Ryan and Juliet

Late August, 2010, when the real estate market was at a low, Dan and I were lucky enough to find a family in our neighborhood who wanted to buy our home. With four floors, no parking, and two babies (almost toddlers), we clearly jumped on the opportunity. It was a good deal. No real estate agent and a decent offer. We accepted. After looking at 15+ homes to buy we chose the one we loved and put in our offer. In a matter of two weeks, we had a contract to sell our home and a contract to buy a new one. Next began a series of very stressful weeks of packing, finding a mortgage, paperwork, lawyers, buyer drama, inspections, etc. At the same time, Dan had to juggle a boatload of work, a stressful wife, and two teething babies. He did an amazing job and balanced his priorities beautifully. I spent every opportunity the babies allowed me to pack boxes and make my daily phone calls to annoy everyone I could in order to ensure our sale stayed on track. After what seemed like the longest two months ever (looking back, of course, it doesn’t seem so bad) we moved out, closed on both houses, and moved into our new home in Saratoga Springs.

To say our new home is totally awesome, would be a understatement. We own two acres of land. The majority of which consists of woodland with evergreen trees and a river marking our back yard border. We can walk out onto our deck through our green room or family room French doors to the enjoy the peace and serenity of our backyard. Our home is filled with so much light that even on a dreary March day I should feel rejuvenated. Ryan now has his own bedroom and no longer needs to get kicked out of the guest room for our overnight visitors to sleep in the office full of computers, wires, boxes, and books. The babies no longer need to scream up the stairs for me to return back from the upstairs kitchen for a treat or bottle. I can travel back and forth from the kitchen to the family room a hundred times a day without going up and down stairs. To put Ryan and Juliet down for their nap, I went from from three flights in the old home to one flight in our new home. I fear I might lose my slim, sexy figure. To top it off with whip cream, cherries, and rainbow sprinkles, we have a two car garage. What a beautiful sound that makes… two car garage. There are countless reasons for how wonderful our two car garage is, and as lovely as they all are, I won’t bore you with them.  Two car garage is enough said.

Meanwhile, a parade of events pasted us by like a whirlwind, giving us only a few precious moments to stop and savor it before going back to work on settling into our new home. We quite literally savored Thanksgiving at Gramee and Grampa Turkenkopf’s. Christmas started with the four of us and we were later on blessed again to have Gramee and Grampa Turkenkopf and Uncie Drewbie here to visit. The new year rolled in quietly. Well, sort of anyway. I was up to answer the cries of Ryan and Juliet in the night. There was, however, a distinct lack of streamers, alcohol, noise makers, and giant balls dropping from the sky. Instead I rocked Juliet in her chair and cuddled with Ryan (separately of course) until they decided it was OK to sleep again in their cribs. Dan took vacation from Christmas Eve through January 3rd. 10 days of bliss where mostly we stayed at home and just simply enjoyed each other.

So here we are, January 5th, and I am able to sit down and write again. There is still so much I could say about the last few months, but alas, I try to console myself with the words of Grampa Tom, “You can live it, or you can record it”. For the last few months, I’ve been living it. There have been days of stress, days full of food, days full of presents and wrapping paper, and days of complete and utter happiness with my family.

No, no, I got it Mom!

I'll decide what to do

Ryan and Juliet are amazing. They are so much more adaptable to change than I give them credit for. As parents we want to protect our babies and keep them safe and secure. In my mind, safety and security goes hand in hand with routine and what we’re used to.  For babies though, I think it’s more just having mommy and daddy there that provides that sense of safety and security.

Last Friday, June 25th, we went on our first family vacation to Burlington, VT. I have been strategically planning in my head how to get Ryan and Juliet through this vacation happy, fed, and rested. But most important, I wanted this to be a vacation for them that they would love. And what do they love almost as much as their mommy and daddy?  Their grandparents.   So we invited them along too!  Of course, this was a major treat for Dan and I too as there were so many of us to help love and hold the babies.  For me especially, I had all my favorite people to talk with and laugh with.

Juliet was so happy, as there was a never ending supply of people to hold her.  Ryan was so happy, as there were so many new things to see, explore, touch, and discover.  We stuffed ourselves full with food and wine.  We went to the Magic Hat Brewery for free beer and a free tour.  We visited the animals at the Shelburne Farm and marveled at its peace, beauty, and sereneness.  The free range chickens were especially a delight to see.  We had dinner by the lake, dinner in a fancy restaurant, and dinner with Mexican fare and margaritas.  At each dinner, Ryan and Juliet watched intently at all the activity swirling around them.  Many people commented on how beautiful and wonderful they were.

And indeed, they ate their dinner (with only one throw-up), they took their naps (well, mostly), and they slept at night (except when I talked in my sleep and woke them up).

Amazing.

Chistmas day held all the magic, love and cheer that we could hope for.  The babies were surrounded by colors and toys.  They were held, cuddled and loved all day long.  Grammee Marge (aka Grammee Phalanges), Grampa Tom and Uncie Drewbie came on Christmas Day to avoid bad weather the following day and to provide some adult company for the mommy and the daddy.  They did more than that, however.  Their visit was so wonderful and brought so much fun and laughter into our house.

My mommy and daddy were in Boston on Christmas Day with Aunt Heather, Uncle Jeff, Cousin Jake, and Baby Tic Tac (Tic Tac because that is the size of the baby right now).  Baby Tic Tac will reside in Aunt Heather’s belly until early August.  We are all so excited.

The Daddy’s 30th birthday was also celebrated by sleeping in and eating yummy food such as strawberry banana crepes, cookies (compliments of the Grand Ellie), wine, a home-made soup, and a delicious flourless chocolate cake.  He has officially crossed the border into the land of the 30s.  He shall have to start wearing lotion on his face to keep the wrinkles away and do grown up things like… what do grown up do?!  Anyway, he may not be as old and wise as the mommy but one day he will understand.

Click here to check out more pictures from Christmas Day and The Daddy’s birthday

Seriously, who ever coined that term clearly never had a baby.  For the past month and a half I have desperately been trying to get my babies on a schedule and in doing so, trying to get them to nap.  A true nap, in my book, is one that lasts at least 1 hr.  My babies, however, seem to prefer the 20 minute cat naps.

I should first probably explain how I rate my day.  It boils down to the following:

• Did the babies go poop?
• Did the babies finish their bottles?
• Did the babies nap 2x for at least 1hr each?
• How much did the babies cry?  This is often determined by how well we did on the first 3 bullets.

We’ve tackled the first two bullets and have those somewhat under control.  Next, it was time to work on the napping.

First I tried the swing for one baby and my arms for the other, switching back and forth so each baby got to sleep in my arms (this seemed to be the preferable method).  Aside from the extroadinary amount of boucing I had to do to get the baby in my arms to sleep, that worked pretty well.  That was, of course, until the baby in the swing woke up crying.   Remember the 4th bullet?  Keeping the crying level as low as possible?   Well, one baby crying is better than two.   So when the baby in the swing woke up, I had to put the baby in my arms down.  End result… two babies crying.  Oh, but I sooooo loved to have them fall asleep in my arms.  They were so precious and I cherished those moments.  I soon realized, though, that the lap-swing scenario wasn’t going to work.  Poo.

Around their 3 1/2 month mark I tried to put Juliet in her crib to let her cry it out.  This is known as the Ferber method.  I learned about this through my Dr. Spock book and thought I’d give it a try.  So I put her down like it said and left the room.  As soon as I left, Juliet cried and it became increasingly worse.  At the same time, I ran downstairs to see what the good ‘ol internet had to say about this.  The first article I came across was from the following babycenter.com post:  Are we damaging our baby by letting him cry himself to sleep?.  After reading that “when infants are left to cry themselves to sleep, they are forced to conclude that they are not lovable enough to engage their parents’ desires to comfort them” and “if they actually stop crying, it is because they have abandoned all hope that help will come”, I immediately ran and grabbed Juliet.  I decided I would not Ferberize them.

Next I tried putting each baby in their own swing.  This seemed very promising, but still I sat next to them singing and shushing until I too was crying and begging for it to end.  Once they finally did fall asleep in the swing, it lasted about 30 minutes.

I was giving up hope when Dan suggested putting them in the nursery where it’s dark.  The next day I tried that with Juliet and left with the monitor.  I left and prepared myself for screaming and wailing, but all was quiet.  I questioned whether or not the monitor was working, but it was.   And so she napped!  I was so encouraged and my hopes were restored.  The next day I tried with Ryan and again it worked!  I was delighted!

I thought I was home free.  Then about 4 days after using this new method it started to go downhill.  The crying would start as soon as I left the room.  I’d go back in to talk to them, and sing to them, and shush them but as soon as I left, the wailing would resume.  Yesterday I hit my nadir.  I was so exhausted and begged the nap gods to return to me.  I was at wits end and decided maybe I should just try the Ferber thing again and give them 10 minutes to cry.  I did.  Ryan cried for maybe a minute and was asleep.  Juliet cried for 3 minutes and was asleep.  I know this doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but its a lifetime when you’re listening on the other end of the monitor.  I forced my guilt aside and just waited it out.  It seemed to work.  They napped for 1 1/2 hrs for both naps.  That was today.

So maybe this Ferber guy wasn’t so evil as I originally thought.  On the other hand, I do believe the babycenter article is evil for playing on parents’ guilt that way.   As long as I have met my babies’ needs (tummies full, diaper clean, not sick) then I think I can only be helping them (and me) by letting them cry a little when the end result is sleep.  I clearly was not helping them by continuing to go in there to console and they just ended up crying more and we would all just get increasingly frustrated.

So, are you sleeping like a baby?  I hope not for your own sake!

And so the babies survived their first Thanksgiving, first overnight trip, first encounter with the entire Hatfield side of the family, and last but not least, their baptism.  You might say Dan and I just ripped the Band-Aid right off, but I think it was actually a bit more painful than that.  11 adults, 5 kids, and Ryan and Juliet were all together in one house to celebrate the holiday.  Surrounded by chaos, Dan and I scrambled to find a routine for the babies.  Looking back, that may have been part of our problem.  Even with my perpetual bouncing, naps were scarce especially for our little Jule.  She had things to do, people to see, and all new experiences to experience.  So that’s what she did for two days straight until finally she crashed and much to our amazement she seemed to crash happily!

However, reflection is a wonderful thing.  Now as I sit typing this, and am no longer immersed in the stressfulness of the situation, I realize a memory was made for my family and a nice one.

Click here for more photos

Movie produced by Uncle Marcus

Tuesday night Ryan and Juliet slept a seven hour stretch (9:45 – 4:45am).  Dan had been awake since 3am wondering if I had fed them or not.  At 4am I woke to find Dan a little frantic.  I went upstairs to check on them and both were sleeping peacefully.  Dan and I remained awake for another 45 minutes until Juliet finally put us out of our torture and woke up hungry.  And so that is the life of new parents I guess.  When our babies finally sleep their first long stretch, we lie awake worrying.

Ryan and Juliet are now just 5 days away from being 3 months old and so this event, sleeping through the night that is, marks the beginning of some major changes (at least that’s what we’ve been told).  Everyone told us after they were born that we just had to survive the first three months and then things would get easier.  Of course then, it felt like it would take a lifetime, and honestly it really did.  But now I find myself wanting to freeze time so that they stay our little itty bitty babies forever.  Soon there will be no more middle of the night feeding and I will miss those quiet moments I have with them when all is so peaceful and quiet.  Just me and my babies.  These are the moments when I see their smiles as they drift off to sleep, and if I’m lucky they will even let out a little giggle.  Juliet will sometimes reach her little hand up to touch my face just to make sure I’m still there while she eats with her eyes closed.  Ryan will smile when his eyes meet mine and it is more than enough to make my heart melt and I am again reassured of his love for me.  And now, as I write this, Ryan sleeps peacefully and adorably on my lap.  These are the moments when I thank the God above for sending me my little angel babies and I promise to love and protect them forever.  And while I wish with all my heart that time will stand still, I also find myself anticipating tomorrow with all eagerness.  I can’t wait for the first time they hug me, or when they run to their daddy when he gets home from work, or when we play arts and crafts together at the kitchen table, or when they get a boo boo and run to me for hugs and kisses (although I don’t really want them to get a boo boo, but unfortunately it will happen). There’s just so much to look forward to, but so much I want to stay the same.

One thing is for sure, anticipating my family’s future is one case where the anticipation will not be greater than the realization.

Check out more pictures of our little ghouls