Community

As we approach Thanksgiving I am thinking a lot about how much things have changed over the course of a year. One thing that I can barely wrap my head around is how hard it was in the beginning, how lost I felt for so long. Other new parents don't seem to go through quite as much melodramatic angst as I felt like I went through. I'm not sure if it was the fact that we had twins, or the sleep deprivation associated with having two early babies who needed to eat around the clock, or maybe I'm just whinier than most and everybody goes through what I went through (yeah, it was probably that). I don't really know why it was so hard. But I do know that we couldn't have made it without all of the help that we received. In addition to being thankful for having Nora and Milo, something I thought might never happen, I'm thankful for being able to lean on my community of family and friends. I am humbled by all of the help people gave us, and by how much we really needed that help.

There is no way we could have made it through those early weeks without my mom. She stayed with us for 9 weeks and spent the whole time feeding and holding babies, doing laundry, doing dishes, cleaning, shopping, and basically taking care of our every need. I'm so glad that Nora and Milo had their grandmother there from the minute they were born so that they had constant access to somebody who was calm, happy, and loving them all the time. Jake and I loved them but we were uptight and neurotic and scared, which couldn't have been easy on the babies. My mom also visits them all the time so they have been able to see her a lot, and she also more or less single-handedly outfits their entire wardrobe. So basically she visits, clothes them, gives them toys, and then teaches them how to sit, crawl, and eat without gagging. This is very handy when you are a completely clueless parent.

The rest of my family also came and visited the babies. My sister came and told me stories about when her kids were babies, and those stories made me feel a hundred times better because I realized that what I was going through was more or less normal. My dad and stepmom also came to visit, and they held the babies and amused them and took us out to dinner and cooked for us. Our family members have also given us a ton of gifts, both old and new, useful hand-me-downs and beautiful books and toys and all sorts of things the babies needed.

We had so many friends who gave us so much help. My friends Anne and Jake practically saved our lives in the early months. They had empathy and read my panicked blog posts and then sent warm, helpful, wonderful emails. I remember in one case Jake told me that it gets easier even though it doesn't seem like it will. He said something like "every day, every week, every month it gets a little easier until it's no big deal." The phrase "no big deal" was something I clung to in hope. And he was right. And Anne sent me about 100 emails in the early weeks responding to all of my questions and angst. It helped so much to know that I could write and she wouldn't get annoyed, and instead would listen and offer help. I felt...it's hard to describe how safe I felt because I had that. Anne and Jake also gave us an enormous gift that we ultimately used to have the twin whisperer come help us through the month of March, a full month earlier than had been planned and budgeted. That was sort of an emergency situation for us that happened at the last minute, but we were able to deal with it thanks to that gift. And if that weren't enough, they also sent us wonderful things for the babies and gorgeous clothes from their own beautiful kids.

My friend Bekky gave me so much support that helped me keep going with breastfeeding through times when I had no supply, the babies couldn't latch, and I hated the pump with every ounce of my being. She had all of these ideas and tips that helped make it work better than it was working, and I credit that support with giving me the ability to keep going instead of throwing in the towel after a couple of weeks. She also shared all sorts of stories about things that had happened when her baby was small, stories that helped me put everything into perspective. She was also the one who correctly guessed that the babies might have reflux, and once we diagnosed that their lives got so much better. It was again so nice to have that kind of support through the computer, to have an understanding, helpful, non-judgmental ear.

Most of our friends in town are not parents. They helped us in their own ways, but there is one friend who is a parent who really supported me again and again. Her name is Jenny and her son is about a year older than Nora and Milo. Because of that Jenny has been able to share all sorts of advice, help, and support. She had a c-section like I did and she really understood how I felt about that and why I was so sad to not be able to have a natural birth. She was in the no-sleep trenches right along with me and shared a lot of coping strategies. She is much better at keeping it together in the face of sleeplessness than I am. Seeing her handle it with so much acceptance for so long was very inspirational to me. She also routinely gives us all sorts of things that her son outgrows, so we have things like jump-ups and exercsaucers thanks to her.

Our friends in town made dinners for us for about 6 weeks. Imagine how incredible that is. 6 weeks of dinners. It was amazing. Just as nice as the dinners were all of the visits we got from everybody. My coworkers were also very supportive, offering to babysit, giving so many gifts to the babies, and always asking me if I needed any help.

I look around at the things we use for the babies and I think about the generosity behind most of what we have. I have logged countless midnight hours in our glider, a gift from my dad and stepmom, and am so glad that it is as comfortable as it is. We put the babies to bed in cribs that are gifts from Jake's family, with bedding from my mom. Every time I put an outfit on the babies I think of the generosity of my mom, my friends, or my sister. Every time I read them a book I think about the coworker or the aunt who gave that book to the babies. When we put them in the carseats I think of Jake's parents, who gave them to us. This outpouring of generosity makes us feel so lucky. It was was a big deal to us, especially because we were grappling with paying over 30K in medical bills, out of pocket, before Milo and Nora even arrived.

I think like many Americans I live with a created myth about being self sufficient, when nothing is farther from the truth. I haven't done anything on my own. Everything I've done has been the result of the help and support and generosity of the people in my life. I just never paid much attention to it until Milo and Nora were born, when I was thrown into a situation where I really noticed how much I actually needed that help on a day-to-day basis.

Now we're in a much better place, and I'm almost starting to forget what it was like last winter. Right now I'm typing this while Nora and Milo are on the floor near me playing with each other. They don't even care that I'm here, they're having too much fun together! It's great to watch, and it makes me glad that I have twins. These happy times make the earlier memories fade, but I'll never forget how lucky we were to have so much help from everybody.

Hmmmm

I had a tenure review committee meeting this morning. A tenure review committee is a group of people who are watching my progress and advising me about what to do to get tenure. The group has an evaluatory role (did I just make up that word?), but it's fairly informal. I have to make progress reports and meet with them to show them what I've done lately, and then they judge my work, make suggestions about other things I should be doing, provide advice for getting ready for my tenure bid, etc.

My tenure committee is composed of extremely nice, helpful, supportive people. And yet I was so nervous that I could feel my lower jaw shaking.

So anyway, without any extensions on my clock I would go up next year in the spring. I have two extensions, though, so I can go up as late as 3 years from now if I need to. Waiting means more time to publish more and therefore a better chance of getting tenure. Today my committee surprised me by suggesting that I consider going up next year and not taking either of my extensions. They think I'll get tenure at this point based on what I have already and where I'm going. I was shocked, because I feel like I've been derailed over the past year. We decided to hold off on that decision until the spring, but to keep it in mind.

In reality I doubt I'll go up next year. It still feels too soon and I'd rather wait until perhaps the fall of the following year to go up. But it is really tempting to think about going up sooner. As one member said, "the advantage of going up next spring is that you can just get it over with. You can put all of the stress behind you and just get on with your career." The idea of putting it behind me is very tempting. But being conservative and perhaps a lacking confidence, I'll probably wait another year to be safe. I'd hate to go up early and then not get tenure when I could have waited and made a stronger case.

Getting tenure will be huge. (I've decided to start acting and talking like it's going to happen, instead of being pessimistic). To no longer worry about how I am going to provide for my family, especially in this economy with Jake's chances of ever getting a job being kind of lousy...well, to know that we could count on my job, that would be such a relief.

Ugly But Worth It

Winter in a northern state necessitates a great deal of compromising on style.

A lot of very warm winter clothing is just ugly. There are cute boots out there, as well as cute gloves and cute coats. The cute ones tend not to be very warm. When it's -15 degrees out, cute doesn't matter anymore. I need the full length, puffy, unfashionable down coat. I need the bulky, huge boots and gloves. Nobody looks good in this stuff. When I'm decked out for winter I look like the stay-puff marshmallow man.

One of the worst winter travesties is turtlenecks. No woman looks good in a turtleneck. I don't care what size you are, whether you're short or tall, whether you are amply endowed or can get away without wearing a bra, a turtleneck does not flatter any body type. As for men, well, it takes a very rare type of man who can pull off a turtleneck without looking like a complete tool. Those men tend not to live in the midwest. Turtlenecks are just hideous, period, and yet, I own and wear 5 different turtleneck sweaters. Yes, they're awful, but they're so warm! I can't help it!

We even voluntarily uglify our house for winter. I spent last weekend sealing plastic over our windows (our 80-year old windows) to protect us from drafts. Last year I skipped this step, being too pregnant to crawl on furniture and balance on stools, and we really paid the price. The icy wind just flew through our useless windows. Now the plastic swells and shrinks like the windows are breathing in and out. It's ugly, but warm. Some day we will replace our windows, but until then, I'm embracing the ugly.

Wait...I Thought I Liked Middle Schoolers

I am not looking forward to dealing with this kind of thing in 12 or 13 years:

Trite

He kept bumping his head on the table;

She kept letting go and falling down;

He knocked over a cup of water;

She refused to drink her bottle;

He pushed her over;

She poked his eyes;

They fought over each and every toy;

And everything was perfect

on that cold fall evening.

A Whole Lot of Nothing

I put the kids into some fancy clothes and tried to take some pictures for a Christmas card. It is very hard to get two babies to provide nice smiles at the same time while also sitting still and not crawling towards the camera to try to grab the strap or touch the buttons. I took about 200 pictures and got one picture that is maybe good enough to use. I'll try again in a couple of days. Here is one of the 199 rejects that give a sense of how difficult I'm finding it to get decent pictures.

Plus, why am I even thinking about making Christmas cards? I never send out Christmas cards. I don't even have the addresses of most people in my life. Also, I have always disliked it when I got cards from my friends and saw that they sent photos of their kids but not of themselves. I always want to see what my friends look like, too, not just the kids. And now I'm suddenly trying to take a cute picture of the babies for a Christmas card? Who am I? My pre-baby self would be totally annoyed by something like this.

We are running a search again this year to try to hire a new colleague. This is a difficult process because in my field universities compete for candidates. We have identified the top three candidates and are going to bring them out in the first two weeks of December. This means lots of lunches and dinners out with the candidates, as well as interviewing them and attending their job talks. It means a lot of time outside of the house and a lot of evenings away from the kids. Fortunately, my colleague is the search chair, not me, so he's the one who has to shlep out to the airport and drive candidates back and forth from their hotels.

Today it was about 28 degrees when I took Milo and Nora for a walk. I bundled them up in down coats and hats and mittens pinned to their sleeves so they wouldn't tear them off, and then I stuffed them into fleece sacks that are sort of too small for them in the stroller, and then I put a giant plastic tent over the stroller to shield them from the wind. The whole process took like 15 minutes just to go on a walk, and I'm kind of wondering whether I really want to do this throughout the winter. But we can't stay stuck inside all day, either.

When I asked Nora what an owl says, she says "Who! Who!"

Milo has a 3rd tooth. Nora still has zero teeth. I hope there isn't some rare disorder in which people just don't develop teeth.

11 Months

I can't believe the kids are 11 months old. That means in just one month, they'll be a year old. They won't be babies anymore. What happened? Why does it suddenly seem like these past 11 months have flown by when every individual day lasts about 200 hours?

I tried to take some cute pictures of Milo and Nora together. It's really hard. Witness the following:

And this:


They just never sit still. They're always moving. Usually, they're together getting in trouble, like this:



Or this:


I have ordered some latches for our cabinets and I hope they come soon because the babies have become obsessed with opening up all of the cabinets and pulling everything out.

One thing that's funny is how Nora and Milo always gravitate towards one another. Wherever they are in the room, they're generally in the same spot. If one kid finds something dangerous and fun to investigate, the other is right there to help out. Recently I took a walk with a neighborhood mom whose daughter is 3 months older than Nora and Milo. She asked whether I was ever able to get anything done when home alone with them. In her case, she can't do much of anything because her baby always wants her right there with her, playing with her. Nora and Milo aren't really like that because they have each other. Sometimes they don't even notice me because they're too busy scheming together, figuring out ways to stick forks into unprotected outlets.

They're interacting a lot now and I love to watch it. Tonight at dinner Milo was doing his usual charming trick of blowing his food all over creation, and Nora picked up on it and started doing it herself. Whenever Nora blew her food out, Milo just cracked up. Seriously cracked up. So of course she kept doing it over and over again, and he kept laughing. They'll do little things like that to make each other laugh, and when I see that I think, oh, okay, this is why we went through the hell of having two newborns at the same time. Now I get it. Having two is pretty cool.

In the past month Nora has started creeping along the couch and sometimes she'll let go for a minute and stand unassisted. She doesn't really seem all that interested in walking; I don't think she's in a hurry to do it. I'm okay with that, because they get around quickly enough as it is with crawling. Nora might walk before too long, though. I think once she figures out that it's a possibility, she's going to set her mind to it and get going.


Nora is saying "hi" now, which she'll sometimes say to Milo as well as to me, Jake, the twin whisperer, and the cats. She also says "all done" after I say it at the end of meals. Nora has also taken up "kitty", which I think she learned from Milo. Nora is generally not super interested in talking; she'd prefer to just move around. However, she can wave hello and goodbye, and she can clap, and she loves to imitate facial expressions.


Nora really wears her heart on her sleeve. She can't resist a smile, and any attention she gets just makes her glow with joy. On the other side, Nora can't hold it in when she gets upset. She'll kick her feet and writhe her body, and it all looks suspiciously like a little baby tantrum to me. So I guess we have that to look forward to. She's like a summer storm, though. Quick to anger, quick to get over it. Mostly she is sunny and cheerful and eager to let you bask in her cuteness. Nora charms everybody she meets. She even charmed the gruff GI doctor this time, who touched her chin and told her how cute she was.

These next three pictures show Nora with one of her favorite things, the sash on my robe. Like a cat, Nora loves any kind of string, drawstring, or cord. Notice in the second picture she's sort of hugging it. Sometimes she'll put it in her mouth and crawl around that way, like a little puppy. Boy, babies are weird.



Now that the kids are over their colds, all is well in our lives. Nora sleeps, and recently she's even been eating. I'm almost afraid to say that because I don't want to jinx it. Nora is fearless, eager to explore any new environment, unafraid to fall, unafraid to launch herself off of tall objects (hence her accident this week). She would spend all day climbing stairs if I let her. She's an adventurous little baby, but she's still young enough to want to return for a hug every few minutes. I'll take it for as long as it lasts.

Milo has changed a lot in the past month. Now he can pull up on anything and he too has started to creep along furniture. Milo has realized that he is bigger than Nora and he can stand up to her. So he no longer lets her steal toys, and he does a fair share of trying to steal things himself. In this picture below, Milo is holding the robe sash only because Nora is holding the other end. He has no interest in strings the way she does. But because she had it, he wanted it, and they engaged in a little game of tug of war. Eventually they came to some sort of unspoken agreement and spent the next 10 minutes shaking each end of the sash in unison like they were practicing their double-dutch technique.

Milo is so much more reserved than Nora. I have to work harder to get a smile out of him. He has to think about it for a while before he will reward you with a smile. On the other hand, Milo doesn't get as upset, either. He's pretty even keeled. There are a few things still guaranteed to make Milo laugh, though. One of them is when I say "Phew!". He thinks that's a crack up.



Milo is talking a lot. In addition to kitty, baby, and ball, he says "hi" and "all done". He's also saying "baba" which I think means bottle. We're trying to learn "book" now, and he's halfway there. Milo has also learned to put his hands over his head to show how big he is. When I say "How big is Milo?" he grins and laughs and puts his hands over his head.


Milo gets a big kick out of putting things into other things and taking them out again, over and over. We have a bunch of wooden blocks stored in an old metal cookie tin with a round lid. Milo can entertain himself for 15 minutes by putting the lid on the cookie tin, taking it off, putting it back on, and taking it back off. He also loves his new toy with holes for balls to go through. Milo will put the balls through the holes, and he'll also put blocks through the holes, and rubber duckies, and socks, and the other day I caught him trying to stuff a teddy bear through the hole.

Milo's favorite thing is taking a bath. He kicks and splashes and laughs over and over again. Nora, by the way, likes to try to stand up in the bathtub, giving me my 5th heart attack of any given day. Milo just splashes and splashes. It's great how tiny little things, like taking a bath, or getting his teeth brushed, or pulling off his own socks and shoes, gives Milo so much to be happy about. Life is really great when you find joy in something like getting your teeth brushed.

As the weather gets darker and colder I keep remembering what things were like this time last year. I remember how I couldn't walk to work and had to take the bus or drive. I remember all of the pain I went through in November because Nora flipped twice. I remember how quiet everything was, and how much I slept. Now it is never quiet, and I seldom get enough sleep. Man, life was boring last year. What did I do with all of that time I had on my hands? How did I entertain myself when there were no babies to laugh at?

Busted!

Grandmom asked for this video so here it is. This is what the kids do when we put them down in the same room for a nap. They jump up and down in their cribs and laugh and laugh. It's a little hard to see and hear; the video quality isn't great.

We're now separating them for naps. It's kind of sweet to see how much fun they have together, though.

Weight Obsession

Like most women, I usually think twice about what I eat. I can never eat anything without weighing the costs. When I was pregnant I suddenly started obsessing about calories in the opposite direction. My goal was to gain at least 50 pounds because I had read a bunch of research showing strong correlations between a large weight gain and birthing healthy-weight twins. I started looking at the calories of everything I ate, trying to switch to super high-calorie foods. It was a really counter-intuitive thing to do. In the end I gained 40 pounds which didn't meet my goal, but was pretty decent considering the weight loss I went through in the early months and the fact that I had to restrict carbs in the later months. I still feel kind of bad about not gaining more and having babies who were as small as they were, but maybe they would have been small no matter how much weight I gained.

Now I'm back to obsessing over every single calorie, but this time it's about Nora, and again I'm searching around for the highest calorie foods I can think of. At Nora's GI appointment she weighed in at 15 lbs 3 oz, and her average weight gain has been 7 grams a day over the past 2 months. That is not enough, so now we are to put canola oil into her bottle. When she turns 1 year old she won't be able to switch over to milk like most toddlers. She has to consume 700 calories a day for appropriate catch-up growth right now, so I do a lot of calculating. If I can get her to drink 16 ounces a day, that's 432 calories. So I need to get at least 270 calories into her via solid meals. That's actually a stretch since getting 100 calories into her at lunch and dinner pretty much stuffs her full. Okay, 70 calories at breakfast, and we should be good. Except for those days when she'll only drink 12 ounces. Then we're kind of screwed. I put avocado oil into a lot of her vegetables. I found sunbutter made from sunflower seeds, and that has a lot of calories, so I can give her some of that every day. Bananas and avocados are good. She hates eggs. She turns her nose up at beef (can't blame her). Yogurt is good. By the end of the day if we have a little cushion, and I know she'll make her calorie goal, I feel relieved. If she's behind and I know she won't make it up, I feel miserable.

Boy, if only I put this much effort into watching my own eating so carefully, I'd be able to lose that baby weight no problem!

When we were in the waiting room we talked to another mom of a 1-year old baby who is 14 and a half pounds. She said the doctor brought up the possibility of a gastric feeding tube. That baby is only a little worse off than Nora weight wise, so it scared me. Nora is growing well in length, and her head size is decent, so it's not like she's not growing. But her curve has flattened out again, and I guess I have to deal with the fact that we're going to be living with this issue for a while. It could be worse. A feeding tube would be much, much worse. I'll slip oil and butter into everything she eats every day if it can help us avoid going down that road.

Above is a picture of our little fashion plate.

Theoretically

So in theory, how bad is it if you, say, drop a baby on her head? From, say, the height of an examining table in a doctor's office? Does it help if the doctor immediately examines her and says that she seems to be fine?

No, that doesn't make it better? I didn't think so.

What a day. Up with the kids, fed them breakfast, the twin whisperer arrived, and from 8:30 - 9 I walked to work. 9 - 9:30 I dealt with an advisee who has many problems. 9:30 - 10:45 I covered a grad seminar for a colleague. 10:45 - 11 I walked to the other side of campus, and 11 - 12 I had a meeting about the advisee. 12 - 1 I had lunch with a friend, and 1 - 1:15 I walked back to my office. 1:15 - 1:30 I prepared for a research meeting, and from 1:30 - 2 I met with my grad student who is analyzing some of my data. From 2 - 3 I met with another grad student to go over changes to his dissertation proposal. From 3 - 5 I read through applicant files for a position we're hiring. 5 - 5:30 I walked home. 5:30 - 6:30 I played with the babies, and 6:30 - 7 I fed them and put them to bed. After some dinner and goofing off, I now have to go through another stack of applicant files, and then hopefully after a couple of hours of that it'll be off to bed.

So if we go over the activities I did today at work, only those from 1:15 - 2 had anything to do with research, i.e. the thing that gets me tenure. And those activities didn't even involve any actual writing, the thing that really gets me tenure. I spent a packed day at work doing things that are not going to lead to tenure. This is a problem, but it's a problem I don't quite know how to fix. I think I have too many grad students.

Here is a video of Milo playing with a new toy. We have a couple of sorting toys with shapes and he gets the idea of putting shapes through the holes but doesn't have the motor skills to do it yet, so I got an easier one with balls. He quickly figured out how to push the balls through the holes over and over again.

Nora has turned the corner and now both babies are feeling better. Hooray! Tonight they even went to bed without a problem.

Mystery

Babies are so mysterious. They can't communicate with us, unless it's to talk about a baby, kitty, or ball, so I just don't know what is wrong or how to fix it. Nora woke up last night a bit before 1 a.m. and I didn't get her to go back to sleep until 4:10 a.m. Yeah. Three hours of misery. Bouncing, shaking, diaper changing, medicine giving, bottle giving, I tried every trick in the book. She seemed hungry but after only an ounce or so pushed the bottle away in frustration. I thought, aha, she must have an ear infection! That would explain her complete inability to sleep.

Milo woke at about 3:45 and didn't fall asleep until 4:50 so we were up until then. And he woke for the day at 6:50. I feel like I've been hit by a train.

This morning we took the babies to the doctor and found out that they don't have ear infections. So that's good, at least; they haven't had one yet so maybe they aren't prone to them. On the other hand, what's with the insane nights? By the way Nora weighed 15 lbs 13 oz and Milo weighed 17 lbs 11 oz with clothes on.

So my only other explanation other than having a cold is teething, which I think must finally be happening for real this time because Nora's hand is constantly in her mouth. I have this fantasy that we're going to wake up one morning soon and Nora will have like 8 teeth that came through overnight. 

In the examining room there was a poster of a baby dressed up in a bear costume. Milo looked at it and said "kitty!" Classic case of assimilation.  

Maybe if I had just let her cry for 10 or 20 minutes when she first woke up, we wouldn't still both be wide awake now, 2 hours later, at 3 a.m. With no signs of even getting close to going back to sleep.  I'll never know.

This blog is basically an advertisement for why nobody should ever have kids.

The Political and the Personal

Boy has it been a hard week for Nora and Milo. The election euphoria was juxtaposed with struggles at home as the babies sniffled, coughed, whined, cried, and moaned their way through the days.

On Monday neither baby napped much and they didn't have much of an appetite. I had to put them to bed by myself and it only took an hour and 15 minutes, which is a long time but at least it wasn't traumatic.

On Tuesday Jake and I had plans to go to an election party downtown. This was our chance to spend some time with friends we haven't seen in weeks, in some cases months, and share the excitement with everybody in an alcohol-infused haze of love. I had been looking forward to this night for weeks. We never get out, which is my fault because I haven't found a babysitter other than the twin whisperer who is usually booked solid. I don't know how to go about finding one good enough to handle two babies simultaneously. So anyway, we hadn't been out in ages, and I'd been waiting for that night for 8 years. It was a night I wanted to remember.

So of course that was the night that Nora had hysterics for over 2 hours, wouldn't let me leave, and freaked out if I passed her to the twin whisperer (who she normally loves). By the time I finally got her to go to sleep it was late, I hadn't even gotten dressed, the party was half over, and Jake had given up and changed into his pajamas. Our opportunity to get out of the house had passed us by. And I was mad. Boy, was I mad. It took every ounce of self control I had to not scream at Nora, and I'm not proud of that. I just couldn't get over the timing of it. Nora hadn't cried inconsolably like that since she was a tiny infant. I don't know why she did that night, of all nights.

Nora got fewer than 9 hours of sleep that night and the next day I had the babies all to myself all day long. They were so overtired and congested that they couldn't nap. They napped for 15 minutes in the morning, which I'm pretty sure doesn't count, and only half an hour in the afternoon. The rest of the day was filled with clingy, moaning, unhappy kids. Whichever kid I wasn't holding at the time would cry at the unfairness of it all. Finally I tossed them in the stroller and took a 90-minute walk hoping they would sleep, but instead they just passed into a waking trance as they watched the giant piles of red and yellow leaves on the sidewalks. 

Wednesday night, more of the same. More crying from Nora, refusals to eat or go to sleep. At first I thought she must be in pain, as it's unheard of for her to refuse to settle in my arms and just cry like that. But every time I walked out of the nursery, she immediately started smiling and laughing with glee. Every time I returned to the dark nursery, she immediately started screaming, thrashing, pulling my hair, clawing at my neck and face, and fighting me. It was exhausting, it was infuriating. She only slept a few hours before she woke at 2 a.m. and was up for another hour. So it was a sleepless night in the middle of a lousy week.

Today, thank God, the twin whisperer came and I went to work. I'm not proud of that either. Never have I been so relieved to go to work. Tonight I had to put them to sleep by myself again and it was again traumatic. Whichever baby I wasn't holding/rocking was crying and screaming. First I held Nora while Milo cried. Then I felt sorry for Milo so I held him while Nora cried. I realized that I was going to have to let one baby cry him or herself to sleep, because that was the only way I would ever get them both to sleep. Otherwise it was me in the nursery holding one while the other screamed, and the screaming one prevented the one I was holding from settling down anyway. I was going to have to leave the room with one baby and let the other one cry, which is just sad, sad, sad. I left Milo to cry because I thought he would calm down quickly, whereas I know from experience that Nora is capable of crying for hours on end. Fortunately, he settled down and went to sleep after only 5 minutes, but I still felt like a heel for doing that to him. We've never let him cry before.

There is nothing worse than sick babies. It is so cruel that we can no longer give them any decongestants -- those bulb syringes, saline drops, and humidifiers don't do jack when a baby is seriously stuffed up. All week long both babies have had massive quantities of snot oozing out of their noses. It's a real joyfest around here, I can tell you. 

I feel like I am seriously not cut out for parenthood. Weeks like this just do me in. The babies deserve better than having some crappy mother who secretly gets mad at them for ruining her chance at a night out and who secretly feels relief at being able to escape to work. Unfortunately for them, all they've got is me, so I'm trying to be better. Every day I'm trying to be better.

Yes We Did

For the first time in a long time I have hope for the future we're handing our children. I feel proud of our country. As President-Elect Obama said last night, "This is our moment. This is our time -- to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth -- that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: yes we can."

Today is the Day

Tomorrow's the Day

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. Tomorrow will be a monumental day.

In baby news, both are sick. Also, Nora can climb the stairs. Don't ask me how I found that out.

Murphy's Law

Having babies has, of course, put a giant damper on our social life. I can't even remember the last time we went to a restaurant. We really need to find ourselves a babysitter at some point so that we can start going out every now and then. So of course the one night that we have friends over is the night that the babies won't go to sleep, and it's the night when Nora wakes up about 8,000 times between 7 and 9 p.m. They really made us look like amateurs tonight. Usually it's so impressive how we can put them in their cribs, put out the light and leave and they'll just happily roll over and go to sleep. Not tonight. All night long either Jake was up there or I was up there soothing them...well, mostly Nora.

Right now I can hear the whistle of Milo's breathing through the monitor. Milo has a cold and this is why Nora is so messed up with sleep. Milo needs help going to sleep because he is too stuffed up to easily fall asleep by himself. But if somebody is in the room rocking Milo to sleep and that somebody is not paying attention to Nora, then all hell breaks loose. However, take Milo out of the room and he won't go to sleep, he's too jacked up from being in a different environment. Rock, meet hard place.

So Milo has a cold, and today I saw Nora start to sniffle, and this week I have to put the babies to bed by myself on 3 different nights. Seeing as how Jake and I as a team can't even manage this when they are sick, I have no clue how I'm going to do it on my own. Add in the time change and I might as well admit defeat now.

Happy Halloween

Fall Back

Oh no! Never have I dreaded gaining an hour so much!

This means that the babies, who sometimes wake at 6:30 and sometimes sleep in as late as 7:15, will now be waking anytime between 5:30 and 6:15. In an attempt to prepare for this I've been trying to stretch them out at night, putting them to bed a little later, hoping that they'd sleep in a little later.

No luck yet. In fact, as we've been putting them to bed 15-20 minutes later, they're actually waking up 15-30 minutes earlier. I think Weissbluth is right on this one: if you want your kids to sleep in later, put them to bed earlier, not later. It's counterintuitive but it's totally true with our kids. It's only when they started going to sleep by 7 p.m. religiously that they've actually started sleeping all the way until 7 a.m.

A lot of studies have shown that babies, toddlers, kids, teenagers, and adults are all chronically sleep deprived in the U.S. This negatively affects our ability to think, concentrate, maintain a happy demeanor, and maintain a healthy weight. Sleep deprivation makes kids hyper and overly excitable and some studies suggest that sleep deprivation is linked to behavior and cognitive difficulties in school. I know that for Nora and Milo, an early bedtime is key to getting a good night's sleep. I really, really wish they were the kind of babies who could sleep in until 9 a.m. or something. Then we could just put them to bed later, which would be so much more convenient in terms of dinnertime, socializing with friends, etc. But unfortunately they just pop awake at 6:30 or so on most mornings, no matter how late they stay up at night. Their internal clocks seem to be set that way so the only way I can give them a good night's sleep is to put them to bed by 7 p.m. at the latest.

It's a pain and it probably won't go away for a very long time because our elementary schools have a ridiculously early start time. So even when they're older they're going to have to get up at around 6:30. Ugh! What a bummer for a night owl like me.

The other thing I've realized is that different babies just sleep differently no matter what we do as parents. I can count on one hand the number of times Milo has woken up crying in the past 6 months or so. If he ever does, it means there's a real problem. Mostly he just sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. He always falls asleep first, and Nora is always the first one awake in the morning. We didn't do much of anything to make this happen; we just lucked out. And I think it's time for me to accept that Nora is probably always going to be a somewhat lousy sleeper. We struggle and sometimes things get better and she sleeps well, but inevitably it deteriorates again. And again. And again. She takes short, crummy naps, and she doesn't sleep easily at night, and that just seems to be who she is. So it's just our job to deal with it and try to help her get as much sleep as we can. It does seem like Nora just needs less sleep than Milo overall.

Oh, I hope we recover from this time change thing fairly quickly! At least getting up at the crack of dawn will allow us to get to the polls bright and early on Tuesday. I want Milo & Nora to be there for this historic voting event!