Life is a Highway

We just got back from our first family vacation.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Babies "need" SO much stuff!  Ben and I packed 1 carry-on size suitcase for the 2 of us yet the car was packed absolutely full.  I regret not taking a photo.

 

Anyhoo, we left Friday morning at 5 am with high hopes of making it to LA by noon.  Michael helped Ben drive while Andy slept and I pumped milk for the twins (no photo available).  We arrived to Paramount EARLY.  We haven't been early to anything since October 17, 2010 so this was a huge accomplishment for our family.

We ate lunch with Ben's old boss, and then walked around hoping to spot the cast of Glee but unfortunately they were shooting off of the lot that day. 



Andy pitched some genious
movie scrpits but unfortunately
no one could understand him.



After all the Hollywood excitement we hopped back in the car to head to our final destination, San Diego.  It was a long day but we all behaved in the car and were happy to arrive at our beautiful hotel.


"Dibs on the bed.  Mom & Dad can squish into the Pack & Play"



The boys surprised me by sleeping relatively well in the hotel, and Ben by fussing a lot around 4am (I usually handle this at home so he can sleep).  The next day were were really excited about meeting up with Sara and taking the boys to the ocean for the first time.
 

Sara recently got promoted to manager so we had to celebrate.  Congratulations Sara!!  We loved spending the day with you.

 


The following morning, we went on a walk around our hotel before heading to downtown San Diego.

A few years ago I saw a fish restaurant on "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" that I thought I'd never be able try out.  Hey, you never know where life will take you and I found myself at Bluewater Grill.  We had delicious fish tacos which were pretty much impossible to eat while holding a squirmy baby but we did the best we could.


Andy was really interested in my food



Mikey was more interested in Ben's beverage

After our speed-eating lunch session, we headed downtown where we took the boys to see their first baseball field.  They were sleeping, but we saw them see it which is what really matters at this point, right?

We ended our day by visiting Coronado Island, which was as relaxing as something can be with 2 five month old boys in tow.  We found a place to sit where I could see the ocean, Ben could watch UNC lose, and the boys were out of the sun. 

After our long day of sight seeing, we returned to the hotel to relax and get ready for the big drive home in the morning.

We couldn't pass up the opportunity to eat a Pink's hot dog, so we left early enough to drive through LA around 9:30 am, when they opened and there wouldn't be a huge line.  That's right, we ate hot dogs and onion rings for breakfast and it was delicious. 



They should add a "Petey Pair" dog -
2 hot dogs covered in milk and rice cereal.



Will we be venturing out on 10 hour road trips with the boys often?  NO WAY!  But we had a great time and Michael and Andrew were good little troopers.  Other than the ride home they were in great moods and really enjoyed seeing new things.  Oh, and don't worry, Mikey really didn't help Ben drive the car, he just sat in his lap in a Burger King parking lot.

Boys = Sports

We all know that Ben was THRILLED to discover I had two boys in my belly, and there were two reasons why.  The first was that if we had a girl she would grow up and go on dates with BOYS, and he couldn't stand the thought of that.  The second was they could (hopefully) share his love for sports and competition.  I've probably made the joke over 100 times that if the boys aren't good at sports we all know who to blame - I mean, if you throw something underhand to me from 5 feet away I'll probably cover my head and jump out of the way.  Since I couldn't help them by passing along "athletic genes" and I can't help them by demonstrating any sort of coordination or athleticism, I am encouraging them in the best way I know how... dressing them up in adorable team gear, of course!

I'll start with the most obvious.  They ARE twins.  Ben was born and raised in Minnesota and has been a Twins fan since he was little.  As a Cubs fan in Chicago pointed out, "Wow - you're a Twins fan and you're having twins!?!?  That would be like me giving birth to a baby bear."  As you can see, almost immediately they were shown which baseball team they will cheer for.  I'm a Cubs fan, but loving the Cubs sets you up for a lifetime of disappointment so I'm OK with the boys liking the Twins more.  We'll all hate the White Sox equally.

Next the boys had to learn which pro football team they would show their allegiance to.  Uncle Brad bought them these Vikings jerseys and no, he didn't have them specially made, there is a player on the team with our last name (no relation of course).  Unfortunately, the Vikings had a pretty bad season, and Bret Favre was all sorts of embarrassing, but hopefully by the time the boys are old enough to watch the game (next year?) the quarterback will be Tim Tebow and he, Percy, and cousin Adriane will give the boys a reason to be proud to wear purple and gold.

Although the boys are set to grow up in California, hockey will be as much a part of their lives as if they were in Minnesota.  Ben has already researched mini mites teams in the area and plans to have the boys on skates the same day they can walk.  We do have a San Jose Sharks team, but Andy and Mikey will support the Minnesota Wild like their Daddy. 

Since this is the only team I'm bringing to the table, I am going to lobby pretty hard for the Petey Pair to be Florida Gator fans.  I've been singing "We are the boys" and watching all the football games with them, but after the season we had I can understand why the boys aren't too happy wearing orange and blue.  I will enjoy telling them how we destroyed Ohio State (41-14) and beat Oklahoma (24-14) to win 2 national champoinships in 3 years.  Hopefully they can experience similar Gator greatness in the near future.



"Let's go Duke!"  I hear this a lot during college basketball season, and expect to hear a lot more of it once the boys are talking (perhaps in time for March Madness.  They are very advanced, you know).  Since we found out I was pregnant, Duke has only lost 1 game and they are the current National Champions so the boys are thrilled to wear Duke Blue.

Michael and Andrew will always know that we love them no matter what choices they make in life.  They can pursue any interests they have, be whatever they want, marry whoever they choose... as long as they are fans of these teams.  Just kidding...  well maybe except for Duke.

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! 

 

Ready Or Not...

There is a saying "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."  These words must have run through my head hundreds, if not thousands of times throughout my pregnancy.  Every time I proudly told someone "I'm having a scheduled c-section on October 23!" in the back of my mind I'd have a flash of doubt.  It was not up to me to schedule someone's birthday.  I loved the idea of having a timeline and a plan, and since everything else about the pregnancy went smoothly, I didn't let myself worry about things not going my way.  I must have been making God laugh pretty hard...

Sunday, October 17 at 8pm: 
Ben, my mom (THANKFULLY she moved her flight up 4 days and was already in Cali), and I had just finished dinner and were lounging around on the couch watching TV.  I was mentally counting down the days and hours until my c-section, when I felt and heard a "POP!" and shuffled off to the bathroom.  My head was spinning.  I ignored all the labor sections of the 10 pregnancy books I read because I planned to skip that part.  We still had 5 days and 14 hours until the boys were going to arrive!!  All I knew was the majority of women are already far into labor before their water breaks.  I had ZERO contractions, no pain, nothing...  and my water certainly had broken.  My doctor wasn't even in town!  It was all very overwhelming but we managed to collect our things and rush off to the hospital.  (Here's an embarrassing tid-bit: I wore a newborn diaper on the car ride there to absorb the "water".  Let's just say that's not what they were made for.)

9:00 PM

Everything moved really quickly once we arrived at the hospital.  I barely remember being wheeled up to Labor & Delivery and before I knew it I was wearing a gown, hooked up to a bunch of monitors, had an IV in my arm, and the worst pain I've ever felt ripped through my body every minute.  I was screaming for pain medicine almost immediately.  By the time the anesthesiologist arrived he could have told me that his method for managing pain was removing my head, keeping it on ice, and reattaching it to my body after the boys were born and I would have jumped at the opportunity.  The nurse informed me I was only 2-3 centimeters dialated.  I thought "Who cares?  I'm having a c-section, lady.  Please stop touching me unless you have pain killers."  Then my doctor arrived - it was a miracle!  I thought she was out of town but she had just stepped off a plane from Chicago, turned on her phone, and received the call that I was in labor so she rushed over to deliver our babies.  Then she checked me not 5 minutes later and I was progressing very quickly - 5-6 centimeters - so I was rushed off to get things started before I delivered the boys on my own.

10:00 PM

After being rolled into the operating room and given a spinal (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh relief!) things really started to get dramatic.  I was pretty out of it because they let me suck on the nitrus gas while they gave me the shot but I knew something was wrong.  I heard my doctor say "baby's heart rate is dropping, we have to get him out now."  I looked over at Ben who was bent over praying.  Before I could muster the courage to ask "What's wrong?" at 10:20pm I heard it:  "WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"  Our son was announcing his arrival into the world.  It was the best noise ever.  Ben ran over to meet him and a minute later I heard the next "WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"  2 babies.  2 cries.  2 miracles.  I laughed and cried and begged that someone bring them over so I could see them.  Ben proudly appeared from behind the curtain with a tiny 5 pound 7 ounce bundle.  "This is Michael John."  I couldn't believe how little he was.  And how full of life he was.  And how perfect he was.  AND HE WAS OURS.  Then Ben disappeared and came back with a slightly larger 5 pound 10 ounce bundle "This is Andrew Douglas."  Another perfect little boy.  Michael and Andrew.  I loved the names Ben picked.  I loved Ben.  I loved our sons.  We were a family.

I'll spare you the details of my drama of being put back together again and share some picks of Ben and the babies during their first hour of life.


Ben bringing Michael and Andrew to meet Grandma



Michael holding his Daddy's hand



Andrew trying to smile at his Daddy

After what seemed like an eternity I was finally taken to recovery where I got to hold my boys for the first time.  Andrew came out first and when Ben put him in my arms it was truly amazing.  It is hard to put into words but it was like every birthday and Christmas and any other great day of my life rolled up into the happiest moment possible.  I couldn't stop staring at him until Michael came out to join us.  They were the sweetest little boys I've ever seen.  And I was their Mommy!! 

Not an illusion, this is actual MAGIC!

Being pregnant is an awful lot like watching and performing the best magic show ever... for 8 months and counting.  The first "trick" I performed was finally, FINALLY making 2 lines appear on a pregnancy test. 



 

The picture is blurry and the 2nd line is very light, but seeing it appear before my eyes was one of the most exciting moments of my life.

Our first ultrasound was truly amazing.  I had some health issues so I had seen many ultrasounds of my empty uterus.  This time was different...  the tech got out the wand to take a peek and *POOF* there were not 1, but 2 little bubbles in there - TWINS!  Just like in the magic show when we're shown the empty cage from every angle and then a white tiger appears, where there once was nothing there now was something... 2 somethings.. no wait, 2 someONEs inside my belly.  Ben's reaction still cracks me up.  All he could say was "I don't want to drive a mini-van!" 

We went back the following week to check on the babies and were surprised to see how much things had changed in there.  Not only did the bubbles have "stuff" inside them, but part of that "stuff" was flickering.  That's right ladies and gentleman, there were 2 HEARTBEATS!

The next "trick" the babies performed for us was morphing from a blob into a cuter blob with a separate head and body.

After that they were really determined to impress us.  They soon developed "arm buds" and kind of looked like little babies.  At this point I started to become impatient waiting for the magic on my side to start happening.  When would I feel them move?  When would my belly start growing impossibly huge?  Boy would I regret wishing for that last thing.

At just over 13 weeks along I had to go for scary tests to see if the babies were at risk for any chromosonal issues (fortunately, chances are they are not).  I was so nervous to go in but it ended up being a wonderful doctor's visit where I got to see the kids for over half an hour.  I was in awe at how much they had changed.  They had arms, legs, and FACES!  They could move around and did quite a bit.  Baby "B" even got the hiccups! 

It was truly a miracle to see these little people evolve so quickly from nothing into actual babies who already seemed to have minds of their own, and I was only 3 months pregnant!

Our next visit with the babies was "THE" visit.  The one where they would reveal all their secrets...  would we have girls or boys?  My whole life I only pictured myself with daughters but from the second I saw that 2nd line on the pregnancy test I KNEW snakes and snails and puppy dog tails were in my future.  I guess I have ability to tell the future - does that count as magic?  :) 

Within a few seconds the tech confirmed that baby "B" was in fact male.  He was laying there, legs open, letting it all hang out.  Baby "A" was much more difficult.  He had his legs crossed with the cord between them, but for a

split second he flashed us and sure enough, I was right, 2 boys!!!  Ben was so revieved, I don't think he had a second to enjoy my pregnancy up until that point because he was so worried that (in his own words): "One day a little girl will grow up and a boy will try to take her on a date.  I just can't handle that!!"  Now he has 2 sons to scare some other poor father to death in 15 years.  As usual, the boys were not very coorperative with photos so here is a baby head and a baby foot.

Not long after this, Ben and I were walking Oscar when it FINALLY happened.  I doubled over, holding my stomach in disbelief.  Someone MOVED inside my belly... and I felt it, like fingers drumming lightly on the inside of my skin.  Around this time was also when I began my amazing transformation from a regular girl into a pregnant girl with a remarkably HUGE tummy.  I know you've all seen the pictures but I don't know if they really do it justice.  I've gotten so large that I've seriously considered cutting a hole in our bedsheet to pull my head through and wearing that for the next 2 weeks.  I guess that would "magically" turn me into a single mother though as I'm sure Ben would be horrified and disgusted.  :)

All of the pictures of the boys between the "big reveal" and now look pretty alien like because they were too big, cramped, and camera shy to give us any good poses, but at my very last ultrasound we got this cute picture of baby "B" sucking his thumb.  It is kind of difficult to make out but his face is to the right and he is looking straight at us.

Now the anticipation is building for the grand finale.  In 12 days we experience the greatest magic of all - when 2 Petersons enter a room and we exit as a family of 4.