Major Milestone

Last night - at 3 months and 10 days old - the twain slept through the night!!!

They went down at 9:30 after their mega-feeding and then Sir Miles woke up at 4, but was mollified in 3 minutes when TD gave him a binky and then they slept until 6am! After another mega-feeding, they slept until 8:45!

It's a Christmas miracle.

Let's see if it happens again...

How I get work done in the mornings...

Get up when the Sirs do (today at 7:30!) - feed and change them. Put them back down in cribs - then move Sir Guy into our bed b/c he likes to sleep there in the morning. I put his little head on the pillow, put a couple of pillows on either side so he can't roll, pull the covers up halfway and he looks just like a little adult!* Then I sneak upstairs with a Coke Zero and a box of Nilla wafers and work on my book revisions. I'm hoping they'll sleep until about 10:30-11:00. Our motto around here is "let sleeping babies lie" - and I tell TD when he comes home from work and wants to pick up one of the cute, slumbering little butterballs: "You wake; you buy."

In other news - we bought a house! We were going to buy a Christmas tree last weekend but instead we bought a house. It's not the one that needs renovation - it's actually another one that's already totally renovated - a 1922 4-bed bungalow with a sunroom and adorable yard. And a big front porch with a swing! The house is exactly the color of wasabi...

Back to work!

*I know I won't be able to do this when he's older b/c he could get tangled up - but for now he doesn't move much.

Random Bits of HELLS YEAH!!

Sorry for not posting for so long - Medieval Mom was here for an extended stay and it was a little crazy-making.

Here's the skinny:

1) Heard this morning from the publisher with the reader's report on my R&R for the book manuscript - it's extremely positive and recommends publication, so the chief editor is going to take a formal proposal to the editorial board!! JOY!!! I know it's not a done deal yet, but it feels really good to be so close!

2) TD and I have minor colds. I'm sure Guy and Miles will get them too. Why is this okay? See fluff-point #1 above.

3) Guy and Miles have been sleeping for 4-5 hours straight - a lovely thing! In 4 weeks, rice cereal will be administered and then bliss will ensue.

4) TD and I are looking for a house to buy - we have an appointment with a contractor on the awesome house we tried to rent last year. It's still on the market and I'm still in love with it. It needs work, but if we could get a ballpark estimate from this guy, it would help us determine whether we can afford it or not. I hope the house isn't falling apart...

5) I have the hiccups.

6) Still...

7) *hic*

This may be a bit inappropriate, but...

...I want to ask my therapist out on a play date.

Okay. She's about my age, she has a little boy only six weeks older than Sirs Guy and Miles and she's SO cool! I think I like her like her...

Actually, I really like her as a therapist, too. She's smart, Ph.D. in Psychology, she challenges me, she's funny. My last appointment when I was feeling so overwhelmed with everything, I thought I would go in there and cry, but we ended up laughing our asses off the whole time about kids, life as a new parent, etc. It was exactly what I needed and she said it didn't even feel like therapy...

Do you think she feels the same way about me? I mean, do you think she might want to have our kids meet at some point? I find myself looking at the picture of her little boy on her desk and thinking about how nice it would be for the three boys to play together and Dr. M and I can slug back a pitcher of margaritas.

The kids are still too young to really play together, so I figure I have time before I actually have to pop the question. But I just know that at some point I'm going to have to ask her if she wants things to go further. Will I need to get another therapist? Would it be inappropriate to see each other socially? I keep thinking about whether her husband and TD would get along...

Sigh.

I have such a crush...

A quick article bleg

Thanks for the encouragement, guys! I'm feeling tons better now that I've recovered a bit!

Quick question - can anyone tell me the title/author of that article about mothers using medieval romances to teach their daughters? I know there is one (it seems like it was in an essay collection) and I can't remember or find it for the life of me!

Feeling so overwhelmed

Yep. That's me.

It's taken me a while to admit that, but it's true. Having twins is hard. They both start crying at the same time. Each feeding takes 45 minutes if you're doing it yourself. I don't know what they want from me. I can't pick them up at the same time b/c I'm not strong enough and they're gaining tons of weight. When I do try to pick one up to calm him down I usually get kicked in my gut somewhere around my incision and it hurts like hell.

I've had 3 surgeries in two months all of which required varying kinds of anesthetic, from general to local to in-between. My post-partum anxiety and anemia threw me for such a loop and just as that was subsiding, the gall bladder thing happened. I haven't felt healthy in so long.

The boys - Sir Guy in particular - have been so fussy lately - they're awake much more now during the day and they. just. cry. Sometimes no amount of holding, changing location, distraction will make them stop. They're still too young to really play and be entertained and it's just so hard with two of them. They sleep really well at night (with intermittent feedings), but the days and especailly evenings are a chore.

No one needs to worry about me - I have all the support we can afford and rely on from friends and I'm seeing all the proper peeps. But even with all that, I still feel overwhelmed. I just want to stop being sore and exhausted all the time.

I know lots of you don't have kids - I just wanted to vent a little. Thanks.

How galling...still here...

Sorry I've been so out of bloggy touch - the boys have been growing well (in fact, 2 months old today) and I've been doing great - helping Medieval Mom try to find a house, etc.

And then...

WHAM!!

Last Sunday afternoon, bad pain in upper right quadrant of belly. Trip to doc's office on Monday yielded a CAT-scan and a potential enlarged gall bladder. Trip to general surgeon's office on Tuesday confirmed suspicion. The fact that I was still in continuous pain and taking the percocets that I had (thankfully) never taken after my c-section meant that I needed to have the thing out soon for fear of infection. Thursday morning, have a "lap-chole" (where they go into your belly-button and take something out) to remove offending gall bladder (which apparently has a jawbreaker-sized gallstone in it). It was pretty bad and it's a good thing it came out. Doc decides to keep me overnight so he can give me IV antibiotics and so that a gastroenterologist can take a look at an x-ray of my bile duct that might have a stone in it. GI-doc decides the next morning that my liver enzymes are a little elevated, which warrants doing an endoscopy to check for another stone creeping around in there. Low and behold, they find one, take it out with their endoscopy tool and then tell me I'm "too perky" to stay in the hospital another night, so they send me home yesterday afternoon.

So, now, I'm without any kind of gall issues remaining (I hope) and I'm just healing from what was ultimately a routine couple of procedures - it's just that they SNUCK THE HELL UP ON ME!!!!!! I'm telling myself that I don't need to begin weaning myself off of the Vicodin completely just yet - that I'm not a wimp if I still take it! Or if I still have pain...

Speaking of which, I'm going to go have a vicodin now...