9 Months (and some pictures)

Happy 9 months to H & G today!!  Kind of hard to believe...

Christmas was pretty good.  They didn't enjoy unwrapping their gifts at all, which was so very disappointing, but they did like everything once it was away from the tree and in their room.  I think they were just overwhelmed by the whole experience.  They got tons of new toys, including one of these things which is AWESOME!!!!  Thanks to J's parents for that one.  H & G love it!

***

As an extra special Xmas treat, the roomie's baby mama brought his daughter over for a little while!  Things are going slightly better on that front, but definitely still not ideal.  It was the first time H & G got to meet baby E... She and G really hit it off (well, as much as 9 month olds can!).  Oh and she happened to be wearing the same red and white argyle tights as H!  And as G's tie!!  Hoping for lots more playdates for the three of them.

Happy [almost] 2012 to everyone!  2011 was a pretty great year.

***By the way... The weird mushrooms and trees on the wall came with the house.  We did not paint them!  There is also a sun on the ceiling and (I shit you not) a "portrait" of what I can only assume is meant to be God around one of the windows (we covered that one up with bookcases).  We plan to paint over all the weird crap eventually, but since it's in the library/spare bedroom, we usually just close the door and ignore it.

-S

Crawling!

I was Sky.ping with my dad and step-mom the other day while J was at work...  I had the laptop on the kitchen floor so they could see the babies, and guess who decided he reeeeeeeeeally wanted to play with the laptop!  I don't think my dad fully grasped the fact that he was seeing his grandson crawl for the first time ever, but that's okay.  At least I had my phone handy and got it on video!  J was a little sad she wasn't here to see it, but she was still so excited for little Gman and showed the video to everyone at work.

H hasn't learned to crawl-crawl yet, but she still manages to slither faster than G can crawl.  Silly girl.

Now that they're mobile, they are everywhere.  They love the dogs and follow them all over the house.  This is their favorite place to hang out whenever the dogs are outside:

-S

Catching Up

I feel like it's been decades since I've posted something of substance.  The card (below) doesn't really count, since I only did it for the Shu.tterfly credit!

Babies are great.  They are approaching eight months old and are becoming so much more interactive!  H is definitely the happy one now, which is crazy, since I thought she would be the death of me just a few short months ago.  G is either super happy or super sad/angry.  No in between.  He's become very clingy, while H has become pretty independent.  I'm sure there will be more personality-swaps to come, though!

H has mastered the army crawl and can pretty much get herself wherever she wants to go.  Up until recently, she would just roll from point A to point B, but once she discovered that she could pull herself and scoot forward on her tummy, she decided she liked that better.  G, on the other hand, is stuck at the on-his-hands-and-knees-and-rocking-back-and-forth step of the learning to crawl process.  He rocks and rocks and rocks and then dramatically flops down and tries to "swim".  It's almost like he thinks that the rocking will wind him up and that when he flops down, he'll go shooting forward.  He gets so frustrated, but I'm not sure how to help him.  He'll get it eventually.  I hope.

We ordered them some super cute Halloween costumes/hats from E.tsy.  We felt we could justify spending $50 on a cow costume by telling ourselves that H will be able to wear the hat for a couple years!  We'll see about that, but at least she looked adorable.  G was a giraffe.  I couldn't find a giraffe print outfit for him that didn't have pink bows on it, so we settled for dressing him in a yellow shirt and brown pants.  We brought them in for a Halloween photo shoot, but we're still waiting to see the proofs.  Of course, we diiiiiiiiiiid take some pictures on our own.

H's cow costume didn't get here in time for pumpkin picking, so she was a monkey for that.  G was a little overwhelmed by all the activity at the pumpkin patch, so he looked rather forlorn in all the pictures.  Poor guy. :)

I decided the babies needed some sort of play area in the living room, where the dogs couldn't eat their toys.  They have a huge bedroom, but I hate sitting in their room with them for hours on end.  Too isolated.  So I bought some of those interlocking foam square things and a play yard and made them the BEST THING EVER.  Seriously.  They will spend about an hour at a time in there, playing with all their toys and "talking" to each other.  We have to put blankets over the sides so they don't see us, because as soon as they see us, they realize they're not being held ("PICK ME UP IMMEDIATELY OR THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!")... But other than that, it's awesome.  Gives us time to do silly things like eating breakfast and doing laundry!  Plus, it's fun to just sit in there and play with them without feeling like you're all alone in the corner of the house.

Ta da!

It's about twice as big as it looks... Plenty of room to "crawl" around.  They just like to hang out in the corner. 

I should probably try to sleep.  J is working an overnight shift tonight.  I'm having flashbacks of when this was EVERY night!  Ahhhhh!  Stupid retail.

-S

Stationery card

Merry Little Jingle Christmas Card

Customize your Christmas cards this holiday at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

We miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight get to move back home this Friday!!!!!!  Trying not to get my hopes up, since we've heard this before, but OH MY GOD, I want to go home!

J bought the babies a bouncy activity center thingy a couple weeks ago.  They love it!  Probably the best $60ish we've spent (it was on clearance).

Check out the concentration:

Delicious sleeve:

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wheeeeeeee Part Deux:

Oh oh!!  I finally got a video of H's First Bite Face.  EVERY "first bite" goes like this, regardless of how much she likes the food.  She even does this with bananas, and bananas are her favorite.

... and that's about it.

Avacado

Pardon G with his pink bib and lavender Bu.mbo. :)

Stupid Mouse

A couple weeks ago, we noticed that something had gotten into our chocolate and peanut butter chips in the pantry.  We figured it was a mouse, so we set some traps and went on about our lives.  Maybe we should have tried harder to catch it??  About a week and a half ago, we woke up to water spraying everywhere and a flooded kitchen.  I'm talking like 2 inches of water.  And it's a big kitchen.  It seems that our little mouse friend chewed through the hose that runs from the sink to the dishwasher.  The most frustrating part?  We had been telling our landlord for a month that the dishwasher leaked.  She sent over her idiot "handyman" a couple times and he couldn't figure out what was going on

Fast forward to this week.  Two insurance claims later (homeowner's and renter's), we are living in a two bedroom suite in a hotel.  Sounds okay, right?  Well, with three adults, two babies and three dogs, it fucking sucks.  I think the hardest part is the dogs.  Without the ability to just open the sliding door to a fenced backyard, it's a huge pain in the ass to leash them all up and take them out to do their business while also trying to deal with two very needy babies.  I feel so bad that they can't run around in a yard for hours and get all their energy out!  J and the roomie have been trying to make sure they get at least one decent walk every day, but they are big, rambunctious dogs.  It's not enough.  

The babies are sleeping in PNPs in our room, which means we've been sleeping like shiiiiiiiiiiiit.  Both of them (and me) have colds and so there's a lot of sneezing and coughing throughout the night.  H ended up with an ear infection last week, but she's almost finished with the antibiotics and seems to be feeling much better.  I was worried that G had one, too, since he was coughing and grabbing at one of his ears, but the pediatrician checked him out and said it's just a cold.  I have a feeling it's from all the equipment that was being used to dry out the house - giant dehumidifiers and fans.  We were hoping to be able to stay in the house to avoid disrupting the babies' and dogs' routines too much, but once they determined that they were going to have to replace the floors in half the house and all the cabinetry in the kitchen, we gave up on that idea.

So... We're pretty much living here indefinitely in a space that is less than 1/3 the size of our house, while continuing to pay "rent" for a place we're not even living (don't get me started on that...).  The contractor assured us that it will only take "two weeks" (anyone seen The Mon.ey Pit??), but we've been in this hotel since Wednesday night and they have yet to start any work on the house.  Awesome.

In other news, G refuses to sleep on his back anymore - flips over the second we put him down - so we've had to stop swaddling him at night.  I was worried that it would be a problem, but he's actually been doing really well.  I think it will be a lot more difficult to wean H from being swaddled, but she's okay for now.

H the day the doctor said she had an ear infection.  She didn't seem to care.

Hanging out in G's crib while we got ready for work.  Prior to the hotel.

Just a few of the fans and dehumidifiers that took over the house.

Yummy

s just informed me that a year ago tomorrow was when we did our FET!! babies had their 4 mo. check up today. h is 13lbs even and g-man is up to 14lbs 10oz! the doc seemed very impressed that they are sleeping through the night and wanted to know what we tweaked in their routines to get them to that point. he seems to think we're doing a good job with them which is nice to hear since i'm always wondering if i'm a good mom. he also gave us the go ahead to start them on food!

so, we tried them on whole grain cereal mixed with formula tonight. h didn't quite get it, but g-man was having a good time. i think he got about half of it in his mouth... we're going to try the cereal a couple of more times and then move on to sweet potato, maybe h will like something less liquidy.

anyway, here's g enjoying his first taste of non-formula food:

h has started trying out her voice and has taken to lecturing us on a regular basis. here's a video of her. please take note of how she notices her hand halfway through and pauses for a very serious taste.

-j

Caved to the pressure!

My boss (yes, my boss) convinced me to listen to Twil.ight on audiobook at work, so I am now on the third book.  Up until now, I had flat out refused to have anything to do with that whole "thing" no matter how many people tried to tell me how fantastic it is.  I will admit, the books aren't as terrible as I thought they would be, but they are still pretty damn ridiculous.  It's kind of like watching a bad scifi movie - it's so bad, it's good.  Or at least somewhat entertaining.

In non-Twili.ght news, the babies have swapped personalities.  H is now the happier of the two and G is really, really cranky all the time!  He still has his smiley moments, but he definitely cries/shrieks more than he used to.  I think I actually preferred it when H was the grumpy one, because she's not nearly as loud as her brother!

This is G's "sad face".  Is it weird that I think he's adorable when he cries?  I feel like that makes me a terrible person!  He turns bright red and just looks so very sad.

This seems to be everyone's favorite picture of H.  We pretend she's waiting for J to come home. ;)

They can both roll over from their tummies and H has shown some interest in sitting up.  She loves her B.umbo seat, but G isn't really a fan.  We tried facing them toward each other when they were in their seats, but they still don't seem to notice each other.  Any idea when they will happen??  Sometimes if one is being loud, the other will sort of look over, but that's about it.  I'm just looking forward to when they can play together.

For the record, we don't make a habit of putting their seats on the coffee table.  We were right there to supervise/hold onto them.

It's pretty gross and rainy outside today.  In Portland??  No way!  We were planning on taking the babies and dogs on a walk to the pet store today, but oh well.  Maybe tomorrow.

Bullets

Ahhhh I never have time to post anything now that I'm back at work.  Here's a brief bullet-pointed rundown on what's happened:

• We moved into the new place and are now living with our BFF (the one with the baby mama drama)
• The babies' room is AWESOME.  I need to take some pictures so I can show everyone.  It's huge, so they have a sleep area and a play area, even though they're not quite old enough to have any use for it.
• There's a nice deck and a huge back yard, so we've been enjoying sitting outside and grilling while the dogs get to run around the yard.
• We are now only 8 minutes from the city (we timed it today) and our commutes have been cut waaaaaaaaaaaaay down.
• The babies have been going to day care on Mondays and Fridays and they've been doing really well.
• H's screaming fits have gotten so much better.  She still has her moments, but there are no more three hour tantrums.
• G totally sucks at napping, but they are both starting to sleep for longer stretches at night!  They will normally go from around 7 or 7:30pm to anywhere between 1:30am (on a bad night) and 4:30am (on a good night).  G will always eat and go right back to sleep, but H sometimes decides that she wants to cry for a while... But, I can't really complain, because it's a huge improvement over when they were waking up every 2-3 hours.
• It's weird being back at work.  It's like I never left, because all of the same drama and bullshit is still there and I immediately went back to wanting to throw certain people off a cliff.  I have such a hard time watching people slack off and continue to get rewarded while I work my ass off and get nowhere.  The politics at my office are frustrating and ridiculous.  I applied for a new position (same company; different department) last week, so maybe that will work out... I do like my company; it's my team that I can't stand.
• We went to see the Pride parade today!  The babies were surprisingly well behaved and we had a really good time.  Everyone in the parade kept running over to see them or take pictures of them... It was pretty funny.  I think it was because H's tutu was rather eye-catching. ;)

I'm sure there's lots I'm forgetting, but here are some pictures:

Blah

Tonight was supposed to be J's last night before she went back to working days, but nooooooooooope.  She got to work and found out she's in for another two nights.  I know it doesn't seem like much, but I almost burst into tears when she told me.  At least she's on vacation next week.  That's something to look forward to.  We were planning on bringing the babies to the day care lady tomorrow so we could get some packing and cleaning done, but I guess that "we" is now "I".  I thought about canceling, but I may as well take advantage of being baby-free for a few hours and get some shit done.

That's really all I have, but let's end this whiny post on a high note.  Here are some cute pictures:

And baby said...

I couldn't think of a title and I have "Dance Magic" in my head.

We found a house!!!  It's not quite where we wanted to be, but it's close and the price is awesome.  Big bedrooms, huge yard, nice deck... We get the keys on Friday!  We're going to wait until next weekend to move, though, since J will be on vacation for a week after that.  I'm thinking about buying some paint and painting our bedroom a fun color since we're not moving in right away.  We're going to have our day care lady watch them for a couple afternoons while we're in the process of moving to a) let us move without worrying about the babies and b) give the babies the opportunity to get used to her and being at her house.  We brought the babies over to meet her the other day and she did really well with them.  Even got H to stop crying for a little while!

I think the new place might actually help the little monsters sleep better.  Right now, there is a street light right outside their bedroom window, so it's hard to keep it dark.  Their new room won't have that problem and it's in the back of the house away from all the "traffic" (people, dogs, other sounds).  I'm also excited because their room is huuuuuge and will allow us to give them a sleep area and a play area.  It'll be nice to have a place where they can play with toys without us having to worry about the dogs eating everything.

I had my two month follow up with my MFM today.  The timing was good, because I started bleeding [extremely] heavily the day before last and I wasn't sure if it's my period or if something's wrong.  She said it's a combination of my period and my uterus clamping down on the placenta sites.  She gave me something to take for 24 hours to get all the extra blood out and then my periods should get back to normal.  I guess it will make me super crampy, but they gave me painkillers to help that. 

G has been extra fussy lately.  He will just cry and cry and cry... and oh my god, he is LOUD.  We decided to switch him to soy formula, too.  Hopefully that will help the little guy.  And maybe someday, H will stop screaming all the time?  Please?

I have some really cute pictures I took yesterday of the two of them in the sling, but I can't reach my camera to upload them!  I've got H sleeping in the sling and G sleeping on my lap.  I HAVE TO PEE!!  Gonna try putting them in their pack and play... Wish me luck.  I'll post the pics later!

Tootle McFartypants

The amount of noise coming from my little son's butt right now is downright impressive.  Just saying.

Smiles and houses and dogs (Oh my!)

Got some pictures of little G-Man smiling today!  Pretty shocking, actually, since they were both suuuuuuuuuuuper fussy all day long.

We decided against the house with the weirdo landlord for a few reasons:

1) The street doesn't have a sidewalk and with babies and dogs, that's kind of a deal breaker.  It's a pretty busy street.

2) If something were to go wrong with the house, chances are she'd have no idea how to handle it and we'd end up getting screwed.

3) We're going to be moving with our BFF (to help him save some money for an upcoming custody battle against his batshitcrazy ex) and his work truck won't fit in the driveway.

We're going to look at some other potential houses over the next few days and I'm sure something will work out eventually.  One of them is in the right area, but it's smaller than we'd like.  The other is the right size (and cheaper), but is not where we want to be.  Maybe the perfect house will magically appear on CL tomorrow?  I just wish it wasn't (weren't?) so hard to find a place that doesn't have a problem with the dogs.  We have dobermans and everyone seems to think they are evil and mean.  They are so far from that it's not even funny.  They throw themselves into your lap on the couch and just cuddle.  Sigh.

Here's J and the BFF with the "vicious" beasts:

(Yes, that brown thing under her head is a dog)

Don't you totally fear for your life right now?

Sleeping/House Hunting

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally got H to bed... Every time I put her down, she would start crying within two minutes and she was starting to wake up her brother.  I brought her into my bedroom for a little while and she eventually relaxed and stopped squeaking/wiggling.  Fingers crossed that they will sleep for at least a couple hours now!  I think it's time to separate the two of them at night, but we just don't have the space.  We're working on that, but for now, I'm not sure what to do.  The other night, one of our friends wanted to babysit H for the night (fine by me!), so they got a chance to sleep without each other.  G did a five hour stretch without his sister here and my friend said H did a four hour stretch.  Wow!  However, last night was back to the usual every 2-3 hours "routine".  And then H decided to only eat half of every bottle, so she was waking up every hour to eat more.

As I mentioned, we need to find a bigger place.  Right now, we're in a two bedroom townhouse.  That was fine when it was just the two of us, but holy shit, babies take up so much space.  Plus, we're sick of being so far away from everything.  We're trying to find something in SW Pdx, so we're closer to the city and our friends (and not too far from work), but it's proving to be quite the challenge!  Seems like every ad I respond to on CL is either a scam or the place is already taken.  I can't tell you how many emails I've received that go something like... "We will be pleased to rent our wonderful home to you.  I have relocated to Nigeria to spread the good word of my Lord Jesus Christ (no joke!) and I am looking for clean and honest tenants to keep our home beautiful."  Then something about emailing the application and them mailing the keys.  Yeah, I'll get right on that.  I've found pretty much every place I've lived over the last 10 years on CL and I have never encountered this problem before.  I hate people.

We actually found one place that seems pretty great, but the lady has clearly never rented out a house before and has no idea what she's doing.  She responded to MY housing wanted ad, so I thought we were on the same page about timing (within the next 1-2 months), and then she suddenly asked if September would work so she can move at the same time her son leaves for college a couple hours away.  THEN she asked if it's okay if we "overlapped" a couple of weeks while she found another place.  As in, all live there together.  Um, are you kidding me?  It seems like she's finally started to figure out how this rental thing works, though, so we'll see what happens.  Not holding my breath or anything, but it's in a great area and is the perfect size/price.

In other news...

H was smiling up a storm today and I finally got a couple pictures.  However, G was in the middle of a crying fit, so all I got of him were crying shots.  Silly boy.  He has been nearly as fussy as H lately; not sure what's going on.  I remember a couple people telling me that the second month is the hardest, so I'm hoping this will pass!

Smiley:

And Mr. Grumpypants:

Trying to survive

We took H back to the pediatrician on Friday, because the screaming has gotten out of control.  She had been on Za.ntac for a month and it wasn't doing anything.  Every time I called, I ended up talking to this super condescending nurse who just said to increase the dosage.  I'm sorry, but after doing that three times, clearly the medicine wasn't helping.  The doctor agreed that it wasn't working, so H is now on Pri.losec and we switched her formula to soy.  She said it might take a week or two for the meds to take effect, so now we're just waiting.  Hopefully it helps... I don't know how I'm going to survive the next three weeks of J's overnight schedule otherwise.  So tired.

On a happier note, both babies have started smiling!  It's so adorable.  I haven't managed to get a picture yet, but I'm trying!

My little goat

Apparently I have given birth to a farm animal?  I finally managed to record G's little goat noises!  I think it's hilarious... except when I'm trying to sleep.

 

We're on day 2 of increased reflux meds for H and I haven't noticed a difference.  She still has her screaming fits and seems miserable half the time she's eating, but I'll give it a couple more days before I call the pediatrician again to see if there's another option.  A lot of people have been saying that Pr.evacid is much more effective than Z.antac, but the pediatrician wanted to try increasing the dosage before trying something else.  Makes sense, I suppose.  I just want her to feel better.

So glad it's almost the weekend.  I like having J home to help me... and I miss her.  It will be so nice when she has back to her regular schedule. Sigh.

It's already been a month??

The babies are a month old!  Crazy!  Little G Man is doing really well.  He is so calm for the most part and only cries when something is actually wrong.  We had a photoshoot the weekend before last and he was happy as a clam when he was all naked and curled up on the pillow with a heater blowing on him.  It was adorable!  H on the other hand was a little terror, but they eventually got her to sleep and took some cute pictures of the babies together.  I can't wait to see the proofs!!!  Side note: Is "proogs" a word?!  I accidentally typed that instead of "proofs" and spell check didn't underline it.  Weird.

We started H on Za.ntac for reflux, but I'm not sure if it's doing much yet.  It's only been a week, so I'm going to give it a few more days and then see if maybe she needs a bigger dose or something.  I've been doing everything I can think of to help her - feeding her in her bouncy seat and then keeping her there for a little while afterward so she's more upright, inclining the crib mattress, giving her "sensitive" formula, gas drops, etc. - but nothing seems to work when she's in the middle of a 2+ hour screaming jag.  I make sure she has a clean diaper, swaddle her, give her a pacifier... nothing works.  Maybe it will just take time for her to grow out of whatever is going on.  I hate feeling so helpless, though!  Poor girl.

I am really starting to remember why I like living on the opposite coast from my family.  It's not that I don't like seeing them (well, most of them), I just hate feeling like I have to "entertain" people for weeks at a time.  I like having my space.  And it would be nice to be able to take a quick nap during the day if the babies decide to give me that opportunity.  Ah well... They leave tomorrow and then I think we're free of visitors for at least a month.  YAY!

This is completely random, but it made me a laugh, so I must share:  My BFF is engaged in a constant war with the blackberry bushes in his back yard.  I guess he went to a home improvement store today to get a new weapon for battle and the sales girl recommended a machete.  He then asked "Is that something you carry here or do I need to go to the serial killer store?"  Okay, maybe I'm just suffering from exhaustion, but that was funny.

Anyway, here's a picture of the little demons in their semi-matching onesies that J is in love with: