thumbsucker blues: sandbox parenting thead

(My baby overheating or getting a chill during the night is just one of the things I'm looking forward to worrying about!)

Ah shit, sleepsuit is something different. Replace sleepsuit with sleepbag. Worked wonders for me!

So it's onesie+sleepsuit+sleepbag. Room temp about 21 to 18 degrees celcius.

your kids are all spoilt.

There are few things that cause a knee-jerk reaction but the line 'you're kid is spoilt' is one of them. I know you don't mean it the wrong way - or at least I hope not - but argh how I hate that line. :-)

1. No freaking WAY we would use cloth diapers. My mother-in-law disabused us of any thoughts of cloth diapers, and I'm glad she did.

2. With twins there is no chance for anyone to be an absentee parent, which is good, except when you want to take a break.

3. Last night, we switched from those fluffy terry-cloth-like baby suits to thin cotton ones, and wrapped them up in fleece swaddlers. They slept for 8 HOURS! I don't know if it was that, or the fact that we tanked them up with milk and formula before bed, or if it was just random, but it was awesome. Maybe they had been getting too hot in the night. If you use swaddlers, and the houe is relatively warm, I don't think you need blankets at all, at least at first.

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CONGRATULATIONS ARCHEL FAMILY!

I did wonder about you at one point during the hoilday, you know.

I managed to sleep from 3am until 9am today thanks to Matt doing early morning feeds, hurrah! Alice and I may even venture out later on to celebrate my relative lack of tiredness.

Apologies for the confusion; I could call my kids by their middle names, if you like - Galvin and Greer. But that makes them sound like sheet music publishers from the turn of the 20th century.

Do you want to see something sad? Do you promise not to forward to Social Services? Ava, the morning after clocking herself on the edge of a chair (check out the shiner on her left eye):

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/161/340782436_f8f00f3207.jpg

Stop it with the Ava and Tallulah confusions!

Mine were first!

Oh, bless!

Ava's eye really coming on a treat now - will post some more pix to Flickr when I get the chance. She'll love me for this when she's 13.

I just recovered from a 24-hour stomach flu that had me puking every hour or two. I don't know what I would have done if my husband couldn't have stayed home with me, it was miserable. I lost six pounds and I was already underweight. I think my milk production went down, we tried giving Louis cow's milk and he was totally not having it! Everyone is fine now though.

Shiner, day four:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/155/344624551_159b47b473_m.jpg

Teeny, man, that's so crap. Hope you recover quickly. :-( I've been having mad crazy migraine attacks and they SUXOR. :-(

That's wonderful. I get Ava to sleep that easily maybe one night in six or seven.

(So, are we staying in the sandbox? I think we should. It feels a bit like lingering in the pub when everyone else has gone to the gig that was the original reason for meeting up.)

Ha - it's all about routine and things have been a lot better in the last month. "Dummies and puppies?" Ava asks as I'm towelling her down post-bath; her cot contains a few pacifiers (yes, we'll phase 'em out eventually) and a couple of plush dogs, y'see. And off she goes.

Wearing her mum's specs:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/386827890_6340eaf7f3.jpg

Out in the snow:
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Tallulah gets ready for snow outing:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/66/383706273_03a6352d92.jpg

AWWW AWWW AWWWWW AWWWWWWWWWWWWW

you just broke me

Alice and I walked a very long way in the rain this morning for her first round of immunisations, only to find that the appointment card we'd been sent was totally wrong and we were supposed to book with our own GP (two minutes walk) after all. Argh. Still, defers the agony...

Question: how do you implement a 'routine' while still feeding on demand (and when feeds are demanded at fairly random intervals)? Alice slept from 6.30pm until midnight last night, neatly missing any bedtime routine window we might have had. And I hate to wake her up when I don't know when we're next going to get any peace...

http://www.douglasandlisa.com/sterling/s151.jpg

Your site reminds me that I need to take pix of Ava in the bath (she's often at her hilarious best when splashing about), in monochrome (that great Jan 13 one!) and I need to take more videos.

Ava still pronounces her "L" as "W" despite Daddy's best efforts at instilling palatalisation ("watch my tongue - LuLu." "Yuyu!"). It's cute, we'll just leave it. Her command of numbers is still haphazard - one through twenty but rarely in order and she confuses 8 and 2 for some reason. She's a bloody sponge though - it's incredible to watch her absorb all this stuff and chuck it back at you.

Now that morning sickness has finally passed, even though we've had a scan and a teeny bump is emerging, I'm finding it really hard to remember that I'm pregnant, it's almost as if I'm in denial, which is very very odd. In 3-4 months time if I look back at this I'm sure I'll have a bitter chuckle to myself.

Still, 136 days until I go on maternity leave!

More fluff please! Douglas, that's such a gorgeous head of curls!