Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Dragging

I started back to work full-time last week. It’s been rough on everyone. I of course have to get up earlier now, and can’t seem to get to bed too early so I’m tired. Hubby is with the girls all day while I’m at work and is tired when I get home, but usually he has to leave to go to work himself. The girls are not napping very well for Hubby during the day so they are cranky and tired when I get home.

The last few days I’ve gotten them to bed when I got home, but they usually are then out for the night...kind of. Katie has been waking up between 3-4am and wanting to be up. I keep the lights off and don’t talk to her so she won’t be stimulated, but I’ve been ending up putting her in bed with me so I can at least sleep until 6am. It seems to work, but it’s not quality sleep for me at all.

I’m not quite sure what to do about naptime. I know Hubby tries, but I don’t think he a)has the patience and b) commits the time to put them down during the day. They’ll nape for 20 minutes here and there but that’s about it. It’s tough coming home to crabby girls and I feel bad for them too for being so tired.

Things in the job department are changing a little for now. Ultimately I’d like to be home full-time, but until Hubby finds a day job it just doesn’t make sense for me to quit my job entirely. In the meantime I’ve talked with my boss about working part-time. She is meeting with our senior staff on Monday to discuss the opportunity. She seemed confident that something could be worked out. I’m hopeful that we can make that transition soon. I don’t think I can handle this much longer. I’m actually contemplating going to my parent’s house this evening to see if they could watch the girls for an hour or so I could snooze in their guest room. We’ll see if I’m up for packing up the girls when I get home. Hubby is leaving for work shortly after.

Other than the never ending sleep issues the girls are doing really well. Katie finally caught the smile train. Natalie has been smiling up a storm for weeks, but not Katie. Just in the last week or so she’s really seemed to smile. They both kind of make these squealing noises like they want to laugh but just can’t do it. It’s super cute. They are talkers too. Natalie will sit and talk to herself forever, it’s funny. Katie talks too, but she also mouths a lot of stuff and no sound comes out. She tries so hard - lol

I guess that’s about it. Not too much is going on these days. We had a garage sale last weekend to try to get rid of stuff, but with the heat wave we’ve had there weren’t a whole lot of people out. We are doing a Saturday sale again this weekend to hopefully get rid of some more. Whatever is left is going to Goo.dwill. We have about 2 ½ months left until we move so I’m trying to pack and organize what I can now since I know it takes me 10 times longer to get anything done with the girls here!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

How to solve infertility angst

I subscribe to a blog called Happily Ever After. It gives mostly marriage improvement advice, but there are other topics. Her posts are emailed to me and today's was about infertility. I thought it was interesting and wanted to share. You can read her post here.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

I'm mostly excited and a little scared that we've decided I get to be a stay-at-home-mommy!

It isn't happening immediately, but soon, very soon.

I had kind of an "aha!" moment a few days ago (during a 3am feeding). I've been really stressed this year and asking God "Why?" about his timing for Hubby's three surgeries and my twin pregnancy and now with the girls here - it just seemed crazy for it to all happen at the same time. We'll, I think I may have figured it out.

As I've shared before, this year has been the hardest EVER. Hubby hasn't been able to work since before Christmas due to illness then 3 back to back to back surgeries. Because of that we are losing our house and having to file bankruptcy. Totally not cool things. Well, it seems though, this is all working out to benefit us.

We are moving at the end of October out to my parent's property. They are converting a two-story garage to an apartment for us to live in. The rent will be cheap. Because of the bankruptcy we will only have rent and a couple of other monthly bills, so our monthly living expenses will be minimal. Hubby has a part-time job now and he's just getting back into the swing of things. We are hoping by the end of the month he'll be able to gain some more hours and then I can put in my notice at work. I am very much looking forward to being able to be there for my girls everyday. I can't wait for all of the things we can do together.

Yes, until Hubbs can find another job - a full-time job, things will be tight, but hey, over the last 6 months, we've been living pretty tight, so I'm getting used to it.

Isn't it amazing how you can be thrown in a horrible situation, one that seems so dark and terrible at the time and as you pull through it you can see the good that has come out of it? I would have never thought two months ago...or even one month ago, that I would be thankful for what this year has brought (I mean financially). If Hubby wouldn't have gotten sick and needed surgery he would have still been working and we would still be making our house payments and making minimum payments on credit cards for the rest of our lives. Not that I'm advocating everyone files for bankruptcy, but it is really a blessing for us that we can dig out of this monstrous hole we've been in. We get a fresh start.

I am so thankful!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Date night

Hubby and I were able to have a date night last Friday. It was fabulous! MIL had her sister in town for the weekend and they offered to take the girls for the day. I got off work early that day and used some of the free time to get some packing done around the house. My mom came over too and we organized some storage items and also garage sale items. We got a lot done.

Later that day Hubby and I went to see Inc.eption. It was actually a pretty good movie I thought. I had no idea what it was about when we went to see it, but I had heard from a lot of people that it was really good. It's definitely one of those movies you have to pay close attention to to keep up.

After dinner we went to Ou.tback, or as Hubby likes to call it Outhouse. It wasn't that great. I've only been there a few times and I'm so not impressed. Date night was a treat from MIL and her sister too. Plus we had a gift certificate from Dr. M's office for dinner, so it was a free date. Pretty awesome! We picked the girls up about 10pm that night.

It was such a nice day, and the girls slept so well that night. Grandma and her sister had taken the girls on a few walks. I think all the fresh air wore them out. We liked it.

2 month appointment

The poor little girls had their two month appointment today. It went pretty well. They got weighed and measured. K came in at 11.5lbs and 22.5" (although I question the accuracy of the length measurement). N came in at 10.5lbs and 23". I have a hard time believing that N is longer than K, since her little toes come to the end of clothes that N can still fit in to...unless the weight makes that much of a difference.

We talked about the reflux meds. K is actually off of them now. About 4-5 days ago I had forgotten to give her her meds for a day or two. When I realized I'd forgotten I kept an eye on her. She didn't seem to care at all. I haven't given her any more since. Same went for N, although she was still showing signs of discomfort, so we continue to give it to her. The doc said they could go off of it anytime. I think we'll give N another week or so and see if she does better. I'm glad K is done. It's so hard to remember to give it to her...well both of them every 12 hours. At least with just one kid we can remember the time better.

We also talked about N and her scaly skin. Dr. J suggested trying some lotion on her, especially behind one of her ears where is is particularly crusty. If the lotion doesn't work after a week we can try some hydro cortisone cream for a few days.

I brought up K and her "high maintenance" ways. It was fairly obvious at the appointment though that she is the "needier" child. She was squirming all over the place and crying off and on. We played the darned pacifier game the whole time. Have I mentioned I have a love/hate relationship with those stinkin things? K especially loves to spit it out and cry until I put it back in over and over again. I'm trying not to give in, which brings me to my next topic.

Crying it out. I hate to hear my babies cry. N is especially heartbreaking since she only really cries when she needs something and it is such a sad little cry. She however is not the reason we talked about crying. K can drive Hubby and I up a wall. Like I've said before, she'll fall asleep in our arms and we go to put her to bed and she wakes up crying. We asked the doc if they were too young to let cry for a while. He didn't think so. Of course it's up to us on how we want to handle it, but he suggested if of course she'd fed, changed, etc. that it's okay to let her go for about 10 minutes then go in and check on her and rub her belly or something to let her know we're there then to let her be again. I feel so much better hearing him say that. We've been doing that with her more and more lately. She is just so inconsolable unless your holding her. I have to break that habit. I've been doing better not picking her up. I'll go in after a while and make sure she's still wrapped tight and put the pacifier back in (yes, I play the game I hate), then I'll leave. She usually battles for hours, but according to the doc, that's okay. He said especially since we have two, one of them is going to have to cry sometimes. Sad, but true.

Speaking of crying...the poor widdle girls got their shots today. So sad! N seemed to tolerate them pretty well. She whimpered with the first one. Whimpered a little more with the second. And really cried with the third one. Her poor thighs have three little princess band-aids on them. In the meantime, K had fallen asleep on me. I wanted to wake her up before so it wouldn't be such a shock, but she was pretty tired. Poor girl got stuck while she was sleeping. She cried with all three. The last one was the worst though, she really wailed. Thankfully the crying stopped once we were on the move with them in their car seats.

After we got home the both slept for about 3 hours. When they woke up though they were in a lot of pain :0( Thankfully MIL had picked up some infant T.ylenol and we gave them that. Boy did that work wonders. You could tell every time they moved their legs around they were in pain, but after the meds I think they felt a lot better. They both chilled out for a while and went back to sleep. We're going to give them their next dose as soon as they can have it to make sure they sleep well tonight, then we'll gauge how they are doing tomorrow.

Tomorrow...I have my 2 month follow-up with Dr. M. I'm a little nervous he's going to dig around in my "area". I don't feel completely back to normal yet down there. I know my stitches have healed up, but there are still aches and pains and I'd really appreciate it if he took it easy. We'll see. Male doctors just don't get it.

Well, that's about the gist of it. All in all the girls are doing well. We go back in two months for their 4 month check up...and more shots. I want to remember to give them a dose of Tyle.nol before their appointment to see if that helps their pain at all. There is nothing more sad then having your babies hurting and not being able to take it away.