Week Three

Week 3 Highlights:

1. The boys got their first baths - yes, for those of you keeping score, we got within a few days of "child neglect" before giving them the first bath - two babies was a lot to get used to... to be fair, the cords did not fall off very quickly


2. Shawn hiccuped, burped and farted at the same time - it looked really painful, but was pretty funny.



3. Kristi got pooped on




4. Kristi and Ethan pulled an all-nighter


5. Andy went back to work

6. Bristo started eating again

7. Uncle David ended his hold-out from seeing the twins

8. Andy dropped Ethan off the couch

9. Kristi had her first mental breakdown

10. Andy was banned from touching the babies

11. 12am that night - Andy's banishment ended with both boys concluding a 2 hour feeding marathon.

12. Kristi had her second mental breakdown as she realized she was a milk machine with stretch-marks.

13. The diaper count as of the morning of 5/31: 440 diapers - yes we are keeping track, it will get tough once we move to the packs with random number counts. but we are destroying the environment one poop at a time.


14. The boys met cousin Trevor


15. Kristi removed the quarantine bubble and let people come see the boys



16. Poor Ethan found out Andy's nipples do not produce milk


17. Andy gained 5 pounds this week
18. Kristi lost 10 pounds this week
19. Andy got 24 hours of sleep this week
20. Kristi got 13 hours

Brace yourselves for Week 4 - circumcisions!!!

Week Two

Poor Bristo doesnt know what to think. he still gets his walks and we dont completely ignore him, but he has yet to eat since the boys came home. The guilt has led us to allow him to manipulate a diet of treats and milk bones. I think we are even.









Shawn and Ethan are developing their own unique personalities already. Shawn eats and sleeps the most and we are beginning to think he may be the "lazy one". He grunts as he eats, which we think is the equivalent to smacking lips when one chews. As annoying as we find it at restaurants, he is our kid, and at this point, its adorable. (plus, we know he is actually getting milk when he is breastfeeding) poor shawn (and kristi) has his dad's head, mishapen, narrow and GIANT. he has his dad's stubby legs and his mama's butt-chin. despite the hereditary misfortunes, he is adorable.


Ethan, on the other hand, is our quiet mama's boy. he always wants to be held and he always stares at things, even though we dont think their vision has developed yet. He has his mom's long legs and perfectly shaped head. The jury is out on the length of the second toe, but this boy looks like he might eat and grab utensils with his toes. All digits and appendages (yes, all!) are long. circumcision may lop off a centimeter or two, but dad is very proud. ethan has a "perma-scowl" with his brow constantly wrinkled - not the most flattering of looks, but he is much more engaged in his surroundings than shawn. poor shawn is focused on three things: eating, sleeping and ....

Things are going well, the boys seem to be happy and very healthy. They sleep in a bassinet next to the bed at this point, soon they will transition to the nursery - a lovely space furnished by all our loving family and friends. thank you all so much!









As for us? We are doing splendid. We get those overwhelming feelings of joy now and then as it sinks in that these boys are ours! We don't need to take them back after a couple days, the concept of FOREVER never sounded so nice. We get a few hours of sleep here and there. Andy is transitioning (slowly) into a light(er) sleeper. When it is his turn to wake up and feed the boys, he still walks into the closet (looking for God knows what) or pats around on the bed in the dark looking for the baby. Kristi might feel a bit more confident that progress will be made if he didn't jump at the slightest wimper from the dog, but a wail from his offspring seems to not affect his slumber yet. we are working on it...

Week One

Kristi was released from the hospital on Tuesday, much earlier than expected. The boys were expected to stay at least a few more days due to being preemies - however, Tuesday night the NICU released the boys into our custody. We were more than excited, but the second we drove out of the parking lot, we both asked each other what the hell we were doing. Perhaps it was a bit heavier of a feeling for us, but just understand the light-headed feeling and the shortness of breath you might get when the hospital turns over (2) tiny human beings that were scheduled to be in the hospital's intensive care for up to 4 weeks, and within 2 hours they decide that we looked stable enough to take on the task. It was a lot to process.

Once home, it was pretty surreal. as much as we wanted to relish in the moment and tap a keg in celebration, we opted for a nice warm bottle (or two) and went to bed from exhaustion.

The twins first week was great, Kristi sent out a threatening email forbidding anyone without a full vaccination history from seeing the babies. The NICU warned us about how fragile their immune system was, scared us half to death, patted us on the shoulder and sent us off. Apologies to those whom are offended by our hermit lifestyle, we have no idea what we are doing, they are tiny and fragile, we want to share them with the world, but we don't want to share the world with the them. (just yet)


We worked to get them on the same sleep/eating schedule only to realize how bad of an idea that was once we achieved the task... apparently, when you have both waking up hungry at the same time, they both want to eat. 1 week old twins don't have much patience. Feeding them at the same time
works when there are two of us there, however, we
both don't have the luxury of taking 3 months off. So we spent the last day of week 1 unlearning/ modifying the schedule.

Both boys gained weight, they sleep three hours at a time and eat a whole bunch. Perhaps there is a learning curve, but we average about 24 diapers a day... not proud of it, but we are working to live with ourselves and keep our babies' orifices chafe-free and clean.

People warned us it would be tough, but we would have to say, it has been somewhat fun and therefore, not as difficult as we anticipated. We wake up in shifts during the night, we make time to nap during the day and the boys seem to be pretty happy. Shawn and Ethan are amazing and beautiful and we are very fortunate to say (knock on wood) they are very well behaved.






Tune in for week two, we discuss circumcisions, breast vs. bottle, and jealous big brother bristo...

LABOR and DELIVERY

LABOR, DELIVERY and THE EXPERIENCE NO TLC SHOW CAN PREPARE YOU FOR...

Not the most ideal of conditions but it all worked out in the end. Kristi's water broke at 1pm on May 9th and since she contracted for close to 4 months, 8pm came very quick and painlessly. After (2) epidurals she finally made her way to the OR and pushed for about 90 minutes, bringing Shawn (2:25am) and Ethan (2:57am) into the world early Saturday morning May 10th.

That was the easy part... Kristi's uterus hemorrhaged and she proceeded to lose about 3 1/2 liters of blood. Andy was kicked out of the O.R. and to make a long story short, 3 hours later, Kristi was wheeled back to her room drugged up, confused and now adorning a beautiful greyish/yellow skin tone. it took her a few days to get used to her new blood, and then the pain meds wore off. we can thank dad for shawn's head size, poor shawn was 5 lbs. 3 oz. and 4 of it was head. Ethan was even bigger at 5lbs 12oz.

Kristi had to stay in the hospital for a few extra days to recover; the boys, being 6 weeks early, were slated to stay about 2-4 weeks in the NICU. It was very tough to bring these boys into the world and then be separated from them. It was probably good for Kristi to recover, however, not quite the experience we imagined. The worst part, and god bless the NICU nurses, but seeing the boys and being told by the nurses what they liked and disliked - ate us up that we could not be with them 24 hours a day. Again, it was probably best for Kristi's recovery, but all we wanted was to hold them after all the anticipation of pregnancy and labor.

Mom - 20lbs lighter and a new skin tone