Milk thaw

We had a pretty major-ish snow storm.  (Yes, in October.  I will never love NE weather...)

Johnny, the kids, & I left as soon as the power went out at 7:30 on Sat night.

It's Monday at 10:15am & power is still out.  (Kids & I are at my parents.)

Those 200+ bags of well over 1,000oz of pumped milk are in serious danger.

I may cry.

5 Months

5 Months

I love Colby's crooked smile.

Randoms

• I'm tired.  Really, really tired.  I haven't slept more than 4ish hours in a row since May.  It's more like 3.5 because it's at most 4 hours between pumpings, so if I pumped at 12 then I'd be done at 12:30 and I'd be up again at 4.  (At the latest, but these girls don't believe in the latest.)
• The girls are rolling monsters.  I don't remember Colby ever being quite so determined to roll all the time- it's difficult just to get a diaper on them sometimes!
• Colby is so funny and cute that I can't stand it.  He asked me "Mama, are you princess?" in the car yesterday.  I want to freeze him right where he is to keep him this age forever... but he gets cuter and funnier every day, so I'm not sure what the ideal age would be.
• I am dreading going back to work.  Not the work part, but the leaving the kids part.  Colby is attached to my hip and crying and throwing up commonly ensue when I'm not with him.  The girls are definite Mama's Girls, too.  Sometimes they just need their Mama to be calmed down and soothed.  And really, I don't want to lose the closeness I have with any of them and I know it will diminish some when I go back.  
• On that note, Colby will not let anyone but me put him to bed.  The girls will not calm down at night for Johnny.  Period.  So most nights I get the girls settled downstairs then head up with Colby.  By the time I'm done with the first story usually a girl is screaming downstairs so Johnny will bring her up to me and she'll cuddle in with me while we finish stories and Colby falls asleep.  It's a little frustrating that I have to do pretty much everything and that the whole routine can sometimes take until 10:30 at night which is just crazy.  But I do love the extra snuggle time with the girls.  
• Tonight Johnny worked until 9, so I had all 3 for the whole day myself.  In an effort to really get a good routine going, I started having Colby pick up at 7.  All three were upstairs, in their beds, and asleep by 8:30, though Sydney did wake briefly at 9:30 or so.  Score one for me... no more 10:30 nights with these kids.  :)
• If I had known that pumping and breastfeeding were such effective wight loss solutions I wouldn't have stopped after having Colby.  I'm still dropping some weight... which is actually a little annoying as far as having no pants that fit.  But I digress... I read somewhere that it takes about 1000 calories to produce milk for one baby a day.  I'm producing enough for 3+, so that's about 3000+ calories.  It's impossible for me to take in that many extra calories... though I do try.
• Speaking of pumping, I am so sick of the pump that it's ridiculous.  I pump 10+ times a day, so about 5 hours a day.  I'm secretly looking forward to March when the pump is due back.  But until then, I'm enjoying the savings.
• Our new deep freezer?  Pretty much completely full of 200+ bags of milk.  I'll have to look into donating some of the older milk to make room for newer milk.
• Syd's waking up... so I'm off.

There's so much to write... so I'll write nothing

The verdict is that I need to get the "No Cry Sleep Solutions for Toddlers" book.  I have the No Cry book for babies & it was helpful with Colby so hopefully the toddler version is helpful too.

I'm working on making Colby a picture book of our nighttime routine, so that will be nice to have too.

I guess I should reread the baby book too so I can get in a groove with the girls.  :)

Other than that, life is good.  I have about a million unfinished posts that I can't quite get my thoughts around.  We're looking into moving.  We're looking into how to make it possible for me to stay at home.  We're looking into a change of careers for me if it has to go that way.  We're working on dividing responsibilities more.  I'm working on dealing with everything that comes with having 4 under 3 when I can only hold 3 of them.  Basically, there's a lot going on...

I am loving it all though...

Now, the girls are napping & Colby's so close so I'm off to pinterest.  Because that's so much more important than dishes or putting away the mess in Colby's room.

How did you manage sleep?

It's no secret that Colby's sleep habits are... lacking.  I know it's totally my fault... I refused to do any sort of crying tactics with him because (1) he was my itty bitty NICU baby (2) with lung issues I didn't want to risk any asthmatic-type episodes (3) he can throw up when he cries too much and (4) I can't bear to listen to him cry.  So instead we had a pretty good routine which worked.  He went to bed easily in his crib, woke up maybe once or twice, but I could get him back down.  Then the routine was rocked when I had the embryo transfer and then it was completely thrown out the window when I had the cerclage and couldn't pick him up like I used to.  So he started sleeping in our bed for part of the night.  Then he started only sleeping in our bed.  And sometimes he goes to bed in 10 minutes and sometimes it's more like an hour.  And I have to be there.  I know I have to change this, especially if I want to stay sane once I go back to school, but I'm not entirely sure how.

He naps pretty well... he goes to sleep on his own and I don't have to be right there.  He'll stay down for 1.5-3 hours depending on what we did that day.

The girls go to bed around 8 as well.  They can wake up a few times before they're truly settled, but I think this is more because they get startled (why do I always drop pans and toys when they're sleeping?).  They sleep really well... they wake around 12:30-1:30 and then again at 5 and then we're usually up around 7 for the day.  They can put themselves to sleep and often they do fall asleep on their own because I have to deal with someone else who is screaming bloody murder.  They take 3 naps usually... 2 shorter naps of 30 minutes to an hour and one longer nap of 1.5 hours to 3 hours.

So... I know I have to shake Colby's habits up.  It will be a slow transition because I will not do any crying techniques.  If they worked for you, great.  :)  But I'm not up for that... especially because he pretty much throws up any time he cries super hard now.  (I think he learned that it's a good defense mechanism and he will make himself gag to throw up while crying.)


I'm just curious how you got your kiddos to sleep how they do?  (Good or bad)  I know some people used CIO techniques, but I'm assuming some other people didn't.  I'm more curious about the non-crying techniques.  :)  


And for the record, I really am not judging anyone who has done cry-it-out.  I'm just not strong enough for that... I'm actually a little (or VERY) jealous that you have kiddos who can sleep!  :)

Time flies

I know I'm not saying anything new here, but HOLY COW, can time go any faster?

It's already mid-October.  Fall is here.  The temperature is dropping.  Colby is gearing up to be Woody for Halloween.  I'm mere weeks away from going back to work.  Seriously?  That was ages and ages away not too long ago.

Anywho... the girls are 4.5 months old.  They're cooing and smiling and rolling (& rolling & rolling & rolling).  I'm beginning to realize how skewed my vision of the infancy stage is/was due to Colby's prematurity.  The girls are 4.5 months... they both have teeth (buds) and they both roll front to back & back to front.  At first I thought they were SO young and advanced because Colby's first tooth appeared at 8 months and he finally rolled back to front somewhere around there to.  But then I remember the whole adjusted age & corrected age thing and realize that they're really not so different.  4.5 months vs. 5.5 months corrected for Colby.  BUT THEN I remember the girls were premature too so really corrected they're like 3 months, so really I don't know what to think.

Except that time is speeding up.

The girls are real babies now.  They're not squishy newborns anymore.  And they haven't really be for awhile.  They have personalities and wants.

Really, I don't know what to say except that I cannot believe that they're so old already.

Both girls are still in our room right now next to the bed.  We moved Colby into his room right around 6.5 months or 3.5 corrected, so I'm not sure when I'm going to be ready to shake things up.  On average they go to sleep around 8pm & then wake around 1 or 2am.  I feed then they go back to bed and are up again around 4 or 5am & they eat again.  Then they're up for the day around 6:30 or 7am.  During the day they take about a 45 minute nap around 9 or 10, a 1-2 hour nap around 1pm, and then another quick nap around 5 or 6.  Colby loves them to death still, so I'm very happy we got through this stage without jealousy.  :)

And we've been busy.  All 3 of my brothers and my mom have birthdays in September.  We had cookouts and family parties like crazy from August to September.  We did A Day Out With Thomas & apple picking this past weekend.  Tomorrow my brother flies in from Texas and we have my other brother's Engagement Party in NY this weekend.  We've been walking and painting and cooking and having a (n exhausting) blast.

Apple Picking

Pumpkins pre-hay ride.

Enjoying an apple in the orchard.

Someone needed an emergency change.

Zoe thinking we're all crazy.

 A Day Out With Thomas

Loving the train ride

Zoe being cuddly with Grampy

And Syd hanging with Daddy

I'm working hard to soak in every minute I have with these kiddos at this age.  Each day they get more and more fun and funny, but I don't want to miss things as they are.  :)

Zoe laughing at Colby

I could watch this all day, every day for the rest of my life.

Colby hopped into the big tub while I was bathing the girls the other night. He sat at the end of the baby tub & dropped the wash cloths into the water. Zoe found this to be HI.LAR.I.OUS.