Thursday, July 29, 2010

Sleep issues

I'm not talking about myself...although I could.

My children do not like to go to sleep. Each night we try putting them to bed around 7-8, but they usually aren't really out for good until about 11:30. It's so frustrating. I don't get it. Natalie is a better sleeper than Katie, but she still fights it sometimes. Katie, just plain hates going to sleep.

Today for example, I don't think she's slept for more than a half hour chunk since 11am and it's almost 5pm. Natalie on the other hand has been asleep since about noon. Naps or nighttime it doesn't matter. I can't totally blame them since they've been nomads for the last 3 weeks or so. They've taken turns staying the night at a grandma's house. I've stayed with my parents on the weekends and some weekdays, and we've stayed home some nights too. So I'm sure they are confused on what their bed is. It's also tough because when they are at home during the day they have been napping on the couch. I'm trying to get Hubby to break this habit. I'd really like them to always sleep in their cradle or crib, not the couch or a swing or a bouncy seat...although they do sleep easier in one of those things. I just want to nip it now and not when they are older.

We've been rocking the girls to sleep and once they are good and out we'll place them in their crib. Within minutes they are awake and crying. I'm trying to break myself of the habit of going in a picking them up. I've gone in and put their pacifier back in and played some music if they are really screaming and it usually calms them down and may even close their eyes, but they don't stay asleep. And I know I give in eventually (after hours of trying) and I'll pick them back up and rock them. Usually by this time it is time to eat again.

With Kaitlyn we've tried letting her cry for a while. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I just don't get it, she is so tired, but won't give in. As I write this she is crying. It breaks my heart to let her cry, but I don't know what else to do. She's changed and fed. Ugh.

Any suggestions? They're only 9 weeks old :0(

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

blogger issues

Is anyone else having trouble with blogger? Yesterday my page was white with just the post titles showing. I had a photobucket error in the middle of the page. I removed all the photobucket items, but it didn't fix my layout. I change my background and was able to get my posts back (they were in white text), but none of my side bar items are showing. They are still there though when I go to my settings...

Anyone have any suggestions?

Arg! They just showed up after I posted this. I've figured out the side bar stuff doesn't show up when you look at my blog, but if you click a specific post they show up. How stupid and frustrating!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Busy Bee!!

My, oh my, do the days go by fast! The girls are 8 weeks old now! They are changing so much! I find they are getting harder to take care of the older and more awake they are. It was easier when they were newborns and slept all the time. I had time to get stuff done around the house. Now I find I only get to sit down when I'm feeding them. I often even eat meals - when I get the chance - standing up. I don't really get to taste food much anymore I scarf it down so fast - lol!

I wish I could say we have a schedule down, but we don't. I don't think we'll have much of a schedule until they are sitting up on their own and eating some solids. Right now, for one person it is almost impossible to feed them at the same time. Besides, they aren't eating at the same intervals. We've upgraded to large bottles and they're getting filled up to 5oz.

Natalie 90% of the time polishes off the whole thing, which is funny because she's been the smaller one all along. I think she is catching up though. I'm really curious what her weight will be when they have their next doctor appointment.

Kaitlyn drinks all of it maybe 70% of the time. I like to keep giving her 5oz though because it's easier than pouring and heating up another ounce if she's still hungry. She is not a patient child, so making her wait is noisy!

They are both smiling at us. Natalie is the happiest baby ever. She wakes up with a huge open-mouthed grin everyday. It's a little tougher to get a smile out of Katie, but it sure is awfully cute when she does! They are also starting to "talk" at us. Natalie is the more vocal one too. K makes a lot of noise, but it's not the same "cooing" that N does. K is definitely the more observant of the two. She will watch every move you make and sit and look around the room for a long time. She is always moving. Even if her arms and legs are still her fingers are twitchy. I think she will be my little trouble maker. I bet she starts crawling early. She already manages to scoot around when she's on her belly. Of course she doesn't realize it, but since she moves so much it's inevitable.

I have two garbage bags full of clothes they can't wear already. Goodbye newborn and 0-3 month sizes! Natalie is wearing 3 month and K is in some 3 month, but should really be wearing 3-6. Her little toes are starting to get squished. I can hardly keep up with keeping their closet organized. It seems as soon as I finally get everything squared away someone changes sizes.

Speaking of organizing...I have quite the task ahead of me. We're moving. Our house is going bubye. We haven't gotten a final date yet, but I'm sure it will be soon. Packing and moving is a daunting task in and of itself, but with two little babies. Oh man. I'm starting to collect boxes. I've gotten a few now so I can finally start going through things. Me, my mom and my brother are going to have a garage sale. They want to do it soon, so I need to get going through stuff. We are moving out to my parent's house. Not in it, but on the property. They have a two-story garage that they are converting over to an apartment for us. It will be tight quarters, but I think we can manage. I think it's only about 600 sq ft. Yikes! That's less than half the space we are in now. Good news is my parents are right there so we can get out, plus they live on a couple of acres so there is room to run around when the girls get bigger. They have a river right there too, which will be fun when they are older.

I'm guessing by September we will be living there or at least moving stuff over. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it (I may think I'm crazy later). It will be nice having WAY cheaper rent vs. our mortgage and we won't have extra bills like power, water, garbage...it will be included in our monthly rent. Plus the girls will have a set of grandparents right next door. Right now they have a grandma just a mile away - which has been wonderful! She's been coming over everyday to watch them while Hubby recovers and she's also been taking one of the girls at night until Hubby can help. She's only been a phone call away if we need something. My parents are about 15-20 away, so she'll still be fairly close by.

I only have two weeks left of half-days at work. I'm hoping to get a lot of stuff done around the house in that time. Soon I'll be back to full-time, which means a lot less time at home. I'm also hoping with this move to be able to go back to half-time, and if Hubby can find a better job, maybe I can stay home completely. We'll see...

Stay tuned...many changes ahead!

Natalie



Kaitlyn

Thursday, July 15, 2010

I feel crappy...

I don't think I've cried so much in the last year as I have this week. Ugh.

I'm stressed. I'm at my breaking point. I'm exhausted, physically and emotionally.

Hubby is still recovering from surgery. He's pretty sore and not too mobile yet. The girls are still being split up at night to take turns at the grandma's. That is really hard on me. I feel like a crappy mom that I can't take care of my own kids. I should be able to handle them both.

I feel crappy that I can't keep a roof over their head. If nothing changes, our house is being forclosed on soon.

I feel crappy that I can't feed them. We've barely had any income and had to rely on family to feed us...all of us.

I feel crappy that Kaitlyn gets all my attention and Natalie chills by herself a lot.

I just feel crappy.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Surgery Day...again

Today Hubs had his third (and hopefully final) surgery. I just heard from his mom, who's at the hospital that things went well and he just go moved out of recovery to his room. Phew! We're crossing our fingers that he gets to come home in the morning.

I've been home for most of the day with the girls. OMG, what a workout! They both just fell asleep after being up for the most part for the last 4 hours...together. Thank goodness Natalie is a pretty content baby or else I might have ran from my house screaming today. Poor Kaitlyn is so needy. She just wants to be held all the time. I think she may be colicky. I hate that word colic. It's just a blanket term for a baby who cries a lot, but it sounds like some sort of disease or huge problem. She just cries a lot. I thought we were over that when we started the reflux meds with her, and for a while she was a happier baby. Now in the last four or five days she seems to cry and cry. I don't think there is anything wrong. Sometimes I think it may be that her guts are hurting her, but there are times when she passes gas or has a bm with no problem, so who knows.

Since last Thursday night the girls have been taking turns spending a night with a grandma. Hubby's mom has had them a few nights and K spent the night with my mom on Saturday. I don't think I could handle both of them at night. It is really rough during the day. Grandma C (Hub's mom), we'll call her GC, brought N back home this morning. She was also taking Hubs to the hospital. Both girls were asleep when they left, but about 20 minutes later they were both stirring and eventually woke up. I juggled feeding one, then the other and trying to keep them entertained too. GC came back over after dropping Hubby off and entertained them while I got some stuff done around the house. When she left to go back to the hospital, all hell broke loose. Both girls were still awake when she left. K was not happy she wasn't being held and N was bored of the swing. I managed to keep N somewhat happy with the pacifier, but K was SCREAMING. I have a wrap, kind of like the Mob.y and I was wearing K around. She was quiet for all of oh...a minute, and started wailing again. N was still not too happy either, so I decided to take them for a walk. I kept K strapped to me and put N in her car seat. We have a single stroller too that the car seat can snap into, so I put her in that and off we went. N fell asleep pretty quickly and K eventually did. We did two laps around the block. I left N in her car seat sitting on the couch so I didn't disturb her. K, I unwrapped and laid on the couch too. Both sound asleep...or so I thought. About 10 minutes later, both were awake and crying again. This time...for food. I got them both propped on a pillow on the couch and fed them and burped them. Once again N was a trooper and was so patient while K was screaming every time she was neglected. K was done eating and N still had quite a bit to go, so I swaddled K up tight - arms and all, and put her in the swing while I finished feeding N. She screamed and cried that heart-wrenching horrible cry for just a few minutes then she was quiet. She grunted a couple of times to push out a poo...and was quiet again. I changed her, swaddled her back up, she cried some more and I rocked her. In the meantime, I had swaddled N and stuck her in the other swing (thank God we have two!). They both fell asleep. I think they are out for real this time. It's been about 15 minutes and there hasn't been much movement out of either one.

I'm pooped and need a nap. Hopefully GC will be back fairly soon. I'd like to go see Hubs at the hospital but I understand if she doesn't want to watch both girls alone. It's tough!

I'm sure one of them will stay with her again tonight, then maybe tomorrow night they can both stay home. It breaks my heart to have one gone, but I know it's the best for everyone. They get the attention they need and I get to keep my sanity.

Well, it's only 3:30, we'll see what the rest of the day has in store. **heavy sigh**

Friday, July 9, 2010

Here we go again!

Hubby went in yesterday to have a follow-up appointment with his surgeon to check on his incision. Well, the incision has healed fine, but he's developed a pretty substantial umbilical hernia. We knew it was there, but didn't know what to do about it. The answer? Surgery. That's right folks. Another stinkin' surgery. And when might this surgery happen? A couple weeks? Months? Nope. Monday.

I'm wondering when this nightmare will ever end. Three surgeries in less than 7 months. The surgeon said this will be a shorter stay than the other two, which where about 8 days each. He's thinking he'll be released in 24-48 hours. Until Monday, Hubby is on bed rest. He's not supposed to be getting up and down a lot or lifting, including the girls.

Like I said before, we have been each taking one kid at night. With him being on the DL, he wouldn't be able to get up with one of the girls at night. I thought I could tackle them both by myself last night and go to work today, but Hubby convinced me it would be pretty tough on me since they aren't on the same schedule. I would have been up all night. We decided to enlist Grandma C to babysit. So last night, Natalie got to spend the night at Grandma's house. It broke my heart to bring her over there, but I knew it'd be the best thing for the both of us. Tonight it's Kaitlyn's turn to spend the night with her. Tomorrow I'm going to stay at my parent's house. We'll have to figure out schedule for the rest of the week. I hate this so much. I KNOW there is a plan for everything, and things happen for a reason. But seriously. Enough is enough. And I KNOW God doesn't give us more than we can handle. But seriously. I'm on the ledge.

With Hubby being sick then recovering from the first and second surgeries, the stress was pretty high. Our financial situation is a nightmare. The girls are here now and I've had to go back to work so soon. It's just a mess. I lost it a little last night and cried and cried. Thankfully I was busy at work today because I was on the verge of tears all morning.

This has to be it, right? I mean what else can go wrong? Actually, don't answer that. I know this isn't the worst it could be, but it is bad enough for me. Hopefully this is the lowest part of this valley.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Six weeks

My baby girls are six weeks old today. Where has the time gone? I wanted to take a picture of them each month with some sort of toy or object so we could see their growth from month to month...well, that didn't happen for month-one. I suppose we have so many pictures of them from their first month it doesn't make that much of a difference and here we are halfway to month two anyway. I must try to make that happen in two weeks. They change so fast!



Kaitlyn aka Kermit, Monster and Squeakers:
She is my little cuddle bug. Her favorite position is laying on my chest. I love, love, love snuggling with her. However, this does have it's drawbacks. It's hard to get her to lay on her back when it's time for bed if she's fallen to sleep on my chest. I have to admit - and don't go calling the baby police - but I let her sleep on her stomach during the day when she's napping. She sleeps so well on her belly. And yes, I watch her like a hawk when she's on her stomach. At night for a while she was sleeping in her bouncy seat since she was having issues with reflux. We've been giving her some meds to help that and it has made such a huge difference. She used to only sleep or cry. Now she has awake time where she is pleasant and not screaming all the time. Poor kid. I'm glad we were able to help her. I've been trying the last few nights to have her sleep in her cradle instead of the bouncy seat or with me in bed (which is nice, but I don't sleep that well that way). It seems to work for about half the night, but by 4 or 5am I'm too tired to put the effort into making sure she is really hard asleep to put her in the cradle. If she's just barely asleep she'll stay asleep if she is with me. I don't want to start any bad habits with her though. Maybe if she was an only child it'd be different, but since we have two kids, I don't want to have all four of us sleeping together when they're older.


Katie has also graduated to 3 month onesies and she's filled out the size 1-2 Kirk.land diapers pretty well. She is growing so fast. I think I'm going to start letting her hands be free more. Until now they both have been in "sleeper sacks" this whole time with the covers for their claws. She seems to keep her hands from her face most of the time, except when she's really upset. Her nails are pretty short, so I think she might not mutilate her face too much.



Natalie aka Nate-dog, Wilbur, Fonzi and sometimes Monster:
She is our laid back one. She is pretty quiet for the most part. Of course she does have her moments of crying for no obvious reason, but that's not too often. She is pretty content chilling out by herself for a while. We can put her in a bouncy seat or the swing and she'll just hang out checking out the toys. Unlike her sister who likes to be held most of the time. She spits up a lot. At first it didn't seem to bother her, but then in the last week and a half or so she's started showing the same signs her sister did of reflux. We called the doc and he had us start giving her meds too. It seems to be helping a lot. Natalie is a little piggy too. She packs away all 4 oz of her bottle most of the time. And she ain't no lady either. When she's done, she'll belch louder than any beer drinkin' slob at a bar. It is quite humorous actually.

This weekend I started putting her in 0-3 month onesies. Goodbye cute newborn clothes. She is also wearing the size 1-2 diapers. They are a little bigger on her, but I think they still fit fine. She also apparently started smiling at people...except her mother. Both grandmas and Hubby have said they think she smiled at them - on purpose. I haven't gotten to see that yet. Snif, snif.

At night she hangs out with her dad. Hubby and I decided that's the easiest way to tackle them at night is if we each are responsible for one of them. That way we're both not getting up for one kid. I've been taking Kaitlyn since she is the needier one and I seem to have a little more patience than Hubby. It seems to be working pretty well, although I will say I do feel guilty for not spending as much time with Natalie. It's sad to say, but the squeaky wheel does get the grease. If this continues as they get older, I need to make sure that I give Natalie just as much attention, she doesn't need to be "punished" for not causing a ruckus. I know how that goes. My brother was a trouble maker and I was a pretty good kid. He got more attention then and actually until the girls were born he still got my parents attention the most. Not that I needed them, but he's always been catered to more than me.

Well, I think that about sums it up for now. Overall they are doing great. I cannot believe it has already been six weeks since they were born. I look back at pictures from even two weeks ago and I can see such a huge difference between them.