More Answers

Thanks for the follow-up questions! This has been great for helping me to reflect AND write down those reflections.

Q: I hadn't noticed your extra large boppy nursing pillow before! Usually I have the baby in one arm and then sort of push the boppy around my waist with the other hand. But how do you manage that large pillow and two babies when you are on your own?

A: The nursing pillow is a special one for twins. I also bought an inflatable one that I used when we were in Ohio. We also have a couple of Boppy pillows which I originally wanted for use when other people are bottle-feeding the boys. I’ve also seen people use them to prop their babies when they’re learning how to sit up.

I usually nurse the boys while sitting on the couch. First I lay both of the boys on the couch. Then I latch the nursing pillow around my waist and sit in between them. I put one of the boys on the pillow and kind of pin him down with my elbow while I grab his brother. It sounds kind of rough, but I swear I’m not hurting them. It was hard at first because they couldn’t hold their heads up very well and were very floppy. It’s easier now that they are bigger and more steady. However, I’m wondering if it will get more difficult as they continue to get stronger and try to wiggle off of the pillow. The teacher at school who has twins one year older than ours said she had to stop feeding hers at the same time because they started hitting each other. Here’s to hoping Aiden and Reid can behave themselves. I also use this pillow for carrying the boys up and down the stairs at the same time. Rest assured, both are safely pinned under my arms. The pillow supports their heads more than anything. (I should have Eric take a picture of this.)

Q: Will you be able to nurse in the morning before you leave and in the evening - or will they go to bottles all the way?
A: I plan to get myself ready first and then nurse them before I leave for school. I’m glad I have six inservice days before the students begin to try to get used to this system. Even though I’ll shower the night before, I think I’m going to have to get up at some ungodly hour. However, I’m telling myself that I can survive doing anything for a year. I’ve been freezing milk and will pump at school so the boys can have bottled milk instead of formula during the day.


Q: Their great aunt in Iowa wants to know how Aiden and Reid are interacting with each other? Have you caught them smiling and talking to each other yet?

A: I think they’re on the verge of interacting with each other, although it may be way too early. I caught Aiden really studying Reid the other day when they were lying on the floor. (OR: “…laying on the floor?” Ahh, now I’m paranoid because former-English-teacher Dad corrected my grammar the other day. Apparently, I didn’t pay attention to his lecture.) Lately, Aiden’s been bringing things closer to study: burp clothes, toys, and his fist. Perhaps, Reid was just another “thing”. I haven’t seen either one of them smile at the other. Usually when one is really wailing, the other just pauses and gives me a look of wonder. What’s going on? What’s making that noise? Should I be crying too?

I mentioned in the previous post that Reid has a strong falling reflex. I think because of that, he prefers to have his arms straight out at his side. Likes he’s tap dancing or playing basketball defense. My dad has dubbed him “Birdman” because it looks like he’s trying to fly when he starts wiggling around with the outstretched arms. When the boys are lying close to each other, Reid usually has his arm stretched out so that his hand is on Aiden. I like to think that he’s checking to make sure Aiden is still there. Reid also does this when they are nursing. So one of Reid’s hands is quite often on Aiden’s head. We’ve had the occasionally accidental poking of the eye or bopping of the head, but Aiden really doesn’t seem to mind.

(P.S. Great Aunt- We can't wait to see you! xxoo, Aiden and Reid)


FYI: Denver Nuggets basketball player Chris Andersen, aka Birdman:

Answers

Thanks for participating in my Questions post. I really appreciate it. :)

Now for the answers.

Q: When do you go back to school again?
A: August 13th… Friday the 13th! We have 6 days of inservice (teacher training, meetings, planning, etc.) and then the students finally start on the 23rd.

Q: Do you know what classes you are going to be teaching this year?
A: Algebra 2, Statistics, and College Algebra. I’ve taught Algebra 2 and Statistics quite a few times, but only taught College Algebra for the first time this past spring. And I only made it through the first three months before I went on maternity leave, so that class will take a lot of work.

Q: Are your parents all unpacked yet (ha ha :)?
A: (Answered by my mom) Are the parents unpacked? Good one, Janina. Nope, I'm playing on the computer. But I did get my new desk two days ago to help me to start getting more organized. Haven't found my iron yet, but have found lots of other interesting things, like Xmas decorations. Nearly every box has a surprise for me.

Q: As a frequent guest at your house, are there any "stories" dealing with food preparation? Should I start brown bagging it?
A: Thanks, Dad. I seem to be keeping it together in the kitchen… when I do cook. So, no worries there. However, if the brown bag contains ice cream, then bring it over!

Q: Did your washing machine survive the great explosion?
A: YES! Thank goodness. I bought my washer and dryer at a discounted scratch and dent store shortly after I moved into my condo (2003). Glad to see them holding up.

Q: Do you start them out in similar outfits each day, or do you just use what's clean :)
A: Since I do at least one load of laundry every day, usually all but one or two of their outfits are clean. I prefer to dress them in the exact same outfit or coordinating outfits if there isn’t an exact match. I think it looks cute, plus it’s much easier to pick out the same outfit twice. Some days they only match for a couple of hours, but most days they make it to bedtime.

Q: What are some of the differences you are noticing in the boys now that they are a bit older... personality, sleeping, eating, etc?
A: (Ooh; a compare and contrast question. My English teacher friends would approve.)
They seem fairly different to me, but compliment each other so well.
Personality/Sleeping
For the first month of so, Aiden was the feistier one, while we could just put Reid in the Pack N Play and he would babble away or fall asleep. Aiden spent a lot of time crying. Now, parts of their personalities have switched. This past week I’ve been working on figuring out when they need to take a nap so I can try to get them into their cribs when they’re ready to sleep. I’ve noticed that I can just put Aiden into his crib and he almost always nods off on his own right away. As soon as I place Reid in his crib, he starts whimpering and then cries. I give him a chance to “cry it out” for just a little bit of time (5 minutes or so?) and then I go back in and pick him up. (I actually learned that technique from you, Colette! I remember that’s what you did with Lila when we stayed at South Padre.) Most of the time, he falls asleep on my shoulder within a couple of minutes. A lot of my non-twin books suggest using a form of “cry it out” to help babies learn how to comfort themselves. My dilemma is that if I wait too long, Reid will continue to cry while Aiden sleeps. It would be ideal for them to sleep at the same time since I feed them at the same time. Yesterday, Reid did fall asleep in his crib at one naptime without crying or my comforting him, so hopefully that trend will continue. I’m going to keep working on it, but it may be something that Eric and my parents will do a better job of accomplishing once I go back to school. The fact that the boys have been sleeping 9-10 hours at night for about a month now makes the lack of nap coordination not such a big deal to me. That being said, Aiden still needs his comforting time. He seems to be a little fussier in the afternoon, so I’ll hold him while I sit on the floor with Reid. During that time, Reid is usually content to squirm around on the floor. When Aiden is upset, he goes from zero to “car alarm” in seconds. But once he is comforted, he’s back to flashing his huge, dimpled grin. In the morning and after napping, Aiden is all smiles when I go in to get him. Reid’s reaction is mixed. Sometimes I get some cute grins out of him and other times he’s all about conveying how unjust it is that his slumber was disturbed.

Physical Development
It’s been fascinating to see them develop at almost the exact same pace. Their eye focusing developed at the same time. Sleep length changes happened at the same time. Smiling, “talking”, sucking on a fist… check, check, and check. About the only differences have been Reid being taller and heavier.
Reid also has a strong falling reflex which wakes him up in great distress if he’s not snuggled tightly in his wrap. Aiden can have his arms free all night, squeal, and squirm from one end of his crib to the other and he never wakes up.

Eating
Right now they are only doing one bottle per day and end up eating about the same amount. It will be interesting to see if this is true when they start eating from bottles when I’m at school.

(Sniff, sniff. This is when I start feeling sad about going back, because so much of our bonding time has been connected to nursing. I actually like to burp them because that gives me a chance for a little snuggle time. Time to go buy a Powerball ticket or pray that my Etsy sales start averaging more than $0.99 per week.)


(Don't worry. Aiden wasn't being squished. I also touched this photo up a bit. My stretch-marked belly was hanging out a little too much.)

Questions???

I ran out of space again on my computer while trying to download pictures. Instead of spending a couple of hours going through and deleting old ones and backing up the keepers, I'm going to head to bed early tonight.

Instead, if any of you have any questions about the latest happenings, you could leave them in the comments section. I thought it would be fun answering them on my blog. Plus, the teacher in me knows it's good to stop for questions every so often.

For example,
Q: I heard that one of the boys' favorite great aunts wants to know if Reid is still crossing his eyes.
A: I haven't noticed either one of them crossing their eyes in a couple of weeks. They are now really good at tracking objects and following us around the room.

So ask away. Please.
(P.S. It doesn't have to be about the boys.)

Vacuuming My Washing Machine

Post Edit: I tended to ramble quite a bit during the writing of this post. Since my blog is a diary of sorts, I wanted to make sure I wrote down some of the details that may seem minor now, but will be endearing in my memories. I think you'll find it worth it to hang with me through this post. Rambling and all.

Before you seal the envelope on your mother-of-the-year ballot, I must let you in on a little secret. I'm not perfect.
I know, GASP!

On Monday night, I gave Aiden and Reid baths. You may be thinking, of course you did, Keri. That's an important part of the going-to-bed routine. Perhaps it is if you have one baby. I tend to stretch out the bathing frequency a couple four or five days. This time my incentives were meeting my friends Annessa and Sandy for breakfast at the Village Inn on Tuesday morning and the pending return of Eric on Tuesday afternoon. I really should do it more often, but it seems that I get to the end of the day and realize that I completely forgot I wanted to give them baths. Part of my dilemma is that I can only bath one baby at a time which means the other one fusses in his monkey chair. Or falls asleep, which doesn't bode well for the keeping-them-on-the-same-schedule goal. Or on good days, babbles away, completely unaware that I'm standing two feet away.

(While we're on this subject, I cannot manage to keep their nails trimmed. Seriously! It is so hard to trim their nails without them squirming or screaming at me. I try to get them right after nursing when they're fat and sassy calm. But once again, I usually forget that it is one of my goals until they're sound asleep for the night.)

Anyway...
I gave Reid his bath first and put him in his monkey chair. Just as I was about to pick up Aiden, Reid spit up all over his clean pajamas. (Not as bad as the spewing of spit-up he did at the Village Inn the following morning. My hand, which was holding his pacifier in his mouth, was soaked. His bib was soaked. His car seat was soaked. It was bad.) I made sure both boys were securely fastened in their monkey chairs and went to fetch a new pair of pajamas. I finished with the last snap when I heard "TOoOOtTOOooooOTT!" Now one thing I am good at... changing diapers. Unfortunately, my efficiency has recently back-fired. Reid then proceeded to go through two more diapers because I was too quick to get him changed. Yesterday, he went through five diapers in a course of minutes! I finally decided Reid was done and gave Aiden his bath. They both took their bottles well and fell right to sleep.

(By the way, I don't think I've written about this yet on my blog because I didn't want to jinx us... Aiden and Reid started sleeping through the night shortly after their two-month appointment. I remember the timing of this because I asked our pediatrician about sleeping habits, sleep training, etc. and he confirmed that they weren't old enough to have a napping schedule at this point. At that time they were sleeping 5-6 hours, which is what most books refer to as "sleeping through the night". Hogwash. A few days after the appointment, the boys slept close to 8 hours.

As celebrated on Facebook:

Hallelujah!!! Now that's what I call sleeping through the night! I consider myself one of the luckiest mamas ever that they've been doing so ever since. Last night it was 10.5 hours!)

The following afternoon I threw a load of laundry in and the boys and I waited for Eric to arrive home. (How do I keep up with laundry? I now do 2-3 loads per day. I was fearful of our utility bills once the babies arrived, but luckily they've been reasonable. Around $170 for the latest electric/gas bill.) Eric arrived home and was playing with the boys, so I took that opportunity to transfer the wet clothes to the dryer. At the last minute I had thrown Reid's car seat cover into the wash. (Recall the massive spewing at the Village Inn that morning? I had to take all the straps and buckles out. I pretty much disassembled the entire car seat. Good thing we have two of them so I could figure out how to put it back together again.) The last minute addition caused the washing machine to spill over onto the floor. I quickly scurried upstairs to get a towel to mop up the mess. I then started pulling out the wet clothes. I was surprised when I pulled out what appeared to be a wet paper towel. I then figured it had been part of the car seat lining. "Great", I thought. "Now the car seat is falling apart." During the next handful, I pulled out a sopping-wet, water-logged, 10-pound diaper!!! I had accidentally thrown a diaper into the wash!!! Was I so absent-minded that I put a diaper in the washing machine instead of the Diaper Genie? I couldn't figure out what I had done, but I quickly realized that the earlier mystery object had been a Wet Wipe. Ewwww. I reset the washing machine for a second time.

I played with the boys, nursed them, burped them, and then went back to check on the laundry while Eric played with them. I started pulling out the laundry when this time I discovered something sandy-like covering everything. I was frustrated because I thought now I really had ruined the car seat cover. I went to grab the cover when I discovered a second diaper! This one was also a huge, water-logged heap. But it was also falling apart. I figured out that the grains of sand were actually the absorbency crystals that fill a diaper. Sigh.

Time to bring in the vacuum. I vacuumed all of the wet laundry and put it on the counter, found a third diaper (what the heck?!?), vacuumed the inside of the washing machine, and finally put the laundry back in for a third round.

While giving Eric the play by play, I realized that during the previous night's bath time I had put Reid's dirty diapers on the counter next to the dirty laundry. I couldn't reach the Diaper Genie to throw them away because Aiden's monkey chair was in front of it. I forgot about the diapers after the baths and they accidentally ended up in the washing machine after getting hidden under dirty laundry.

So if you're looking for the perfect mom, keep looking. That's fine with me. I'm doing the best I can, with all my heart, and I think that's pretty darn good.

Photo Booth-esque

Ohio Trip Album

On the Tuesday following the baptisms we flew to Dayton to visit Eric's family. We really enjoyed the chance to spend time with Eric's family and give his parents the opportunity to meet Aiden and Reid. The boys were great on both flights, coming and going. As one of my friends pointed out- they should be good flyers; it's in their blood.

Go here (http://keribrusven.shutterfly.com) to view the album. (You'll notice at times I included quite a few shots of the same scene. Sometimes the outtakes are the funniest shots to see.)

P.S. The boys were baptized on July 11th... 7/11. Now I think of their baptism day everytime I pass a 7-Eleven store.

Baptism Weekend Album

The album of pictures from Aiden and Reid's baptisms is now available on my Shutterfly site: http://keribrusven.shutterfly.com/

(Next post: Our trip to Dayton!)

More to Come...

We've had a full week of blessings including family visiting us, us visiting family, and the boys' baptisms. The photos have been downloaded from the camera; I'll work on getting them posted ASAP!

I Should Be Cleaning

David and I loved everything about having relatives visit when we were growing up, except for one thing... cleaning the house. Nag, nag, nag. Blehhhh!

One time we decided that when we were grown up we would save each other the hassle and not be obligated to clean for one another. How wise of us; this was the best plan ever! Unfortunately, the plan never really came to fruition. Whenever David came to visit, my parents usually came to visit as well. Once we met our lovely soul mates, the deal had met its demise.

This weekend we're looking forward to a visit from Jennifer, Shane, and Jordan, as well as David and Kelsey, because we're having the boys' baptism. That's why I should be cleaning.

First, some blogging.

Over the 4th of July weekend Janina road-tripped to Denver from Dallas to visit some friends who had recently moved here. She came to visit on Friday afternoon/evening. It was great to see her. Great friendships are those which are not limited by time or distance. She is definitely one of those great friends.

She also had Aiden completely charmed: (Maybe all twins have a special bond?!)



Some other random moments from the past week...

Happy 4th of July!

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How to cook with a fussy baby:


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My all-time favorite food is rhubarb custard pie. With vanilla ice cream and a glass of lemonade, it's hard to beat. My mom recently forwarded the following recipe for rhubarb bars that are even better. Same custard base without the tasteless and messy pie crust.

Rhubarb Bars recipe from my Aunt Marita:
1 c. flour
5 Tbsp. powdered sugar
1/2 c. butter

3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
2 c. rhubarb

Mix flour, powdered sugar, and butter.
Press in 9 X 13 inch pan.
Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes.
Mix remaining ingredients and spread over crust.
Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
(You can double the quantities and bake on jelly roll pan.)
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Personalized airplane onesies from our friends, the Visocky's. Brian is a pilot and Suky is a flight attendant. The boys are ready to be on their daddy's flying team.

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Reid finding comfort with Daddy and Grandma Starrs:


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Other good places to nap, instead of one's crib:



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Auntie Kelsey says she is looking forward to "pouring some sugar on" the boys when she visits. They are perplexed, but ready.