No news is good news!

You haven't heard from me in awhile, but that's a good thing. Everyone is healthy and sleeping pretty well. The girls are sleeping through the night for the most part. They wake up and squeak a little, but will put themselves back to sleep. Millie wants to get up at 5, but I usually push her to wait until closer to 6 to eat. The last few days I've had to wake Ruby up to eat with her sister. Terrible, but that's what you have to do with twins. They do not seem to wake each other up when they cry. They have learned to tune each other out I guess. Wish that worked for me when Scott snores. Of course now that the girls are sleeping well Emmett is waking up super early. The girls might be waking him up, but regardless he is up at 5 screaming at us from his bed. He has been very irritable as a consequence.

I'm not sure what to do with Emmett. He is the most entertaining lovable child, but he is so strong willed. He has learned how to scream and does so at every opportunity. He has also learned to say "Screaming, time out," but that doesn't stop him from continuing. "OK" is his favorite catch phrase and he sounds like a petulant teenager. I asked him this morning if he wanted to watch Barney and he replied, "OOOKAY" like I was putting him out. He is waking up from his nap right now, and I hear him over the monitor going "OK, OK, please, OK." He is also not too thrilled about Millie and Ruby being around. He has started to hit them on occasion when I am holding them. All normal jealousy stuff, but these girls are learning to be tough. Jake bit Millie's foot the other night. We were all in the playroom, and normally I don't even put the girls on the floor when Jake and Emmett are around, but Mamie and I were both there. Emmett had a dirty diaper, and we turned our heads for 1 minute to wrestle him to the ground when we heard Millie crying. We didn't know what happen until Mamie took Millie's sock off and we saw two little bite marks. I felt terrible. I worry so much about how to keep the girls safe.

I have an awesome video of Jake to share. He has been taking swim lessons with Beth Scruggs since he was 2. She has worked so hard with him and it has taken a long time, but he is doing great and he loves it.  I think I told you in the last post that he swam 25 yards on his own. He wears flippers which helps, but he is not wearing any life jacket or other support. He swims a little, then stops to pick his head up and breathe and then continues. Truly amazing. I have tried to post the video here, but I can't get it to work, and I don't have time to figure it out so here is a link to it on you tube: http://youtube/W8Xil61t7BQ

The first picture I have gotten of Emmett with the girls. I trusted him to sit there next to the girls for the 1 second I took to take the picture. Fortunately he kept his hands to himself.

Millie looks like she is leaning in for the party pic with Ruby. 

Cracking the Baby Code

It's 8 pm and where are the children?? Asleep she shouts as she giggles and downs her second glass of wine. Ahhhh, I think we've finally cracked the Millie and Ruby code. The hours between 7 and 10 have been exceptionally rough the last two months. We put Emmett to bed at 7, and he's been fighting that a lot lately. Lots of tears and throwing lovies and stuffed animals out of the crib, but we long ago learned to ignore him until he falls asleep (except when necessary to go throw said loveys back into the crib and maybe get roped back into one more round of Amazing Grace (Gace Gace Sit demands Emmett which translated means sit down and sing me Amazing Grace woman, you are my bedtime slave). The girls eat at 7 pm and are usually very sleepy, but as soon as we lie them in their cribs they start crying. Thus ensues 2 or 3 more hours of carrying them around, putting them in the swing, getting them to sleep, only to have them wake up as soon as we try and lie them down again. Often we would get them good and asleep only for it to be time for them to eat again. I haven't been able to bear letting my "preshush little babies cry." I would wake them up at 10 because I wanted to go to bed! Why is it that it takes someone else to point out or try out the obvious????? Enter Pam from stage left.....

Pam has been coming to help with the girls three nights/week since the girls were born. I love love love the days when I know that Pam is coming that night. It makes me giddily happy and as my friend Jenny's husband says, "People who think money doesn't buy happiness have never had a baby nurse." It's expensive, but worth every penny. Scott is out of town right now, so Pam came early this past Friday night. Normally Pam doesn't come until 10 pm, but since Scott was gone she came at 6. I used the opportunity for a girl's night out with my friend Beth. When Beth and I got home, Pam said she had fed the girls and put them down in their cribs. What??????? She said they had fussed some, but she would go in and check on them, and they would stop crying. The on again off again crying ensued for a little while then they fell asleep. She also said that she was going to let them sleep through the 10 pm feeding and see how long she could get them to go. That was fine with me, since I wasn't the one doing it. Knowing they are 12 lbs now I knew it was time (but mostly because I wasn't the one doing it). Scott and I had actually tried to let them sleep through the 10 pm feeding the night before, but they only made it to 11. OK Pam, I thought...good luck, see you on the flip side. Well, she showed me and she got the girls to go until 2 am!

Encouraged by Pam's success, I decided that I could also put the girls to bed after their 7 pm bottle. Here I am, 3 days after Pam's initial night and they are asleep in their beds. Some nights have gone better than others, and last night I caved and put Ruby in the swing for awhile, but I was back on it tonight. I turned off the baby monitor, and although I could hear them crying I could also ignore (My Mom is in town and she had Dancing with the Stars on so loud that it helped drown out the crying). I just took Jake to bed at 8 and all seemed quiet upstairs. I had a big grin on my face as I crept into Jake and Emmett's bathroom to get Jake's toothbrush when I heard, "Mamma, Mamma, MAAAAMMMMAAAA!" from Emmett's room.  Argh.....another round of Amazing Grace but back into the crib he went and I think he's asleep now. Jake still has some weird sleep issues and it was 11 pm before he went to sleep last night. We still have to give him muscle relaxers in the middle of the night in order to stay asleep, but it's so much better than it used to be that I really have no complaints. The girls are still sleeping through the 10 pm feeding and going until 1 or 2, so I guess we have officially dropped one feeding. I wish we had dropped the 2 am instead of the 10 pm, but beggars can't be choosers. I am starting to see the light! Mostly time is going by so fast, and as much as I want things to be easier, I am so afraid that it is moving too fast and I am not appreciating the small things.

Ruby and Millie 

Home

We're home from the hospital (spent 14 days there total) and the girls are doing well. The boys have had another cold, but so far the girls have not caught it (fingers crossed). We went to the MD today for a follow up and Millie has an ear infection. She has not seemed uncomfortable, but I guess it's a left over from all the congestion. Both girls are still a little congested but not coughing and breathing well. Millie weighed 12 lbs today and Ruby weighed 11 lbs 9 oz. WOW. The girls have changed so much in the past two weeks. They are smiling a lot, batting at toys and so alert during the day.

Now that they are home from the hospital, no more slacking off. Morning exercise

Telling secrets at the MD office today.

Jake turned 6 on April 19th. We didn't have a big celebration since the girls were in the hospital, but I took cookies to his class at school. He has not had any more seizures. We've been told that there is a bit of a honeymoon period on Depakote, and that it may stop working for him at some point, but right now he is tolerating it pretty well. We've seen the neurosurgeon and two neurologists recently. I'll update you later but we're basically just doing a more in depth work up which will include an MRI and a PET scan. It will take awhile to get all the tests etc done so no other news right now. 

Emmett had his first Sweet Cici's (frozen yogurt) this week. He wanted strawberries and grapes (? they don't have grapes) as toppings. I added gummy bears which were a real hit. Nummies! As you can see from the picture, Emmett also got his haircut again. Ugh....it was worse this time than the first time. I tried to start with giving him a lollipop, but there were still tears and thrashing, and we ended up with a hairy lollipop and a very uneven cut.