Teeth & Tiredness

Owen has been having a lot of trouble sleeping through the night for the past week or so. His soother drops onto the floor and he wakes up crying, needing his mummy to give him a cuddle, pop his soother back in and stroke his hair. He actually pats my hand with his chubby little hand when I'm smoothing his fuzzy hair. So sweet. I thought he was just struggling to get those first two top teeth out, since I could see them pushing at his gums, but yesterday afternoon I looked a little more closely (you have to hold the boys upside down to make them giggle in order to see into their mouths - strange but true) and there was a third bottom tooth poking through! So Owen now has 5 teeth. Amazing.

Of course I immediately checked on Will's tooth and gum situation and can see his third bottom tooth pushing its way up and out as well. He's been very quiet about the whole teething thing though. I don't want to categorize my boys or anything, but it does seem that Owen is quick to cry when he's annoyed, in pain or tired, whereas William seems to tough it out. So, definitely a Pergant in Owen and a Johnson in William! LOL.

Because they've been teething, neither of the boys seem that interested in food this week. Last week I couldn't give them enough food, so I think maybe they were having a growth spurt. I gave them everything from tofu to kiwi and they gobbled it down. This week they just move the food around their trays and frown. Either I'm not making interesting food (I can almost hear Jon agreeing with this, since I know how he feels about tofu!) or the teeth and gum soreness is just making mealtimes a chore for them.

Other fun things this week - they've been chasing each other around the living room and giggling like crazy; they've played peekaboo with each other with the curtains by the patio door, again much giggling; Owen can clap his hands together and does it quite a lot now, with a big grin on his face - so cute!; they love to chase poor Jack off his bed and then lie or bounce on it. I dread to think of all the dog hairs they must be eating.

Best thing of all is that Mark has been home at 6:30 every night this week. What a difference that makes! So nice to have dinner with someone and to have a helping hand to put the boys to bed. I was really exhausted last week, as I'm sure he was too. Actually, we just realised this morning that Mark might have been doubly tired this past week because the Starbucks Komodo Dragon coffee I bought him the other day was actually decaf! Poor Sparky! No wonder he had a headache all day last Saturday! No wonder he felt listless all day Sunday! But to be fair to me, the word decaf on the label was tiny, there was no way a mother of twins in a hurry at Starbucks would have seen something like that. They need to make their decaf bags a different colour, like neon or something.

And speaking of being a mother of twins, I think I shamed myself at the baby club I've been going to for the past couple of weeks. There's an Early Years Centre about 5 mins drive away from us that has a 6-12 month old baby club every Friday morning. I've really enjoyed going there as I meet other mums and babies, my guys can play with them and with all the toys, and we sing to the babies and chat. Its great. When I turn up with my boys, I get a lot of "wow, how are you coping?" and "you must be exhausted!" comments from the other mums, and I kind of pride myself on how well I have been coping and how, sure, I'm tired, but I can still be friendly and have fun, you know? Well...yesterday, after a week and a bit of not sleeping through the night due to the aforementioned teething and cuddling with Owen, I was a bit of a wreck. The boys woke up before I could grab a shower, so my hair was a little, um...gross. I put a hairband in, threw some clothes on and washed my face and figured, whatever, I'm not that bad. I was tired though, and I could feel the suitcases under my eyes.

By the time we got to baby club, it was really hot and humid out. I guess getting the two boys out of their car seats and into the stroller was a bit much for me or something. And I guess they were just really excited to see all their fellow babies, because all hell broke loose once we got up to the club. I put the boys down on the mats and they were off in all directions, mowing down babies right, left and centre, poking them in the eyes, pulling their hair, stealing their soothers and trying to make off with their bottles. And there I am trying to keep them under control, picking one up and then chasing down the other one (did I tell you Owen is currently training to break the land speed record?). So within about ten minutes, I am a sweaty, tired, overwhelmed mess. I've actually got sweat stains on my t-shirt (one of my biggest pet peeves, along with an empty loo roll holder), my greasy hair is in my eyes and all I want to do is curl into a ball and sleep. The other mothers are looking at me with a mixture of pity and quite possibly distaste. If any of them ever thought I was doing well, seemed competent, etc, that thought has now been firmly shelved. They'll never want to have twins because, my god, I mean, look what it does to you. And its at this point that I look over and see one of the other mothers in a beautiful summer dress, looking cool, calm and collected, breastfeeding her son. She is everything I am not at this point and I just want to either pull her hair or be her best friend, I can't decide. I settle on skulking off home the minute the club is over and decide that tomorrow will be a better day.

And now its tomorrow, Mark is home reading the paper, the dog is asleep on his bed and the boys are playing with the carrot and the dinosaurs. We are the perfect family for the moment. So I'm about to have my shower and I might even try to find a summer dress to wear. Although we're going to home depot, so maybe not.

More pics will be up eventually, I just have to clear some space on my computer. Patience, they'll be worth the wait!