Mom arrived last night from Florida.

The older kids were super excited to show her everything and the babies have been giving her the smiles she never got from them the first time she came to help. (They were not yet 6 weeks, so she did a bunch of work with no reward.)

She can’t believe how cute the babies are, and wondered how I could be so lucky to have four handsome boys. She does take some credit for the genes, which I think is fair enough. I also think that people find their own likeness attractive. Having said that, I happen to think they are all super cute boys too.

I have a list a mile long of things I want to do while she is here. This morning already I went to the grocery store BY MYSELF. I sipped decaf Starbucks while casually perusing the aisles. The check out lady and other workers didn’t recognize me without the kids, confirming the fact that I really have no identity outside of, “Adam’s wife”, “Jack’s mom”, “Ben’s Mom” and the “Twins Mom”. I guess I used to just be known as “Nikki”, so having so many new identities must be a trade up, right?

Anyway, who cares. All I know is that I’m getting my hair cut, a massage, and going clothes shopping in the next two weeks without paying for a sitter or asking Adam to cover 4 kids on his own.

Yesterday all four of our kids got progress reports of some kind.

The twins had their 6 month check up and shots.

Aaron showed a big growth spurt, but both babies measured well.

Sam discovers the ‘other baby’ in the mirror at the doctor’s office.

Aaron was 27″ (50-75%) in height, 18 pounds 2 ounces (50-75%) in weight, with a head circumference of 43.6 cm (50-75%).

Sam was 27 1/4″ (75%) in height, 18 pounds 9 ounces (75%) in weight, with a head circumference of 43.4 cm (50%).

We talked to the doctor about sleep training. Sam is still waking up 2 times a night. Aaron will sleep the entire night. He suggested we put them in their cribs at night completely awake. I feel bad doing this to Aaron since he doesn’t bother me at all at night, but maybe I should start doing it for Sam.

Besides the measurements, at six months the twins are developing in leaps and bounds. They both eat one meal a day around 3 or 4, as this time does not keep them from drinking a big evening bottle feed. I think Sam is ready for another meal in the morning, time to start that as well. I’ll just put it on my list of things to do…

High Five ‘other baby’!

Sam has spent all month rocking back and forth on all fours. He was pushing himself backwards all the while, but recently has started pushing forward, then flopping on his belly, then getting on all fours and starting again. Looks like an inchworm.

Aaron has just discovered he can pick his knees up and put them under him and has started a bit of rocking back and forth, but for the most part will stay close to where you put him. Sam is another story. Already I’ve put the twins on the carpet, gone upstairs to fetch something, then come down to find Sam across the room, under the table playing with the computer wires. I’m going to have to do some serious baby proofing. I’ll just put it on my list of things to do…

In general I’d have to say these are the happiest babies ever. As I write Aaron is laying on his tummy on the carpet, fist in his mouth, laughing for who knows why. Every time I turn around he just bursts out in a fit of giggles.

Jack and Ben also got reports of their own.

We braced ourselves for the worst for Ben. After his rough start to pre-k, we thought it was going to be bad. Surprisingly, it was a very positive report. We used to get reports like this for Jack when he attended this school and they were about half good traits, half ‘needs improvement’. Ben’s were mostly good with just a few ‘need improvement’. Yes, he’s still a flopper, and yes he’s still a runner. But he’s also pretty smart for his age. And now that a month has passed he’s already started to understand and follow the routine quite a bit. I kept thinking about Pam telling me that there was a 6 week normalization period for kids and how much Ben seemed to need it. They told us how well he responds to positive feedback and suggested a start chart. Another thing to put on my to do list…

Climbing Trees After School

Finally we picked up Jack’s report card. He also seems to have settled in after the 6 week normalization process. He is following what goes on in the class and participating. He is no longer giving the teacher any problems and in fact is quite helpful, especially to his peers. She talked about some of his issues with giving up too soon or having trouble expressing himself when he is frustrated. She also showed us some of the methods they use to read and write and suggested we get him a journal of his own and a clip board to write with. Lately he’s been clearing the computer paper in order to write, he loves it so much. I’ll just add buying a journal to my list of things to do…

Adam went to buy a lottery ticket after the last meeting. Four happy, healthy, well adjusted kids! Our cup runneth over. Adam said sometimes he has so kick himself he can’t believe how lucky we are. I agree.

Sometimes the best thing you can do on the weekend is to nothing much.

Both days Adam and I took turns watching all four kids so the other person can sleep. Saturday morning Adam got a 2 hour nap in. Sunday morning I got the same. I think this should become a weekend mandate. Things are so much rosier with a nap!

With nothing scheduled we had time to do things leisurely, spontaneously. We went out to eat at our favorite spots. We visited some of our favorite parks. We built train tracks. We played hide and seek. We tucked the kids in as early as was decently possible and spent time on the couch just the two of us.

Some people might say it was nothing special. But to me, it was everything special.

Jack with his new Flip Car at the Park

Tickle Torture!

Sam and Papa (Aaron slept through the entire park visit)

Two weeks after Sam I realized that Aaron also has grown not one but two new teeth.

As is Aaron’s gentle nature, I had no idea they had arrived.

Sam reminds me daily that he’s newly cut teeth by using my breast as a teething ring, biting down hard.

This morning I decided to tick the ‘renew your driver’s license’ off my list of things to do. It was surprisingly quick and easy to do. Took about 10 minutes. She asked me if my weight was the same as I put on my license 10 years ago. I told her if she kept it the same I promised to stop sneaking my kid’s halloween candy every night after they went to bed. It was a deal. Then she took my picture. Out of the machine came my new license. There I was, looking 10 years older than my last photo. Depressing. My only redeeming thought was that it was better than the picture I would take 10 years from now so I’d better enjoy it.

I also joined this task together with a lunch date with Adam. Good thing I planned early. I beat out three other people who later asked him to lunch that day!

Paula with Aaron

I met him at his office. It was the twins first visit to the office. A total of eleven people gathered around to ooh and ahh at the babies. No one was more excited than Paula, Adam’s long time secretary. I like to call her ‘the other woman’ in Adam’s life.

She was all caught up in a conversation when I passed the first time, but after I went to the bathroom and swung by a second time, she was up and running. “Where are the little spuds?” She asked.

Then she spotted them. She realized they somehow passed her desk without her seeing. She took the papers she was holding and slung them, mid run, at a nearby desk. They fell and cascaded who knows where. “How did they managed to get past GO without paying $200?” was her next question.

How I Eat my Ramen

It was all snuggles and cuddles and after a while I wondered if I snuck out for a bit if anyone would notice. Michigan avenue was sooo close…

Afterwards we had a lovely lunch. I went back to The Slurping Turtle. I needed to satisfy the ramen craving I’ve been having. And this place does ramen the best I’ve ever tasted in the city.

The afternoon brought two good long naps at the same time for the twins. Part of the nap I was able to lay in my bed, then another part I fed Aaron in the bed until he fell asleep then wedged him between pillows and ran to feed a crying Sam. Sam then fell asleep on the boppy in front of me and the next thing I knew Anjelica was opening the front door. It was 1 and 1/2 hours of interrupted sleep, but it still felt good.

So, more talk about less sleep…

After my last blog I had another two nights that were pretty rough. So did Adam. In between feedings I heard Adam in Ben’s bed trying to get him to stop screaming at the top of his lungs at the ungodly hour of 3am.

Why do babies sleep ‘butt up’ like this? Looks so uncomfortable!

Both twins have now developed a thing where they cry out a few times after Anjelica or I have put them to bed every night. I usually go in and pat them on the back until they fall back sleep.

And Sam has developed an early morning, well more like middle of the night, wake up time. Sometimes around 3 or 4 in the morning he just wakes up and starts talking to himself. Loudly. Which wakes up Aaron.

As my friend Morgan pointed out, it’s probably time to do some more sleep training.

As far as the twins go, that means training Sam. If it weren’t for sharing a room with his twin brother, Aaron would be my only kid to sleep through the night with no training. He is such a calm, easy baby that I’m thinking perhaps he was switched at birth.

I remember how to sleep train for babies. Still, it goes against every instinct I have as a mother to let a baby cry. Even as I refused to pick Sam up last night when he woke up an hour after I fed him, I still walked into the room every 10 minutes in the middle of the night to make sure his foot wasn’t stuck somewhere.

I have no clue how to handle the older boys. At the point they can call your name and have the freedom to leave their beds, sleep training is lost on me. How do you get a kid to stop waking up in the middle of the night and screaming? I refuse to lock them in their rooms. I remember many years of running to my sister’s bed in the middle of the night for comfort. I was a real scaredy cat. How awful would it have been to be confronted with a locked door instead?

This morning I turned on the sound machine while the twins FINALLY napped together. I’m not sure if the sound machine works on Sam or the early wake up exhausted him but instead of his usual 45 minutes, he slept 2 hours. I woke up after an hour nap confused. I wasn’t waking up to any crying but naturally. It felt great. I take back my comment to Adam this morning, when I asked what kind of vacation time this job had, because I was ready to take mine.

Some weeks I go around feeling like super mom. I can’t believe how well I can function on relatively few hours of interrupted sleep. And still keep up some semblance of normal. I cook, I clean, I shop, I keep the laundry and garbage from overflowing.

This past week has been testing my limits, though.

I think the lead up to Halloween kept me going, my tank was empty from lack of sleep but I was burning on adrenaline fumes. Now that it’s over, I’ve noticed the social calendar keeps going but I no longer have the energy to keep up with it.

It doesn’t help that the twins haven’t slept a nap at the same time in over a week, making it impossible for me to sleep during the day. Also the past couple of nights have been worse than normal. (And our normal is pretty bad to start with.)  At one point two nights ago Jack and Ben were up from 2:30 to 4:30 in the morning. Adam covered that one, but I laid in bed next door, awake, listening to the whole thing. Until it was time to get up and feed a twin, that is.

This morning I woke up to see that both our bed and Jack’s were soaked in pee. Add another six loads to the normal two or three that I do every day. I knew I was overwhelmed when the thought of it made me want to cry.

Being this tired makes me nervous whenever someone asks me to do something social. I never want to commit because I never know how tired I’ll be feeling until that day. What if I commit to a play date then the twins sleep at the same time? It could be the one time I get a chance to nap.

Happy Birthday Laurie

Still it’s not fair for your friends to sit around waiting for your flaky butt to commit to something, so I try my best to make a decision and stick to it. I did need a little pep talk from my friend Cindy yesterday, though. I had plans to meet the girls for a birthday dinner date at Balena. By 3pm I was fading fast and I called to try to weasel my way out. Instead Cindy talked me back into it. She’s in sales. In hindsight should have called my friend Jennifer who is a doctor and has twins. She probably would have ordered me on bed rest.

In the end I was glad I went. It was a lovely evening with friends. So nice to escape the house for a bit. To be served nice wine by the glass and good food. To chat with your friends. To forget about all those chores piling up at my house.

And with a new day brings new hope, Maybe, just maybe the twins will nap a long nap together and I’ll get some sleep.

Spoiler alert: Sam woke up at 3:45am this morning and never went back to sleep. He has already slept a nap while Aaron stayed awake. Still hopeful though…

This morning we decided to dust off our Museum of Science and Industry membership card. They have a new Charlie Brown exhibit that I wanted to check out. The boys wanted to see their old favorites – Jack wanted the Great Train Exhibit, Ben the floating hot air balloons in the Science Storms exhibit.

The viewing of the trains was made extra special when we found out from one of the workers that there were 12 cows and the Incredible Hulk hidden inside.

The Charlie Brown exhibit was great. The kids enjoyed seeing all the cartoons on the wall, even if they didn’t have the attention span to let us finish reading them, or the understanding of some of the subtleties that Charles Schulz’s was in the habit of using. There was also a lot of cool things for kids to play with…

Creating a Zoetrope