Blogging has been on my to-do list for over a week now, but as you can imagine, time for anything other than taking care of these two sweet babies has been hard to come by lately! Before they were born, I had envisioned myself writing regularly about what it’s like so far to be a mother and getting to know two new babies at once, about deep things I’ve learned about myself and life in general now that they are here, etc. Well…maybe someday will find time for that again and have the mental stamina to even think deep thoughts (sleep deprivation sure does leave me in a haze)!

For now, a few random snippets on life lately:

1. It’s easy to post all the “picture perfect” photos on instagram, but let’s be honest! Life with newborn twins is certainly not a quiet, peaceful journey, as many of my photos make it appear. Abe & Madeline are typical babies who scream when they are hungry and need to be held or changed or when they have gas…and with two of them, it can be a bit intense!

2. Getting photos of twins together who flail their little limbs (aka unintentionally hit each other!) is certainly not an easy task!
2. Our friendships have taken on new dimensions since entering the world of parenthood. We came to the realization that meals with friends will now be a bit chaotic, and our conversations now just might often be about the contents and frequency of their soiled diapers!

3. I have learned why baby wearing is so popular. I’m a big fan :) I mean, what’s better than having a little baby snuggle with me WHILE being hands-free?! Now, if only there was a safe way to wear both babies at once! Well ok, I suppose there IS a way…but I’m afraid of the coordination that would take!4. If the babies’ tendencies now are any indications of what their personalities will become, Madeline will be a busy-body and quite the drama queen, and Abe will be super chill :)

5. Weird things happen to new parents with babies at night. We have a couple friends who had similar hilarious experiences, so we breathed a sigh of relief to know we’re not totally crazy. For example, I often wake up in the middle of the night (during our 1.5-2 hour stretches of sleep between feedings), really believing I am nursing a baby in the bed with me. Only to fully wake up and realize my mind is playing funny games with me. There was another time I woke Grant up and asked where our other baby is…after I looked over and saw our two peacefully sleeping babies. He woke up and also peered over at them and looked at me like I was nuts. I guess I really thought there should be a third baby somewhere! One more funny one – one night, I woke up to Grant sitting up and stroking my arm. I asked him what he was doing and he said, “honey, you need to put the baby away.” I asked him, “what baby?” and he said “this one” as he again stroked my arm. Yep, we are crazy :) But I’ll still blame it on the sleep deprivation!
6. By far, the most challenging thing so far has been being alone with them when they both demand my attention at the same time. If I’m feeding one and the other is screaming in hunger, it absolutely breaks my heart that I can’t do anything to soothe that baby. And for this reason, I had my mom come help out again for a few days last week. Far too often I would end up in tears because of their pitiful sounding cries and not being able to attend to both of them at the same time. Having her help was such a life saver!!

7. Seeing Grant snuggle and interact with the babies has been one of my very favorite things. He’s going to be an amazing father :)

8. Abe has almost outgrown his newborn onesies…which I just may be a bit sad about!9. When Grant and I took Abe & Madeline out on a couple errands, we ran into 3 other sets of twins (not counting our own) all at the same place in Target! Crazy!

10. I always have to chuckle when we get asked if they are identical. Just not possible with boy/girl twins! ;)

11. Diapers. diapers. diapers. Truly never imagined the massive amount of diapers we would go through in such a short time. I wish I had kept track for the pure fun of knowing…but it’s probably been well over 500 diapers in the first 3 1/2 weeks!

12. Moments like in the photo below don’t happen all the time, but when they do I cherish them. I love the how they end up breaking out of their swaddles into the cutest positions.

(also – the onesie Abram is wearing in this next pic is one of my favorites that, as you can see, is almost too small for him!)More updates to come! I’m hoping to get back into a blogging routine sometime soon!