Swinging together at the beach

This is one of my top things about having twins.

Confession

I like to take the boys to Costco just so they can both sit in the cart side by side and everyone will stop me to tell me how cute my kids are. I can't disagree.

Judah (8 months)

Asher (8 months)

Busy busy busy

A few things going on

• I have just 2.5 months to finish the class I've been working on for the last year for BYU's BGS program. It is Psychology of Gender, and very interesting, but difficult to find time to work on.
• I've been reading the same book (for pleasure) for the last 6 or 7 months. I finally finished it last night. The last 2 pages blew my mind. In a good way.
  
• I got called to serve in the Primary as a the chorister. It is way fun to be with the kids again, but a crazy time with the twins in tow. Everyone helps me out though, so it's all good. Plus I'm sharing the calling with another woman, so it's not every week, which is a good fit.
• Work is good and busy. Busy busy busy.
• Judah and Asher are busy busy busy little guys, which keeps me and Nick busy busy busy.
  

Alone with my thoughts

Kids are asleep. Nick is at school. Work is done for the day. I am enjoying a few blissful moments of silence, which are few and far between these days. I can actually hear myself think.

Asher is pulling himself up on any and all things 24" or less in height. But his balance is still not that stellar so he's been falling over a lot too. He goes into the "ugly cry" at least 2 times daily. But he gets over it quickly, and goes about exploring the floor (and cords and shoes and bits of paper) with his mouth. I think he might be part puppy. He has started sticking out his tongue again a lot, which I am a big fan of.

Judah is not very motivated when it comes to mobility. He's saving all his energy to grow teeth and flirt with women. He has 2 bottom teeth, and a top tooth is about to pop out any day now. He is a social little guy and loves to be around people, loves attention, and does this thing where he lowers his head but keeps his eyes trained on his object of affection - which is pretty much any woman. I sometimes worry about what this means for his future - especially the teenage years, but mostly I'm just jealous that I'm not the only one he flirts with.

Nick started his last year of grad school today. There was much rejoicing. He will be shooting his thesis film this Fall. It will not be shot in my house. When I learned this fact there was much rejoicing. You should check out his fundraising site and kick a few bucks our way: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nickreddoch/space-garden-graduate-film-thesis

I love being a work-at-home mom. Even though I'm still working with Nick to establish what I believe to be a fair distribution of labor on the home-front, I think I've struck a pretty sweet balance between work life and home life. I enjoy my job tremendously, and I think I'm pretty good at it. I am challenged by new things thrown in my path, and I am able to handle them well. I really like and respect my coworkers and managers. Every time I think about my company I feel a swell of pride and it's pretty much a constant love-fest whenever I get to talk about my telecommuting arrangement or almost anything at all to do with where I work and with whom I work, not to mention our products. I hope I get to work there forevers.

Lately I've been noticing that my babies aren't little babies anymore. They're turning into little boys slowly but surely. I'm torn between wanting them to stay little forever and wanting to speed up time to skip to the next thing and the next. Sometimes I think about having another baby (or babies) and it scares me because my kids are in reality still infants. I have two stinking babies at the same time. And they are still babies. Even though they aren't the little peanuts I brought home from the NICU lo those many months ago. Mostly I just don't want to wait too long to have additional kid or kids. Nick and I are no spring chickens over here. I would love to be done having babies by age 35. That kind of limits my window. Also I don't want to have too much of a gap between kids because if my next kid is a singleton then they might be spoiled or have last child syndrome (you'll have to ask Nick about that one). And if it's twins again, might as well be full crazy for a few years instead of spacing out the madness. Then again, maybe I won't be able to have more kids. If I learned one thing from my pregnancy it is this: I am not the one in charge. I did not get to control the timing of that pregnancy (not to mention the fetal count), so I expect I won't be able to control the timing of any additional pregnancies - if I am lucky enough to have any more.

For the record, twins are the best. I love having twins and I feel so blessed to be entrusted with two beautiful and perfect little boys. Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to have just one baby. Then I do the mental equivalent of biting my tongue because I don't want to know what it would be like to have just one baby. I am in love with having two babies. Sometimes I feel like everything in my life up until this point has prepared me for having these kids. They are my blessing, my retribution, my make-up-for-lost-time, my everything. And I'm pretty sure Nick agrees.

Anyway, it's getting late. And I have to fold the clean laundry that is on my bed so I can get into it. Ah, bed, I love you.

9 on, 9 off

I don't remember where I heard the expression, but I quickly embraced the idea of "9 on, 9 off" in reference to pregnancy weight. I had my beautiful twin boys almost 7 months ago, so if I am true to my word, I have just 2 months to go until I should be back at a comfortable pre-pregnancy weight - and more importantly, pre-pregnancy size.

I gained a total of 37 pounds during my twin pregnancy, which was not that much all things considered. I delivered almost 11 lbs of baby back in January, and lost ALL of the 37 pounds plus some within 1 week. At my 6 week check-up I was actually about 10 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight. Then I stopped pumping breastmilk. And my appetite which had been pretty low during pregnancy made a grand/unwelcome reappearance. Now I'm back at my pre-pregnancy weight. But don't get me wrong, I am not at my pre-pregnancy size. I have a lot of extra belly, and appear to be about 5 months pregnant, which I can assure you, I am not. I want to see if I can dip below the 200 lb mark by the time my little boys are 9 months old, which is extremely doable.

Since I had twice the amount of kids do I get twice the amount of time to work off the baby body? I think yes. If I work hard and continue to TRY I can make huge strides by the time my kids are 18 months old. For the record I am about 75 lbs above my goal weight, however that might not be realistic for me post-baby and post-20's. My goal for now is to shed 50+ lbs in 11 months. Then I'll reevaluate a realistic and healthy final goal weight/size. Here we go!

Blog by email?

I'm testing out the ability to blog via email (via my phone). If this is possible you may *may* see more than 1 post every 6 months from me. Get excited.

As a reward for your continued patronage of the blog I have attached a pic of the twins from when they were itty-bitty things. You're welcome.

Sleeping

The most common piece of advice that I received while I was pregnant was some variation of a) get some sleep while you still can! or b) sleep when the baby sleeps. Unfortunately the way the human body is designed stockpiling sleep "while I still could" is not really a helpful option. I had gotten plenty of sleep for the past 30 years, so I was all good on that front. As far as those jokers that recommended sleeping while the baby sleeps - clearly none of them have twins. Nick and I have decided that we concur with the sentiment we heard on the Father's Day episode of This American Life. The word "twins" should be abolished from the dictionary and replaced with "two f-ing babies at the same time" because "twins" doesn't really adequately convey what is going on. "Twins" is adorable. "Two f-ing babies at the same time" is adorable yet terrifying. Anyway, in those early weeks when it is important/possible to catch up on sleep during the day while the baby naps our boys were on totally different schedules, rendering that advice useless. I think I remember one day time nap in the first six weeks, and that is just because Judah was still in the hospital. After 6 weeks I returned to work making weekday napping something that I look forward to doing on vacation. In like 10 years. Maybe.

We read a book on sleep training, gleaned tips from other parents and blogs and such, and just used a series of real life experiments to find the sleeping routine that works for us. Over the past month Asher has slept through the night maybe 5 to 10 times. Judah slept through the night once, but it was sadly not on an Asher-sleep-through-the-night-night. Nick and I have worked out a shift system for night feedings, and I almost never end up stumbling around at 2am swearing and crying and looking for a bottle. We have "double trouble" about once a week when both babies wake up to eat simultaneously. Other than that, our sleep life is pretty descent. What I once considered to be a modern day miracle (both babies sleeping AT THE SAME TIME!) happens pretty regularly now for daytime napping and night sleeping. Just ask Nick - as a summertime stay-at-home dad he has taken full advantage of this routine.

They're Here (and critically awesome)

My beautiful baby boys are here, and have been for the last 6 weeks. I am officially the worst blogger in the world, but I've been busy adapting to my new role of mom.

Judah James (on the right above at 3 weeks) was born first via c-section weighing 4 lbs 6 oz. Asher West (on the left above also at 3 weeks - duh) was born two minutes later weighing 6 lbs 5 oz. Both boys were born crying with full heads of hair.

We totally lucked out with these awesome kids. They don't give us too much trouble unless they're hungry or uncomfortable. Judah is a bit more of a dramatic little guy (dramatic chipmunk) compared to the ultra laid back Asher. We're excited to start sleep training soon so we can reclaim some of our sanity, though honestly it really hasn't been too terrible on the sleep deprivation front (but ask me again at 3am, and I'll give a different possibly curse-word-filled answer).

A few lessons I've learned in the first few weeks of motherhood:

• Leaving preemie babies at the NICU is a blessing and a curse. It was so great to have time to recover from the birth knowing that they were receiving expert care, but so so difficult to leave the hospital day after day without those little darlings.
  
• Huggies leak like crazy on my boys. I can't wait to finish the boxes I have. I want to try out Luvs, Costco and Target store brand diapers to see if they work for us, but if not I am totally sold on Pampers (which we have never had a leak with to date.)
• Little boy parts should point DOWN in a diaper, and the ruffles around the legs should be OUT. And no, this wasn't the problem with the Huggies.
• Judah is calmed by the vocal stylings of Celine Dion (learned this one tonight while watching the Academy Awards).
• Asher loves to eat and smells like toast.
• Always accept help/meals/hand-me-downs when offered.
• Boppys are my lifesaver. The boys happily sit in them, sleep in them (for daytime naps), and use them as props for tummy time.
• Both boys hate baths so far, which is why we delay and delay giving them. Maybe that explains the toast thing.
• Swaddling is tops.
• I am totally in love with all of my boys. I can't believe how blessed I am. And I can't believe how much I love being a mom to boys.