Day 42

Day 41

Day 40

Weight

I can now reveal to you my secret foolproof plan that will enable you, like me, to lose ten pounds in a mere three weeks. Just follow these easy steps:

1. Have twins.

Day 39

Day 38

Sleep

I knew last night went well, but I didn’t consider quite how well until I heard Rachel telling someone else: “Last night, Julian only woke up once between 10:00 pm and 6:00 am.” That sounds more impressive than, “I only had to feed him at 9:00, 2:00, and 6:00.”

Here’s hoping it lasts!

Cutest

Is there anything in this world cuter than a little baby sneeze?

No, there is not.

Day 37

Wardrobe

Yesterday was a big milestone for me: I wore non-maternity pants for the first time since last spring! Granted, they were my loosest-fitting pants pre-pregnancy, and getting into them was a bit of a squeeze, but still, they actually have a non-elasticized waist! A zipper fly is such a novelty to me now. It did make for some briefly disconcerting moments in the restroom though, embarrassingly enough.

This is happy news (the non-maternity pants, not the fly-related confusion), because it means a) that I am down to 9 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight, which is to say that I’ve lost 36 pounds, and b) that I can finally unpack all my regular clothes that have been packed in boxes since our move this summer. Granted, actually accomplishing that wardrobe transition was not exactly fun (and finding time for it seemed impossibly unlikely for a long time), but now that it’s done I feel much more settled.

That said, actually packing away my maternity clothes was bittersweet. I know that I am not packing them away for my own future use, but rather so that they can be passed on to the next knocked up friend or relative who wears my approximate size, and that leaves me feeling (just a little bit, I swear) wistful. The memories of purchasing so many of those clothes back when I was 16 weeks pregnant — thinking that, no, really, I totally had a belly! — are memories of excitement and disbelief and happy anticipation. So there was some nostalgia there to say the least. A lot of the clothes have strong pregnancy-specific associations: the dresses I wore to my baby showers; the bathing suit I squeezed into at Lake Winnipesaukee so I could float in the lake and get some relief from the weight of my belly; the ridiculously overlarge maternity shirt I enthusiastically wore to work the day I finally shared the news of my pregnancy with co-workers. (That shirt, incidentally, was decidedly too small to fit over my belly by the bitter end.) When I acquired all those clothes, I knew that they would only be a temporary wardrobe for me, but like most things in life, I couldn’t really appreciate how quickly that time would actually pass.

No sense dwelling on the past, though. Time to look ahead. And by that I mean I really really hope I fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans again soon.

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Cloth

When we told people we planned to use cloth diapers for the twins, people said we were crazy. Frankly, when Rachel proposed it, I thought she was crazy, but she quickly brought me around. Here are the arguments in favor of using cloth diapers:

• Disposable diapers put all kinds of freaky-ass chemicals up against your baby’s, well, ass. Disposables are incredibly absorbent, but they achieve that absorbency using space-age gels and such. These things might not be bad for your baby, but not using them has got to be better.
• Disposable diapers put tons and tons of crap, literally, into landfills, taking up valuable landfill space and potentially contaminating groundwater, etc. Cloth diapers have to be laundered, which uses lots of water, it’s true, but I think cloths still come out ahead, environmentally speaking.
• Cloth diapers are more expensive per diaper, but in the long run are much cheaper than disposables.

Some commonly asked questions seem to be:

Are you using cloth diapers exclusively? Heavens, no. We’ve only been using cloth for a week or two. We still pack disposables in the diaper bags for the few times we’ve ventured out of the house, and at this point we’re putting them in disposables overnight. We’ll probably switch to cloth overnight when they get a bit bigger and can fit into some of the other diapers we have.

Do you use a diaper service? No. There are probably some places that still have services that take away your dirty diapers and bring you fresh clean ones, but Providence isn’t one of those places. With two babies, we’re basically doing laundry once a day anyway, so an additional load of diapers isn’t too arduous.

Wait, you wash the diapers in your washing machine? With, like, poop on them? Yes. We do the diapers in a separate load from our regular clothes, and I think we run them through an extra rinse cycle, but at this stage in the babies’ development, their poop is pretty liquid-y. Things seem to be pretty clean. Really, it’s fine. Nothing else we own seems to be covered in poop at this time.

How do they work? Cloth diapers seem to have come a long way since the old days of safety pins and rubber pants. What I figure I’ll do is over the next few days (oh, who am I kidding: weeks) is do a series of posts on the different kinds of cloth diapers we’ve tried, and our impressions of each. It will either be fascinating or incredibly boring, depending on your personal interest in diapering. Non-parents, feel free to skim.

OK, so, there seem to be four basic types of cloth diapers. We have examples of three of the types.

Prefolds are the most basic type of cloth diaper. These are basically rectangles of absorbent cotton. You fashion the cloth into a little baby loincloth, and then put a waterproof cover over it. We’ve had good success with these: they’re our default diapering solution at present.

Fitted diapers are absorbent fleecy things that work just like disposables: they’re shaped like diapers, basically, with leg holes and Velcro tabs and all. You Velcro on the diaper, and then put a waterproof cover on it, just like with prefolds. I think these are the most convenient, although Rachel insists they’re somewhat less absorbent than the prefolds. We have two different brands of fitted diapers: Thirsties and Kissaluvs. (So far, the Kissaluvs are a little big for our babies, but they’re more adjustable than the Thirsties, so we expect to get a lot of good use out of them.)

Pocket diapers have a waterproof shell, a fleece lining, and a pocket in which to stuff a piece of absorbent fabric. We haven’t used any of our pocket diapers yet (small babies) but we’ll eventually try out bumGenius and FuzziBunz.

All-in-one diapers are one piece: waterproof exterior and super absorbent interior. They’re as convenient as disposables, except you have to wash them. We don’t have any of these at this point.

Since both prefolds and fitteds require waterproof covers, we have quite a few of them. Our favorites so far are the Thirsties covers, but we also have some Bummis, ProRap, and ImseVimse. After a few weeks of use, we can enthusiastically recommend the Thirsties. They have double leg gussets, which help keep the diaper tucked inside and prevent wetness from leaking out, and they have double-sided Velcro tabs, which allow you to overlap them for small babies.

With prefolds, you generally want some kind of device to hold the diaper in place under the cover. Although it’s possible to just fold the diaper into shape and then wrap the cover around it, we find that the Snappi fastener is extremely convenient.

As long as we’re being environmental, we can’t go using disposable diaper wipes, can we? No, we cannot. Instead, we use cloth wipes that we spray with a little soapy water before using. We like the Thirsties wipes best; the Kissaluvs can be a little rough on sensitive baby parts.

OK, seriously, I’ve gone on about cloth diapers for rather a long while here, and I’ve threatened more posts to come, so I’ll wrap this up. We do think using cloth diapers is a great choice environmentally and financially. We (mostly Rachel) did a lot of research into the best options, so we hope the results of our experimentation can be of use to anyone else.

Oh, crap, gotta go change a diaper.

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Flowers

While I stand by everything I said before, I have to admit that Eloise looks flipping adorable in her flowery pink nightgown.

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Comparison

Before:

When Eloise came home from the hospital, she weighed 4 pounds, 15 ounces. At the pediatrician yesterday, she weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces:

When Julian came home from the hospital he weighed 4 pounds, 12 ounces. At the pediatrician yesterday, he weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces:

I’d say they’re plumping up nicely!

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Month 1

One Month

Wow is there not a lot of time to write anything for the blog! Quite frankly, there isn’t a lot of time to take pictures and post them to the blog, either, but Matt has been unbelievably disciplined about doing so. So I figure I can manage to throw a few words up here between feedings and pumpings and feedings and laundry and feedings. First-draft quality, sure, but words nonetheless.

The other day I commented to Matt about how during pregnancy I often heard from parents that once we had kids, we wouldn’t even remember what our life was like without them. Before I could make my follow up comment, Matt made it for me with a longing look in his eyes: “Believe me, I remember that life.” We agreed that just because we clearly remembered our life before kids doesn’t mean that we want to return to it, but it might be nice to take a vacation there. Say, for eight hours. Per day.

Here at one month out we’re still really in the thick of things in terms of constant feedings, innumerable diapers, and unspeakable sleep deprivation. And I’m not going to sugar coat things and pretend that that doesn’t suck a lot of the time. It’s kind of like the worst of finals period in college, but every day you wake up and it’s the beginning of finals period again, and although the material on the exams is exactly the same, the answers are quite possibly completely different.

That said, these are great babies. Their cuteness has been well documented here, but they also boast sweet (if endlessly hungry) temperaments and winning personalities. While it is still a bit early for them to be smiling socially, they are both pretty smiley and happy-looking babies, which is a welcome reward for our oftentimes wearying efforts. (And we also think they’re starting to show inklings of socials smiles, which will be great.) It has been amazing watching them grow over the last month, and it has happened faster than we ever could have anticipated. Julian in particular has really blossomed — if one is allowed to use that term for anyone other than a teenage girl; I’m not sure — and as exhausting as it is to provide round-the-clock sustenance for these ravenous little critters, it is quite rewarding to see them plumping up and becoming more and more alert and lively.

Today is actually the day after their one-month birthday. Yesterday happened to be a pretty rough day for me. Some days just are. I feel a lot better today, partly because the lowest moments just don’t last indefinitely (hear that, parents-to-be?), and partly because I received some great encouragement and support from friends and family when I really needed it. It’s hard in some ways to hear that things are will get a lot easier at six months, or a year, or two years, or four years, because that feels like it will never, ever be us. But of course it will, and we’re in this parenthood thing for the long haul, so it’s helpful to remember that oh yes, one day we will indeed have kids, not just babies. I remember when it felt like I would never get pregnant, and now here I am a mother; right now I feel that things will never get easier with the babies, but time has a way of marching forward whether you’re enjoying it or not, so I know that one day I’ll turn around and find I have older children, probably sooner than I realize.

And of course, there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to rush through this phase, since there are many wonderful things about it, and I’ll never be able to return to it (should I be crazy enough to want to). To paraphrase a comment from friend of mine (made regarding her new baby), I can’t wait for them to grow up…but they’re growing up too fast!

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Bonus

Special bonus daily picture, because it is SO FREAKING CUTE:

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Song

Last Sunday, our friends Tracie, Stephanie, and Kate came over for the morning to play with the babies and give us some adult human contact. As if the pleasure of their company wasn’t enough, they also performed a song about Julian and Eloise that they’d written the night before. It was kind of the sweetest thing ever.

Take a listen to: Babies, Babies!

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