Okay...

The girls got their shots yesterday. When we went in, they were weighed and measured.

Katherine:

11 pounds, 5 ounces

23 inches long

60 percentile

Karly:

10 pounds, 9 ounces

22.5 inches long

50 percentile

Katherine got her shots first. I layed her on the table and she looked at me and smiled. I placed her paci in her mouth and put my hands on her. When they stuck the first needle in, her eyes got really wide, you could tell she was completely surprised. When the second one went in, she started screaming. It was over though so I go to pick her up and hold her immediatly. She cried for about a minute and then held on to me. I felt so bad.

Karly got her shots second. While I was calming Katherine. Donald didn't get to put the paci in because she was enjoying her sugary rotavirus when they started sticking her. He said her face got red and she started screaming. Donald picked her up and gave her her ducky (paci).

Both were calm and ready for tylenol when we left the office but that was when we realized that we had forgotten the diaper bag in the foyer at home! We had a ton of errands to run but needed the tylenol. We ran home (well drove), grabbed the bag, dosed the babies and continued on our day. The girls were very sleepy. They didn't cry to much and last night, they layed in bed with me and fell asleep. They slept until 5 this morning and woke up for a bottle. Then we slept until 9.

Today I had a therapy appointment. I have poor self esteem and today I wanted to talk about my fear of passing it to my daughters. I've always believed that children (esp girls) need to be told how beautiful and smart they are daily. I've always done so in my classroom. I do so with my girls now. I tell them every morning how wonderful they are. Now comes my shallowness. I've never liked myself. I've been overweight for the last several years and even before I hated myself.

I don't want my girls to have my weight problem but how do you control it without them knowing it and causing poor self esteem? My theory, was to teach them how to eat from the beginning. Telling them they have to do a physical activity. They can do anything they chose but it must be physical. When my therapist was holding Katherine, I was telling her about how I worried that Katherine would be the one I worry about weight wise. Shes going to be big boned, you can tell when you hold her. Shes very stocky and the women in my family are all stocky. Don't get me wrong, my daughter is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful! However, this is what I worry about. Karly is so tiny, even though her weight is normal. She's just tiny. I joke that she will be my cheerleader and Katherine will be my soccer player. Okay now that I feel like a horrible mother....

But my fears are my fears. My therapist was able to talk me over the ridiculous anxieties and panic that I fear. I fear various things and although they may seem far fetched to some, they are realistic to me.

I last blogged that I was afraid of SIDS. We talked about that as well. She said worrying won't make it not happen, so why make myself sick. She gave me the same advice when I was going through our third IVF. She said "Think positive. Once the embryos are in, think yourself pregnant. What's the worse that could happen? You find out it didn't work? You'll be heartbroken but you will pick yourself up and continue." That got me through and the day I found out I was pregnant, I can't even begin to explain the relief I felt!

At the end of the day, I have two beautiful girls sleeping in the crib at the end of my bed. Dreaming of angels and who knows what else. A year ago tomorrow, I was preparing for IVF # 3 and would be starting stims in 20 days. What a difference a year makes.

Shots tomorrow

The girls have an 8 am appointment to get their 2 month shots. I made my husband take the day off to help me with the babies because when they got their hep b shot, they were miserable. Then we have to get the car inspected, head to walmart then come home with our tylenol dosed infants. Today was nice relaxing rainy day. I cleaned the house, shampooed the carpet, took a nap with the babies and even watched a movie with hubby. Everything was fine until it was time to put babies down for bed. I started at 8:30 with bottle and they went to sleep at 10. It would of been better if there hadn't been so much crying.

There is something bothering me though. SIDS. This is just a cruel joke to parents. Hey, you're pregnant! You give birth, you have this amazing human being or two or three and then one morning they're gone. I'm so afraid of this and there is nothing I can do about it and that terrifies me.

A breath..

I'm a mommy. A very happy mommy with a few problems which I posted about BUT today was a great day. Here's what I did today:

• Woke up at 9 with two beautiful babies sleeping next to me.
• Got up around 9:15 because Karly woke up
• Put Karly in her bouncer and moved it to the bathroom
• Grabbed my bath stuff and took a shower.
• Got clothes together for the three of us
• Got myself dressed
• Got bottles
• Fed both babies at the same time :)
• Gave babies a bath and dressed them
• Put them in their carseats and went out
• Had a long lunch with a friend at Chilis.
• Got home at 2
• Spent family time on bed
• All of us fell asleep
• Got up at 6 and made dinner
• Fed Karly
• Ate dinner
• Fed Katie
• Played
• Read books
• 8:30 Karly in bed
• Currently Daddy and Katie are watching Larry the Cable guy and I'm posting

It was a very good day. Vacation is a week from today. I'm really looking foward to it.

Not feeling like a good mommy..

This is my blog, where I can write how I feel. So, how do I feel today? Not very good. Last night we found out we had a mouse in the room the girls spend their day. Not good. Instead of being able to deal with that, Katherine had to take that time to scream her head off instead of going to sleep. After about an hour of dealing with that, I looked at her and in a very firm voice said "Katherine, Stop." She whimpered a bit and then stopped. Not because I told her too but because she had finally exhausted herself. She cried off and on before finally falling asleep. We still have a mouse. Right now, Katie is sleeping on my body pillow in the bedroom. Not the safest way to sleep but the only way she would. So I've been checking on her every few minutes. This morning, she cried and cried and cried. I ignored her for the most part because there is nothing I can do for her. Karly gets ignored all the time. This morning, I loved on Karly, who didn't get anything last night because of Katie.

I love them both to pieces and it hurts when I feel like a bad mom. Once they wake up from their nap my hubby will be home and we can cuddle together as a family and hopefully there will be no screaming.

It's also raining. It's dreary and these are good book and nap days but when you have a baby, there are no more book and nap days. Do I regret my girls? Not in the least but I've started to miss a part of me that doesn't exist anymore. The girl who loved to read and go out with friends, the girl that loved to work and go to the movies. Things I don't see myself enjoying anymore.

That being said, I am going back to work in 5 weeks and I'm scared as hell to do so. What do I do if my girls need me? What if they cry for me? Won't I be getting something I wanted back? A part of me? But it's a part of me without my girls.

Oh I don't know..today is not a good day.................

Gifts from Granny

I have a minute..

Things are going very well. Yesterday I spend the day with a friend with twin boys. They turned 1 in January so they are older but it was still nice. She shared the "been there done that" advice and that is always helpful. It's easier to take someones advice when you see their children and see what has come of that and her kids are just adorable. Not just appearance wise but in behavior. It was a nice drive up to her house too. She lives in the "mountains" of NJ. No traffic jams, no crowds of people, just peace and quiet.

In two weeks we are leaving to go home! Home is where the heart is and although my heart is here with my family, "home" is Missouri. I love it there. I'm so relaxed and happy when I'm there. This will be my babies first trip to the state they will eventually call their home as well. I'm a little worried about the 1100 mile one way trip but we make the trip every year and it's pretty easy. Last year was a little difficult because we had a flat tire at 7 at night. Not many places open then. We had AAA so we called them and they came in an hour and a half to change our tire. Yeah, we are pretty useless. It was pretty scary too. It was at a rest stop somewhere in PA. Once we put the donut on we had to drive 30 miles at 50mph to get to the nearest town. Once there, the truckstop couldn't change our tire because they were so backed up. We finally found a place that was closing and they said they would reopen and fix our tire. We got to a hotel in WV at 100 am, woke up the following morning with a flat tire again. What we didn't realize is God was on our side and the hotel we had stopped at was in front of a walmart with a tire department! We wobbled our way to walmart, bought a new tire, checked the others and headed on our way. We made good time too.

I'm hoping this trip is nowhere near that exciting. I'd go for a plain boring trip this year.

In baby news:

I had to remove the bumper from the cribs. Katherine showed me that if she balls herself up, she can roll into the bumper. Karly showed me she can use her feet to scootch over to the bumper and stick her face in it. We now have the breathable bumper because it's becoming obvious that the girls like to be against the slats. Weird children.

They have become a lot more vocal and Karly is so animated. Her face expressions crack me up. Katherine is so serious. She smiles a lot though. She talks a bit but mostly she just likes to look around. Both babies are beautiful and fill my life with more than I could of ever hoped for.

A visit to the park/2 months old!

Today we went to the waterfront. We ordered food from Houlihans, got the girls a nice cold bottle of milk and took a walk to find a nice grassy area. Katherine loved sitting in the stroller without the carrier. We have never done this. I probably won't for a long time.

Daddy and Karly. If you look closely, she is staring right at the camera and smiling. I think the look on her face is adorable. The weather was very muggy but there was a nice breeze in the shade.

This is mommy and girls. She failed to remember to fix her hair before we left, so she went as is. Good thing we were alone in the park. I don't mind because we had a great time. I love how Katherine is looking at the sky and Karly has this cute pudgy face on.

OH, last night, Karly found her thumb! It was so cute :). She still prefers the paci though.

Today is the girls 2 month birthday. They have been doing very well. Heres a run down of our day:

• Wake at 6:00, get in bed with mommy and sleep until 9.
• Eat bottle, get diaper changes, wash up and get dressed for the day
• We sit in our boppys while mommy makes the bed, washes bottles and grabs a slimfast.
• Mommy tries to take us for a walk.
• Naptime, maybe from 11-2 (most of the time we fall asleep on our walk)
• At 2 or around there we get another bottle and play with mommy
• Daddy gets home around 3 and we play with daddy while mommy takes a shower or nests.
• At 6, we are screaming for a bottle because mommy made us wait half an hour for it. It's probably because we cry from 6 on whether we are hungry or not. I think she's figured that if she makes up wait, we won't cry during their dinner. She was right.
• At 8, we get a bath, story and cuddle time but if they try to put us to bed, we cry.
• At 10 we get another bottle and mommy makes us go to bed. She puts us in her bed, shuts off the lights, turns on the tv and lets us cry while she rocks us until we sleep. It takes about an hour. Sometimes mommy looks a little frustrated with us.
• We sleep until 330 or 4 and wake them up for a bottle and then sleep until 6.

Then it starts all over again.

Life..

For the last three weeks, I've been thinking my babies had a cold. "Allergies" the first two pedis told me. I went to a third and that's not really the case. I took the girls back to the doctor on Monday because there "Allergies" were getting worse and I started thinking (by reading post from other ladies on the nest) that my babies have very similar symptoms but their babies had reflux.

On Monday, I told the dr that they were gassy, cried a lot, seemed very uncomfortable and that Karly was spitting up almost everything we put in her. She also started crying a lot and that's not really her demeanor. Katie has always been a very fussy baby.

She decided to put them on Nutrimugen. It's 27$ for a small can and we go through a can every 1.5 days. I was shocked to see how much they charge for baby food. I guess if babies need it, they can charge what they want knowing that parents have to pay it.

Anyway, it smells awful and it's basically just water. The girls hated it. They would drink an ounce and smack the bottle out of their mouths, then cry that they were hungry. We were giving them gas drops and gripe water. Karly started spitting up everything. Katherine was more fussy and neither were sleeping but 5 minutes at a time. It was awful.

Last night I called the pedi and we talked for a little bit. We decided to switch to Similac Sensitive and pedialyte. My dh made a store run and I sat hoping the this formula didn't cost even more the the other.

We gave Karly the Pedialyte for the first three feedings to hydrate her (just in case she was spitting up more than keeping down). If she spit it up, we were supposed to take her to the ER. She kept it down! Didn't spit up anything. They slept from 10pm to 230 then got up at ate. Karly woke up again at 4 then slept til 9. Katie ate at 2 and 6. I must say that everything is much better and they are both napping as I type :).

Pictures.

Love these onsies











































A very messy baby :)







































All smiles!































They still fit in the same crib.

Few pictures before bed..

When they were still in the hospital..

Katherine in her new swing. I think she likes it....

Karly can now hold her head up...even though she is still not feeling very well...

I layed the girls in their boppys to sleep. I went to make the bed and when I came back in, this is how they were sleeping. I did not place them this way. I think it's so cute the way they are sleeping the same.

~~I want to let everyone know that I still read your blogs. Usually when I'm holding a baby or feeding but I don't always comment. Just wanted you to know I'm still checking up on ya :)...