The boys are back

Day Four
So I'm sitting on the sofa after the first night with Gin and the boys back home.  I can only see half the keyboard because William is strapped to my chest obscuring the view, it's quite a good test of my typing skills.  William unlike Alex likes to be close to you before he will go to sleep, indeed every time we put him in the cot last night he would cry until picked up, in the end we slept with both of them snuggled between us.  And when I say slept I mean between the hours of 2am and 5:30am when the boys finally decided that they had fussed enough.  I'm using the term 'the boys' quite a lot at the moment largely because they are quite difficult to tell apart.  Although they aren't identical (we don't think), since they were born they have grown to look more and more alike.  The only feature that Gin thinks distinguishes them is their hair line.  William, or maybe Alex has a widows peak, while Alex, or was that William  doesn't.  Unfortunately little babies tend to wear hats to keep them warm and as such it's a bit of a guessing games as to who I have picked up.  I'm sure over the coming weeks we will learn to tell them apart a whole lot more easily.


Mimi is also coming to terms with having brothers, over the last few days while Gin has been at Birthcare Mimi has been suffering from a cold which brought on an ear infection making the poor darling feel really below par.  A trip to the doctors and the prescription of antibiotics have really helped to clear up the ear infection and she has gradually fort the cold.  Unfortunately being ill, and not having her Mummy to cuddle her (Daddies are okay but not quite as good) has meant that she has been playing up quite a lot with lots of tantrums and she is addicted to the dummy and Timmy Time on the TV, taking away either one results in immediate protests.  In the moments when she is feeling okay she has been lovely with the babies, patting them and trying to be helpful fetching nappies and so forth.  I'm sure over time she will grow to love them as much as we do.


So today is our first full day as a family.  Gin has just showered and dressed, I think it is a small miracle that she has done so before 10am and while we don't have any firm plans, I'm sure my day will include a food shop (breast feeding women need a lot of food) and also quite a bit of Mimi entertaining whatever that might be.  Gin also needs a hand with feeding and such like.


It's funny having babies again, Mimi is two and bit years old now and I can hardly remember anything about those first three months, the constant nappy changes, the crying for unknown reasons, the time it takes to do anything and now I have to remember it all again, twice!  They are just so helpless. When I dress Mimi in the morning (something I shouldn't do as I have all the fashion sense of a 34 year old man who would live in jeans and a t-shirt if I could get away with it) she actually helps by pushing her arms through sleeves and stepping into trousers.  


Day Six
Hang on what happened to day five - twins happened to day two that's what and I was too tired to write anything.  Anyway the boys are now looking so similar that even the widows peak does little to help tell them apart so we dress them differently.  If I'm honest that doesn't help me much as I can't remember what we dressed them in by lunchtime.  We tried a new approach to bed times by swaddling the boys really tightly and placing a nice warm wheat bag between them and so far its been really successful and last night we got 6 to 7 hours sleep in 3-4 hour blocks which is perfectly manageable for the next few months, although I'm sure it won't last.


Day Seven
It lasted! It lasted! Another night of 3-4 hour blocks of sleep which although not quite as good as the previous nights it still meant that come the morning we didn't feel like death warmed up.  We got out of the house today and took the boys on a promenade stroll along St Heliers beach with Auntie Bec.  This involved packing us all (not Bec who took her own car) into our car.  We can fit the two car seats, and Mimi's car seat across the back seat as long as we don't try and use the expensive isofix bases that the bought in the UK. The Out & About double buggy that we picked up via ebay goes in the boot and leaves enough room for Mimi's trike but not much more, I think we will have to get a roof box before too long.  It didn't take too long to fit everyone in which filled us with a bit of confidence.  The buggy is very light for a double buggy and narrow enough to fit through doorways, it also worked nicely on the beach which Mimi was pleased about.  We then went to Mortans, a bar/restaurant and had lunch, it was lovely to sit in the passing sunshine watching the sea and feel almost normal.


We had a nice afternoon at home with a couple of visitors popping in to meet the boys and then later in the evening Gin's Dad dropped round some fish which he had caught up at Mangawhai (there is nothing like fresh fish caught the same day) and Bec and Petr came round with a pot of Bec's delicious goulash which we all enjoyed.


Day Eight and Nine
I can't say we did much, not that I can remember at any rate, life pretty much revolves around the boys.  It's hard though, so much more difficult than with Mimi.

Day Ten, and Eleven
The boys sleep during the day but not at night, they tag team, while Alex sleeps, William demands food, and then Alex starts to cry and needs changing, and William feeds, and Alex fusses, and William sleeps and Alex demands food and William needs changing, and Alex sleeps and William starts to cry, and Alex fusses, and Ginny's in tears, and I get snappy, and Alex sleeps and William demands food, and Ginny sleeps for 5 minutes and I need changing, and Alex feeds, and I sleep for 5 minutes and Mimi wakes up and demands milk and it's morning and oh my God this can't carry on....

Day Twelve
It wasn't as bad last night, I think we got 2 or 3 hours sleep.

Day Thirteen
We call in the big guns, Dorothy, a Karitane Nurse who has helped families all over the world from London to New York, but has come home.  She arrives at about 8am and spends about three hours with us talking though life with twins.  She shows us a feeding and sleep routine based around three hour cycles which we had roughly been following but not with the right techniques.  She helps us tighten things up and gives us more confidence with feeding, winding and swaddling.  The new method gets the boys to sleep and we have a couple of hours of freedom.  The next time they wake we try the same technique and have the same result, the boys sleep soundly, this continues though out the day in three hour cycles, however the real test comes at night.

Day Fourteen
The night was a great success, the same feeding, winding, swaddling method means that although our sleep is interrupted every three hours they boys sleep pretty soundly between times.  We can only hope that things continue to work and although we know that they probably won't we have got a bit of confidence to deal with things.  Dorothy is going to continue to help out, she will come in some time next week and spend the night looking after the boys, getting Ginny up just to feed them and then sending her back to sleep and settling the boys.


So it has been two weeks and we have survived, things were tough, and we are still getting to know the boys.  I still can't tell them apart, and Gin says that she tends to think of them as a unit rather than individuals but I'm sure this will all change over time.


Anyway this post is far longer than I intended but I just never seemed to have the time to publish it.  So lastly here are some photos charting the last two weeks.


http://picasaweb.google.com/Chris10Morris/TheBoys?authkey=Gv1sRgCL3N65rvg5DbTA#


Bye bye