Anniversaries and other matters

Emily and I have a home-made album with some pictures my Uncle took. Today is our tenth anniversary, so I had fun scanning some of them and putting them up. Markers like this help put things in perspective. Emily said "it feels like twenty years!" Then she apologized for the fact that my hair is graying. I told her it's been a good ten years--just a lot has happened.

These are busy days. I just emailed off a paper for a conference on Saturday. Emily's going to read a sermon I'm using for this Sunday (and reusing on Tuesday for chapel).

And then I just walked into the bathroom and there was a HUGE roach swimming in the toilet. Even more frighteningly, the little nob on the sink was pushed up, so I am wondering where the roach came from. Did she swim up out of the toilet? Crawl up out of the sink and push up the little plunger thing? Come from some other pipe? I really hate rainy season. Emily can kill a roach and go right back to sleep, but they always wake me up for a while.

The other good news is that the most amazing coworker in the world helped me pay my taxes. Yay! Thank you! I'm really glad we didn't have to go down to the main building.

That's the news here. Aren't you glad I don't take pictures of the roaches? Instead enjoy the two pictures above, old and new. I'm liking the scanned old black and white film, and the new slr picture also. Here's planning for another exciting decade ahead, hopefully with fewer roaches...

The Minor Rebellion of SPS

Now that the twins are sleeping well, Sam is waging a small war to have mom transferred back into our room. The downside of the twins sleeping well (ok, it's still a huge upside overall) is that Emily can't sleep in their room and so needs to sleep in our bedroom (or, the "dude room" as we've been calling it). The problem with this is that we really only have a double bed. We tried a double mattress on the floor also, but that was kind of a catastrophe; our room became a single expanse of sleeping surfaces. Then, Emily bought a tatami. The tatami is not bed for a kid, but is a bit hard for an adult. It also doesn't solve the problem, since if Emily is on the ground, then Sam wants to move down and now Emily is sharing a small tatami with Sam. Alternately, Sam and I share a bed, or we all share a bed. It's a little confusing.

The other problem is that now that Emily's back in the room, Sam "waits up" for her. By "waits up," I mean that he starts rolling around the bed, gives me little pats, says "mommy coming soon?" hopefully, and does not go to sleep. This is all around 10 when Emily is feeding the babies, which can take forty or forty-five minutes. (As I write this, I'm hopeful that the feedings may accelerate, which I remember happens in time.)

So, this leaves several possibilities:

(1) sleep train Sam now

(2) mom stays with the babies

(3) get a cot that can go in another room--not ideal since I'm often up working

(4) get a bigger bed (a real possibility, if kings exist in Taiwan)

(5) buy a twin mattress or something more comfortable than a tatami

These seem to be the possibilities. Kind of a pain right now, since sleep is so central to life. No doubt someday we will for this type of a problem, instead of whatever our new problem is (tattoos, tuition, etc.). Nonetheless, for now it's a challenge.

Photo shoot

Updates

Things are a looking a little brighter this week. The babies are coming along. They continue to be decent sleepers at night, and are eating solid foods twice a day (sweet potatoes, cereal, bananas). Eli is an enthusiastic eater. He opens his mouth expectantly, and then swallows most of it. Eva’s not quite so efficient, but all things in time. Emily was remembering that Sam used to give a little shiver whenever he’d try something new. It feels like it was just, hmm, two and a half years ago.

Sam is coming along. He’s speaking a lot more in local language. He was resisting school the first few days this week, but then seemed to go enthusiastically the last couple of days. On Thursday I watched him go in and join a group of classmates playing on mats, and then head over to do the cars to ride. The teachers all seem to love him, and he really has a community there. It’s hard to believe sometimes how quickly he is growing up.

The rest of the week has been good. I always get a bit nervous near the end of the semester. I have several sermons coming up, then grading, different projects, revisions, etc. Stressful! I think in general we are more settled than we’ve been in a while, but I still find the general stress of getting things done a bit challenging.

Mother's Day with three

Eli and Eva at church, picture by Monica

I'm not sure yet that this mother's day deserves to be recorded. It's been hit-and-miss. The babies woke early and I got up with them. I didn't hear the monitor last night and slept deeply. I was able to talk to my parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousin, all via skype. It was fun to show the kids to them and to get their take on things, and to hear a little about what parenting was like for them. My cousin Amy had babysat twins, so it was good to get her take on things.

We talked to Emily' s parents and made it to church. I made pancakes for breakfast. Emily enjoyed the service. Sam loves the church library and was (mostly) content to read about dinosaurs. A friend took some photos (posted above).

We found a new grocery store near the church. This probably doesn't seem like a major victory, but for us it was a nice surprise. It cuts out an extra trip on Sunday.

I got Sam to nap at 3:30, which was late. In retrospect, we maybe should have just kept him up. The twins, however, were fairly terrible. Finally, I took them for a walk, but even then they didn't really sleep. I feel like so much of our thought now is concentrated on sleep: the one who shouldn't nap is napping, why won't they nap, why are they getting up so early, I want to sleep but I'm not at all tired... As I write this, the twins had gone down smoothly, but Sam stayed up forever twiddling with a toy motorcycle he has. Emily's in bed convincing him to sleep, and I'm awake enough that I've given up on sleep for now and will try in another hour. Welcome to our reality...

The funny thing is that I'm 99% certain I will have no memory of any of this. Whenever I talk to parents from this stage, they haven't the vaguest memory of how it worked: "One of our kids liked to sleep in the car, but I'm not sure which one," "I think they used to get up in the middle of the night--I can't remember," "They used a pacifier, wait, maybe that was my cousin..." "I think we tried to sleep train them" "I don't remember when they weaned." Just about any question we ask--about food, naps, sicknesses--it's all just gone. I remember reading that our brains can't really remember pain--if we could we'd relive it. I think maybe this stage of parenting is kind of like that. I know it's happening, we're tired, there's a lot of fun mixed in, and yet I'll remember almost none of it. I probably won't remember that Sam used to swap between beds, complain about the noise of the air conditioner, ask for juice, or pat our hair. And I won't remember that the twins went to bed between six and seven, snacked at ten, and then could mostly sleep through. I won't remember when Eva started turning over at night (last night), when we noticed Eli's first tooth (today, on the bottom to the right), or that Eli was the messy eater the first week we started solids. I may not even remember their cries or their laughter. Eli has this series of loud "hugh!" and Eva's is a kind of screech. In both cases their laughs and cries are similar, cheerful and smiling when they are happy, angry and insistent when they're upset. It's crazy.

Mother's Day wishes to all of you out there. Thank you for putting in the hours, the time, the struggle. Thank you for your surrogacy of those who cross your paths. Thank you for the care and the love. Remember the fun times. You can forget the sleepless nights.

Night 5, about the same

Last night I got up with the twins around 3. Eva went back to sleep immediately, but Eli took a long time. I stayed up and worked on a paper (I really like it when no one else is awake) and then went back to sleep. I'm not sure professionally it's acceptable to do a 10-3, 6-9 sleep pattern, but it is kind of working for me. Nonetheless, I think we have basically four longterm sleep possibilities:

(1) Old schedule (mom feeds sporadically throughout night)
(2) Old school cry-it-out (if Eli wants to cry from 3-4, maybe that's okay, and we don't have to get up with him; I'm pretty sure this is what parents used to do in the US; I'm not sure the patting is helping either of them that much)
(3) Try Ferber for a few more weeks
(4) Add a middle of the night feeding. For instance, first time after 2 that one wakes up you go and feed both of them and come back to bed. Then we don't get them again until 6 or 7.

OK, this is probably my last sleep update for a while. I think we are trying to avoid the evils of (1) three kids in our bed, (2) sleepless, misanthropic mom, (3) psychologically wounded children. I think six months is seeming like just the perfect time to take a stab at this and then we'll see where it goes..