A Night At Our House

Last night the cubs finally slept a decent stretch of time.  I took the cereal out of their formula to see if that would make a difference, and it did.  My instinct tells me that since they are preemies, perhaps their digestive systems just aren't ready for it yet.

We also started a new ritual at night, a nice big feeding, then a nice warm bath followed with some baby lavender lotion.  The first night we did this we did the bath first and Calista fell asleep with bottle in mouth and I could not wake that child!  Of course that was at 8:30 so she was up at 9:30 wanting to be fed.  Then she was up again at midnight and 3 a.m.  As I heard her screaming through the monitor I told Ed, 'This is where you remind me not to shake the baby'.... so he said, 'Don't shake the baby', and I didn't.  How could I?  I could barely find her with my one eye open and stumbling like a sailor on shore leave through the nursery.  When you're that tired changing a baby's diaper becomes an act of shear will.  Thank God by the time you get to this point you've changed so many that you can change them in your sleep... because that is just what you do, change them in your sleep!  If I can find the butt, I can get that diaper slid under it somewhat straight.  However getting the pj's snapped back up is like reading Braille.  I'm searching for the inny snap that goes with that outy snap and half way up find I have an extra inny snap.  Then goes the hunt for the outy snap that got snapped to the wrong inny snap, all with one eye open (and that eyeball feels like it should be taken out of your head and rinsed off in the sink).

I know I'm not the only one that has problems with this.  Come morning I've found babies with pj's snapped up all wrong from their father and sometimes I have to laugh when I find a onsie up around their chest because daddy didn't even snap that back up.  It's all very humorous in the morning, but in the middle of the night it's more mentally challenging to me than Calculus.

Tuesday Mom came over to help out and we took the cubs on a little adventure.  First to the store, then to Michael's to find some kid poster things to put on their wall.  I did find a doggy and kitty picture, but I have to say the selection was slim pickings.  After that we spotted a new Sprouts market that had opened where the old Circuit City used to be in Greeley.  Since the twins were already in the stroller we just wandered over there.  We loved the produce there!  Both of us were expecting high prices since it seemed like a specialty store.  Instead we found beautiful produce for some really good prices.  But Calista was having nothing more to do with the stroller so I had to carry her and she was happy with that.  Hard to believe how carrying just 13 pounds for a 1/2 hour to an hour can kill your arm.  What will I do when they get bigger?

Weds. me and the cubs stuck around the house for most of the day.  We had 2 new low flow toilets installed this morning so I knew we'd be home bodies for that.  This afternoon as I started to hit my 3 p.m. wall, as I call it, I packed up the kids and headed to Starbucks.  That's two days in a row I've had Starbucks now and if they don't let me get some sleep this could turn into an expensive habit.  Both yesterday and today I was so exhausted I almost looked at the barista in shock to ask, "What do you mean Venti is the biggest one you've got?"  They should have one the size of a big gulp for new moms I think.

However today Calista did do quite a bit of talking and started to really laugh.  She made a cry sound and I copied her, that made her giggle, which made me giggle and we just went back and forth laughing at each other.  Alex also had some fun today, we broke out a little play station that Mom and Dad's friend had given us.  The baby sits in the center of it and all the way around there are toys, activities and musical things.  At first he didn't like it, but then he found a plastic pig on it that made him just giggle away every time it moved.

The worst part of motherhood is trying to match up all those snaps at 3 in the morning.

The best part of motherhood is starting to interact with your babies.  The laughing at each other and babbling back and forth to one another are just precious moments.