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Archive for May, 2008

Bittersweet

Posted in motherhood on May 12, 2008| 4 Comments »

Mother's Day has always been a weird day for me. Well, I suppose not always. Maybe just since I started trying to have kids? Was there life before TTC? I can't remember it. I've never been one to wallow on Mother's Day and I know that for many infertile myrtles this day is an incredibly painful day. I didn't find it painful before I became a mother, I just found it… uncomfortable. Like I didn't really know my place in the world. Certainly I had my own mother to celebrate, and that was enough reason not to hide from the day, but there were pangs of emptiness in my heart for what I was missing, of course.

Then we got J. But even then, my first Mother's Day with him was odd. I wasn't quite a mother. I was a guardian. That first year with him, well, it was temporary. We were never supposed to have him permanently, and we knew that we only had another 6 months with him, at best, so Mother's Day for me that year was excrutiating. It was all I could do to pick up the phone and acknowledge my own mother. Others were thoughtful enough to acknowledge that year as my first Mother's Day, but I couldn't think of it that way, knowing that it could all be ripped away from me. I was so emotionally guarded then, as I'm sure you can imagine. By the second year that we had J, when we still weren't sure how long we would have him, I readily acknowleged my role as "mother", but it was still an odd day. I wasn't his "real" mother, of course, but I was his mother. But I'd sort of missed the opportunity to celebrate my "first" Mother's Day, hadn't I? And so it went. Now it seems likely that we'll have him forever, and there isn't a single piece of me that considers myself anything less than his "real" mother. I am the only mother he knows and I deserve that title in full.

Then in August 2006 I got pregnant, and I was due at the end of April, and I thought how nice it would be to be due just in time to have Mother's Day shortly thereafter. Even I was shocked at the brazenness of such a thought, so I quickly followed the thought with, "You know, if I make it that far." Of course, I didn't make it that far. I made it three months and then miscarried. So much for that thought. Serves me right for thinking like that, right? But I suppose all things happen for a reason, because if I hadn't had that miscarriage, I wouldn't have been able to get pregnant the following February with these amazing triplets, right?

I frankly don't remember last Mother's Day. I'm sure I was throwing up or on bed rest or something. But most of last year is a blur, so that's no surprise. But this year? This year was just… well, it was my fourth mother's day, but also my FIRST mother's day. And while I still feel the emptiness of infertility sometimes, today I held my children in my arms and told them how much I love them and I told them how long I've waited to hold my babies on Mother's Day. And I told J that some children grow in mommies' bellies, and some children grow in mommies' hearts, and I'm so grateful that G*d chose me to take care of him.

For a long time I cried every day with emptiness and sorrow for the children I did not have. Today, like nearly every day since September 19th, I wiped away tears of joy and gratitude for the children I do have. Infertility still plagues me. I'm not done with this albatross that hangs around my neck and I know I want more children and I know I'll be going through this purgatory again soon. But I know now, looking at my babies, that I have the strength to make it through infertility hell again. Because I know what the light at the end of the tunnel shines on.

I know for so many of you out there, your struggle is still going on, and this day is as painful as ever. I'm mindful of the fact that my blog is more of a mom-blog than an infertility blog these days, and I know that changes my readership to some extent, but I also know I've got some infertility-bloggers that are still reading. I pray for you every day that your struggle should come to an end soon and that you should experience that blessing of motherhood (or fatherhood) as soon as possible. I was lucky enough to experience motherhood before I got pregnant, so I had a glimpse into the joy that was ahead of me, but still… I know not everyone has the same experiences that I have. I hope that your journey through infertility is a short one, and if it's already been a long journey (it's always too long, of course), I hope that it ends soon.

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Infertility Jealousy Rears Her Ugly Head

Posted in duggars on May 9, 2008| 19 Comments »

Yes, I’m the mother of four wonderful, amazing children. Yes, I’m incredibly grateful for this. No, I have no right to be jealous of ANYONE’S children or pregnancies or anything. Not even a little bit. So how sick is it that I’m positively fuming that Michelle Duggar announced that she is pregnant with her 18th child and due on New Year’s Day?

You know what gets me the most? She’s six weeks along. No infertile myrtle would dare make national news out of a six week pregnancy… it feels like she’s just rubbing her fertility in our faces by not being even a little worried about the certainty of the outcome. Meanwhile, I’m sure she’s a perfectly lovely lady who has no malice whatsoever for infertile myrtles, but BY GOLLY this just makes me SO MAD! I mean, really! I’d have 18 kids if I could! I really would! I LOVE kids! Why does SHE get to have 18 kids and NOT ME?

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Infertility Jealousy Rears Her Ugly Head

Posted in duggars on May 9, 2008| 19 Comments »

Yes, I'm the mother of four wonderful, amazing children. Yes, I'm incredibly grateful for this. No, I have no right to be jealous of ANYONE'S children or pregnancies or anything. Not even a little bit. So how sick is it that I'm positively fuming that Michelle Duggar announced that she is pregnant with her 18th child and due on New Year's Day?

You know what gets me the most? She's six weeks along. No infertile myrtle would dare make national news out of a six week pregnancy… it feels like she's just rubbing her fertility in our faces by not being even a little worried about the certainty of the outcome. Meanwhile, I'm sure she's a perfectly lovely lady who has no malice whatsoever for infertile myrtles, but BY GOLLY this just makes me SO MAD! I mean, really! I'd have 18 kids if I could! I really would! I LOVE kids! Why does SHE get to have 18 kids and NOT ME?

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New Milestones – How Dare They!?

Posted in triplet mania on May 8, 2008| 9 Comments »

The babies turned 33 weeks yesterday. They have now been on the “outside” as long as they were on the “inside.” It’s an odd feeling for me. I waited so long to have babies, I guess I never really expected them to arrive, let alone to grow up! Who gave these babies permission to grow up and get bigger? I certainly did NOT! I know that one of the joys of parenting is watching your children grow and develop into people with strong personalities and independent thoughts, but I am not ready for that, and I definitely did not give my babies permission to start growing up just yet.

Alleged Crawling
Two days ago, super-nanny called me at work to say “Did you know your babies are crawling?” Thankfully, I’ve seen no evidence of this alleged crawling, because that would be too much for this little heart of mine to take! (The babies do scootch around and do roll all the way across the room – but actual crawling? NO! I remain firmly in denial that any such thing could have occurred!) Super-nanny swears that there was actual crawling that occurred that afternoon, but I still remain unconvinced. Mostly I’m standing here with my hands clamped over my ears screaming, “I’m not listening, I’m not listening! I can’t hear you! Nyah, nyah!” Admittedly, this makes it difficult to type and typing with my toes is becoming quite tedious (Why oh why were humans not born with prehensile toes?!?), so I’ll unclamp my hands temporarily to continue my story.

Ruthless and Toothless?
One sure sign that the babies are growing up that I can no longer deny, however, is that teething has begun in earnest. After five straight days of blood-curdling screams, Abby cut her first tooth. (Thank heavens for small very large favors… the first baby to get a tooth is the one who doesn’t nurse!)That little tooth is a sharp little bugger, too. I mean, I know it had to cut through a gum and all, but sheesh! I totally get why she was screaming bloody murder! Poor baby. Looks like she’s got another one coming in right next to it, and it seems that maybe Sam’s got a tooth coming in also.

It’s almost a relief, really, because the babies have been drooling and chewing on things since January and every time someone saw them drool or chew they would say, “Oh look! They’re teething!” which, honestly, got to be tiresome. “Oh they’re teething? OR MAYBE they’re just DROOLING! You know, like babies tend to do?? But no one would believe me. You’ll see, they’d say, as if they knew better. And of course, they’d be right, because eventually a tooth would pop out. But that’s ridiculous, because I never said teeth were never coming in. But a little drool didn’t mean teeth were imminent. The screaming that started five days ago? That was a pretty good sign that teeth were imminent. So when Super-nanny called yesterday to say, “Hey you’re a lousy mother and missed yet another milestone and I got to see it first…” I mean, “Abby’s tooth came through!” I wasn’t remotely surprised. So I did what any completely neurotic mother would do and I rushed home at lunch time to witness the beauty of my child’s first tooth.

I admit, it’s not all that much to look at, but golly it IS impressively sharp.

My baby grew a tooth! Without my permission! How dare she!?

New Food
In honor of the new tooth, I decided it was time for Abby to have more interesting food choices. And since she was refusing to drink her bottle at dinner time and since she seemed pretty darned interested in what I was eating (Chinese Food), and so… I gave her chicken. And she ate it! I think she’s ready for prime rib, what do you think? I also gave Ellie some chicken, but she wasn’t interested. Admittedly, she’d just had a full feeding, so she may just not have been hungry. So far the babies’ favorite foods are broccoli and summer squash. They also like sweet potatoes, but they do not care for carrots unless mixed with applesauce (they also do not care for applesauce unless mixed with carrots). Similarly, they do not care for mushed up bananas, unless mixed with avocado, but they DID eat little chunks of banana for me on Sunday (with an odd look on their faces, but they ate it). So they seem willing to take a little texture into their lives, which is good.

My extraordinary pediatrician, who is also a long-time friend of ours asked me when I last saw him whether I’d experimented at all with any solid foods. He had known that I was very hesitant about solid food, so he wasn’t putting any pressure on me at all. I told him that I had caved to the pressure, but that I found it to be a very tedious, and somewhat horrifying process… It takes a LOT OF WORK to feed three babies solid food, particularly since they still have to be fed a full feeding of milk afterward (or beforehand, whatever…the point is, they’re not getting much nutrition out of these solid food feedings for all the effort they take!). He said the key for me is going to be to capitalize on their independence as soon as possible, so as soon as they show ANY sign of being able to get food into their mouth by themselves, I should let them do so, even if it makes more of a mess at first. That’s why I’m trying to get them used to textured foods now. I suspect Abby will be the first to experiment with putting food in her mouth by herself, since she’s the baby who’s most often putting objects in her mouth, but she hasn’t managed to get any food in her mouth yet. Sam does love to suck on his fingers when he’s got a spoonful of broccoli in his mouth though, so we’ll see.

At any rate, I’ve also given the babies Gerber Fruit Puffs:

This is the first, and only, processed food that they’ve gotten, and I’ve done it strictly to give them another texture that they can try. I’ve given them to Sam and Abby. Sam loves them and Abby couldn’t care less. I’m sure Super-Nanny has given them to Ellie also, but I haven’t heard the verdict on her. Still, Sam would rather have spoonfuls of broccoli over even these newfound favorite fruit puffs.

Anywhozit, that’s about it for now. Isn’t that enough? I’m not sure I can handle more milestones than that!

Read Full Post »

New Milestones – How Dare They!?

Posted in triplet mania on May 8, 2008| 7 Comments »

The babies turned 33 weeks yesterday. They have now been on the "outside" as long as they were on the "inside." It's an odd feeling for me. I waited so long to have babies, I guess I never really expected them to arrive, let alone to grow up! Who gave these babies permission to grow up and get bigger? I certainly did NOT! I know that one of the joys of parenting is watching your children grow and develop into people with strong personalities and independent thoughts, but I am not ready for that, and I definitely did not give my babies permission to start growing up just yet.

Alleged Crawling
Two days ago, super-nanny called me at work to say "Did you know your babies are crawling?" Thankfully, I've seen no evidence of this alleged crawling, because that would be too much for this little heart of mine to take! (The babies do scootch around and do roll all the way across the room – but actual crawling? NO! I remain firmly in denial that any such thing could have occurred!) Super-nanny swears that there was actual crawling that occurred that afternoon, but I still remain unconvinced. Mostly I'm standing here with my hands clamped over my ears screaming, "I'm not listening, I'm not listening! I can't hear you! Nyah, nyah!" Admittedly, this makes it difficult to type and typing with my toes is becoming quite tedious (Why oh why were humans not born with prehensile toes?!?), so I'll unclamp my hands temporarily to continue my story.

Ruthless and Toothless?
One sure sign that the babies are growing up that I can no longer deny, however, is that teething has begun in earnest. After five straight days of blood-curdling screams, Abby cut her first tooth. (Thank heavens for small very large favors… the first baby to get a tooth is the one who doesn't nurse!)That little tooth is a sharp little bugger, too. I mean, I know it had to cut through a gum and all, but sheesh! I totally get why she was screaming bloody murder! Poor baby. Looks like she's got another one coming in right next to it, and it seems that maybe Sam's got a tooth coming in also.

It's almost a relief, really, because the babies have been drooling and chewing on things since January and every time someone saw them drool or chew they would say, "Oh look! They're teething!" which, honestly, got to be tiresome. "Oh they're teething? OR MAYBE they're just DROOLING! You know, like babies tend to do?? But no one would believe me. You'll see, they'd say, as if they knew better. And of course, they'd be right, because eventually a tooth would pop out. But that's ridiculous, because I never said teeth were never coming in. But a little drool didn't mean teeth were imminent. The screaming that started five days ago? That was a pretty good sign that teeth were imminent. So when Super-nanny called yesterday to say, "Hey you're a lousy mother and missed yet another milestone and I got to see it first…" I mean, "Abby's tooth came through!" I wasn't remotely surprised. So I did what any completely neurotic mother would do and I rushed home at lunch time to witness the beauty of my child's first tooth.

I admit, it's not all that much to look at, but golly it IS impressively sharp.

My baby grew a tooth! Without my permission! How dare she!?

New Food
In honor of the new tooth, I decided it was time for Abby to have more interesting food choices. And since she was refusing to drink her bottle at dinner time and since she seemed pretty darned interested in what I was eating (Chinese Food), and so… I gave her chicken. And she ate it! I think she's ready for prime rib, what do you think? I also gave Ellie some chicken, but she wasn't interested. Admittedly, she'd just had a full feeding, so she may just not have been hungry. So far the babies' favorite foods are broccoli and summer squash. They also like sweet potatoes, but they do not care for carrots unless mixed with applesauce (they also do not care for applesauce unless mixed with carrots). Similarly, they do not care for mushed up bananas, unless mixed with avocado, but they DID eat little chunks of banana for me on Sunday (with an odd look on their faces, but they ate it). So they seem willing to take a little texture into their lives, which is good.

My extraordinary pediatrician, who is also a long-time friend of ours asked me when I last saw him whether I'd experimented at all with any solid foods. He had known that I was very hesitant about solid food, so he wasn't putting any pressure on me at all. I told him that I had caved to the pressure, but that I found it to be a very tedious, and somewhat horrifying process… It takes a LOT OF WORK to feed three babies solid food, particularly since they still have to be fed a full feeding of milk afterward (or beforehand, whatever…the point is, they're not getting much nutrition out of these solid food feedings for all the effort they take!). He said the key for me is going to be to capitalize on their independence as soon as possible, so as soon as they show ANY sign of being able to get food into their mouth by themselves, I should let them do so, even if it makes more of a mess at first. That's why I'm trying to get them used to textured foods now. I suspect Abby will be the first to experiment with putting food in her mouth by herself, since she's the baby who's most often putting objects in her mouth, but she hasn't managed to get any food in her mouth yet. Sam does love to suck on his fingers when he's got a spoonful of broccoli in his mouth though, so we'll see.

At any rate, I've also given the babies Gerber Fruit Puffs:

This is the first, and only, processed food that they've gotten, and I've done it strictly to give them another texture that they can try. I've given them to Sam and Abby. Sam loves them and Abby couldn't care less. I'm sure Super-Nanny has given them to Ellie also, but I haven't heard the verdict on her. Still, Sam would rather have spoonfuls of broccoli over even these newfound favorite fruit puffs.

Anywhozit, that's about it for now. Isn't that enough? I'm not sure I can handle more milestones than that!

Read Full Post »

These Shoes were Made for Walking

Posted in march for babies on May 5, 2008| 13 Comments »

Yesterday was the March of Dimes March for Babies. I was originally told it was a 4.7 mile walk, but it turned out to only be a 4.2 mile walk. Since I was pushing 150 pounds of stroller and baby, the 1/2 mile savings was a welcome one. Thanks to the support of my wonderful friends, family, and friends inside the computer, I exceeded my original $500 goal, and then even exceeded my lofty $1000 goal and raised nearly $1100 for the March of Dimes. How awesome is that!

Seth and I got up bright and early (well, no earlier than usual) and fed babies, and got everyone dressed up in little jogging suits:

(L-R: Abby, Ellie, & Sam)

We packed up the car, packed up the babies, and drove off to the site to register. I met up with Mel and her husband and kiddos there and the rest of the team I was walking with and sat down to feed babies one more time before the walk (Mel had been kind enough to meet us there early so she could help feed one of the babies… we’ve got more babies than we do arms these days… best quote of the day came from her husband: “Are we seriously here this early so that you can feed a baby?” and Mel‘s quip back, “Yes, we sure are!”).

Mel admitted to me at the beginning of the walk that she takes shortcuts on the walk. Really? You can do that? Ohmygosh! I didn’t really think I’d want to take a shortcut, except that right at the start of the walk, we went up a long hill. And it kept going. And going. And did I mention the 150 pounds of stroller I was pushing? I wanted to die. And so when we came to a traffic circle, Seth said, “Hey you wanna cut through the middle of it?”
And I said, “Yeah, I totally do, but that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?”
Mel looked at me and said, “So you wanna do it?”
“Totally, let’s go!”
So through the traffic circle we went. It didn’t cut much distance out, to be honest, but suddenly, the walk felt doable. It probably helped that after that point, the walk was on level ground except for one other smallish hill. I felt some guilt for the short cut, except hello? 150 pounds of stroller! And truly, we were walking to raise money for the March of Dimes, and we accomplished that. We weren’t walking to torture ourselves. The torture was just a bonus.

We were so lucky that the weather was absolutely gorgeous, in the mid-60’s to low-70s and breezy. I had Mel to talk to along the way.

We got a lot of attention with our monstrosity of a triplet stroller, of course. But it was all positive; not one person asked if my triplets were natural. Instead, people asked, “How far did you make it? 33 weeks? That’s great!” They asked how long Sam, Ellie, and Abby were in the NICU. They asked how long I was on bed rest. They congratulated us for making it so far. They told us how proud they were of us and our accomplishments already. They said, “keep up the good work.” People didn’t ask us about the conception of our children, they asked us about how our babies came into the world and about their lives.

Even more importantly, people shared their own stories with us. “How early were your triplets? I had identical twins born 3 months early 35 years ago… they didn’t make it. But I’m here today walking for Lucas who was born at 24 weeks and he just turned a year old last month and he’s doing great!” one woman shared with me. I wanted to cry for her. I’m not sure, even 35 years after the fact, that I could do this walk after such a horrific loss.

Yesterday I walked for the March of Dimes. I walked to raise money for an organization that touched my life and quite possibly saved my babies’ lives. I walked to thank them for the healthy start they helped give to Sam, Ellie and Abby. I walked to remember the babies that were lost this year. Lennox, and Zoe. Jack. Sweet Zoe Rose. And so many more.

We had to cut out the last mile of the walk because Abby was throwing an absolute fit (she’s teething) and I felt a little guilty, but also incredibly lucky… I was lucky enough to have a healthy, thriving baby who was here throwing a fit. Not everyone can say that. Some people were walking in memory of their babies, not pushing their babies, and I was keenly aware of that. When I found out I was pregnant with triplets, never did I take for granted that a year later I would actually be pushing a stroller filled with babies… but look how lucky I am!

Thank you to everyone for all of your support. We’ll definitely be doing this walk again next year, hopefully with an even loftier goal.

Read Full Post »

These Shoes were Made for Walking

Posted in march for babies on May 5, 2008| 14 Comments »

Yesterday was the March of Dimes March for Babies. I was originally told it was a 4.7 mile walk, but it turned out to only be a 4.2 mile walk. Since I was pushing 150 pounds of stroller and baby, the 1/2 mile savings was a welcome one. Thanks to the support of my wonderful friends, family, and friends inside the computer, I exceeded my original $500 goal, and then even exceeded my lofty $1000 goal and raised nearly $1100 for the March of Dimes. How awesome is that!

Seth and I got up bright and early (well, no earlier than usual) and fed babies, and got everyone dressed up in little jogging suits:

(L-R: Abby, Ellie, & Sam)

We packed up the car, packed up the babies, and drove off to the site to register. I met up with Mel and her husband and kiddos there and the rest of the team I was walking with and sat down to feed babies one more time before the walk (Mel had been kind enough to meet us there early so she could help feed one of the babies… we've got more babies than we do arms these days… best quote of the day came from her husband: "Are we seriously here this early so that you can feed a baby?" and Mel's quip back, "Yes, we sure are!").

Mel admitted to me at the beginning of the walk that she takes shortcuts on the walk. Really? You can do that? Ohmygosh! I didn't really think I'd want to take a shortcut, except that right at the start of the walk, we went up a long hill. And it kept going. And going. And did I mention the 150 pounds of stroller I was pushing? I wanted to die. And so when we came to a traffic circle, Seth said, "Hey you wanna cut through the middle of it?"
And I said, "Yeah, I totally do, but that would be cheating, wouldn't it?"
Mel looked at me and said, "So you wanna do it?"
"Totally, let's go!"
So through the traffic circle we went. It didn't cut much distance out, to be honest, but suddenly, the walk felt doable. It probably helped that after that point, the walk was on level ground except for one other smallish hill. I felt some guilt for the short cut, except hello? 150 pounds of stroller! And truly, we were walking to raise money for the March of Dimes, and we accomplished that. We weren't walking to torture ourselves. The torture was just a bonus.

We were so lucky that the weather was absolutely gorgeous, in the mid-60's to low-70s and breezy. I had Mel to talk to along the way.

We got a lot of attention with our monstrosity of a triplet stroller, of course. But it was all positive; not one person asked if my triplets were natural. Instead, people asked, "How far did you make it? 33 weeks? That's great!" They asked how long Sam, Ellie, and Abby were in the NICU. They asked how long I was on bed rest. They congratulated us for making it so far. They told us how proud they were of us and our accomplishments already. They said, "keep up the good work." People didn't ask us about the conception of our children, they asked us about how our babies came into the world and about their lives.

Even more importantly, people shared their own stories with us. "How early were your triplets? I had identical twins born 3 months early 35 years ago… they didn't make it. But I'm here today walking for Lucas who was born at 24 weeks and he just turned a year old last month and he's doing great!" one woman shared with me. I wanted to cry for her. I'm not sure, even 35 years after the fact, that I could do this walk after such a horrific loss.

Yesterday I walked for the March of Dimes. I walked to raise money for an organization that touched my life and quite possibly saved my babies' lives. I walked to thank them for the healthy start they helped give to Sam, Ellie and Abby. I walked to remember the babies that were lost this year. Lennox, and Zoe. Jack. Sweet Zoe Rose. And so many more.

We had to cut out the last mile of the walk because Abby was throwing an absolute fit (she's teething) and I felt a little guilty, but also incredibly lucky… I was lucky enough to have a healthy, thriving baby who was here throwing a fit. Not everyone can say that. Some people were walking in memory of their babies, not pushing their babies, and I was keenly aware of that. When I found out I was pregnant with triplets, never did I take for granted that a year later I would actually be pushing a stroller filled with babies… but look how lucky I am!

Thank you to everyone for all of your support. We'll definitely be doing this walk again next year, hopefully with an even loftier goal.

Read Full Post »

My Feed and other Bloggity Maintenance

Posted in blogarama on May 4, 2008| 13 Comments »

Thanks to Mel for alerting me today to the fact that my RSS feed was set to the “short” version… I never realized this. I find that quite annoying because I know that I certainly don’t always have the time to click over to the full post on people’s feeds if they don’t show the full post their feeds, so gosh, I’m so sorry, and thanks to everyone who’s remained a faithful reader despite my annoyingness. Why didn’t anyone tell me?

And while I’m at it, having just noticed that Google Reader will tell me how many subscribers I have… what’s with me having so many subscribers and having only dribs and drabs of comments? Is it the short version of the feed thing? Is it that I’m not interesting anymore? Is it that I just post photos of my kids these days instead of posting about the old infertility monster (not to worry, come the fall, I expect to be posting about the infertility madness again, so expect plenty of dramarama again, only this time it’ll be even MORE fun, NOT)? Is it that you just don’t love me anymore? TELL ME?

Finally, I did recently switch over to Google Reader and I put all my feeds into it based in large part on my blog roll on the left side of my blog and also based on the blogs that I haven’t gotten around to updating on my blogroll, but that I see popping up in my comments occasionally. If you’re reading my blog and you don’t see your blog in the blogroll to the left, could you let me know? I don’t promise to be speedy about adding you to the blog roll, but I do promise to be speedy about adding you to my Google Reader list (that’s the easy part!). I don’t promise tons of comments, but I do promise to check in occasionally!

Okay, enough maintenance from me. Hopefully I’ll get a post up tonight about today’s March of Dimes March for Babies. A good time was had by all!

Read Full Post »

My Feed and other Bloggity Maintenance

Posted in blogarama on May 4, 2008| 9 Comments »

Thanks to Mel for alerting me today to the fact that my RSS feed was set to the "short" version… I never realized this. I find that quite annoying because I know that I certainly don't always have the time to click over to the full post on people's feeds if they don't show the full post their feeds, so gosh, I'm so sorry, and thanks to everyone who's remained a faithful reader despite my annoyingness. Why didn't anyone tell me?

And while I'm at it, having just noticed that Google Reader will tell me how many subscribers I have… what's with me having so many subscribers and having only dribs and drabs of comments? Is it the short version of the feed thing? Is it that I'm not interesting anymore? Is it that I just post photos of my kids these days instead of posting about the old infertility monster (not to worry, come the fall, I expect to be posting about the infertility madness again, so expect plenty of dramarama again, only this time it'll be even MORE fun, NOT)? Is it that you just don't love me anymore? TELL ME?

Finally, I did recently switch over to Google Reader and I put all my feeds into it based in large part on my blog roll on the left side of my blog and also based on the blogs that I haven't gotten around to updating on my blogroll, but that I see popping up in my comments occasionally. If you're reading my blog and you don't see your blog in the blogroll to the left, could you let me know? I don't promise to be speedy about adding you to the blog roll, but I do promise to be speedy about adding you to my Google Reader list (that's the easy part!). I don't promise tons of comments, but I do promise to check in occasionally!

Okay, enough maintenance from me. Hopefully I'll get a post up tonight about today's March of Dimes March for Babies. A good time was had by all!

Read Full Post »

Sleep, Blessed Sleep!

Posted in Uncategorized on May 2, 2008| 12 Comments »

The babies go to sleep around 6:30 or 7pm.

Since she was 3 or 4 months old, except under very rare circumstance, Ellie hasn’t woken up at all, unless we wake her up until morning. We wake her up at 5am to eat so that she doesn’t get cheated out of her morning meal by her piggy brother, Sam. (if she gets up later than 5am, he cheats her out of her leisurely breakfast, we’ve found)

Abby generally wakes up around 11 or 12 to eat. Sometimes she also wakes up in the 4am range, but often sleeps through until 6am after that. She’s pretty predictable.

Sam… Well, he likes to eat, you see. He will eat from a bottle, particularly if I’m not around, but he much prefers to nurse. And so he makes up for the fact that I’m not around all day, by being up half the night most nights. I’m somewhat loathe to try to train him out of this, because I know at some point he’ll train out of it himself anyway, and I know he really is hungry when he wakes up, and I know at some point I really will miss this together time with him, even if it IS two in the morning. Sigh.

The last few nights I’ve been so exhausted I’ve been having a hard time staying awake past 9 or so. But I had things to do last night, so I was still up at 11 when both Abby and Sam woke up screaming. This did not bode well for the night (Sam usually doesn’t wake up THAT early, and when he does, it usually means a LONG night for me). So, Seth fed Abby while I fed Sam and then we both collapsed into bed in hopes of grabbing at least a couple hours of sleep before the screaming began. Funny thing, though… either we were so tired we slept through it (unlikely), or a miracle happened.

Next thing we knew, the alarm went off at 5am, Seth brought me Ellie for her breakfast and then next thing I knew, it was 6am and time for Abby and Sam to eat. A new day had begun. Is it possible that I got a whole six hours of uninterrupted sleep? Could it be? And if so, how is it that I’m still so tired today?

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