Month Four – February, 21, 2009

* edited to add pictures *

Dear BabyF and BabyB,

Today marks your fourth month. I keep thinking that in less than eight months I’ll be returning to work. I can’t imagine leaving you both for 8+ hours per day. Every day that I’m with you is a new day of discovery and I don’t want to miss a single moment.

Sometimes I feel guilty for not giving either one of you enough attention because the other needs me and also because I need time to myself to recharge my batteries from time to time. I feel like I’m forced to neglect you because there are two of you. Yet I wouldn’t trade either one of you for the world. And I’m hoping you’ll eventually get to the stage where you enjoy each other’s company and entertain one another while I’m busy doing other things.

I’ve started placing you facing each other in your little bouncy seats. Or sometimes I’ll have one of you sitting in a booster seat while I feed the other. You seem to enjoy staring at each other, but you both still seem to prefer watching me. Maybe that’s because I perform for you – sing little songs, babble away about nonsense, read books to you, encourage you to play with your toys, smother you with kisses, etc, etc. The songs I seem to sing most to you these days are “Amazing Grace” when I want you to calm down and go to sleep and “Do-Re-Mi” (from The Sound of Music).

You’ve both started sucking on your hands like they’re some sort of tasty treat. Even after you’ve had a full bottle of milk, you both still like to suck on your chubby little fists. It’s quite adorable, but also messy because you’re also both drooling all the time. It makes me wonder if this is the start of the dreaded teething phase.

A couple of major events have happened during this month. First of all, your father went back to work on February 2. That means the three of us were left alone. I won’t lie, it’s been challenging handling the two of you on my own. I continue to do my best, but there have been a couple of moments when the three of us were crying together. Somehow, though, we’ve always managed to figure things out and restore peace and tranquility.

The other major event involves only BabyB. Just a few days ago we met with the nephrologist to review all results of the various tests done in the last four months. BabyB, you only have one functional kidney. Now I know that may sound alarming, but the truth is that many people function perfectly fine with just one kidney for their entire lives… some go through life not even realizing they were missing a kidney. Your left kidney has multiple cysts in it and is not functioning at all. The good news is that your right kidney is in perfect shape and functioning well enough to compensate for the non-functional one. We were given more detail, but that sums it up pretty well. We just have to monitor the kidneys regularly. So, you see, there’s really nothing to worry about.

I’m looking forward to your first winter being left behind you. You both HATE being bundled up in your winter gear and you both scream and cry every single time we have to take you out. The warmer weather will require less layers and less complications and will allow us to spend more time outdoors – which will be better for you and for me. So let’s just hang in there for a little while longer and we’ll be having so much more fun once the mild weather hits.


Love,
Mamma