Mmmmm Sweet Taters

The babies turned 6 months old on Sunday...holy cow I can't believe it! It's exciting and sad at the same time. They don't want to be held like little babies anymore, they try to sit up and Ben loves to stand on your lap. They are changing so much every day and I just love it!

Our pediatrician provided us with a feeding guide that recommends rice cereal between 4-5 months. We started at 5 and Will loved it, Ben not so much. So I took a break and tried again recently and he did much better. Last time Dan was home he built their high chairs and I think they like them. Ben is now on oatmeal since he has some tummy issues and rice can be constipating. Will will get oatmeal once the box of rice is done. I have been giving them 3 tbsp in the evening, about an hour after their dinner bottle. Yesterday, I gave the daycare the green light to feed them another 3 tbsp in the morning. The feeding guide recommends 4-6 tbsp a day for 5-6 months old so now that they're 6 months, I figure it's time to bring them up to the full serving. The best part is that daycare provides the cereal and bowls, spoons etc. so it's one less thing to pack, clean etc!

I went back and forth about what solid I wanted to start with them and did research, polled mommy friends etc. and decided on sweet potatoes. I plan to make my own baby food as often as I can, I'm not opposed to the jar food when it's necessary but nutrition and cost wise making it myself makes sense. Sweet potatoes were easy peasy! I bought 5 large ones and they were a dollar apiece. I wrapped them in foil and baked them for about an hour, I read that baking them helps to retain the most flavor and nutrients. I cut them in half, scooped out the "meat" once they had cooled and used my hand mixer to puree them with about 6 ounces of formula. Then I spooned them into ice cube trays and froze them. I filled almost 3 ice cube trays (2 tbsp each) so now I have about 50 servings of sweet taters!

I'm going to follow the one new food at a time recommendation and give them a week with the sweet potatoes before I try something else in the orange family, probably carrots. Then maybe squash and then move to greens; peas, green beans etc. Hopefully it continues to go well!

Last night we tried the taters for the first time since Dan was home and despite the faces Will kept making, I think they liked them!

I don't know about this mom...

Oh, I forgot...I love all food!

I'll eat it for you mommy :)

He better be getting the same thing over there!

 

 

Long Distance Family

This week I'd like to participate in the Love and Marriage Link Up link up because this topic hits very close to home considering our current situation. Every marriage has its struggles and we've stood in the face of some, mainly the struggling to become pregnant and facing infertility. Then my difficult pregnancy with the twins where when I wasn't sick, I was immobile. Until the last two weeks when we were told we could possibly face a stillborn situation. Each obstacle felt like the "hardest thing I had ever done" until the next thing came along. Looking back, I realize these things all took strength and we supported each other through them. And we came out the other side. I know now that some day I will look back on these days and say the same thing but right now, I'm too close to the forest to see the trees.

We are so blessed that Dan was hired by US Airways, soon to be American Airlines back in October. Because the boys were born early, he delayed his training until November so we could be together before he had extensive training in Charlotte. January was tough because he was gone and I was back to work. Once he finished training he started his "regular" reserve schedule in Philadelphia which consists of 6 days on and anywhere from 2-4 days off in between. Adding the commute to the mix makes things difficult. Because of his contract requirements and the distance and time change between Phoenix and Philadelphia he has to leave the morning of his last day off to get there in time. Luckily, most of the time he is able to get home on his last day of work but there have been times where he isn't released in time for the last flight home so he has to fly in on his first day off. Either way, he's gone for about 7 days each time.

This does not make for a happy mama come day 5. Or any of the days, for that matter. Day one is difficult because I'm sad he's leaving and anxious about the daunting task ahead. A couple of days in I try to arrange someone to come by in the evening to help hold and feed the munchkins. This is proving to be more difficult as time goes on because they aren't tiny infants any longer and people have their own lives to live. Towards the end of the 7 days, I'm exhausted, sad and lonely. It's tough hauling them to and from daycare each day, coming home and doing our nightly routine and trying to squeeze in laundry, dishes, packing for daycare and keeping up with trash, vacuuming and any other house related chores that need to take place.

ridiculous

It's hard on me because I didn't work so hard to get our perfect little family, only to do it alone most of the time. I know it's hard on Dan to be gone, just sitting in his sad crash pad in Philadelphia instead of being with his family. Not to mention sitting on a plane for 5 plus hours just to come home for 18 hours. It's wearing on both of us.

When he is home he's awesome and cleans and does chores and stays home with the boys. The day he leaves, he sets me up for the evening with bottles, clean sheets on the cribs and takes the diaper trash out. It's great. And the days we're home as a family are even more awesome, I treasure every minute because I know in a couple of short days, it's back to the twins versus mommy. When he's home everything feels so manageable, but when he's gone I'm stressed, anxious and constantly forget to pay a bill or write the check for daycare or take the trashcan to the curb. I don't like being disorganized me, so that stresses me out as well.

Dan is usually great about telling me what a good job I'm doing and how he understands that it must be difficult to be in my position. It really helps to hear him acknowledge that what I'm doing is a huge undertaking and it helps me to feel validated. I just get sad that we can't do this together, and I try not to think about it but I get jealous of women who have their husbands home every night. I know the grass isn't always greener and our situation will eventually get better but it's freakin' hard. And sometimes he doesn't get it, but it's not his fault since he's never been alone with them for longer than 10 hours, or had to give them both baths, or cut their fingernails, ever! So then I get frustrated and we argue, because I want him to know what it's like. But that's not productive.

Basically our conversations consist of; when do you leave, when do you get home and when can we move? But "home" can be a confusing term, obviously, because the other week he referred to Philadelphia as home. We disagree about the move that is inevitable, we do plan to relocate but we can't agree on when. So this is the other conversation we have on repeat. Dan believes that come June when I'm not working and his "on call" schedule should change to an actual schedule of flying (4 days in a row opposed to the current 6) things will be more manageable. He's right, it probably will but I'd much rather live in or near the city he's working in.

My campaign is to move to Charlotte this summer since he'll likely be able to be based there as early as November and he can make the Charlotte to Philly commute for those few months. Same coast, time zone, a zillion flights a day and a much shorter flight where he can leave and come home day of instead of the day ahead and the day after like now. He thinks I don't realize how difficult it will be to move to a brand new city without friends and family and I think he doesn't' realize what it's like to raise twin infants alone. We're both probably right. But we still like to fight about it.

So for now we're a long distance family and it stinks. It'll get better but right now it's a struggle. Thank goodness I have these faces to come home to every day!

Waaaaaay Back

Dan and I go back, waaaaaaay back like First grade back. Since we're coming up on the 9th anniversary of our first date and fellow twin mama Megan at In This Wonderful Life is hosting a link up in her Love and Marriage" series I thought I'd share how it all began. *Well, I slacked in posting and missed the link up, so maybe next time. But since I already wrote the post, here ya go!*

Technically we met in First grade when he had to come to my school since it was the only school in the district with wheelchair ramps. One, hello ADA this would never fly these days but circa 1988 I guess it wasn't a big deal. Two, yes he was in a wheelchair. He broke his leg riding his twin sister's bike on cinders in their culdesac doing something called a "power slide" yet he maintains it wasn't his fault! Either way, he spent a month in the hospital in traction, throwing micro machines at his poor mother when she left to get a cup of coffee. Ahhh, the 1980's :) Anyway...he was in my First grade class for like 5 minutes in his wheelchair with an FDR afghan on his lap.

Fast forward to middle school when I became best friends with his twin sister, Sheila. We'd be super annoying and make him pop popcorn for us or heat up the hot tub while we gossiped and ate Ben and Jerry's ice cream. It's a wonder he ever married me after that!

We were friends throughout high school and college as I was still best friends with Sheila. It wasn't until 2004 when we were all out to dinner celebrating their 22nd birthday that we had our "first date". After dinner we all went our separate ways, but he called me and asked if I wanted to grab a drink. We had fun, talking and reminiscing and it still bugs him that I paid. It was his birthday and they were $2 Coronas, come on! We dated casually that spring and summer but since I spent the summer in Prescott we didn't see too much of each other. That fall, we were "official" and spent our senior year of college attending date parties, football games and having a grand old time.

Dan graduated in December but I was still in school and very involved in my sorority. He was trying to get a job with an airline and I was busy with Theta. We did not have the time for our relationship at that point so we very amicably went our separate ways. I lived with Sheila and her husband for the summer after I graduated so Dan and I hung out quite a bit. By that fall, we decided to give it another try. Best decision!

Christmas 2008 he proposed and 9 months later we were married :) Now here we are, almost 9 years later with the most perfect babies a family could ask for!

It wasn't always easy, with his career he's gone a lot so I've had to be pretty independent. Even more so now that we have babies. We struggled through infertility but in the end, wound up closer than ever because we had each other to turn to. My difficult pregnancy and delivery brought out a side of Dan I never knew existed. He cleaned, cooked (or bought and cut up fruit) and took care of everything while I was sick and immobile. Once the twins were born, he was super dad. Running milliliters of breast milk down to the NICU in the middle of the night so the boys could have anything I pumped. He took over feedings so I could get sleep when I was sick with mastitis and took off extra time from work until we had a good system going with the boys.

Now that he is working out of Philadelphia, he has to commute back and forth across the country every 6 days. Just this week, he made a 2 leg 8 hour commute home, just to be with us from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning. I came home from work yesterday to a clean house, folded laundry, bottles prepped for day care AND chocolate cupcakes (from the store of course). Husband of the year!

Now it's not sunshine and roses all the time; he leaves loose change everywhere, only puts away his laundry because after all this time he can't figure out where my stuff goes, and vacuums around things instead of picking them up but bottom line....I married a good man.