in addition to the night feeding. But anyway, I decided that it'd be nice to sleep in a little bit, so I asked Jake to get up with the babies. He agreed, and I was able to sleep until 8, so that extra hour was pretty nice. It made for a nice Mother's Day gift because at 6:50 a.m. when Milo started crying, I was able to just turn over and go back to sleep. How delicious!

So that was my Mother's Day gift, and I enjoyed it. Next I plan to convince Jake to get up with the babies 2 or 3 times a week, so we can trade off and I can be the one who sleeps late every now and then. Moo hah hah ha ha....

On the Eve of Mother's Day...

Happy Mother's Day to new mothers, to veteran mothers, to single mothers, to mothers who work outside of the home, to mothers who stay at home, to mothers who have lost their children, to mothers who are still waiting for their children to come to them. And happy Mother's Day to Dr. P, who has helped so many women become mothers.

Dr. P and her partner Dr. O were responsible for helping us get Nora and Milo. Today they held a party for all of the mothers and children they've helped create at their new clinic, which has been open for a little over a year now. Jake and I were the very first IVF at that new clinic, and we received extra-special treatment for being the first. Today when we introduced Nora and Milo to Dr. P and Dr. O, they said "Here is the reason we finished the lab on time! All of the construction workers know their names!" They were so happy to see the babies that were the result of all of that hard work.

The party included pizza, cake, a bouncy castle, photo keychains, and onesies that read "My parents spent over 30K in medical bills just to have me, and all I got was this lousy onesie". Nora and Milo weren't the only twins in attendance, and today we even met a lovely couple and their quadruplets. Quadruplets. Four babies. The mom was holding two of them, the dad was holding a third, and the 4th was in the stroller crying. I'm never going to complain about juggling two again.

Dr. P gave a little speech about how happy she was to be here with all of us, and how much it meant to her, and how gratifying it was to see everybody in happiness after having been through the hard parts of the journey with us. She started crying as she was saying that, and I think every single mother in attendance started crying right along with her. She was right. She really was there through all of the hard parts.

Dr. P isn't like any other doctor I've ever had, because she really seemed to care about me as a person. Beyond just my health. A victim of infertility herself, a veteran of IVF herself, she knew exactly what I was going through. She reassured me when I was beginning the treatment journey, encouraging me every step of the way by telling me how great everything looked with my health and how sure she was that I was going to get pregnant. After the first IUI failed, she held my hands while I cried in the examining room. After the second IUI failed, she cried right along with me. When I was scared, when I was in pain, when I was enduring endless shots and side effects, she called me up to see how I was doing, she told me at every exam how excited she was for me because she was sure the IVF would work, and she asked me if I had baby names picked out. When the day of retrieval came, she ran out to greet me in the waiting room and hugged me, so excited that the day had finally arrived. She and Dr. O were both with me in the operating room, along with Jake, and she never left my side. The night of the retrieval she called me at home to check up on how I was doing, and ordered pain relievers for Jake to pick up immediately so that I didn't have to wait until the next day.

Dr. P had cried right along with me through the failures and the dashed hopes, and she cried again the day I had my positive blood test. She was just so happy for me, and undoubtedly for the success they had experienced with their first IVF. When I was almost 6 weeks pregnant I visited her for the last time to do an ultrasound to see if we could detect a heartbeat. Dr. P had predicted all along that I would have twins. I was a nervous wreck before that ultrasound, because I was sure that we wouldn't find a heartbeat. I was sure that we would see an empty sac and nothing else. She stood next to me while Dr. O did the ultrasound and found not one, but two gestational sacs. He then found not one, but two beating hearts, and Dr. P held my hand while I started sobbing in relief.

What a tough job she must have. She has to go to work every day and face so many people's pain. She has to give bad news again and again, and the bad news will come far more often than the good news. So the good news must mean so much to her, and I understood why she got choked up at the party in the face of all of the happy, healthy babies all around her. Dr. P is a mother herself now to two little girls from Haiti, but even if she weren't, nobody deserves a happy Mother's Day more than she does.

Out to be Adored

Yesterday Nora and Milo weren't really into napping. 35 minutes in the morning, and 25 minutes for their mid-day nap, which was just depressing. So when they both woke up and were determined to stay up, I packed them in the car and took them to work so that everybody who had been bugging me to bring them in for the last 4 months could get their hands on them.

Nora ate it up. She was as happy as a clam to be passed from person to person; she didn't care who held her. Milo, on the other hand, was a little more reserved. Some people were able to keep him relatively happy, but others seemed to scare him a little and one person in particular made him cry every time she looked at him! Milo spent the whole time just trying to keep it together, making sure I was nearby. He kept sticking out his lower lip in a trembling, I'm-about-to-cry pout. It was ridiculously cute. I'd get a picture of it if I could, but that seems a little cruel because the trembling pout means that tears are on their way if I don't intervene immediately. Above is a general unhappy Milo picture, along with a content Nora picture.

Yesterday afternoon and evening Milo kept spitting up and Jake thought that he had a stomach ache, brought on by the stress of having to be around so many new people. (Being around a lot of new people gives Jake a stomach ache). I hope that's not the case, as we're taking the babies out for a couple of social outings tomorrow, and I don't want it to be painful for Milo. I read a book about the development of babies' brains and the research the authors cited suggests that an inhibited temperment is highly determined by genes. Milo's dad has an inhibited temperment, so maybe he'll be the same way. Or maybe he's just not so sure about strange-looking women who talk bizarre baby talk at him!

Throughout Jake's childhood, starting when he was very small, his mother made him say hello to 5 new people a day. This was in an attempt to make him more outgoing and less afraid of new situations and strangers. Jake still dislikes new situations but he is pretty personable now, and people who don't know him well would probably describe him as fairly outgoing, social, and easy to talk to. So maybe the whole "say hello to 5 new people" strategy worked. It's hard for me to imagine trying to force something like that on Milo, though. I have a weird feeling that I am going to end up being way more of a softie parent than I'd ever imagined. I thought I'd be this hard-core disciplinarian, following the way that I was raised, but now that Nora and Milo are here I feel kind of different about the whole thing. Maybe Jake will end up being more firm and I'll be the big old pushover.

(I can just imagine Milo and Nora reading this years and years down the road and laughing at the very thought of me being anything close to a pushover).

More on Stuff

One thing I was kind of dreading about having kids was the inevitable pile-up of ugly crap in the house. And yep, we're there. Baby stuff just isn't attractive, and it takes up a lot of room. What I didn't realize before I got pregnant was that not all baby stuff is ugly. Take, for instance, this bouncy seat:

The coco rocker. Retails for $199, on sale from $375. There's no way we're paying $400 for two baby rockers, so instead we have something that looks like this:
Ugly, huh. We got it for $35. We actually have 4 bouncers, one was a hand-me-down, one we bought for $35, and two we bought used for $8 each. And with twins all 4 come in handy. It's nice to have one in the bathroom, for instance, for stashing a kid while I take a shower.

Then there are some beautiful bassinets. For instance, this one:
Isn't that lovely? How nice to see a bassinet that doesn't look like a wedding dress from the 80's. But for $395, it's not exactly practical. So instead, we went with this:Ugly as sin, but it was $60 and had the added bonus of being able to fit two babies.

Recently I was thinking about high chairs. Here, too, designers have made their mark:

Boy does that look cool. A noticeable departure from the white plastic / blue plaid highchair of yesterday. But at $500 a pop, I don't think we'll be getting two of them. $1000 for something so temporary just doesn't make sense, and we probably don't have room for them anyway.

It's the same story in every category. Cribs, dressers, gliders, strollers, anything you can think of -- there are affordable yet hideous options, and there are attractive options with ridiculous prices. In the non-baby world, cheaper design knock-offs have become mainstream: we've got Room and Board, CB2, West Elm, even IKEA for the very cheap yet sort of hip option. There's an analogous market in baby stuff just begging to be created.