A Good Day

After so many days that felt somehow happy yet discouraging in some ways...exhausting, confusing, emotional, today was a really good day.

Today was a good day. It was also, I believe, my first "solo day". My mom, bless her, has been here almost the entire month. She takes care of Arya, cleans and does household chores, organizes my chaos, and just serves as a calm, solid presence in all of this newborn baby mayhem. But this week she is with Casey in Spring Grove. We call her G4T for a reason...used to be G2T when she became a grandmother of two in very quick succession, but now she's reached SUPER GRANDMA status with four grandchildren to love and help care for. She truly is amazing. Sean has gone back to work after having used up the first week-plus of his two-week paternity leave, just with my extended hospital stay and the girls' time in the special care nursery. In addition, this crazy virus season we're having continues to remove many of my possibilities for help with Arya as I navigate the waters of dealing with newborn twins (a wonderful neighbor who watches Arya, and also Arya's "Auntie Em", my cousin Emily.) So today I was alone, and it was a great day. I know there will be many days in the future--the near future...maybe even tomorrow--that don't go this well, so I am choosing to really notice the small things about today.

1. I had a dance party with Arya. This means that a) I am feeling physically well enough to dance--not hugely prego, not in the hospital or home recovering from a very rough and complicated labor, and not barfing from an unfortunate bout of the stomach flu (see last post), and b) Arya is really getting back to her old self...the one who loves to boogie and spin around and who points at the iPod, asking for "dancing music" about four times per day. Happiness.

2. I took a nap. When you have to get up several times in the night to care for newborn twins it feels pretty rough to have that 6:30 a.m. toddler wake-up call, knowing that it'll be at least six hours until you can lay your head down again. Today I was successful in my attempts to synchronize all three kids' sleep so I could nap as well. Aahhhh.

3. I took Arya outside to get some fresh air. Winter sucks, but we've been lucky enough this year to have a very mild one. Today it was about 40 degrees, so we went outside and splashed in puddles for a little while. The fun didn't last very long because Miss Lou fell in a mud puddle and got cold, but we both got some of our wiggles out and inhaled some much-needed fresh air.

4. I washed the sheets, comforter, AND mattress pad off our bed. Yup, it's the little things. We kept the twins upstairs in our room until a few nights ago, and it just seemed like everything in there smelled like sour milk. As of this writing I still haven't gotten everything put back together, but once I do it'll be clean-sheet bliss for us tonight. Aahhh...it's the little things.

5. I ate lunch. Yes, this is an accomplishment. I spent the day alone with two 3-week-old babies and a 20 month old. #6 should probably be "I went to the bathroom", but I think that probably falls under the category of Too Much Information. And if you're wondering, lunch today was a liverwurst and ketchup sandwich eaten with Arya at her toddler table (turns out Arya and I both love liverwurst, and I lost so much blood during the delivery that I'm still trying to get enough iron in my diet to "catch up" on my energy.)

6. I remembered, and successfully administered, everyone's vitamins. Isn't this one of those things that tends to fall through the cracks when things get crazy? It is for me. But today, all three kids got their omegas, D3s, and iron, and I got all mine as well. I think I even convinced Sean to take an EmergenC as he was rushing out the door to go to a meeting. Strangely enough, Arya LOVES to take her fish oil straight from the dropper. Ugh...it smells like salmon belly meat. But getting the twins to take their cherry-flavored liquid vitamins is another thing entirely. Why do they make that stuff cherry flavored anyway? It's a totally foreign and disarming flavor for a newborn to experience.

7. I tandem breastfed BOTH twins several times today. With Keira finally starting to be able to get some of her calories from breastfeeding instead of a bottle of pumped milk, this accomplishment is absolutely the key to the rest of the day's success. Here's hoping she continues to improve so I can eventually just breastfeed both. That will mean I can drop the pumping, bottle feeding, bottle washing, pump part washing, and general asynchronous nature of the twins' feedings. That will be HUGE.

Tomorrow's a new day...let's see what it brings.