The Zoe and Silas Show

If you talk to the parents of a young infant, invariably the topic of sleep will come up. Most often, it will be about how much (or really, how little) sleep the parents are getting, and this is of course tied to how well the baby sleeps. In our case, there are two little angels' sleep habits to consider. Silas and Zoe have been napping in their crib since the beginning of December, and they started sleeping overnight there a few weeks ago. As if overnights with two babies weren't hard enough, ours are further complicated by the fact that Derek works 11:3opm-7:30am. For this reason, I think we were blessed with good sleepers. By mid-November, S&Z dropped one of their overnight feedings. We have hung steady with one night feeding since then, but it has progressively gotten later and later into the wee morning hours. At the same time, I have moved up the babies' bedtime such that they now go down around 9pm. They are now consistently sleeping for SEVEN hours at a time,...

This one definitely cracked us up this morning! Poor Salvador...

I've recently started giving the babies a rattle or links to hold onto during playtime in order to work on their fine motor skills. Silas is doing pretty good with the rattle!

As Silas and Zoe get a bit older, they are better able to control their crying. This is a developmental change that we are very thankful for! Instead of screaming bloody murder at the most minor annoyance (which is what they did as newborns), both babies now show more control over this basic function. They definitely still let us know when they are ready to eat, however! Halfway through the bottles they are more content and ready to take a break for a burp. And both babies are happy campers again after they are done eating! Now it's play playtime! They crack me up.

What's better than sleeping babies? The sound you hear in the background is the white noise c.d. we used to play while they slept. Since having them in their cribs at night, however, I found the "heartbeat" sound on the baby monitor to be quite distracting to my own sleep! Now we just have a plain ol' fan going for background noise.

Since Derek works for Boston Emergency Medical Services, he definitely does not have a typical work schedule. Boston EMS operates 24/7, 365 days per year. This year, his "4 on, 2 off" schedule fell such that he works December 23rd-26th. This meant that we weren't able to make any formal plans for Christmas Eve, but Derek did put up the tree yesterday morning. It didn't get decorated, but luckily it's pre-lit! So, me & the babies made the best of it while Derek slept yesterday before work. We enjoyed lots of Christmas music and the lights. The babies noticed it right away and couldn't keep their eyes off it! The overnight shift is a tough gig, but I always try to look at the positives. Spending Christmas morning together as a new family when Derek got home from work today was a huge positive! To mark the occasion, we started the day with a photo shoot of S&Z in their jammies. It took them a few shots to warm up :) Zoe likes the tree And then Daddy got t...

A few people have recently asked me what a typical day is like, so I thought I'd post an entry about it. This will obviously change when my maternity leave (sadly) ends at the beginning of February, but let's not think about that right now :) Many mornings we have appointments or playdates, but when we're home here's what we do: 8:00am Derek gets home from work, which is great timing because the babies are just getting up for the day! We are able to spend lots of good quality time together as a family in the mornings (and about once a week, I go back to bed for a nap). 8:15 Morning bottle 9:00-11:00 Snuggle time & morning snooze 11ish Late morning bottle Noon Every other day the babies get a bath after the late morning bottle. On the non-bath day, they go straight to their crib to begin their long afternoon nap. They started napping together in one crib two weeks ago and it's going great! It gives me a chance to get things done around the house, like make up b...

Zoe started flashing us social smiles in the last few weeks. Derek was the first person to get one, but she now shares the adorableness often. She has the cutest little personality that is emerging, and she is particularly happy when waking up from a good nap. Here is a video that Derek shot of her on one of those occasions...

I found out this week that my prescription drug benefit will cover Zoe & Silas' infant formula each month until they switch to whole milk at 1 year! Here's what we got for $25! This amount of formula will cover 100% of Zoe's feeding for a month once I wean them from breast milk, and we have the same thing for Silas. This financial benefit will allow me to stop pumping as I gear up to go back to work on February 1st. On a related note, boy are we thrilled that we have health insurance. I got the $175,000 bill for Zoe's NICU stay yesterday! Our co-payment is thankfully only $150! I am only posting this picture now, because Zoe is healthy and happy. This was taken 5 hours after they were born, when they brought me to see her on the NICU... I am very thankful for the medical care she received at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and so happy we have great health insurance!

Chuck hosted our annual lab holiday party this week. It was so great to see all of my co-workers, and of course it was very fun to show off the babies! It's strange doing all of these "usual" things now that I'm a mom. Oh how things have changed! Before we left the house, of course we had a little photo shoot of S&Z wearing their party clothes. They were both in a great mood and ready to party! We arrived at Chuck & Gwen's a little early so that we could catch up a bit before everyone arrived. Everyone was so nice to hold them so that Derek and I could eat and visit. Eliza enjoyed some Silas snuggle time. Stacey got to meet Zoe for the first time. Margaret hung out with Zoe so she could observe her first Yankee Swap! Silas was all partied out. But Zoe was ready for more! The prospect of going back to work on February 1st feels a little stressful, but seeing everyone made me very thankful that I have such a fun group of people to go back to!

Derek's work schedule is crazy (11:30pm-7:30am), but there are several benefits to having an overnight schedule. One upside is that while I'm still on maternity leave, we have some quality family time together every morning before he goes to sleep in the afternoon. Today was one of those days that made me really appreciate this time together! We each took turns today so that the other could eat breakfast :) Eating (for the adults!) can be tough around here sometimes.

As Derek and I settle into our respective schedules, each of us takes care of more solo feedings with the babies. My preferred feeding position during the day is to prop Silas and Zoe next to one another on a pillow on the couch. Here are some pictures and a video of them hanging out post-feeding on Saturday afternoon. They are mellow for a bit, and then it's playtime!

We recorded this video of Silas & Zoe @ bedtime a few weeks ago...

Eating is the name of the game around here. How do Derek and I manage to feed ourselves now that my mom is gone? What are the babies eating these days? It was very sad to say goodbye to my mom on Friday. She was a tremendous help during her 3-1/2 week stay, and Derek and I got lots of extra sleep and good meals during that time. Now that she has left, I'm trying to figure out how to keep me & D fed while balancing the babies' schedule and his work and sleep schedule. Now that S&Z have longer "awake" periods, last night I tried to think out of the box. I threw the tummy time blanket and boppy pillow on the kitchen floor to see how long they would last while I got dinner started (which I will admit was a casserole-style pork dish pulled from a church cookbook, and actually included Minute Rice). They did really well for about 15 minutes, until inevitably someone started crying :) Don't let Silas fool you with the angelic look on his face, he definitely ...