All in Bed by 7 PM!!!

Oh my goodness, this is fabulous.  The big kids went down at 7 pm, and then we immediately put Evelyn in her swaddle and she went straight to sleep without a peep.  Wow.  I'm in heaven.

And I'm not banking on this happening every night, but maybe someday... a girl can dream.

Having a Singleton After Twins

So far, there have been so many differences between having twins and having a singleton.  Many, many people have asked me if this is easier.  To be honest, I have to say that most of these differences make having a singleton much easier.  Of course, all children are different and all parenting experiences are unique.  Having one baby is challenging and having two babies at the same time (especially when you have never had a child before) is extremely challenging.  I do recognize that some of these differences are also just the contrast between having the first child and "second child." (I often think of Evelyn as a "second baby," even though she is technically a third.)  The purpose of this post is not to minimize the difficulty that some people have with their singletons - all newborns give us a run for our money, but I do want to record the differences that I have observed between my own twin and singleton experiences.

Side note:  I rarely refer to Miles and Vivienne as "the twins," because I recognize them as distinct individuals.  But for the sake of this post, calling them "the twins" will just make it simpler.

Here are just a few of the differences:

• Much less pregnancy weight and swelling with a singleton and a much easier recovery.  I weighed 209 lbs when I gave birth to the twins.  I weighed 187 when I gave birth to Evelyn.  Both of my births were vaginal, so I was lucky not to have a c-section recovery either time.
• With the twins, we kept a log of every single pee, poop, feeding and pumping session for about the first 6 months of their lives.  I have a black speckled notebook that has notes cover-to-cover full of every biological function.  With Evie, we kept a record for about 24 hours.  Of course, the twins were only 6 and 6.5 lbs and Evie was over 8 lbs, so that allowed us to relax a little more about her feeding and growth.
• With the twins, I had to pump after every single feeding (which with twins is about 15 times a day) for 15 minutes for the first 2 weeks.  That means even at night, including all the pump cleaning, etc... and the twins basically never took a single bottle (so this milk was never used to actually nourish them).  The reason for this was to build a mega-supply that could sustain two babies.  It was totally worth it, but I sure could have used that extra hour of sleep at night instead of pumping.
• With the twins, we had to feed them using a supplemental nursing system (SNS) for the first few weeks.  It had to be washed every time, and we had to feed each baby separately.  It took forever to get to work properly (because it would clog or not fit in their mouths quite correctly).  Jason and I spent so much time staring at the the tubes of the the SNS and asking,"Do you see bubbles?"  "Oh, I think I see bubbles!"  "I think it's working!"  "Oh, wait.  Nope.  Darn it.  Let's reset it."  "Do you see bubbles now?"  (I was seeing bubbles in my nightmares after about a week of this.)
• Once Jason went back to work, I had two babies crying during the day.  I could only pick up and soothe one baby at a time, and I basically had to just listen to the other baby scream while I tried to calm the first baby.  With Evelyn, I only have to soothe and feed her.  At night, when she was fussy, at least Jason and I could trade off.  With the twins, we were both walking around like zombies, bouncing a baby, singing incoherent lullabies and trying to keep ourselves from passing out.
• With Evelyn, the breastfeeding has been so easy.  I only had soreness for about a week.  With the twins, I was sore for about 2 months.  I was so sore that I would actually cry when they wanted to eat, because it hurt so bad and I didn't think I could do it again.  My toes would curl up from the pain.  TWO MONTHS.  I'm so glad I pushed past that time, but the pain (on top of the sleep deprivation) was no joke.  I am so thankful that I was able to breastfeed them for 14 months.
• Now I only have to listen to one baby scream in her car seat.  It is still extremely unpleasant, but at least it's not two babies in surround sound, filling my car with their pitiful cries.  This also applies to taking them for walks.  When I took the twins for walks, I would be over a mile from home and they would both start screaming.  Now, imagine you're by yourself, on foot, a mile from home with two screaming newborns.  It's not pretty, people.  Not pretty.
• Evelyn is only one baby to wake us up at night.  Oh my gosh, I can't even tell you what an incredible difference this is.  It was months before the twins got down to one feeding.  Evelyn was basically only waking up twice from the second night of her life on, and now she's down to just one feeding (and has been for over a week now).  This is a lifesaver.
• It is so much easier to tote around a singleton.  I can throw her in the sling and I can shop or do dishes or make the bed.  With the twins, even if I had one in the sling, the other one had to either be happily sitting alone (not likely!) or asleep in order for me to accomplish anything.  It's also so nice to only be toting around one infant carrier.  Though the twins did provide me one heck of an upper arm workout...
• I love being able to breastfeed Evelyn wherever I go.  With the twins, I had to nurse them at home (because I always nursed them together), and then "the clock" started (the 3-hour-you-have-to-get-home-before-these-babies-implode clock).  Even if I had been willing to nurse them separately, if I nursed them "on the go", it would take me years to do one and then the other.  I quite literally never left the house for much more than 2 hours.  In contrast, I fed Evelyn at Chick-fil-a the day after we brought her home from the hospital.  I have fed her at my parents' house, church, museums, parks, friends' houses, restaurants, on the side of the road... anywhere really.  There is so much freedom in this.  It is an absolutely enormous difference.
• I must say that having twin toddlers is probably advantageous at this point, because they love to play together (when they're not fighting over something).  I think it was easier for them to make the adjustment of adding Evie to the picture.  

Both of my mothering experiences have been incredible.  Being a twin mom is such a unique experience, and I feel so blessed to have had two babies at once.  For all the challenges they presented, I also got twice the smiles, twice the giggles, twice the hugs, twice the snuggles and twice the pudgy little toes.  But it has also been so wonderful to now focus on my single, beautiful baby girl.

Me and My Girls

Every now and then I force Jason to take a picture of me with the kids to prove that I really do exist.

Evelyn is 6 Weeks!

Evelyn turned 6 weeks old yesterday.  She has really blossomed over this past week with more coos and her first smile!  I have yet to really capture one of her sweet smiles on camera.  Hopefully I will get one this week.  I did manage to capture this, though:

It's not all rainbows and sunshine, people.

Evie continues to grow.  She is around 10 lb 9 oz now, according to our home scale.  She has gained more than 2 pounds from her birthweight at this point.

She has been sleeping very well, only waking up once (around 3 or 4 am) to eat for the past few nights.  She still has a feeding around 6 or 7 am.  Once that stretches a little bit later, I will be able to sleep in more easily.  

Lately she has been very easy to get to sleep, usually going down around 8:30 without much of a fuss.  Around 7, we start dimming the lights, putting on soothing music and spending time with her on her play mat or bouncy seat.  Then around 8, she gets her final feeding, and we put her down upstairs awake, but drowsy.  This seems to finally be working well.  We're hoping that her bedtime will creep closer to Miles and Vivienne's over time.

Evelyn is starting to lose some of her hair, which makes me a little sad.  Miles and Vivienne both had a "male pattern baldness" stage, but I am still hoping that maybe Evie will be spared.  I love the swirl of her cowlick on the back of her head.  I often gaze at it while we're napping in the afternoons together in my bed.  I remember that my postpartum doula, Pam, used to say that Vivienne's swirl reminded her of Van Gogh's Starry Night.

Love this swirl!

Evelyn is an absolute joy to us, and it's hard to believe that there was ever a time without her here.  She definitely has her own unique look... dark skin and sweet brown eyes.  It should be illegal for a baby to be this beautiful.

The Vomit Continues

Friday night, Miles got whatever bug had caused Vivienne to get sick.  That night, he woke up around 1 am crying and coughing a lot.  We went into his room and he had thrown up a little bit in his bed, but it wasn't too bad.  We changed his sheets and got him calmed down and back to sleep fairly quickly.

About 45 minutes later, he woke up again, coughing and crying a lot.  We went into his room, and he was vomiting profusely.  Jason picked him up out of his crib, and he kept throwing up.  At least Jason was coherent enough to think to grab the trash can so that Miles could throw up in that.  It was all over his sheets, all over him... it was bad.  We took him in to give him a bath, cleaned up the trash can and changed the sheets yet again.  Luckily, after calming down and taking a bath, Miles seemed to be back to his cheery, chatting self again.  Once we got him back to sleep, he didn't wake up again.

Vivienne didn't really enjoy the show that was going on in their room at 2 am.  We're thankful that she was tired enough to fall back to sleep again quickly as well.  Also, Evelyn woke up only once that night to nurse, so Mommy was very thankful for that.

Last night, Miles only woke up once and threw up the tiniest bit.  And Evelyn did a one-feeding performance again as well.  Hopefully tonight we don't have any vomit.

I seem to have gotten the kids' bug as well, but it hasn't hit me as hard.  I'm hoping that we will all be totally back to normal tomorrow.

Sisterly Love

Vivienne loves to have Evelyn sit on her lap.  Here they were last weekend.  For the record, I let Vivienne go out in public with us with OVER 10 CLIPS in her hair because she liked it.  Jason reminded me that I need to let it go.

Let it go, let it go, let it go...

Daddy

How they love him so.  It's easy to see why.