Hi. Just checking in. We still have six kids. I'm still super tired.
Some things will be the same at every progress report. I think I just named the top two.
New at this progress report is that I am now 35. I had a sweet birthday. I had my expectations in check to begin with. How much can the people around you do for you when there are two tiny infants to maintain. Darin let me sleep in as much as he could. He even took Eleanor with him to do the morning school drop off, and stop at the grocery store. When they got home, he cooked me breakfast, and suggested that we go to the mall that afternoon.
Later that night, we had some friends, who also had a set of twins two years ago, babysit the new babies for us. Though my older kids thought they were qualified, I believe their skills still need a bit of refining. And Walter and Eleanor need a bit of refining too. They are still mostly irrational. After Darin and I dropped the babies off, we headed over to the Weathervane for the first time. I was deliriously happy to be alone, without kids on my big day. Or, maybe I was just delirious. I work mostly on about 3-4 hours of good sleep per night. My body has mostly adjusted, but every now and again it's hard to think straight, and I almost didn't stop at a red light the other night because my brain was having a hard time catching up with what was going on. Kind of scary. Kind of tragically funny. I did stop at the red light in time, FYI.
A few days before my birthday the babies achieved their 4 week old milestone!
Eleanor was having a hard time cooperating. After a stern talking to, she was able to be a bit more friendly...
Walter was in an unusually pleasant mood.
The day before my birthday the twins turned 1 month old. They got dressed up in their party clothes. To the great delight of her older sisters, Eleanor wore a dress for the first time and everything! But they simply couldn't get their act together. Everyone was a crying wreck. The photo shoot was cancelled.
We tried to rally for the five week photo shoot. Eleanor seems to always have an excuse as to why it's not working out for her. Such a Diva.
I was trying to illustrate their size difference this week. At least their last weigh-in, Walter was a whopping 8 lbs 9 oz. Little Eleanor was 6 lbs 13 oz.
Maybe this picture illustrates that point better?!...
As part of the progress report, I still spend what feels like the majority of my day nursing the New Twins. When I am particularly unlucky, I have to feed them in-tandem. When that happens, I like to play a game, that Sarah and I started when we were canoeing 50 miles across the Great Lakes...it's called, "Would you Rather". When we had entire days of rowing ahead of us, and only the two of us in the boat, we used to make up crazy scenarios and ask, "would you rather be canoeing across the Great Lakes, or go to school naked." You get the idea. In short, we thought canoeing across those still, still waters was about the worst thing that had ever happened to us. But the game helped us realize that there was always something worse.
Today's version goes something like, "Would you rather be nursing two babies who don't suck in tandem, or would you rather be a double amputee?"
Keeps life in perspective.
Look how cute these guys were on the first day of 5th, 7th, and 2nd grades!!
Miraculously we've managed to send them to school everyday for the past six weeks or so. Though unfortunately in order to manage such a feat, Darin and I have mostly had to split up at night. He takes the blow up air mattress in the attic. I take the two newborns in the grand Master Suite. He has to set an alarm for 6:30am and pack four lunches, do hair, find homework, shoes, socks, and drive everyone to school. I mostly just hope that a few hours a night coincide wherein me, Walter and Eleanor all sleep at the same time. It's not ideal, but it's getting us through this first very difficult and very unusual stage of life. I think he and I are both managing remarkably well considering last year Darin told the kids he "didn't know how" to pack lunches. And I never would have thought I'd be able to live on three hours of sleep per night.
And just like that, we are moving forward. My mom always says, watching babies grow is kind of like watching the grass grow. But somehow before you know it, they are in middle school.
The End.
