Month Two

Dear BabyF and BabyB,

Today, on your Mamma’s 38th birthday, you turn two months old. I can’t believe it has already been two months since you were evicted from my belly. You’ve both already changed so much in the past month and I’ve changed right along with you.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. What I’ve needed most during your first two months has been sleep. For this reason I decided it was time to try starting you both on a bedtime routine in an effort to get you both to sleep longer than an hour or two at a time. So when you were six weeks old we started you on a routine that is ongoing – it includes a bath, a bottle, being swaddled and then being put to sleep. BabyB, you took to it like a champ – sleeping through the entire night from the very beginning. BabyF, you resisted at first and stuck to your feedings every three to four hours, but have since come around and now often go five hours before your next feeding. This morning you gave me my birthday present by going a record-breaking six hours between your bedtime and early morning feeding! Thank you, my sweet little ladybug!

There have been a lot of firsts for both of you during the last couple of weeks.
- You both started smiling at us when we speak with you and play with you.
- You both have become much more alert and are staying awake for longer periods of time, wanting to interact and be entertained.
- You both have gained much more strength and are able to hold your heads up a little, but still don’t have full control and are still my two little beautiful bobble-heads.

- We started taking you out in public in the last couple of weeks. First we only took one of you out at a time while leaving the other with your Nonna because we simply didn’t have the confidence that we could handle both of you if you both freaked out in public at the same time. However in the last week we’ve been taking you both out together everywhere we go – grocery shopping, to the mall, etc.
- BabyB, we took you with us when we went to meet with a notary to have our wills done and to name a guardian for you both (in case we both pass away while you are still minors) and we ended up having to change your diaper on the notary’s fancy mahogany desk right in her office. It was a stressful yet funny moment and the notary was luckily very understanding.

- We took you both to a restaurant for the first time yesterday when your father took me out for a late breakfast to celebrate my birthday one day early.
- We took you both to your first Sunday mass at church last week and then to your Nonna’s for lunch for the first time.
- I read to you both for the first time. You both listened to my voice and watched the book attentively – even smiled from time to time. That was one of my favourite moments of the week.

There have been changes in your behaviour too. BabyF, you are often able to cry yourself to sleep. I discovered this accidentally one day while I was caring for both of you alone. I had my hands full with BabyB and BabyF started crying. I couldn’t stop feeding BabyB or she would start to cry. So my intention was to just let you cry, BabyF, until I could put BabyB down and pick you up. I was shocked when, after no more than five minutes you just stopped crying and fell fast asleep. I was so proud of you for being able to soothe yourself. BabyB, you also sometimes fall asleep on your own, but not if you’re crying. You usually fall asleep on your own only if you’re already calm – which is fine by me. Even your spurts of colic have become less intense and less lengthy. One thing that has remained constant is the difference in your temperaments. BabyB, you are pretty slow to get upset while BabyF is like a high performance sports car and can go from 0 to 60 (or in her case, from being perfectly quiet to full wailing) in the blink of an eye. And I have absolutely no complaints about any of it. You are both such good girls for your Mamma and I am so very proud of both of you.

I’m amazed at how much you’ve both grown and changed and are developing your big personalities in your little bodies. You are still the best and most challenging parts of my days… and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love you, my sweet little treasures.



Love,
Mamma

outnumbered

Every time I'm left alone with the twins I feel a small sense of panic. I've made progress, though, because it used to be a HUGE sense of panic. Luckily I'm not left alone with them very often - generally not more than once a day for no more than about an hour at a time and I always remind J on his way out to hurry back. There will soon come a day when I cannot ask J to hurry back. This is because he will be returning to work in about a month.

I've been very fortunate to have him home with me since the twins' births. We planned this very carefully and agreed he should be home as long as possible right after they were born. So he worked very hard and long hours throughout my pregnancy and he accumulated weeks of banked hours. He also held on to weeks of vacation time. In addition to that the government allows him to have time off for paternity leave. This means he will be home until early to mid January.

I am already panicking about his eventual return to work. I think about having to care for both babies by myself all day and all night and I am filled with panic. What if I'm not able to do it? What if they both want to feed at the same time? What if they both cry at the top of their lungs at the same time? How will I console them both? What if there's an emergency and I have to take them out - how will I get them both safely out to the car? It all seems impossible even though I know I will just have to find a way to make it work.

I think I should start practicing during the next few weeks by having J leave me alone with them for increasingly longer periods of time. Eeeks! Wish me luck!