Three Months Corrected

Today, the babies hit the three month corrected mark.  More so than ever before, things are starting to get really fun - each week they seem like completely new babies who can do all sorts of new things, and their little personalities are really starting to develop.  It has also been interesting to see just how different they are.  Watching them grow at this stage of their babyhood is so fascinating and lovely and wonderful, and makes us so excited for all the milestones that lie ahead.

Madeleine at three months...

...weighs 4.95 kg, or just shy of 11 lbs

...is sleeping through the night like an absolute champ.  She will easily go 8-10 hours of solid sleep per night, and sometimes will go for 12 if she is feeling generous.  She clearly gets this ability from me, and I am very, very happy about it.

...is starting to develop a real sense of humour!  She loves it when we play little games, or tell funny stories, and sometimes she will even mimic Matt's funny faces.  She keeps us laughing all day long and we love it so much.

...is also turning into a bit of a wannabe chatterbox (a girl after my own heart!).  She has figured out how to make the sounds 'goo' and 'gah', and uses them frequently, while waving her hands around like she is making a VERY IMPORTANT POINT.  My favourite part is her attempts at conversations - I like to repeat her 'goos' and 'gahs' in the same voice she gave them to me, and when I do, she will happily continue rambling, pleased that I was able to pick up on what she was saying.  I cannot wait to see how this side of her continues to develop (both for my own in-awe excitement, and also for the back-of-my-mind anxiety I have over how her brain will be able to handle language and speech acquisition).

...is starting to gain some noticeable strength in her arms and legs, and is able to scooch herself into different positions (especially at night - we never know which direction she'll be facing when she wakes up!).  She is also starting to like toys, and is realizing that she can reach out to them, which is fun to see.

...has found her thumb and fingers and is quite certain that they are delicious.  She is able to suck on her thumb to self-soothe when she is tired or hungry, which is fascinating to watch.

...is actually pretty laid back in general, and not much bothers her.  In fact, in the morning when she wakes up, she will happily hang out in her bassinet sucking her thumb until you decide to come get her ("no big deal mama, I'll just hang out here until you're ready!").

...thinks now, more than ever, that her brother is totally awesome.  She has always had an affinity for Reid even back in the NICU (though it was incredibly unrequited!) and that has only grown.  She loves lying next to him, watching him, holding on to him.  I cannot wait to watch their relationship evolve as they grow.

...is doing well health-wise.  Day-to-day she is quite an easy, patient baby, and few things bother her.  She has a pretty strong stomach, hasn't had any diaper rashes, and rarely cries unless she is very hungry (which is our fault anyway!).  At our last neurosurgery checkup, her shunt looked great, so we will just continue going back every few months to monitor it.  Other than being a bit on the small side, our little warrior is pretty healthy and fantastic!

Reid at three months...

...weighs 5.75 kg (approximately 12 lbs 11oz) and getting bigger and bigger by the day!

...has moved into size two diapers and 3-6 month clothing

...is also sleeping through the night, but draws the line at about 7-8 hours.  At around 6 or 7am, Reid gets up and he is ready for a bottle IMMEDIATELY, YOU BETTER GET UP RIGHT NOW MOM AND DAD!  It's a bit of a shame, since Maddie sleeps for so much longer, but once Reid does get his morning bottle, he'll often go back to sleep for an hour or two (which means we get to go back to sleep as well)

...has the most amazing smile I have ever seen.  It is a big ol' grin, and he smiles at all sorts of things (including mama, which is the best part).  He can also be quite serious and pensive, and usually has a furrowed brow and little clasped hands, which is super cute, even if I'm sure he doesn't see it that way!

...is a pretty sensitive child, and has a stronger emotional need than his sister (which is just fine by me).  Reid will tend to get upset more often by a variety of things (and sometimes by nothing at all), and also likes to be held and cuddled a lot more, at times just for the sake of being cuddled.  He has a fair bit of tummy trouble and still suffers from acid reflux, which certainly doesn't help his intermittent misery, and is a big source of frustration for all of us, as there isn't a whole lot that we can do to help him.

...is also realizing that toys are awesome, and loves to lie in his crib watching his mobile.  He squeals with excitement when you turn it on, which is basically the sweetest thing ever.  Speaking of squealing, he is trying SO HARD to laugh, although right now all he can manage to get out is a little gurgling sound.  Soon enough, buddy, soon enough.

Now that we've been at home together for (almost) three months, I do feel as though we are starting to really get the swing of things as a little family.  And I have to say, it is pretty amazing!  We are headed for a new curveball starting next week, when Matt returns to work after his parental leave, but I am so glad we've been able to get as much time together as we have.  These three months have been even more incredible than I ever could have hoped.

Lucky

A couple years back, I met an elderly woman waiting for the bus at a hospital.  She was a sweet, widowed Irish lady, and we spoke a bit about her life, and her adult daughter, who was pretty significantly mentally disabled, and who was now hospitalized.  It turned out that the woman actually had eleven children (eleven!), and it sounded like she and her husband had had a long, hard life - lots of mouths to feed, next to no money, always working hard, and a severely handicapped child to boot.  I couldn't possibly imagine how tiring it must have all been, how stressed out she must have felt all the time.

And then she said, "you know, my husband and I used to get in bed at night, turn to each other and say, if only everyone were as lucky as us."

I remember at the time thinking how sweet that was, and how nice it was to think that she still found a way to enjoy her life despite all of the many challenges.  I figured that if I were broke and stressed and had all those kids, I probably wouldn't be able to put such a positive spin on it.  I didn't get it.

Now, I have two kids (at once!).  We're broke, we're tired, we're stressed.  There are probably a million things my pre-baby self wanted that I will never get to do.  There are so many ways our lives could be better.  And yet, today, on Father's Day, I turned to Matt and said, "I really think we might be the luckiest people alive."

I get it now.

Good Morning!

Even though the babies have become great sleepers, they still unfortunately insist on waking up before my old, preferred, pre-children wake-up time of, oh, as close to noon as possible.  They must sense my misery though, because they are often extra cute and sweet during these early morning hours.

This morning, that cute and sweet moment was a little happy dance while their mobile played.  (The mobile, I am realizing, is just about the BEST THING EVER when you are almost three months corrected.)

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/68460239 w=500&h=281]

Matty & Maddie

I usually don't get to watch an entire TV show from start to finish these days, but I do get to catch bits and pieces here and there (usually online).  This morning I saw a clip of an interview with Kristen Bell on Ellen, the first since she'd given birth to her first baby a few months back, and in it, she spoke about how her partner, Dax Shepard, had taken to fatherhood.  Her verdict?  "It's like he's made a new best friend."

When I heard that, I knew that it was exactly the perfect way to describe what I had been feeling about the relationship between Matt and Madeleine since she's come home.  It's like he's made a new best friend.

I had a feeling, well before I ever got pregnant, that Matt would be an incredible father.  I figured that all of the traits that make him a good husband - and a good human being in general - would easily transfer over when he became a dad.  He has a truly kind heart.  He is incredibly empathic, very patient and understanding.  He is reliable, loyal and trustworthy.  He is hilarious.  And he also just really happens to like children, which I assume is always a plus.  But, even still, even though I knew all of these things about him in advance, I did worry a little bit.  How are you really supposed to know how someone is going to react to such a big, permanent life change?  What if he didn't take to parenthood as well as I wanted him to?

Turns out I needn't have worried - Matt is a natural, involved parent, and I learn from his example on a daily basis.  But although I did have a suspicion that this would be the case, I did not expect just how strong his bond with Madeleine would become.

He loves Reid to pieces of course (though there is pretty much nothing not to love about Reid!).  He takes care of Reid so well, and will be such a wonderful role model for him as he grows.  But seeing him with Madeleine is something else.  He knows all her little quirks, such as the specific way she needs to be burped so she doesn't puke, or how she likes to be put down for bed.  He loves choosing her outfits, loves getting her to smile (and NO ONE can make Maddie smile like Matt can), loves giving her cuddles and kisses.  He gives her endearing nicknames.  They have inside jokes.  He pretty much completely adores her, and the feeling is certainly mutual.

As Maddie's mother, it excites me to no end to think about what a gift this relationship will be in her life as she grows.  I hope, of course, that she always feels bonded to me as well, that she knows I love her unconditionally and believe in her and think she is absolute full-on perfection.  But I feel incredibly blessed to know that her dad thinks the world of her, that her favourite person on the planet thinks she is his favourite too.

His new best friend.

Nursery Progress

When the babies were born back in December, the nursery was...an empty room.  And it stayed that way pretty much until a week or so before Madeleine was discharged, when it finally hit us that the babies would be home soon and we had nowhere to put them.  We bought their cribs the night before she came home (!!), and threw together as much as we could.  We weren't totally unprepared - we did manage to procure bassinets for our bedroom far in advance, and we already had bottles and clothes and all the fundamental necessities - but having some semblance of a nursery prior to the babies' homecoming (even though we knew they wouldn't be sleeping there right away) was so incredibly important to me.  Having missed out on roughly four more months of pregnancy, time I was expecting to spend nesting and preparing for the babies' arrival, I really, really wanted to have something done the way it might have been if I had carried to term.

Of course, we did only have a week in the end to throw it all together, and so while we set up the cribs and a change table, the little details were pushed by the wayside.  But since we had a long weekend coming up this week, and I knew that Matt's mom would be coming up to help us for a day, I figured it was the perfect time to finally attempt to finish things up.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="648,649,653,650,651,652,654,655,656,657,659,658"]

Trying to build a room for two babies in a teeny, tiny house is a challenge to say the least (in fact, when we bought the house a year ago, we figured there was "just enough room for one baby", which I'm pretty certain was the moment we tempted fate into giving us twins), and having a boy/girl combination also made things a bit tricky, but I'm really happy with the outcome.  It may have been thrown together in record timing, but I think Reid and Maddie finally have a nice little space in which to spend the next few years.

(Before we move.  Because, seriously.)

Follow-Up

When you give birth at twenty-five weeks, you receive a lot of frightening warnings about what might lie ahead.  Developmental delays, complications, surgeries, infections - it all gets thrown out there at one point or another, because the likelihood of something bad happening is uncomfortably high.  But then, probably in an attempt to temper those scary possibilities, they always mention the follow-up clinic.  When babies are born early and small, they are followed long after discharge - until age six - by a great team of people who help those babies meet the developmental milestones that are so important to their growth.  For us as parents, it felt like a bit of a silver lining - yes, all these bad things might be happening, but there are people who will try and help you minimize their effects.  We wouldn't just be waiting to see what the outcome would be, we would be taught how to be proactive about helping our babies.  But at the same time, in many ways, it would be a six-year-long reminder that, while we may be out of the NICU, we are certainly not out of the woods.

Madeleine and Reid had their first follow-up appointment today, with the physiotherapist and neonatologist who followed them (particularly Madeleine) so closely during their hospital stay.  We had heard many times already to expect that there will always be lots to work on - that even if they were doing phenomenally, you would never leave follow-up without homework.  And yet, even though I knew they would find stuff, even though I knew myself what some of those things would be, I couldn't help but feel a little sad when our appointment had finished.

Just before the babies were discharged, I worried about what it would be like to have preemies at home instead of the hospital, where it had started to feel almost like they belonged.  I didn't know how to be a "normal" mother, and in any case, I didn't exactly have "normal" babies to take home.  And then, the twins were discharged.  After a day or two passed, it started to seem so strange to think of them as the same hospitalized prems we had spent months visiting every day.  Everyday they appeared in our eyes to be more and more like every other full-term newborn out there.  I started to forget their actual chronological age (if you ask, I will reflexively tell you that my babies are seven weeks old), started not to notice their misshapen preemie heads, or their general sprawled out floppiness.  They seemed just enough like normal babies - normal, perfect little babies - to forget, just a little, what we had been through for a couple of months before.

Today, I remembered.  Nothing bad was said at follow-up, there were no major issues (in fact, I do think we were told that the babies were doing great), but it was a reminder that there is still a lot to work on.  The past few weeks, we have been such typical new parents - dealing with crying jags and projectile pukes and explosive poops and diaper rashes non-stop eating - that we forgot we also had to deal with atypical parent stuff, like physiotherapy exercises and rounding out heads and shunts and eye contact and lots and lots (and lots!) of tummy time to build up those weak preemie muscles.  We were too busy trying to get Madeleine to smile to notice that she only likes to sleep on the side opposite to her shunt, too preoccupied admiring Reid's head control to realize that it was stemming from his overcompensating back muscles.  Again, not entirely a big deal - they are still completely amazing, thriving babies - but a reminder that they are still a little bit different, that some of the things we will have to think about aren't things that most parents do.

We will go back in two months and hopefully will have incorporated enough of the suggestions we got today to see a bit of a difference.  And then, we will inevitably have a new set of things to work on.  It is difficult to consider that we might never get to a point where being a premature isn't at least a small part of who they are (at least, not while they are still children).  But I also hope that we will be able to maintain our unique parent perspective that, even with their special preemie differences, they are still whole and perfect, with no missing pieces, just as they are.

[caption id="attachment_640" align="aligncenter" width="576"] Don't be silly Mom, you know we're awesome.[/caption]

Quiet Time

Now that we have settled a bit more into daily parenting life, the hours between 11pm and 1am have become invaluable to me.  More often than not during this time, the babies have fallen properly asleep, Matt has gone to bed (as he wakes up early for morning baby duty), and I get my first proper chance all day to have some time alone to myself.  Even the dogs are usually asleep at this point, which means the house is almost completely quiet.

With twins, there are very few free moments - everything must happen in between cries and diaper changes and feeds and cuddles.  Overall, this is fine with me - it is what we signed up for when we got pregnant, and what we couldn't wait for when we were in the NICU - but it does get a little bit stressful to feel like you are never quite on top of all of the things that need to be done on a daily basis.  One thing many seasoned parents like to tell you when you have newborns is that you need to let go of the housework and all the other things extraneous to infant care.  This is most definitely a helpful suggestion when you are first home, but eventually you will run out of clean underwear and THAT is a situation that nobody wants to be in.  Even though I now spend the majority of my days completely behind the eight ball in regards to chores and general adult daily life responsibilities (especially given the fact that Matt so generously allows me to sleep in late every morning), this little nighttime window gives me a chance to finally feel in control of something now that my life is mostly ruled by the two tiny humans who will one day call me Mom .

I can tidy up, wash laundry (and actually see it through to the 'putting it away' stage), pre-make bottles to warm up later, draw out meds for the babies in preparation for their next feed, sterilize bottle parts, wipe down the kitchen counters.  I get a chance to restock the supplies in the nursery like diapers and Q-tips and syringes and linens (you can take the girl out of the NICU, but alas, you cannot take the NICU out of the girl).  Sometimes I get to watch a TV show.  Yesterday I read a magazine.  I can catch up on the text messages and Facebook posts that go largely unanswered during the day.  I can make something to eat, and actually eat it while it's still hot.

When my lovely evening window kicks off every night, it is always met with a mixture of relief and excitement.  Finally, things are calm again.  And then I think all of the things that while you are pregnant you hope that you won't think - I hope they don't wake up with poopy diapers, I wish they didn't need to eat so much, oh how I miss the days when I could sleep straight through the night without anyone crying.  In other words, I almost start to miss my old, baby-free life.

But then 1am rolls around, and I know that the babies will each need clean diaper and a bottle if they are to sleep until Matt wakes up at 5 or 6.  I scoop up Madeleine (it is usually always Madeleine), and she is warm and sweet and snuggly, and we have our usual 1am hug in the dark before I grab her bottle.  Sometimes in the buzz of daily chaos, the babies constant cries and demands can seem so overwhelming.  But having that time in the middle of the night gives me a chance to remember that these babies are trusting Matt and I to be there for them, to keep them fed and warm and safe and loved, and that it is a privilege that not everybody who hopes for children is guaranteed.  It is the part that gets you through the crying spells and the exhaustion.  It is my favourite time.