Pregnantly Different

With the twins, people often asked me if it was different being pregnant with twins.

ummmmmm...

This was often people who new me well enough to know these were my first children. So, I repeat:

ummmmm...

Now, pregnant again, this is a reoccurring point of interest. There is a problem though. Most people have different pregnancies each time, or at least the second time... I mean, your body HAS changed. You are physically different this time around. So are the differences because I am having ONE baby this time?

Or are they simply because I’ve done this before, my uterus was well stretched and less resistance to being re-stretched, my nutrient reserves are a bit more depleted, I’m simultaneously breastfeeding, or maybe the gender is different.

Who knows.

A bit the same:

Almost halfway in before I started gaining weight

Overall feel pretty good/ handle pregnancy well.

Back muscles easily irritated in the beginning

Overall, pretty mellow, not worried, and not for the most part not more emotional

phases of pubic/tail bone pain

No unusually strong smell or food aversions/cravings

My pregnancy cough returned

Symptoms of blood vessels expanding (limbs going numb in beginning, dizzy spells, hemorrhoid flair ups). 

A phase in the beginning with no appetite

Occasional ovary pinching

Those two hairs—the one in my neck and the one in my chin— they’ve returned

Increased night urination (and it had barely gone away since in lingured with my insatiable nursing thirst) 

But it is different.

Less vomiting: I’ve thrown up once or twice, and not until about halfway in. (last time was  a few times a week for a while. 

Earlier/Bigger/More obvious movement

Need naps more earlier in pregnancy... especially around the time we were moving

Sometimes I pee a little when I cough/sneeze/blow my nose (keegal time?)

I felt a little like I had hormones... twice... as in a little oversensitive—though not crazy

Had clear skin the whole time

Worse about eating well (but that’s just me being lazy/spending more time cooking for Lumpkins and Lilliputians) 

Recently, my hemorrhoids have actually gotten smaller. They didn’t even do that between pregnancies, they just stopped being sensitive partway through both pregnancies, but this time, they are actually disappearing all of a sudden ( I just thought you should know)

I’m sure there is more I will remember later. 

10 months and food

 Overall, I pretty much skipped the first time mom thing. The boys spent tons of time on the floor as newborns, I let people hold them and never once asked them to wash their hands (except maybe a sticky kid), I bathe them 1-2 times a month, let them stick shoes in their mouths, I only spray the shopping cart half of the time (they gum the edges, and I’m pretty sure that was the cause both time they got sickish). 

However, when it comes down to food, I am very much a first time mom. It’s one thing if Mister E shoves dirt in his mouth, its another if you sneak my child a bit of something not on my list. It is a great way to annoy me. Part of it is my sense of instilling my babies with good health, keeping their gut flora healthy, and their organs in top notch condition. But mostly, it’s allergies. I’m pretty serious about testing a new food for at least 3 days before introducing more new foods. Every time when I’ve done more than one thing at a time, Mister E’s bottom has gone wild. Rash Crazy.  I can back up until it clears, than reintroduce it all one at a time, and usually everything turns out to be fine. He just doesn’t do well with too much change to fast.  In the meantime, people trying to win my children’s love by sneaking new things just means I have to back up all over again, wait for another stupid rash to clear, and start again with whatever I was already introducing him too.  Plus, ummmm, ice cream? Why do people think it’s special to sneak babies a finger dipped in ice cream? For heavens sake, my babies get pretty excited about ANYTHING, especially anything they can feed themselves. They like PLAIN fatty greek yogurt, cheese, watermelon. All that stupid ice cream does is give them a sugar spike and lower their immunity. Trust me, they get more than enough sugar out of my breast milk (yah, I need to cut sugar again). They don’t need more candy just yet. 

So, with my 3 day rule, the  fact that I might not have any new foods on hand all the time, and having to back up new foods to let the rash clear, my babies are not eating as much variety (ingredient wise) as some 10 months old. They do not get cherios. Almost everything is home made—exceptions being plain yogurt, some simple ingredient biscuits I got a bunch of cheep on sale once, and some almost expired simple baby food I also stocked up on super cheep when we were moving and needed the convenience desperately.

But, happily, my babies are not picky eaters. the one or two things they rejected the first time were enthusiastically accepted the 2nd or 3rd time. So, they have a good 20 ingredients I let them eat. Good chance “cake” will not be on that list by their first birthday. 

Things the babies are eating:

Applesauce (cooked, raw is one of those “back up items”)

Avocado ( one of their first 5 foods)

Banana (another first)

cheese

Oatmeal

Pear

Peas (often with chicken broth, or chicken. We call it pea soup)

rice (only did once, and used biscuits with rice flour, but I think it’s okay with them)

Squash (butternut, acorn, spagetti, etc)

Sweet potato

Yogurt, plain unsweetened, fatty greek ( sometimes I add puree to it)

Mango (first dried, then frozen)

chicken broth

Chicken

Prunes (though a new brand is on my suspect list)

spinach

Watermelon

Cantaloupe

Egg Yolk

? Berries?  (store bought mixes have been fine, but frozen and fresh have coincided with “back up incidences”)

?Brocoli? (they ate it, also coincided with “back up”

?Carrot? (I more than once ended up with a “back up” incident, so I’ve just stopped trying all together... and have still had unrelated back up incidences)

 Beef and pork is probably also fine, but I haven’t had any yet to try with them that wasn’t well salted/seasoned. 

10 months and toys

I am proud to say, I have not bought my children a single toy. I won’t even say “I’m a bad mom” here ( I say that a lot before I tell people I put my babies to sleep late or let them eat shoes), because toys for babies are stupid. Sure, they play with the toys that grandparents have gifted them, but their idea of play is either a) pulling item from toy bucket and placing it on the floor, b) holding item, or smacking item on floor, or c) attempting to eat item. They show no preference for their toys over my... ummm... flip flops, a spatula, or a cup

Favorite Play things: 

Mister E is in love with the Vacuum. It has been his best friend for months (with visiting Polo as a close second). He gets excited whenever it comes out, and chases it/gets in its way. Even when it is off, he tries to climb it. His ability to tame the vacuum is undoubtedly what has established him, in Polo’s eyes, as Apha. Polo refers to him, in squeekeeze, as “he who fears not the vacuum.” Mister E also has a soft spot for wheels: on the vacuum, on a toy, on the chair racks at church, on the piano at church, and once I put him down in the garage and he went for the car tires. Oh, and the there are the shoes. Not a top favorite, but about once a day, Mister E picks up someones shoes off the floor and thoroughly inspects it. Something Baby Oh rarely bothers with. 

Baby Oh, in the condo, favored the little plastic caps that cover the toilet bolts. I found them every where and were constantly putting them back. Here, they don’t come loose, so he has lost interest. He does, however still love repetitive motions. Opening and closing cupboards and drawers, pulling wipes/kleenex/rags out, pushing the vacuum back and forth, sliding anything else (bowls, cookie sheets) back and forth. Brett also put night lights on the outlets, and Baby Oh is rather fond of putting his hand up and activating the light sensors. Oh yes, and I mentioned a cup at the top. He likes anything he can make a noise into. it started with my recorder, which I would play a bit and put in his mouth to let him wistle on it (Ender likes the recorder too), and evolved to anything with a noise altering effect. A cup up to his mouth, a bit of pipe. He’ll hoot into them all, and it is cute. 

Now, none of these things is mutually exclusive. Any of one’s favorites, often become the other’s second favorites, and while they split up quite a bit, they eventually congregate back together to “work on the vacuum,” or what not. I think this is a good healthy balance. Independence, and unity. 

Oh, and before I forget. 10 months is adorable.

Seriously. They laugh at anything when they are tired (especially Oh). Sometimes laugh at eachother for who knows what reason (sometimes because the other laughed, or burped), and they suddenly have proved they are watching and learning from you.

A week or two ago they started blowing on my tummy. My shirt was up a bit, as I lie on the floor, and Mister E just blew raspberries on my tummy. What the heck? Where did they get that from? I tried several times since, and they both will do it. Mister E, just briefly, but Baby Oh, does it, looks around and smiles (or laughs) and does it again... and again... I then realized that Brett tries to make his occasional diaper changes “fun.” Often this includes tummy raspberries. It makes me laugh so hard to see them try to play  by blowing on my tummy. So cute. I love 10 months.

10 months and baby teeth

Well, In the past week, the babies turned 10 months, we’d been in our new house for a full month, and the babies had their first Easter.

No, they didn’t know it was Easter. No, I didn’t dress them up special (they wore mismatched clothes to church, but hey, they were clean). And no, we didn’t do anything Eastery. I didn’t even make dinner. Brett napped for an surprising 3-4 hours.

Babies adjusted rather seamlessly to the new house. Exploring the corners, no emotional distress, quickly learning their way around. Part of me even wonders if they realized they moved.  Only set back was that Baby Oh slept very poorly the first night. Very. 

Now that is out of the way, let us talk about teeth.  Mister E has 6, and his top-left-centerish two came down a day apart just over the previous weekend, and have been descending much faster than his previous teeth have. These came in not that long after his right-center -top two, and those ones sped up their decent right with the newer ones. This has triggered something primal in him. 

Absolutely primal. 

The bitting has begun. Ripping open packages he find in the pantry, bitting mommy’s shoulder (I keep an eye on that mouth now), daddy’s shoulder once, and Baby Oh AT LEAST once. I have a picture of the bite marks on the poor little guys arm to prove it. I’m constantly keeping Mister E off Polo, whom I also suspect he has bitten. The poor submissive dog just rolls over as babies grab his fur (at least it’s short) and gum (errrr, “gum”) his back. Such a sweet dog to the boys, guilty only of licking their faces as a defense mechanism.  And it works. They can’t stand it very long before they turn away and leave him aloe

This licking, by the way, drives Grandma L crazy. She feels the need to announce the incidence to make sure we know how horrible we are to let it happen, banish Polo to his kennel (because, you know, it’s the dogs fault that the only non aggressive way to get the babies to leave him alone is to lick their faces until they flee), and then insist on washing Mister E’s face. 

The thing is, that stinker of a baby (I love him—he is my little stinker) goes for Polo so often, that half the time we don’t even catch the licks... so in my opinion, washing E’s face/mouth is pretty futile. Like only washing your hands half the time  after you work in the same garden. You’ve probably already ingested that same bacteria. 

As for Baby Oh... he BARELY cut his first bottom tooth the day he turned 10 months. That’s my genetics, right there.  Oddly, with his lack of teeth, Baby Oh has been a much better chewer. Mister E just chomps off a huge chunk and tries to swallow it. Baby Oh rolls it in his mouth mushing it between his gums. As a result, Baby Oh gets bigger pieces and coughs up food less. A week later, that tooth is still barely even cut. Mister E’s first teeth were also slow ascending, so I find this interesting. 

I love how different they are physically. Same uterus, same gestation, same maternal diet, same breast milk, same solids, totally different develepment. Months apart in crawling, pulling themselves up, getting teeth, etc. Whith movement, Mister E is usually the first. WIth cognitive things, often it is Baby Oh. Baby Oh was chattier earlier, started messing with cause and reaction (from people) earlier, longer attention to books, and was overall more focused when in came to observing people. Now, they are pretty even, though E does move faster and smoother. He’s had months longer of practice though. 

Forgive me if I’ve said this already, but it is a great reminder that babies are just different. Same nutrition and nurture in the same timeframe from the same parents, and they still develop differently. So stop freaking out about your children, dear parents, THERE IS NO NORMAL. Though the one time I took Oh to the the Doctor, he corrected me and said “Well, you mean their is a range for normal.” Sure, a stinkin’ big range.  Like I said, forgive If I’ve posted that part before, but it truly is a blessing quick lesson from twins.