Ways that evolution has failed us

Sometimes I believe that evolution has failed us. Or maybe it is just that I am thinking a few steps ahead of the evolutionary process.

Example #1: Women should have at least three arms. If women are meant to raise children and possibly do anything else then we need at least one more appendage to help out. More specifically, I would like to be able to change the tv station or use my phone while feeding my kids.

Example #2: Why can't we grow a third set of teeth? We have small teeth, a second set grows in and the first set falls out. Why doesn't our body grow a third set of teeth so that all these old people aren't wandering around toothless?

Clearly if I were in charge of evolution life would be better.

This post has pictures =)

{Ana and the Christmas tree}

Last night we went to my parents house; I have been feeling a little cooped up and was in dire need of a change of scenery. Ana and Grace got to spend time with Auntie Stina and their grandparents! And it is always lovely to have my mom's cooking, because she really is one of the best cook's I know. She made Brandon's favorite swiss steak and my favorite pumpkin dessert.

Our wonderful evening was followed by our worst night so far. Grace was fussy all night and cried everytime we put her down. By the time she finally went to sleep at 6am, Ana was wide awake and had hiccups. Everytime I put Ana back to bed, she would wake Grace up. It was very special.

Grace seems to have some stomach issues, so I am adjusting my diet by removing dairy to see if it has an impact on the her temperment and stomach problems. Tomorrow we are taking the girls for a weight check so I can (hopefully) put aside my fears about underfeeding the girls since switching to breastfeeding instead of bottle feeding.

Long nights and little sleep aside, my girls are adorable and I love them. They are especially cute when we put them near each other and they roll toward one another and hold hands. It is amazing to see how connected they are sometimes. I look forward to seeing how their relationship develops over the years!

Today my girls reached a gestational age of 38 weeks... and have already been in this world for four weeks and two days! Now that they have reached full term we can expect them to start behaving like term babies and reach infant milestones. Premies are usually judged by adjusted age which helps parents and health care providers have realistic expectations for the baby. So 30 days into this parenting deal, I can start expecting my girls to behave like newborns. The only problem? I don't know anything about what to expect from a newborn or any other age from now until 12. I've survived so far so I guess that I will learn it somehow!

Why I hate gift bags

I hate gift bags.

When we got married I accumulated a mountain of gift bags between bridal showers and wedding gifts. Over the years I reused them, shared them with family going to weddings and finally threw most of the rest away when we moved last year. No one needs a lifetime supply of wedding themed gift bags.


Now I have enough baby themed gift bags to wallpaper the nursery (good idea! what was I thinking!?)


Don't get me wrong. My dislike of gift bags is not actually related to my collection of them. It is actually because I love wrapping gifts. My mom used to let me wrap the gifts for the entire family. She hates wrapping. I love it. I love picking paper and coordinating with ribbon or bows. I take great care to wrap them neatly and nicely. I think it is way more fun to open a gift that is wrapped in a box than one in a bag. I ordered most of our Christmas gifts online this year and I am so anxious waiting for them to get here so I can start wrapping!


I wish I weren't so practical and could just throw away all the gifts bag we receive. But I just can't bring myself to waste them. The biggest problem with gift bags is that they tend to be so event specific. I can only reuse Christmas bags at Christmas... so that is 11 months of storage. And I certainly don't know enough people having babies to reuse all the bags I received this year in my whole lifetime. If they were all in solid colors or not so specific, at least we could use them whenever we wanted!


Even though I have years worth of gift bags sitting in my closet for every occasion, chances are if you are getting a gift from me it will be wrapped. In a box. If I can find one. Because one of the side effects of America's obsession with gift bags is that is nearly impossible to buy gift boxes any time of year besides Christmas. I found them at Target this week and stocked up for the year.


In the meantime, if you want to save a few bucks on a gift bag, feel free to come take some off of my hands!

Christmas trees and my holy child

Last Friday I started writing this post in my head. It was about turkey soup. You will see that turkey soup is now only one line in the post. Then it also had a temporary focus on us going to get a Christmas tree. Well I did a full 180 and ended up with an artificial tree. You know why? Because it takes forever to do a good job with Christmas tree lights and I have two one-month olds. So needless to say, I don't have the time or patience to put lights on my tree. If I had that kind of time, I would have actually finished this post on Friday.

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I have given in to the Christmas spirit. The moment I put the turkey carcass in the pot to make turkey soup, my heart leaped forward to the holiday season. We had plans to get a tree on Saturday but it rained all day. My mom offered several times to come over and babysit so we could go pick a tree, but after much debate, I ended up with an artificial tree. It makes me a little sad because I love walking through the trees and looking for one I fall in love with. I love the smell of the fresh cut tree and watching Brandon try to make it stand straight. I will miss the smell when I walk into the house and how every year the tree is different. But now I don't have to put on the lights or figure out how to get rid of the tree in January. And there are no needles covering my floor.

Brandon and spent this afternoon decorating. I love opening the big Christmas boxes and rediscovering all the decorations and ornaments we packed away 11 months ago. We already received two sets of ornaments for the girls and I know that it is the beginning of many years of my children receiving personalized ornaments. I know that in just a few short years our girls will be decorating the tree with their homemade ornaments. And I know that our girls are way too young to remember this Christmas, but it means something to me to celebrate this first year as a family.

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Tales of motherhood: the other night baby Ana fell asleep face down on my chest. About 30 minutes later I remembered my necklace and hoped it wasn't poking her, as it has a a pretty sharp point at the bottom.

Nope, not poking her. She was laying flat on it and had an entire cross embedded in her face. Didn't seem to bother her. I should have photographed it and posted it on the internet. There would have been crazy Catholics coming from all over the nation to see the child with a cross on her face. It would have been like Mary on the tortilla or Jesus on the grilled cheese.

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I am exhausted. Things are going well, but there is no avoiding being tired when there are two babies to care for. But I love my girls like crazy. They are so cute. I just want to kiss them and hold them. I love how soft and fuzzy their little heads are and how adorable their tiny feet and fingers are. I am in awe that they were both inside of me. There are still moments of shock that I have TWO babies. Two. That is twice as many as one.

Welcome to life...

Our family is all under one roof.

Last week we brought home Ana after 15 days in the NICU. Those 15 days started out rough with my early delivery and then juggling life at home with my babies in the NICU. And then it seemed a sudden transition to bring home Grace one day, and then equally sudden when Ana came home four days later.

So far, so good.

The girls were on a similar schedule thanks to the NICU and for the most part we have continued to keep them on this schedule. While in the hospital the girls were bottle fed with breastmilk, so I am now trying to transition them to the breast. I need them to do this for my sanity. It takes long enough to feed two babies. But then pumping on top of that is like having a third baby. I have one kid who can do it and another who refuses. Go figure.

I am trying to approach infant parenting with a sense of humor. There is nothing serious about any bodily function that can become projectile-- so I just laugh. I am washing so much laundry and trying to be lighthearted about the number of diapers I have changed already.

I know that my mom is surprised by the way that I have embraced parenting, and to be honest, I have surprised myself a little. I was always a little wary of babies and no one was afraid to say that I was better with older kids than the younger. And then to have two? Forget about it. But the natural part of motherhood has overtaken me. I don't know how I feel about vaccines; I have no real opinion on whether formula is bad for your baby; I don't know if I want to be a stay at home mom or go back to work-- but I do know that I feel a deep urge to protect my girls and to care for them at all costs. We are figuring it out. It feels right. My instinct to care for them manifested itself from deep inside me and it is a beautiful feeling.

This post is mostly to say that we are well. In just a short time Brandon and I doubled the size of our family and went from husband and wife to dad and mom. I didn't know what to expect, but what I got is two beautiful girls and a life that I am loving. I am sleeping (enough) and accepting help (most of the time) and enjoying my days filled with visitors. My former self is retired and I am discovering myself again from a new role.

wondering what the neighbors think

When we moved in I really hoped that we would be all nice and friendly with our neighbors. We didn't need to be BFFs or anything but I did envision at least a cordial relationship. I made the effort to introduce myself to the 5 or 6 neighbors closest to us, but after nearly a year here, the best I get is a wave or a short "hello" if we happen to be in speaking distance. The kids all seem to like me, but there isn't much of a relationship to be had with a bunch of 8 year old boys.

I was pregnant for a little more than 33 weeks. With twins. Needless to say, I looked pregnant. In the later weeks of my pregnancy, I definitely saw lots of our neighbors as we did our usual hello and wave. They would have had to notice I was huge. For the last two weeks I have been walking around my neighborhood again with no belly. I certainly don't look pregnant anymore. And it makes me wonder what they think. No one bothered to ask me about my pregnancy, and since all of a sudden I wasn't pregnant and I didn't have a baby home with me, don't they wonder at all? I am just saying. Maybe I am just one of those nosy neighbors who would have thought these things about someone else.

In other news, our Grace has been home now for 2 days. So far, so good. Ana is doing great on her feedings-- we just need her to gain weight daily and then she can come home too. Right now we are adapting our schedule for one baby. I have to say-- it isn't as hard as I thought it would be. The NICU has the babies on a specific schedule and Grace has stuck to it. I am hoping that it stays this easy...

On accepting help

Grace

Ana

I am fiercely independent and determined to do things myself. I generally prefer to do things myself rather than watch someone else do it half-assed or inferior to how I would do it. Rarely will I admit that I cannot do something-- I will try every avenue to accomplish something myself before asking for help. These characteristics apply to my personal and professional life.

For the first time in 28 years I find myself having to ask for help and relying on others to do things for me. It is uncomfortable. It is awkward. It is also extremely humbling and a reminder that I am human.

Apparently a cesarean section is a big deal. Since I have been taking only ibuprofen and haven't really had any pain, this is a little hard for me to believe. I received a heap of post-op instructions that I am trying to follow. Despite my desire to live life as normal, I have been relying on family and friends to drive me around and asking my husband to do things that normally I would do myself. It is amazing how losing something as simple as the ability to drive suddenly made me feel so trapped, so reliant on others. And so day after day this week I have called people in my life and asked them to do something for me. I am allowing others to drive me. I am accepting offers to help, to cook dinner, to visit me.

These small things are difficult enough for me to accept. But the added challenge of learning to care for two preemie babies has been a real opportunity for me to accept the help of others. While there is certainly some parts of motherhood that I think are natural, so much of caring for a preemie baby is completely unnatural to me. Additionally, I have TWO babies who are immensely different in their needs and their progress. I spend hours each day in the NICU with my babies. Brandon and I are able to change their diapers, take their temperatures and then feed them. Every feeding presents new problems and I think that in eight days I have only fed Grace once without having to ask a nurse for help. But every time I go back, I ask questions and learn from what each nurse has to say.

In only one week I have had to abandon my stance as the strong, independent Erin and admit that I need help and the result has been suprising. I feel more love and support because I have allowed people in my life to share their gifts with me. This week I learned that NICU nurses are a true gift to my girls and to Brandon and I. They are patient as they teach us how to care for Grace and Ana. I feel more and more confident every day because of what they share with us. In my personal life, accepting help has given me the opportunity to spend time with people I love as they drive me to and from the hospital. It gives me a chance to draw from their strength and love. I realized this morning that I was happy to have 20 minutes to spend with someone else as I let them share their generosity and love with me. I am immensely grateful to everyone who has reached out to help our family. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Finally, the last week has given me the chance to spend time each day with my mom. Whether for a short visit or a ride home, my mom has rearranged her whole life to help me. And only 8 days into their lives, I already know that when my girls need me, I will drop everything for them.