Sleep, Cry, Eat, Potty, Repeat

It has been way too long since I updated this.  I have 2 good excuses though, named Andrew and Michael, and they keep me pretty busy!  Rather than trying to recap everything that's happened in their first two and a half months of life, I'm going to talk about the most common things every new parent talks about: sleeping, crying, eating, and well, the effect of eating, if you know what I mean. 

The funniest story I have about sleep comes from the fourth and final night in the hospital, and Ben's first full night with the boys and I (he had to work the week they were born so he slept at home while my mom stayed in the hospital with me).

The boys were teeny tiny little peanuts and I was recovering from a rather painful surgery.  Between feeding and changing them every 3 hours to nurses constantly popping in to check on the boys and I, it was pretty difficult to get any sleep.  At some point in the middle of the night during one of the half hour stretches where we could squeeze in a nap, Andrew started crying.  I reminded Ben that it would take me at least ten minutes to get myself out of bed and even then, I couldn't pick up the baby so could he please comfort him.  He got up to snuggle Andy for a few minutes until he fell back asleep and then put him down and returned to bed.  As soon as Ben got settled to go back to sleep himself, Andy started crying again.  This happened about three more times until finally I started crying because I felt so helpless that I couldn't jump up to comfort my son.  I guess the baby crying AND me crying got to Ben because the next time Andy let out a cry Ben ran over, picked him up like a football, held him up nose to nose and asked rather loudly "ARE YOU SERIOUS?"  I'll never forget the look on either of their faces - Ben realizing that a good night sleep is something he won't be enjoying again for a long, long time, and Andrew completely obvilious to the frustration in the room, sound asleep once again, just happy to be in his daddy's arms.




"Great screaming Michael, keep it up for
5 more minutes and then I'll take over!"

 When I was pregnant, one of my biggest fears was dealing with both babies crying at the same time.  Luckily, this rarely happens except when they are both hungry and that is pretty easy to fix.  HOWEVER, our boys have mastered the skill of what I call "tag team crying".  It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like, one boy cries and cries while the other one stares at us like a perfect little angel.  It seems like the cryer will never, ever, EVER stop, when all of a sudden he turns into a little angel as well so we breathe a sigh of relief... and immediately the quiet boy starts screaming his head off. 



We had to feed them with a syringe
and even that took hours sometimes.

 I thought I ate a lot but these babies eat ALL THE TIME!!!  Especially in the first few weeks, they had to eat every 3 hours from when they last started and it took them an hour and a half to eat so we literally spend half of our day feeding, or trying to feed, the babies.  I won't go on about all the struggles I've had trying to make sure the majority of the food the boys get is breast milk except this one little thing:  Guess what my favorite food is?  PIZZA!  And guess what the one food is that really upsets their tummies after I eat it?  Any guesses???  That's right... PIZZA!  It's a small price to pay to keep my little guys happy, so it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for now.  If anyone wants to come over for a pizza pig out party on April 17th (I'm aiming to wean them when they are 6 months old), you know where to find me.  Also, the best part about feeding the boys is that as long as there is a bottle in their mouths they aren't crying, and there is little chance that they will start crying, and that is a good thing.

Finally, we all know that what goes in, must come out.  I'd heard the horror stories about baby boys giving the nice person changing their diaper a shower but, like many other things, I assumed it wouldn't happen to us or if it did, it wouldn't be a big deal.  WOW, was I wrong!  Have you ever been to a carnival and played the game where you squirt a water gun at a target until the baloon fills up with water, pops, and you win a prize?  Well, lets just say that the Petey Pair wouldn't need a water gun to play, or win, that game. 
The absolute funniest thing they've done so far happened at the doctor's office on their 1 month birthday when they were getting weighed.  This, of course, left everyone in the room vulnerable for attack since they were naked.  My mom brought Andrew over to the scale (he weighed a whopping 7 pounds 15 ounces) and while she carried him back to the table - POW - he got her down the side of her jeans.  If we had weighed him again, I bet he would have weighed 7 pounds even.  Then it was Michael's turn, I took off his diaper and - BAM - he squirted straight over his head and hit my mom in the chest.  At this point we were practically on the floor laughing hysterically, even the nurse was shrieking "I've never seen babies pee this much before!"  Andrew realized that we still had our guard down because - WHOOSH - he let loose one last time on my mom all over the bottom of her shirt.  For some reason my mom was the only casualty of this attack but now everyone is always prepared when changing diapers.  My mom even wore an apron for a week after that!