Life as a Single Mom

Steven and William spent the week up at Hebgen, while the twins and I decided to forgo the fun of packing up all of our baby necessities (X2), finding a dog sitter, and potentially driving home with just the twins.

 

And honestly, it did feel more like a vacation than the vacation was seeming to be.  As long as I made sure the babies were fed and rested and otherwise happy, we got to do whatever we wanted. There were obvious difficulties (i.e. church, burping two babies at once, not being able to leave the house during naptime, etc.) but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  

We had a visit from our good friend, Angie.  She went to Universal Studios back in November and picked out these onesies before Caleb and Lily were only 20 weeks gestation. They fit perfectly.

 We were also able to go to a couple of family parties.  There was the annual Traci/Abby birthday celebration (we got a great picture of Caleb in a party hat, lol. I'll try to get a copy), and also a coming home party for my older brother Dan (who has been in Texas for the military since the babies were a week old) and coincidentally, his son Matthew, who just got out of the hospital the day after Dan came home; after several heart surgeries and a nearly six-month stay, we're glad he's done for now.  He is only six weeks older than Caleb and Lily, and probably outweighs them by at least a couple pounds and several inches. The twins would have been happier to meet him, but it was WAY past their bedtime.

The Man Basket Society came over for the monthly meeting and we all shared our favorite items under $2. Mostly, there was chocolate (surprise, surprise), but we all got a notebook and a bottle of the best purified water (compliments of Kristi's store).

Saturday night, I was even able to convince my brother Arthur to stay with the babies after bedtime so I could go on my first run this week. I had to cut it short due to the report of a creepy guy up the path, but I did run into a deer in Research Park.  My cell phone doesn't quite do it justice, but I tried.

I've started getting used to it being just me and the babies.  I had WAY more free time than in years, and got to eat broccoli and mushrooms to my heart's content.  Though I've barely left the house, so it will be good to get out again; I'm looking forward to having some adult company and toddler entertainment. My two big boys should be home in an hour!

Normal

It used to be that I would wake up and feel like life was a blur, like I was living in a dream (sometimes a pleasant dream, but unfortunately often feels like a bad dream instead).  I spend most of my day feeding, changing, entertaining, or attempting to convince my 3 children to sleep.

Caleb and Lily are quickly approaching 4 months and I am finally starting to feel like this is our new normal. Mind you, I hope our new normal will soon also include us having Steve get a good-paying job and finally getting back into a place of our own, but for now, we are starting to get back into the groove of life.This mostly entails us starting to leave the house on a more regular basis, though I'm just glad to not need a nap every day.

Here's a glimpse of a normal play time:

I think William is finally starting to get used to a couple of babies around, too, because instead of pretending the babies don't exist, he'll sometimes let Caleb sit near him while we play trains.

Caleb and Lily are starting to become more fun for all of us, and I think Silly Billy finally understands that.

They are interacting more and more.  Usually it's Lily trying to get Caleb's attention, but they will also kick at each other and hold hands. 

 Steven loves to cuddle with the babies during their early morning wake up.  Mornings (especially before 8 am) are hard for him, so laying in bed helps keep everyone happy. Lily especially loves laying around with her daddy and older brothers.

 

Caleb on the other hand, prefers to sit up and/or be entertained. It's usually worth the effort for his sweet dimply grin:

  My new normal has me trying to get as many of those sweet baby smiles and giggles as possible. Happy babies and silly toddlers are the only things that keep me going until bedtime.

Silly Billyness: Sleeping Silliness

Our Silly Billy has always been more than a little silly at bedtime.  Lately, he’s been debating about giving up naps (which I am in NO WAY ready for until the twins get easier) and we’ve resorted to bribes to get him to nap.  Like Mommy will nap in William’s room (there’s a twin bed, so win-win if the babies don’t need feeding) or swimming and/or the park.  It works most of the time.  One day, after I woke up from my nap in his room, I found him like this:

Gripping so tightly to the crib rails.  Did I mention he STILL hasn’t figured out how to climb out yet? It’s awesome because we have both babies in pack’n’plays and our other crib is way in the back of the storage unit.  So we’re trying to hold off until we get our own place before making the move to a big bed so we can have everything nice and childproofed in case he decides to wander.  Which seems likely. William is certainly big enough to get out (he lifts his leg over all the time, but has never quite made the move all the way over), but he hasn’t deemed it necessary.  LOVE IT.

William attempts to climb out of the crib.

Silly Billy also likes to have a little party before naps and bed…sometimes taking an hour or more to fall asleep. Complete monkey business. We’ve taken to filming it for our personal pleasure.  It’s fantastic. Silly Billy is always good for a laugh. Here are a few of our favorite clips from a recent nap.  #1 is my favorite, but really, it’s all pretty funny if you know our Silly Billy.

William Naptime take 1: Jellybeans and Disneyland

William’s naptime antics: Wake up and Puppy play

William Naptime: Potty Treats, Teapot, and Sheep Jeep

Williams crazy naps: Cleanup and Crib Climbing

William Naptime Highlights---Twinkle Twinkle and Dropping Daddy Puppy

Needless to say, this was a nap fail.

Notice the ever growing population of stuffed toys?  We found my old “Good Dog, Carl” in the garage recently, and it’s been a big hit.  All the other dogs and Disney toys are his collection (practically EVERY stuffed toy he owns is in that bed), and most of the others are left over from Uncle Kevin (whose old room William inherited). Along with probably close to 20 stuffed animals, Silly Billy also insists on 4 blankets to go to bed with: Bear Blanket, which was a gift from my old office; Moon Blanket, which goes with his bedding set; Puppy Blanket, which I found at Joann’s for $6 with “Little Puppy” probably 10 years ago; and Puppy Beach Blanket, which is handmade by Grandma Garff. Since the move and the babies, I don’t have the heart to limit his bedtime comfort; and since all he requests are a few toys and blankets, we’ll go with it for now.

Today took the cake. He must be able to reach the desk near his crib, because when I went into check on him after putting the twins down, he had a book in his bed (non-stuffed toys are NOT allowed). I told him if he took a nap, we could go swimming afterward.  The power was out so I couldn’t use our video monitor, so I went in probably an hour later when all seemed quiet. We found him like this:

Completely COVERED in tissues.  And Baby Puppy and Daddy Puppy were in the empty tissue box.  I asked him what happened, and William told me that he had to wipe his nose. 

p.s. I promise to post baby pics next time.

Silly Billyness: Showoff + 3 Month Twin Survival Log

I think our Silly Billy is starting to really miss California (me too). While he often puts in a request to go to Disneyland or the beach (how I wish we could!!!), a few weeks ago, he made the request for somewhere a little less expected: William asked to go back home.

Cucamonga

William’s vocabulary and memory are growing by leaps and bounds. We recorded this gem of the “ABC’s”, luckily before he discovered that the alphabet contained more than 3 letters.

William sings the ABCs

In other news, we survived the first 3 months with the twins!!! It’s hard to tell who’s the bigger one now; I think Lily is longer, but Caleb might be wider.

They are getting more smiley and interactive.  Big shocker is that Caleb smiles and coos more than Lily now.  It’s funny because his non-smiling face seems so serious, while Lily’s seems so much more pleasant even when she’s not smiling. Both babies mostly ignore each other (and are ignored by Big Brother Billy), but every so often we find them doing things like this:

Both are (mostly) sleeping through the night.  Caleb more often than Lily.  They go to bed at 6:30pm and Lily wants to eat around 4am, and then Caleb wakes up at 5:45am so that’s when we tend to get up for the day. Not a huge fan of his chosen wake-up time, but if he’ll sleep better and longer when he goes to bed early, I’m all for it.  But I’m a big fan of only waking up every other night or so. On the days that Silly Billy decides to party instead of nap (video to come, I promise), all the kids are in bed by 7 and it’s so quiet around here and we actually have time to get something done, relax, and/or GO TO BED EARLY! I think the hardest part of twin adjustment is over (i.e. lots of crying, feeding, changing, big brother tantrums, etc.), and we are finally starting to get into our new groove. AND there is a lot less crying in our lives (from everybody). Thank goodness.