Hard

the past few weeks have been a little bit hard. not that i thought this whole parenting thing would be easy all of the time, but there are some things that i may not have thought of/considered/known.

my girls have been sick. nothing horrible or life threatening (thank God, i am not sure i could do that again). just normal stuff, but in a baby everything is exaggerated. and why are my newborns getting sick? probably because i hate to sit at home and mostly because i love to show them off. all of which means that they have been exposed to people and places. not always a good thing. i feel really bad now, knowing that i could have prevented some of this!! i have told you that annabel had an ear infection and they both were congested. and i have told you that annabel has a hernia (not my fault). but now claire has croup!! great! croup is scary...the cough, the weezing, the sad look on her face because she just doesnt feel good. even her skin color looked off for two days. now, i am not some crazy lady that just takes her kid to the doctor for every little thing, but i am also not going to sit at home if/when i think they can help me. so, after lots of research and talking to a few nurse friends, i took claire in this monday to see the doctor. they gave her a steroid in hopes of relaxing her airway. i also took her in because she had projectile vomited all over me. not just a little spit up, not just like, "hey mom, this doesnt taste good so i am going to spit it out." nope, all over the place kinda thing. and of course i had just taken a shower and blow dried my hair!! lol. but what got me a little worried was that it was plenty of time after her feeding to not do that, plus she was not upset and had not been coughing. they said that yes, there was a stomach thing going around so i needed to watch her. but thankfully it didnt happen again...until tonight.

claire seems to be getting better and not having as many issues with croup, but for whatever reason tonight all of her feeding came up again. this time i think it was a gas bubble's fault, not any type of sickness. peter is out for a guys night at the baseball stadium, so of course, things have not been nearly as easy as when he is here! annabel was screaming and claire was trying to eat. i sat her down on her boppy while i picked up annabel. while holding annabel and feeding claire propped up on the hoppy, 3 oz suddenly started hitting my lap, the couch, the boppy and all over little claire. screaming annabel came out unscathed. lol. funny thing is, as soon as it was all out, claire just sat there like nothing was going on! i kinda panicked. i had just texted my friend a few minutes before and told her that she should have come over while our hubbies were out (she has 3 boys and loves to hold my girls, but tonight one of her boys needed to be chauffeured around town). ironic...i think i must have jinxed myself by texting her. anyway, i called my sweet neighbor next door and she came right over!! christi and tim are so sweet and have always been very generous in helping us with anything and everything. as soon as she walked in, i handed annabel off to be soothed/rocked and i started running a bath for claire. after just 10 min things were good...both girls were falling asleep, so (like the books say), we put them in their beds to soothe themselves to sleep. well, it has been almost an hour and annabel is still screaming. claire is awake, but just hanging out. ugh!!! at this rate, annabel will be screaming in time to start her next feeding. oh wait...i just gave her the pacifier and she hasnt peeped for the last 2 min.

this cry it out thing is kinda hard! i am waiting 10 min to give the pacifier to her. she will hold it for about 30 seconds before loosing it again. she gets several good screams/cries in, will catch her breath and relax for about 15 then start in again. oh...she is at it again! i am trying to follow the tips from the book "healthy sleep habits, happy twins". its nice because there are different methods/options to helping the babies and the parents, but none of them seem to be easy! and my girls are so different so they dont need the same thing. all of this bed time drama has really been wearing on me the last few nights. i have been so busy during the day that by "bed time" (usually 9ish pm) i am ready for bed too. the crying grates on the few nerves i have left. peter has been awesome and super helpful by taking care of the soothing at night, but i still hear it. and tonight he is not here. so, instead of making bottles, or starting puke laundry, or draining a bath, or taking care of the messy table, i am sitting in my dark room typing and getting up every 10 min to try to not talk to my screaming kid while giving her what she doesn't want. yep...a little overwhelming!! the books "say" this could take 4 nights, but in most cases with twins, more like a week. and i am not even sure i should even worry about it...i mean in just two weeks we are going to be in michigan and then we will have annabel's surgery...sleep schedules will be totally messed up. but i am praying i will be wrong. i am praying that by struggling through the sicknesses and struggling through the screaming fits, that my girls will have it under control!! :)

sorry this is not the best post ever. tomorrow i will post about their last month (crazy to think they are already 2 months old tomorrow) and some cute pics! for now i am done...its been a hard few days, but i am still so thankful for what i have and who i have!!

blessings, ALo