Chloe and William: One Month

This past month has gone by in a blur! It feels like they've been around forever, but it also seems like just yesterday we were at the hospital. I still catch myself thinking, "WTF. We have two babies. We have three children." I'm guessing that won't go away for awhile.

My recovery this time has been a bajillion times better than recovery the first time around. I am able to move around much better, and I'm overall in much less pain. I'm very thankful for this because I feel like I'm constantly washing bottles and clothes or running around the house!

Like I did with Dominic, each month I'll share pics and the latest on Chloe and William. Someday I'll get around to putting this all in a Shutterfly book for each of them, but if I fail at that, at least they'll have an electronic baby book!


Weight and height:  Will is about 20 inches long and according to our sophisticated weighing system (weigh self holding him then weigh self without him; difference should be his weight), he weighs about nine pounds. I call bs on that. There's no way he gained three pounds in two weeks!

Chloe is also about inches long and weighs 9 pounds. Turns out we should have done a weight check at the doc to get more accurate readings!

Sleeping patterns:  During the day they sleep anywhere from an hour to two hours at a time after every feeding, but sometimes they decide that they want to stay awake and party and just take a quick cat nap before they eat again. At night they typically sleep at least two hours. A few times they slept for three and a half hours straight! That was glorious! The vast majority of the time they sleep in Rock n Plays next to our bed. Sometimes during the day they nap in the Boppy lounger pillow next to me on the bed and sometimes they nap in one of the cribs together. Chloe won't fall asleep in the crib without Will next to her, but once she's asleep she's okay in there by herself. Will sleeps okay in the crib but he spits up a lot in there. Soon we'll make the transition to cribs full time in their room next to Dominic's...not looking forward to their crying disrupting Dominic's sleep.

They always sneak their hands out

Poser

Baby yawns are the cutest

Eating habits:  They eat about the same amount, which amazes me because Will is so much smaller than Chloe. She's going to be very jealous of his metabolism some day. Chloe must be fed immediately or she freaks out.

How dare you make me wait

William is a "happy spitter" like Dominic, and he's gone from just letting it dribble out to projecting it all over. This means our days of using blankets as blankets are over and I'll now be using blankets as burp cloths/protection again. He makes a certain face right before he's going to spew all over so at least we get a little bit of a warning if we're paying attention.

His pre-spew face

On a positive note, they both eat way faster than Dominic ever did! If we feed them one after another instead of at the same time it takes about the same amount of time that it took to feed Dominic the same amount once. I'm still pumping and typically getting enough each time to feed them both.

New discoveries they've made:  They are focusing on our faces, and tracking us as we move around. They love looking at the sun coming through the wood blinds when they are in their bedroom or the living room.

Still one of my favorite pics of them - Chloe was snoring and Will was like, "What is that noise?!"

Accomplishments:  I'm impressed at how quickly they both are holding their heads up! I feel like they are in the same place as Dom was at this age, which is awesome given their early arrivals. 

Places they went:  We've been out of the house a whopping three times - twice to the doc and once to Brian's parents' new house. It's so cold out! Monday will be interesting because I need to go to the allergist and I can't decide if I want to make the trek with the two of them or just wait until Brian and Dominic get home.

Special friends they've made: We've had lots of visitors over the last month, including friends, family, and coworkers. It seems like they both are always sleeping when guests come so they have just been adored from afar. Chloe loves to be held so she has especially enjoyed the guests.

Dominic seems to really love them. He will often look at them and say, "aww, baby" while rubbing their heads or arms. He also likes to say "aww, cute!" when they sleepy smile or when he sees some of Chloe's clothes (I wonder where he learned that from...). Just because of the way I arrange Chloe and Will when feeding, Dom ends up closest to Chloe and she just stares at him. I think she loves her big brother already! Today after the one-month photo shoot, Chloe, Dominic, and I were on our bed and he was holding her hand and told her he loves her. So adorable!

The cats are doing better this time around, but they are super annoying! Coco is rarely more than a foot away from Brian or me, unless we have guests. She sleeps in our bed between us and doesn't even get up for the night feedings, plus she has even gotten close enough to smell them and rub her tail on them. She doesn't even do that with Dominic now! Marbles is rarely around us. Instead she likes to eat the little white membranes from my pump parts or rip open any plastic bags/boxes on the counters. Apparently she prefers negative attention. When the babies cry a lot, both cats seem pretty chill about it. With Dominic, Coco would run out of the room and hide and Marbles would dry heave in the hall.

Noises and babbles: They both are starting to coo. Will makes happy noises sometimes when he eats. Chloe always makes horse noises (snorts and grunts), which make me laugh. Both have sleepy giggled a few times when they are falling asleep. I can't wait until they giggle for real!

Sleepy smiles and giggles

Talking about how much she loves when I shop at J.Crew for her

Firsts:
Smiles
I love their sleepy smiles, especially Will's. His smile just lights up his entire face! And I swear that I made Chloe smile yesterday when we were playing. Brian witnessed it too, so yay, she's smiling for real! Will also makes the best faces, and I think Chloe suffers from bitch face. She always looks so serious or mad, poor girl.

At one month she has perfected her mean face eyebrows and she sort of looks like Jack Nicholson in this pic

Will's funny faces

Bath
They don't seem to mind baths too much right now. Neither of them really cried when they had their first baths, despite their hatred of being naked when changing.

Colds
Daycare germs, blah. All five of us have runny/stuffed up noses. I feel awful for Chloe and William because I'm struggling to drink from a straw - I can't imagine how hard it is to suck on a bottle. Hoping they get some antibodies from the breastmilk to make this cold shorter!

Holiday
We celebrated their first Valentine's Day with cute outfits, and that's about it. We had a busy day preparing for their baptism the next day. I sadly didn't even break out all the holiday decorations. Maybe I'll do better when Easter comes! Sorry Chloe and William!

Other adventures this month:
Pictures with Bess
Twice the crazy this time! And we thought photographing Dom as a newborn was hard! Nevertheless, Bess got some amazing shots. Here are a few of my faves:

Their baptism
Chloe and William were baptized on February 15th at St. Francis. Chloe slept through the ENTIRE baptism, including the part where the holy water was poured over her head. It was really cool because they were baptized together, side by side, with Rev. O'Brien (the same one who baptized Dom) pouring water over their heads at the same time. I wish I could have taken a picture from the angle Brian and I got to see it happen. Thanks Jamie and James for being their godparents, Bess for taking photos, Lauren for reading during the ceremony, and Dad for videotaping!

All three of us have worn that baptismal gown! Chloe is also wearing my old sweater.

The William and Chloe wines Lauren and Bess got us. We decided to save them for their first birthday to celebrate our survival.

We celebrated after at our house with some cake from HyVee. Let me tell you - if you want a pretty cake, don't go to HyVee! I asked for all white cakes with no decorations other than a silver cross centered on the big one. Seriously, in what world do these cakes look good?!

At least I was too tired to care much about it. And they still tasted great so oh well. Lesson learned.

Hopefully someday Chloe will have a daughter who can wear this gown. It's over 55 years old!

The days alone with them are long and sometimes very frustrating and exhausting, but I love these little boogers so much! I didn't think it was possible to love each of them as much as I love Dominic, but somehow there is enough room in my heart for all of that love. And I know it's cliche but I love Brian even more seeing him with all three of our babies. One month in, we're tired but feeling blessed as a family of five!

Survival of the Sleep Deprived

We've had a few people ask how we're doing, so I figured that I'd answer you all in one fell swoop. The answer is tired. Very tired. And still in awe that we have TWO babies to care for. 

Brian and I keep saying that this would be a piece of cake if there was only one of them. Thankfully we have the baby care rules down, it's just having to repeat them over and over. 

I've had three days completely by myself so far, and just like other new moms I live on a three hour cycle, but my cycle is on crack. About 30 minutes before the next feeding I arrange two Boppy pillows on our bed and prepare all I need for pumping, feeding, and changing. Then I set them on their respective pillows, get hooked up to the pump, and start feeding. It's sort of stressful doing it all at once but it only takes about 30 minutes to feed instead of over an hour. That way after I clean everything I have about two hours for sleeping or whatever else (unless one of them is fussy, which they seem to trade off times during the day and then I get no nap and nothing done). 

Now that Brian is back to work, night feedings start whenever they wake up (usually every three to four and a half hours). I get my pump set up, then Brian hands me one while he feeds the other. If one of them doesn't go right back to sleep, I stay up with him or her. For the most part, it's much easier than I imagined it to be. Knock on wood. 

That being said, this last week was rough. Everyone but Brian has runny noses. I had what I think was food poisoning (pumping and puking at the same time is my new talent), a sinus infection, clogged milk ducts, and thrush or some other infection. I've had one night where I got maybe an hour and a half of sleep, but thank God my mom was here the next day to help out so I could take a nap. 

I've cried a lot from the weight of it all. Damn Mom Guilt is heavy when there are three kids. If I love on one of the babies, I feel guilty I'm not loving on the other. Dom has had more accidents and been an overall pain any time he is required to do something, which I of course attribute to being a bad mom (but duh, it's normal after one sibling joins the world and it's clearly a bid for attention right now). And overall I hope I'm doing everything right so that these guys love me as much as Jennifer, Adam, and I love Mom. I have big shoes to fill, Mom! 

Anyway, we've made it through three weeks. My goal is to keep pumping through at least six weeks before I reevaluate how it's going. My daily goal is to just survive the day. If I get something extra done, then it's a bonus! 

Thank you all for the support! The meals and freezer meals have been so helpful - not having to cook makes it much easier. I haven't had a chance to finish thank you cards, but thank you to those who have sent gifts and cards! We're very lucky to have you all in our corner!