Thanks to Dave Barry, he sums it up

Hope Dave Barry doesn't get too mad on this one, but Dana and I laughed and cried until it hurt.

A change is in the air
BY DAVE BARRY
(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on May 7, 2000.)
When people ask me, ''Dave, what's it like to have a newborn baby in the household?'' I immediately answer: ''...''
This is because I am sleeping. I spend a lot of my day in an unconscious state, because my 2-month-old daughter, Sophie, does not believe in sleeping at night. She feels that the nighttime hours are best used for making loud, inexplicable, Exorcist-style noises. At 3:30 a.m., her bassinet will suddenly start shaking like an unbalanced clothes dryer and erupt with a wide range of squeaks, gurgles, chirps, snorts, snuffles, grunts, etc. It does not sound like there's a lone baby in there. It sounds like the entire Barnyard of the Demons. (Which would be an excellent name for a band.)
Sophie routinely makes noises that cannot be explained by the known laws of physics. Recently, some friends came over to admire her, and we had her all dressed up in a cute little baby outfit featuring little bloomers with cherries on them, and while everybody was gathered around admiring how sweet and delicate and innocent she looked, Sophie -- who is, physically, no larger than a standard pumpkin -- cut loose with a series of massive, resonating, bloomer-inflating bodily blasts that you would think could be produced only by a 350-pound man who had just won a burrito-eating contest. If I had not been holding her firmly at the time, I believe she would have propelled herself, missile-style, through the ceiling.
''How ... cute!'' our friends said, as the aroma wafted around us, fog-like.
I'm not saying that all Sophie does is make noises. As a brand-new human being with an inquisitive mind, she is also exploring the mystery and magic of the world around her, by which I mean she is trying to get her hands completely into her mouth. This is her primary goal in life.
Her arms and legs constantly wave around in a random manner, and every now and then, when a hand happens to land on her mouth, she becomes excited and starts sucking on it like crazy. But then, without warning, the arm yanks the hand away, which makes Sophie VERY angry. If she ever finds out who is operating her arms, she is going to give that person a piece of her mind, if she ever figures out how to talk.
Yes, it's an exciting time in our household, a time of learning and growing and having plastic bags of frozen breast milk in the freezer next to the Tater Tots. In our family, we strongly believe in breast-feeding, which has many benefits, the main one being: Men cannot do it. Not that I don't contribute! I'm always giving my wife useful breast-feeding pointers, such as: ''Time for you to breast-feed her!'' And: ''Time for you to breast-feed her again!'' And: ``I would gladly breast-feed her, but, tragically, I am a man.''
(Actually, I suspect that men CAN breast-feed; it's just that, in the entire history of the human race, no man has ever actually tried.)
I do change diapers. A LOT. It is a known baby fact that babies put out far more material than they take in; physicists now believe that babies account for most of the matter in the universe. If you were to stack up all the diapers I have changed in just two months, one on top of the other, you would never be invited to a party again for the rest of your life.
Our house would smell like a malfunctioning sewage plant, except that we have a product called the Diaper Genie, which encloses diapers in a long, odor-proof plastic bag. As a parent, I believe this is the greatest of all humanity's inventions, including low-fat Cheez-Its. You take your diaper, you put it into your Diaper Genie, you twist the plastic bag, and, as the French say, Voila! (Literally, ''You are not smelling any more the poop.'' )
When your Diaper Genie fills up, you open the bottom and remove an amazing, 15-foot-long, segmented, caterpillar-like Chain of Doodies. We've been throwing these away, but it seems to me we ought to be turning them over to the U.S. Air Force as a potentially devastating military weapon.
Another excellent item of modern baby technology is the battery-powered swing. When your baby is in a bad mood because she cannot get her hand inside her mouth, you put her in this swing and let it rock her gently into a blissful state of suspended baby animation lasting long enough that sometimes you can actually take a shower. This device works so well that I think we should make a larger version and use it to calm hyperactive adults.
If you're a psychiatric professional who would like to explore this idea, let's schedule a meeting. I want to sleep on your couch.

Post Bath

Harlan after getting a bath. With 2 babies you have to use what you have near by. So her car seat makes a great resting spot after a bath while Lanier is getting cleaned.


 

New Play Thing

Harlan and Lanier

4 Generations

Four Generations
From the left, Carol (Dana's Mom), Lanier, Great Grandma. Harlan, Dana



 

2 Month Doctor Visit

Well I have a lot to report today. We had our 2 month check up, actually more like 9wks, but who's counting. I'll break it down by baby, then have a both baby section.

Harlan
Weight 9lbs4ozs
Length 20.5 inches
Head 14-3/4

Doctor said she is looking and it processing nicely. All her action, sounds, feel are normal. She has some thrush coming back, so she will get more of that medicine for a little while.

Lanier
Weight 10lbs2ozs
Length 21 inches
Head 14-1/4

Doctor said she is looking good.The best news is she is now off of her anpea machine. Since she has gone almost 6 weeks without an episode, not counting ones while giving medicine, the doctor felt it was time to get her off of it. Plus we have only had her in it for 4-5 hours a day for the last 2 weeks.Lanier will also be going in at the end of March for her PT/OT checkup for being in the NNICU. We will be doing this every 3 months until she is a year old.

Both Babies

1. As for the both of them, their sizes come in around the 25th perctentile for weight and head size. The length is only in the 5th percentile, but she said length is very hard to get at this age and the 6 month length is the one they really go by. The doctor said since they were not extreme preemies that she was not going to do a age adjustment on them, since they are processing normally.


2. They had their Zantac and Reglan dosage raised since they have gained more weight. We will need to have it adjusted again at a 3 month weigh in.


3. The doctor also said we can start placing them on their stomachs during the day to help build muscle and coordination. But they still need to sleep on their backs


4. They have been moved off of the high calorie food and can go to regular formula. Yea for us, the regular stuff is a lot cheaper and the way they have been downing the NeoSure, it was getting right expensive. Granted we did have some freebie formula for having twins., but the ride home put them to sleep and hopefully will sleep it off. We also were told to give them infant Tylenol to help reduce any fever and pain.

Finally a new post

Well its been a little while since I have done an update on the babies. Daddy has been a bit busy with work and hasn't had a chance to update. I also have a few pictures to upload, maybe I'll get to those in the nest day or so.

As far as the girls go, they are growing and growing. We have had to move them in to their own cribs now. They were getting so big, that they would touch one side or the other with very little effort.

This earlier this week, they got to spend some time with the grandparents while Dana went to a baby sale. She was able to pick up some swings, toys, stroller, and the like for a real good price. According to Dana, Grandma has a new appreciation for what we go through on a daily basis. One baby is easy, 2 is a bit more time consuming. We joke that we would have had to hire help if it had been triplets.

On Friday, we go in for our 2 month doctors visit. Which means shot time. So we will have some upset babies tomorrow. More on that after the fact.

Well daddy has to get to get to work now, even if it is just upstairs at the home-office.

Not so little anymore

Well our little ones are not so little anymore. We went to the doctor's today to talk about Lanier (more later on that), but we got them both weighed. This is at 7 weeks, 4 days old. Remember they came home at 4lbs9ozs for Harlan and 4lbs13ozs for Lanier.

Harlan - 8Lbs 4ozs
Lanier - 9lbs 2ozs

The reason we went in today was to have the doc look at Lanier's eye and to discuss her monitor results. Her eye seemed to be extra watery and would sometimes form sticky stuff to the point of the eye not wanting to open. Well turns out that it is fairly common and we can just wash it out. But if it continues, we can get a antibacterial gel to put on it.

As far as her monitor, we are having doubts as to the effectiveness of it. Our last reading seemed a bit off and the doc said we can leave her out of it as long as she is awake but she still needs it at night and during naps.

We will also be calling to get a new monitor, just to make sure that it was not the reason for the odd results we got. The results showed 6 events and we recorded none of those, because the monitor never went off.

Also along those lines, since they are gaining weight, the doc up'd the dosage of the medicine for the antacid and spitup.

Harlan in mamma's hand 

Lanier in froggy outfit 

some more baby pics 

one more of 2