Iris says, "Becca, I'm really pregnant."

She was also dragging her baby Zinnia around in a sling today. (Her Cabbage Patch doll, which used to be my doll a long time ago, is her baby, and it's also named Zinnia.

( Today I... )
And now I'm about to start tonight's batch of diaper laundry and crash, I hope.
Iris is home from school tomorrow, so it's going to be a rough day.

Sunday night, Iris woke up really unhappy and with bright red cheeks. She felt really hot, so I took her temperature (in the mouth like a big girl, instead of in her armpit). Despite Iris not really keeping her mouth shut, the thermometer read 100.1°. So we gave her a bit of Children's Tylenol and a glass of water and she went back to sleep pretty quickly. Monday morning, no fever and she was really chipper, so she went off to preschool. Neil has been warm, flushed, unhappy, and clingy yesterday and today, although Zinnia has seemed fine so far. And my cheeks were bright red last night, although I don't think I've had a fever.

Zinnia has a nasty scratch on her cheek, right under her eye. I suspect Guido, although I didn't see what happened. I don't think it was caused by either baby because I'd just trimmed their nails a couple of hours before the scratch happened. Anyhow, I've been trying to keep Guido separated from the babies, and we're shutting the cats down in the basement overnight. This sucks though - neither cat ever hurt Iris as a baby, and they were fairly patient with her as a toddler. I hadn't expected any problems this time around.

On the bright side, Neil rolled over from belly to back for the first time yesterday. He also sits well with support and can push up and is trying to slither a little when he's on his belly. Zinnia is a bit floppier and not as strong. It's a little weird that they're at different stages, although of course babies develop at different rates.

3 months. The babies continue to grow. They both gained 1 lb, 4 oz this month, for a total of 6.5 lbs over their birthweights. Oddly enough, this means that Zinnia is right on target as far as the percentiles, but that Neil has dropped in percentiles from last month to this month. The pediatrician was a bit concerned about this yesterday, but in a sort of, "well, that's something to keep an eye on" way, rather than a, "this needs immediate action" sort of way. But it was a little weird to me that she was concerned about the weight of the bigger baby, since when I worry about their weights at all, it's more about Zinnia's weight. Anyhow, both of them are right about average size for 3-month-old babies, and the 1.5 lb difference is typical of boys vs. girls.

I want to do a write-up of a typical day here soon (like sbtorpey and anemone), but of course a typical day doesn't have a big chunk of time for updating LJ, so it hasn't happened yet. Maybe I'll try a list later today.

Take me out to the big old ball game
Take me out to the big old ball game
Take me out to the big old ball game
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack
And it's, "woot! woot! woot!" for the home steam
If they lose it's a shame
And it's one, two, three shirts you're out
At the big old ball game

( pictures )

Conversations with Iris:
Iris: "Why is Ben at work?"
Becca: "To earn money so we can pay for the house and buy food to eat."
Iris: "Actually, mostly diapers."

Iris: "Hey, you steffed me!"
Ben: "Steffed? What is stefing?"
Iris: "Stefan is a woman. Stefan is a man. Stefan is an uncle."

We had a crazy rainstorm last week after a drought. And then we had another heavy rainstorm today. Our house is in a bit of a low spot, and our backyard, garage, and basement flooded. We have a sump pump (and a backup sump), but they couldn't keep up, quite possibly because the backyard was too flooded to pump water into. Fortunately, smws was working out in the garage and noticed as soon as the water started coming in, so we were able to get stuff out before too much stuff got soaked. Zinnia slept through the whole thing, and I strapped Neil into the stroller where he sat contentedly watching us work.
( Pictures )

Becca: We're going to have a visitor tomorrow. Do you know who it is?
Iris: Yes. I know.
Becca: Who is it?
Iris: I think it's a business partner!
(Actually it was rubrick.)

joshbuckler has become one of Iris's favorite people. The other day, Zinnia was crying a little while I was nursing Neil, and Iris wanted to help. So she held Zinnia's hand, and I suggested that she talk to Zinnia. She said, "Zinnia, do you remember Josh? He lives in Josh's house. Do you think he's going to be at Josh's house tonight?" She also often tells us that Josh is so tall, and that he's bigger than me or Ben. The strange thing about this is that he's almost exactly the same size we are, and that she knows a few people (my father and brothers) who are quite a bit taller than that, but she never talks about how big they are.

The alphabet song, according to Iris:
"Let's count to three, so we can all start together. 1 - 2 - 3 A, B, C, D, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, and P. Q, R, X, Y, and Z. Now I know my A B C D, next time won't you sing with me?"

She's also picked up the habit of showing the pages of the book she's reading to the whole room after each page. Her favorite "reading material" these days is the phone book. "This book is about the telephone."

Yesterday evening as we were eating dinner, the babies were a little fussy, so Ben and I were each holding one. There was crying, so I started bouncing and rocking my baby a little to calm it down. This had no effect. It turns out that the one I was holding had fallen asleep, and Ben was holding the crying baby.

(This is sort of like trying to nurse the wrong end of the baby or rocking when standing still to help keep the baby asleep, even when I'm not wearing a baby in a carrier.)

( Baby pictures, as requested. )
Is it helpful for me to label which one is Neil and which is Zinnia when they're both in gender-neutral clothing?

I can get feeling down about how tough it is having twins and having 3 kids under 3, but there are so many things to be thankful for. This list is a reminder, for the really rough days:

getting pregnant without fertility treatments
an uncomplicated pregnancy
no c-section and a fairly easy birth
relatively big, healthy, full-term babies
good health insurance
no problems with breastfeeding
Ben's 7 weeks of parental leave
a generous allowance for takeout food (both from Ben's employer and a gift from a friend)
lots of help from various relatives during the last weeks of pregnancy and the newborn period
not doing this as first-time parents
twins who are mellower than Iris was as a baby
being able to afford staying home with the twins AND preschool for Iris (although I started doing some editing again yesterday)
Iris mostly getting along well with the babies
Iris being daytime toilet-trained (I think I can finally say that - 3 weeks with only 1 accident, which was when she had gone up to the bathroom but just couldn't figure out how to get her leggings off by herself)
meeting other parents of multiples

At their 2 month appointment yesterday, Neil had gained 2.5 lbs and had grown 1.75 inches, putting him at 12 lbs, 12 oz (75th percentile) and 24.25 inches (91st percentile). Zinnia had gained a little over 2 lbs and also had grown 1.75 inches, putting her at 11 lbs, 3 oz (62nd percentile) and 23.25 inches (89th percentile).

Iris keeps asking permission to go to the bathroom (usually, "Is it okay if I go bathroom?"). The answer is always "Yes!" of course, so it's funny to me that she asks.

I filled out our calendar for November and realized that during that month, Zinnia and Neil will turn 3 months old, Iris will turn 3 years old, and Ben will turn 33 years old.

We went to another parents of twins meeting today. It's so interesting to see what a different place we're coming from than most of the other families there.

I'm pretty thrilled with how well my boobs work for feeding babies, and I mostly like their new larger size, but I really wish they weren't covered in bright red stretch marks. :-/

Iris drew the letter Y on a piece of paper with her purple crayon.

Iris: "Look, I made a Y!"
Stefan: "Yeah, that is a Y. Can you draw another letter?"
Iris: "No, only just Y."
Becca: "How about an I for Iris?"
Iris: "I can do that. This I is a little longer, but it's not too long as that one."
Stefan: "Can you draw another Y?"
Iris: "Not right now, not right now, sweetie. I'm too tired."

I don't think Iris is all that close to learning to read, but she's been really interested in drawing letters lately and came home from preschool with a piece of paper where she'd been writing something just barely recognizable as her name over and over.

Other random cuteness: Iris refers to Zinnia and Neil as "our babies" and Zinnia especially as "my baby sister Zinnia".

I've heard that Pull-Ups are terrible and the reason that American kids don't potty train until after age 3 these days, since it's just putting them in super-absorbent diapers where they don't feel wet when they pee. Nevertheless, we got some for Iris when she started preschool, because they couldn't do cloth diapers, and Iris was having messy accidents most days. She wore them for her first couple of days of preschool, and on the third day, she insisted on wearing underwear to school. She's worn underwear every day since then and not had any accidents at school (and only 1 at home). Knowing that she has to wear a Pull-Up if she doesn't remember to use the bathroom and has an accident seems to be very motivating. Who knew?

The babies are getting cuter, which is really nice from a not-eating-my-young standpoint. (Actually, I guess I let them eat me.) They've gained lots of weight, so they have rounder faces with squishy cheeks. They've started to smile from time to time, but we haven't caught it on camera yet. And they're making cute cooing sounds like, "hiya," "mmm-good," and "ungy." They seem to like warm baths and not mind diaper changes nearly so much now.

I've spent the past couple of days in between nursing sessions cleaning and organizing stuff upstairs, and I feel so much better about how it looks now. The rest of the house is pretty messy though. smws got us a file cabinet, so I should round up all of our papers and figure out what to save and where to keep what needs to be kept. :-P

According to Iris....

Little Red Riding Hood = the wolf book
Hansel and Gretel = the wolf book that doesn't have a wolf

Yesterday was her first day of preschool. Many tears were shed, and I finally left while she was still crying. When Ben picked her up in the afternoon, it was the tail end of nap time, and she was actually asleep. This morning, she kept asking if she could go to school again today and if I could pack her a lunch for school, so I guess it wasn't too bad.