All by myself

Chalk up the lack of posts to the fact that today is day 5 of me being solo with the twins. Things are going well, but I’m obviously left with much less time to do things like blog… or shower.

Actually, things are going pretty well. I have indeed managed to shower nearly every day. I also make it a goal to take a walk with the babies every day, for my dog’s sake as much as my own, and I have accomplished said goal three out of four days already (and things are looking good for today). We’ve made trips to the doctor’s office, the store, and the Breastfeeding Moms Support Group at my hospital’s community health center.

Speaking of breastfeeding… it is slowly improving. My pump did, in fact, come back to life after a short hiatus. But I’m also only pumping a couple of times a day at this point. Once I was alone, it was one of the first things to fall by the wayside. With the three-hour feeding rotation, I just couldn’t devote so much time to sitting at the pump. However, I am now pretty much breastfeeding one twin for each feeding. Sometimes they still take a little supplement when they’re done, but not always.

Itty bitty Rebecca nurses really well, her only problem being that she sometimes falls asleep. I frequently strip her down to her diaper before nursing, so she isn’t too warm and cozy. Her tiny body is starting to fill out, and her cheeks are already chubbier. She’s gaining an appropriate amount of weight, but still adds up to only 5lb9oz as of Tuesday. So despite being my stronger nurser, she is still alternating feeds with high-calorie formula. I won’t be sad to see that stuff go.

Rebecca is generally pretty calm, sleeps well, and makes awfully funny faces. Beware when she decides she’s unhappy, though. She’ll go from calm to screaming herself purple. Thankfully, those occasions are somewhat rare, and she tends to be easy to calm. She’s frequently quite red in the face, and much like her mom, reacts somewhat strongly to the warm temperatures. On the 85-90 degree days, she is often found in diaper only. She’s sweet as can be, and we often just call her “itty bitty.”

Daniel is finally catching on to this whole latching/nursing thing. He’s still quite frantic, shaking his head and smacking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. But eventually he figures out where he is, and sucks away. Speaking of sucking, he needs to have something in his mouth seemingly at least 12-15 hours per day. He screams bloody murder if he looses his pacifier, which he does approximately every 6 minutes. But he’s a stellar eater overall, and is currently tipping the scales at 7lb14oz. Yes, he outweighs his sister by about 2.5 pounds. He moved right on into size 1 diapers yesterday, while his sister still hangs out in the newborn size, and swims in newborn-sized clothes.

Due to the seemingly constant pacifier replacement issues, Daniel spends more total fussy time than his sister, earning him the nickname, Señor Fussy-Pants. (There are songs about it, too.) And yet, if he has his pacifier, very few things seem to bother him. Heat is no problem, nor is the carseat or a full, stinky diaper. He makes the sweetest sounds when he’s falling asleep.

As for me, I’m doing pretty well. My blood pressure is back to normal, and I can see my ankles again. I still have plenty of fat and flab (I got my first postpartum “when are the babies due?” last night… alas), but I do think it’s coming down. The batteries are dead in my scale, so I have no idea how much I may have lost. I’m morbidly curious, but not surprisingly, have not actually managed such a time-consuming task as putting batteries in the scale. My incision has run into a few minor complications, but nothing some antibiotics can’t fix.

Emotionally, I’m doing well. Very infrequent attacks of the weepies. As an example, within 10 minutes of my husband leaving on my first day solo, both babies were hungry and screaming, and the dog threw up. And you know what? I didn’t cry! I take that as an accomplishment. I’m not sleeping a lot, but it’s not like that’s front-page news. I think it’ll catch up to me soon, but for now, I’m functioning.

Both babies are now fed and in their carseats, so it’s time for our walk. And hey, this post only took me two hours to write! Well, OK, more like five days of thinking about posting and then two hours, but still… Hopefully I’ll manage to write more frequently, but for now, know that I’ve got my hands full!