The Bad
I haven't blogged of late because it seems as though I only blog when things are not going well and realized that I focus on the negative aspects of what is going on in my life. I am not a drama queen, really. This is just my place to go when things are not going great so I can figure it all out. In sorting through my thoughts to get them down in a coherent way, I organize my own feelings and sift through what is bothering me. So, I guess that makes me a bad blogger so I'm going to try very hard to keep blogging about the good stuff too and celebrate the little milestones along the way. That leads me to...
The Good
My girls are doing so well. We went into the doctor's for another vaccine shot Wednesday and they are putting on weight really well. Victoria is 10lbs 15.8 oz so just 0.2 oz away from 11lbs. Caitlyn is 11lbs 8.1 oz. They've always been about a half pound apart in weight so they are putting it on at the same rate. They are generally very happy babies and when they cry, there is a reason (i.e. hungry, tired, dirty bum to name the most popular reasons). They are not colicky so we are really grateful for that. They're outgrowing their 3 month old clothing (their corrected gestational age is about 3 months now even though they are 4.5 months old by the calendar) and will soon graduate into size 2 diapers - sniff sniff!
In talking with a lot of other twin mommies, I realize that not everyone has been able to put their kids on the same schedule. Now by schedule, I don't mean that I watch the clock and at a certain time of day, I get them to do specific things like eat and sleep. By schedule, I mean that I get the two of them to do the same thing at the same time, whenever that time is. When one wakes up, I wake the other one up. When one eats, the other one eats. In general, they nap the same amount of time so when one starts crying for her bed, the other one is usually really close behind. This allows us to have some semblance of normalcy back in our lives. I know the girls usually sleep for 2 hours in the morning after they get up and then their naps are usually for an hour to an hour and a half for the rest of the day. I'm getting a lot better at reading their cues and responding to them appropriately. It may not sound like much, but I feel like I can interpret what they are trying to tell me and then act appropriately so I don't have two really upset kids on my hands to deal with by myself. Before they would cry and we would have to try to figure out what it is that they want but I have a pretty good grasp of what that is these days. That feels good.
The girls have started sleeping for longer stretches at night. One of the only good things to come out of our attempt at sleep training was that we discovered what the girls' bedtime is. I usually have them in bed by 5:30pm or by the latest at 6:00pm and we don't hear a peep out of them until about 10pm when they want to eat. They go down right away and then wake up again around 2:3am or 3am for another meal. Finally, they sleep after that meal until 6am so our nighttime has definitely improved and we are getting a tiny bit more sleep. Of course the temptation when they go to bed at 5:30 is to run around and do a bunch of stuff that we couldn't do during the day but we have to remember not to succumb to temptation and go to bed early!
In terms of other developmental milestones, they are now able to follow things with their eyes so when I shake a toy above their heads and go from side to side, they can follow me now. They have both discovered their hands and it is the funniest sound to hear them slurping away on their fingers on the monitor. Victoria has rolled twice now although it seemed to be more by accident rather than on purpose but we are now keeping a very close eye on her when she's on the change table. Both are smiling and cooing and we have very long and loud conversations consisting of absolutely nothing and everything wonderful.
The Ugly
So here is my confession. Last weekend I was by myself and I managed to drop not one but both girls on their heads while attempting to position them for tandem breastfeeding. We're all okay and the girls didn't even have a bruise at all but I could not stop crying. I felt like such a terrible Mother. My sister verbalized it the best...we're supposed to be their protector and when we ourselves are the ones that hurt them by accident, it can be gut-wrenching.
I've been tandem feeding them for the past two and a half months with no issues but I forget that things will keep changing as they get bigger and bigger and more mobile.
So how did I manage to drop not one but both of them?
I sit on a couch to breast feed and have a large BF pillow that sits in my lap with the ends supported by two pillows on either side of me. I put each of my girls on the pillows on either side of me and then lift them into position one by one. Last week though, I lifted Caitlyn into place and then turned to lift Victoria into place. Suddenly, I realized that Caitlyn had rolled off her side of the pillow and was sliding off the couch head first. I grabbed for her but in doing so I let Victoria go and she also slid off her side of the BF pillow and off the couch head first. Both girls hit the floor on the top of their heads and flopped onto their backs.
Thankfully, the couch sits only 1 foot off the floor and thankfully, there is carpet in their room so it was a relatively soft fall. That being said though, I don't know who was crying harder...Caitlyn, Victoria or me. I was so upset and I felt like I was the worst Mother in the world to have let this happen. I thought I had given them concussions.
Being Canadian and living in Ontario, there is a public telephone service that you can call and speak with a registered nurse to get health advice. They help you to determine whether or not it is serious and if you should go to your doctor or go to the hospital emergency room and they always err on the side of being cautious. By this time I had placed a panicked phone call to my DH asking him to come home immediately and when he did, we called the phone service.
We were asked many questions such as whether there was a bump or bruise, a red spot at the site of impact, whether the girls were vomiting, if they cried immediately when they fell or if they lost consciousness and whether or not they had black eyes. The answer to all of her questions was "no" and so she told us that it did not appear that the girls were injured and to have them checked out by our pediatrician rather than going to emergency.
Phew.
Since last weekend, I've spoken to many friends who have kids and everyone has at least one story of their kids falling off of something or being dropped for one reason or another. I've come to understand that every Mother has at least one such story and I am grateful that it was not a bad fall as it could have been worse. Way worse. My pediatrician even had a story like mine and even though she is a pediatrician, she called her pediatrician when it happened!!
I guess I've just passed another of life's rites of passages in becoming a mother. I know they're going to get lots of bumps and bruises along the way but what was different about this one was that I felt that this was something that I caused although it was a complete accident.
For the next time they fall and knock their heads, at least I now know what to look for to determine if it is a concussion and whether to go to the hospital or not. We're all okay though and I guess we're all stronger for it.
So there you have it - the good, the bad and the ugly.
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