7 weeks today

It has been a long week. We took Riley to the Dr. this week because we thought she had acid reflux which she does. We are now giving her Zantac and we are waiting to see if it fixes it. It has made for some long days and we are due for a break but unfortunately there are none in sight. My dad was in town Thursday evening and watched the girls for a bit so we could do some shopping. He is watching them again Monday so we can go out somewhere. Tomorrow is our 11 year anniversary. Andrea had a Dr. visit today and she was cleared to go back to normal activities. She is feeling pretty good outside of being tired all the time and a sore back from always carrying a child around. Thanks for an unbelievable 11 years Andrea, just think how awesome the next 11 will be with R&R. I love you.

Homicidal babies

What did we as new parents do wrong? What did we do to anger them so much that they are trying to kill us. I have stood toe to toe with grown men that wanted nothing more than to hurt me and I had no fear in me. I now live in a state of terror from 2 little cute baby girls. It is their goal in life to keep us awake all the time. With the exception of a couple good nights, and by good I mean 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep for us, the last week has been not so good. Riley is the mastermind of the pair. She takes the lead and only sends in Reagan when she needs a break. Their plan as I see it is the absolute annihilation of their parents. Have you ever seen the show Lockup on TV? It is a show about prisons around the country. Every so often the guards do raids of the cells. I think we need to do that in the nursery. Who knows what evil plans they have for us and what weapons they could be hiding under the crib or in the closet. I only have one idea as to what I could have done to anger them. I accidentally tried to drown Reagan last week. We needed more bottles so I went to Babies R Us and bought 6 more bringing our total to 25 in regular rotation. What I didn't realise was that there are different nipples for different ages. There are beginner nipples, slow nipples, fast nipples, etc. What do I know about nipples? I know I have two that serve no purpose other than decorative and Andrea has two that won't stop leaking. Other than that I am no nipple expert. I unknowingly bought the fast nipples and put them in the rotation. The first time I used one of them I thought Reagan must be very hungry because the bottle was emptying faster than normal. Halfway through the bottle Reagan sprayed puke 3 feet across the room. I cleaned her up and Andrea continued feeding with the same bottle and she got it a couple minutes later. My little Reagan could have a career as a fountain at the Bellagio in Vegas. It was an awful impressive puke. Luckily Andrea learned of my mistake while doing a nipple inspection. I apologized to the girls but I think that they are holding a grudge. Reagan and Riley, I am sorry! Please stop trying to kill mommy and daddy.

Labs are idiots!

Yesterday I had a long day and did not get home till about 9pm. Andrea was left to care for R&R by herself for most of the day. Our neighbor/friend Adam is deployed for a few months and was home for a quick visit. Our friends Doug and Lisa came over to help Andrea get the girls packed up to head next door for a visit with Adam as he was only home for 2 days. Now let me explain my dog Boo. He is an idiot. He is the best dog when you are home but as many labs do, he gets serious separation anxiety when you go out. Especially when he knows that you did not leave in the car. If he thinks you are in the neighborhood he loses his mind. He thinks that he should be allowed to go and gets all stressed out. I somewhat understand this but what confuses me is what is gained by breaking into the dirty diaper can and spreading dirty pee and poop filled diapers around the living room. Andrea, Doug and Lisa came home to find a living room that appeared to have a diaper bomb that had gone off and a guilty lab hiding under the table. Doug and Lisa stuck around and helped feed the girls and clean up and then met me at their house to give me their carpet cleaner. After a 14 hour day it was the last thing I wanted to be doing but Andrea said the smell was a bit offensive and for her to say that while living with me made me believe her. Thanks Doug and Lisa and thanks to my great wife and supermom for taking it all in stride.

The kindness of not so strangers

Riley has been doing more than her share of puking after eating. I am not sure if this is the earliest known case of Bulimia or if she may have a bit of her fathers lactose intolerance. A sure fire way to send me straight to the bathroom in a hurry is a big bowl of ice cream. Riley may be the same so we tried a soy based formula today instead of the milk based one we have been using and so far we are having good results. Seems to be less fussiness, spit up and crying. My brothers wife's parents came over tonight and watched the girls while we went to church. It was very kind of them and they seemed to enjoy hanging with little ones again. They even brought us 2 cases of diapers. I liked this and think I may start a new B.Y.O.D. rule for visiting the girls. A reporter from WTAE named Kelly Frey was at the church tonight with her husband talking about what they have been going through with their 4 month old that was not supposed to live and is doing better than any Dr. said he ever would. Not many dry eyes in the church and it made Andrea and I so thankful for what we have. Signing off for now. It is 11:15 pm and we are going to try to put the girls down. Last night was a bit trying. Andrea ended up sleeping half the night on a couch in the babies room. Hopefully tonight she will be in bed with me. Thanks again Dave and Darlene.

So Sleepy

Andrea is currently unconscious at 6pm. She very well may be there in bed until about noon tomorrow. The girls terrorized us last night. Andrea got peed on twice, I had one do a beautiful 3 foot vomit stream past my head at 4am and they did not do much in the way of sleeping. We shipped them off to their weekly visit with grandma and grandpa to get us one night of sleep. I hope they don't destroy my parents tonight but I don't hold much hope for that. I am off to work on a project for my job and I am not far from bed also. Sleep well Andrea, you deserve it.

Back to the Dr.

Somehow the girls have found a way to continue to torment Andrea medically a month after their birth. You may remember that pretty much everything that could go wrong in the pregnancy did. It now continues with something called Postpartum Thyroiditis. She has a 100+ temperature and her neck is swollen. She was at the Dr. today and they are waiting on some blood tests to get back. Not sure what the end result will be but I am sure that somehow in some way it will cost me sleep. The girls are doing great with the exception of the sleep thing. They are eating at the high end of the scale for their age, what a shocker!

One month and almost all is well.

Grandma and Grandpa stopped by last evening with 2 cupcakes to celebrate the girls one month birthday. We celebrated it by taking them to the Dr. Reagan was up to 7#2 oz and Riley was up to 9# 7 oz. They were very happy with the weight gain and all checked out well. It is currently 4am though so all happiness has ended. Later today I will begin my hunt for the Sandman and I am going to knock his teeth in. Riley is mad, I am not sure at what but she is definitely mad. Andrea has been up and down so many times tonight that her belly was hurting from her C- Section so pops is in the game. This should make for another nice short day for me.

4 weeks

It is currently 3am and all is not well. Riley and Reagan had a great night last night and slept a 3 and a 4 hour stretch overnight. Tonight they are making up for lost time. We put them down at 10pm and at 1am we both got up to feed them. It is now 2 hours later and one of them has been screaming since we got done feeding. It is currently Reagan that is fired up and Riley should be taking over soon. My parents in the first 2 weeks told us that they did not believe us that the girls were ever bad because they were "precious angels" as my dad called them every time they saw them. The problem is that they always saw them at 2pm. 2am is often a different story as they have learned now on 2 occasions. The girls have gone to their house twice now overnight to give us a break. After the first one I called them at about 8am and all dad had to say was "you were right, I was wrong". They girls had them up all night. I don't want to say I was happy about it but I did feel a bit vindicated.

Things have been progressing. We are learning our way through the ins and outs of twins. I never want to belittle what the parents of single babies go through but WOW, twins are a different animal. There just never seems to be a break in the action. The biggest stress is times like now. Reagan is still screaming as I write this. She is fed, changed, rocked, clean, and should be happy but nothing I do will satisfy her. She is acting like a little woman already.

With the exception of going to the neighbors house once and my parents house and Andrea's parents house a few times we have not left the house with them since we came home 4 weeks ago. We are ready to get out of the house with them but fear the cold and flu season. We are trying to not be the kind of parents that are paranoid about germs, other people holding them, etc. but I see Andrea's mother bear instincts getting stronger. (On a side note it is now 3:10 am and Reagan just stopped crying and Riley has taken over. I swear they know what they are doing and want to give each other a break every now and then). Ok, back to Andrea. She is feeling much better post surgery but still hurts and is not back to normal. She is down over 40 pounds from the day she went into the hospital and is looking like one hot mom.

I went back to leaving the house every day for work last week and it was hard but we got through it. Andrea stays busy caring for the girls all day while I am gone but they are typically pretty good girls when the sun is up. Tuesday was a long one for her as I was gone for about 14 hours. (3:16am update- Reagan in the swing and Riley in the bouncy seat, Boo in his bed. Reagan and Riley screaming like the house is on fire and Boo sleeping like a baby, or should I say like I wish a baby would sleep). My goal now is to keep them going till 4am when I will feed them both and try another attempt at bed.

We have their one month Dr. visit on Monday. I am looking forward to seeing what the weights are. I am guessing that Reagan is at 7 lbs and Riley is about 45lbs. It actually looks like she is getting a beer gut. (3:21 update- Reagan sleeping and Riley is beating the hell out of the parrot on her bouncy seat while screaming at it. I don't know what that bird did to her but she is mighty angry at it). I will try to hold her a bit now and see if that helps at all but it often does nothing. I think she is just in one of those moods. The pics above were from better times earlier this evening. Signing off at 3:27 am. Wish me luck.