Grammy and Opa's Visit

We missed last week! I'm so sorry if you were looking for our post, I just didn't find the time to get it out. My Mom and Step-Father (aka Grammy and Opa) arrived last weekend for a week-long visit and we've been enjoying every moment with them.
The girls have been in their glory since their arrival. The visit came at a really great time in their development where they are such charm machines. No opportunity for a smile or giggle is wasted with these girls at the moment. They flirt, charm and are so very aware of the responses that their expressions evoke. The word clown doesn't even begin to describe them! They are just so funny.
We've gotten back track with their solid foods. They've added oatmeal and apple sauce to their repertoire, though they don't think much of my home-made applesauce. I made it with stewed and pureed apples thinned with formula, but alas it's still a bit tart for their taste. As you can see from the video, squash is the clear winner. Tonight I'll do up some peas and we'll try that by week's end. So far the only reaction or side effect of the food is in the product that comes out the other side. This has proved very shocking to me! I realize that I'm in for a long and poop-filled two years with these girls. (sigh). Thankfully their other attributes far outweigh their diaper frights!
There are no teeth yet, but a great deal of drool and chewing are probably good indications that they are on their way. They are just beginning to sit up on their own, but really only for a few seconds at a time. I'm looking forward to the day when I can sit them up with some toys and sit back for a break. They are also very aware of one another now, and interact quite often with smiles and touches to each other's head and arms. They really are such a pleasure to be around.
So we had a wonderful visit with Grammy and Opa, and hope that Mathilde and Alexis continue to enjoy the company of family and friends. Perhaps we'll get lucky and that shy stage that we hear about will allude us. I hope to have more next week, but for now, I'm signing off to go and rescue a Gully from her nap. Take care everyone!

Another Week with the Gullies

It's started! They're starting to sleep like normal people! Not all the time, and never two nights in a row, and with no predictablility, but I can safely say it's starting to happen. Since last week, we've had 3 nights where the girls have slept for up to 11 hours at a stretch and in doing so, allowed me to sleep as well. To be sure, I wake up every few hours and check the clock to see what's going on, but for the most part I feel pretty well rested! It's life changing, really. It tells me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that someday soon, I will be able to stay up past 8:30pm and still get a decent amount of sleep. We'll be able to have grown-up time together and do things like have a late dinner, or even a bubble bath! Basically, me time in chunks greater than 20 minutes. Sounds heavenly!
We've made a few changes to the girl's diets since our visit to the pediatrician last week. Mathilde weighs 14lbs and Alexis is around 13 1/2lbs. This puts them in the 50th and 25th percentile respectively. Both measured in the 50th for their height. Dr Tremblay certainly was not concerned, but I'd been thinking that maybe Alexis was a little thin, so we picked up her calorie intake by adding a bottle of formula right before bed. It has the added effect that it helps her sleep longer too, which doesn't hurt. We've been offering Tilly formula too, but she's not particular about taking a bottle, so some nights she'll take it and others she won't. No big deal either way.
I made squash puree yesterday and made the introduction to them. I made it too thick though and it nearly choked them. We'll wait a week and then thin it out with formula and see how that goes. I felt like a big heal, after supper last night. Between the near drowning at the hospital when I gave them their first bath and this new choking incident, I keep waiting for child services to show up. I suppose I shouldn't joke about that. First of all, they're pretty hardy little people, and second, there are children out there in real danger from their care givers. Still, I felt bad. Sorry Gullies, I'm sure it won't be the last time that I inadvertently put your lives in jeopardy though. Be grateful you have your Papa to keep you safe!
I don't have much time to keep up my blog. I'll do my best to get an entry out every week. As I write the girls are waking from their nap and I'll have to wrap this up. Ivan's spare time at home is spent getting to the chores that I can't do during the week. This weekend we're (he is) getting the arbri de solei up (sun shelter/gazebo?). Next weekend My Mom and Richard will be here to meet the girls.
Enjoy the long weekend everyone!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! As Ivan pointed out (because it is his way to do so), Mother's Day was (probably) invented to add another day to Hallmark's list of days for which to sell cards. Even so, I am able to write today because my loving husband seems to think that I deserve a break from my full-time job of mothering. I am, at 10:45 am, sitting in bed, after having had my breakfast of choice in my bed, with no children (that I'm aware of?). It is BLISS.
It is weird too. I spend probably 5 minutes in total of every day wishing for a few moments to myself before I scold myself for having such depraved thoughts. Now that I have those moments, I find myself looking for excuses to steal downstairs to kiss one of my girls. I haven't yet, because my husband has given me a gift. And I'm going to enjoy it. That and every 30 minutes a baby seems to appear looking for attention anyway. Like, right at this moment I'm in bed. But I'm no longer alone. River is at my feet, Ivan is beside me with Mathilde and Alexis is in the next room napping. I am learning that a big part of being a Mom is never being alone. I can find comfort in that.
It is both exhausting and wonderful to know that I am so fully needed. Every creature in the household is dependent on me for some facet of its existence. River-dog needs to be fed, walked and indeed even cuddled. The Gullies need me for absolutely everything, and even my husband relies on me for clean clothes, and the occasional kick in the butt out of bed in the morning to get him to work on time. Some days I scream inside my head "Oh, everyone leave me alone, just for a little bit!". But when it actually happens I think "Where is everyone, and why don't they need me?"
So what am I going to do with the rest of my alone time? I think I'll revisit my beloved hobby. I'm going to knit. I'm going to knit, and I'm going to nurse, and I'm going to cuddle visiting creatures and I'm going to think about how wonderful this day is, not only because I'm getting a break, but that I'm getting a break because of who I am. I am a Mom.

Alexis Sucks Her Thumb!

Greetings, as Mathilde would say if she could talk. I'm writing today with no particular direction in mind. I'm trying, as I write, to create a video montage of Alexis displaying her new found addiction; thumb sucking. I'm of no particular opinion about this, of course I think it's cute, everything she does is cute. It seems to give her great pleasure and instantly calms her down when she is distressed. I'm not about to mess with that. The only downfall of this new found distraction that I can see is that sometimes she calms herself down from being hungry. Mathilde gets ahead of her in terms of number of feedings. Last night, for example, Tilly was up twice as often as Alexis looking for something to eat. Normally I wake Lexi up and feed her anyway when this happens, but last night Tilly was hungrier than usual. It will be interesting to see what comes out in the wash on Monday when we see Dr Tremblay.
We're pretty fortunate to have such happy and easy-going girls. They smile easily and are starting to laugh more often. Generally, they wake up happy and go to sleep the same way. The occasional melt down happens when I've not paid attention to their sleepy cues. They are entertained by such things as hands, feet, each other and River when he chances to pass through the neighborhood. They do enjoy their toys (mostly rattles and the occasional plush). Mathilde loves to eat, and Alexis tolerates it.
We're walking quite often now and the girls stay awake for most of it. I try to go for an hour since I've got to go back to work with a decent level of fitness. I've started running again, but from guilt, I have to take River when I go and he's scared of, well, everything. He hates basketball, road hockey and city work vehicles (dump trucks, garbage trucks etc). Every kid here has a basketball net and kids are always out playing on our running route. It's sort of embarrassing when you're happily running along and your dog all of a sudden parks his butt nearly causing you to fall over. And he does NOT move. I've had to find alternate routes home on many occasions.
Well, I'm going to sign off. We changed our bedtime routine last night and I'm on call a bit more often. I was nursing them to sleep but we decided to stop this practice since their first teeth will be emerging soon and this can promote tooth decay. So tonight and last night they put themselves to sleep; a practice which I'm sure will pay off for all of us. Ivan still read them a story of course.
Have a tremendous weekend everyone!

The Darker Side - an Exploration of a Mother's Tragic Actions

Some of you have seen the video already, since I posted it immediately on Facebook. Alexis rolling over was such a huge thing for us this week, and to catch it on video was tremendous! I'm sorry Ivan wasn't there, but seeing it on video was the next best thing. She has not, incidentally, repeated the event.
So I was listening to the radio this morning, catching snippets here and there in between baby gurgles and raspberries. Some of you may be familiar with the story, I was not. A Winnipeg mom was convicted of Manslaughter yesterday in the death of her infant son: a triplet.
I only heard the 911 call and then a few details which caused me to break down into tears. I looked down at my girls, then wondered what about the story was affecting me so profoundly. Obviously the mere thought of an infant death is upsetting, but there was something more. I realized that I knew the thoughts that she had thought. I knew them because I have had them myself. I'd stood in the spot where she had moments before she made the decision to do what she did, but I'd had the presence of mind to shrug the impulse off and change gears. Thank God.
See the thing is, it's only happened once or twice. And not since they were really little. There are moments where there is only shear exhaustion, when there is only screaming and an almost animal-like instinct kicks in. It's the fight-or-flight response, no doubt. Your heart is racing, your airway is constricted, muscles tensed for action. But most of us have the presence of mind, somewhere in the midst of a desperate situation, to recognize it for what it is. We're told about this in pre-natal class, in the parenting books. Presumably this is because enough children have died or been injured because somehow, a parent's coping mechanism quits. Shaken baby syndrome is a syndrome because it's happened to enough babies to require a label.
It doesn't happen anymore. I can sit through some pretty good crying episodes and sometimes even laugh at how funny the situation is. In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't wanted to leap out of my skin in a good long while. Once or twice I've wanted to cry, but that's fairly benign. What's the worst that could happen? The poor delivery man or whom ever comes knocking might leave bewildered by such a scene. But at least everyone is safe.
But triplets. Wow. See, a Twin Mom can say that and know just how much harder it would be to have one more baby. I have two arms, two breasts, two parents even. No, I don't know what it would be like, I can only imagine. But I can imagine it well enough to feel like I could have stood in that woman's shoes. I feel like I know exactly what she was feeling. And it makes me cry for her to almost be able to touch the grief that she will feel for the rest of her life. She knows that if she had only had the restraint to leave the impulse as a thought, her life and the tender life of her son would be so different.
The other side of this is that multiples are becoming more and more common. With so many of us requiring the assistance of medical technology to become pregnant, more and more multiple births result. I once thought that we might even have to begin consulting a fertility specialist. I worry a little bit for the children. I was very concerned when the public health nurse wouldn't leave us alone for the first two months of our girls' lives. But I can see why they came as often as they did. It's hard to care for one baby. It's really hard to care for two, and so on and so on.
I wanted to explore my feelings about what I had heard today. I just didn't know how I felt about it, or where those feelings that I was having came from. So, thanks for the indulgence, and please don't worry. Ivan and I knew from the beginning that we would have those moments. We were prepared and knew how to deal with them. We also knew how to recognize the moment in one another when it was time to step in and take over. Maybe education is the key in preventing further tragedies. Have a great weekend all.

Don't You Wish You Were Me?

After much thought and discussion, we decided that the girls were ready to try cereal. It wasn't an easy decisision; I suppose there aren't many easy decisions in parenting. The girls had gone from waking only once during the night to as much as 3 or 4 times and they were always ravenous when they did wake. During the day they seemed to get enough, but our supper plates were starting to generate interest to them. They are able to sit quite well in their chairs, and so it seemed time to give it a shot.
I make up a bowl with 1 tsp of rice cereal (the least allergenic of the lot) and add enough water to make a very runny gruel. I could use breast milk but we've still got thrush issues, and I could use formula, but the waste generated from mixing up a batch of formula would be very costly, so for now we use water. Sometimes the girls will take it, and sometimes not. I never force the issue and as soon as there are grumpy faces, we end the session. (Mathilde didn't last too much longer after the video was taken). I'll put off introducing other foods until 6 months, but for now the starving baby episodes have been drastically reduced and we're all getting more sleep! An unfortunate side effect of the introduction of solids are the bi-products that it produces. Alas, more of the ever-so-unpopular poopy diapers.
What else can I say about this week? The girls have been traveling around in their cribs a great deal. This started for both of them on the same day, which I think is weird. Yeah, I get that they are twins, but it's still odd that they should do the same thing on the same day. Often I will find them having rotated a complete 180deg from their put-down position. They use their legs and hips to sort of scoot around. They almost roll over from back to front, but still need a little extra boost. I think it comes down to incentive. I just have to find the right thing to reach for.
Their smiles are the absolute best. In the morning I am guaranteed huge baby grins when I go in to pick them up. Hands down, this is the best part of the day. Mathilde immediately cuddles her head into my neck when I pick her up and I just about melt. She is pretty much the ham. I took the girls on my own to the mall the other day, and every stranger who bent in to look at the girls was treated to a Tilly smile. For some reason she has taken to sticking her tongue out and smiling when she greets you. It's disarmingly funny. To be fair, Alexis has some super-charged mega-watt smiles as well. She just likes to make you earn them. She will also giggle at you which is the cutest thing in the entire world. I am not being biased here, it really is the cutest thing in the world.
So, as you can tell, things are going very well. We have our moments. There are times when they are crying that I feel like I want to cry too. There are certainly times where I just don't know that their needs are and I sort of look at them like the aliens that they sort of are. Sometimes I look at them and I think, "I gave you life? We gave you life? You came from us. Amazing!" I'm glad we waited to have children. I think it's nice that we got ourselves out of our way so that we can concentrate on these guys, because they are by far the best thing we ever did. How did we get so lucky? Two beautiful, happy, healthy babies and they came to us. It's astonishing. You can bet that I count my blessings every single day. Have a great weekend guys.

Toys Toys Toys!!!

I predicted that by the end of the week the girls would have perfected the art of getting anything and everything into their mouths. And I was right. This was pretty funny and exciting at first, until I stopped paying attention to Alexis the other day when she was on my lap at the dinner table and she got a mitt full of curry. We caught her before she could get it into her mouth, but let's just say "Game on!" We need to be on our toes now.
The girls are getting really fun to be with. They are very engaging and smile and laugh at you. Also they love to engage you in a "conversation", and once I caught them during nap time talking to one another from their cribs. So for the first time I got to say "Girls, stop talking and go to sleep!" I'm sure this was the first time of many to come. Last weekend we went to our friends' place for brunch. Alexis was thoroughly engaged with their 6 month daughter, Anna, and indeed gave us a chance to eat. It was a little shocking when I realized that I had not fussed with her for quite a while and saw what the reason for that was. She was in a baby chair, and Anna in her exersaucer and they were babbling back and forth. Amazing.
We're happy to be firmly entrenched in our long weekend. It's nice to have Ivan home during the day for a longer stretch. We're getting a few things done around the house, and I have more time to spend with each girl individually. I told Ivan the other day that if I could have anything in the world right now, it would be a day with each girl, where I could just hold her and focus my whole self on her. Maybe I'll be able to do that someday, but for now, especially while I'm nursing, that's simply impossible.
Speaking of nursing.... Ugh, after two treatments of gentian violet, we are still battling this darn thrush infection. I've about given up with it. Maybe it'll go away on it's own? No, we'll have to get back in to see the Dr. It's so frustrating! Also, I've bought some rice cereal, but we haven't cracked it open yet. I'm waiting for the girls to show me that they're ready. Alexis, is going to be ready before Mathilde, I'm certain. We practice drinking water from a cup, and Lexi's pretty well got it, but Tilly still has the reflex where babies push all foreign objects out of their mouths with their tongues. (this is thought to keep them from choking). Also, Lexi eyeballs our dinner plates like she'd devour their contents if she could just get off of Papa's lap! Part of me would love to try her on it tonight, but the other part of me knows that it's still a bit early. I'll be sure to ask the Dr when we are in to see him next.
Well, we wish we could be with family over Easter, but we're lucky enough to have friends that we can spend it with. Tomorrow we'll have a ham dinner and the girls can play with their friends Anna and Maria. We're also doing our first family Easter Bunny Cake. The girls will have to wait until next year to taste it though!
Happy Easter everyone, we'll be thinking of you all.