FAQs

Everyone,

Here are some answers to your frequently asked questions:

1- They are sleeping as newborns sleep...in 2 to 3 hour stretches. I am lucky at night that they get their diaper changed (thanks Daddy!), eat, and go right back to sleep. I do try to keep them up some during the day so they will be tired and sleep at night. I also try to get them to sleep the same time Butterfly takes a nap so I can nap or do whatever.

Now, our nights are far from peaceful. Mostly Professor wakes up first, screams through his diaper change, eats for about 20-30 minutes and wants to be cuddled for a few minutes or he's back to screaming the millisecond I put him down. So we cuddle (me very sleepily, he very happily and also sleepily). I wrap him up, put him down and pick up a stirring Pirate. Sometimes Pirate is not stirring. Sometimes he is screaming and Juice has to deal with him until I am done feeding Professor. (Tandem feeding is not something I do at night, I just can't yet.)

Pirate also eats for 20-30 minutes, and wants to be cuddled a little too. Oh, and he has to be burped so that takes a few minutes. I often find myself jolting awake while patting him...I'm going to actually burp him in my sleep one of these days. He goes down, I fall into whatever position I happen to fall into on the bed and am out. Repeat in about an hour, hour and a half because it's taken me over an hour to get everyone sleeping again, and Professor will wake up for his meals on time.

2- They are totally different. Their faces, their bodies, their cries, everything about them are totally different. I have never seen twins so completely different as these guys except for my second cousins. (One is tall and red headed, the other short and dark.) Maybe it's because I spend a lot of time with them, but I don't really understand when people say they look very similar. Similar in size, yes. But everything else, no!

3- We are doing fine. Yes we are sleep deprived, some times cranky and sometimes silly. But isn't every new parent? We do manage to get Juice to work at reasonable hours (you know, before 11am) and we do manage to do things like go to church or to the grocery store. We are doing fine, if only surviving. That really was my only goal for the first 3 months was to survive.

4- Butterfly is doing okay. She is doing better than she was at the beginning of the month. She has started to include her baby brothers in prayers and night time good nights which is a big deal. She does want me to do things like carry her down the stairs because I carried the baby brothers down the stairs or feed her but those are little things in my mind and I am happy to do them for her. She cries a lot, throws a lot of tantrums, and I am frankly too tired to deal with them. Ignoring them sometimes works, enforced nap time works, and distraction works.

5- We are glad grandparents are here to play with Butterfly! She is warming up to them and will actually ask them questions now. Yay!

6- Pirate's heart thing that they watched so closely in utero was gone the moment he came out. This was our best case scenario. (Granted the worst case scenario was watching it till it went away but still...)

Any other questions?

Safire