The lady doth protest too much, methinks

This is what my girls say to going to sleep before 4AM. You'll notice that Camy is leading the rebellion, and Macy is looking to her for direction. That frown Camy pulls at the end....nice move.

Camy likes to sleep as little as possible- typically only between 4 AM and noon. Church at 9 AM is a challenge.

The girls are growing and developing as they should- lifting their heads, sucking their fists, rolling over, smiling a lot- and all their stats are right on average (except that Macy's head is slightly smallish). Both love to talk, but they each have their own distinct words. Camy likes to confidently proclaim "Ah GEE!" and Macy will engage in a conversation of "ahhh"s and "innnng"s.

Christmas Travels

A few weeks ago I packed the girls up to go out and I decided to get a few pictures of them. Macy is on the left, Camy on the right. We still love the bunny suits- good even beyond Halloween.

Our little family has been on the road! Camy and Macy got their first immunization about a month ago, then a few days later they went on their first plane trip- to Utah. We visited my family for a little over a week, then John joined us for the last few days before we all flew out to San Francisco for another 5 days to visit with John's family.

While in Utah, our girls were given a name and a blessing (sort of like Christening) by John in the chapel that was my chapel growing up. Also during this trip the girls visited three of their five living great-grandparents, all four of their grandparents, and all of their aunts, uncles, and cousins (total of 5). Their oldest cousin, Hailey, is now two. After spending a week with Camy and Macy, Hailey now carries TWO babies with her at all times and calls them "Macy" since she struggles to say "Camy"

Weeks 7 and 8 photos

A few photos from the past two weeks. Smiles are starting to surface...

**When you open the above link, click on "Slideshow" in the upper right, then click "Show info" in the upper right to see John's comments.

Homemaking & Smiles!

I took some pictures last week that I was all excited to post, then I came back to post the entry I'd written and found that John had stolen my thunder- most of the good ones were already up. So here's the boring stuff.

Now that I'm spending all day at home with the girls, I'm getting excited about all sorts of homemakey things.

I found the site that everyone uses to get these fancy scrapbookish layouts, then used the little html understanding I remembered from college classes forever ago to (mostly) fix the disaster I made when I applied the template.

I've been doing a bit of cooking- to justify the new mixer- starting with a full Thanksgiving dinner. We skipped a walk yesterday so I could make banana bread. John and I also made a cake and buttercream frosting. I've even cooked dinner a few nights and our icecream maker just made its third batch.

The girls started smiling this last Wednesday. This first-time-mom of course had a camera handy to catch a few of the smiles, which can be seen on John's entry.

I think the babies like each other, or are at least interested in observing each other. When one of the girls is screaming the other- if she isn't screaming herself- will reach for her sister. Yesterday I walked in to comfort Macy and caught Camy offering her thumb to Macy to calm her- and it worked. I thought I took a picture, but it turned out that I'd taken a video.

(I'll update with a photo or two when I get back to the other computer).

Pictures for Week 6 (by Edna)

Here are 3 representative photos for those who tire quickly...or who are also running on 4 hours of sleep. 1) Macy with the puppy dog eyes (one of her favs) 2) Camy content (also a common one for her) 3) Camy left, Macy right. Not identical, I'd say.

Pictures for Week 6 (by John)

Much could be said. There are charts and graphs to recount the fog of the past weeks, but people just want photos. There are more repeats; some pictures are grainy. We usually cull the photos by 90%, this time 1/3 made the quick cut. No names or captions so we hope you have brushed up on Macy/Camy discrimination. Here you go.

The rest of the first month

The Schedule

Every day of the last month for most of our family is summed up by the following repeating 3 to 4 hour cycle:

1.5 to 2 hours: Feed and diaper kids, try getting babies to sleep, prepare bottles for next feeding

1 to 2 hours: Try getting babies to sleep/Sleep. Give up on sleep. Eat. If it's late afternoon take babies for walk, maybe run errands, maybe shower (probably not).

Repeat.

Camy and I often skip the sleep parts.

Somedays, rather than sleeping, we went grocery shopping or to the pediatrician. We haven't taken many pictures. Our camera must have been over loaded from the first couple of weeks and died, so I bought a replacement this week.

The Budget

John and I each have accounting backgrounds, so we actually enjoy reviewing our Quicken records. This quarter's review brought out some sad stats. As noted above, I bought a camera. Over the last few weeks we've also brought home an ice cream maker, a mixer, a projector, speakers, cute sweaters for the girls..... anyway, we're going on a money diet.

John wants to cancel my cell phone ($850/yr.), but it is the only phone I have. Today I checked my phone records. In October I sent or received a total of 107 calls (including John), to or from 26 unique numbers (not including John). But this was a busy month with the twins birth and all. In September it was 70 calls and 14 numbers. August 63 calls and 16 numbers. These include doctor's offices confirming appointments, co-workers with work questions, and a few sales people. Sad, huh?

Names and the first week

Our daughters are more than a week old now, and are doing great! We totally love them.

We had a little trouble naming them because I've always disliked my name so I didn't want to give my girls weird names. We decided on Camille Katherine (fka Athena) and Macy Elizabeth (fka Xena). John's only serious suggestion was that we name our girls after his twin sisters Camille and Maryanne who were stillborn (though he was still suggesting "Moki" and "Mogli" as we were filling out papers). I like the name Macy, so we substituted that for Maryanne. We then realized that Camy and Macy are anagrams....then debated whether that was a good idea. We gave them middle names so that they would have nick name options and could sort of choose their own names in a few years. For now we are calling them Camy and Macy.

Both girls are happy babies, fuss very little, and love to cuddle. Camy is most often awake and loves to interact, much like Athena. Macy sleeps more, loves using her hands, and likes to snuggle, like Xena. As I suspected, both girls sleep with their elbows sticking out, just like their Dad.

Monday we had our postpartum visit where our girls and I were assessed. John was prepared with a full report of how many diapers and bottles of what sorts and when, with daily averages and standard deviations. The nurse was quite impressed. The girls are maintaining their weights, and we have a plan to help them gain weight. I've lost 50 pounds in the last two weeks and am quickly recovering.

Wednesday had our first visit to the pediatrician. The girls are almost back up to their birth weights, and we are trying to decide what to do about our tongue tied little Camy. For John and me the strangest part of the visit was when the nurse asked to see the patients- Camille and Macy. It was odd to hear them referred to as separate individuals, no longer part of me.

Here are a few pictures from the first days at home.

Camy and Macy sleeping, and Camy's and Macy's Halloween costumes

John's response to above bunny suits "Hi. I'm John and I completely disapprove of this." He also asked that I include this video to point out the inappropriateness of bunny suits.

More Camy shots

For those of you who can't get enough pictures of these two, check out this link and this link. Because we are fanatical penny-pincher's and refuse to pay the subscription fee, these are only available for a limited time.

Here and home (by John)

I went to Norway in September for a conference. While there I had the chance to visit Vigeland Park - an 80 acre park displaying over 200 bronze and granite sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. His work bridged all ages and stages of life. Among the sculptures was one I identified with in particular.

I thought, "Hey that is going to be me in a few weeks." Well, the girls have arrived. Rather than the simplicity suggested by the statue, this is what it actually looks like today:

I used to leave the house with a wallet and keys - no longer. Here, upon exiting the hospital, are two diaper bags, a pump, a bag of dirty clothes, a twin boppy, and three bags on wheels. But let's be honest. These are not the pictures you came looking for. I will address some of the questions I have been asked in the last few days:

• Details: when, where, weights, lengths, etc.
• What do they look like?
• Are they identical?
• Who do they look like?

Details On October 13, Athena was born at 10:51AM weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces and measuring 20 inches. Xena was born at 10:52AM weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces and measuring 19 inches. They held out to a 37-week term, so they had a decent amount of time to develop. What do they look like? Are they identical? Athena is on the left. She has a relatively larger head, rounder ears, fuller eyelids, and a lower bridge on her nose. Both have hair, but fairly thin - no idea if it will stay. Xena's hair is slightly thicker and if not combed gets mad-scientist look.

Their eyes are blue for now. This can change. Here is one of the few glances I could catch from Xena on camera.

Pop quiz Who is this with one of her signature looks? (you have a 50/50 chance) And below is her sister.

Highlight here for the answer -->Athena is above, Xena below<--

Who do they look like? This game will play out over the years. Perhaps in future posts we can dig up pictures of Edna or me as infants and compare. Edna's eyes seem to influence Athena - nose too. My nose is more visible in Xena - eyes too.

36 Weeks

Estimates are that Athena is now 7 lbs. (70th percentile) and Xena is about 5.5 lbs. (30th percentile), both of which our doctors are happy about. Xena's been working out lately, so maybe she'll beef up.

Here we are this week, just before our 7 hour marathon of doctor visits on Thursday- very exhausting. I had to wake up at 7am, which doesn't happen much these days. I've run out of clothes that will cover my belly, so I wore a tank top with adjustable straps, loosened the straps so that the top of the tank top is at my belly, then covered the top of me with another HUGE black shirt.