A day of little things

First things first, congratulations to Bleeding Tulip!  Another infertility blogger becomes a parenting blogger!  Please welcome her new little girl into the world.

Around here, we've reached a milestone - I'm removing the newborn inserts from the car seats.  Probably should have done that a month ago, but ya know, life stuff.  We may be breaking out the 3-6m sized clothing this week too.  Yeah, I know.  They are almost 7 months old and still itty bitty.  I hope they enjoy it while they can.  With genes like ours, they'll never be tall, but they are likely to be oversized.  I hope I do better with my children in that department than I've done for myself.  It's weird to watch these little girls with most of the skills of a 6 month old in these miniature bodies.

Some cuteness - when I dance with them, they are starting to wiggle and dance on their own a little bit now.  Tra-la-la boomdeyay makes Charlotte giggle.  Charlotte is starting to sit up but Tina wants to skip sitting and tries to stand instead.  Looking forward to them reliably sitting up on their own.

On the solid food front, we gave meat our first taste today.  I figure going from fruits and veggies to meat is a major taste change, so I gave them a puree of sweet potato and turkey.  I know they like sweet potato so I figured that would make for an easier transition.  I think they liked it!


Last night was a rough night.  Tina must be having some more teething pain even though her first 2 teeth have broken through.  She was just screaming last night.  We did our best to alleviate the pain and got her settled a couple of times, but then she reached the point where she just wanted to be held.  Once the Tylenol kicked in and we were pretty sure she wasn't actually hurting anymore, we went back to the cry it out method.  At first, I was going in to rock and soothe her, but the moment we put her back in the crib, the screaming started again.  That was our indication that she was crying because she wanted attention, not because she was hurting.  The rocking and soothing was only delaying her going to sleep so we suffered through until she finally dropped off.

We have a new morning routine around here on days that K works.  He gets up a half hour early and takes a shower.  Then he wakes me up so I can pump while he does random chores and is available in case the girls wake up.  Then he goes to work and if I'm lucky, I go back to bed.  This way, when the girls wake up, I'm not desperate to pump while trying to get them fed.  Most days, they seem to wake up right around the time that K is pulling out of the driveway so I don't get the chance to go back to sleep.  This morning, we were hoping they would sleep a couple of extra hours since they were up late last night.  I went back to sleep for about an hour before they woke me up.  They woke me up at that point in the sleep cycle where if you wake up, you just feel like crap.

I've got a headache, a general body ache, and I'm really dehydrated.  I'm trying to get a lot of water in me, but that doesn't seem to be happening as much as I'd like.  I don't think I'm sick, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm changing my tune on that one tomorrow.

In making my coffee, the bag sprung a leak and my entire utensil drawer got a coating of fresh coffee grounds.  Brilliant.

Charlotte is being crabby today.  I'm not sure what her issue is.  And Tina seems to just be tired.  She's taken a 2 1/2 hour nap which is really unusual for her.  I wonder if they are feeling the same kind of crappy that I'm feeling.

Ok, Tina seems to finally be awake now that Charlotte is down for another nap.  Swell.  An out of sync day.  This'll be fun.

Equal but different

I think this is going to be the challenge pretty much the rest of my life.  Making sure things for the girls are always equal, but different.

Ok, so yes, I have a lot of pictures of my girls in matching jammies.  I get matching outfits for a couple of reasons -

1)  It looks adorable in pictures.  Makes everyone go awwwwwww.
2)  I'm a very visual person.  If outfits clash or there's too much going on in pictures, I have trouble focusing. Matching outfits means everything is coordinated so I can focus on my girls faces.
3)  When I find something I think is cute, I have an excuse to buy 2 of it so if one is in the laundry, I have another one.
4)  They don't care yet.
5)  There are only so many jammie styles on the store shelves.
6)  I don't want pictures where one girl is wearing something cute and the other one is in something schlubby.  That's just asking for claims of favoritism in the future.

I'm kind of afraid that Charlotte will keep growing a little faster than Tina, dooming Tina to a life of hand-me-downs that started out as Charlottes.  Oh well, I've got years to worry about that.

So far, the equal but different thing has presented two specific challenges - their baby books and their outfits for their first Christmas pictures.

I originally bought 2 very different dresses for their Christmas pictures because I thought they would go together.  But when the one with the ruffly skirt got here, it didn't look nearly as dressy and put together as the trapeze dress looked.  Also, it was a little too small and really difficult to get on either of the girls because there was no elastic where the skirt started, it was a firm circle that hardly fit over the shoulders or the butt, depending on which way I was trying to pull the damned thing on.  They were just too different and I disliked one.  I didn't want one of the girls looking at these first pictures a few years from now and getting upset because she was stuck in the ugly dress.

So I got the same dress, but in the other color option available.  It was a good choice.  Equal, but different.

The baby books were one hell of a challenge.  It seemed like every brand had a boy choice and a girl choice and that was it.  Any different covers meant something else substantially different about the book like the size, or the kinds of pages inside.  That just doesn't work.  And everything else I found was just blank scrapbooks that would expect me to create baby books out of thin air.  I'm willing to do my part here, but at least give me some questions and other prompting so I have a clue as to what to write in a baby book!

So finally, with the girls over 6 months old, I finally bought their baby books.  I was running an errand that happened to be next to a Hallmark store.  I went in looking for ornaments that would allow me to put pictures of the girls in them (we'll have a tree next year) and I was able to find 2 styles of girl baby books that weren't so gag me cute, and being made by the same company, they had the same pages inside.  Yay!!!

Ok, so I do like one better than the other, but I'll never reveal which one.

In reality, this blog was meant to take the place of baby books.  But then I thought about how I was interested in sentimental things when I was in grade school and gee, I don't think the things I've written in the blog will be appropriate for an 8 year old.  K and I will fill these out, bit by bit, as we have time.  I'll write the "about Daddy" stuff and he'll write the "about Mommy" stuff.

Here's the real reason we're procrastinating - our handwriting su-u-ucks!  Both of us.  We print scribble like first graders.  But we do think it's important that there be samples of our handwriting somewhere in the universe and this seems to be an appropriate place for it.  I just don't want the books to be ugly because of my horrible hands.  I type so much faster than my hands will let me write that when I'm writing, I often skip letters or entire words because my hands don't keep up.  I have to scratch things out and rewrite them all the time.  I don't want their memory books filled with ugliness and I just know that my handwriting ruin the darned things.

Page 1 asks for reactions to finding out about the pregnancy and various thoughts and activities during the pregnancy.  Crap.  My first reaction when I saw both of them on that first ultrasound - "They're back!"  Yeah.  Not sure I can write that thought down because it kind of forces one to ask questions that lead to ugly stories.  Activities during the pregnancy - Getting to know the triage team at the ER!  Probably not what Hallmark had a mind.

It might take a while to actually get working on these things.

The end of the world

How are y'all doing?  Expecting to see tomorrow or hiding out in a bomb shelter somewhere?

It's fitting that the supposed end of the world should come on the 2nd anniversary of the days my world ended.  We all end up with some sort of tragedy in our lives, and I had this hope that the decades of bipolar disorder I endured would be mine.  No such luck.

During my first pregnancy, I intellectually knew that there was risk, especially with twins, but I didn't really feel that anything could go wrong.  I always knew that I would have trouble conceiving so learning that I would have to do IVF to get pregnant didn't phase me all that much.  So I have to work harder to get pregnant, but once you put the work in, you get the reward, right?  It totally rocked my world when that wasn't the case.

I'm so grateful that I never had to face the reality of my girls being gone, but rather that I can think back on those horrible days 2 years ago as just a painful delay.  I sometimes look at the girls and get all teary eyed.  I'm finally getting that overwhelming love and connection between mother and children that I was so afraid would never get here.

This is me during the Christmas season 2 years ago. Just miserable, plopped on the couch, tissues just out of frame, and a cat trying to make me feel better.  That's the kitty that now belongs to the girls, she guards the nursery door when they are sleeping and insists on hanging out with all of us whenever the girls are awake.

How the picture of my life has changed since then!  For the first time in my life, this Scrooge is thinking about what kind of holiday traditions I want to establish for my family.  No tree or anything this year, but I'm thinking about what to do next year when the girls are able to see Christmas as a day different from other days.  I don't know if I'll get around to writing anything on this, the first Christmas I might actually enjoy, so I'll drop some pictures from our holiday photo session in this post.  Thank you to Sarah at Triskele Photography for these great shots!

Even if today were the last day of the world, I'm good!

The gun controversy

Guns and their use is on the minds of just about every American today, as it has been after each of the mass shootings that have assaulted our media airwaves throughout recent years.  And like every American, I have my own opinions on the subject and have rules in my household that align with my opinions.  But unlike some, I don't believe that everyone should agree with my opinions or live by the rules that I impose upon my own household.

Personally, I'm anti-gun.  I don't like them, there's no place for them in my life, and I do not want gun ownership to be normalized in the eyes of my children.  As they grow up, I will not knowingly allow my children inside of a household that contains a deadly firearm.  Even the most responsible and safety conscious person has a day where they forget to lock their doors, or other accidental mishaps that can endanger my children if there's such an accident regarding gun safety.  I also feel that in order to keep a gun safely locked away from accidental usage kind of defeats the purpose of owning a firearm because it's difficult to get to and use in the type of emergency that the gun is there to protect the owner from in the first place.

However, I do think that hunting is a valid use of a firearm and those who choose to engage in that sport (again, not me) should have the right to do so.  I also believe in the original intentions of the second amendment being to allow the general populace to protect themselves from a corrupt government or from corrupt representatives of authority such as police officers.  The knowledge that the population is capable of rising up and protecting themselves from a corrupt abuse of power is in part what helps keep the powerful from mass destruction.  Ok, so they are still capable of mass destruction, but at least they have to be creative and work hard for it in back room dealings and destroying things financially as opposed to sending in armies to use deadly force to oppress the masses.

But there has to be some means of controlling the amount of destruction that the bad guys are capable of inflicting upon innocent victims.  This is not a subject I'm particularly educated on so I'm really asking questions here.

Aren't there now technologies that will allow people to protect themselves without killing?  I'm thinking along the lines of rubber bullets.  The ability to incapacitate an assailant, perhaps even maim, but without the easy capacity to kill that a standard bullet allows?  Doesn't a rubber bullet do basically the same thing in an altercation that a regular bullet does, but allows someone who is shot to receive medical treatment and eventually walk away?

In terms of hunting, if an animal is shot with a rubber bullet or tased into submission, a hunter might have a license and have gone through a big hullabaloo to obtain a firearm that only allows for 2 deadly bullets so they can approach the subdued and deliver the kill shot.  Bullets would have to be licensed and accounted for, and a hunter could only own a limited number at any given time.

Would bad guys still be able to get their hands on deadly weapons?  Yes, of course.  But the fewer that are circulating among the general populace means the more difficulty in obtaining them.  The guy who steals someones guns and ammunition would get their hands on maiming weapons and have the ability to incapacitate on a massive level, perhaps some would victims would die, but certainly the amount of death would be scaled back.

I don't propose that the problem of weapons being available to bad guys so that the good guys can also have access has a perfect solution.  I don't think we can wipe out the ability for bastards to harm other people.  But is there something that can be done to at least make it harder?  Lessen the destruction?  Since perfect isn't available, I guess I'm just hoping for better.  Maybe some regulations can be put in place to make deadly bullets harder to come by, incapacitating bullets the norm, and the death tolls from these horrible attacks might remain among the single digits instead of the double digits that have become so common.