i love oregon. and my mom is my hero.

today was hard. really hard. we had a few really high highs and waaaayyy too many really low lows. but i'm not going to write about that. i'm working on getting past it. instead, i want to thank my mom for being the most amazing woman i have ever known and thank oregon for being all i wanted and needed it to be... at least for tonight.

after nearly 3.5 hours of a rough bedtime with bug, i bailed out. my mom had already got lilah to sleep and i finally got alice to sleep, but nolan was holding strong. i was sad. i was frustrated. i was angry. i needed fresh air. so i laced up my running shoes and went for a jog, my first since sometime last summer. it was about 8:30pm when i left (bedtime started early after a very rough/brief nap experience and ugly behavior). i could never head out for a run at 8:30pm in california because it gets dark so much earlier and anthony works mostly evenings/nights while i solo parent. so that was awesomeness piece one.

awesomeness piece two was that i was in jogging distance to an incredible park surrounded by enormous mature trees, mostly pines (or some sort of coniferous tree) and oaks. there were four different baseball fields with adult co-ed softball games going on and one with a kickball game going on. there were people playing sand volleyball, basketball and tennis. there were kids at the playground and skaters at the skate ramps. there were runners and dog walkers and young lovers cuddled up on blankets taking it all in (which really made me miss my hubby). every person i passed smiled and said "hello".

i ran down a trail to get there and back and once i was in the park, i found a trail that led me down to the river. i sat on the dock for a few minutes and took in the beauty and serenity of the calm water before heading back around the park loop and home.

the air was clean and smelled like the sweetness of a forest. there were hills that made my legs hot and burned out my frustration with every step. all in all, i probably ran a little over two miles, not bad for my first time out in nearly a year. i felt strong and like i could have gone on, but didn't want to push it too far. i arrived home about 9:00pm... and it is still light out. i wish i had brought my camera with me to capture it all, but my memory will have to suffice. at least until next time.

i have never been happier to be back in oregon than i am right now.

oh... and my freaking amazing mom? yeah... she got my boy to sleep too. i love her. i can only hope that one day i will have the amount of love, patience, determination and kindness that she possesses.

gma and my tired babes. lilah left. i'm certain because alice likes to hold her hands up like that all the time. :)

gma and bug feeding fishy

gma and lilah at the park on one of our first days in oregon

gma and alice the afternoon we arrived!

three months! already!?

today (actually yesterday now. this blog was supposed to be done and posted last night) my little nuggets turned three months old. simultaneously, it is hard to believe that so much time has passed and yet it feels like a lifetime ago that i was birthing them. i have been meaning to write their birth story since the day they were born... i have started it and i wish it was complete to include in this post, but alas, it will have to wait for another day. :)

i mentioned in previous posts (here and here) that the start was anything but smooth. the first five-ish (?) weeks were really freaking hard, but i'm so glad to report that things have GREATLY improved. they sleep now, which is amazing. they sleep better than their 3.5-year-old brother! (they sleep so well that i'm pretty sure despite nursing them pretty much all day every day, my period will probably return any minute. boo. it stayed away for over two years with nolan! the price you pay for sleep, i guess. haha. anyway...). things are pretty great. i can't imagine what life would be like if there weren't two of them. not that there aren't struggles every single day, because there are, but we are working through. we have been in oregon with my mom for just over a week, which helps heaps. i'm already wondering how in the world i ever did this without her! wowsa...bedtime with two adults (daddy mostly works evenings/nights) is like a cake walk! well... maybe not cake, but soooo much easier than one! whew!

hmmm... this post is quickly becoming really rambley and all over the place. i'll re-focus.

three months. crazy.

they nurse like mad.

they sleep like little logs.

they smile with their whole bodies.

they LOVE their big brother (and he loves them like crazy too... but frequently forgets his size and strength :/).

sometimes they look so much alike that i almost can't tell them apart and i'm certain they are identical. other times (like today), they look so different i'm certain there is no way they are identical. ha!

 they are growing so incredibly fast. seriously. i feel like they look completely different than when we got on a plane in LA last week bound for our new oregon home. alice even rolled over twice yesterday! from her belly to her back! of course she has yet to repeat it despite my watchful eye (through a camera lens, of course). before i know it they are going to be crawling all over the place.

watching them grow is bittersweet really as this is the last time we'll experience each of these stages. and it is a great reminder to take it all in and work on being more present in every moment.

tonight as they were nursing before bed, they were dressed in these sweet little white t-shirts with a ducky on them. in november of 2008, my family surprised me with a baby shower for sofia. at that baby shower, i got duplicate sets of a pair of ducky jammies. one from my grandma and one from my mom. obviously and sadly, sofia never wore them. as i sat with them and watched them smile up at me in their sweet ducky shirts that seem to have always been meant for two, i remember my beautiful angel and i know that her soul is a part of these girls. i know she had something to do with the craziness what is me having twins out of the blue. it may have taken me 38 1/2 weeks of pregnancy and nearly three months of their lives, but i can finally fully see them as blessings and i believe with all my heart that i have her to thank.

sofia changed me. nolan changed me further. and these baby girls... i tell you what, they have most definitely changed me too. every time it think i'm going to break (losing sofia, figuring out how to parent, nearly going crazy with twin newborns and a toddler), i seem to come out stronger. seriously. world,  don't mess with me. the last five years have made me a force to be reckoned with fueled by the strength of motherhood. a strength that grows with every passing day.

happy three month bday, alice and lilah. thank you for choosing me to be your momma. thank you for believing in me when i haven't. thank you for teaching me every day. i love you. xoxo

alice smiling at gpa

milky lilah

cuddly babes

alice fourth of july (11 weeks 2 days)

lilah fourth of july (11 weeks 2 days)

lilah and bug

sleepy girls after a long day on our first evening as oregonians (11 weeks 6 days). lilah on the right...i think. ;)

my view looking down. lilah in lilac. :)

alice cuddled up napping on gpa. 

alice and daddy saying, "goodbye" at the airport as we had to send anthony back to california for a bit. :(

lilah and daddy "goodbye" (12 weeks, 1 day)

bug and alice

babes and bellies getting ready for bed. bug and alice. wowsa... bug's legs are sooooo long! 

baby girls cuddling in their sleep. lilah on the left (one day shy of 3 months)

baby girls! three months! alice is the upside down one. :)

sleepy three-month-olds! alice left. 

our lives...by the numbers.

this is the story of our lives as told through numbers.

48: the number of hours this blog post will cover. sunday evening through tuesday (today) evening.

sunday: 

3: the number of non-consecutive hours of sleep i got sunday night.

14: the number of hours straight that anthony worked sunday afternoon/night.

monday:

30: the number of minutes i worked out for my beachbody les mills combat challenge.

6: the number of chocolate covered almonds i ate (before breakfast) despite the fact that i'm on a fitness challenge. doh!

6: the number of laundry loads i started by 8:30am.

3: the number of children in my house with a cold.

1.5: the number of hours i waited alone with two sleepy (not sleeping) infants at the doctor's office for their two month appointments.

2: the number of weeks late i was on scheduling said appointments.

11: the number of weeks old they are now! 

11.8125: the number of pounds my girls BOTH weigh. also read 11lbs 13oz, but that didn't fit the mold. :)

6.4375: the number of pounds alice weighed at birth (6lbs 7oz).

6.25: the number of pounds that lilah weighed at birth (6lbs 4oz).

49 & 50: the number of centimeters lilah and alice's heads (respectively) are around .

21.5: the number of inches lilah is long.

22: the number of inches alice is long.

12: the number of hours anthony worked last afternoon/night.

2: the number of times nolan's body hit the living room floor last night after he woke up at 11pm, realized I wasn't in the room and that daddy was still at work and then walked into the living room. he threw his body the first time out of frustration. the second time was when he rolled off the couch where he was sleeping next to me as i slept upright holding a baby who couldn't breathe.

11: the miraculous number of hours that alice slept in one chunk yesterday. she fell asleep at 4pm and didn't wake up until 3am. convenient, but a little scary too. :/

2: the number of babies i ended up holding on my chest the rest of the night while we all slept upright on the couch so they could breathe.

tuesday: 

2: the number of viruses i've had in the last week (alright, i realize that is farther off than 48 hours, but the second one started last night). one tummy bug. one cold.

5: the number of people in my household (read: everyone) who still have the cold.

30: the number of minutes i trudged my way through my workout...with a sore throat...today. beachbody les mills combat power HIIT (high intensity interval training) 1.

4: the number of bags of clothes and housewares we donated to goodwill today.

7: the number if bags i organized to donate to the watts healthcare organization WIC program.

11: the number of boxes precariously stacked in my living room, kitchen nook and kitchen.

2: the number of times nolan's head smashed into my nose while he was having a HARDCORE meltdown. 

10: the number of minutes i rocked him in the glider (somewhat against his will in the beginning) before he conked out after declaring for hours that he wasn't tired. 

4: the number of people asleep in my house at 8pm as i finish this post with two sleeping babes on the nursing pillow in front of me. getting ready to attempt the transfer and start back at packing. no rest for momma.

5: the number of nights to go until movers arrive at our house sunday early afternoon.

1 million: the number of things to do before then.

here is a pic of my sweet, sa-weaty little man after melting down for 10 minutes and then rocking...then melting...the rocking...until he passed out. it is seriously hard work to be a three-year-old big brother. :(

sleeping babes...11 weeks. alice left, lilah right. fingers crossed for a successful transfer. :)

so many lessons to learn...

there were precisely three times today when i thought to myself for just a half a second, "i'm getting this thing down. i can totally take care of three kids. cake". and then all three times, within five minutes of my confident (cocky?) thought, reality slapped me in the face. ha.

episode one: after a couple hours of both girls sleeping and bug and i enjoying some one-on-one time (which was amazing), the ladies woke up, just in time for me to try and get nolan down for a nap. that wasn't the reality slap though. that i am getting used to. it comes in a minute.

so, i changed both girls' diapers, wrangled nolan with books and an "animal" into the room, got the girls set up on my gigantic fancy nursing pillow and we started reading books. that ended early as bug was acting out and was obviously very sleepy. he miraculously fell asleep within 5 minutes without a fuss. the girls and i then moved into the living room. they chilled out in their swing/bouncy seats as i showered (what!?) and we "played" for a bit and then they both nursed. alice conked out first, about 45 minutes after nolan. lilah followed within 20 minutes or so. here it comes...

"i'm amazing! all my babies are asleep. i'm clean! homemade chicken soup is essentially done for dinner. i'm going to get sooooo much packing done now!"

i managed to get one bathroom cleaned out, organized and boxed (really more of a cubby/storage thing, but whatever...it's ready) and then alice woke up. literally two minutes later, lilah woke up (drenched in her own pee)...and exactly two minutes after that? yup, you guessed it, nolan too. everyone was still tired and a little grumpy and nolan has a cold, so he didn't feel good either. my packing ended and we landed on the couch nursing and watching "care bears". *sigh*

episode two: as we watch above mentioned "care bears," the girls eventually fall back asleep and i successfully transfer them to the bedroom. i finished cooking dinner and nolan and i played a rousing game of baseball with pillows as first, second and their base, a sock as homeplate, a piece of a rhythm stick (?) musical instrument as the bat and an imaginary ball (all balls and ball-like items have been banned from the house). it was awesome. then we managed to eat dinner, bathe him and get him ready for bed with the sisters stayin asleep the whole time. 

now...throughout the day, they had not managed to stay awake for any period if time longer than about an hour and a half or so before their next snooze. sooo...i let them sleep through all of the above because it is way easier to do all that with just nolan. 

by 6:15, i decided to call it. i got them both up and changed. i nursed them while bug played a little more and naively thought that maybe then, they would just hang out for a big while I read nolan books and laid with him for a minute. again...here is where i'm thinking that i've planned it all out and it's gonna be great...and...nope.

instead it went like this: in the room by 7:00. set girls in their boppy pillows and they were mesmerized by the ceiling fan through the entire first book. they weren't super stoked about it, but they even hung on through the second one. but then they started chirping. Nolan was (again) not working with me so I moved from his bed (twin mattress on the floor between the queen and the wall) to the big one with my giant nursing pillow and the now relatively feisty girls. he looked like he was going to be cool with it. he even rolled over and out his arm/hand over his eyes (how he usually falls asleep). and then...

both girls melted. they were as over sitting in that room as i was (nearly an hour later). i tried to explain to nolan that he needed to go to sleep...i have him a count down...he kept pushing the limits and fighting sleep...and then the girls and  i left the room. he has never actually gone to sleep without someone laying with him (namely me and occasionally anthony since the girls arrived) and he is sick, so you can imagine how well that went over. he lasted about three minutes before walking into the living room and refusing to budge. i got him set up on the couch and sat back down to nurse the girls (yes, again). not more than 15 minutes earlier, i sent anthony a text message saying, "in the middle of an epic bedtime fail". and then just like that, all three were asleep once again.

episode three: "yes! i did it! success! sure nolan is alseep on the couch, but there were few tears, little fight once we left the room and he was instantly asleep. hurray. cake."

and then...i tried to transfer the girls. they both woke up. i was able to lull alice back to sleep by laying next to her, but lilah was less convinced. so we headed back out to the living room for more nursing while we rocked and rocked and i typed a good chunk of this blog on my stupid phone. and then...nearly three hours after the whole process began, they were finally all asleep...and transferred to the beds.

now it is 10:00pm. i'm tired, hungry and have packed a grand total of two boxes today. my hubs has been at work for 11 hours and isn't coming home anytime soon. feeling frustrated, i look at my sleeping babes and smile (and then feel bad for being impatient with my sick little man). everyday, they teach me something. i don't always like learning it, but they teach it anyway. :)

LESSONS:
1) don't ever count on all three sleeping at once to accomplish a task.
2) at the most inconvenient time, lilah will wake up (this is our third night in a row of this).
3) don't ever feel too confident. it is just too much for the universe to let it be.
4) it isn't the end of the world if a baby falls asleep on the couch...but...
5) before losing my mind, figure out new bedtime routine for bug that does not include me sitting uncomfortably propped up trying to appease two infants for an hour.
6) don't blog...pack boxes. doh.

2 girls. 2 months.

it is amazing how when i think back to the birth of the girls, the details are already hazy and it seems like so long ago and yet at the same time, it seems like yesterday. i am baffled at how fast time has passed, how much they have changed in the last two months and how big they are already!

our journey had a bit of a rough start. physically the girls were great. i made it all the way to 38 weeks, 4 days and they were born strong and full of life. my all natural labor and delivery plans were a success so physically i was great too. emotions were another thing. oy. i was all over the place.

by the time my amazing momma came to help at two weeks (anthony had to go back to work at that point), i was crying day and night and 100% convinced i was dealing with postpartum depression. she stayed for two and a half weeks and so many of those 17 nights were spent with us both walking the floor with crying babies. bouncing. patting. singing. walking. nursing again...and again. sleep was rare. she was incredible. i was a puddle. we pushed through. about half way through her stay, i started to feel ever-so-slightly stronger, but then the reality of her leaving hit me hard and i was right back where i was before she got here. all i could think of was, "how in the world am i going to do this solo (anthony works at night)?

there were so many nights (and days to be honest) when i felt totally numb. like i couldn't make anyone happy. not the girls, not nolan, not myself. we would all be crying at nap and bed times because there just wasn't enough of me to go around and then i felt guilty. how could i have done this to nolan? how could i have taken away his place as the sole recipient of my love and made him share me? having siblings is awesome, right? i guess just not at bedtime, when you are three, your siblings are two newborns and you're used to mommy laying with you until you fall asleep (damn my sick/sleepy/sore pregnancy thwarting my plans to get him to sleep on his own). i started, and this is totally awful but true, regretting our decision to grow our family. and then i would feel guilty about that. how could i regret the two amazing little miracles that i had just brought into the world?

i had to figure a way out of what seemed like a quickly growing black hole that i was terrified i was going to fall deeper into at any moment. when the girls were three weeks, i loaded them up and headed out to a mom's group. it was a moderately crazy idea and a fairly huge undertaking, but i survived. thank you, kimberly d. for holding one of my babies throughout most of our group and for propping my elbow up with one million pillows as i tried for the first time to tandem nurse them while sitting cross legged on the floor sans boppy or brestfriend pillow. oy...that was a tricky one. all the madness was totally worth it. i experienced so much love and strength in that room with those 20ish other mommas. there is seriously something incredible about the energy of a room full of loving mommas and babes. i felt renewed and experienced a (slight) boost in my confidence. it definitely wasn't the end of my dark tunnel, but i was beginning to see a tiny glimmer of light at the end.

the trouble is/was that typically i'm not a person who accepts the idea of a learning curve for myself. i want to be awesome at whatever i'm doing right from the start. ahem...let me tell you...twin newborns come with a steep learning curb for mom. ha! over the next few...who am i kidding...MANY weeks, i had highs and lows. in my lows i would weep and turn to my amazing, amazing, amazing group of momma friends surrounding me. each time they would build me back up. without the out pouring of support that our family received during this time, i'm quite certain i would have completely broke. food deliveries. visitors. play dates. goodies. donated doula hours. you name it, my "village" came through. blew my mind. still blows it, quite frankly. with all their love, i scraped by...little by little, one hour at a time.

i would say that the real turning point for me came at one week ago after a particular crappy night with very, very little sleep. i started a blog that night at 3:30am while i was up nursing. it took me the next day, the next night and the beginning of another day to finish it as i have little time to sit at a computer and type (right now i'm stupidly forgoing sleep to type and will probably regret it tomorrow...luckily i'm going back to moms group! ha!) so i typed it on my phone. i titled it "this too shall pass". when i started writing it, i didn't much like that phrase. by the end of the post and after a little more reflection, i somehow warmed up to it a bit, saw the value in it a bit and even found comfort in it a bit. something happened as i hashed everything all out on "paper". i came to terms with my current reality. shit (pardon me) is going to be hard right now. i'm not going to sleep. i'm going to be exhausted. babies are going to cry. nolan is going to have moments that he struggles. but as long as i remain loving and give it all i've got... as long as i keep breathing... as long as i keep (figuratively) putting one foot in front of the other... as long as i do all that, time will pass. we will make it through.

someday i will sleep again. someday i will miss them needing me at all at the same time. someday they will be grown and gone. and hopefully someday my babes will sit around the dinner table after eating some delicious holiday meal and they will laugh and play games. they will remember growing up together and how much fun it was. and if we can get there, i will have succeeded at this wonderful, rewarding and often times incredibly difficult job of motherhood.

here's hoping.

happy two month birthday (yesterday), my sweet little girls. i love you with all that i am. thank you for teaching me so much in such a short period of time. i can't wait to watch you grow. xoxo

meeting brother - one day old

snuggles - 5 days old

first mom's group - 3 weeks

lilah's first bath with bro

nolan and alice lovies

lilah confiding in big bro

girl talk

my babes - lilah, nolan, alice - 2 months & 3 years 3.5 months

"this too shall pass"

the four little words that most every mother lives by during the rough patches... "this too shall pass"...

to be honest, i've never taken great solace in them. now and again they have helped pick me up when i was down but mostly...call me a negative nelly, if you must...mostly i find myself thinking, "well it is great that at some point said situation will pass, but what the hell do i do right now to get through it without losing my mind??"

i've heard and thought a whole lot of "this too shall pass" since the twins have been born. this saddens my heart a bit as i really don't want to be wishing time away, but sleep has been hard to come by around here and that, my friends, can put an ugly spin on most anything.

anyway...why write about this now? why at 3:30am (update: though i started this at 3:30am, it took me the rest of the night, day, and part if the next night to finish it...damn blogging via iphone) as i sit here on the couch with two nursing babes? it is not because i hate doing this, i actually love nursing them and i don't even mind doing it through the night. hell, i nursed nolan through the night until he was two and a half. granted he was just one baby and i didn't have to actually get out of bed...or be fully conscious (side lying nursing is a gift from god) as he had no reflux issues, but it still kept me from sleeping through the night. so it is isn't any of that. it is just that when there are two...as you may expect...they don't always live on the same schedule. the whole process of getting up, changing diapers, latching on, nursing, burping, holding them upright (thank you, reflux) for 30ish minutes and then making the transfer to bed (which inevitably fails the first try) takes bare minimum an hour...each time. what does all that mean? it means that in the nearly eight weeks of their lives,  i've been averaging...averaging meaning often times less...four non-consecutive hours of sleep each night. four is not enough to then wake up and make it positively and successfully through a day with a toddler and two infants. definitely not enough. enter: "this too shall pass"...

two nights ago, we had an exceptionally difficult one. the girls barely slept all day and woke up as soon as i laid them down every. single. time. all. day. long. so needless to say we were all tired and cranky. this also meant that nolan got preeeeetttyyy much zero solo attention, which makes for a very sad, needy, grouchy bug. combined with the fact that suddenly he is having a rather difficult time with the transition. it is like the newness has worn off a bit and now he wants his mama back. :(

anyway...back to that night. the girls were awake and angry through dinner, what should have been bath time and bedtime. it was a total nightmare. daddy was at work and i had been solo with them all day and toddler testing had been in full effect. by bedtime, everyone was in tears. i couldn't seem to help anyone to happiness...i couldn't even figure out how to get there myself. nolan melted down multiple times and didn't fall asleep until 9:00. the girls held out until 11:00 (and the were up  multiple times in the night) and cried a good chunk of that time. i nearly lost it. i just wanted to give up. all my insecurities about mothering three came flooding back full force and i was right back where i was when they were two weeks old.

then something happened. the night ended and the next day began. we made it through. i didn't sleep more than three hours total, but we made it through anyway. we had planned on going on an adventure to the batting cages with nolan for that following morning, but i cancelled it. no energy and no patience for the circus it is to get us out the door and then home in time for lunch and naps. that was the best decision i've made in a while. we didn't leave the house at all! we colored and played with toys an just hung out. there was no nap for mama, but still overall good. the girls slept quite literally all day long, which terrified me for what was to come at night, but allowed me some one on one time with bug and i even packed three small boxes (getting ready to move in a month).

that night (last night) went surprisingly well after their all day sleeps. they stayed asleep each time I laid them down. alice slept for a six and a half hour chunk of time (what!?). lilah missed that memo, so i didn't get to enjoy that same chunk of sleep, but i did manage to get five hours in during the night! i felt like a new woman today! haha. and it reminded me of what "this too shall pass" really means to me. it means, don't fear when the girls don't sleep or nolan doesn't listen or eat or is acting a mess on one day. it doesn't mean they will never sleep or that nolan is going to grow up to never listen to anyone or follow any rules in his life. it is just that hour...that day...maybe that week or month, but it doesn't make who they are. it doesn't make who they are any more than my bad days make who i am...at least i hope they don't. ;) it means, just take it one day, one hour, one minute at a time. breathe. and trust that we will make it through and improve later. this too shall freaking pass.

now...off to attempt a baby transfer and hopefully get some sleep.


ps. i wrote this post on my phone. please pardon typos. :)

a much needed visit from grandma

just after my grandma passed away, my mom sent me a crystal angel figurine from grandma's collection. sadly upon arrival, it was broken in half.

yesterday afternoon, i finally got around to super-gluing it back together and put it on top of our bookshelf in the corner of our living room (we lack shelf space and have a crazy toddler running about the house at all times).

then last night, during one of my short-lived chunks of sleep, grandma visited me in my dreams. we sat together on my couch and she hugged me and rubbed my back while i cried and cried about how exhausted i am, how hard things are right now and how i often doubt my ability to handle my new role of mother of three. she then looked at me and reassured me. she told me i was doing a great job and reminded me that i need to be gentle wih myself. it was incredible. thanks for the visit, grandma. i really needed it. miss you. xoxo