It Began with a BBFT

We spent Thanksgiving with our good friends, the Taylors here in Columbus. They are our surrogate family here in Columbus and we enjoyed an amazing dinner and game filled evening at their house. The girls were held and cuddled by many, although they did have competition as there was a 2 week old baby there named Thomas. He weighed more than Lydia! We usually bring the dogs to the Taylors even though it never fails that one of them does something out of the ordinary that causes a big mess. This time we left the dogs at home to avoid any drama but Lydia and Grace decided to keep the tradition going. Lydia started first by puking her entire bottle up--she was like a geyser. There was a puddle of breast milk on the kitchen floor and all over Ryan and Lydia. 15 minutes later after we had cleaned up Lydia's mess Grace decided to compete with her sister and puked up her entire bottle. By this time we were out of outfits (Grace had peed on hers earlier) so Grace had to wear her birthday suite (plus a diaper) until a load of laundry could be done. Happy memories from their first Thanksgiving! The Taylors were understanding and gracious as usual and might even invite us back for future events.

Many of you know we have a tradition every year with our college friends called "Malone Thanksgiving". We started the tradition after we realized that we never get to spend holidays with our roommates and friends from school even though they are like family . . . so eight years ago Malone Thanksgiving was born and it has been going on ever since. Coming to this event with our twins this year made an already special event even more monumental. When we got in the car to drive there I said to Ryan "It's Malone Thanksgiving and I have two babies!" One of my favorite parts of the weekend was seeing all of our friends holding the girls and pitching in to help with diapers and feedings . . . without even being asked. I would just look over and there was Lydia in all her glory getting a fresh diaper. The most special part of the evening is when we go around the table and say what we are thankful for which usually turns into a time of sharing what has happened in our lives over the past year--good or bad. It is an amazing thing (started by Wendy--there's your shout out Wen if you're reading this). I am usually cliche when it's my turn--"I'm thankful for Ryan, my family, etc" to keep things simple and to avoid getting emotional and my plan this year was no different--but when it came to be my turn it just hit me--how amazingly blessed I am to have Lydia and Grace--and things turned emotional real quick. Luckily Ryan saved me with his wit and took the attention away from me and my tears :). It was incredibly surreal to be at this annual event where we review the events of the previous year around close friends with my beautiful, perfect little girls.

This week was my first official week back after maternity leave. So far there haven't been any tears or breakdowns, but that could be because I worked only 2 half and 2 full days and I'm home with the girls today :) It could also be attributed to the fact that I'm leaving them in the capable hands of their dad. The rotation I am currently on is very laid back and enjoyable (I'm working in a suburban general pediatricians office 5 minutes from our house). I think getting out and going to work makes me soak up the time at home with the girls even more. I'm sure more emotionally distraught posts will follow once I am on more difficult months so I'll save it until then. On a more practical note, the girls had their 2 month visit which included shots and we all survived. They are growing wonderfully! I included a couple of recent pictures: Lydia having an "Aha" moment and Ryan holding Grace :).

I just got back from my first night away from the twins since they came home from the NICU. I went on a girls weekend trip to Chicago with some friends. I flew in Saturday morning and back home again on Sunday (today) so it was really only 30 hours away but I did miss the girls. I called home a couple of times and listened to them squeak on the phone. Ryan held down the fort without a problem. Friends Wendy, Jay and Sarah came down from Canton and helped him out to give him a little break. Wouldn't you know it that the first time I'm gone overnight and the twins slept through the night! I hope this is a trend that will continue. The trip was a success--we saw the musical "Wicked" (which I highly recommend) and had a fun night on the town. On my flight home when I was contemplating how I was looking forward to seeing the twins I came to the realization that this trip was the exact same length as some of my calls will be when I go back to work! I find that funny because I was all dramatic about leaving the twins and making sure Ryan was prepared with plenty of milk and lots of instructions, but really we'll be doing this routine on a regular basis this winter when I take call in some of my harder months. I didn't bring the girls back any souvenirs but I did bring them back a cooler full of breast milk that was pumped all over the city of Chicago which I'm sure tastes better than milk pumped in regular old Columbus :).

People often ask how the dogs and babies are getting along so I thought I'd show some pictures of their interactions:). O.K., so these are pictures of the forced interactions between the babies and the dogs. Bocce and Widget are actually doing well with the babies. Bocce was curious at first but now the babies aren't that exciting to her. Every once in awhile the dogs will get in a good lick to the girls heads or faces if we aren't paying attention, but it's always cursory and I think the real motivation is the constant crusting of milk around the babies' mouths that draws the dogs to taste them. Kind of like when they lick the crumbs off of the kitchen floor. Some people warned us that our dogs were going to fall several rungs down the ladder of significance in our lives but I don't think things have changed that much. If anything their lives are better because they're out of the crate all day now and every once in awhile one of the twins might just spit up on the floor where the dogs can reach it :)--hey, any kind of clean up help is appreciated. We even hired a dog trainer to help us with the dogs--more on that in another entry. Well, it's 7am which means feeding time and now that I've finished my morning pumping and blogging-- simultaneously I might add-- I can start my day (whatever happened to just getting up and getting in the shower?). By the way that's Lydia and Widget in the pictures. No babies or dogs were hurt in the making of these pictures :)

When we walk through public places with the twins we leave a wake of smiling people, most of them saying 'awww, twins' (at least the women). I like to call it the Rainbow Effect--it's like I'm carrying around a rainbow that makes everybody a little happier when you pass by. More often than not people will stop us to ask us the routine twin questions: 1. Are they twins? 2. Are they girls/boys (depending on the outfits) 3. How old are they? 4. Are they identical? 5. Do you have twins in your family? (a.k.a. did you use fertility Rx?) 6. What are their names? etc, etc. Then after the questions we usually hear about their closest link to twins or a new infant so I've heard lots about other peoples' children and grandchildren :). Last night at dinner we spent 15 minutes talking to a canadian couple at the table next to us and even looking at pictures of their 4 and 8 year old children. I don't mind all of the attention and the answering of questions and I'm especially happy to have it shifted off of my belly and onto my babies. Most people we meet are very kind and remind us to soak up every minute, enjoy the girls and they are always sure to congratulate us (although one lady said to me 'they're 5 weeks and you still have that belly there'? however, she was about 250 lbs so I didn't take to heart). I think it's really sweet of everyone to show so much interest, and I think I'll miss this 'Rainbow Effect' once the girls are older and they don't have that newborn charm that apparently makes everyone smile.

Despite the fact that we could have arranged to vote absentee or even to vote early when things were calm in the Battles household we decided to wait until the last minute to exercise our right to vote--6:30 pm on election day. I had heard horror stories about the lines and I'll be honest-- I had a low threshold for saying "well, we tried" and walking away (like the toy story dinosaur when he is about to cross the busy street--sarah I know you're laughing at that image if you're reading this). Our two hour breaks between feeds are precious! Luckily there wasn't a line and we walked right in a caused a ruckus with the twins since the election centers are staffed mainly by matronly ladies. They were all a twitter about the girls and quickly offered to watch them which we politely declined :). After voting we collected our 'we voted' goodies which were free doughnuts at krispy kreme and free coffee at starbucks. It's always fun to think back to what we were doing the last election day and how different our lives have become since then. At the next election when they are four they'll have fun looking back at the pictures of when they were babies and did the responsible thing and voted--kind of :). [ Top to bottom: Ryan and I with our post voting goodies; Lydia looking very proud of her sticker; Grace bored with the process; The twins together with grace on the right]

I wasn't planning on dressing up the twins for Halloween since they're only 6 weeks old and don't have any older sibs to trick or treat with but my sister Megan bought the twins these outfits for dirt cheap last minute since her kids were dressing up (this is all while we were in HHI). Coincidentally the peapod costume created a great play on words :). So here they are on their first Halloween. Hudson was a pirate and Bailey was tinkerbell so we were quite a little troop of trick or treaters. The girls quickly fell asleep in their snuggly costumes. We don't have any super warm wear yet for walks so we're thinking they just might wear their peapod costumes for walks over the next few months--I'm sure the neighbors will get a kick out of that.

Well, we're back home. The girls are swaddled and tucked into their crib hopefully for at least a 5 hour stretch. They survived their first vacation and are no worse for the wear. We maximized our time complete with a trip through the smoky mountains, an overnight stay in Asheville, NC and a visit with all of the cousins and Aunts/Uncles on the Battles' side on the way home. I haven't uploaded the rest of the pictures yet but hopefully I'll get to that soon. We have all of our vacation stuff piled up by the front door that I have to dig through tomorrow before I can focus on pictures, etc.