My biggest challenge so far

Warning: First-time mom insanity clearly outlined below.

One can imagine, that after having a baby, not to mention twins, that we face numerous challenges as parents. There might even be one that trumps all others. What might that be? Lack of sleep? Dealing with temper tantrums? How about tantrums in public? Maybe the realization that you will never ever not worry again? What about diapers, germs, baby-proofing and development?

While these are all indeed challenges, the one thing that has remained my constant challenge is FOOD.

Let me elaborate:

Pregnancy:
Eat a fully balanced diet, take my vitamins, steer clear of tuna, smoked fish, soft cheese, anything under-cooked (no sushi, eggs over easy, or anything less than medium-well) along with a host of other things. "Don't eat too much sugar"; "don't eat too much salt"; "don't eat too much"... but "eat enough, after all, there are two in there!"

Birthday- 6 months:
Latching on- what's that? What do you mean most babies 'catch on' right away?? Pumping, bottle feeding, waking up in the middle of the night every 90 minutes to feed expressed milk and then setting my alarm every 4 hours to pump; 90 minutes bottle, another 90 minutes bottle, another 60 minutes pump, another 30 minutes bottle etc. etc. After five long weeks they finally figured it out.

My thoughts: Are they getting enough? Am I eating enough? Do I have to supplement? What about vitamin D? Remember to take my vitamins. Remember to give the girls their vitamins! And, will I ever get to have a glass of wine??

Should I try formula? Soy-based or milk-based? Powder or Liquid? Was that brand recalled?
Ultimately it never mattered much; we tried it, but the girls wouldn't drink it, and then they stopped taking a bottle all together. This made my social life even more challenging to say the least.

6 months- attempt the solid food; deal with the cute (at-first) cringing and spitting everything out
7 months- attempt the solid food... slight progress- still a lot of cringing
8 months- will eat sweet potatoes and peas... and start moving into other foods slowly.

Truly solid food (as in chunks not pureed): Are the pieces too big? Will they choke on that? Is that a rash? Are they allergic to strawberries? What about peanuts, how do I introduce them to that? Should I even introduce them to that? Are there steroids in eggs? Are those peaches organic? Is there added sugar in that applesauce?

Am I feeding them a balanced enough diet? What if they will only eat cheerios and applesauce?? Why don't they like milk? Are they lactose intolerant?

Oh, no, diaper explosion... it's everywhere. What did they eat? Why do they have diarrhea? Why has it lasted more than a week? What's a pro-biotic? Is that yogurt too sweet? Should I buy soy yogurt? Are they getting enough liquids? Please don't dehydrate!

Oh no, now Stella is not able to keep food down, what happened? Does she have E. Coli? Let's look it up on WebMD (haha, not a good idea by the way).

Now we are dealing with each of the girls eating different things. I made a butternut squash soup with apples, carrots, and celery along with a "green pudding" with spinach, avocado, and applesauce (might sound gross to some, but it was pretty tasty). Lucy eats only the green stuff and Stella the orange. On the other hand when they are eating mixed veggies, Stella picks out the green stuff (peas and green beans) and Lucy picks out the orange (ish) (corn and carrots).

And, what happens if you can't tell how much your child is eating? How does this happen? Well, if you have a pet, you know. It's become quite the game to throw morsels on the floor and see how fast Teddy or Penny can gobble it up. My problem then becomes... how much ended up on the floor and ultimately in a canine's mouth?

Needless to say, I am most likely over-thinking all of this, but that doesn't mean I still don't stress out about it:)  I am getting better as time goes on and slightly more sane.

I still find it quite comical that out of all the challenges a child can bring into their parents' lives, that my largest challenge has been the simple necessity of chow. 

Baby Teeth... are sharp!

Lucy's first tooth started popping through her lower gums in mid January, and as of last week I notice Stella's are now coming in as well!

They have been doing massive amounts of drooling, really for a couple months now, so I knew those porcelain babies were going to come in soon!

Lucy bit me once and i firmly said "no", stopped feeding, and then resumed a moment later. She has not bit since. Stella on the other hand, has bit several times. Each time, I have been tandem-feeding, so I did not want to verbally say "no"- I actually tried, but Lucy thought I was talking to her too.


Grandma Karin mentioned that she used to flick her boys' cheeks. I tried this with Stella, but everything I do just makes her laugh! And then of course I laugh too.

I have done some research. The expert concensus appears to be:

• Unlatch, but make sure to use your pinky finger in between her mouth and you, otherwise you could put yourself in more pain
• When unlatching use a firm "no" or "Do not bite Mommy" and do not re-feed immediately, wait a minute and if it keeps happening up to ten.
• Make sure you are calm- if you shriek or push your baby away at the first feeling of teeth, you will likely frighten her and possibly put her on a nursing strike.
• If the biting happens early you can either massage or use a warm cloth to speed up the let-down (someone massaging your shoulders helps too!), or feed her solids (if she is at the stage) first
• If biting happens at the end because of sleepiness, release the latch before she falls to sleep.

Babies, babies, babies for a Minnesota Christmas

So 2010, brought 4 new babies into our extended family. My cousin Missy and hubs Josh welcomed Gus at the end of May, my sister Becky and Noe met their daughter, Luna, for the first time on September 11, and of course our two girls came in July.I had not met Luna or Gus yet, so I was pretty pumped to see them on our trip back to Minnesota.



Me with Stella, Luna, and Lucy

This was the second time we have flown with the babes and they were definitely more awake this time-- and just a bit fussy. In the shuttle from long-term parking to the airport we were required to take the babies out of their carseats and place them on our lap (which seems a lot less safe to me)- we did not have to do this in August so we were not expecting it and were not very happy. So we thought we were going to have to choose between full-body imaging or a pat down when going through security, as it turns out, we did not. I can feel the sighs of people behind us now when we go through the line however. They see us trying to get all our gear through the xray machines, take off our shoes and jackets, laptop out of the bag, babies out of carseats, seats through the machine, stroller through the machine; I like to think that we are pretty efficient. I brought six 4-ounce bottles of breastmilk with the intention of using it when my sister and I went out. Unfortunately it all went to waste as they have figured out they can get that stuff from the source- so they will only take formula in a bottle and not expressed milk- interesting...

We were delayed about 4 hours total (some at the airport and some circling Wisconsin). I had to feed them on the plane which was interesting; Dave and I cannot sit in the same row since apparently there is only one extra oxygen mask in each row. So each of us (armed with our respective babies) were placed next to strangers; fortunately we could not have found better people to sit with on the extended flight.

We stayed with my sis in their non-official in-law suite in the basement: full bathroom to ourselves and we had our fill of HGTV 'reveals' (we do not have cable at home). They just moved back from Texas in May 2010 and they are living in Como Park with my nephew Nico (3), Luna (4 months), and their two pups Wilma and Dash. There was lots of action, but we enjoyed staying with them since we are all dealing with similar things in our lives right now!

Noe, Luna, Becky, Nico

Me, mom, and Lucy; Dad and Stella

We celebrated my immediate family's traditional Christmas eve on Dec. 23rd. My dad made guhuctus and german potato salad, Noe made Oxtail soup, we made, well...nothing;)



The guhuctus is raw meat that is hand-ground and mixed with egg, onions, and some salt and pepper. This year he made it with Kobe beef- it was very tasty!


We spent Dec. 24 with the Treiber family for my father-in-law's birthday and then again on Christmas morning. We had fun watching them roll around and play with their new toys- they grabbed onto them as soon as we presented the owl and caterpiller (we don't go anywhere without them anymore).
Paul, Karin, Dani, Dave, Bob, Lucy, and Stella (before and after Stella's big Burp)


The rest of Christmas day we spent at my cousin Shawn's place in Lino Lake. There was a total of 28 people there (10 of which were kids, 6 under 3). It was a riot with 4 babies under 7 months in the house. Looking at how they all sized up was interesting too: Lucy and Stella are 13 and 11.5 lbs respectively, Luna is close to Lucy (and 6 weeks younger), Gus I believe is somewhere around 20lbs and is 7 weeks older than our girls. Everyone was commenting on how chill Lucy and Stella were- they slept a lot, and they were mostly smiles the rest of the time!

Lucy, Stella, Luna, Gus (from left back to right front)

Sleeping through the Night

I did not believe it would ever happen. The week before we left for MN, so Dec. 18ish, the girls BOTH slept through the night. I am talking a good 8 hours. Of course I woke up several times to make sure they were OK, but after a couple weeks now of mostly sleeping through the night, I am actually getting a normal amount of sleep (in a row) again!!

It makes a difference how much they eat during the day I found. If I feed them every 2-3 hours during the day, they will sleep through the night. When they are home with Daddy, they eat less and I notice that they are more likely to wake up in the middle of the night.

They are still on our room in the pack and play, the plan is to move them into their own space after my parents visit in January!

Bottle Envy... or not so much

So Dave was home for 6 weeks on paternity leave with the girls until early November. During that time it didn't seem as though there were too many bottle issues. I woke up in the morning, fed the girls, then pumped, then off to work. When I arrived home in the evening, I came back packin' a cooler with the good stuff.

Then Dave went back to work and I started part-time. So in essence that meant, more one-on-one time with the babies, or you could say two-on-two. On the days Dave was home, and hence the girls took the bottle, we have begun to have issues.

It's really hit or miss on whether they are going to eat from the bottle nowadays. Our doc told us not to worry and if they are hungry enough they will eventually take their chow from good ol' Born Free, but what we have been finding is that they don't and they just get super super distraught and eventually cry themselves to sleep until mamma gets home (there have been a couple times that I have actually had to leave work).

It seems as though Lucy is the primary mischief maker in denying the bottle. I guess she has the infamous stubborn quality of a first-born:) A co-worker recommended that we try another bottle that has a nude colored nipple and that maybe that would work better-- it's not very exciting to think of purchasing another (most likely $$) bottle just to test it out... argh.

On another somewhat related note... I am still determined to give them only breast milk until they are 6 months but its becoming harder and harder to make extra to store so that I can leave for more than 2 hours at a time (shopping, maybe happy hour??).

If I am feeding them and then pump I only get maybe an ounce. I do find that if I can motivate myself in the morning to hook up to the Ameda after I feed them I will get more. I think its because they eat less frequently at night (every 5 hours, versus 2-3 during the day) I have more leftover after they are done.

My blonde nature shown through when I thought placing a frozen milk bag (plastic) in a pot of boiling water to thaw it out, only to find boiling milk and an empty bag shortly thereafter. That was 7 oz. down the drain. We also found that some of the frozen milk had gone bad; I think we froze it too long after it was pumped.

And... my sis and I have grand plans of hitting the town when we are back for Christmas and I guarantee that I will likely not have enough. I can only travel with so much milk on the plane and I will not be able to pump enough once I arrive so I am thinking about sneaking in some formula gradually a couple weeks before we go back to MN-- we'll see.