The babies have another cold! This is their 3rd cold in their short 5 little months of life. I feel like we're never going to get healthy around here. Poor Annie, she finished up her last dose of antibiotic that we got for her second cold that started affecting her breathing, and a week later, she had another cold starting in. Lucy is sure great at sharing. She seems to be picking up everything these days. I'm convinced it's because she's discovered 2 nifty little holes in her nose that are the perfect place for her fingers!  
Annie still manages to sleep good at night even when she's sick, Molly on the other hand, does not! It's so frustrating because she was starting to sleep so good at night and we had moved her back into the nursery with Annie and they were both really sleeping well at night. Now...we're back to square 1 with Molly. She's back in the pack n play in our closet. She is just making too much noise throughout the night to be with Annie. Dan and I are both up multiple times to stick her paci back in. And here we had just made great progress on her sleeping without it! 

5 months

Annie and Molly are 5 months old!

So, it's been 5 months. And it feels like it's been 5 months if not longer. Things are definitely getting better. The girls are sleeping all night for the most part. Annie is our "better" more predictable sleeper. She will sometimes wake in the night and fuss, but it only lasts a few seconds and then she's quiet. Molly is doing well, but we still have many times where she wakes and cries for 10 minutes or so. She's still learning to soothe herself. Some nights she does great and we don't hear a peep, other night's we hear lots of peeps! :) But, that being said, they are going to bed around 6-6:30 pm and sleeping till at least 6am. So, I can't complain too much. We are all getting more sleep and that makes for a happier family.

It's fun to watch the girls start to become their own little person. Annie is our laid back girl. She's usually happy and smiley but she's more reserved and quiet than Molly. Molly is all smiles and laughs. She does both so easily. She appears to be the more outgoing one and the one that'll be more spunky. Molly is also the one that always tries to grab/hold Annie's hand or arm when they are laying side by side. Molly's always liked and needed to be held more than Annie and I think she's going to be our "touchy-feely" girl.

We've started cereal in the last few weeks. I could have started at 4 months, but adding one more thing into our day seemed like an impossible task, so I waited a little longer. We don't do it every night, but a few times a week when I feel like we have the time to do it.  Annie's doing well and seems to be getting the hang of it. Molly is doing much better with it as well. The first time she tried it she cried and gagged. She was not a fan.

I am soooo frustrated too that Lucy seems to be getting another cold! Annie is just finishing up the antibiotic from the cold Lucy gave her 3 weeks ago!!! (it went to her chest and caused some respiritory issues)  I don't want to go through this again so soon!! If they catch it, it'll be their 3 cold in 5 months! GRRRR!!  Lucy just picks up everything. I know I can't shield them from everything, but geeze, give us some time to be healthy for awhile!

Confession

Confession: I have yet to wash the crib sheets that my girls are sleeping on. Well, Annie's the only one who's consistently in her bed every day, but still...what kind of mother am I?? It's been 4 months!!! And, *gasp*, I never washed them after taking them out of the package!!!! 

Let me tell you why. It'll make me feel better to defend myself here.  I put the sheets on the mattresses knowing that for the first 3-4 weeks the babies were going to sleep in the pack n plays in our room. My thinking was that I didn't want to wash the sheets and then let them sit on the mattresses for a month or more collecting dust and have to be rewashed again later. So, I put the sheets on fully intending to wash them once we'd decided to move the girls to their cribs. Well...that didn't happen...sleep deprivation was too much.

Just so you don't think I'm completely horrible, I do have pads down on top of the sheets where the babies heads lay so if they spit up or something I can change them and I have washed and changed the pads many times. It's just the sheets that I need to do. It really wasn't a huge deal till now because now, Annie is starting to rotate herself in the bed as she sleeps.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get to those sheets...

Here's a recent picture of my girls. They are usually happy girls and will most times smile and laugh very easily. 

Tomorrow I am taking Annie to an appointment to start the process for a "helmet" for her. You can see from this picture that her head is not round or symetrical.  We're hoping that wearing a helmet will help to round her out a bit and help correct some of the features that are lopsided.

I know I've said this several times before and people are probably tired of hearing me say it, but I often wonder if the doctors were right and if I really do have identical twins?  When I look at this picture I don't think they look anything alike. They have different shaped eyes and mouths. I don't know. But it does make me wonder. I also think the older they get the more they don't look like each other. I guess if we really want to know, some day we could do a DNA test and see if they really are identical or if somehow we ended up with fraternal twins.

We were doing so good in the sleep department up until about 2 weeks ago. Then Molly got a cold. She's just about over it, but still has a lot of congestion by morning.  It took Annie 2 weeks, but she finally caught the cold too. She's been my good sleeper over the last few weeks and now with the stuffy nose we're really havin' a heck of a time. Last night was not good. She went to bed well but woke up about 3 hours later snortin' and sniffin'. Poor thing was so congested and couldn't breathe through her nose. I pulled out the other bouncy seat and put her in that hoping she'd she'd sleep better being propped up a little. She didn't like that. She wasn't able to contort her body into the postion that makes her comfortable. (she sleeps in a strange position due to the torticollis in her neck)  So, then we tried the swing. She sleeps there for naps every now and then so I hoped she do well the rest of the night.  She did ok for a while but then would wake up and be upset and by 4:30am she was done. Dan ended up getting up and going to sit in the glider with her so she could be help upright.  So, we'll see how tonight goes. I'm not too optimistic.

getting out

Last Friday I took all 3 girls to the mall by myself. I went to bed the night before thinking, if we have a good night and everyone sleeps well and I feel up to it, then I want to try and take Lucy to the mall to play for a while.  Poor Lucy, she's really gotten a raw deal over the last 4 months. I've felt so guilty because she's been cooped up in the house with me and the girls. There were so many days that I wished I could bundle her up and take her outside to get some fresh air, but couldn't because of the babies. She only got to play in the snow once or twice this winter and I hated that I couldn't just take her out.

It's been a long and hard time, but I'm finally at the point where I am feeling confident to make more attempts at getting out of the house.  It's not something I will do everyday. I think probably once a week will be my limit for awhile. It's exhausting just getting everyone ready.

 Last Friday, I was up at 6 and fed the girls, then while I got ready Lucy took a bath and played. Then the babies napped while I finished up Lucy's bath and blow dried her hair, then Lucy and I ate breakfast and I got the diaper bag ready, then the babies were awake and needed to eat, so I fed them and when done put them in their carseats, made Lucy use the potty and then Molly pooped so I had to take her out of her seat, change her and put her back in, get Lucy's coat and shoes on, load everyone up in the van and finally at 9:50am I was leaving the house. Now if that doesn't exhaust you just reading it, then you need to come live it.  Believe it or not, but there are some people  I know that think getting out of the house with twins and a 3 year old is easy and no big deal and something I should make more of an effort to do. It'd be different if Dan where there to help, but on my own, I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen. It's going to be a gradual progression and each time I do it, it will get easier. But people need to understand that they are not the ones having to do all the work that it takes to get somewhere. So they just need to keep their mouths shut!

So, all that being said, I felt really proud of myself last week because it was the first time in 4 months that I left the house by myself with all 3 girls. (I don't really count our little mini outing to the car wash 2 weeks prior)  It was the first time that I felt confident that I could go somewhere and be ok with 3 small children. It was good for Lucy to run and play in the children's area at the mall. I felt good that she was getting some exercise.

We ended up being at the mall till the girls next feeding so I had to feed them while out. I called Dan at work and he was able to run up to the mall on his lunch break and meet us. We just got some Subway sandwhiches and enjoyed getting to see Daddy in the middle of the day.

I will say though that it was probably too long of an outing for the babies. They didn't nap well in the stroller and by the time we got home, both were crying and tired and I had a hard time with them for a while.  Again, the whole 2 babies crying at once thing is hard to deal with. I am only one person and I can only do so much at one time, but it never feels like enough.

sleep

Annie is doing really well at night. She doesn't get up to eat anymore and she has found her thumb which helps her sleep.  I am thrilled she found her thumb and even though I know it may be hard to break her later on, right now it's the best thing that could happen. Molly is having a bit more trouble. She did really well when we first started sleep training and things were going pretty well until last week when she got her 4 month shots. They made her feel miserable and she was a screaming mess the whole afternoon and evening. I had to hold her the entire night because she would scream if we put her down. And then she caught the cold that Lucy and I had and because of all the mucus and congestion she could not sleep laying flat. So, we have been letting her sleep in the bouncy seat.  Now we have to start  sleep training all over again once she's able to breath clearly. So frustrating. And for whatever reason, she's been so clingy the last few days. She's not napping well and wants to be held alot. I feel bad for Annie because she's so much more laid back and content and so she doesn't demand as much attention as Molly. I feel like I'm neglecting her sometimes because I have to deal with Molly. Poor Annie.

As a mom of twins it's really hard to feel like I'm giving everyone the attention they need. I feel like I'm not able to spend as much time with Lucy because I always have to feed a baby or put a baby down for a nap or go pick up a crying baby. Thankfully, Lucy is really understanding and so far she doesn't get mad when we have to stop playing or reading so I can tend to a baby.  Then with the twins, I feel like I give Molly more attention and what's really hard are the times they both are crying and I have to choose which baby I'm going to try and comfort first. There are many days I feel like I need 4 arms.