10 months!

Our little girls turned 10 months on Monday! We can hardly believe it! Life just keeps getting busier and busier. We would always say “this stage” is the hardest and the next one HAS to be easier. Not really… each stage has its own ups and down, good times and hard times. Although we both agree nothing has been as hard as the first three months were. Phew! Glad that’s over! These days are spent with very very mobile babies. They are both all over the place and although we have them confined to one room where their toys WAY outnumber our furniture, they always seem to want to break out and explore the rest of the house. We get it girls… we do but we need some kind of order to the crazy days we live through. They are both on the verge of walking. R stands without any support for 30 or so seconds until she gets bored and plops down and crawls to what has caught her eye. She can stand while drinking from her sippy cup, playing with a toy, watching Bar.ney. She’s awesome at it! A, who literally just started crawling a month ago, is all over the place pulling up, cruising, standing for shorter periods of time. She had the fastest transition from crawling to cruising that I’ve ever seen… it was DAYS not weeks like R. A has learned to clap in the past 2 weeks. Specifically whenever she hears the song “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands” which it seems every one of our toys sings. She hears the first few beats and her eyes light up and she sits down and gets ready to clap. It’s adorable. R is not clapping yet but does say “Mom”… just not directed at either of us yet. We also think we hear A’s name which is so cute. Again, not directed at her sister. A says hi indiscriminately and that’s about it. They both talk up a storm and A “sings” to any song she hears.

One of the biggest changes has to be food. The girls no longer eat “baby cereal” or pureed foods. They want finger foods and they want them now! In the mornings we start with Cheer.ios while we make them either eggs (with or without Amer. cheese), or French toast along with grapes, bananas, or strawberries and if they are really hungry some toast on the side. They particularly like them in strips that they can hold and bite off of. A has 4 teeth (2 on top, 2 on the bottom) and B has only her 2 bottom teeth so far so most of their food is still gummed to death. Our dr said it looks like A’s got 2 teeth coming in on the bottom and 2 on the top as well! Per our pediatricians instructions we are only using the yolks of the eggs which means we need to use at least 2 every morning… we fly through eggs and bread these days. For lunch they love grilled cheese (just toasted bread with a slice of amer cheese, no butter, etc), any type of fruit cut up and yo.bab.y yogurt. Dinner comprises of pasta with sauce, chicken (boiled as of now) or hamburger. There is always a veggie with dinner – their current favorite is steamed fresh string beans but also enjoy bite sized sweet potato. We tend to end every dinner with blueberries but sometimes they have oranges. Their snacks throughout the day are mum.mu.ms, Cheer.ios, and yogu.rt melts. They still enjoy their bottle every three hours (approx 4-6 oz of watered down formula) and still get a nice big bottle before bed (10 oz, again watered down).

Sleeping has been an interesting feat. With multiples, the “cry it out” method gets a little tricky. A has been a great sleeper recently going down between 7 and 8 and waking up between 6 and 7. R has been the cause of the large bags under our eyes. They began sleeping through the night at 2.5 months and then stopped over Christmas time probably due to their teething and all of our traveling and/or guests. If there are guests in the house, they fight going to sleep. Lots of tears before they finally lay their heads down. For one reason or another (traveling, guests over, etc) we couldn’t diligently let R cry it out at nights lending to months of sleep interrupted nights. Not only does it effect R at night, it messes up her day as she is super tired and therefore crankier. A is pretty good at sleeping through R’s late night (3am) cries but if it lasts long enough, A joins in the fun and it is at least an hour or so until they both cry it out. We recently spoke to our pediatrician about this and if it is detrimental in anyway since we THINK R gets scared at night when she wakes up because when we go in to check on her and lay her back down/change her diaper, she CLINGS to us so hard you don’t even have to hold her on to her and she won’t fall. It is an amazing feeling but also sad. We feel bad but know she is ok and is better off sleeping. R has “stranger an.xiety” much worse than A does and our dr explained that this is why she is so clingy in the middle of the night. All she knows is that we aren’t there and she panics. It breaks our heart but we’ve been diligent the past 9 nights and FINALLY last night they both slept through the night. Not only did they go down without a hassle, but not a peep until 6am! We do get a full night here and there so we are not yet confident it has truly worked yet but we do know that since we are headed to Scran.ton this weekend, that our efforts will probably be for naught and we’ll have to try all over again when we get home. Fingers crossed the traveling doesn’t throw them too far out of wack.

J is still working from home and although we have a nanny that comes a few hours a day, J still finds it hard. We don’t love our nanny – she’s always late, we don’t see enough interaction with the girls in the areas they need now like talking ‘This is a ball” “Say hi to the bear” etc. We have also not been diligent in finding a replacement, as it is such a process. Last night we finally had time to make a few calls.

As for the girls working, A was in a Pol.o Ral.ph Laur.en photo shoot last week. She did GREAT! She is a pro at this. :) We believe the images will appear on their website at some point (it was a fall line the babies were showcasing).

Onto Project Baby C news: We were smart enough to fill our last prescription of R.epronex before J went on M’s insurance back in 12/08. We had always planned to start Project Baby C when the twins were around 3 months old. Yeah…. that didn’t happen. So we pulled out all the vials of Re.pronex that expired in 12/09 and brought them to our fertility dr. He said he would be able to tell by looking at the vials if they were still usable or if the hormones had started to deteriorate. ALL BUT ONE VIAL ARE USABLE!!!! That saves us $2000 in medicine that we would have had to fork over for this injectable cycle! Now it should only cost us $3000 (wau wau wau). We are just waiting for M to get her AF and then head in on day 3 for an ultrasound. We are soooo excited! Having twins already might make the process a little easier to bear but we must admit we are as excited as we were when we were trying to get pregnant with our first (errr and second) baby. In a week or so, we think that Project Baby C should finally commence!

Now for pictures of the ladies...


A with her first popsicle.


The girls first "swimming pool" experience


Happy R!


The girls playing in the grass
(R on left, A on right)

April showers bring May pregnancies?

The appointment with our fertility doctor went great! We talked through all our options and he is open to jumping to a more aggressive plan. We think we decided to do a cycle or 2 of injectables before jumping to IVF. Although the average rate of pregnancy is 18% with injectables, our doctor said those numbers don't tell the real story as we aren't "infertile" per say and M's a great age at 31 to conceive and carry a child. We asked which medications we would use and he said Repron.ex or Folli.stim. If anyone has or knows someone who has any of these medications and no longer need them, we'd love to take them off your hands! We will pay any copay or shipping fees! We got an estimate of $5K per injectible cycle or $12K for IVF since we don't have insurance. One large factor in choosing an injectable cycle over IVF is the risk of having frozen embryos left over like we do from J's IVF cycle. We can't distroy them but we don't want to become the lesbian oct.omoms either.

Since M just finished her AF, we'll begin with her next cycle - YAY FOR MAY!

Aside from Project Baby C - our two little angels are getting so big! A is 22lbs and 28.5 in and R is 18.7lbs and 27.5 in. A has 2 bottom teeth halfway in and 2 top teeth that just finished breaking through. R has 2 bottom teeth halfway in and a top tooth that looks like it will break through in a few days. We think R is going to walk sooner rather than later. She now stands for 5 to 15 seconds at a time not holding onto anything and will sloppily walk when holding one of my hands. A is pulling herself up on more and more things and crawling a little more as well. They both have blond hair growing in more and more and A's eyes have turned a beautiful light brown while R's eyes are still TBD. Sometimes they look blue, sometimes slate, sometimes brown and sometimes green. R is REALLY into giving kisses and hugs these days. A has been giving kisses for quite some time but R will actually crawl over to you kiss and hold on to you sooooo tight! It melts our heart whenever she does this as we know it is her way of telling us she loves us. Tonight M was trying to get R down (who was fussing) and M heard R say "Mom" clearly and then kissed her twice! Life is AWESOME!

And we're back in the game again.

Yes, it’s true... We are gearing up to make a little brother or sister for the twins. Project Baby C is now underway! We might be crazy but we are actually 3 months off when we thought we’d start trying again. Life was just too hectic when the girls were 6 months old as we were also reno-ing a house and then moved in where renovations continue. Now that the girls are 9 months old we are ready to begin this TTC process all over again – this time with M in the drivers seat!

We have our first appointment with our fertility doctor TODAY! We are very excited! We are NOT excited about the punch in the pocket this will cost as M’s insurance (as with most NJ insurances) does not cover infertility like J’s did. Our winning IVF cycle ended up being a couple thousand in the end at most but depending on the path we choose, this cycle could costs an upward of $10K. Our plan is to skip all the IUIs and jump right to an injectable cycle or IVF. This is what we will talk with our doctor about today.

We couldn’t write a post without a little update on how our beautiful angels are doing. B is and has been for a couple of months, pulling up, getting down and crawling ALL OVER THE PLACE! The gates and child proofing has been up and running for quite some time now. A, our more mellow baby knows how to crawl but doesn’t as much as she could. She’s very happy sitting and playing and then crying if she wants to be moved. ;) We did have a big morning with A – when we went into her nursery to get her this morning, she was standing in her crib! This is the first time she has pulled herself up without our help! YAY BABY A!

Neither baby is really saying any words yet – “dada” is repeated over and over again by A but not because she knows what it means just because it is easy to say. B is really into “blah blah blah”. It’s really funny! I think they are both waiting for May 9th to say “Mama”.... That would be the best Mother’s Day gift EVER!!

At 9 months, J has finally stopped breastfeeding. Not because she wanted to, in fact, she was pretty upset that her breastfeeding days were over. The girls just naturally stopped. A was done breastfeeding about a month ago, and B just recently stopped. The girls still have their bottles of formula throughout the day. But now they are also having 3 square meals, which we try to make family meals whenever possible! In the mornings they have oatmeal, Cheer.ios, and bananas(or some other fruit)- which they LOVE. They literally shake and squeal with excitement when we pull the big yellow Cheer.ios box out of the cabinet. There is a little song and dance that we do with it, which may add to their excitement, but either way, they love their Cheer.ios. At lunch they have been having some grapes, toast, cheese and another fruit or vegetable like apples, carrots, peaches, etc. We have to really limit their cheese intake since they had such issues with dairy as babies, but we'll slowly increase it as we go. For dinner they have rice cereal along with a vegetable and some apple sauce. Dinner is always followed by blueberries which again brings on the shaking and squealing. The girls make it pretty obvious which foods are their absolute favorites. They are eating so many new things these days: apples, bananas, peaches, blueberries, watermellon, grapes, carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, string beans, toast and egg yolks. We are going to try chicken, avocado, blackberries and a few other things soon. We just try to do about 1 new food every couple of days so we can make sure they aren't having any bad reactions to them. At the end of the day they get their baths and a nice big bottle which almost always puts them right into a sweet, peaceful sleep....

As for The G.ood Wife - the episode the girls were in is "HEART". You can watch it online. A is the baby in the carseat shot at the beginning and then they are both in the conference room scene right after the first commercial break.

To end - here are a couple of pictures of the girls.

R rehearsing on the set of "The G.ood Wife"


The girls playing together


R being silly


A's Easte.r picture

7 Months!

Hi blogging world! It's us! While the babies are napping, we thought we'd write a quick update.

Our beautiful A and R are 7 months old already! SEVEN MONTHS!?! We can hardly believe it! They both have their own adorable but separate personalities coming out strong. Life has definitely gotten easier and harder at the same time. Neither are crawling yet but R is on the brink. If we didn't have hardwood floors in our house, she'd be off. For now she suctions her hands to the floor and pulls her knees in to move, or just rolls. A just rolls onto her belly getting ready to crawl but isn't really getting up on all four's yet. She'll prop herself up for a while then whine to be rolled over. Yes, she knows how to roll, but she'd rather one of her Mommies help her because 99% of the time she gets some cuddle time out of it.

We think one of the cutest things about the girls at this age is their interaction with each other. A makes R laugh all the time. It's sooo cute! They look for each other now and "talk" to each other as well. They will sit and play together, and R has been known to stealing whatever toy A has in her hand.

The twins are on a couple of solid foods. Their feedings begin with being nursed when they wake up (usually between 6:15am and 7:30am) then around 8:30am they get cereal and smooshed up banana with some juice (99% water, splash of juice). They go down for a nap after their cereal and usually sleep about an hour but has been up to 2 hours. They get a bottle/breastfed within the hour after they wake up and then a vegetable at lunch. Can you guess what we were trying this day? Think she liked it??

J is making her own baby food and so far found it pretty easy to do. They get another afternoon bottle/breastfeeding and a nap or 2 depending on what we are doing that day (staying home or running errands). Around 5:45pm they get more cereal and then it is bath, bottle and bedtime. They are in bed and sleeping by 7:15pm these days which is great! For a while R was getting up around 10pm for another feeding but we let her cry it out a couple times and it worked. She falls asleep after her bath without finishing her bottle so that's why we think she was waking up. We recently started giving her 1/2 of her bottle before her bath and think she's getting more milk but the cereal is doing a good job of filling her up for the night anyway. They also get a Mum.Mu.m during the day. They are rice crackers that pretty much melt in their mouths. It's adorable watching them eat them. They will hold them with 2 hands and nibble with the 2 bottom teeth that they have growing in. TOO CUTE!

The lack of posting has more to do with how busy we Mommies are, not necessarily how busy the babies keep us. (They DO keep us very busy though!). J is working again part time (25 hrs a week). She started back up in November and works from home. Once a month or so she heads down to her office which is in Arlington VA. It works out nicely since her whole immediate family is in a 10 mile radius of her office so she drops the babies off with Grandma and Grandpa and heads in. We also bought a house at the beginning of December which we have been renovating. We finally moved in Jan 31st but are still doing work every night when the babies go to sleep. And if both of us working and renovating a house wasn't enough, the twins are also working! They were cast to be on a few episodes of "The Goo.d Wife" on CB.S. It seems as though R did not make the cut but A will be in a couple of scenes in 2 episodes. R cried when she was put in the actress's arms. It was evident the actress didn't have kids nor seem to really like them as she didn't know what to do when either baby cried. J was like "try bouncing a little while you are holding her." She didn't take the advice. ;) Either way, they are both making a little money for college.

We all can't wait for spring to be able to get out easier and utilize the amazing yard we have and park we live near. We are OVER the snow already but still try to get out and enjoying it a little before it is gone in a month or so.

Here are a couple of pictures of the girls. R laying on Mommy's belly, A yawning and R rehearsing in her trailer. R was supposed to use the pacifier during her scene on "TGW".

Merry Christmas!

We know we are behind on our blogging but we wanted

to jump on to wish everyone a

Merry Merry Christmas!

Bedtime...

We are blessed with the fact that not one but BOTH of our babies have been sleeping through the night since about 2.5 month of age. We're not talking 5 hours, were talking 8 to 10 hours a night! The problem is getting them to bed. The routine is we feed them both around 8:30 or 9pm, rock them to sleep and then put them in their cribs. Sometime over the past month A started a bad habit of screaming hysterically until she falls asleep. It is not only annoying, it keeps R from falling asleep. No matter what we do, pacifier, no pacifier, rock over the shoulder, rock in arms, rock on rocking chair, walk around, she screams. Has anyone had any problems with this? Also, when is it still too early to let them cry it out in their cribs (Ferber type method)? They will be 4 months old in a few days and wondering if now is the time to try it. A cries anyway (for naps or bedtime), so why not let her cry in her crib and just do the "Ferber check" on her until she falls asleep. Does anyone have any options or techniques we could try?

Aside from the crying, we think that daylight savings has effected them. We used to be able to get them down by 10:30 but now it is running into 11:30 or 12am. They both sleep until about 8 or 8:30am, which is AWESOME, but I'd prefer them go down a bit earlier and wake up a bit earlier.

Other than that, the girls are awesome! The pediatrician told us they were both teething - well their teeth probably won't break through for another few months but their gums are swollen and getting ready. This has led to a lot of drooling (especially R) and constant chewing on their hands. They both seem to like gnawing on the thumb, pointer and "tall man" at the same time. Yesterday, they both also started bringing things, like rattles, to their mouth to chew on! We also held a teething toy to their mouths and they both went to town. J keeps saying she's not going to nurse them once teeth come in because they both (but mainly R) like to bit down on her nipple with their gums if too much milk is coming out or if they are done nursing. M always knows when it happens because J will jump and scream OW! Good times lie ahead on the nursing front ;)

No nablopomo for us

There is no way we would be able to do NaBloPoMo but we are trying to blog more often. Last Friday the girls had their 3.5 month well visit. They did great! They gained the same amount of weight and now A weighs 13.3lbs and is 26 inches long while R weighs 12.14lbs and is 25 inches long. They both got 3 shots and did wonderfully! Can’t say the same for M who cried at the sight of her daughters’ discomfort. Luckily the cries from the girls only lasted for a few moments, for as soon as they were picked up the crying stopped. PHEW!

They are eating 5oz of food at eat feeding (about every 3 hours when awake) and our pediatrician said no need to add rice cereal to their diet yet so we’ll continue the 50/50 mix of breastmilk and formula. Since the girls had all the gas issues the first few months they were put on the cadill.ac of formulas - Sim.ilac Alli.mentum - lucky for us and our wallets. We will basically have to take out a second mortgage to pay for a year supply but at least it’s working! ;)

A and R are so easy to entertain these days! They will spend ample time on their activity mat then can be moved to the rain.forest jumper, last week were introduced to the Bum.bo chair or of course, a little tummy time on the floor. The game they both love the most is when we lay them next to each other on the floor and “do the Hokey Pokey”. They laugh the entire time as we “put their right leg in or their left arm out.” It is a surefire way to get them to smile. Yesterday, J had the girls in the Bum.bo chairs with the tray on it and some rattles and rings on top. R, with much concentration, intentionally grabbed the rings on the tray! It was so cute! A did as well but R was really into it! They are learning and growing so much these days! Last week, (Oct 30^th) R grabbed her foot for the first time – we guess soon their little piggies will be in their mouth non stop ;) R also has a crazy trick – since she was about a month old, if you hold her in the walking position she will move one foot in front of the other like she is walking! It is soooo funny to watch because she will literally walk across an entire room! And of course, she is proud as punch when she does it. R seriously never stops moving. A is more the type to sit and listen to a story, or sit and smile on your lap, or apparently help write a blog as she just finished playing on her activity mat and is now sitting on my lap as I am typing this, just watching the letters appear on the screen. Needless to say, it is about naptime for her and so she is pretty delirious. Speaking of naptime, the girls are getting into somewhat of a routine. It starts with one waking up first, she is breastfed laying in bed with J then given formula and then off to the activity mat while the other wakes up, is breastfed, given formula and then playtime. Minutes after the 2^nd baby finished eating, the one who woke up first is ready for a nap. So right now, R is napping and A is about to be. They sleep anywhere from 30 mins to an upward of 3 hours for their naps. A, who wouldn’t nap the first 3 months of life, has become a great napper.

We spoke to our pediatrician on Friday about swaddling. We still swaddle the girls, (their arms but not their legs as they are too long for the swaddle) and he said as long as they aren’t busting out of the swaddles – as in the swaddle won’t end up around their necks or over their faces – we are fine to swaddle. They don’t sleep but 20 mins or so when they aren’t swaddled. Their flailing arms wake them up. We’d love to break the swaddling habit but don’t really know how to. We’ve read that you can swaddle with one arm out and slowly break the habit that way. Does anyone know any other ways? If you swaddle or know a child who was swaddled, how old did they swaddle until? We wanted to stop at 3 months, but we are also loving our full nights of sleep ;)