One year later…

I remember writing this post (I did edit it a bit this time…) on October 23, 2008:

So does anyone here know Annie – the musical – and that song with the line “Yesterday was plain awful” well that is going through my head now. Why you ask…well yesterday (October 21, 2008) was plain awful. First at 9 a.m. both babies are awake – which was actually good but at that point Aaron comes up to me and says Mia (our cocker spaniel) had died during the night. This is a good and a bad thing….she was our special needs dog with more medical conditions than I could list here and no desire to change her eating habits no matter how hard we tried. We had tried and failed at finding her a new home due to the twins arrival and a desire to do what was right for her. So I tried not to cry as she was my first dog with Aaron as well and a Christmas present the year we got engaged. Aaron buried her in the back yard.

After dealing with that, I went and played with the kids while Aaron went to work. Soon, I was trying to feed both babies and get them down for naps without walking out of their line of sight so they would not scream bloody murder – can I just say this is impossible. So impossible that when they did fall asleep they were clinging to me. I knew we had friends coming by later so I needed to get some sleep as well. Aaron then came home for lunch and we played with the twins, I then tried to put them down for naps again…nope they would have none of it, they would only sleep clinging to me, so ok I will sleep while they sleep. I ended up sleeping until almost 5 p.m. and well good thing the friends coming were good friends as I am sure I smelled pretty ripe because I had not showered in days. The kids were amazing and but then it happened – we had a BAT (the black flying kind) join us in the living room. So John and Aaron tried to catch the bat to no avail and ended up playing Wii. They were pretty sure they had scared the bat off though.

Since the twins sleep so sporadically and usually end up sleeping with me or in the pack n play I said I would sleep downstairs with them (would someone please tell me when I get to sleep with my husband again???) At 2:30 a.m. as I am trying to get both of the twins to realize it is night and time to go to sleep - the bat reappears. I yell for Aaron and he believes he can get the bat where it landed – an hour later, twins still up, bat still not caught and me exhausted the bat takes flight again. This time landing in a great spot but I will need to help Aaron catch it…if I leave the room the over tired twins start screaming and we have issues. An hour later I FINALLY get the twins to sleep and in their cribs where I am sure Little Man will not stay but at least I can help Aaron now – so we then devise a plan to catch the bat which we accomplish an hour later and it is now 4:30 a.m. and I am wide awake – so I tell Aaron I am going to see what is on tv and to bring Little Man down when he fusses.

Not 10 minutes later Aaron brings down a screaming Little Man. By 6 am Little Man is finally asleep and so am I. At 10 am we are both up but exhausted…Aaron tells me he will go to work later and that he will play with them in the morning if I would this afternoon. So I go to my actual bed and sleep until 2 p.m. when he wakes me up and says he is going to work and that the twins are napping. I no sooner got out of the shower than the screaming started – four hours and a bath later still screaming (grieving I think). I decide to try a bottle and the bottles are already made up in the fridge. As I go to step over the baby gate I fall on the gate and hurt my arm and foot. I am crying, the twins are screaming because I am out of sight and crying as well but I manage to get the bottles which they don’t eat but use for comfort and finally fall asleep on me shortly before Aaron got home. They were up and played while we ate. Each one fell asleep at different times and by 2:30 a.m. they were both awake. Little Man is now asleep on me and Little Princess in the pack and play, no more bats, but don’t get me started on what didn’t get done that should have in that time and sleep is no where near an option – ever tried to sleep with a child on your chest?

I remember as I typed this as read the comments that I thought in a year things will be different, things will be so much better. In some aspects things are so much better, no more bats only mice to deal with and the twins do usually sleep at the same time for their naps but our nights and my day today still left a lot to be desired.

Yesterday Little Man took no nap, and behaved horribly. He screamed for over two hours and went to bed early, unfortunately his sister did her usual 1 am wake up only at 11 pm and well he got up as well. We moved both of them to our bed where they played for a bit and then fell asleep with us. We moved them back to their beds so we would not be pushed off the bed. Every hour Little Princess woke up crying and I went in and held her and comforted her and then laid her back down. Once she had to come back into bed with Aaron and I for a bit and as I laid down I said to Aaron “I think she is trying to kill me slowly with no real sleep.” He just chuckled and rolled over and went back to sleep.

8:30 a.m. – Aaron has been up for over an hour with the twins and I just woke up. When I got downstairs Aaron left for work and I became what the twins wanted to do for the day. Seriously, they were both more than clingy. I could not even make their lunch. I even went as far as checking their temps because well they had not acted like this in so long.

So we cuddled all day except when they were sleeping. I got nothing done and saw so few smiles today. I so didn’t expect to be talking about this today, a little over a year later. Let’s hope this behavior is not permanent and just because of the time change and lack of sleep (I am not counting on that though). I didn’t expect to say that I think that we may still have a few attachment issues and worst of all that we are still NOT sleeping. I have given up on sleep period. I can sleep when I am dead right?

So did any of you have any any issues still a year later? What did you do?ca-pub-3017103269052419