nate & stacy + 2: April 2013

Friday, April 19, 2013

oh, the questions you'll hear

Babies. So small. So cute. And strangers must know every detail about them.

Pushing around a baby in a cart at the grocery store is like carrying a big blinking sign that says "please ask me all sorts of questions about my baby."

Pushing around 2 babies in the same cart makes this invisible sign even bigger and blinkier.

I must share a couple of recent questions that rather amused me:

"Are they both yours?"
My answer- Yes.
The sarcastic answer I thought of later- Um, no. One of the twins is mine and the other is my husband's ...

"Which one is older?"
I can see how this question makes sense in the head of the questioner, but it can rather confuse the questionee. When we were asked this question, I was prepared to answer that Brayden is 41 minutes older, as I believe that is what this person wanted to know.
However, Nate got his response out first, which was, "..... They're twins ......"
(like duh, they're the same age, don't ya know?)
Next time, maybe we'll respond, "It's hard to tell, but Brayden is actually 3 years older!"

I braved my first grocery shopping trip solo with the boys a couple days ago. It went better than expected!! They were excellent little sports. I managed to place both carseats in one cart and fill in groceries around them. After checkout, I simultaneously pushed 2 carts out to the vehicle - one that had the boys and the other full of the bagged groceries.
I probably won't make an extreme habit of doing this trip by myself with the twins as long as Grandma Lora offers to babies-sit, but it was a confidence-boosting adventure and now I know it's possible!

Next time I go with the twins though, I'm going to take my grocery list in one hand and a list of already-prepared answers in my other hand in readiness for any bizarre questions I may be asked.

~ recent pics ~

4 months!!!

lunch date at Noodles & Co

We get to go to Target!!!!!

... too much Target

Mom, Nate, & I took the boys and Kayman to the walking bridge!

A little dark and chilly but fun :)

double drive thru

Nate's mini-me

first mohawk!! *heehee*

tummy time! this little dude rolled over for the first time last week - tummy to back

this guy hasn't rolled yet but is getting pretty close!

both boys had pretty nasty colds recently -

Brayden looks pretty sick and tired of it!

this bouncer is for playing, you say? silly people, it's clearly for sleeping!

B holding his own bottle!!

C reading a Clifford story to daddy

We went to MN last weekend, and this is my friend Amanda's little 2 & 1/2 year old niece feeding a bottle to B!

Yep, we're being good mom!

snuggling with his monkey ear :):)

nom nom

Thursday, April 4, 2013

crib-scootin' boogie

I split up the twins last night.

Brayden slept in the crib in our room and Cooper in the crib in the nursery with Gram.

First of all, you'll need to know that we always put the boys vertically, side-by-side, in one crib, and Cooper always sleeps on the left side and Brayden on the right. By morning time, they've nestled close to each other and when arms start flying, they bob each other on the head. Also, Brayden is the first to wake up and starts pulling on Cooper's swaddle which, of course, disturbs Cooper. So that's why I wanted to experiment by separating them. I placed them both vertically in the middle of their own cribs.

Brayden let me know it was time to wake up at about 8 this morning, so I got out of bed to go say good morning to him. When I looked in the crib, I noticed that he had scooted himself sideways over to Cooper's side of the bed. I went to go see where Cooper ended up in his crib. Sure enough, he had scooted over towards Brayden's side of the bed and had twirled himself horizontally.

I love twin moments like this :)

Now do I keep them separated or put them back together in the same crib until they start rolling over?

Hmmm... what do to.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

traveling with twins

Home is where the heart is. Home is also where the bouncer is, the playmat is, the rock-n-play is, the swing is, the changing station is, ... etc.

A minivan can pack in quite a bit, but not the whole nursery and living room.
Although I tried.

Traveling can be exhausting. Traveling with almost-4-month-old twins gives "exhausting" a new meaning.*

We're fortunate the boys are such good travelers. However, they do let their opinions of their carseats be known from time to time.

Two weekends ago, Nate & I and the boys traveled to my brother's place in OK. My parents were there for the weekend too and would be traveling back home to TN. So the boys asked if they could go to Papa & Gram's in TN for the week. I agreed to it. Poor Nate had to come back to Iowa in a minivan with no wife or babies and then spent the week alone. He did get several projects done around the house without anyone underfoot though! Mom brought me and the boys back to IA yesterday. The vacation away was fun, but it sure was nice to be back in the familiar environment and routine with the boys.

This is how many hours Thing 1 & Thing 2 had to endure their carseats:
IA - OK ... 7 hours (drove through the night while they slept the whole way)
OK - TN ... 14 hours (normally 11, but add a couple hour and a half stops with babies)
TN - IA ... 15 hours (normally 12)

So, 36 hours on the road in a week and a half. Now my question is, if we spent that much time on the road, why didn't we spend the hours going to FL instead?? Just kidding. It was wonderful to see family :)

Speaking of FL, my sister and her family were headed there last week and they stopped at mom & dad's in TN on their way down. We didn't tell them that the boys and I were there at mom & dad's, so they were in for quite a surprise!

On a side note, the boys have been sleeping through the night for quite awhile now!! WOOHOO! This means sleep for everyone :):) They go to bed between 10 and 11 and wake up between 7 and 8. Brayden is always the first one to wake up in the morning and he "sings" to wake the rest of us up. It's not crying, it's cooing. And it's the most beautiful alarm clock I've ever heard.

I've been saying for some time now that we need to separate the boys soon and put them in different cribs. Well ... tonight's the night. My mom is here with us this week so I'm going to put Cooper in the crib in the nursery with her and keep Brayden in the crib in our room. It's going to be hard, but it's just an experiment tonight and we'll see how the night goes.

*The asterisk is tied to the sentence above. I feel the need to include a footnote that gives a shout out to parents that have multiples beyond 2 at a time. I often find myself saying things similar to the comment above about how difficult and crazy things can be with twins. And while it is, there are many parents out there who have triplets, quads, and beyond. They are amazing. Many people who've had singletons tell me "I can't imagine having 2." Well, I have 2 but I can't imagine having 3! Or 4! When I remind myself that there are higher orders of multiples out there, it helps me stay level-headed when I get a bit stressed with just 2.