Beat This Threesome!

No you dirty pervs, I don't mean threesome as in the fanciful "menage et." I'm talking about the holy grail of breastfeeding. Tandem Baby! Yeeeee haaaaaa!

So I've been thinking about giving up the bpa-free baby feeder (the bosom, my friends, the bosom- stay with me here). Trying to breastfeed was sucking my will to live. It looked a little like this:

11:45- Try to coax a baby to be au natural. Crying, screaming, clawing, and wiggling often commenced. Sometimes we'd get an alternate scenario where said baby would clamp its mouth shut in protest and refuse to open or fake being asleep and do nothing despite all singing, tickling, and comedy routines performed by yours truly.

11:55- Give up with Baby #1. Move on to Baby #2.

12:00- Change Baby #2 and repeat 11:45 while trying to ignore Baby #1 screaming & hollering for milk.

And that's NOTHING compared to a "successful" feed. Try feeding one baby for a sufficient amount of time while Baby #2 screams. Then you stop with Baby #1 and Baby #2 starts acting the fool because he or she didn't get enough milk and needs a bottle to supplement.

When one of my kiddos wants to do it natural style, they can be latched on for up to an hour. ONE. HOUR.

Oh yeah, and when all this is over, I have to pump. We're looking at a ridiculous amount of time here. Whereas, I could simultaneously pump and tandem bottle feed and be done in 30 minutes.

So, I was done....almost. I was *this* close to giving it up and exclusively pumping. But I kept hearing that my supply would tank with pumping in a few weeks or months and I hadn't quite gotten over the picture of breastfeeding them in my head. So I made a few half-hearted attempts here and there and realized that my babies had all of a sudden developed the ability to breastfeed. Not always. But I could get them on at least once a day.

So, I started getting crafty. I started outsmarting my little babies. I would bottle feed one early and then try to get the other to breastfeed. And this started to work. (Of course, it was still taking forever and a day to do all this but I was feeling like HELLO! I AM DOING THIS).

And today I was so confident that I was like, "What the hell. Let's give this tandem feeding a shot." So, I gathered up my boppies and couch throw pillows, put a movie on, and stuck those babies on as best I could. And they ate, suckas! They may not have had the perfect latches (it's a little hard to follow protocol without bonking a baby in the head with your elbow), but they ate for 40 minutes, fell off on their own, and proceeded to sleep like the dead for an hour and half. And then we did it again 3 hours later.

I'd say, overall, we were pretty satisfied with ourselves. Go team!

Tweener

So I braved the second scariest shopping expedition a woman can take yesterday.

JEANS SHOPPING

This, of course, is second only to swimsuit shopping.

For the last 6 weeks I've been wearing my fat maternity jeans. I still can't fit into my skinny maternity jeans (HORRIFYING). Let me ammend that statement. I can squeeze myself into them but they look painted on. And after looking at some of my belly pictures you can see where I wore them LONG past their prime. I figure B may never have sex with me again at this point, why add to the ammunition?

Anyhoo, said chunky monkey maternity jeans are more than a little loose on me. I'm constantly having to pull them up since they're always trying to make a great escape off my body. And when you're carrying two little bambinos around, the last thing you want to do is trip over your pant leg.

So, I needed new jeans. Stat. Of course, I didn't want to spend much since I hope to be too small for them in a few weeks. Target hoooo!!!!

Finding jeans that fit in Target, it turns out, is a lot like finding a man. You're looking for the RIGHT FIT and there sure is a lot of junk to sort through. And in my case, I wasn't even sure what I needed since I hadn't dressed my body in months.

So Target's jeans fall into the following categories:

TEEN- These jeans were horribly skinny and I felt like I was shopping in the children's section. Even looking at their largest size felt like I was looking at doll clothes. And most of their selection fell into this category. PASS.

WOMEN- (Mom Jeans). Nuff said. Do you want bright shiny brass buttons on your ass cheeks? DONE! Because nothing says "Hot Mama" like some glittery band geek buttons shimmering off your buttocks.

PLUS SIZE- Okay, I spent a while contemplating getting jeans in this area, remembering Stacey & Clinton's motto, "Don't pay attention to size!" only to realize that their smallest jeans looked like my too-big maternity jeans. PASS

MATERNITY- I landed back in the maternity department and was seriously considering getting some when I had to remind myself that I'M NOT PREGNANT ANYMORE. Buying maternity jeans seemed like a backslide. Not to mention these suckers looked a lot like the teen jeans. WTF?

So, I'm a tweener. I fall in between. Lucky for me I was able to find 1 pair. One. No glittery buttons. No skinny leg. No elastic waist band. Now I just have to hem these mo-fos because they were built for an amazon.

And with the end of my shopping tale, I will regale you with pictures of my little nuggety nuggets. 6 WEEKS OLD! AND we're finally full-term. Halle-effing-lujah. I can't believe how big they're getting. Finn is now 7 lbs 1 oz. Cassidy is 6 lbs 1 oz.

Does this baby make me look fat?

So after much deliberation about the direction I would take on this blog, I've decided to talk about one of my favorite subjects- MEEEEEEEEEE!

Don't worry your pretty little heads. I will continue to provide diaper updates and keep you apprised of how many boogers Cassidy shnockered out her nose today (8) and how many massive poos Finn spewed out of his diaper (2). And chances are, I will likely talk about my boobs....a lot...because well, they sort of take up my life when I'm not cleaning up boogers and poops.

So, I've got this mirror. Apparently, it's a magic mirror. Because when I look at myself in it I'm like, "Dayum! I am sooo hawt!!!" And then I see a picture of myself or catch my reflection in a window unexpectedly and I'm like, "What the...??? Who put the padded sumo suit on me?!"

So, we're going to have some chatting and confession time about my body and its new...er...shape and size.

I'm home. A lot. By myself with babies. A lot. Alone with chocolate cake.

And this means I can eat entire said chocolate cake and nobody is the wiser. Except maybe Brendan. I don't think he believed my story about the wildabeast who came to the door and wouldn't leave until I gave him cake. But c'est la vie! Truth be told, being home alone means you really can eat non-stop without anybody knowing your secret shame. Finn & Cassidy are silent conspirators, so I know I'm safe there.

So due to the following reasons, I will be tracking my weight and weight-loss endeavors for your reading pleasure:

1. I always want to know how much people weigh. I'm kind of a voyeur like that. I also like to look in people's windows. (Although I SWEAR I just want to know how they decorated or what their house looks like). So if people are like me, they might want to know how big my rear end is and whether or not it's getting smaller or bigger.

2. I always like to hear about people's weight-loss- whether it be successes or failures. Oh, and I'm interested in REAL stories. To clarify- If you lost all your pregnancy weight in 1 week and were prancing around in your size 4s, I do NOT want to know about it as I will disown you from my life.

3. I need to be accountable to somebody for my weight. Why not the internetz??? Hell, I tracked my stratospheric weight gain, why not the painfully arduous task of losing it? And I get to negotiate the hellfire gauntlet that is losing weight while still trying to produce enough breastmilk to feed 2 human beings...Hm....Tricky...

So, here are the cold, hard facts:

Grand total of pregnancy poundage- 54? - I didn't get weighed the last couple days so it is likely more :0

Pounds lost thus far by sheer luck and mother nature reclaiming her bucket of water: 30

Pounds to go: 24- le sigh... And this doesn't count the 10 pounds I gained before we got pregnant. But I'm not thinking about those 10 right now...

So join me on my journey! Feel free to share your own weight-loss struggles & successes (unless of course you're that stick-bug wearing size 4s referenced above).

Paging Doctor Lamesauce

My super swank blog has officially crossed over into the realm of "Lame Mommy Blog." I have a confession: I loved pregnancy blogs- especially SAIF blogs but once the little ones were born I was like- "Um....booring!" Yeah, now that's me. I have to look at my unwashed reflection every morning and come to terms with how lame I've become.

Babies make you boring.

So far, here's what I can come up with to talk about:

1. My breasts- their size, the crazy green squiggly veins all over them, and Hello? Their size!!!

2. In a related topic to #1- Breast pumping, breast milk, milk neuroses, and my complete failure to breastfeed my young.

3. My baby's ginormous boogers

4. My post-baby body. Hello? Huge Ta Tas! Oh yeah, and other super-sized bodily changes.

5. I guess I could also talk about the fruit of my loins, but I'm kind of self-involved like that. ME! ME! ME! When I was first training to be a psychotherapist I would always interrupt my clients with an "enough about you, let's talk about me!"


But here are some pictures of my tiny nuggets anyway. ONE MONTH OLD. Jesus...



Here's Finn with his grandpa. Please note the baby mullet. Male pattern baldness in the front, party in the back. Awesome.



And here's Cassidy living it up.

Under Pressure

Here is a short list (I hope) of things that are stressing me out about this whole parenthood gig:

1. My posse is leaving this week. The grandparents (aka- Angels From Heaven or Baby Saviors) will be departing to their respective long-distance homes this week. This means that B & I will have to juggle all of the following by ourselves: laundry, dinners, household cleaning, oh yeah- and the feeding, changing, burping of 2 young ones every 3 hours while I try to pump about that often.

Now, if that doesn't scar the bejesus out of you, then continue on a tour of my anxiety-induced ruminations:

2. My babies hate my breasts. It's true. I try to stick them on and they want none of it. Finn often thrashes around like a 90's Headbanger and once I get him on, he pushes me off. It reminds me of the Borderline Personality patients I used to work with- "I hate you! Don't leave me! I need you! Why aren't you FIXING THIS NOW!!!" I hated those patients. Nowadays, if I get a hint of a "personality disordered" aftertaste from somebody I avoid them like the plague...

3. Childcare (or- you want to do unspeakable acts to my wallet). Nuf said

Babies in the Hizouse!

Also titled: "No Sleep! Til Brooklyn!" or "Why is my font so big?"

I have an announcement that y'all have been waiting for-

Les Babies are Home!!!! Weeee!!!!! They have been paroled from the NICU and I can't believe somebody actually thought I am capable enough to have left the hospital with them (I suspect the nurses were taking hits off Cassidy's oxygen tank). That's right- Cassidy's on oxygen (sucks a big one), but they still let her come home. Weeeee!!!

Let me give you a run-down of the past 24 hours:

DISCHARGE:
We had the slowest....talking....nurse...ever....zzzzzzzzzz

B and I are pretty sure it took her about an hour and a half to review 4 topics, none of which involved rocket science. To me, this is an unforgivable offense. My time is precious, people. I sat there alternating between thoughts of,

"Shut up and let me take my babies home!",
"I haven't pumped in 4 hours and my boobs are going to explode!"
"I could really use a sandwich", and
"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oops. I think I just drooled myself."

B said it was pretty evident that my ADHD had kicked in. Oh well...




GETTING HOME:
So since Nurse Slow Talker, had taken so.....long.... to get through our discharge, we had some pump timing and eat-timing issues. (For those of you who know me well, I tend to wind up on the floor if I don't eat regularly). So our homecoming was characterized by me dumping the babies in my parents' arms and running upstairs, banana in hand, for some sweet mammory relief.

Finn started screaming bloody murder about 2 minutes later and Noah the Dog was slobbering all over the babies' heads. I came downstairs to a whole new world- Baby Paraphenalia EVERYWHERE. Where did my house go? Me thinks it went the way of my bar-hopping, sleep-filled life...Ah, sweet chaos....




Speaking of, this brings us to-

THE FIRST NIGHT:
9pm- feeding & putting the babies down- We had 4 grandparents help with feeding, burping, and changing. We settled our precious nuggets of genetic legacy into a co-sleeper and kept visiting them to "ooh" and "aw" over how cute they looked. Confidence in this parenting gig abounded.



12am- B, Grandpa, and I changed the babies. B & Grandpa fed them while I hooked myself up to the milking machine. We put them back into the co-sleeper and climbed into bed. Babies were a little fussy but it seemed manageable.

3am- and 0 hours of slumber later...B & I stumbled downstairs to get bottles. Mr. Finn had been groaning, grunting, and crying for all 3 hours. Repeat 12am tasks but without any finesse. B kept tripping over Cassidy's oxygen tube and cursing. Noah kept trying to slobber over the baby's heads, and I tried (unsuccessfully) to help while attached to my effing machine.

5:30am- and 5 minutes of slumber later...Finn's grunts turned into full-on Upset Baby FEED ME NOW OR I WILL DIE! screaming. I brought him downstairs and tried to console him while heating up a bottle. My confidence- Gone. Somewhere between crying fits (mine and his), I finally got him fed and started to change him downstairs. And "OH MY GOD! I NEED MY DIAPER CHANGED NOW OR I WILL DIE! But wait- there's time to pee on my head while screaming bloody effing murder!" B woke up and I told him, "I think Finn might be an asshole." That's right people- I called my baby an asshole... And then I started to cry inconsolably.

7am- (still no sleep- I had to pump milk after all this drama people). My mother walked into our room and offered to take over- YES PLEASE!!! B and I finally got some sleep and woke up at about 11am when OH MY GOD! MY BOOBS MIGHT EXPLODE!

And I basically felt like death warmed over the rest of the day.... People weren't joking about this whole parenthood business.

Jesus Loves Winners

This week's post is dedicated to the people of Haiti and even moreso, Mr. Pat Robertson, Satan's own notary public.

I spent a few days this week boo hooing into my pillow, cereal, you name it, over my babies. Let me tell you, having babies in the NICU is no picnic. And if it were a picnic, it would be the kind overrun by ants and then rained out while a squirrel pees on your head (BTW, this happened to a friend of mine. Trust). So, when the earthquake hit this week, it really put things into perspective for me.

My babies are growing.

My babies are healthy.

My babies are getting the care they need.

Hello? I have TWO BABIES!!! How fucking lucky could I be???

Time to stash the tissues away and focus on the up and up.

So, while I might miss my babies like CRAZY person and contemplate a Code Pink Maneuver (hospital speak for babynapping), I know I have been ridiculously blessed. And it's not like I even did anything to deserve it. I just got lucky. Plain old lucky. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. And it doesn't make any sense at all.... Me? I think I'm an okay person who has had a mixed bag with a heavy emphasis on the good and great.

And so, on a final note, here is a link to a letter written from "Satan" to Pat Robertson. Enjoy!