Chaos is an understatement

I don't even remember when my last post was, and I just forgot to look... but I think it was about two weeks ago.  Where has the time gone?  Oh yeah...to my new baby boys and my ever challenging toddler.  Things are generally still going ok around our house, but we've hit some road blocks in the last couple of weeks.

John cuddling a sleeping Will, before our Father's Day weekend meltdown.

First of all, just as our pediatrician warned, the boys would start making themselves heard around 3 weeks old.  We are now at just about 4 and we've started to get to know their quirks.  They wake and sleep at different times during the day.  This can be a good thing in the sense that we are not juggling two babies crying at the same time (most of the time), but it's bad in the sense that we are pretty much always on call to quiet down one of the two guys.  The little guy, Will, is now having major intestinal issues, as many newborns do, and crying, crying, crying.  The only thing that will console him is latching onto me in order to fall asleep.  He started going days between poops, which frightened us at first because they are 99% breastfed babies and in my experience, breastfed babies poop about 8 times a day.  The nurses say he's fine, he can go two weeks without pooping and be fine (two weeks! what?!) but its clear he has some struggles with getting things moving.  Intestinal stuff all improves with age in babies, and our pediatrician, like us, does not believe changing a mother's diet has any real effect on the baby.  So we've taken a different approach and started giving him probiotics, which immediately caused him to take 3 large poops in the night.

The boys are good eaters.  They keep this up, we'll be broke.

I hung some chalkboard canvases in the boys room to keep track of their growth and other great things they do along the road.  Here are the latest stats as of last Friday.  Because of the pooping scandal with Will, we were concerned he wasn't gaining enough weight.  His brother is like a bowling ball, and Will is still this wirey little Tootsie Roll.  We know they are two completely separate people and are going to grow at completely separate rates, but it is really hard not to compare them, even to their sister when she was their age.  So we took the boys in for a weight check - turns out the little guy is gaining at a faster rate than his brother, he's just built differently. 

That being said, the breastfeeding is going a bit better.  The main thing is that the boys are gaining weight above and beyond what is expected of them at this time.  The pain is tolerable now, as long as I pump from time to time.  And thanks to my gigantic twin specific breastfeeding pillow, I am managing to feed them tandem from time to time.  A book I am reading says nature gave us two boobs in order to allow feeding two babies.  Well, I am a firm believer that nature has a sick sense of humor sometimes.  The tandem thing is a circus side show, both babies tugging on me at once, laying on this huge pillow, while I just sit there hands free, nothing to do but stare down at myself and the odd spectacle that I am.

My little architect in the making.

This coming weekend we will celebrate Lillian's second birthday.  If this past weekend is any indication of what's to come, I'd say we've definitely hit the terrible two's.  John had about the crappiest Father's Day ever.  Not only did I not manage to get him something (little hard to load the van and go shopping by myself, and this not having an income thing is very weird when it comes to giving gifts to the only person in the family making any money).  But also the poor little toddler's world is upside down right now, and she's seeking attention in negative ways because we are obviously not able to provide her with enough attention in positive ways right now.  One or both of us is constantly holding a baby, feeding a baby, diapering a baby.  We have to keep trying things to figure out what works for her.  Instead of dwelling on what negatives her age and situation are providing, I'll praise her a little for her smarts.  I think she is an extremely smart and creative little girl.  She always wants to color - a girl after my own heart - not to mention that we think she's a lefty like her mommy.  She also loves her Mega Blocks and likes to build houses and castles for all her soft, fuzzy friends.  We have one architect in the family that started his toddler years with a slight obsession with Legos.  Could this be another one in the making?  I love the little thing more than words can express and it breaks my heart just a little that she is struggling right now.  She displays nothing but affection for her baby brothers, so I know someday she will turn a corner and learn to love the new place she has in this incredible little family.

Well, it officially took me two days to write this post.  So I can only imagine when my next post might be, especially if the little guy continues to keep me busy with his crying.  I have so many things I want to post about, I hope to get a few things in before I'm home with 3 babies at once and won't have time to even brush my teeth.