Jillian and Amanda

(Jilly and Meena)

Wery

As in: “I’m wery tired” or “I wery want to watch TV.” Wery is a word used interchangeably with “very” or “really.” I’m not sure who started it, but both girls use it in the same way. They sound like they are channeling their Swiss ancestors.

DontErgetoutMe!

Dontergetoutme! – pronounced like Don’t Er-get Out Me. Somehow all of those sounds got mashed together and into one word that is always shouted or delivered with EMPHASIS and URGENCY! DONTergetoutMEEEE! Often heard when one person takes off while another is left behind or afraid of being left behind.

Don’t Forget About Me.

The best, though, and I have noticed this more and more lately, is that people don’t even approach you with a question. It seems they are perfectly fine to stare, point and loudly comment to the next closest person “LOOK, TWINS! Wow, they are TOTALLY identical.” Um, hello. I can HEAR YOU, I am standing right next to you in line at the deli counter. I am clearly their mother. STOP GAWKING.

So here is my new favorite thing ever. Watch this video and learn about the stupidity. We have had EVERY one of these questions. Many times over. The best was “Which one do you like better?”

1. Two girls
2. Two girls that are sisters
3. Two girls that are sisters and the same age
4. Two girls that are sisters and the same age and living in the same residence throughout childhood and into the teenage years and who knows what else.

Let me tell you, I have had my share of silly girl experiences. Firstly, with my niece. She is 3 years younger than me and we grew up together. Not in the same house, but not a week went by without a play date or sleepover.  In childhood we shared that sister-type bond and many silly times were had.  MANY. We can easily recite the entire script of The Princess Bride.

In grade school and high school, my best friend and I would write notes, epic notes, where we would obsess comment on the boys in school. We would start a story, pass the note and the other would pick up the story and continue. Some of these stories lasted for something like three years. We saved many of these notes, which were folded from notebook paper into the shape of little footballs. I literally threw out an entire box-load of these when my mother made me move all of the stuff out of her house! We also had marathon after-school-before-the-parents-got-home phone chats (oh, the days before texting, email and facbook!) again, taking about boys, watching MTV in the background, laughing like crazy.

Thirdly, my college roommate and I took silly to a new level. Our silliness was unrivaled by any other girl/girl roommates in the WORLD. Somehow we had the presence of mind to write down our little musings and jokes. We are still best friends to this day, have been eachother’s maid of honors, and now we are moms. We have made a pact to be roommates again in a retirement home after we out-live our husbands. What’s sillier than that?

So I’ve had the “sisters” silliness, the “same age best friend” silliness. I’ve had the “living with same age best friend” silliness. But never all at the same time. I can only imagine what is going to be bred from the imaginations of my daughters as they begin to play with eachother and live in these imaginary girl-worlds of fun and utter sillytown. I am JEALOUS of the potential here. I know how fun it can be.

So it’s time to start documenting the silly things. Here are just a few recent ones from my observation:

• “zip-a-da-bee” – Jilly made this word up. Say it with gusto! ZIP-a-da-BEEEEE! It’s really fun to say. At random times. Or as the answer to any question.
• “dody-dody” – same as above.
• “POO-donk” – This is actually a word ML and I used from their infancy to describe the container for poopy diapers. (I have no idea. Most definitely a product of sleep deprivation.) The girls now utilize this phrase as the punchline for any joke.
• Speaking of jokes. Jilly and I wrote our first knock-knock joke and it goes like this:
  Knock-knock
  Who’s there?
  Waffle!
  Waffle who?
  By this point we both crumble with laughter and we don’t get much further. Or we conclude with POO-donk!
• “Amanda’s World” This is a place that we have noticed Amanda going to since she was about 9 months old. She gets lost in her own thoughts, songs, noises and dance moves. When she notices you watching her she bashfully smiles and either carries on, including you in her world or gets a little embarrased and giggles and moves onto somthing else. Most recently we caught her alone in the living room, wearing a New Years’ Eve headband (with dangly stars) around her waist so that the stars were sticking straight out and she was singing Happy Birthday.

We are just getting started here. And the girls don’t even play that much with each other yet. The majority of their humor is directed at me or their dad. We can just now see the emergence of their interactive play, which I hope will develop over the next year. I am pretty excited to watch that happen. 2011 is going to be a lot of fun!

Snuggly Girls Watching TV

A&J March 2010

We’ve been getting a TON of comments lately that the girls are looking more and more alike. I’m likely to agree, but also quick to point out that they are not identical twins! Or at least that is what the doctors told us during my pregnancy. There were two separate uterine sacs and two umbilical cords. They each had their own setup. Identical twins usually share one sac, one umbilical cord. It is not within the realm of impossibility for identicals to separate like this in the womb, it is just far less likely. I guess we could have testing done to determine whether they are identical or fraternal, but really, who cares? Spend any amount of time with the girls and you will quickly be able to tell them apart. If you can’t then you are just not paying attention. Sure, there are times when I have to take a second glance and make sure I know who is who. This happens mostly during bath time or more now in the summer since they run around in only a diaper sometimes.

Anyhoo. The reason people had an easy time telling them apart for the first year or so was due to the fact that Jilly had to take some medication that made her puff up. Exhibit A:

A&J six months

OMG. HOW CUTE IS THIS PHOTO. You can see Jillian on the right with the mega CHEEKS. That you just want to SQUEEZE!!! Those cheeks are due, in part, to a medicine that helped reduce a birthmark on her nose that had the potential to screw up her nose growth which would only be repairable in the future with plastic surgery. It was a hard decision to put her on that medicine for 8 months, but here we are a year later and you can barely tell she ever had that birthmark and the medicine did it’s job to keep her nose adorable and perfect. It also helped everyone tell them apart quite easily, until recently. Ever since she went off the meds last August she’s been slowly shrinking down in size. Then the girls became mobile in December and by now the chub has completely melted away from both (*sniff*).

So I’m excited to see where this goes. How will they grow in similar or different ways? Will they continue to look the same or will they develop some more unique appearance traits? For now, they have the same color hair at a similar length, as well as same height and weight. Amanda has hazel eyes and Jilly’s are brown. They have different speaking voices, but at times when they squeal at each other it is in the same pitch and volume. They have different cries, but I am probably the only one who really notices the difference there. Their little laughs are quite similar and very contagious.

This must be that nasty evolutionary thing that tricks the human race into reproducing again and again! You slowly forget, over time, the hideousness of the newborn stage, the sleepless nights, the endless laundry, the PUMPING… AUGH! Nature is mean like that! I think some of those memories for me, especially the ones dealing with prematurity, hospital stays and trying to feed two 5-pound babies at once will never leave me, so clearly I have evolved. Nevertheless. There are some things that you definitely DO want to remember, right? Like the exact times that your babies were born. And when they ate their first solid foods and took their first steps. In a creepy way, I kind of DO want to remember all of the scary hospital times. Looking back from over a year later, our story is very special and interesting and we have overcome a lot to be where we are. And we’re doing good! We’ve always done good, regardless of our struggles, we have not only survived but thrived. It is hard to see it that way when you are knee-deep in the rough patches of parenthood.

So maybe that is as good a reason as any to keep up with this blog. The girls are going to want to know these things some day, right? I think I will too. So perhaps that will motivate me to keep up with the blog a little more. I started this blog to keep track of the pregnancy, which lead to documenting my nail-biting adventures in the hospital, which was very therapeutic for me, by the way. But I never had much motivation to keep this going after their birth. There was also the time-restraint thing and the being very busy thing, and the SLEEP DEPRIVATION. You know. But that’s got me thinking now about how I will tell my girls their story someday, with some amount of detail. Like the exact times they were born. I don’t want to have to look that up on the birth certificate. Perhaps that will get me going. I constantly take photos and video and that is awesome, but maybe they might want a little more insight someday into why, exactly, mommy is so crazy.

Amanda, March 2010

And also this – I know I stated this back in my last post in January, but I think it bears repeating. The 9-12 month period of twinhood was CRAZY ROUGH. The 12-15 month period was also VERY ROUGH but that had more to do with our house getting robbed, a week-long health scare for one of the girls that resulted in lots of testing, but ended with nothing to worry about. Then it was catching every illness imaginable by each member of our family at least 5 times during the course of one winter. Somehow we avoided the dreaded swine flu and there were no stomach bugs or bad fevers to deal with. Instead it was one steady streamline of miserable sinus stuffing head colds with coughing and sneezing and never ending boogers. There were three ear infections, two cases of conjunctivitis, one sinus infection and two cases of The Croup. I think by the end of March we saw the last of the nastiness and we’ve been relatively booger free for a while now. Poor ML has been dealing with the seasonal pollen allergies since then, but at least the girls and I have been well. Which means SLEEP. Oh sweet, precious sleep. On most nights of the week. We still have the occasional night time disturbance.

Jilly & Daddy Box Head, March 2010

We are now in months 15 – 18 and I daresay we are coming to a very nice place that is illness free, summery and full of more options for fun. We can go outside now! The girls are starting to walk! They have lots of teeth and can eat such a wide variety of foods and even feed themselves with spoons now. They are TALKING up a storm and communicating with us. There’s still a good amount of screaming and demanding, but we are all coping better these days. We are learning to say “please” and “thank you”.

The current routine is going really well. On week days we go to school and work. After work we come home and play, the girls have their dinner, a bath, we read books and then go to bed. Afterward, ML and I do the night chores and enjoy dinner together and watch a TV show or two. Most nights we, the weary parents, get to sleep a full 8 hours. When all of that is working, yes, I daresay life is good.

Our next adventure awaits us in the coming weeks and months. I have been looking forward to this time, especially since our current routine is going so well. Up next is the dreaded transition from 2 naps to 1. It is going to suck. It might not suck as much as potty training, but at least I don’t have to worry about that for another year or so. I hope.

I’m not sure where it all went downhill, but sometime around early October, let’s say, all that sleeping through the night business flew abruptly out the window. It has taken more of a toll on our family than I like to admit, but there you have it. And when the sleep is gone, or inconsistent, or spotty, or what have you, life with twin infants is just plain HARD. And that is a total understatement. And there have been illnesses and missed days of work and all sorts of things that we didn’t have a plan for, and we’re dealing with those things as they come which takes another unexpected toll. Thinking on one’s feet turns out to be rather difficult with that whole missed-sleep thing. And I guess that’s where the snowball effect takes over and life turns into this circus of chaos and now that’s our life. Circus of Chaos. Welcome to our show.

A&J on Pajama Day at Daycare

We’ve become better at dealing with the sleep issues. We have a lot of nights where we get good sleep. We still have plenty of nights of bad sleep too, but at least I’m over the whole “what? you mean once they start sleeping through the night it doesn’t last forever” mentality. Got that whole expectation taken care of. So now we make lists and we check the items off our lists, even if it’s the same list of things we did yesterday. Because if you don’t, checklist items like “feed the cat” can sometimes elude you for a few days and you’re like “what was that thing I was supposed to do the other night” and you’re wondering why the cat is following you around the house, biting your ankles.

A&J Doing Some Laundry

Don’t ask me or ML for an explanation as to why they don’t sleep through the night anymore either. We have decided to stop trying to figure these things out. Our favorite saying is “maybe there’s oxygen in the air?” because we work our brains so hard sometimes trying to figure out WHY things are happening with two babies who can’t communicate what exactly is going on that is making them so upset. It’s too much to think about. And remember about the sleep deprivation and the limited mental resources for problem solving? We exhaust our last remaining bits of sanity energy trying to figure out answers to problems that don’t have answers.

We’ll go through every possible thing: Maybe she didn’t eat enough? Maybe she didn’t get a good enough nap? Maybe her pajamas are too hot? Maybe she is sick? Maybe she’s allergic to something? Maybe she needs a different blanket? Maybe she’s teething/growing/going through a developmental stage? Maybe this? Maybe that? And then we systematically try to SOLVE all of these problems and when that fails, we just collapse and wonder…”maybe there’s oxygen in the air?” because there’s really nothing else we can think of.

So I guess this is all to say, I haven’t updated the blog because from about month 9-12 things got insanely busy/hard/stressful. Lately, though, I think we’re doing a better job at managing. Or maybe ML and I have adapted to this absurd pace of life in some way. We talk all the time about how easier times are in store for us in the future, it keeps us going. But we definitely love the girls like mad, they are growing into these amazing little kids and their personalities fit right in with me and ML — silly faces, laughing all the time, a little crazy…

A&J Turn One

The girls turned one on December 7, 2009. We had two small family parties for them, they got lots of loot and got to try cupcakes for the first time – which they loved! They are growing teeth at an alarming rate, eating all manner of solid foods and starting to transition off of formula to regular milk. (We have been waiting for this day since last March! Hurrah!) The girls can both crawl, though Amanda has a special little “butt scoot” that I MUST capture on video so I can royally embarrass her some day in the future. It is the very cutest, funniest thing ever. Both girls can stand up while holding on to something or someone and they are cruising from station to station around the house. Just yesterday Amanda stood on her own for a few seconds. Our cat, Bruno, is currently looking for napping spots in higher ground. They are getting very sturdy too! They have taken a few nasty spills lately, some even resulting in bloody lips, but they just bounce right back after a quick 3-second cry and move on with their business. People, I think we officially have toddlers!

Check my Flickr page (see left column) for the latest in babytown. Though I need to start a new album for our exciting new adventures in toddlerville…or whatever lame name I come up with for our next stages in twin life. Maybe I’ll keep you posted more frequently than every 5 months too. But don’t hold your breath.

On August 7, 2009 the girls turn 8 months old. We are still running on adjusted time, so that means we are the size and shape of 6 month olds. So what’s new now? Well, we have bouncing and laughing and loud little voices as you can see from the video.

Mom has returned to work part time for the summer, so we all spend our Tuesdays and Thursdays hanging out like this at home while the other days are spent at daycare. The first week of this arrangement was rather sucky for both mom and babies. But we have, as always, adapted to the change and it’s all routine now. At least until the end of August and then we switch to a new daycare and then mom goes back to work full time! Yikes. I’m sure that will also come with a sucky week, but we’ll get through it.

The girls are eating solid foods — oatmeal and stage 1 baby food jars of fruits and veggies. Jilly most definitely has inherited her Bammies’ sweet tooth and prefers sweeter items, so I have to trick her into eating oatmeal and any green vegetable by mixing in something sweet like bananas or sweet potatoes! Amanda will eat ANYTHING I give her, atta girl. We are giving sippy cups a go, but we still have to work out some kinks. They totally understand the concept: grasp cup, bring to mouth, suck on nozzle. It’s the whole tilt the cup upwards to send the liquid downwards toward the mouth thing that has us perplexed at the moment. And who can blame them, that is quite advanced if you ask me. So for now we will practice practice and practice some more. We have lots of bibs.

The girls have been sleeping through the night quite successfully for many months now, which has gained mom and dad a considerable amount of energy for daytime activities, not to mention sanity. Now we just have to work on some way to sleep more on weekends. I can understand getting up with the rooster crow at 5:30am on week days, but it would be nice to sleep in on Saturdays or Sundays once in a while. Sigh.

All in all, things are going great, life is good and it’s still summer time! Can’t beat that.

Starting this Friday I will make my triumphant return to work after my 8 month leave of absence. People! I highly recommend a sabbatical from your regular-paying desk job if you can swing it. Maybe not 8 months, and certainly not when 4 or 5 of those months you replace your easy, regular-paying desk job with the hardest job you’ve ever done, but a few months to get your head on straight and line up those life priorities, it is just so good for the soul.

I will post more about the beans in the coming weeks, as we have much progress and much cuteness to share with the world. And I will have more of that, what’s it called… oh yeah, TIME, to sit at my desk to actually think and type and post photos and such because my babies will be smiling and making funny faces at their daycare providers while I can GET PAID AGAIN. WOOOOOOT!

Giddy-up.