Neal has worked at OSU for 10 years and has never travelled, ok maybe once. We have twins and I decide to return to work full time and BAM the next week they decide Neal needs to travel for work! Thankfully next week he is only gone one night. Being a single mom is tiring, even with a full time nanny. I do not know what I would do without my mom. I am looking forward to Neal returning tomorrow. Grady decided to wake up last night at 11, 1, 2, 4 and finally 6. Needless to say I am tired. Looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday. Only got one picture tonight....



We are attending our first twins playgroup on Saturday. Should be real interesting!

4 Month Well Baby Appointment

The babies are doing great. This appointment was much better than the last and I am hoping to stay with the new doctor. Two shots and rolls were reversed. Last time Grady screamed like crazy, this time Gwen did. It seems as though the first one to get the shots screams the worst. We will see if this holds true next time. I really like the practice, they are not pill pushers. They do not really want to see you unless something is really wrong and your kid is not acting normal. We will be starting rice cereal in a couple of weeks. That will be our first chance to take some entertaining video. Gwen has eczema on her face and her legs mostly. It is not real bad, but we will probably treat it during the winter since your skin tends to be more dry. Without further ado, here are the stats:

Gwendolyn
Weight 13 pounds 3 ounces 25-50%
Height 24.25" 25%
Head 15.25" 5%

Grady
Weight 14 pounds 14 ounces 25-50%
Height 25.25" 50%
Head 16.75" 50%

So in summary, Grady might not be a midget, Gwen will be. Grady has a huge brain, Gwen has a large brain shoved into a small head. They both have a chance of not inheriting moms thunder thighs, although things are not looking that good right now, their legs have quite a few rolls.

We did get some other news at the doctors. The babies have been diagnosed as Buckeye Fans!

Leslie bought the babies these shirts from the Circlehell Pumkin Show. I guess something good came out of that!

Les and Connor came over tonight with dinner. What did we learn....a two year old singing the wheels on the bus can entertain 2 four month olds and 2 thirty year old women for 30 minutes. I am pretty sure C could be babysitting the twins.

Grady admiring Connor's height!



On a more serious note, dad is still out of town doing important work things. He sent me a picture message updating us.


Looks like he is working real hard!

Naps

The babies suck at naps. When they do fall asleep during the day it is only for about 20-40 minutes. They are usually a little crabby in the evening because of this. After work today, I came home to have another 30 minutes of work trying to get the babies to sleep. I did everything I could think of. I am close to reciting the entire Sound of Music. A little Nazi Germany story before a nap seems appropriate for a 4 month old. After 30 minutes they fell asleep. Later I was taking Gwen up around 7:30, planning to come back down and play with Grady trying to keep him up so I could enjoy some adult juice and not have to wake up at 5:30am (see time change post). In the 2 minutes it took me to get Gwen settled upstairs Grady feel asleep. Proof yet again that every day is different and you cannot predict what the babies will do next. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings, although I hope tomorrow does not start at 5:30am!

Time Change

I always wondered why moms make a big deal out of the time change. My thoughts were, just keep your kid up a little later and they will sleep in a little later, does not sound that hard to me. Well, I was wrong. I know, you are all thinking, Michele...wrong? No way! Well it is true. It is extremely difficult to get the babies to adjust. We started trying to keep them up an hour later three days before the time change. It is difficult to change a babies bedtime or wake time. It is just as difficult to do this as it is to feed your baby when it is convenient for you. Gwen actually adjusted ok. Grady however wants to wake up at 5:30 am (that even with a middle of the night feeding). At 5:30am I am usually cursing Neal's name thinking he purposely scheduled an out of town training this week. So, after two days of waking up extra early, I warned Neal that he better be enjoying his nice, uninterrupted, no crickets from the white noise machine sleep, because come Saturday morning at 5:30am, Grady will be calling his name. Ok maybe not calling his name, but he will be crying. My wonderful husbands response, "My sister will be visiting, she can get up." What a guy!


Gwen wearing her Thanksgiving bib from Kristin and Joey.



Grady's tummy time.

Single Mom

Neal is headed out of town for the week, so I will be a single mom. Now granted our nanny aka grandma will be coming over every day, I will be alone at night. Grandma offerred to stay, but I think I can handle it myself. I know I can always change my mind and ask her to stay overnight! Mom and Mike are bringing dinner one night and Ryan and Les another night. The remaining two nights I plan to enjoy a the 6 pack I have in the fridge while watching the old and new 90210, something I cannot get away with when Neal is home, nor do I really like to admit.

To keep daddy in touch, I will try to post pictures all week. Tonight we went for a walk, took baths, ate, pooped, cried and slept all in under 3 hours.


Gwen is our good eater even though she is smaller. At least this week!


Gwen loves to smile


Grady got to take a bath first!


Babies dressed up for happy hour. Unfortunately mommy forgot to check the weather. It ended up being 80, so the clothes came off pretty quickly.

For a house update, this week they are priming and painting, installing our new front door and installing hard wood floors in the entry way. The cabinets were supposed to be delivered this week, but just our luck, the warehouse caught on fire. So our cabinets have to be rebuilt and will not be delivered until Thanksgiving.

Four Months

I cannot believe the babies are four months. I am officially back to work full time. I hate leaving the babies! Luckily my job has some flexibility, so I will be working from home a couple of days a week. I am very very lucky! The house is coming along. Looks like we just might be home for Thanksgiving. Sure would be nice since we would have a 4 day weekend to get settled in at home! Anyways, back to the babies. Grady continues to talk up a storm. Gwen is starting to talk a little more. They change so quickly. They are really grabbing at things and their head control has improved. I think we will be doing a lot of new things once we move home and make some more purchases. Right now they still spend a lot of time in their bouncy seats, on their play mat and using this great kicking thing I got at the twins sale. Gwen is super nosey and loves to people watch. The babies are sleeping 12 hours through the night most nights. They both fight every nap during the day, so I am assuming that is why they are so tired at night. It is not even that hard to get them to bed anymore. They are eating about 5-6 ounces per bottle, although some days they are all over the place. No two days are alike! Next week a lot is going on. Daddy is going away for a week and the babies have their 4 months checkup and shots. I will updated once we have their new weights and heights.

Circlehell Pumpkin Parade

My friend who has twins tried to take her kids to the Circlehell Pumpkin Festival. According to my mom about 100,000 people go down each day of the four day festival. I understand there is some good people watching and a majority of the crowd is lit up the whole time. Anyways, back to my friend. She drove down to Circlehell to meet her husband and friends and to participate in a parade. Traffic sucked the whole way down. Trying to find a parking spot sucked even more. After parking in an illegal spot and getting the twins out she proceeded to the festival. It was a warm October night. The place was so crowded. Luckily my friend was smart enough to send herself a text of every block she passed so that she could find her way back to her car. Immediately entering the festival she found her friends. Her husband was on his way. It was complete wall to wall people. Smoking people, kids, strollers, a complete zoo. They proceeded to find her husband. At this point her friend said, isn't it strange that everyone is coughing. As I, I mean my friend took a deep breath she coughed and immediately had a flashback to the time she decided to try out some pepper spray in her kitchen. Oh crap, pepper spray at the festival by her babies. She told her friend adios and pushed forward to find her husband. At this point she is sweating like a cow. She left her map in the car, so she is completely lost. Even though the thing is small, they have to put a ferris wheel on every corner, so you feel like you are going in circles, even though you are not. She was pretty sure someone dropped ashes on her babies. Through the break in the crowd she sees the information desk. At this point she is lost, sweating and crying. She cannot find her husband. A voicemail, which her husband would later hear, was left on her husbands phone with quite a few f bombs. Finally she sees her husband standing there smiling. She is in tears and cannot wait to get the heck out of there. At this point she has been unable to pee (which she does a lot and every twin mom knows it is hard to do in public when you are alone) and is considering just peeing her pants. Her husband found her a port a john, which she visited. After peeing on her leg she decided next time she will just pee her pants. Her and her husband feed the babies quickly. Then she proceeds back (crying babies in tow) to the car as she cannot wait to get the hell out of Circlehell. She later learns there is only one street in and out of Circlehell. I forgot to mention, my friends babies sleep quietly in the car if it is moving. Well, considering there are 100,000 people at the festival, there are about 1,000 trying to get out of the festival on the one available route out. Unfortunately her husband took the GPS, so she could not navigate a new route. Babies crying, mommy crying, disaster. 30 minutes later when the babies are sleeping, my friend is calm and wishes she would have got ahold of herself and stayed in Circlehell for the parade after driving the hour to get there. Oh well, live and learn.