Turkey Day Wrap up

We had a very sweet and happy Thankgiving at our house with our two most honored guests, Miss Lily and Miss Elsa.



The girls supervised the cooking from their bouncies. I think Elsa looks like a little Thanksgiving elf in this picture. Meanwhile, Lily is modeling her fancy bear socks from Grandma A. The bears are actually little rattles.


This is Elsa taking a break from the cooking and looking coy in her crib. This is also a good picture of their new eyebrows and eyelashes. (They didn't have any when they were born). I am just in love with their eyes! They are so full of personality.


This is a happy picture of Lily as she hangs out with her dad in the kitchen. You can see her beautiful brows, too.


This is Mark presenting his turkey. It was most excellent.


Here is a post-dinner snuggle with my babies. Notice that Elsa has grabbed on to Lily's hand. It was a very sweet moment.

We have so much to be grateful for this year!

Turkey Day invite.

General PSA to all you local readers.

Since our usual Thanksgiving plans didn't come through this year and we're a bit housebound with the twins.

Mark and I bought a bird.

A word of warning that we have never attempted a turkey before...

Anybody needing a place to go for Thanksgiving is welcome at our place.

The more the merrier!

In fact, this invitation extends to faraway family and friends as well.

Emily is homesick.

And the girls are too little to fly home for the holidays this year. Sniffle.

Anybody wanting to catch a last minute flight and surprise their sister/daughter/cousin/etc with a trip is very welcome!

Phew.

We made it through yesterday. It was a long day that began around 430am. Mark's flight left at 7am and he didn't get home until midnight. He was asked to present his research at Scripps in San Diego. It went very well and he was able to do some important networking for the next job. I must admit that I was a bit jealous that he got to spend the day on the cliffs of La Jolla, while I spent my longest day ever on my own with the girls. But, I think the day was more rough on Mark than me. He got homesick for his girls. He was actually missing them so badly that he called several times. He said it felt weird to be so far away from us. He's used to be only a 5 minute bikeride away. He was very cute and held the phone so we could hear the ocean. He felt bad that he missed putting the girls to bed as that is his special job.

On my end, the girls had a pretty good day. It just takes a lot of energy to keep up with them!

Here's a funny self-portrait taken about about halfway through my day.



I call it, manic mommy. Notice my glamorous hair and ensemble. I should admit this picture was snapped sometime in the afternoon! The girls are blowing bubbles. That is their latest trick.

Elsa-riffic, Lily-tastic

For those keeping track, my peanuts are growing.

Today they measured:
Elsa, 8lbs 15 oz 21.75in
Lily, 9lbs 3 oz 21.75in

On the small side for 2 months olds, but doing great from where they started from...especially since they lost more than 10% after birth.

Had she not loaded her diaper moments before the weigh in, Elsa would have hit nine pounds, too!

Our new pediatrician seems to be pretty nice. Although, he did ask the good twin, evil twin question. (that's one of my pet peeves). He tried to be diplomatic, "so which twin is more labor intensive." We gave him the standard answer "depends on the day." We don't want to label our kids. Do singleton parents get asked to pick their difficult child, too?

We decided to skip the shots until next week. Elsa is still getting over a cold. Plus, Mark is flying to San Diego and back tomorrow. He is giving a talk at Scripps. It will be a long day for everybody. Rather not deal with any bad reactions to the immunizations while dad's away.

Lights, camera, action.

Parenthood can really change a person. Yesterday, Mark and I made our most uncharacteristic purchase ever. We bought a camcorder. Yes, the same people who didn't even want their wedding videographed, have their very own camcorder.

When I told my parents, they were so right.

"But you hate those things!"

I still do.

BUT,

Our babies are just so darn cute and they are growing so fast. Yesterday they had their two month birthday! We want to capture some of their babyhood on film.

Plus, I've always liked the way my Aunt Laura and Uncle Joe played family videos for Joey and Michael when they were babies. I think it helps the kids know their family more while living far away. This is a major concern of mine while we are living 2000 miles away from everybody.

So, fair warning. If you come to our house, you stand a good chance of being videotaped. But, I promise not make anyone else watch the dvd's unless requested.

Once we figure it all out, we might be able to host short films on our website. Wouldn't that be cool.

I think this means, I have become overwhelmingly obsessed with my girls. My three biggest hobbies at the moment are 1)taking pictures of them 2) keeping up a website about them and 3) now making movies of them.

Thank goodness for my yoga class and work on Weds or I'd have nothing else to talk about!

In other updates, we went out for dinner for the second time since the girls were born. In case you are wondering, this is how we were able to afford the camcorder. We used to go out at least twice a week, now its just two times in two months! We took them to the Pyramid Brew Pub. In fact, both of our restaurant trips have been to Pubs. They are noisy and drunk people don't seem to mind crying babies as much. Lily and Elsa behaved mostly. Now, to find a family friendly Thai and Indian restaurant!

They also went to their first Sunday night Simpsons party (outside the womb). The Berkeley crew gathers to watch the Simpsons each week. But, they weren't required to drink the traditional 40oz beer!

Last night the girls had their longest sleep to date: 10pm to 4:45am. Pretty good.

Finally, a couple of quick pictures...



Lily found her thumb



and Elsa got her hair done.

Changes

Yesterday was a big day at our house. It was my first day back at work and Mark's first full day with the girls. It was a little rough on me to leave them for the first time. Up until yesterday, I haven't been away from them longer than four hours. But, it ended up going really well from both ends.

While I was gone, Mark and the girls went out to meet our friend Drew for morning coffee at the Bagel shop down the street. This is a morning tradition that Mark had given up when the girls were born. He said the day went smoothly. They drank their breastmilk bottles and there weren't too many major meltdowns. The toughest part of watching twins is when they both cry at the same time! Sometimes its impossible to comfort them both at once. When I got home, Mark had Lily in the sling and was changing Elsa. He was multi-tasking like a pro. He was even able to get a small amount of work done. But, he will need to make some time up this weekend.

From my end, going to work was very exciting. I've been out of the office since August and it was good to see everybody again. I like my job and I've missed going to the office. There's always a lot going on in my section, so they were able to put me to work right away. Pumping at work was easier than I thought. I was able to pump within an ounce of what the girls drank at home. So, that should not be a problem.

For now, I will only be working on Weds. Then after the holidays, I will be building up to a couple days a week.

Last night the Sunshine Club delivered dinner to our house in honor of the big day. The local twin club we joined has a program where they deliver a meal to new parents. The lady who brought over dinner had 3.5 year old twin boys and is pregnant with another little boy due in March. I couldn't believe she was making US dinner with her heavy load. It was very sweet.

Now for some new pictures. I'm trying a different code for uploading. Comment if the pictures seem less fuzzy or more fuzzy than usual.


Lily looking pretty in pink.


The girls are starting to get into their gym. Look at Lily reach for the toys.


Elsa can reach, too.



They are not big fans of tummytime yet. But, they've got to practice.



A picture of them both in their big girl crib.


This is how we put them down at night. They still like to be swaddled and pressed together.

Gallery note

Tech support dad here. To save space on the server, and to avoid a potentially shady element that haunts the web and might want to look at naked babies (do they exist? I don't know), we have removed the gallery of hospital photos. If you have specific requests for the pitcture, feel free to email Emily or me.

Hands

The girls did something really beautiful last night. It was early evening and the end of a long day. It felt like all I did yesterday was housework and nurse babies (because all I did yesterday was housework and nurse babies). Anyway, I was home alone, bone tired and kind of staring into space while tandem feeding. Then, I looked down and noticed that they were holding hands. They must have reached out for each other when I wasn't looking. Their little arms were stretched across the pillow and their hands were intertwined. It was such a cool moment. It made me cry.

I've been waiting for them to find each other.

I must confess, that I've been a little disappointed with how oblivious they seem to each other's presence. I've been reading for so many months about the magical bond between twins. However, Lily can be screaming right in Elsa's ear, and Elsa doesn't even blink. (and vice versa). It was really amazing to see them interact last night.

Apparently, twins don't usually notice each other right from the start. This is amazing to me considering they spent nine months in such close quarters. My theory is that you don't notice things that are always there. It would be like noticing your own breathing. We asked several experienced parents about this at the Twin Club Halloween last weekend. It seemed that most of their twins didn't really start interacting, playing together etc until they are several months old. They say at that point having twins got a lot easier because they become each others constant companion and playmate.

Still, I know they are aware of each other at some level, especially at night. They don't sleep well without having their heads pressed together in the dark. They really seem to provide comfort to each other.

Down on the farm

After a long dreary week of rain, the sun finally came out. We decided to enjoy the beautiful Fall day by taking the girls to the Little Farm in Tilden Park. Tilden is a large regional park located in the Berkeley Hills not far from where we live. It has a small working farm complete with cows, goats, chickens, turkeys, pigs, etc. It reminds me of my childhood trips to the farm at the Lincoln Park Zoo back in Chicago. The girls seemed to enjoy the outing. They got to ride facing outwards in their Bjorns for the first time. It was fun to watch them check things out. They have such big bright and excited eyes. By the way, I'm pretty sure their eyes are going to be brown like Mark's.


Elsa meets a cow.


Lily got to meet a cow, too.


Lily gets a smooch from Mom.


At the visitor's center, Elsa snoozes through her first science lesson from Dad.

Captured

an Elsa smile


and a Lily grin with her cute little kewpie doll curl.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

by request a picture of my new nursing pillow in action that makes it much easier to tandem feed. It leaves my hands free to adjust the babies. I use this mainly at night or when they are both hungry at the same time during the day. It even has a side pocket. (the devil horns are leftover from Halloween. I have not gone over to the darkside).