A Precious Moment

In order for me to survive the overnights, my mom comes over to help. We have a system where each one of us takes a baby and is responsible for that baby throughout the night. My mom sleeps in the nursery with her charge either in the crib or with her in the bed. While I sleep with my baby on the couch. This spoiled baby gets to sleep on top of a soft cushy mass of pillows and blankets.

I just put Daniel back into his cushy bed. Tonight he completely floored me. Usually when they wake in the middle of the night, it involves crying and wailing until a bottle is placed in their mouth. After I got up to heat milk for Daniel, I leaned over to look and see just how awake he was. To my surprise, he was just lying there with his eyes open, trying to look around in the dim light, and had the silliest little smile I had ever seen. No crying, just waiting patiently for his 3am bottle. I almost died of cuteness overload.

How can you not spoil such a sweet baby! Michael and I were discussing how we always wanted one of those Power Wheels cars when we were kids. They are so getting one......maybe two. I can just see them when they're older, driving around the big back yard at their grandma's house. If they're really cute, they may just get the Escalade model that has the built-in boom box! Hehe!!

Babies' First Immunization Shots

I am continually amazed at how quickly my babies are growing. They are now over 2.5 months old and they look so different from when they were newborns. All newborns have a little bit a water retention so they all seem to look the same. They have doubled their birth weights in no time and you can really see what they will look like as little people now. Everyone comments on it and I can see it too, they look like Michael. It's undeniable that they are their father's sons.

Two days ago, we took the boys to the family doctor for their first round of vaccinations. In total each baby got three shots. OUCHIE!! In order to reduce their pain perception, I made grape juice/sugar soothers (like what they had during their circumcision) for them to suck on while they got their shots. Nothing compares to numbing cream.....the soothers did not help at all. When that needle went in, boy, did they ever cry. They cried so hard that at some points they couldn't even vocalize the pain and so they had their mouths open in this painful expression but no sound would came out. Poor lil' babes.

We had the first appointment in the morning to see the family doctor, but for some reason she was 45 mins late coming to work. Not impressed. We'll continue to take the kids to see the pediatrician except for when they need their vaccinations (our pediatrician doesn't give immunizations for some reason).

Alex had a noticeable fever after receiving the shots but we gave both babies Tylenol to help comfort them and to bring down their temperature. They are such good tempered babies. No really fussiness. In general, they don't really cry unless they're hungry or really, really uncomfortable. With babies like these, how can I not have mommy amnesia. The pain from the c-section and recovery is all a distant memory now. I want a baby girl........Michael predicted this would happen even when I was adamant that I would never have another baby and gave him the vasectomy pamphlet.

The day after, they had their first professional photo session with Magnolia Photographics. I think they did pretty well for a 1.5hr photo shoot. I specifically bought the cutest matching RL terry cloth polo onesies for the session. They got to take pictures with their daddy also in his RL polo. Ah, he would have us all in polos if he had his way.

The babies are now with their grandparents, Michael is on-call at Children's Hospital, and I'm gonna take a nap before they come home.

A Trip To The Obstetrician's Office

Normally after 6 weeks after a woman has delivered her baby, she is supposed to visit her Ob to make sure all her lady parts are functioning as they should, especially after a caesarian section.

I finally went in for my check-up....almost 8 weeks after the delivery. For the most part, everything is returning to normal. Then, my Ob says this to me, "I normally don't remember much about the deliveries, but for yours, I remember very well......" What is that supposed to mean?!!?? It is because I had twins? I'm sure she's delivered twins before. Well, it turns out that my ovaries are quite as normal as they should be. When she took a look at them during the delivery, my Ob noticed they were larger and had a lot of cysts on them. She then tells me there is a very good chance that I have polycystic ovarian syndrome. This is an issue with a lot of women who struggle with infertility. Now I ask myself.......how did we conceive so quickly after deciding on having a baby and how on earth did I end up with twins?!!?

Again, God has blessed me tremendously with my two little miracles. When God has a certain direction He wishes for me to take, it's very obvious. I may fight it sometimes but He opens and closes doors that I know are not coincidences. My life could have been very different had God not brought Michael into my life as He did. I remember praying very hard for and wanting something very different from what I have now. In the end, I couldn't be more content than I am now and He knew it all along. Praise God.

My First Mothers Day

This Sunday will be my first Mothers Day as a mother. Every year we go to the UBC golf course Mothers Day brunch with my mom to celebrate and every year my mom gets a potted plant. Now this year will be my turn to also receive recognition for being a mom. Except this year I'm so tired that I'm willing to give up a brunch that I look forward to EVERY year for sleep. Oh sweet, sweet sleep!!

Raising twins, especially 2 month old twins, takes a whole village to do. I have help from my family and Michael's as well. Without them, we'd probably be investigated by family services for the poor quality of care we'd be giving them. I cannot even begin to express how thankful I am that we have all this help. God truly never tasks us with anything that we cannot handle.

What Happens When You're Lacking Sleep

I just put a huge load of baby laundry in the dryer. This load has received the special treatment because it required washing......twice. Why you ask?

Somehow, a diaper (not sure if it was clean or used.....yum) mysteriously made its way into the load. You can imagine my surprise when I pulled out a soggy diaper, swollen to three times its original size and leaking some jelly substance, after the wash was done. This required me to sort through each piece of laundry, shaking off the jelly, before I could wash them again.

Apparently, diapers these days have an absorbent powder under the meshy part that pulls the liquid into the core of the diaper, leaving the baby feeling dryer and helping prevent diaper rash. Well, when this powder gets wet, it also expands into a gelatinous/grainy mass. And when there is a rip in the diaper, like what happened to the fated one in the wash, this gelatinous mass will spill all over the place, clogging washers etc.

All the while, both babies are sleeping soundly, unaware of the chaos around them.

Almost Two Months Old

Wow, time is so precious these days especially when you're sleep deprived. In a few days, the babies will be two months old. Meghan has taken two weeks off work to help us out while Michael is trying to get his sleep schedule back to normal. He is currently sleeping very well after taking half a sleeping pill. I think this is what he would be like if he were drunk. As you may not know, Michael has NEVER been drunk before as he HATES alcohol. Hmm.....I still don't quite understand how we mesh so well together.

Anyway, the babies are almost 10lbs now. They are so heavy! They are entering that age where lots of interesting GI issues may arise. They already have some issues, such as flatulence........and I mean TONS OF STINKY AND LOUD FARTS! Everyone first says how cute they are, until they start tooting away, and that's when the comments about how gassy they are escapes. They also have some very impressive burps that rival their dad's monstrous burps. Spit-up is a common occurrence and they don't seem fazed by it at all. I think they will soon be able to hold their heads up on their own. Both babies are trying very hard to lift up their heads, during tummy time or even when they're being burped.

We recently purchased a swing for them for when they get fussy. It is a lifesaver!! Alex especially likes it and can sit in there for a long period of time just enjoying himself until he falls asleep. Daniel is a little more fussy when he needs comforting. He usually likes to be carried but most of the time he'll feed and then promptly fall asleep without much trouble.

They have both also graduated to being bathed in the sink rather than sitting in the little basin in the sink while the faucet runs. We fill up the whole bathroom sink and let them play in the water. For now, they just seem more interested in peeing in their bath rather than splashing around.

Michael will be returning to work after next week. He will no longer be a house husband. It has been so much fun having him around. I think he will miss staying home tremendously but one of us has to go out bring home the bacon. Plus, he's needs to finish off his residency program.

We had our first fire drill yesterday. Good thing we had just seen the pediatrician a few hours before, so their diaper bag was already packed. I think we got of the building quite quickly. The only problem was the elevator automatically de-activates when the alarm goes off. Meaning, we had to hike it back up to the 9th floor with the babies in their car seats. Fortunately, a very nice neighbour offered to help carry one of the babies up for us since he was going to workout anyways. Let me tell ya......it was exhausting.