Category — And More Family

Well, hell! Amaia went and turned nine months old and I’m just now getting a chance to catch up. How is she doing?

Eating

As solids become more and more a part of Amaia’s everyday diet, she nurses less and my milk supply is taking a major hit.

Currently, she nurses 4-5 times a day and has 2-3 meals of baby food and other miscellaneous finger food, including puffs, Mum Mums, pieces of bread and fruit. She still chokes on some chunkier stuff, so we have to be careful. Meanwhile, as my milk supply drops, my letdown reflex takes longer and longer . . . which means the baby becomes impatient and upset, latching and unlatching over and over again . . . which in turns stresses me out . . . which consequently prohibits an ejection reflex at all. Sometimes, I get so stressed out by how long it takes for my milk to let down that I don’t have a let down at all, and we have to stop altogether. It’s all very upsetting.

Looking back at where the twins were at nine months, though, Amaia has the same eating habits. I’ve been taking Fenugreek just to be on the safe side. I’m also finding it helpful to have a little toy or other object handy to distract the baby while she nurses so that my milk has time to come in. She refuses to drink milk out of anything but the breast (or mixed with cereal), so I can’t even try pumping and feeding her from a cup or straw until we hit the one-year mark. I’m just trying to keep my patience and take it one nursing at a time.

Sleeping

Hallelujah, people! After eight months of interrupted sleep, I’m finally sleeping through the night! And so is the baby! I can’t tell you what a difference a full-night’s sleep makes on my perspective. The baby sleeps from 8pm to about 7:30am. She’s just as awesome as the girls were when they were babies — she just wakes up and mumbles and sings to herself until someone comes to get her.

As far as napping goes, she will no longer doze off in a bouncy seat, so she only takes a morning nap if we’re in the car for longer than 10 minutes in the morning. She always takes a really super awesome three-hour nap in the afternoon from about 1pm – 4pm. It’s heavenly.

Sizes

Though she fits into 9-12 month, Amaia’s on the long side so I have her in 12 month onesies. Her waist and hips are small, though, so she can fit into smaller pants (though I personally believe they use freakishly gigantic babies for pants models — those things are HUGE, right???). She’s in a size 3 diaper. I’m guessing she’s around 17 pounds, but we haven’t had her nine-month appointment yet so I’m not sure. I’m pretty certain she’s lighter than the twins were at this age, though.

Personality

I think this photo says it all about Amaia’s personality:

I’m telling you, this baby is so freaking happy. She smiles and smiles, laughs, talks to herself, sings, dances to music, gleefully kicks her feet and waves her hands. Overall, she’s just a really pleasant, observant, enjoyable baby. She LOVES little kids, especially little girls and, more than anything, her big sisters. She gets pretty freaked out with aggressive little boys, though.

Something noticeable with Amaia is that she’s incredibly attached to me. She often gets really upset if she sees me leave a room. Come dinner time, no one will do but Ama. As soon as I get home from the gym in the evenings, I pretty much have to tote her around until she goes to bed, or else she’ll just whine and cry.

Milestones

Amaia is still just scooting, not crawling. I can’t help but compare to the twins, who were pulling to a stand and trying to stand independently already by now, but I know that Amaia is just doing things her way. She’s a far more sociable baby than the twins were, so it’s just a matter of her individual demeanor.

She has four teeth so far — the bottom two center ones and, oddly, the top center and left incisor. The second top center tooth and right incisor are at the point of breaking through, too. Thankfully, she hasn’t used her teeth while nursing.

Still no hair to speak of. Poor kid.

This month, she also went in a swing for the first time. She LOVED it!

We got one of these bad boys yesterday:

Because I got one of these bad boys a few weeks ago:

This time, we weren’t trying (though as my friend says, if you’re not using protection and aren’t taking it in the bum, you ARE trying), but it happened and we’re thrilled.

When I found out I was expecting this time, all sorts of things ran through my head: How will I tell Chris? How will we tell our parents? Is it too soon? Will be be able to make it? Do we have enough love for another child?

What am I going to call my blog?!?

Telling Chris was fun. He was at work, so I stuck a hot dog bun in the oven and waited. When he got home, I asked him oh-so casually to take a look at the oven door because it seemed to have come off its track again.

He went to the kitchen and opened the oven door with no problem.

“Babe, it’s working fine for me,” he called.

“What? Really? How’d you do that?” I asked.

Still opening and closing the door, he says, “Yeah, it’s fine.” Pause. “But there’s a hot dog bun in the oven. Is that supposed to be there?”

I strolled into the kitchen and said, “Oh, I thought maybe you’d want brats for dinner so I put a bun in the oven for you.” I couldn’t help but smile. Surely he got it.

“Brats? No, I . . . Is this some kind of joke? Is this a treasure hunt? Are there hot dog buns hidden all over the house or something?”

Thinking I was playing a prank on him, he started to laugh. I, on the other hand, was shocked that he still had no clue what was going on. So I went to the freezer and pulled out a carton of ice cream. Then I opened the fridge and got out a jar of pickles.

Chris was still clueless as I plunged a spoon into the ice cream. “What are you doing? Pickles and . . .

“ARE YOU PREGNANT?!?!!!?????”

It would appear so, my dear. It would appear so.

I hadn’t planned on telling people so early, let alone The Whole Internet and all 9 of my readers, but one thing led to another and here we are.

The basics:

• I’m about 7 weeks along
• I have my first ultrasound on Friday. I anticipate it being JUST ONE.
• Terrible all-day nausea. Getting quite a bit of relief from a combination of ginger, B vitamins and Sea Bands.
• Getting tested early for gestational diabetes, since I had it with the girls. DAMMIT. I’ve been eating bagels, ice cream and bread for the past week in anticipation of failing it miserably.
• Estimated due date for now is Dec. 20

We’re thrilled. We’re excited. We’re happy. We’ve named him Squiggy for now, and he sounds just like the character on Laverne & Shirley. We love him.

I have lost many people in my life. My wonderful grandparents on both sides of the family. My step-father. Beloved pets.

But I’ve never lost a friend. I’ve never had a friend die.

Die. Dead. How can a friend. Be dead?

The words don’t make sense in the same sentence. Because people who die are gravely sick, or old, or addicted to dangerous drugs, or reckless and irresponsible. There’s an explanation for the death. There’s a moment or a choice or a lifestyle or an illness that you can point to and say, “Oh, he died of a heart attack,” or “She died from cancer.”

A dear friend died in a motorcycle accident yesterday. His sister contacted me through Facebook to break the news and we spoke on the phone shortly afterwards.

The news was so shocking, so abrupt, that I thought it was a joke.

The finality of death, the eternity of it, the forever-ness of it, has always been the most painful thing to understand. But at least there’s always been a cause.

This time, though, I’m at a complete loss. He’s still here. I can still hear his voice. I can still hear his motorcycle pull up to the house. I can still hear his uproarious laughter bouncing off the walls.

There’s his spot on our couch. He swam in our pool and ate Chinese food with us. We all got fired from our jobs together. We all started our own company together. We exchanged secrets.

Our cats peed on his motorcycle helmet and we bought him a new one. He clogged our toilet and, while piss-water flooded the bathroom, he calmly asked, “Errr….you got some towels or something?” He formed a band with my husband. He didn’t flinch when Chris burned a rack of ribs on Memorial Day.

He took me on my first (only) motorcycle ride. He gave me binoculars for my birthday. He took me to Chili’s when I was pregnant. He came to my baby shower.

His hair turned gray. He laughed louder. He got smarter and sharper. He was finally going to buy a couch for his apartment.

And then he died.

Dammit, Troy. God dammit. We miss you.

When your entire family, including twin 15 month olds who have never thrown up in their lives, spends a few days ejecting every last droplet of food, moisture and intestinal lining out of both ends of their bodies, you have to find some humor in that. There’s always a silver lining, that’s what I say.

Such as:

• I saw a number on the scale that I haven’t seen since I first got pregnant.
• I didn’t have to cook dinner for three whole days.
• My legs are hairy and no one has noticed.
• Puking one’s guts out gives one every excuse in the world to not bathe, thereby saving water and electricity. I’m out to save the planet one intestinal catastrophe at a time.
• The toilets have been scrubbed. Twice. Okay, once.
• We now have a decent backstock of Pedialyte.
• In the past three days, I have washed every towel, sheet and article of clothing we own. Nothing like a good bout of dysentery to get the spring cleaning going.

Sure, there were some down sides:

• Losing seven pounds in two days has given me a decent idea of what my boobs will look like when I stop nursing — and it ain’t pretty.
• It’s going to take days to clear out the DVR.
• Unless you enjoy the hauntingly pungent odor of a morgue, do not use lavender and chamomile air freshener to mask the smell of vomit and diarrhea.

We made it, though. We made it without the expense of emergency room trips or doctor visits or prescription drugs.

In fact, the only thing we owe is our undying gratitude — to my in-laws, who endured being puked and shit on by the girls repeatedly and into the wee hours of the night so that Chris and I could repeatedly puke and shit all over ourselves; who brought us Gatorade (which we promptly puked up); who did laundry (which we promptly puked on); and who are now paying the price for all that unconditional love with their very own digestive battle.

Thanks, guys.

Some pics from our Cali trip.

Grocery shopping with twins is a different animal than shopping with one or even two kids of different ages. With a singleton, you can put the baby in the shopping cart seat or plop an infant carrier in the cart and go. With kids of different ages, you at least have one that can walk, even if he does have be on a leash or muzzle. But with twins, you either rig yourself up with a baby sling and a carrier, or wait until there’s someone around to help.

Unless you’re going to Sam’s Club.

Everything at Sam’s is bigger, including the shopping carts. It’s the only place I know of that has shopping carts that can accommodate two babies at once. Thank you, Sam’s.

Chris and I were able to brave this trip without a stroller and get all of our massively sized goods into the car with the girls.

Also, we have family from Spain visiting for the rest of the month. We headed out to the beach and caught this classic photo. Sure, we all look lovely (even though I’m wearing a fucking TANKINI), but we had to feed the girls a six pack to get a good shot.

THE BOTTLE ARE EMPTY I SWEAR.

Although I have every desire to update frequently with all the adorable photos we’ll be taking, I know I probably won’t and will suffer a traffic hit for it.

Anyway, la familia says “hi!”