Happy Birthday/Mother's Day/No-Bottle Day

What another fabulous weekend!!!

The boys had a wonderful birthday, in spite of the fact that I barely planned anything!

They had fun blowing out their candles in their ice cream and I even gave them seconds when they asked for it.

Dean ate his so fast, I barely had time to get the camera out before he was finished. He even ate the candle too. Can wax poison small children? I guess we'll find out.

Cary also ate his candle. My children either have PICA or they're just weird.

 Later on that night, Lester gave me a pre-Mother's Day gift to die for: He BAKED for me! My friend Angel, seeing my love for Morton's LEGENDARY HOT CHOCOLATE CAKE!, sent me a recipe for molten chocolate lava cake (or something like that). Lester tried his hand at it, and it was delicious!!! I ate two of them, hot out the oven, with ice cream on the side, and swooned from happiness. Thanks, Angel! Thanks, Lester!!!

On Sunday, Mother's Day, all three of my boys fixed me breakfast (pancakes, fried cinnamon apples, sausage and coffee) and then gave me beautiful cards and gifts.

They also sent a Mother's Day message to all the Moms in their lives. (Well, Dean did most of the messaging. Cary was too busy "READING!")

Later, my mom, Dad, my Aunt Fern (Mom's sister) and my Uncle Buddy and Aunt Pam (Mom's brother and sis-in-law) came to Baltimore to have brunch at the Rusty Scupper, overlooking the Inner Harbor. So they stopped by our house afterward. I loved having them over, and so did the boys. And Clair didn't get put down the entire time they were there, so she was in Heaven.

Aunt Pam, Auntie Fern, me and Mom. Happy Mother's Day to us!

It was a wonderful, wonderful, family-filled weekend. I was really very much at peace and feeling loved and blessed, and not stressed, all weekend long. That is a beautiful thing. Happy Mother's Day to me!


AND!!!

As planned, we sent the boys to bed last night without a bottle for the first time in their lives! Following my weekly weaning plan, they had already gotten down to only 2 oz. each, so I figured they might not miss it. Boy was I wrong! There was considerable crying from both boys -- but the hysterics came mostly from Cary. Deanie seemed to understand much more when we explained that only babies have bottles and they were big boys now. But Cary (as usual) didn't really care what we said. He flipped around in his crib and screamed bloody murder. He wailed and moaned like someone had died. He refused to sleep, refused his lovey, refused his blanket, refused comforting. He was really putting on the performance of a lifetime.

I was feeling very determined as a mother to cross this bridge, but I was also feeling quite sad for him. It's Mother's Day! And I'm torturing my child. Also, I had to bathe Clair and put her to sleep. And also Mad Men was coming on in an hour or so! I needed this child to sleep!!

So after 45 minutes and several times of me going in to comfort him and reason with him, finally Lester went in and firmly told him enough was enough and it was time to go. to. sleep!

And you know what? He did. Just like that. Not a whimper out of him for the rest of the night.


Yes, it was Mother's Day, and yes I am a darn good Mom, 95-percent of the time. But I've said it before and I'll say it again: Thank the good LORD for fathers. :-)

(Note: One night bottle-free down. The rest of their lives to go. Pray for us!)

(P.S. This is my LAST WEEK of maternity leave. Waaaaaaaah! :-( )

18-month check-up

Cary and Dean went for their 18-month check-up yesterday, and here are the details:

Cary weighs 22 lbs., 8 oz. and is 32.5 inches tall.
Dean weighs 26 lbs., 2 oz. and is 33.5 inches tall.

It is still very interesting to me how much heavier Dean is than Cary, especially because (Dean's love of snacks notwithstanding) the two of them eat about the same amount of food. Neither is a very picky eater or eats like a bird. So it's clear that the two of them are just composed differently fundamentally, and also, likely, have very different metabolisms.
It'll be interesting to see how that plays out over the years.

Dr. Bodnar was VERY impressed with my boys' language skills. He said, with surprise, "How many words do they have?" And, then, when Dean asked for a tongue depressor by saying "Stick, pees," he asked if they were putting more words together, so I listed some of the phrases I could remember: "All done." "No more." "Bye-bye, truck." "More, please." "Bye-Bye, Da-Da." And Dr. Bodnar said, "They're putting that many words together already?"
I couldn't help but smile.
My boys' talkativeness is gratifying because I was so determined that they would NOT fall into the "preemies, twins, boys" trifecta of late-language-development that I had heard so much about. So we read, and read, and read, and read, and read, and read some more. And we talk, and talk, and talk, and talk! Oh, the talking! Frankly, it's exhausting (just being honest), but it is clearly paying some dividends, so far. So I will gladly talk/read myself hoarse.

Dr. Bodnar was no more help in the sleep-regression department than my blogfriends have been, but he did let me know that we were doing the right thing by continuing to reinforce their self-soothing skills, instead of acquiescing. Even if it means no one is really getting any sleep, for now, anyway, he assures me it's better in the long run, and that the boys will eventually get back to normalcy. (whatever that is)

As far as the nighttime bottle is concerned...well, I decided to come clean and tell our doctor that I had been too wimpy to let it go. I was honest about it -- it's just way too easy right now to get them to fall asleep at night, no crying, no fussing, no whining, no protesting. In fact, they clamor for their bottle and bedtime, and once they get 'em, they are quiet as church mice. It is ONE predictable thing we can depend on, and when you're dealing with crazy twin toddler terrorists, it is hard to give up that one thing. Does anyone feel me on this one?

To his credit, he did not make me feel like the WWM (world's worst mom). And he said that, of course, what we do as parents with the bottle is up to us. In the scheme of things, is it the worst thing we can do? No. But he did leave me with this scary little tidbit: If we try to stop the bottle now, it'll likely take about 10 days or so of bad nights to break the habit. If we wait until they're 2, it'll take twice as long.

20 nights of screaming? Lord have mercy. Nothing about that sounds appealing. Of course, I don't intend to wait until they're 2 to stop it, but then again, Lester and I don't really have an endgame planned. I suppose we need to get one.

One other thing that Dr. Bodnar reassured me about was this:

I have been secretly worried that Dean's tantrums and clinginess and crying and defiance and anger issues meant that he was emotionally marred in some way. I thought to myself, "Cary is so much more affable; what can we do to help Dean be more agreeable?"

Dr. Bodnar spent 45 minutes in the room with the boys before saying that, in his professional opinion, DEAN is the more typically-behaving baby, and CARY is the one who is atypical! Wha-what? Really?

He said for their age, Dean acting like one big raw nerve is pretty much what he's supposed to be doing right now, and Cary just la-la-la-ing through the day (for the most part) is just a lucky boon for us. This made me feel so much better, because I always think everyone else's toddlers seem so compliant and well-behaved and agreeable and cute and normal. I'm so glad to find out that my non-compliant, sometimes-well-behaved, occasionally-agreeable, almost always cute Deaniekins is also normal! Whew! I totally slept better last night.

On the flip side, Dr. Bodnar also jokingly said that it was good that Dean was slightly less talkative than Cary because (pointing to Cary, who was running his mouth a mile a minute) "you couldn't possibly have two of those!"

Imagine the thought!

At the end of the appointment, Dr. Bodnar declared my boys, "quite frankly, amazing," and I have to say, I couldn't agree more!

(Note: I don't have to bring them back to see the doctor for 6 months. SIX months! Wow. But we will see Dr. Bodnar again in February when Curve Ball is born, because he'll come to the hospital to examine her while I'm recovering. Curve Ball will get to meet Dr. Bodnar! Awwwww. Sooo sweet! I hope he'll think she's amazing, too!)