Morning Child vs. the Non-Morning Child

Gracie is a morning child.  She is always the first to wake up and because she is loath to be awake alone, she generally wakes someone else up to keep her company.  About 60% of the time, that lucky person is me.  She'll wake up 30 minutes or an hour before I really want to be awake and crawl into bed with me.  She'll start a conversation about how she wants to go see her cousin, Bianca, or how she is going to be the pink Power Ranger for Halloween.  Sometimes, she whispers questions to me or asks me about things that have peaked her interest.  Other times, it's "Mommy, will you come to the bathroom with me?" or "Mommy, I'm hungry.  Can we go get our breakfast and watch Dora?"

Lukie, on the other hand, is not a morning person.  If Gracie is absent from the room, he will sleep for an hour, sometimes two hours more.  One time, Gracie and I decamped to the living room and I closed his bedroom door on the way.  My boy slept until 11:14 a.m.  Clearly, he needed sleep.

The 40% of the time I am not the person Gracie wakes up, it is Lucas who gets the friend in his bed.  She'll climb up his ladder to the top bunk, cuddle next to him and start her conversation.  I can never hear what they are saying, but it definitely wakes me up.  The murmur of voices and eventually the sounds of Legos and cars being played with will being me to consciousness.  I often try to pretend I don't hear it, but it does not last long.

Gracie and Lukie look forward to the weekends.  The weekends are Ssssss days.  Days that start with "S" are days we get to Sssssleep in.  We used to only make it until about 5:30 a.m., but nowadays, we often make it until 7 a.m. before I have children crawling into my bed.  School days are a little more challenging.  Kindergarten is wearing Gracie and Lukie out.  I mean, fall-asleep-as-soon as-your-head-hits-the-pillow worn out.  Monday morning, I wake up early to take a shower and then I wake them up to get ready to go.  Monday and Tuesdays, they are usually awake quickly and we can get moving.  Around Wednesday, it takes a couple of tries to get Lukie out of bed.  By Thursday, he starts to cry because he is so tired.  By Friday, I have to go back multiple times and employ Gracie to help Lukie find his slippers.

It kills me to have to get them up this way.  I wish that I did not have to drive so far for work, maybe then, they could get a few more minutes of sleep.

Tonight, Gracie has decided that we are having a slumber party.  She's chosen the living room for our sleepover. I'm predicting that they will make it until 9 p.m. before they ask me if they can sleep in their beds.  Then again, how awesome would it be for us to make the memory of sleeping together out there?

So Tired!

I took Gracie and Luke with me to school last Friday for the Winter Fest.  They ran, destroyed things, ran, ate rice and noodles, ran, climbed things, ran, kicked balls, ran, and drove me insane.  I don't know why I set myself up for these things!

In the car, on the way home, I went a half mile before Gracie fell asleep.  Turn your speakers up and you'll hear how tired she was.

Our Newest Lullaby

Every night, Daddy sings Gracie and Luke to sleep. They crawl into bed, let me tuck them in, and out I go, turning out the light as I leave. Daddy remains to sing to them.

Usually, Daddy sings Spanish songs his mother sang to him when he was little. One is about an elephant sitting on a spider web. I know, I have no idea what that means either! The other song is a nonsense song about going to sleep. Occasionally, Daddy changes things up by taking requests:

"One sheepy, two sheepies, three sheepies..." He counts sheep for them.

"Twinkle star, Papa?" He sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star for Gracie (when he remembers the words).

Now that the Christmas season is here, a new song has been added to his repertoire. Tonight, I sat outside their room and listened to him sing "Silent Night." He doesn't always remember the words, but his voice is calming and sleep-inducing. Better yet, it helps Gracie and Luke fall asleep.

What songs do you sing to your children at night?

Don't kid yourself. Sleep is important.

There are some children on this planet who purportedly do not have any problem taking a nap. These same mythical children can survive on little sleep and still behave as angels.

My children do not fall in this category of beings. Oh, no. They are nap-requiring, fussy-when-tired, crazy-when-exhausted, toy-throwing, food-throwing, Mommy-and-sibling-biting children. In essence, your typical almost 20 month old.

On Friday, the day care lady asked me if Gracie had been going to sleep earlier than usual. This is impossible because of her brother, but she was getting tired much earlier. Apparently, her nap time has been out of whack this week and she has hardly been sleeping. Well, no wonder! That explains some of the craziness we have had this week. This morning, she was up at 5 am and taking a hard nap by 9 am. She was out for almost 2 hours.

Luke, on the other hand, was not going to take a nap this morning, no matter what! I tried cuddling with him, giving him his binky, everything, and nothing...no nap. I managed to fall asleep (a total accident, but to be expected when you are up chasing twins at 5 am) and Luke played quietly around me. When he woke me about 20 minutes after I dozed off, I found that he had scaled the kitchen table and dumped all my papers to the floor in an effort to get to the fruit snacks. I also discovered that he had somehow unscrewed the cap on the jumbo bubble container, pulled off the heretofore untouched seal, and pulled out the massive bubble wand. All, I might add, without knocking over the container or spilling any bubble solution. When I discovered this, I had a moment of panic, but then Lukie walked over to me and handed me the bubble wand. He just wanted some bubbles!

These days, when they will not nap like they are used to, are very difficult. They don't want any of the food I make them, they don't want to play nicely, they don't want to do much of anything except all the things I don't want them to do. Add to this Luke throwing up his lunch because he was coughing too hard and you have a pretty fantastically awful day. It is days like today that I am reminded how critical their proper sleep is. When they have their naps, their full night of sleep, they are kinder, gentler Twinsies. They don't throw things nearly as often and I am much less likely to have an imprint of toddler teeth on my outer thigh.

Now, the mommies out there who have my category of toddlers are reading this and nodding in agreement. They know how awful this can be. They've had the days when they would like wine before 10:30 am or would love to have a padded room where they can leave their children for 15 minutes of peace and quiet (or maybe the padded room is really the haven they would like to seach refuge in - to each her own). The mommies of the "perfect" sleepers and non-sleepers are shaking their heads at me right now. "Clearly, Gracie and Luke's Mommy just doesn't have proper discipline of her children. If that were me, my Little Perfect Angel Jim-Bob would know I mean business!"

Seriously, those perfect mommies can take a flying leap! I want a day of peace and quiet. A day when Twinsies take their predictable nap at the predictable time. A day when I can take a shower and not feel like everyone is looking at me and wondering why I look like death warmed over. A day when my children eat the food I put in front of them and signal me when they are all done instead of chucking their apples, french toast, tangerines, etc. across the room to be found weeks later behind the television.

There is something like a month and a half left until summer vacation. I'm wondering if we will be able to have a better schedule then. Oooo! Maybe we will be back in our house so that I will indeed have that padded room for their playing pleasure instead of a teensy one bedroom apartment with no privacy and leaking bathtubs and cockroaches (yes, I found one the other day trying to crawl into our apartment).

Hey, a girl can dream!

The Screamer

Be very thankful I could not find my camera.

I am almost obsessive about where the Twinsies spend the night. I know that if they stay up too late, they won't be able to handle the next day. One place they have never spent the night, well, until yesterday, was Grandma and Grandpa's house. There are just too many exciting people and too many exciting things going on for them to be able to go to sleep and stay asleep. If they are hanging out there, I am always careful to pick them up by 6 - 7 pm. It is never pretty if they are there too late.

Yesterday, however, Grandma offered to let Gracie and Luke spend the night. I have report cards to write (don't ask me if they are done) and I'm sick. On top of that, the Twinsies got immunizations at their Friday appointment and are sick, too, so times have been rather trying in our tiny apartment. I grabbed the chance to get some sleep and packed them up for a night with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma promised that she would not call unless there was an emergency and by 5 pm today, there were no phone calls.

When I got to their house this evening, about 6:15 pm or so, the first sound that greeted me was crying. Gracie crying. Lukie crying. They weren't crying for me, they were just crying. Grandma admitted they had been very sensitive all day, crying and upset, inconsolable at times. She'd managed to get them down for short naps, but they just wouldn't sleep.

That's when the screaming started. Gracie has been testing her vocal cords for the past few weeks, so I know she can scream. I wasn't prepared for the level of screaming that came from her tonight! Wow! She reached some decibels I thought only huge stereo systems could hit!

The screaming continued on the way home, but I had known from the moment I looked at them that the real culprit in their behavior that day was that they were both exhausted. Puffy eyelids and the inability to keep your eyes open are huge indicators that one is tired!

We made it through the bath, just barely, before the hitting and crying/screaming resumed. We got our jammies on, drank most of our milk, snuggled with Mommy and attempted to play. Luckily, I'm too smart for them now. I wrapped my arms around them and snuggled them to me. They were out in 15 minutes but I stayed for a while to make sure they were really out.

They may wake up. They may not. Maybe they are just so exhausted that they will sleep the night through. Either way, I need to record that scream. No one will ever believe it is coming from an 18 month old who stands 30.5 inches high!

Exhausted

It's been a month since I started waking the Twinsies up at 6 am to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house in the morning. They've hung in there pretty well. Mondays, they usually fall asleep on the way home, but most other nights, they need me to give them a bath and sing them to sleep. Some nights, I have to drive them around.

Since Daddy's been home, we've been acting like a tag team. Each of us takes one kiddo and gives them their bottle until they fall asleep. It usually works pretty well.

Tonight, when I got back from work, Daddy was very asleep. He's had a rough time since he came home from the hospital and has had very little sleep. Grandpa gave him something to help him sleep and he was so out that Grandma and I decided just to let him stay there. I put Gracie and Luke in the car at 5:30 pm.

By 5:35, Lukie was asleep. By 5:45 pm, Gracie was asleep. This is what you look like when you are exhausted beyond anything:

I wish I could sleep like that.

Day 16 without Daddy

Over the past 5 days, I've composed about 10 different blog posts. I haven't typed or published any of them because they weren't so much about Gracie and Luke as they were about me and how overwhelmed I feel. If you have any kind of contact with me on a daily basis, you've seen the bags under my eyes, the pale look on my face, my inability to make my hair look like I did not just roll out of bed. The simple fact is that I'm overwhelmed and I desperately want Daddy home.

Nothing works without him. Not play time. Not dinner time. Not bath time. Not bed time. None of it. The first week or so, we did okay, but now that we have been without him for the 16 days he has been in the hospital, we're falling apart.

I'm not sure if it is the amazing number of teeth that are currently popping through Gracie and Lukie's gums, or if we are hitting the 18 month growth spurt a month and a half early, but it has been impossible to get them to eat well and bed time has been a nightmare. Some day, I will look back at this and be able to understand it more. I'll have the wisdom that comes from being a mom for many years. But right now, living through it, I am at a loss.

Dinner time has been so frustrating. Nothing I put in front of them has been working. They are existing on Teddy Grahams, string cheese, and the occasional orange or apple. Tonight I thought I had it nailed! I made mini penne pasta with just a touch of sauce. They love Grandma's sopita, so they had to like this! Apparently not. Within 5 minutes, Lukie had upended his and thrown his plate. He smeared the sauce all over his tray and threw pasta onto the carpet. I almost started to cry, but then I remembered this darn Project 365 thing and I took some pictures.

Twice this week, Lukie has been like a child possessed at night time. He was up until 10 pm on Monday night and 9:30 pm last night. I called Nana crying on Monday night. I couldn't take it any more. She talked with me gently and got me to calm down, but it did not take away the sense of failure I was feeling. She tried to suggest to me that I put Lukie in the car and drive around to get him to fall asleep. I said no. I did not want him to get in the habit of falling asleep in the car, plus, Gracie was already asleep.

Tonight, when he started bouncing around the bed and fell on Gracie, I had had enough. Forget the Healthy Sleep Habits guy and the No Cry Sleep Solution lady! Their suggestions have not been working. I put Gracie and Lukie into the stroller, put socks on their feet, their jackets on them with the hoods up. I rolled them out to the car at 6:12 pm. They were tired and so was I.

It took me longer to get them in the car than it did for them to fall asleep. Gracie was out before I pulled onto the street. Lukie held on longer, lasting 2 miles and 2 songs from the More Songs from Pooh Corner CD before he fell asleep, his binky fallen onto his lap. I drove for several miles, decided I needed a Mama Beer (a.k.a. any coffee drink from Starbucks) and stopped. They stayed asleep the entire time.

In all, I think I drove for 30 minutes just to make sure they were out. I managed to get them back into the apartment and into bed without waking up. In fact, I started writing this post at 7:05 pm.

The fact that I figured out how to get them to sleep is really not the point. Although, it is nice to have a moment to sit down. What I really want is Daddy to be home. Not so that he can take some of the load that is caring for the Twinsies, but because we are a team and a darn good one at that! I miss seeing him every day and watching the joy on Gracie and Lukie's faces when they play with him. I miss our seamless transitions at bed time and our conversations when the Twinsies are asleep. I just miss him. We've been together almost 20 years and any time we are apart is sad to me.

So, Daddy, I know you don't have Internet at that darn hospital, but I'm sending this thought out into the night with the hopes that you'll hear it some way or maybe even dream it:

We love you. Please get better and come home soon. We miss you more than you'll ever know.

Post #782 about sleep and our lack there of

I've been up for a couple of hours now, but that doesn't mean I was actually sleeping.

I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted in my body and in my soul.

For some time now, naps at home have been nonexistent. They exist only in the car. If we don't keep moving, the naps cease. That doesn't mean Gracie and Luke don't need them. They do need naps. They are just too busy to settle down.

I'll admit that several times over this Winter Break, I have packed Gracie and Luke into the car, turned on their Barney CD and let the purple dino and friends sing G and L into a nap. I have a "Nap Route." I drive out the 118 through Simi Valley and down through Thousand Oaks and Moorpark to the 101 Freeway back to the 405 and North. It's a good route and it gives Gracie and Luke 55 minutes of sleep time if I keep to the speed limit. Can you believe I get that desperate for quiet time?

In addition, night time has been difficult. We've apparently entered the realm of monsters and scary things in the night. I don't know if this is because of some of the movies and shows that Grandma and Grandpa have been showing to Gracie and Luke, but all of a sudden, they know words like "ghost" and "scary monster" that we haven't used around here. Lukie threw his arms around me the other night and said, "Momma, there's a monster!" when I tried to put him in his bed. If either of them wakes up in the night, the crying starts immediately and the sounds of "Mommy! Moooommmmmmieeeeeeeeeee!" can be heard.

Why does sleep have to be so darn hard?  When you are on your own it seems even worse.  My anxiety about sleep is getting worse.  I can't sleep because I am listening for them and they can't sleep because they are 16 months old. I'm at a loss.  They are sleeping in our comfy bed in the bedroom and I am sleeping on a daybed in the living room.  It is like my brain never has time to rest because it doesn't have a place to do it.

One thing I do know:  Whoever introduced them to ghosts and scary monsters is going down.

And...I did.

I should have kept my mouth shut. Gracie woke up at 12:30 am and no amount of patting, singing, cuddling, or milk could get her back to sleep. I even brought her into bed with Eddie and me. No luck. Finally, at 1:45 am, I gave her some Tylenol and about 20 minutes later, she finally fell asleep.

Then, at 5:45 am, Lukie woke up and decided it was time to play.

I should just keep my mouth shut. We had it so good for a while!

I just know I am going to jinx myself...

We spent night #3 in our new apartment last night and I am stunned at the difference in the babies. Sleep time has always been an issue for us. They slept with us when they came home from the hospital and when we tried to move them to their Pack-N-Plays to sleep, we met major resistance. They would sleep there until we went to bed and invariably wake up and want to be in bed with us. Since there are 2 of them, this necessitated us buying a much bigger bed so that all 4 of us could fit in it. Even after the bigger bed, we still had problems with Gracie waking up or Lukie waking up. Milk seemed to be the only way any of us got any sleep. The hotel was nightmarish because no one seemed to sleep and we were all walking around like zombies.

In our one bedroom apartment, we have 2 beds: a day bed and a full-size bed. Eddie and I are sleeping in the full-size bed and the Twinsies have taken up night time residence on the day bed. It is amazing! Somehow, the day bed has tricked the babies into thinking they are in bed with us. They have the nice mattress, the comfy comforter, and it smells like Mommy and Daddy! Yay! For the past 3 nights, Gracie and Luke have slept almost completely through the night. From about 7 pm to (gasp!) 6:30 or 7 am, they have woken up from time to time, but usually put themselves right back to sleep. If they really wake up, I've gone out to the living room and crawled into bed with them. They are usually right back to sleep in under 3 minutes. I know I feel much better and Eddie, who has a slight case of pneumonia, is definitely getting more sleep than we were in the hotel.

The upshot of all of this is that the babies are happier, Mommy is happier and Daddy is much happier! The one unforeseen consequence of all of this is that I have been getting to work over 30 minutes early. I used to have to spend a ton of time making bottles, changing diapers, and holding crying babies. Since they are still asleep, I am leaving earlier. Maybe this means I can wake up later!?

We are trying to decide what will happen when the television arrives. Will the babies move to our room or will our bed be moving to the living room. Since we rarely have visitors, it might be okay if our living room was Mommy and Daddy's bedroom. Hmmmm. We'll have to give that some more thought!

Too much Tryptophan will do that to you!

Tryptophan + cousins + grandpa + Tio Martin = sleepy asleep Twinsies.

So, what's Daddy's excuse?

Twinsie Twister

I am up every morning at 5:10 am...that is, if the Twinsies don't wake me up first!

Each night, we go to bed with Gracie and Luke in their Pack-N-Plays in our bedroom. By 2 or 3 am, they have made their way into bed with us. One baby is not that big of a deal. Our bed is pretty big now so one baby has a lot of room to migrate across. Two babies are a little more complicated logistically. Usually, we are okay. Then again, there are mornings when we are not. One baby, usually Gracie, will wake up and start crawling around. She'll crawl over her brother, sit on his face, hit his head to wake him up. All this is done in a pitch black room. How she finds him is a mystery to us all!

During the last few days, Luke has been waking up first. I have no idea what is triggering it, but he is awake and ready to go by 5:30 am at the latest. This morning, he woke up and started moving around a bit. I, unsuccessfully, tried to get my clothes and get out of the room before he woke up completely. The next thing I knew, Gracie started screaming at the top of her lungs. When I turned on the light, I saw their version of Twinsie Twister: Luke laying on top of Gracie, her arms tangled in his legs. It was pretty funny and I wished I had a camera! Unfortunately, when the light went on, Luke sat up (on Gracie's head) and started bouncing up and down because I was awake.

Gosh, I wish I had my camera!

Side effects of Day Care (aka "School")

Twinsies, who are used to being rocked to sleep and are overstimulated by their new environment, tend not to take naps when they are at school. Gracie would rather walk up the ramp and down the steps, while Lukie is the first to gobble up his morning muffin. Reports are that they had a 1/2 hour nap today, by accident.

When we got home, they were so tired they did not want to eat dinner (even though they ate everything we managed to get near their mouths) and they cried all through their 10 minute bath. It is 6:45 pm and the Twinsies are asleep. Exhausted from their day of no naps and so much to do.

By the way, Gracie is indeed the only girl in the new walker/toddler room. According to reports, she is Miss Independent, the sheep hearder to the little boy sheep. Good gravy, what are we in for?

Sleep Update - Night 2

Night 2 of sleep training brings crying babies...for only 6 minutes and then silence. Good gracious!

We did well last night. Luke woke up at 1 am, hungry (I would be too if I cried that hard). I changed his diaper and gave him a bottle. When he was done, I kissed him, told him it was time to go back to sleep and put him in his Pack N Play. He cried for about 5 minutes and fell back to sleep. It was hard not to go to him!

This morning, both babies woke up happy, hugged us, smiled, giggled, and were themselves! Yay! I was worried we would be hated. But nope!

We still had problems with naps, but we are working on it. Dr. W and I need some more time together until I can figure those out. :)

Sleep Training (or Trying to help Babies have Healthy Sleep Habits)

Let me start by saying that there are no people in the world that Eddie and I love more than our babies. Every morning when we wake up, every night when we go to sleep, and every moment in between, we thank God that we have been blessed with Gracie and Luke. We never dared to hope that we would be parents to two beautiful children and even when they frustrate the heck out of us, we realize how lucky we are.

This may be a controversial entry because there are many people who do not agree with what Eddie and I decided to do tonight. For the past 11 months, we have had very little sleep. We've tried to trade off so that occasionally one of us has more than 4 hours of continuous sleep, but it has been very hard.

In the beginning, the babies would always fall asleep as we fed them their last bottle of the day. This continued until 2 months ago when both of them started to crawl. As their worlds became bigger and more interesting, night times became impossible. The babies wanted to play until they dropped. We had nights when the babies were so tired that they were rubbing their eyes, crying, falling over from exhaustion, but still they would not sleep. Some nights, we were up until 10 pm trying to get them to sleep. In addition, nap times during the day have disappeared.

Not only were we having issues with going to sleep, but we also had issues staying asleep. Both would start off in the Pack N Play, but first Luke, and then Gracie would end up in bed with us. We've loved having the babies in bed with us, but we've come to realize that sleeping with us means they wake up more and aren't as rested. They wake up at minimum 2 times a night and usually are up at dawn. They often needed to be fed a bottle and would only take formula, not water.

In July, I felt so stressed out about bed time that I started having a stomach ache as the sun descended. My No Cry Sleep Solutions book asserted that the babies needed a routine. So, Eddie and I started giving the babies a bath, then a massage, put them in their pjs and gave them their final bottle. This worked occasionally, but usually we needed to rock them or sing to them. 80% of the time, we had to separate them until they were both asleep. The problem continued to be that they kept waking up.

Then, 2 weeks ago, I called Aunt Bec in tears. I did not know what to do any more. I felt like I was a bad Mommy because my babies would not go to sleep at night and they were not taking any naps unless we were in the car (and with gas at $4 plus per gallon this was not an ideal solution). Aunt Bec calmed me down and reminded me about our friend Aunt Dev and her adorable kids, Patrick and Kate. Aunt Dev is very faithful about putting Katie down for her naps and nighttime sleep at very specific times. Because she is so dedicated to Katie's sleep, Katie is well rested and always seems happy. Aunt Bec told me that Dev firmly believes in the Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child book by Dr. Marc Weissbluth, MD. Dr. W. espouses the belief that not only do babies need sleep to be happy, but parents do too.

So, I ordered the book from Amazon and started reading. I felt like every sentence was written especially for me. There were my babies: short (if any) naps, struggles going to sleep and staying asleep, exhausted Mommy and Daddy. As I read Dr. W's book, I realized that as much as I want to hold Gracie and Luke to help them fall asleep, I am not teaching them the most important skill I can give them: the ability to fall asleep by themselves and stay asleep. To be well-rested, ready to learn, ready to grow, ready to be the best people they can be, I need to teach them how to sleep.

We immediately started making changes. We started saying goodnight to our toys, one at a time. We kept the babies in the room with their Pack N Plays when we gave them their last bottle after their baths. The change was instantaneous. The babies fell asleep right away and we were able to leave them in their Pack N Plays. However, not everything changed. They kept waking up several times a night. We tried to soothe them back to sleep, but it just did not work. The more we tried to soothe them, the more they woke up.

Today, we arrived home from a 6 day vacation with Nana, Aunt Bec, and the cousins. Rather than be well rested, Daddy and I were exhausted from the sleep disturbances caused by sleeping somewhere other than home. We did well getting them to sleep, but no naps again and several wake ups during the night.

After 40 minutes of trying to get the babies to fall asleep, Eddie and I made the decision to put the babies into their Pack N Plays and leave the room. The babies were tired. We saw all of the signs. They had eaten. They had their bath. They were just fighting sleep. We turned on the Piglet's Big Movie soundtrack, told them we loved them, and left. It was the hardest thing we have done to date. Even Luke's MRI wasn't as bad.

They started screaming immediately. Horrible, awful screaming-sobbing. Eddie had me turn off the monitor. We did not need it. We could hear them all the way in the back of the house. After about 15 minutes of them crying, I called Aunt Bec and she talked me out of going to them; it would defeat the purpose of everything we had done. Aunt Bec reminded me that Gracie and Luke know how much we love them and that we would never let anything happen to them. Helping them learn how to soothe themselves to sleep is going to be hard, but in the long run, it is critical to their growing and developing.

Then, at 33 minutes, there was silence. No crying, no hard breathing. Nothing. Sleeping babies. They figured it out on their own. It is currently 2 hours since the silence began and we have had a few incidents of Luke waking up. However, he tends to cry (not hard, just in his semi-asleep state) for just a few minutes and then it is silent again.

If you asked me when I was pregnant if I would ever let my babies cry for 30 minutes without going to pick them up, I would have told you you were insane. However, I love my babies so much, that I want them to be able to soothe themselves if I can't get to them. Eddie and I both want them to be able to put themselves back to sleep so that they can get the best rest they can, not just little bits and pieces of sleep.

I know this isn't the end, but just the beginning of Gracie and Luke learning how to sleep. It will be hard work both for them and for Eddie and me. The rewards, of course, will be happier babies when they are awake, more restful nights for babies and their parents. How amazing that will be!

Why won't my babies nap?

I was so looking forward to being at home. I had images of our day: waking up with them smiling at me, breakfast, playing with babies , half hour to hour long naps, playing some more, lunch, a walk or two, another nap, playing, dinner, bath, bed. They were very detailed images.

Why wasn't I warned that my babies don't nap?!

Some days, the babies will sleep for an hour. Other days, I can get them to sleep for 2! The secret is that these are the days we are in the car for long lengths of time. Put us in our house and forget it! They won't sleep for anything.

We are currently on day 2 of a nap strike. They are clearly tired. Clearly can't keep their eyes open. And yet, they won't sleep unless they are in the car or being held.

You can only imagine the problems this causes. We can't drive anywhere because both of our cars only get about 20 miles to a gallon. If I hold one baby, I can't hold the other (they like to touch each other and keep waking each other up).

So, what are we to do? Help!!!! Tell me there is light at the end of the Nap Strike Tunnel!

Can I possibly be more tired?

Lots of people have said things to us about twins being very hard.

"Oh, that's going to be double trouble!"

"Yikes, you're going to be busy!"

There are a multitude of things they have said to us and it leads us to the conclusion that some people are lame. Now, if you are one of the people who have looked at Eddie and me with sympathy, don't worry! We don't think you are lame! It is the people who are randomly passing us in the store or happen to see us packing the babies into the minivan. If I had a dime for every comment about how hard twins are, I could stay at home until the babies are ready to go to college!

Twins aren't hard, they just require some serious organization and the understanding that if you don't follow your schedule or keep a list of things to accomplish, you will never get anything done. I can get us out of the house on time if I know my "drop-dead" time (aka the absolute last moment I can leave and get to my destination on time).

Now ask me if I can manage to keep to a daily schedule.

NO!

When I first sat down to write this post, I was doing pretty okay. The babies were sleeping most of the day and I did not mind that I was only getting a shower every second or third day. Today, however, I'm starting to get really frustrated. I don't understand why I could teach 80 seventh graders, manage 3 websites, and be crafty, but I can't keep 2 tiny babies and one husband on a schedule! Everyone thinks I am super organized, but I am seriously doubting my abilities.

My Mom called me today and it took all I had not to break down crying and pull out the "Mommy" wail. I have so many things to do and I can't figure out how to get them done. I have thank you cards to write, announcements to send out, Christmas cards to send, a living room to clean, a kitchen that desperately needs to be cleaned, plants dying from lack of water.

What was I thinking?!!! There is no way I am going to be able to work and be a Mommy to twins. I worry all the time about Eddie being at home by himself with them. I also don't know how I am going to get all of my work done and help my babies grow and learn.

Babies are hard work. Even when they are sleeping, you are working: laundry, dishes, vacuuming. Some days I am so worn out, I forget to take a shower! That is so not me! I am a fanatic about a shower every morning. This morning, I realized I was in the same pajamas I put on two days ago.

On top of all this, I can't manage to take pictures of the babies. We bought a video camera and haven't video taped them once! Who can do this? Will it ever get easier?

The thing is, I think this would be just as hard if there were only one baby. The fact that there are 2 doesn't make it twice the work. At least not yet.

I love my babies. I just wish they came with an instruction manual to help me figure out how to do everything AND sleep.

P.S. Ms. Stith: If you read this, I apologize for my lack of writing consistency. I'm surprised I spelled most things correctly.