Our new addiction

It's been a busy two weeks since my last detailed posting. The boys have continued to eat and grow (next weigh-in in two days and we've been busy bulking up in preparation.) The girls have continued to "adjust" to their new reality. "Adjustment" has turned into an exercise in pushing parental buttons. They are both highly skilled at the activity.

Two weeks ago on Monday, due to a combination of button pushing and incessant eating, I got 30 minutes of sleep (from 3:30-4am.) At this point I realized that my previous belief that I could deal with the night feedings on my own (with willing Dave's assistance) was just plain stupid.

Not knowing what else to do we broke open the piggy bank and called in the professionals, aka the Irish Night Nurse Mafia. I'm not sure if other cities have them but they are an institution in San Francisco. I am hereby stating for the record that this is the best decision I have ever in my life made. It is also the closest thing to Heroin that I have ever experienced. If you see Dave and I hawking all our worldly possessions on eBay, something Dave is already inordinately skilled at, you will know why.

Catriona (pronounced Katrina, Irish for Catherine) our night nurse angel, shows up at 10, takes the babies, I go to sleep, she brings them to me at 3:30, takes them away at 4, and leaves at 6. I feel amazing. She is working on "stretching" them to just one night feeding. The goal is 10pm, 4am and 7am and we are almost there.

Will keep you posted. In the meantime, here's what the boys look like now.

Eli on the left in light blue

Eli - his skin is slightly lighter and his cheeks are slightly rounder than Roby's

Almost holding their heads up

Their favorite place to be

Roby

Swimming in Orinda

We have discovered a new favorite activity.  My Uncle Phil and his lovely wife Elizabeth (aka Aunt Lizzie) have a beautiful 85 degree salt water pool at their house in Orinda (aka The Promised Land.)  They have kindly invited us out there and Aunt Lizzie is teaching the girls to swim.  Already after only two visits they have gotten much braver.  They also have acquired new nicknames - Sarah Jane is "Floaty" and Anna is "Splashy". 

This last weekend Sarah Jane managed to jump AND smile for the camera at the same time.  Anna has learned how to "walk", previously she only had two speeds - "Running" and "Free falling".  Thanks to Uncle Phil's patient tutelage, she can now semi-slow down. 

Orinda dates include picnic lunches on perfect kid size furniture.

They also include playtime in a contractor-constructed (you have to ask Aunt Lizzie about that) play house complete with door knocker and windows that go up and down.  This weekend the house was a short order restaurant.  Aunt Lizzie ordered pizza.  Uncle Phil ordered a ice cream sundae for dinner and a green salad for dessert, all of which was provided by the proprietress and her assistant.

We are definitely going back. 

Ice Cream with Brady and Drew-Drew

Summer cut and afternoon solo with mom

Grocery run with dad

Our terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week...

This week was tough.  Actually beyond tough. 

First, Nana and Papa went home on Monday.  While here they had been absolute heroes; staying up late to do the last bottle feeding with Dave, getting up throughout the night to help me feed the babies and whisking Anna downstairs at the crack of dawn so the rest of us could get some zzzzzzs.  They also made every dinner and breakfast for two weeks, did two enormous grocery shoppings, drove Sarah Jane to preschool and picked her up all while managing to outfit an entire house with furniture and rugs.  Extremely impressive and VERY hard to get by without them.

Grandma and Zeke, two other extremely helpful people, remain on the East Coast.

The boys decided to use this moment to go on a massive growth spurt eating every two hours rather than every three.  Since it takes them an hour to eat, well, you do the math.  We're not doing much else.

On top of that, I'm experiencing some fairly incredible pain in the feeding department.  Toe curling, hand clenching, sweating, Lamaze breathing awesomeness. 

But the real kicker was Sarah Jane.  Last Wednesday her teachers noticed she was limping a bit.  We watched and agreed that she was favoring her right leg but we couldn't find anything physically wrong with her left leg, nothing seemed to hurt.  Then on Saturday night she threw up, was pale as a ghost and slept most of Sunday morning.  She was very lethargic and in general not herself.  Thinking about it, I realized that she had been more tired than usual for roughly the last month and had been complaining of leg pain for the last two.  Then I made the mistake of googling all those symptoms.  Google can be a scary, scary place.  Leukemia was first on the list.  First thing on Monday we called the doctor who told us to come right in.  He checked her out and agreed that something was wrong.  He told us to go home but watch her carefully and let him know if she got worse, which she promptly did.  On Wednesday the doctor had Dave take her to the ER at Children's and they ran a battery of tests to rule out both leukemia and a bone tumor.  Thank goodness her tests were negative.  The conclusion seems to be that she has a low grade infection in her hip which is not uncommon but it is manifesting itself in her a little oddly so the doctors weren't able to positively diagnosis right away. It will resolve itself on it's own as long as she starts eating sometime soon.

The good news is that my pain is getting a little better, the boys have slowed down their eating marathon somewhat (we're at 2.5 hours now) and Sarah Jane seems to be getting better.  Dr. Aunt Whitney has heroically stepped into the place of all four grandparents (thank you!) and Vicky is back to working for us for the rest of the summer (reality has set in that there is no way I can do bed time on my own, we need all the help we can get.)

So things are looking better but wow, am I glad we don't have to relive this week anytime soon.

Nana & Papa arrive - I wasn't organized enough to get a departure photo...

Much love and good health to all of you.

The race is on...

We had a weigh in at the 5 week pediatrician appointment today.  Since our last appointment at 2 weeeks, Eli gained 2lbs 6oz to weigh in at 9lbs 6oz.  Roby exceeded his brother's acheivement, gaining a woping 2lbs 10oz, reaching 9lbs 2oz. 

Expected weight gain is an ounce a day or roughly half a pound a week.  These guys are clearly overachievers.  The end result is that I am tired, we've moved on from Newborn sized diapers and clothes and they are getting even harder to tell apart.  However, we are thrilled that they are marching ever closer to the magic 14lb mark.

Over and out for now. 

Roby likes tummy time

One, Two, Three and Solo!

This morning Dave and Sarah Jane went to a soccer clinic, Steve and Nancy had a few necessary errands and I was left alone with the three remaining babies.  Let me be clear that being alone with more than two of my children is beyond terrifying to me. 

I decided life would be better if  a) Anna was strapped in and b) the morning involved chocolate and coffee, preferably in the form of a mocha and orange chocolate chip scone.

So at 10:15 when the last lifeboat drove away, and the four of us were sitting on the bed while I finished feeding the babies, I decided to attempt to transport all three little people the twelve blocks to the Cheeseboard and back.  Since we unfortunately cannot teleport, I had to get everyone into a stroller.  But which stroller you ask?  We have so many to choose from...

I first attempted the red Phil and Ted's but couldn't get both babies to stay upright in one seat.  Probably better off as in retrospect was absolutely not safe but at the time - sleep deprived with two screaming four week olds and a 21 month old already strapped in, it seemed like a good idea. 

Plan B involved getting one of the screaming babies into a car seat, putting said car seat into the Lunar Lander, aka our twin stroller, changing out the other seat attachment to be the kid seat and getting Anna into the kid seat, finding the Ergo, finding the infant attachment for the Ergo, getting the second screaming baby into the Ergo and managing to get the Ergo on myself.  All of which I did!

A mere 50 minutes later and here we are...

One:

 Two:

 And Three! (I got some funny looks taking this picture)

 A nice man took a picture of us at the Cheeseboard to prove that we had made it. 

For the record I felt like Ninja Mom at this moment.  40 minutes later not so much, but that is a different story.

One more for our stroller themed postings...

This just in from Dr. Aunt Whitney:

Sighted in SF this afternoon.  A mini BOB (with breaks, cover with plastic view hole, and adjustable steering bar)- for twin dolls!!!!!!  Third baby doll was being stored in storage compartment.

Walking with mom in the bugaboo

This probably won't last much longer but its pretty nice while it does. Double strollers are for reals.

For the record:

Things I will miss about being pregnant: Nothing

Sarah Jane remains the only person in our family who can consistently tell the boys apart AND call them by the right names.

My post-partum hormones are causing a strange yearning for country music.

My sleep deprivation is approaching new levels as measured by my Sudoku speed.  Whereas I was once solving "difficult" level puzzles faster than ~74% of people with NO hints I am now solving the same level puzzles WITH hints faster than only 30% of people.  This level of sleep deprivation might also be causing me to believe that anyone other than myself might find this factoid interesting. (Impaired judgement.  Remind me not to drive.)

The boys are eating every two to two and a half hours at night, and taking at least an hour for each feeding so I'm sleeping a total of 4.5 hours in three ninety minute chunks for those who are curious.  Dr. Aunt Whitney says I have most likely achieved a state of hyper awareness where my body is now ignoring the cues that indicate it's sleepy.  This explains why I am writing this and not napping at this very instant. 

 The debt of gratitude that we owe to Grandma and Zeke and Nana and Papa grows and grows.  We would have literally died without them by now.  Same goes Dr. Aunt Whitney who saved us by watching the girls while we were in the hospital and giving Grandma and Zeke a much needed break.  Grandma and Zeke departed today on a 10 day vacation.  Nana and Papa are leaving on Monday.  I am in a low grade but ever growing panic over the thought of even attempting this without them.

The other person we would all die without is Elizabeth.  She is utterly amazing and we would be lost without her.

What I should have been doing while writing this:

Roby

Eli (likes the swing)

Two happy chubby cheek babies...

Cousins!

Aunt Kiki, Uncle Geoff and Cousin Blake have arrived for a visit! 

Anna is enjoying the attention and even managing to share (some of) her toys. 

Sarah Jane is loving having another person (Uncle Geoff) to add to her game of "Cinderella" (where everyone is Cinderella -mommy Cinderella, baby Cinderella, brother Cinderella, etc, except daddy who is mysteriously "The Mailman.") 

Blake is demonstrating admirable sharing skills and rolling with the squawkes from Anna in a very mature way.  He is also 100% boy and giving us a preview of what is to come.  We will be child proofing this time around.

SJ in bouncy house

Last day of school party!

Last day of paternity leave and debut of the Baby Bjorn

On Dave's last day of paternity leave (Tuesday) we took the boys out for a walk.  Roby rode in the Baby Bjorn, I had Eli in the Ergo.  Roby, who had been fussing, immediately quieted down.

 Closer inspection revealed why...

Nothing like smushing your baby's face into a passys to get some silence.  Only took us four kids to figure that one out.

Do we have Matty?

On Sunday we embarked in our first full family expedition to see Uncle Matt compete in the Escape from Alcatraz Triathalon.  And it was an expedition.  Uncle Matt worked pretty hard but it's possible that we all came home more exhausted.

First we got everyone up and out of the house to meet Grandma and Zeke at Starbucks.  We made it there only 20 minutes late at 7:20.  I'm still not sure how it happened, it was a blur. 

The car, which is now much larger than our old car, was very, very full. 

So full, that we actually had to use the roof thing-a-ma-jig.  This was for a three hour trip. 

Sarah Jane rode her Skuut and sported her new shirt.

Anna was pushed in the red stroller by Grandma.  The boys doubled up in the bassinet of the black stroller.

Dad carried the porta-couch and Uncle Matt's spare tube which he forgot when he left the house at 4:30AM. (We unfortunately missed him coming out of the water - we were 20 minutes late - so it was a good thing he didn't need it!)

We finally saw Matt coming in from his bike ride which, according to him, was "all hill" and not entirely pleasant though very pretty.

Minutes later, he ran by us on his 8 mile run.

The girls waited for glimpses of their Uncle Matt very patiently.

And Anna discovered the joys of the porta-couch (note the snacks stored in the drink holders) while Roby and Eli snacked.

We headed over to a different part of the course to see Matt in the home stretch of his run and Anna and Grandma found a great place to play in the sand.



Sarah Jane joined in the fun.

Zeke took advantage of the moment for a quick photo shoot.

And then showed off his results.

Anna was giving me the silent treatment and absolutely refused to look up but wouldn't this have been a cute picture if she had?

After Matt cruised by looking relaxed and happy...

We packed up and headed home.  At this point, we were all crying, I'm pretty sure even Pickle was crying, but we made it.



Matt in the home stretch

Ice Cream (after ride w/ Dad and Uncle Matt)

Anna, crushing burritos with SJ, Dad and uncle Matt

Out at packet pickup for escape from Alcatraz....burrito pit stop

Up, up and away!!!!

We had our second pediatrician appointments and in true Hoverman fashion these boys are proving to be champion eaters!  Over the last nine days, Roby gained a full 16oz and is now 6lbs 8oz.  Not to be outdone, Eli put on 18oz and is exactly 7lbs. 

Pretty soon they will be wearing these...





Janie & Jack blazers from my friend Anne Ristau.  Maybe boy clothes will be fun after all...

Not quite there yet.

Operation Hugs

Speaking of needing attention....

Sarah Jane is also in that camp.  While Anna is just a little bit sad, Sarah Jane has responded to the twins arrival with a bout of parental button pushing which is truly amazing in its effectiveness.  Wow does she know how to get us.  Lots and lots of stalling, crumping, crying, toy-not-sharing, whining, food-refusal and general sullenness.  It doesn't sound so bad when I type it but living with it is difficult. 

Prima donna: Sunbathing starkers

That said, just as she was with Anna, she is really wonderful with the boys.  She loves to touch their heads, kiss them and is an excellent babysitter while I shower, making sure they don't fall off the bed, replacing their passies and running in to give the update every 30 seconds or so.  She always cleans her hands with the hand sanitizer before she touches them and does a better job than anyone else around here telling them apart.

Babysitting

So.  Dave and I are embarking on Operation Hugs.  We're giving the girls 2 and a half months to do all the acting out they need to do.  No biting or hitting.  Lots of hugs.  Fewer timeouts.  Change the ratio of Yes:No (right now, we're high on No.)  I sort of feel the need to post a sign on us that says "This site is under construction, please excuse the disaster." 

Please bear with us while our big girls adjust to having their universe rocked.