Mile Stones

There has been a lot of family nap time around our house lately. Ada and Oliver enjoying a particularly sweet moment. 

The girls went to their weigh in appointment on Friday. This was the first time that they have been out in something other than a baby t-shirt or a Onesie. These adorable outfits came to them courtesy of Nicole and Adam and even though they are tad big on them now, they are pretty cute if I do say so myself. 

Drum Roll please.... after a week of nursing like a fiend and giving Ada many syringes of milk to supplement her short nursing sessions.. both girls weighed in at 6 lbs 5 ounces!!!! That means that Margot gained 3 ounces over her birth weight by this "crucial" two week mark and Ada was only 1 ounce shy of her birth weight- which was of no concern to the doc. Yeah!!!!! I could feel the stress melting off my brain as the nurse announced their official poundage. I am so proud of my good eaters and now we can get down to the business of learning how to be a family without the worrying about certain little girls starving or shrinking or something. We celebrated with some fabulous cheesecake that one of Stephen's teacher friends sent over. 

Yesterday, Ada Grey lost her belly button! Hurrah! That means that a true bath is on the way (so far it's only been sponge baths). We decided we will wait for Margot to lose hers as well since these babies like to do as much as possible together. We are very proud of Ada and even more excited that we no longer have to tiptoe around that scary little area - btw... looks like she is going to be an outie. 

We are still feeling very blessed by the easy going nature of our girls. They do have a difficult time setting between 9pm and 11pm but we are learning strategies to deal with this. The funny thing is, every time we get them figured out and have it down to a science.. they change it up on us and we get to start from scratch again. 

As far as personalities go.. they are the same now that they were in the womb. Ada is our active super vocal one, while Margot is mostly quiet and content. However at night, though Ada might take a little longer to get to sleep, once she is sleeping she is down for the count.. while Margot may take quite a few more calming sessions to completely settle into sleep... she will nap and wake crying several times while Ada is snoozing next to her.  They enjoy holding their little bobble heads up off of our shoulders, to have a good look around at their environment. Both have super strong backs and legs and have almost launched themselves off laps several times already - no wonder I always felt like I was bruised inside while I was pregnant. They are starting to be more awake after feedings during the day and love to sit in their baby seats and check each other out. 

Mary was here helping out this week and we had such a great time with her. Still, we have enjoyed our alone time as a family yesterday and today. We need and love all the help we are getting, but there is something so special about being in ones home with your best friend and your babies that you just can't beat. 

We broke down and got a baby monitor so that we can sit outdoors without having to rush in every few moments to see if anyone is awake or in distress. The weather here is pretty amazing today so we are hoping to get out the stroller and go for a walk, another first for Ada and Margot since they have only been out in their car seats to the doctor and back. 

Most surprising thing so far about parental sleep deprivation, the hallucination factor. Lack of sleep does not bother me as much as some - too many all-nighters in college. Stephen has had a little more trouble. There have been several times that he has awoken to bring me the babies for a feeding and once he sits up on the side of the bed, he bends over the corner of the mattress and starts swaddling or un-swaddling a phantom baby. I see this and inquire as to what he is doing and I am told that he is getting Ada/Margot, to which I reply that both girls are still in their crib - he declares that they are right there and he has them - I gently reiterate that they are indeed still in bed as I can still hear them crying - he disagrees but humors me by going to check and returns with one of the girls in his arms. One particularly disturbing episode found him returning from the girls room (after I sent him there with a sleeping fully satisfied baby to put her down to sleep) and flopped across the end of the bed with the sleeping bundle in the crook of his arm - when asked what he was doing he declared that he was trying to wake Ada/Margot up so they could eat. I reminded him they had just eaten.. then told him to stay right there and not move.. I put the other baby down and came back to extract the glow worm he was clutching. I didn't let him get up the rest of the night. He didn't remember any part of that episode in the morning. He has never endangered either girl but it is a bit upsetting to see your spouse completely out of it like that. I think that these episodes stem from Stephen sweetly staying up during that 8-11 fussy time and pacifying the babies while allowing me to sleep through. Last night we were able to do this as a team effort and when he awoke to fetch babies last night he was in his right mind. Still, pretty surprising how lack of sleep can affect the mind. 

Off to take a shower before I have to wake the ladies up for their second breakfast.