Milestones

Big sister and the little brothers she is so very proud of.

One of these days I will write a post strictly about Lillian.  I feel bad for her sometimes because she's at a point where things are slowing down as far as her growth, her milestones are spread out more these days, and she gets passed over in the blog quite often.  The milestones for Sam and Will are much more frequent and easy to update, so once again this post will be about the boys.  However, Lillian never fails to make me proud, laugh, or sometimes angry on a daily basis.  She loves her brothers dearly, which is fun to watch because it seems to just grow within her and come out in the form of kisses on the head and little tiny hugs. She is so proud of them and makes sure when we have visitors that everyone knows their names and that they are her baby brothers.

3 month stats

 This week we hit several milestones at once.  Wednesday marked 13 weeks.  Thursday marked 3 months.  Last weekend marked the boys first head cold, thanks to sissy and mother's day out and those tiny little kisses she gives.  Thursday marked the end of their first full round of vaccines, the first portion they received at 2 months (I spread out each round of vaccines over a two month period for personal reasons).  AND, most importantly, this week the boys slept 8 or 9 hours straight through the night four out of the past five nights... or maybe its 5 out of the past 6.  Regardless, I am ecstatic.

"Through the night" means different things to different people.  Some think its 6 hours, some think its 8.  For us it means sleeping when we sleep.  Lillian slept through the night at 10 weeks, from 9 or 10 pm to 7 am.  When 10 weeks came and went, we kind of shrugged it off but were secretly disappointed.  We hoped to not compare our kids and expect too much from these little boys, but its hard not to sometimes.  I've realized through some reading that Lillian is what they call an "easy" baby, but we didn't really know it at the time.  We thought 10 weeks was early, but really pretty normal.  The kids pediatrician says you really can't help them through the night until 4 months or after.  So we thought we'd cut the twins a little slack.  Plus there is two of them.

But then they got the cold.  And they were so tired.  So for two nights we comforted them through the night when they were uncomfortable, but they slept solidly through their normal 4am feeding and kept going until 7am!  I kind of expected the 4am thing to start up again after the cold went away.  And it did for one night.  Then the last couple they've surprised us and slept straight through again from their 10pm feeding until 5:30-6:30 and some mornings we've stretched them until 7.  Now maybe its because they are still catching up from the cold, or maybe its because they got shots yesterday, but the point is, they've done it most of the week, and we know now that they CAN do it.  So now when they wake up, if they wake up, we just train them to go back to sleep if they aren't screaming to be fed (which they've never really done).

I cannot explain how nice it is to sleep solidly for more than just several hours before getting out of bed only to see if they are still breathing and then go right back to bed.  Though I am sure all of you parents out there already know what this feels like, but with twins, I just never dreamed it could be this early.  I hoped, but did not have serious expectations.

Will finding his thumb and Sam drifting with binky.

Although we can't expect all of our kids to need the same kind of sleep, they are showing signs that they will be a lot like their sister.  If they keep this up, John and I dream of the day when they will move their 10pm feeding earlier and earlier until they go to bed with their sister at 7:30 and sleep through until 6:30 or 7.  This will hopefully only take another month or two.  This late evening time is our mommy/daddy time.  This is the time when we can go back to just being "us" for a couple of hours, and it is sorely missed right now.  The only sad part of this is that when the boys do get to bed earlier, this only means these precious infants will not be infants anymore and toddler years are on the horizon.

Other than the fantastic sleeping, Sam and Will are starting to get little personalities.  They talk and giggle all the time.  Will is a night person and likes to be social in the evenings and after he's had some good sleep.  Sam is the jokester and likes to be social most of the time.  Right now I am listening to Will try to talk to his brother while his brother seems to be telling him to buzz off.  They both know how to roll over from front to back, but they both only choose to do it from time to time.  And Sam is actually getting worse at it because he is so big, but he is showing signs already of wanting to roll from back to front.

All of this is coinciding nicely with my decision to paint and ready the second crib for the nursery.  Right now they are both in one crib and it is getting pretty crowded.  The space in the room for the second crib is currently occupied by a full bed which I sit on with my giant pillow for night feedings.  If we cut out the night feedings, we can rid the room of the adult bed.  And if Sam starts rolling over, its time to set up the second crib.  Thankfully Grandma Mary is here for the third visit in 3 months to help out, and I've been able to almost complete the crib painting task.  Its been quite fun really - and no worries, the paint is just fine if the babies should start chewing on the crib later on.

Grandma Mary is here only until Tuesday, and she is missed between visits.  Help is tremendous in our situation and cannot be taken for granted.  Neither can the fact that she is capable of watching all 3 kids while John and I go out to eat.  I think we've left these kids more in the first 3 months of their lives than we left Lilli in a year.  But after one child we've realized how important it is for us to get out, and somehow its a lot easier the second time around.  We don't worry as much. 

So John and I get to have date night tonight - where we are going is still up in the air, but I'm sure there will be alcohol involved.  Which the cynic in me wants to reluctantly state that this will also be the night the boys decide they want to scream to be fed at 3:30am when my 3 drinks have produced a hangover.