I hear that blog s are supposed to be a daily thing. At least some people think that. But around here, weekly is about all I can manage to do. I could probably do it daily, but my wife got me addicted to Spider Solitaire on the computer, and it’s my mental wind down every night after the babies go to sleep. As soon as I win a 4 suite game (without cheating), I’ll stop, I promise.

What’s worse than parents not getting sleep? Babies not getting sleep. Reece went a couple of nights with long periods of being awake in the middle of the night. Yesterday was a disaster. He was grumpy from about 11:00 AM on, wouldn’t nap, and by 1:00 PM we were counting the minutes to bed time. Even walking him around, letting him dance by the keyboard, activities which usually result in happy (or at least sedate) baby, didn’t work. It is kind of funny to watch a screaming baby do the Salsa, but not really. Yes, he can be in temper tantrum of epic proportions, but he still dances.

So we made some changes to the bed time routine last night. Lorelai slept in our room last night in the co-sleeper. She’s become a pretty good sleeper now that we’ve started putting her to bed on her tummy, despite all the warnings in the books. She can really raise her head up any time she wants, and will roll over from time to time anyway, so we’re not worried about that anymore. She usually sleeps for 7-8 hours at a stretch.

Reece slept in the babies’ room last night in the crib. The babies have been sleeping there for the last week or so, so that wasn’t a big deal, but last night we decided to wake him up when Lisa went to bed to get one more feeding in, then we put him back down, with the hope that he wouldn’t wake up for at least four hours. He had been getting up at 11, 1, 3, 5 and 6, with the 3 AM one lasting for an hour or so. Last night he skipped the 11, woke up for a quick feed at 1:30, skipped the 3 and was up at 4:30. That’s a huge change for us, and we actually feel like we got sleep.

The next step is to get him to skip the 1:30, and to do that, we’re going to walk him back to sleep instead of feeding him, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll have to do the dastardly deed of letting him cry it out for a few hours. I hear it takes about 3 nights to break an infant of any bad bedtime habit. I think I’ll wait to do this step until my parents are here next week, sleeping in the room next to the babies, so they can enjoy the experience too.

After yesterday’s hauling of Reece around all day, my back is killing me. I’ve had a history of problems with my sciatic nerve, but it’s been a couple of years since it really flared up. Apparently lifting a 16lb baby a thousand times a day is a recipe for disaster. I’ve got an ice pack on now, Ibuprofen at the ready, and a hot bath available if things get desperate.

We did get to enjoy the first fruit of our garden this week. A single, nickle sized strawberry. It really wasn’t that good, compared the bunch we bought the weekend before from the farmer’s market. It was kinda puny and dry. But hey, we’re on our way to being self-sufficient!

As to why we are home, and not in Eastern Washington this weekend? The cough and fever the twins had, morphed into a rash that covered their entire bodies, caused Lorelai’sface to become puffy, and generally made them uncomfortable. It was pretty much gone by yesterday morning, but there was no way we were driving 4 hours with 2 sick kids, into 100 degree temps in Eastern Washington, and then turning around and driving back the next day. We may be insane, but we’re not masochists.

It’s been wildly crazy the last couple of weeks. Lisa’s brother Mark, his wife Judy, and their daughters Allison (8) and Amy (11 months) stayed with us for a bit last week while Mark and I attended one of the Lisa’s family traditions, Nerdfest, in Ephrata. Lisa’s mother Marcia came out to help with the kids here while I was gone, but I only lasted about 9 hours at Nerdfest before I headed back. Still, with 4 kids, and 4 adults in the house, we were kept very busy. Our house is not yet childproof, since our kids aren’t crawling yet, and certainly isn’t 8 year old proof, but I was given a sneak preview of what it’s going to take to do both. Bye Bye 50 inch TV. Hello cabinet locks, stair gates and a formal playroom.

The babies have both not been feeling so well this week, and their schedule is a bit off. Which means we had one good night of sleep in the last 3 weeks. Most disturbingly, they are tending to both be up at the same time now, so we’re both up most of the night. I thought the days of 3 hours of sleep were long gone. They’re backkk! And, no, I don’t want to hear about anyone getting 20 hours of sleep in a two day period. That’s a week’s worth for me.

This weekend, we’re headed to Eastern Washington to Lisa’s Family’s annual ho-down. We’re only going to go for one night, and hope to god the babies sleep a little bit in the car each way. I totally understand why people put DVD players and TV’s in their vehicles for the kids to watch. I’m dreading the drive, and I usually like long car rides.

I’ll let you know how the trip goes when we get back, after I regain my sanity that is.

The focus of the last couple of weeks since I last blogged has been sleep. Both ours and the twins. A few weeks ago, we had 4 really good nights in a row with them both nearly sleeping through the night, then presto, whamo, two really bad weeks in a row with them both being up half the night, or up every other hour. We tried changing bedtime routines, changing who was putting them to bed, when they were eating, what they were eating, who picked them up during the night. Nothing was working.

Then Thursday night, as I was putting Lorelai down for the 3rd time before midnight, she slipped a little in my hands and twisted, so she was face down over the co-sleeper. But she stayed asleep. I couldn’t roll her back over without waking her up, so I gently set her down in the bed on her tummy, tilted her head to the side, and she still slept. I watched here for a few minutes, just to make sure she was still breathing, and everything was fine. Reece woke up a couple of minutes later, and started to kick the side of the co-sleeper, but Lorelai slept right through it. I had to wake Lisa up to feed Reece, and we were both very nervous about letting Lorelai sleep on her stomach, as we have been relentlessly informed about the dangers of SIDS from everyone, and every publication we read. They basically say: “If you let your baby sleep on their stomach even once, they will DIE!”. Yikes. What kind of a parent would do that? The answer: the sleep deprived ones.

Well, for the last three nights now, if Lorelai wakes up before midnight, I walk her back to sleep, and then put her down on her tummy. The first night it worked for 3 hours. The second night for 4 hours, and last night for 5 hours. She is a little grumpier when she does wake up because she can’t see what’s going on and won’t wait there patiently, but we had some luck last night, and between the two of them, we only had to get up once before 3:30 AM, and then again around 6:00AM. It’s like we’ve achieved peace on Earth or something. The angels are singing, birds are chirping, and Joe is blogging (since they’re still asleep as I write this).

The other big news for the week is the introduction of food beyond Rice Cereal. They got their first taste of CARROTS! The reaction was a little subdued to the first dose (which we just added some water to), but they seemed to like it a little better yesterday when we mixed in the rice cereal with water and carrots. They’ll get another couple of meals of carrots and rice today, and then we’ll try sweet potatoes Monday and Tuesday, then Squash, and then Peas. we try to give them a couple of days on each one by itself so that if they have a reaction to something, it’s easy to figure out what it is. If it were up to the babies, they’d be eating off our plates now. Adult dinner time is an exercise in eating one handed and watching for baby hands reaching for your plate. And if they can’t get the plate, they’ll try for the placemat. They’re very quick.

I’m uploading more videos today, so get the popcorn ready.

I know it’s a small thing, but yesterday the babies graduated from size 1 diapers to size 2. While we could physically still get them into size ones, it was more a matter of what we couldn’t keep in the diapers that required the upgrade.