Just something I had to write before I went to sleep.

It is bedtime.  I lay two babies in their little bed, one at a time.  They are all swaddled up and wearing cozy hats.  They are not deeply asleep.  I lay down on my bed and reach out my arm.  I grab the side of their bed and jiggle it.  I pray.  “Please let them fall asleep.  Please let them stay asleep.  Please let me sleep.”  It is my plea, my greatest wish.  I feel it with my whole body.  “Please Lord.”

Sometimes they sleep.  Sometime they do not.  I pray.  “Please let them sleep.  Please help me to survive this moment.  This hour.  This night.”  I always do.

I sleep.  I wake up.  I hear one or both of them crying.  I wake up Matt to help me.  I can’t remember if I unswaddle them.  I can’t remember who changes their diapers.  I feed them, always at the same time.  Matt sleeps while they eat.  I can’t.  We burp them.  We wrap them up; we are so quiet.  I lay them down, one at a time.  I lay down.  I reach over to their bed and I jiggle it, gently.  I pray. “Please Lord, please help them to sleep.  Please let me sleep.” 

It is a prayer I feel so deeply, I feel it even six and seven months later. I prayed it on so many breaths those first few weeks.  Those prayers were accompanied by the constant questions – when will it get easier? When do babies sleep? When will I enjoy this again?  When will it stop being SO HARD? I hated to wish away their infancy, but I did.  I wished for the time they could sleep for a few hours, not in my arms.  I wished for a time I could manage my house and my family.  I thought it would take forever.  I thought the hard might last forever.

I’m not saying it isn’t hard these days.  I’m not saying hard days won’t come again soon.  I am saying it’s good.  It feels doable.  It is doable.  I don’t dread the morning.  I don’t cry thinking of Matt leaving for work.  The babies sleep so well at night.  They are the cutest stinking things ever. 

Most of the time these days Matt puts them to bed. I kiss them as he has one on each shoulder. They smile and watch me as they are carried to bed.  He lays one in each crib.  He sings to them.  They go right to sleep.

A few hours later when I lay down in my bed, I think about those first few weeks.  I remember the prayer.  I pray. “Thank you Lord.  Thank you for these babies.  Thank you for bringing me through those moments, those hours, those nights.” They were worth it.

Sleep

One day a couple or so weeks ago Michael kept falling asleep on me every time he ate.  :)

He was so cute I had to take his picture every time.

This boy doesn’t nap regularly, but sometimes we’ll be watching some television in the afternoon and I’ll look over and see this:

In the last couple of weeks I noticed the boys were really moving around in their crib while they were sleeping/getting to sleep.  We’d lay them down parallel to each other and find them like this:

I was worried they’d end up in a pile with somebody on the bottom, maybe not able to breathe, so it was time for separate cribs!

They don’t seem to miss each other, and they’re sleeping about as well as ever, so… yay!

Thomas:

Michael:

They don’t do it all the time, but they have both rolled from back to front in the crib.  Michael did it first:

But it was the same day that Thomas did it as well!  This was Thursday the 20th, for the record!

I had thought they were ready to sleep without the swaddles or maybe with their arms free, but they aren’t quite as ready as I thought.  Michael does okay sleeping with his blanket just wrapped around his chest, but Thomas struggles if his arms are free.  I want them to be able to have their arms free for when they roll over though.  My sister showed me how to swaddle them with their arms up by their face, and that’s working for Thomas.  Neither of them has started sleeping on their belly, even though they can sort of (at least sometimes) get there.  My big three were never swaddled this long, so this is something new for us.  :)

James is SO BIG! (But then it turns into a post about cloth diapers.)

Saturday night was James’ first night to move back in with the girls.  They all slept in the same room until he was 18ish months old, but then we felt a split would help everyone sleep better.  Now with the twins headed our way, we decided James would sleep with the girls instead of the babies.  AND we figured the summer might be a good time for adjustment.

Don’t let them fool you.  They are cute, but ROTTEN!  :)

The first night it took a couple of hours for them all to settle and go to sleep.  I’m sure that was not helped by the copious amounts of sunshine still streaming into the room at bedtime.  :)  Last night was better.  Natalie crashed pretty quickly, and the other two were at least pretty quiet with their shenanigans.  I’m very much hoping their wake time will shift to 7:00 (or later!).  James just can’t seem to sleep past 6 or 6:30, no matter what time he goes to sleep.  If we can’t turn that internal alarm clock off, he’s going to have to go to bed at 6:45pm.  And that is going to cramp my style.

On a related BIG BOY note, he is doing SO WELL with potty training!  It’s been a couple of weeks, and he is using the toilet like a pro.  :)  We’re still working on logistics like pulling the underwear and pants up and down, but I will take it!  He wears a diaper when he sleeps, but that has drastically cut back our diaper usage!  He wears a disposable diaper overnight because we just haven’t found something else that works for a toddler heavy wetter all night.  Then at nap time I’ve been putting him in a prefold and cover.  He doesn’t wet much, and the cotton prefolds can go a little longer between washings without getting nasty.

James’ toys and clothes and stuff moved out of his room about the time he did, leaving the cubbies as a perfect place for organizing baby things!  I pulled out all the diaper supplies we have and got them sorted and counted.

For cloth diapering newborns, this is what I believe we have right now.

• 17 Freetime one-size all-in-one diapers.  These have become my favorites with James, but I never used them on a newborn.  I figure we will wait until the cord stump falls off for them to fit right.  They’re pretty bulky, but I think that will make them great overnight diapers once the babies are (hopefully!) sleeping longer stretches.
• 21 Bum Genius 4.0 pocket diapers.  I love these diapers – they’re so versatile.  I have most of them stuffed with two newborn inserts (I never thought one was enough), and the rest with regular inserts folded down.  The newborn inserts make the diaper less bulky, but like the Freetimes, I think these diapers will probably not fit well until the cord stump falls off.  I didn’t use these much with James as a newborn since I needed them for Natalie.  :)
• 6 covers that I think will fit a newborn – 3 NB sized and 3 that can be snapped down to that size.  These will go over the newborn (orange) sized prefolds (we have 24).  This is what we used in the early days most with James.  They fit so well on those teeny bottoms.
• 8 newborn size pockets/all-in-one diapers: One is a sposo easy, and I loooooooved it with James.  If they still made them, I’d have gotten a few more.  They were soooooo nice for going out or overnight when I didn’t want to mess with the prefolds.  I also have one Fuzzibunz newborn size diaper, but it never fit James well in the legs.  It’s cute, which is why I’m hanging on to it – pictures.  :)  I also bought 6 Bum Genius newborn size all-in-one diapers.  They get great reviews, and I think we’ll love them.  I imagine us using these at night, when the prefolds are just kind of too many steps for tired people.  :)  I bought these when they were one “seconds” sale, and if they go on sale again, I think I’ll get another half dozen.
• All the Bum Genius Freetimes and 4.0s are made to fit from birth to potty training, so those diapers will grow with the babies.  To supplement those we have a few Fuzzibunz and miscellaneous diapers that are fitted small or medium sized.

We may be basically sort of set for diapering the babies.  I’m going to do some more reading about how many diapers are recommended for twins, but we can always order more.  :)  I do think IF we find out at least one twin is a girl, I’m going to have to buy a few pink/purple/flowery diapers.  Even though we cloth diapered Natalie, we didn’t start until we knew we were pregnant with a boy, so I never bought anything I couldn’t pass down to him.  Now is a different story though!!

Bedtime

Matt caught some pictures of James giving me goodnight kisses last night.

I love them!

Matt and I always go in and check on the kids before we go to bed.  The girls often fall asleep with their Christmas lights on, so we turn them off.  We also turn off James’ night light.  I think they sleep a bit better this way.

The past few nights the girls have been sleeping together (good body warmth!).  When the Christmas lights are on, I can get a pretty good shot of them sleeping!

They were both pretty restless at that particular time, so it wasn’t but a few moments before they looked like this:

They slept pretty well this way I’d say!  Joanna was up at some grody hour of the night, but Matt brought her back to bed.  Natalie was up first, but not until 7:00.  James followed at 7:20 or so, but Joanna slept until close to 8:30!!  Yay for well-rested children!

Totally Miscellaneous Catch-All Post… Part 1

Last Monday the Villager choir had their Christmas concert at our church.  It didn’t start until 7:00, so I only brought Joanna.  And she wore jammies.  :)

We went last year too – she loved it!  The group is from a local place where disabled adults live.  A couple of our members lead the choir – they’re amazing!  It was a great concert.

I put a strand of Christmas lights in the girls’ room; they’re so pretty!  The first night they seemed so bright but I went ahead and let them use them as a nightlight.  I figured I’d have to go in and turn them off, but surprisingly they’ve gone to sleep very well (maybe better?) with it so bright in there.  Makes it possible to take pics of my sleeping babies!

The only way I could take a shot of both of them was to tilt my camera, which is why the pic is all wonky.  :)

Speaking of sleeping babies…

Usually James is awake when I go to pick him up, but the last couple of days he’s been fast asleep.  I could watch that boy sleep for hours I think.  :)

Yesterday James’ teachers told me it took him a long time to fall asleep because he was singing along (in perfect pitch!) to the lullaby CD.  They said they’ll have to get a new one he doesn’t know so well!

Natalie’s very into doing her hair lately.

And James is very into shoving things into his “pouch” anytime he wears something like this.

Now how do I get it back out?

If I remember correctly, he carried a few little people around like that most of the day.

I handed Natalie my little camera a couple of days ago to take a picture of me.  (Well, first I wrapped the strap around her hand a few times.)  We were practicing on James first.  (You can’t really tell without zooming in, but he has a giant sticker on his forehead.)

I cropped it (mainly because my license plate was in the shot) but she did a pretty good job!

I think I need to keep letting her use the little one from time to time.  She’s often the biggest kid around, and I like to be in the pictures some too!

Tuesday, thus far

Warning: this first paragraph is the hugest ever about the sleeping habits of my children.  I really wrote it out for me I guess.  You’re welcome to read it or skip on down.  :)

James has been waking up early, and I wanted to try and fix it!  Before the time change he generally slept from 7pm-6am, though sometimes he woke earlier and very rarely later.  I had hoped after the time change he would sleep from 8pm-7am with no need to adjust anything.  I was WRONG!  He was still waking up at 6 or so.  Boo!  I wasn’t ready to give up on the 8:00 (or so) bedtime though.  I kind of like him going down at about the same time as the girls.  Yesterday he woke up at 5:15, fussed, probably went back to sleep until 5:40 when Matt’s shower woke him up.  I tried letting him cry back to sleep but he couldn’t do it.  Matt changed his very wet diaper and jammies at maybe 6:30, put him back in our room, and he did go back to sleep until 8:40!  But in the process the girls of course woke up quite early for them.  So last night I decided to try and sleep him in a room alone so he could cry himself back to sleep without waking the girls.  I also (gasp!) put him in a disposable diaper since you can put an ocean in them without a leak.  We’re a little hit-or-miss on the cloth at nighttime… working on it.  Anyway, I decided the easiest option for temporary separation was to move a mattress to the floor of the playroom for the girls.  It took them a bit longer to fall asleep, mainly due to all the toy distractions, but they did okay.  And James slept until 7:00!!  Soooooooo, maybe the girls have been waking him up earlier?  Or it was a fluke.  We’re going to do the exact same thing tonight and see what happens.  I’m really not ready to split them up and have a “boys room” and a “girls room” yet, but if it means better sleep for everyone I will do it!  Natalie woke up at 6:30, which is not that unusual for her, especially since she had a huge nap yesterday.  She just goes potty and then will snuggle, so I don’t mind that.  Joanna slept until 7:00 which is a bit early for her.  She told me she looked over to see if Natalie was there and she wasn’t!  I bet she’d have gone back to sleep if conditions had been normal.  And I think it helped that Matt did he noisy getting ready pretty early and left the house pretty early.  If all of my children started sleeping regularly until 7:00 every day, I might start waking myself up at 6:30 to get a jump on the day.  It’s probably about time I grew up and started doing that.  :)  Mornings have just been so all over the place for years though!

So… everybody woke up and had breakfast.  I asked Joanna to give Junior his morning chew thingy and let him outside.  Then later, Natalie went to let him inside because it was sprinkling, but he didn’t come.  I thought maybe he’d found a bit of shelter out there, so I put my shoes on to go holler for him.  Which is when I discovered the fence between our house and the house on the end was down!  What’s worse is that I went over there and discovered their gate was open!!  AHHHHHHHH!!!  I can’t get it closed – it’s broken, and I can’t get the fence back up on my own in the rain either.  Anyway, I ran around my yard and out the front into the street but no Junior!!  (Honestly, I’ve lost him many times in my head; I’m clearly very paranoid I’m going to lose my friend’s dog…as well I should be.)  So I ran back in and grabbed the phone to call my mom for help.  Then I turned the corner and found Junior looking at me from the back deck.  Phewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!  I don’t know where he was all that time, but I’m glad he didn’t leave!  I’m not even totally sure he can get out the neighbor’s gate, but I’m not taking any chances!  I even taped a sign to my back door so I don’t forget and just let him out today.  :)

Shortly after that it started to POUR down rain.  It is days like this I think to myself, “How did I survive NOT parking in my garage?”  I was going through options in my brain on how best to deliver three children to school in the torrential rain, when it hit me – Gran!  Even though plenty of people park in the covered circle drive and leave their cars there to drop off their children, I think it’s totally wrong, especially because there are a hundred parents who’d like to do the same thing!  (Off soap box now – or as much as I can be on my own blog!)  Anyway, my wonderful mother had time for me to pick her up and let her drop us off at the circle, then drive around and pick me back up.  I still got soaking wet, but the children managed to stay pretty dry which is the most important part!  Yay Gran!!!  I’ve been thinking of what the best solution would be for dropping off all by myself in the pouring rain.  Anybody have any ideas?  I might try parking within eyeshot of a door (any door) and bringing the children inside one at a time, oldest to youngest, so I can carry them.  It would be yucky to be at school all day in wet shoes and clothes.  I guess I could also just bring them in jammies and flip flops, then change where it’s dry. 

I clearly don’t have enough important things to think about.  :)

I came home and cleaned the main bathroom.  It was GROSS.  It still doesn’t look particularly clean, even after spending over an hour in there, but it’s as good as it’s going to get!  I like to remind myself that I have many gifts and talents.  Cleaning well just isn’t one of them.  :)  It’s also not something I’ve spent a lot of time working on.  Ahem.

And now maybe I will catch up on laundry while watching some TV.  Woooooooo hooooooo!

It was an awfully full day for one that’s not even usually there

Yesterday was just one of those mornings that I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep.  Matt’s light woke me up at 4:44, and then I could hear the water running because it turns out the hose in the back broke and somebody left the spigot on over the weekend.  Then Matt’s alarm went off (he was in the kitchen), and there were noises I couldn’t sleep through.  Then of course the children woke up and the day began.

The girls were very excited to have some friends over for a bit.  Kendra dropped Kaitlyn and Emma off for the morning – yay for girlfriends!

They all played together a lot, but the pictures I got were of the sisters playing together.  Joanna and Natalie have been enjoying the Potato Head family lately.

Emma and Kaitlyn!

This was snack time – such sweet girls!

After they left I attempted to put my kiddos down for an early rest time at about 12:40ish.  James went down great (I figured he would since I didn’t let him have a morning nap), but Natalie and Joanna couldn’t settle.  Joanna never sleeps, but she just had trouble “resting.”  I soooooooo wanted a little nap; I’ve just been so tired lately!  But, alas, it was not to be.  I was way too grumpy for anyone’s good though, so I made the decision to have a Dr. Pepper on the way to Joanna’s ENT appointment for the sanity of us all.  It was a good choice.  Making it a whole week without a slip is something, right?  :)

I had to wake James up at 2:20, but he’d had a great nap!

Here we are keeping ourselves entertained while Joanna had her hearing test with the audiologist.

The kids really did well.  Sadly, there were signs that said “No food or drink” so I couldn’t use my regular method of keeping tiny people happy.  Oh, well.  We survived.

Joanna failed her hearing test (That was one hundred thirty eight dollars worth of DUH!!!) and Dr. Clegg is putting her on antibiotics for the next ten days (or ten days from the point I actually make it pharmacy to pick them up) to see if that will do anything.  If not, it’s tubes for her!  I can’t remember whether I’ve mentioned it here, but about a week and a half or so ago, Joanna just stopped being able to hear much at all.  It’s making our lives miserable!  She misses so much of what’s going on around her and we’re constantly repeating ourselves.  Thankfully it is just fluid in her ears that’s blocking the sound, not something worse.

After the appointment we walked around Kingwood Hospital for a bit.  The girls loved the little stream kind of place.

When we got home, we had enough time to gather up our things for church and play outside for a few minutes.

James is a walking boy these days!!

Matt had to meet us at church since he was running a bit behind.  I sure was thankful for the spaghetti supper I didn’t have to cook or clean up after!  And my choir kiddos were wonderful.  We really started working on learning the musical, and they were very into it.  What fun!

I came home and went to bed probably before the kids fell asleep.  Sadly it took me a long time to actually fall asleep myself, but at least I was laying down.  I probably fell asleep about 10:00.  I didn’t stir once until 6:08.  Then it was time to take care of my early-risers; I think those kids are linked somehow to wake up at the same time.  Joanna slept until 8:35!  I could tell she needed to catch up on some sleep – I’m so glad she did!

I’ve been skipping James’ morning nap recently because I think he’s sleeping better all around without it.  But he was grouchy this morning, and I knew I couldn’t handle a morning of holding him off with food and entertainment.  So he’s napping now!  I’m soooooo thankful Joanna had a ride to school, and I get to just sit here and snuggle with my Natalie.  Wahoo for Thursday mornings!

Living with Girls

This picture has nothing to do with the title of the post; don’t be confused.  :)  James LOVES sitting in the fire engine.  It won’t be long before he can actually get himself in and out.

When you live with girls…

sometimes you just have to put on your purple beaded necklace and use the purple computer to get your work done.

I think it’s about time to think about some manly dress-up for around here… hats and things.

Though the crown necklace sure is… something anyway.  It’s his new favorite accessory.  He’s wearing it right now.  And he loves it.  And he doesn’t want me to take it away from him.

I’ve been getting some pretty cute smiles this week from my Jamesie boy!  I love how they’re crooked and toothy – so cute!!

And… he has slept until or past 7:00am the past four mornings.  I am literally a new woman.  I think it was maybe sometime in 2008 (or possibly even 2006) the last time I slept through the night until 7:00… no getting up to shift a baby bump or go to the bathroom five times, and no getting up to nurse a baby.  I do really love those early morning snuggles, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything, but I cannot believe my energy and mood this week.  It’s AMAZING.

The Little Bed

I took down the toddler bed today.  It was about three years ago that I put it up for my barely 18 month old Joanna.  Natalie hasn't been sleeping in it lately, opting instead to sleep with her big sis in the daybed.  I decided to take it apart to store it so they'd have some floor space in the bedroom.  There's a trundle under the daybed if they decide one twin bed is too small for two little girls.  I LOVE how they share the bed though.  It's so precious.  And they've really been sleeping well that way -- yay!

I’d have been really sad to put it away if I didn’t know I’d be getting it back out sometime in the next year for James.  :)  As it was, I still felt very nostalgic.  It seems milestone-y in some way. 

So, of course, I blog.

Sleeping. Stuffing. Spaghetti.

Last Friday Joanna got to go to the K-Park football game with her buddy Anna and her family.  I knew we’d pay for it later, sleep-wise, but she had such a great time!  They got home even later than Lisa thought, due to it being homecoming.  Oh, well!

The next day she actually took a nap at rest time.  I probably shouldn’t of let her do it as she was up until 10:30 again that night (thankfully, quiet in her room though).  It seemed to have helped, and she was pretty back to normal the next day or so.  She slept in the first few mornings of the week.  That is typically how she makes up for lost sleep.  I love that girl.  :)

We sent Natalie in to wake her up after her nap.  I just love the progression of pictures here.

I love my Natalie-blur!

She’d scooted down and turned over, probably trying to tune out her wake-up call.

I am learning about James that he loves containers.  He loves to put things in and take things out.  He also loves putting things on and through.  (Like a clothespin through a toilet paper tube… over and over and over.)  I don’t remember the girls playing like this.  I love it!

He is getting to eat spaghetti sauce a bit earlier than the girls did.  We have a spaghetti supper every week at the church (WAHOO!), and I’m sure not packing a dinner for him!  Especially when he’d be screaming for what we’re eating anyway!

I may need to start bringing a tarp for him to eat on though – something I can just roll up, bring home, and hose down!

Seriously though I think I will bring a stack of washcloths to wet down for him.  I just can’t get all this off of him, the chair, and the floor with little paper napkins and wipes.  We’re too used to our cloth everything!

I was joking with the nursery ladies (who all stopped to comment on his extreme spaghetti cuteness) that I was just going to drop him off without cleaning him up.  Jane said she’d just put him in the sink.  :)

The Most Amazing Thing

Today after Young Mom’s Bible Study I went to pick James up in the nursery, and he was sleeping on one of the ladies.  They told me he’d been asleep about 10 minutes.  What I really wanted to do was leave him there, but since everybody was leaving, that wasn’t one of my options.  :)  I had my Ergo on because hauling everybody’s stuff and holding little hands and a little baby is too much.  So anyway, I took James and the sweet nursery lady helped me strap him on.

He stayed asleep. 

Even after I got to the car, having opened doors, called after children, and walked in the sunshine.

He stayed asleep.

Never dreaming the sleep would last, I still very gently unstrapped the Ergo and laid him in his car seat.

He stayed asleep. 

Look at that face!!!

Holding my breath at this point, trying not to get too excited, I managed to buckle him in while he stayed asleep.

He must have been in that perfect heavy sleep mode – I was so excited!  He slept the car ride to Lisa’s and a few minutes after we got there.  Then, I bet he was confused when he woke up in the Vandengirls’ butterfly bedroom!

Anna invited us over for lunch by saying, “Momma, can Joanna come over for lunch so that I can play with Baby James?”

I love her.  :)