Marching for Healthy Babies

Some of you may remember that we participated in fund raising for the March of Dimes March For Babies last year.  We fully intended to participate in the walk too, but my back problems were making walking long distances extremely hard and we ended up skipping the actual event.  This year, depending on how tired I am, we will most likely attend and show off what handsome, healthy NICU graduates we have!  Thinking about how much they've grown and changed since those first weeks of life never fails to bring me to tears.  At the time, it was so hard to imagine the future when we'd have active, healthy little boys.  Today, it's hard to believe they were ever so small.

I'd like to share with you (a slightly edited version of) the post I wrote about this time last year about why I support the March of Dimes.  I hope that you'll also take a moment and give whatever spare change you have around your house - and I know that might not be much, given the current economy - to this very worthy cause.

I thought I'd take a moment and talk about the March of Dimes. I'm participating in the March for Babies in [35] days for so many reasons. The March of Dimes itself is a fantastic charitable organization with the goal of funding research for healthy pregnancies and providing support to families of premature infants and infants born with serious illnesses and birth defects. Their mission is to have every baby born healthy and give doctors and nurses the resources they need to care for the ones that are not! I think this is a lofty goal, but one that I can stand behind with my whole heart.

Many of you know that Eli and Jude are preemies. We were incredibly lucky to make it to 34 weeks gestation - just six weeks shy of their due date - when so many twins are born at 32, 28, and even a stunning 24 weeks. My perinatologist even awarded me a "bronze medal" when I made it to 32! March of Dimes has funded and pioneered research that helped me reach those milestones and also the research that helped Eli and Jude come home from the NICU four weeks earlier than the neonatologist originally predicted. I honestly believe that the work March of Dimes has done to educate doctors of the importance of kangaroo care had a huge impact on their NICU stay.

I also walk for my friends and family who have lost their babies before getting the chance to meet them. Recently I've met a shocking number of women who have lost babies late in their pregnancy or shortly after birth and it breaks my heart. These women - and their significant others - are everywhere and wear silent scars. I cannot imagine the pain they feel and can only hope that continued research will prevent other women from suffering such a loss.

The March for Babies is coming up fast and I'm working hard to raise money for this amazing cause. Seriously, who wouldn't support a group that strives for healthy babies? I'm not one who likes to ask for money but... DONATE PLEASE! I still have a long way to reach my goal but every dollar makes a difference. If you want to donate but don't want to give directly to me, please donate to my team - The Austin Moms of Multiples. You can click on the sidebar here on our blog, or visit my personal fund raising page here.

I too hope that one day, all babies will be born healthy. Please help me help the March of Dimes in their work to make that goal a reality.

SO MANY VIDEOS!

So I don't really have a whole lot to say for this last week; we've been busy, tired, and generally just fatigued as a whole. I've taken a bunch of videos in the past week and a half though, so I hope you enjoy.

PS: My wife has already let me know that I did the wrong thing by having them slide down on their tummies.. I never really thought it was that big a deal, so I'm sorry in advance, Honey.

Having a great day with the toys



Sleeping little boys



A day at the park



A sliding good time (even though I let them do something that wasn't supposed to happen... whoops)

A Post from the Elusive "Mommy"

Hello out there!  I know it has been an absurdly long time since I last wrote a post and I don't really have a very good excuse.  Mostly, I've just been completely exhausted at all times and every spare moment I've had has been spent with the boys or with Travis.  So I thought I'd post a quick update.

I started a new job - as many of you have gathered if you didn't know already - baking overnight for Panera Bread.  Getting used to my new sleep schedule has been a challenge.  I've always been a night person, but I was certainly not used to staying up and WORKING from 10 pm to 6 am.  And in a job where you're in and out of ovens, you need to be alert not just awake.  Making time for my family has been especially challenging.  In all honesty, I thought that the new hours would be a fantastic situation for us but they've been such a struggle for me.  I feel like a lot of the time I spend with Eli and Jude (which isn't a lot, at the moment) I am too tired to move or play.  Sometimes they'll sit and cuddle with me on the couch but I can tell they're getting frustrated.  I guess I'm just having a hard time with the transition to being a real working mom.  I was spoiled before, working at the preschool, and it has been harder than I originally anticipated to work away from my kids.  Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying my new job and I LOVE Eli and Jude's new preschool, but I have a new respect for other working moms.

The new preschool is amazing.  I don't want to get too bogged down here about all of the reasons why it's better than the last one but it has renewed my faith in early childhood education.  Besides, it's just drama that makes me upset and it's not really worth thinking about anymore.  I now realize that not everyone is just in it for the money.  I no longer feel like Eli and Jude have dollar signs stamped on their foreheads.  Their class is nice and small, I love their teachers, and I feel so good knowing that they're actually LEARNING!  They do Spanish and Sign Language also, which I'm very happy about.  Basically, I almost didn't want to put the boys in daycare because of our experience with the last preschool but it's clear now that the last place was just terrible.

Well, that's all I have to say for now.  And it's time for me to go to sleep!  Have a good day!

Placeholder for Spinning babies and Swinging babies

So spring break this year was pretty tame; I've been applying for a host of job opportunities since I am starting to have less and less faith in the Texas Legislature to fully fund schools, thereby not giving me a job in Education in the next year, so I've been rather busy. Eli and Jude have had a whole lot of fun though at school; their new school is awesome and they're loving every day they go! Just like pre-school before, they don't ever want to leave, and I love that fact since I know they're learning and loving every minute. In our free time though, we've been having a lot of fun at the park.



First time swinging!

And at home; we've been trying to be a bit more active. I'm thinking about trying out the pool tomorrow if the weather cooperates, if so, you'll see a much better video than this one. If not, we'll see what I'll do instead!



They love spinning in this chair.

Looking at these videos reminds me that we really need to get our spring cleaning on. Our apartment is kind of a disaster as of late, owing to the fact that Alex is transitioning her sleep to a daytime sleep and the fact that we just want to spend some time together when she's not sleeping or working, and not clean, but I think we really need to get down to it this next week. Maybe on one of her days off? I doubt we'll take a video of it though!

New Pajamas!

Alex and I went to CostCo the other day for groceries and we noticed they've updated their clothing offerings. While we saw a lot of clothing that we'll want to get for the boys, we decided that the AMOM buy-sell will still be our best option for cheap clothing, however we know that the boys love to wear pajamas, so we decided to go in on a set of glow-in-the-dark space themed pajamas. They're great and the boys love them. Here's another bedtime video of the little munchkins!

Spontaneous baby giggling

So while I wait for YouTube to finish uploading my movie (seriously, it's taken hours, I'm going to try and see what's wrong with my upload speed), I have another video I apparently never linked to. It's a short one watching the boys playing with a little train they got from their Grandma Laura where I caught them giggling and acting like the monkeys they wish they were. Enjoy!



PS: I know about my shaky hands; that's not my fault (well it is, but it's really hard for me to control) its the lack of image stabilization on the iPhone. If you know of a good App that takes better video, let me know!

Twice as nice!

So I know that I didn't get in my post quota for last week of one per week... BUT, I have two videos to post today! One is of the boys going to the park, which we did when Mommy was out getting rid of her old, horrible job.



The other is of the boys playing with the newly energized Tickle-me Cookie Monster. It is HILARIOUS in person; the sound from cookie is a bit faded in the video but I'm sure that you'll enjoy the babies squealing in delight none the less!



I'll also be posting a text post in a second, but the boys need to get up now!