Hey y'all.  As usual, I've had a ton of ideas for blog posts in the past however long it's been since I last posted.  But I don't feel like writing any of them (except for maybe the one about nose picking- but do you really want to read about that?).  The husband has left for AT, which means I have about a handful of days left that I get to see him.  A few days in about a month when AT ends and a few days in MS right before he leaves the country. 

It's going to be hard for me.  It already is.  I miss him like crazy, and he just left yesterday.  It'll be really hard for him, too.  We're several years out of the newlywed phase, but we're still just as crazy about each other.  No.  More crazy about each other, I think.  But I worry most about how hard it's going to be on Ben.  He really loves his dad.  His eyes light up when Chris comes home from work, and Ben runs to the door to give him a hug.  He's used to Chris being gone for a weekend here and there for drill, but he'll probably start looking for his dad around the house soon. 

We recorded Chris reading him bedtime stories, so I can show them to him every night.  We also had some family pictures taken (which is kind of hilarious because Chris and I are not very photogenic- I'm pretty sure most of the pictures are of us looking weird and Ben being completely adorable), so I can put them in a book for Ben to look at whenever he wants to. 

Side note: This is so not the time period I would normally choose for family pictures.  I seriously should have planned better and done them three months ago when I weighed two babies + a food baby less (Food baby = when you eat a bunch of food and look pregnant).  I'm at that stage where I don't actually look pregnant, but I've obviously gained weight.  I just look like I've been eating way too many sloppy joes.  I'm not really complaining about it.  I don't mind.  I just don't think I would have immortalized my pillsbury dough paunch with pictures if I had thought about it sooner. 

Bah!  So as I was writing this last night Ben woke up and wanted to go back to sleep with me while playing with my hair.  Well, that just wasn't going to happen.  That's how I used to put him to sleep a few months ago, and we're not going back there.  He was pretty insistent about it.  So I ended up having to go to bed while helping him to go back to sleep in his own bed (he'll go to sleep on his own (normally), but he won't go to sleep by himself- he needs someone in the room).  But this is why he did it:  I put him to sleep that way one night.  I stayed the night at my mother in law's house, and it was the easiest option to get him to sleep without disturbing everyone else in the house.  One! night!  I've learned my lesson.  Thankfully, he stayed asleep once he finally fell back to sleep last night.

I will be happy when this whole deployment thing is over, although it will be triple the crazy when Chris gets home.  I hope the babies will be good sleepers.  Seriously.  If I have two more sleepers like Ben, I will probably die.    

Aaaaaaand then my brain exploded.

As you may remember, if you have known me for any length of time since I birthed my son, we have sleep issues.  No.  He has sleep issues.  After my last post about it, I followed some of the advice I received.  First, I just ignored him when he got out of bed (we had a baby gate set up in the doorway, so he couldn't get out- Parent A or B would sit in a chair outside the door).  But the problem with this method was that once he realized I wouldn't play the game of putting him back into bed, he just played.  He sleeps with a floor fan going in his room.  It was really hard not to laugh at him when he would squat in front of the fan and yell to hear his voice get chopped up.  So, anyway, this was not helping him get to sleep. 
Next method was to put his mattress on the floor beside our bed with the hope that he would settle down to sleep if he was sleeping where everyone else was sleeping.  Ha.  Yeah right.  The new game was to climb onto the bed and jump all over Mom and Dad.  Again and again and again. 
So now, we still have him in our room, but we brought in the pack n play.  And that is his new bed.  He seems to be adjusting to sleeping in it okay for nap time, but you can just forget about bedtime.  We do our routine- the same every night- he's always yawning and rubbing his eyes during stories.  I know he's freaking tired.  But as soon as we close the last book, he jumps up and has a party.  He goes completely wild.  The end of story time is his cue to wake up and NEVER GO TO SLEEP.  In the past week and a half, the shortest length of time it has taken to get him to sleep has been maybe half an hour, which is definitely not typical.  Most nights, it takes an hour and a half.  Tonight, it took three hours.  THREE HOURS!!  And we don't just put him in his bed and leave him there.  One of us lays in our bed beside him, so he knows it's time to go to sleep.  But it's such a huge thing that happens every single night, and it's killing me!  But I just don't know what to do.  I can only hope that eventually he will just sleep already.  Because really, I got nothin'.

 

*sigh* I love that kid more than anything.  Even if he makes me crazy.  (Not a new picture, but still cute.)

So, we saw the twins again last Friday.  They're growing and their hearts are beating.  And according to the old wives tale about heart rates, we're having two girls.  But I also remember that Ben's heart rate was pretty high this early, but it went down further later on. 
I had my first appointment with my OB on Monday.  I will just say now that I love my OB.  She also did fertility treatments, and she had triplets.  So she doesn't take this multiples thing lightly.  I'm glad because I've been getting a little freaked out by all the potential complications that are more likely with each extra baby you're carrying.  She gave me a book, When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads, and I'm really glad.  I guess I just had this idea that with twins, you're just a little more pregnant, and it would be a lot like a singleton pregnancy, but bigger.  I had this idea that you couldn't really do much about potential complications unless you're unlucky enough to have them.  And I'm sure some of that is true, but apparently there is a lot you can do to try and prevent bad things from happening.
Also, one of the things that's really stressed in this book is how much more weight you need to gain with extra babies and how quickly you need to gain it.  Now, I'm not on the small side.  I am a large milkshake.  And even taking that into account, I'm supposed to gain 20-25 lbs by week 20.  I am now 9weeks and several days, and I have gained one pound so far.  I don't even know how I'm going to do this, y'all.  Now, I totally buy into this business of the weight gain.  Studies show a strong correlation between the weight a mother of multiples gains during pregnancy and the babies' birth weights.  I would really like to be able to take my babies home as soon as possible after they're born, you know?  But I just don't know how I'm going to be able to eat that much.  And then there's all the water to drink and the milk.  They advise drinking a quart of whole milk a day.  A quart!  That's a meal in itself!  Well, at least the Zofran seems to be working well enough to allow me to eat and cook.  That is a definite plus there. 

I'm sure I'll do it all somehow.  I'm just overwhelmed.  I'm freaked out about Chris leaving so soon.  We have no more weekends together.  Well, just one, but I don't really count it because he has to use the entire time getting ready for Annual Training.  And then we get to have a few days together before he's mobilized.  There's just not enough time.  I need him.  I'm worried about what to do when I get so big I can hardly move, and it will just be me and Ben.  How will I take care of him?  How will I give him the snuggles and kisses and loves he'll need from his mama?  And more practically, how will I change his diapers when I can't pick him up or get up off the floor once down there?  I've gotten plenty of offers for help, but I can't really call someone every time Ben needs a diaper change.  I have more worries than I have answers.   I hope I figure it out before I get there.