Eight Months

My babies are two-thirds of a year old! This is the first time I’ve measured their age in years, and while I admit it’s a little contrived to do so, it reflects the fact that I am slowly starting to think about time in larger segments. For the first eight weeks or so of the twins’ lives, I counted every single day — and each one felt endless. Then the weeks starting coming at a good clip, and sometime around 20 weeks I realized that I’d actually missed a Sunday of marking their age in weeks in my head. Once I returned to work, the months started to zip by. It’ll be a good while before I really shift from thinking about their age in months to thinking about their age in years, but suddenly the one-year mark doesn’t seem like a theoretical fairytale era that the world will only reach long after I am dead.

Maybe time is moving more quickly because the babies are moving quickly in their development. It’s amazing to me how well they rise to the challenge of just about every opportunity we give them to try something new. Want to stand up against this play table? Yes, all the time please! Can you sit here and listen attentively while we read you books? I can, and I’m adorable while I do it! Would you like to try to feed yourself Cheerios? More than anything in the world! Want to try drinking water from a cup? DEAR LORD YES THIS IS THE GREATEST THING I’VE EVER EXPERIENCED!

Eating solid foods is becoming a bigger part of every day, now that meals often include elements that cross over into play: drinking from sippy cups, sucking on fruit in mesh feeder bags, and eating finger foods. About a month ago we significantly relaxed our rules about waiting 2-3 days between the introduction of each new food, and now we just give them all kinds of elaborate combinations and tastes of what we’re eating. Sometimes we just take our own dinner and put it through a food mill and feed them that (orzo salad with feta, spinach, and tomato was a big hit). As for non solid foods, Julian is showing some skill at feeding himself a bottle, which is very cool and promises to be advantageous when he finally masters it. Less wonderful is that Eloise completely and suddenly self-weaned about 10 days ago. She acted like she’d never nursed in her life and wondered what the heck I was suggesting that she do with that thing, exactly? This has been very difficult and intensely emotional for me, for lots of reasons. I thought about writing a post about it, but in the end, I don’t think everything was meant to go on the blog. Suffice it to say, I’m still dealing with it (it happened so fast and I wasn’t ready to be done with nursing), and now we’re washing more bottles than ever.

On a happier note, the twins just get cuter and funnier all the time. Julian is going through a phase of really loving to play with giant “toys” — I can stand him at the tower fan and he’s content for a good five minutes — longer if I turn the fan on and off a few times (don’t worry, I have the oscillation turned off). He loves the big yoga ball we used to bounce them on for a good 37 hours of each day. An empty laundry basket is another good one. Perhaps he feels comfortable around very large objects because of all the time he spends with his own cheeks.

Both kids continue to be obsessively into standing up, and if they’re lying on their backs or sitting, and you hold your two hands out to them and say “Give Mama/Daddy your hands,” they’ll put their two little hands in yours and pull themselves right up. (Actually, I think we could probably hold out our hands and say “Republicans are slimy and they’re trying to sabotage meaningful health care reform” and they’d do the same thing — I don’t think their verbal comprehension skills are really what’s at play here.) They aren’t clapping, waving, or giving high-fives yet, though that’s next on my list of things to teach them. Julian is pretty motivated to pull himself up on stationary objects, and Eloise will stagger in an approximate walking motion if you stand over her holding your hands in hers — it continues to seem likely that she will walk early. Neither one seems particularly close to crawling, and it’s entirely possible they’ll skip it altogether. It’s hard to learn to crawl when all you ever do is stand (or shriek to be put into a standing position).

Lots of people will say that having twins is interesting because you see so very clearly how different children are right from the start. And anyone who has spent any significant amount of time with our kids knows this is true. However, I’ve noticed that sometimes I tend to associate a certain characteristic or interest or skill with one baby, and not recognize the possibility that the other baby might actually have the same one. For example, for a long time we marveled over Eloise’s interest in standing up, so we were constantly propping her up on a stool or a small table or something. When it finally occurred to me to see whether Julian might be able to do the same thing, not only did he catch on very quickly, but now he is even more aggressive than Eloise in his attempts to pull up on anything within reach. So I’m trying to be cautious about making assumptions about either baby in relation to the other. This will get easier to avoid, as Julian and Eloise are starting to show an ability to perceive what the other is doing and insist on doing it as well. This often manifests itself as jealousy when the other baby is being held, but it also applies to bottles, toys, and, of course, standing. (God forbid that one should get to stand up in the crib while the other poor, tortured, unloved, deprived baby gets its diaper changed.) As difficult as that can sometimes be, when both babies are gracelessly lunging at me at the same time in an effort to pull my hair and pinch my face to demonstrate that they missed me while I was at work, I actually think it’s pretty cool that in eight months, they’ve gone from a near total lack of perception of their surroundings to possessing the ability to identify that their sibling is doing something and by god they want to do it to. (The grammar in that sentence was quite flawed, but I’m not quite up for fixing it.)

I think we’re all starting to enjoy each other as a family more and more. Matt and I always loved the babies, without question, but recently I think that feeling has really deepened for both of us, from a sort of instinctive, protective love into a much more complex love that comes when you all start to, you know, like each other. The words “smitten” and “besotted” have often been crossing my mind when I think about how I feel about these two little delicious, soft, funny, snuggly, smart, amazing, wiggly, constantly changing little people. It is a truly fantastic feeling.

This month we’re looking forward to our first overnight trip since St. Louis in January — we’re taking the babies to Lake Winnipesaukee! Even before I had kids, and certainly when I was pregnant, one of my favorite things to imagine was taking my children to a place that I love so much and that looms so large in my own childhood memories. I’m hoping the trip goes better than we expect — we are a wee bit concerned about napping and nighttime sleep — because I’d love to feel a little more flexible about taking the babies places in the future. (Julia, I’ve got my eye on you and Portland! Rachel and Liz, get ready to show the babies the Big Apple!)

Speaking of looking ahead, this week my friend Melissa was in town and stopped by with her adorable 11.5-month-old daughter, Abi. Watching Abi next to Julian and Eloise was like watching two different species. Abi was crawling everywhere, pulling up, maneuvering objects with lots of dexterity, babbling like crazy, and just generally being a toddler next to our babies. It is impossible to imagine that that’s what’s in store for us in just a few short months. Impossible and awesome.

Month 8

Seven Months

Hello, seven months! I didn’t hear you come in. I have to admit that I was so focused on making it to six months that it sort of didn’t occur to me that we’d keep going after we passed that milestone.

I’ve slowly established a convention with my monthly posts of including photos of the two babies together. Matt posts a daily photo of each baby individually, but lately some of the very cutest pictures have been of both of them. Now that they’re sitting and interacting so much more, there is an embarrassment of riches to choose from. I think we’re at a bit of a sweet spot right now in that they interact well, but aren’t yet able to hit, push, pinch, and steal toys — well, at least not with any intentionality. I’m sure they’ll reach a point where I long for the days when they just lay, bloblike and unaware, side by side. (Actually, that’s not true. I’m pretty darn sure I’ll never long for a return to the bloblike days.)

Indeed, things have continued to get more fun with the babies all the time. Now that they’re a bit easier to entertain and the weather’s getting better, we’ve started to take them more places: the Providence Children’s Museum, Tot Gym class, playdates, or simply the front yard. Our most ambitious trip was to a bat mitzvah service and celebratory lunch a couple weeks ago. We were out of the house for about five hours, and, remarkably, the babies held up pretty well! We would have stayed longer except we ran out of diapers and bottles. Julian even allowed himself to be put down for a nap on the hosts’ bed, although it was quickly interrupted by a pack of children who barged in playing some variation of Hide and Seek. Matt discovered the disturbance shortly after it happened, and, in a demonstration of how patient and gentle he has become with children since becoming a parent himself, hissed, “If you woke up the baby, I swear I will kill each one of you.” (The baby had indeed been awoken, but boy those little kids can run fast.) That bit aside, I think all four of us were proud of how things went. I hope this bodes well for some overnight travel to New Hampshire we have planned for this summer.

Julian and Eloise continue to show ever-increasing zest for life. They are positively exuberant when playing with toys, although their different personalities are evident in their playing styles. Eloise tends to study most toys with a furrowed brow, turning them around slowly, giving them measured shakes. Julian tends to lunge for each toy you present (no matter how many times he’s seen it before) as though he’s been in sensory deprivation for a week. This is a bit of a problem when you want to offer a toy to Eloise. Even if you allow Julian to snatch the toy you’d originally intended for Eloise, when you reach for the toy that Julian had been playing with previously, thinking that he will surely be tired of it and therefore it will be a safe bet for offering to his sister, he drops whatever you’d just given him and heaves himself at the toy he had been playing with for 10 minutes. (I get the sense this is pretty common at this age. My twin mom friend Julia describes how her son will grab eagerly for the mesh feeder she is handing to his sister, even when he is at that very moment chewing on an identical mesh feeder.)

They do get tired of their toys sometimes (leading me to have a complete breakdown of will power and buy them ever more toys), but I love how they get reset overnight: you get them up in the morning and their body language clearly communicates, “Hey! It’s my toys! I haven’t seen you guys since yesterday!”

Physical milestones are coming along, with completely reliable sitting, plenty of wriggly rolling, and a near-constant desire to stand with support. They have also become quite adept at grabbing and pinching our faces, which, as you might imagine, is quite painful. It’s very silly to explain to a totally non-verbal child that “we don’t pinch,” but we’re not sure what else to do at this stage. (Pinching back doesn’t seem quite right.)

The biggest challenge at this point (well, aside from the twins’ propensity for waking up at 4:45 a.m. for the day) is the eternal shortage of time. I recently described it to someone as the temporal equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck: we have just enough time in the day to get all the basics done (bottles, laundry, meals, and a minimal level of tidying), but trying to find time for things on top of that is a challenge (paying bills, mowing the lawn, making baby food, writing monthly blog posts), and if anything unexpected comes along, or there’s a major task that doesn’t fit into the regular routine (finding a nanny, installing the window air conditioners, taking the pukey cat to the vet for an abdominal ultrasound), I start to feel a bit panicky about how we’ll ever find time to get to it. And dammit, sometimes when we do find ourselves with a few extra minutes, we would like to sit slack-jawed and watch Lost rather than seizing the opportunity to scrub the grout in the kitchen floor. This is probably something that’s largely attributable to having children in general, rather than having twins specifically, but I’m still adjusting to it.

But without question, the trend toward an improved ratio of good stuff to hard stuff continues. So much so that lately I’ve actually started to feel a strange and unfamiliar feeling that I finally identified as nostalgia. I was at the midwife’s office for a non-pregnancy-related reason last week, and walking past the ultrasound room I suddenly felt a sense of melancholy that I had no little pre-babies to check up on in there. Then some friends of ours had twins last week (congratulations, Christina and Kelly!), and looking at the pictures on their blog and reading about their first few days as parents has made me all misty. I even got a little wistful when I found a few packets of castille soap under the sink that the nurses had given us in the hospital for washing pump parts. (I challenge all of you to find something under the kitchen sink that makes you feel sentimental.) Of course, I’m not so far removed that I don’t then instantly remember that I spent most of the first four months traumatized, but I like seeing signs of the fact that as more and more time passes, the happy memories will take increasing precedence over the difficult ones. I have no problem with my brain conducting a little revisionist history; I’m perfectly content to remember the early months wildly inaccurately.

Because of the aforementioned shortage of time, it took me nearly two weeks to crank out this post. And now I can’t think of any thoughtful way to end it, but if I don’t go ahead and hit “publish” now, it’ll be time to write the eight-month post. So please distract yourself from my abrupt and artless conclusion with this adorable photo:

Month 7

Month 6

Six Months

Four days old and six months old. Needless to say, the cradle doesn’t get a lot of use anymore by our big hulking babies!

Well holy cabooses, it’s been six months. It feels like just yesterday that it the babies were…oh, about 5.9 months old. (It feels like roughly 10 years since they were born. No indeed, time has not exactly flown by.)

This has been a big month, and a good month overall — our best yet, I’d say. There have been visits by all the aunts and all the grandparents, plus the babies’ first Passover seder. (Julian was a model child, and Eloise…umm, let’s assume she was just trying to do her youngest-child duty and sing the Four Questions, loudly and incessantly, for the entire meal.) Many of the other major milestones have already been documented here: we night- and swaddle-weaned Eloise; I went back to work; we started them on solid foods. Things continue to go well on all three of those fronts, though we are a little disappointed that Julian and Eloise do not seem to have very adventurous palettes yet: rice cereal and applesauce yes, sweet potatoes and carrots a resounding no. (I, however, have discovered that fresh, pureed, unadorned vegetables are quite delicious!)

This month has had more than its fair share of miserably rainy days, which are brutal because they rule out the sanity-saving afternoon stroller excursions that we rely on so heavily. But there have also been some gorgeous spring days, and it has been wonderful to see the babies discover that outdoors does not necessarily equal freezing temperatures and bitter winds. Being outside really seems to interest them and calm them, so in addition to walks in the stroller, we’ve been taking them to the playground, letting them lie on the grass, and setting their Bumbo seats in the sun. Quite frankly it’s been pretty refreshing for us, too, after a long winter of looking at the same few rooms in our house for most of every day. We bought some cute sun hats and some baby sunblock in anticipation of lots of outdoor time as the weather keeps improving.

It’s a lot of the little things that are making the babies so fun and funny these days. Julian has an amusing habit of clasping his hands together up above his body and thumping them down on his chest repeatedly, as though he’s having a little trouble with the ol’ ticker. He also still grins like a goon when you sing any song and replace all the lyrics with “Julian.” Eloise will kick her legs up and jump if you hold her by her armpits and bounce her up and down — it’s so cute. She continues to have independent control of her eyebrows and can easily raise one or the other, allowing her to express her skepticism about all our efforts to impress or entertain her. On the other hand, she hands out face-splitting smiles like they’re going out of style. Even better, she has expanded the circle of people reliably permitted to hold her from two to four (my mom and Abigail have finally survived her hazing rituals and earned her trust).

Speaking of smiling, one thing we’ve noticed recently is that the twins have started smiling when they’re enjoying themselves, as opposed to strictly in response to someone smiling at them. Before it was purely social and seemed largely reflexive (see a smile, make a smile), but now some of their smiles seem to indicate that they are entertained by their activities or our antics. (The big smiles in the official six-month photo are in response to my kicking around the living room chanting “Mama does the can-can! Mama does the can-can!” No sacrifice of dignity is too large for my children.)

Each month brings more and more interest in toys (and, hence, more and more toys into our home). Blocks, rattles, and stuffed animals are great, but so is a giant unopened bag of tortilla chips. They are loving the jumperoo and often enjoying the exersaucer. The cats would probably be the number one plaything if they were stupid enough to get anywhere near the babies; as it is, both kids practically hyperventilate with excitement if a cat looks their way.

The big developmental milestone that seems to have sped in out of nowhere is their ability to sit unsupported. Two weeks ago they could probably balance for 5 seconds before toppling over; these days I bring them downstairs in the morning, sit them on the floor, arrange some toys in front of them, and go back to bed. Okay, I don’t go back to bed, but I do go into the kitchen and make breakfast and do other morning tasks. I can’t believe how quickly this happened. I had been looking forward to it for a long time, suspecting that it might make both babies (particularly Eloise) happier and our lives a bit easier, and so far I seem to have been right on both counts.

There are still times when it’s really hard, of course. Matt is on his own with them a lot more often now, and when I check Trixie Tracker during the day and see that they each have napped for a total of 23 non-simultaneous minutes, I just cringe for him. But the trend definitely continues to be toward easier, and I can honestly say that I am finally enjoying being a parent much of the time. I am not sure that I would repeat the first four months for any amount of money, but it’s a great feeling to have the fog lifting, those brutal days behind us, and all the best stuff ahead. Time is speeding back up, and I know that they’ll be a year old before I know it. To quote from the Joni Mitchell song my parents used to sing me to sleep as a kid: “Take your time, it won’t be long now/’Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down.”

Five Months

Oh hallelujah! It’s time for a monthly post and I am not currently contemplating leaving the babies on a neighbor’s doorstep with a note promising daily deliveries of pumped breast milk.

Indeed, things are much improved since my last monthly post. Experienced parents will not be surprised to know that my satisfaction with my children is directly tied to how much time they spend asleep. I love parenthood when I’m not actually doing any parenting. While they’re still not sleeping on quite the schedule we’d like (this despite the very clear agenda we lay out for them every morning), they are generally taking a longish morning nap and several spotty afternoon naps. So while it used to be “I hope the baby falls asleep soon” when we were at our wits’ end, now it’s “Let’s try to put the baby down for a nap.” And sometimes it works! We dream of a day when they each take a long morning nap and a long afternoon nap. We are not so bold as to dream that they might take them at the same time. We are also trying not to think about the fact that one day we’re going to have to teach them to sleep unswaddled — something they are incapable of doing at the moment.

In a more wakeful vein, this month featured an explosion of interest in toys. We received a few toys at our baby showers and shortly after the twins were born, and I remember reacting (internally) along the lines of, “We’re never going to have any use for these.” I mean, the babies’ most advanced skill at that point was occasionally uncrossing their eyes. It seemed like we’d never make it to a time when they might want to play. But here we are, and each new colorful object we parade before them triggers a frenzy of enthusiastic grabbing, followed by a frenzy of saturating said colorful object with drool.

This engagement with toys (and books, too — they even try pretty consistently to turn the pages themselves, which is so cute) means that the babies can usually be happily occupied for significant parts of the day. It is tremendously gratifying to see your children happy. For the first three months, the best possible option seemed to be “not unhappy” (a state that was all too rare for Eloise), but recently they’ve developed the capacity to have fun. Julian loves to hear us say or sing his name, and he gets a big, slow, dopey smile on his face when we do. And Eloise, our colicky baby who drove me to Zoloft and Matt to very bad words, now smiles hugely, repeatedly, and gleefully at everyone who smiles at her. Like most parents, we never tire of our babies’ smiles, but the memory of weeks and weeks of colic make them that much sweeter.

One highlight of the month, in my opinion, was taking the babies to the current session of the Marvelous Multiples class at the hospital that we took when I was pregnant — we were the featured current parents. It was so great — we felt like twin parenting experts! I think it’s easy to be so focused on the challenges of the moment that you don’t realize how far you’ve come. It was really great to be able to offer advice and remember all the things that we’d figured out and survived. It forces me to grudgingly acknowledge that we will probably also survive the issues that are currently kicking our asses. (There was one person in the class expecting triplets. I could barely bring myself to make eye contact with her. Triplets, holy crap.)

The next month is going to bring some big changes. Most notably, I’m going back to work on April 1. It is going to be such a drastic change that I can’t even really imagine it. I think it will be great for me in some ways, but in other ways I’m going to miss Matt and the babies so much. (Matt, as a part-time graduate student, will be the primary caregiver through December, with a little help from my mom and Abigail, our wonderful Brown student babysitter.) I’m dealing with the transition by not thinking about it at all right now, so more on this subject next month.

Another big milestone that’s fast approaching is the babies’ introduction to solid foods. While it some ways it will complicate our already complicated lives even more, I expect it will be fun to see them try new flavors and textures. We actually had something of a preview of this recently, because after Julian’s digestive system developed a bit of a problem with its back-end functionality, he was prescribed two bottles of prune juice a day. While at first I think he was completely stunned to taste something so wildly different from what usually comes out of his bottle, he quickly warmed up to it and now gulps it down enthusiastically each and every time. (Incidentally, putting the dark prune juice in the bottles where there’s only ever been pure white liquid makes it look to me like we’re feeding him some sort of toxic sludge.) So we’ve started talking about what new foods we want to introduce to them and when. Matt has big plans for homemade baby food, and I am looking forward to slowly ramping down my role as chief baby-food producer.

Speaking of which, this past week I returned my hospital-grade breast pump, which I rented the day we came home from the hospital. I had major separation anxiety, since it has been such a huge part of my life, and I wasn’t sure I could trust my plain old consumer-grade Pump in Style to do the trick, but so far it’s working fine and I guess I’m happy to save the $50 a month.

Many twin parents have told me that you really just have to grit your teeth and plow through the first year in survival mode. I truly can’t believe we’re fast approaching the halfway point of that marathon. And honestly, while it’s still incredibly challenging, I’m not having to grit my teeth quite so hard these days. Again I say: hallelujah!

Month 5

Four Months

Oh boy. The babies are demonstrating an unfortunate habit of being brutally difficult on their monthly birthdays. Either that or I have a habit of being particularly emotionally vulnerable on those days. Perhaps I build up so much expectation around those milestones that when they don’t wake up on those days making me breakfast in bed, I’m bitterly disappointed and handle the whole day poorly.

Anyway, yesterday was a rough day. It happened to be my birthday, and I would say it was marginally worse than last year’s birthday, which was spent at a funeral in New Jersey followed by an early dinner at an Applebee’s off I-95 in Connecticut. This year was about as much fun as the funeral, but there were no cheeseburger sliders afterward.

I thought about waiting a few days until I was in a slightly more peppy place before writing the four-month post, but I’ve done that every month, and this time I just want to get it out there and not have it hanging over me (the post). Besides, while I know that our visitors come here for the cute pictures and the happy stuff, I figure you can all handle a little bit of the reality that more often than not, those little cherubs are kicking my ass. I know that I’m dealing with some mild postpartum depression, and I am doing everything I can to keep my lowest moments at bay; in my heart, though, I know that the only thing that’s really going to help is time. So now I’ll just start focusing on the slow march to the five-month mark, when things are sure to get better, right?

Eesh, now that I’ve started with a total downer, the positive stuff I’m about to put up here is going to sound disingenuous. And it really shouldn’t, because the good stuff really is good. But I was chatting with another twin mom recently about how hard it can be as a parent to go to other people’s blogs and see all this sunshine and adorability and to feel as though you must be the only person who sometimes (or regularly) feels less than rosy about the whole experience. So just read the above as an attempt at making this blog fair and balanced. Consider it the token Democrat on Fox News. Now on to the happy! (Hmm, this analogy makes it sound as though I’m equating “happy” and “Republican.” Purely an accident.)

The first half of this month was actually really good. The babies became far more interactive and really interested in the world. They also seemed to fall into a bit of a routine during the day, eating at 3-hour intervals and napping somewhat regularly. It was a huge relief to have some structure and predictability in our days. Unfortunately, the second half of the month saw all that go right out the window, and it now seems that the babies are so fascinated by the world that they have very little interest in sleeping, lest they miss anything good. Eloise has been refusing to nap, ever, and while Julian is still a fairly good sleeper, oftentimes I hear him at night through the baby monitor grunting for an hour straight, and when I go in he’s repeatedly kicking his legs up and to the side in his swaddling blanket, mimicking the motions he made when he rolled over (!) from back to front last week (a feat he repeated three times that night but not since). These grunts wake Eloise, of course, and the less said about that the better. Their lack of sleep not only means we get less sleep at night and fewer breaks during the day, but it also makes them exhausted crankypants. Which makes us exhausted crankypants.

Still, their interest in the world is welcome and lots of fun. There are now lots of big “hey, I know you!” smiles when we come into their field of view, which can go a long way toward mitigating the challenges of the day. They are starting to reach and grab, which means they often have fistfuls of my hair, delightfully. Julian lies on the playmat and flings both his arms out at once, trying to hit as many hanging toys at a time as possible, and Eloise is adoring the tags on her Taggie blanket. They are also vocalizing a lot more. Julian does lots of classic coos alternated with a noise that sounds just like radio static, so when he’s “talking” to us it sounds like we’re getting bad reception on the baby talk station. Eloise, who has always been less chatty than Julian, now makes a lot more noise, but she pretty much only says “Aah, ahh” (the A sound in “cat,” as opposed to “car”). It’s pretty cute.

My favorite development this month by far was that they started noticing each other. It happened quickly. For a while one or the other would occasionally gaze with studied interest at his or her twin, but they did that with the cats, too, so it wasn’t particularly meaningful. But then all of a sudden both of them at the same time seemed to realize that the other existed. Matt and I were sitting next to each other on the couch about two weeks ago, each holding one, and before we knew it they had locked eyes and were smiling and cooing at each other. This lasted several minutes, and since then we have been able to reproduce this just by pointing them at each other. (And we do that a lot, it’s so cute.) Sometimes they’ll even catch eyes and start smiling at each other without prompting from us, which is a treat. This gives me hope that very soon they’ll be great playmates and let me return to my life of heavy drinking and trashy magazines. In seriousness, I’m looking forward to being able to sit them both in Bumbo seats, facing toward each other, and letting them entertain each other for, oh, minutes on end.

I’ll end with a quick nod to another recent anniversary: they day before their four-month birthday (February 18) was their “conceptoversary” — one year after they were conceived. (We know this for sure because we conceived with the help of fertility science, so those of you who would prefer to believe that Matt’s and my love is a chaste love may go on doing so.) It is odd to think about this period last year. I wanted so badly to be pregnant, and I was but didn’t know it yet. I look at pictures from my last birthday and can’t believe that I was already hosting the two little balls of cells that would become Julian and Eloise. I could probably say something insightful and profound about that if I weren’t so sleep deprived. I’ll just stick with the uninsightful and obvious: What a year it has been.

Month 4

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.

Month 3

Month 2

Two Months

It is tempting, when considering the content of a post about our second month as parents, to write “Ellie cried” and leave it at that. Because honestly, that was by far the most prominent aspect of month two.

I know that other things happened in there, though. For example, we moved the twins out of their co-sleeper in our room and into their crib in their room. This seems like a big transition to me, but for whatever reason, unlike practically every other parenting move we’ve made, we barely discussed it — we just did it. It was time, though: their combined weight was creating a depression in the co-sleeper mattress, and it didn’t take long each night for them to roll into each other and wiggle around like two little jumping beans. Which, while adorable (”They’re snuggling!” Matt says), is not conducive to long stretches of sleep. They sleep better in their cribs, and we sleep better with them there.

In fact, as difficult as the second month was (I’d venture that it was even harder than the first month), I do realize that some things have actually gotten easier. Part of it is just that we’ve figured some stuff out: bouncy seats are magical, Ellie and the pump should each have a designated boob each day so they don’t have to compete for resources, muffins and other one-handed foods make eating breakfast more likely, and a tiny bit of formula supplementation keeps Mama sane. The other part is that there are a (precious) few ways in which the babies themselves have gotten easier. Julian, for example, sleeps long stretches almost every night (anywhere from 5 to 8.5 hours). They poop less often, and usually not at all at night, so we do fewer diaper changes and none at night, which helps them go back to sleep more quickly after wakeups. And toward the end of the month, every so often, they started rewarding us with quick little (real) smiles and even the occasional big gummy grin. That makes everything feel worth it for about 30 seconds until the screaming starts back up.

Seeing their likes and dislikes emerge has also been fun. Eloise loves to have the hair dryer blown on her during diaper changes. (In fact, everything about the hair dryer makes her content. That, in combination with the fact that sticking her in a Tiffany’s box made her the happiest she’d been in days, makes me a little concerned that we have a real girly-girl on our hands.) She also loves looking at the pictures that we taped to the underside of the shelf above the changing table. She gives those things much more consistent smiles than she gives her parents. Basically if she could spend all day on the changing table, there would be no colic.

Julian likes…well, Julian seems to like just about everything just fine as long as he isn’t separated from his pacifier. Basically he’s as easygoing as Eloise is not. He particularly seems to like sleeping on our shoulders and cooing at the multi-colored giraffe on his activity mat. Oh, and eating. He doubled his birthweight in 2 months and went from less than one chin to three chins in the same amount of time.

So while there’s no question that our babies are still grubs, they are becoming grubs with more distinct personalities. Here’s hoping for tons more of that in Month Three.

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!