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Day 104

Separate Cribs!

I can’t believe it: this week our babies started sleeping in separate cribs. I remember their first night home from the hospital, when we put them in the co-sleeper in our room, and they were so tiny I figured they’d never grow out of it. Not only did we have to graduate them to a crib in their own room by two months, but this week Julian started scooching around so much at night that he was shoving Eloise aside and knocking her head into the crib rails. The choice was clear. Another milestone passed.

While it was slightly bittersweet (in the sunrise, sunset kind of way) to put them in their own cribs, I mostly just thought it was pretty cool to see them there. It really drove home to me how much they’ve grown (notice that I do not say how fast they’ve grown — that first night home from the hospital seems like an eon and a half ago). So much good stuff is ahead, and it finally seems as though we just might get to it someday.

By the way, Julian continues to scooch. And last night, suddenly the sound of the mobile music came over the monitor. He’d turned himself sideways and had managed to kick the button that starts the mobile, waking up Eloise but not himself.

Day 103

Talent

Earlier this week the brilliant, talented, and award-winning photojournalist Emilie Sommer paid a visit to our house to capture a slice of our lives with infant twins. Not because we’re interesting and newsworthy, but because Emilie has been my friend for 27 years and brought her equipment with her when she came to meet the twins. She recounted her visit on her blog and can I just say wow! I had no idea our lives were so photogenic! Go check it out here.

Seriously, Emilie is the best of the best. As she was snapping pictures during her visit, I repeatedly thought to myself that she must have regretted lugging all her camera equipment with her since we were being so dull. I honestly believed that she couldn’t possibly be getting any worthwhile photos. And yet she captured the grind of our daily lives in a lively and compelling way — without ever once suggesting that we alter our activities for the sake of a photo. I always knew she was damn good, but until she took cool photos of our rather mundane activities, I didn’t realize how good. She can make anything look great.

(So if you’re in the Portland (Maine) area, or even if you’re not, and you’re getting married and looking to splurge on the best wedding photos money can buy, look no further. Lucky for you, Emilie retired from following presidential candidates around the country for USA Today and the Washington Post and now brings her tremendous skill to capturing weddings with the same genuine photojournalistic style.)

I would be remiss if I didn’t also note that with the time Emilie wasn’t snapping pictures of us, she was washing bottles, reorganizing the tupperware cabinet, repeatedly pushing the “reset” button on the Fisher Price Cradle Swing so that the white noise wouldn’t abruptly stop (one day I will write Fisher Price a letter to tell them how stupid it is that the white noise is on a mandatory timer), ordering and picking up an amazing sushi spread, making our bed, and telling me to get over it when I kept protesting that she didn’t need to do all that. And when she wasn’t doing all those things, she was giving me pep talks to combat my low moments about the challenges of caring for two babies full time.

Emilie is an amazing person, and I feel so fortunate to be approaching three decades of friendship with her. I am crushed that I have to miss her wedding to the wonderful J in St. John — St. John! — in April, but I know that we’ll make up for it with many other happy times together. We’ve already pledged to drink gin and tonics while our kids play on the beach in Maine one day. I can’t wait.

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Day 94

Sleepiest

If I may just brag on my son Julian for a second, check out these all-time stats (courtesy of Trixie Tracker):

Longest single sleep
11 h 12 min 8:46 pm to 7:58 am on Friday, Jan 16th
11 h 7 min 8:16 pm to 7:23 am on Monday, Jan 19th
10 h 14 min 9:01 pm to 7:15 am on Monday, Jan 12th

Most overnight sleep (between 6pm and 8am)
12 h 8 min Tuesday, Jan 13th
12 h 3 min Wednesday, Dec 31st
11 h 58 min Sunday, Jan 11th

UPDATE:By popular request, here are Ellie’s stats:

Longest single sleep
9 h 16 min 8:58 pm to 6:14 am on Friday, Jan 16th
8 h 36 min 8:16 pm to 4:52 am on Monday, Jan 19th
8 h 16 min 9:13 pm to 5:29 am on Tuesday, Jan 6th

Most overnight sleep (between 6pm and 8am)
12 h 18 min Tuesday, Jan 13th
12 h 14 min Saturday, Jan 10th
11 h 31 min Monday, Jan 19th

Three Months

I had big plans to write my three month post on the actual day they hit the three month mark — what an impressive accomplishment that would have been! But then they were grumpy little trolls all day and I thought maybe I’d regret it if the post just said “Two babies for sale, cheap. Make an offer. Will be sold separately or as a set.”

Celebrating the twins’ three-month birthday after they’d finally gone to bed. That’s not water in Matt’s glass.

I think that was the right call, because really, month three was a considerable improvement on month two. While it was still exhausting, frustrating, and oftentimes boring as all get-out, there was less crying and more smiling by all members of the family than there was a month earlier. There was also a lot more sleeping by every member of the household, thanks to Julian’s regular 10-12 hour stints (yes, that’s with no wake ups) and Eloise’s own occasional flirtations with sleeping through the night.

During their awake time, it became markedly easier (though far from foolproof) to make and keep the babies happy, most reliably by taking their clothes off and letting them roll around naked in the crib or on the floor (a huge hit with both of them). Actually, I wonder whether there’s anything iffy about so often dealing with a fussy baby by stripping off its clothes. Are they going to learn that nudity is an appropriate way to cope with any unpleasantness? Will they be disrobing during math tests in school? After their Little League team loses? When someone turns them down for a date? Eesh. I’ll worry about that later. Right now, Naked Time buys us a few minutes to take showers or eat lunch, so it is a good thing.

They also can now be entertained by certain interactions with us, such as our squeezing their cheeks while sing-songing “cheeks!” or making very mature fart noises at them. When they’re in good moods, we can generally count on being rewarded with a smile. This early play is actually pretty fun and, I like to think, a great preview of things to come.

Month three featured some big firsts, including a first Chanukah, a first Christmas, a first (and second) trip to visit grandparents, a first (and second) overnight away from home (except for the hospital), and a first plane ride. In general, both twins exceeded our expectations for how they’d handle these experiences (granted, our expectations were rather ludicrously low), suggesting that they are starting to take interest in new places and faces (as long as no one except one of their parents dares to hold them). In fact, we are starting to see dramatic increases in their abilities to engage with us and the world.

Since I am actually writing this well into month four, I can report that this theme of interactivity will loom large in the next monthly recap. I’m going to try to write next month’s post on time, though, because the babies are getting better so quickly that it’s hard to write with enthusiasm about a previous phase when you know how much more fun they’ve become since.

Day 93

Month 3

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Day 90

Pumping

Jill Lepore’s article in the latest New Yorker is pretty good, and I’m sure parents everywhere will read it with interest. It has, however, a decidedly anti-pumping tone—the frequent allusions to cows and dairy farms seem to reflect a distaste for the breast pump that I can understand on the one hand, but seems unfortunately narrow-minded on the other.

Lepore is indisputably right that the increased prevalence and social visibility of breast pumping is a response to the increased number of women in the work place, and that it’s an inadequate response:

One big reason so many women stop breast-feeding is that more than half of mothers of infants under six months old go to work. The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees only twelve weeks of (unpaid) maternity leave and, in marked contrast to established practice in other industrial nations, neither the government nor the typical employer offers much more. To follow a doctor’s orders, a woman who returns to work twelve weeks after childbirth has to find a way to feed her baby her own milk for another nine months. The nation suffers, in short, from a Human Milk Gap.

There are three ways to bridge that gap: longer maternity leaves, on-site infant child care, and pumps. Much effort has been spent implementing option No. 3, the cheap way out.

Absolutely. Family leave policies in the United States are an embarrassment. A society that was truly committed to a workforce in which men and women, parents and non-parents, can participate equally would have public policies in place that do not penalize working women who choose to have children and do not force women to choose between their children and their careers. The stingy benefits that US law provides (twelve unpaid weeks of leave) make it easier to balance work and family the higher up the socioeconomic ladder one is, which means families that need the most support get the least.

But! The question asked by the article’s subtitle—”If breast is best, why are women bottling their milk?”—does elide a whole set of possibilities. If, for instance, your baby is unable to breastfeed but you’d like to feed him breast milk instead of formula, a pump is the best option. And, even in a country with policies that allow new mothers to take reasonable family leave, women may choose to return to work before six months. Pumps shouldn’t be the only choice for women who want a career and a breast milk-fed baby, but they are an important tool for parents.

Day 89

Generations

One of the main reasons we schlepped the babies to St. Louis was so that they would have a chance to meet their great-grandmother, who’s been living there for the past few years. We took the opportunity to take a picture with four generations of Harveys–er, Rensins–well, Panishes:

Day 88

Travel

We successfully made it to St. Louis! Julian and Eloise were remarkably well-behaved for the flight—Julian only screamed for about twenty minutes or so, and Eloise was a perfect angel. (Weird, right?)

Right at the end of the flight, Rachel remembered that our point-and-shoot camera takes video:

Day 87

Flight

Rachel always used to declare that nothing made her want kids less than the sight of a family with small children struggling their way through an airport. Well, it’s our turn. Tomorrow we’re going to attempt to take the twins to St. Louis to visit their grandpa and meet their great-grandmother. Are we insane? Probably, yes.

We’re lucky that my sister Lauren and her girlfriend Morgan are saints. They agreed—no, actually, they volunteered—to come with us so we’d have some extra adults to help carry babies, luggage, and whatnot on the trip. Thanks to their help and careful planning, I’m worried, but not struck dumb with terror, about how tomorrow will go.

Nonetheless, if you want to send good vibes to us and the other, unsuspecting, passengers on American flight 5345, that would be appreciated.

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