Crazy Daze

I’m living in a cloud of sleep deprived, mommy brain haze. 😉 Most days I don’t know what day of the week it is let alone the date! Ha! But it’s okay. I know this is just a season, and we’ll eventually make the transition back to a functional family unit instead of one that’s just limping along.

This weekend I had a couple of photo shoots as well as a couple of follow-up ordering sessions. It was a bit crazy, but this time around I left ALL the monkeys (including the two mini-monkeys) with their Daddy while I was working. 🙂 I’m sure it was an adventure for him, but I’ll let him blog about his perspective. My Saturday looked like this:

9am: Ordering session (lasted till around 10)
11am: 6 month old photo shoot (Only it didn’t start till 12 because he had to take his nap, lasted till about 1)
2pm: Second ordering session (ended just after 3)
4pm: Maternity photo shoot (ended at about 5:15)

Whew! I was really thankful that I hadn’t brought any of the kids. I know they would have been fine hanging out with my mom all day, but I kinda needed to not be “on” when I got back at the end of the day. My dad grilled steak, and we had a really yummy dinner which was fantastic because the only “lunch” I’d been able to grab was a Kiva Juice smoothie between dashing from one thing to another.

In other news my mom-in-law got Ella a couple of cute shirts that fit her well and are actually LONG enough! The size… 4T! Oh my! She’s in 2 sizes up for tops! She’s just so tall!! She loves her new clothes though. She’s such a girl! Ha ha! The other day I dug out of my shoe rack a pair of old sandals that I hadn’t worn this year. She spied them at once and got so excited about my “new” shoes, and wanted to know if I got them for my birthday. 😉 Pretty much anything new is now a part of “birbay” for any and everyone. My mom was here helping out again last week and had a couple new shirts which Ella spotted at once! How she can keep track of everyone’s wardrobe is completely beyond me! She’s going to be a fashionista, I suppose.

So the twins and their schedule. Bah humbug!! Apparently the “baby whisperer” hasn’t met my little Gabby-girl! Claire, it seems, is adapting to the routine fairly well. I think that she would likely sleep 5-6 hours a night if she were on her own. Actually she probably would anyway, but I make her get up and eat if I have to feed her sis. Gabby has been VERY resistant to the routine. She wants to sleep during Activity time, and believe me it is completely impossible to keep her awake when she wants to be sleeping! She will NOT take a “dream feed.” She thrashes all around and fights with the bottle and sputters and spits and simply will not swallow! It’s ridiculous! And the whole “tanking up” process with the cluster feeds in the evening doesn’t work well for her either. She ends up too full and then is miserable and won’t sleep. Oh and the sleeping thing… this really baffles me. She sleeps really well for her naps during the day. I swaddle her snuggly put her in the crib and walk away while she’s still awake. For the most part she blinks at the patterns on the blanket for a few minutes and then is off to dream land with no issues. However, when it comes to the put down process at bed time, ya know the time of evening when all little heads find repose on their pillows (except infants who don’t get a pillow) so that mommy and daddy can have a few moments conversation and quiet, she turns into a little Tasmanian Devil and will not go to sleep on her own, nor will she stay asleep once she’s been rocked and soothed and put in her bed. I’m really at a loss with what the issue is with her. I keep the lamp on in the room so it’s not dark while they are falling asleep, the noise maker is on just like at nap times. It doesn’t make sense! Claire goes right out like a little lightbulb and even sleeps through the wailing’s of her sister. I will rock Gabby and she too will go out like a light, but once I set her in the bed it only lasts 2-5 min before she’s crying again. I’ve wondered if it’s reflux, but she’s on her medication for that, and honestly doesn’t seem to be in pain, but she is simply NOT HAPPY to be in her bed, and as soon as she’s picked up she stops. She seems to want to be sleeping, but just can’t stay there. Then once she finally does really and truly drop off, which usually takes and hour or more of the up and down thing, she is OUT and there’s no way to get her to take her “dream feed” at that point. So… I’m having to tweak the baby whisperer model a little bit.

Last night they made it till almost 3am before starting to stir. I, for whatever reason, was already awake and couldn’t sleep so I just fed them both. Then they made it after that till nearly 7am so that’s not bad really. We’ve just got to figure out a way to make bed time a pleasant experience for all involved. 😉 So if you’ve any experiences to share with that, please feel free. I’m up for suggestions for sure! I have a feeling, (intuition?) that she’s trying to do her own version of “cluster feeding” and maybe Mommy just hasn’t been getting with the program. So for the next day or so I’m going to try to feed her little bits as she fusses in the evening and just forget about the dream feed for her. We’ll see what happens.

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