Shannon Lee Designs

I wrote the following blog post last week, but never got around to publishing it....

1-8-09

Kinzie broke my heart tonight.

She has been acting out a lot lately, and we know it is because she is trying to get attention from me and Aaron and she is feeling left out. So I’ve been asking her often how she is feeling, and she gets choked up, and tries not to cry, as she tells us nothing is wrong. For some reason she doesn’t want to tell us she feels sad, or upset. I’ve really been trying to talk to her telling her that when I am sad I talk to someone and that is what helps me feel better.

Tonight she was acting out a lot and talking back, so Aaron I and were in her room with her talking about it, and Aaron asked her “Are you feeling left out”. And she replied “Yes. Because you never play with me anymore, mommy”, as she looked at me trying so hard to hold back her tears. I just started bawling. And as soon as I did, she started crying too and she clung to me, giving me a big hug. I know that she has been feeling left out. She is used to having me all to herself all day long. I try to spend as much time with her as I can, but it is hard when the twins are nursing every 1 to 2 hours most of the time, and I am lacking sleep so badly. She asked me “can Daddy take care of the babies, and you play with me”? Now that I am getting at least a little milk pumping I will be able to do that more with her, so Aaron can feed the babies.

She seems so fragile right now, so right now I am trying to give her as much positive attention as I can. Her and I are going to go out one night next week and getting our nails painted, and maybe we’ll go out for ice cream too! She is sooo excited about it. It will be good for her and I to have some “girl time”.

As I mentioned before the babies are nursing every 1 to 2 hours, especially at night. All I really do is nurse these days. They were acting like they weren’t satisfied after nursing a lot of the time, and then they’d be hungry again in an hour or sometimes less. It was really taking a toll on me at night. There have been nights that I am in tears trying to get them to nurse enough at each feeding to satisfy them, but I just don’t know if I am producing enough. I know they say your milk will keep up with what they need to eat, but maybe it makes a difference that I am nursing 2? So the last few night we supplemented them with formula so they would take a little more and sleep a little longer. I got 3 consecutive hours of sleep which was wonderful! The next day I called the lactation nurse and now I am renting a scale to see how much they are taking in each feeding. They were only taking an ounce to 2 ounces at each feeding, but a lot of times it was only 1 ounce. So I am supposed to pump after I feed them each time to stimulate more milk production. It seems to be helping. We have supplemented with formula a couple of times, which makes me a little sad because I wanted them to be only on breastmilk. But I also need to get some sleep! I almost cried the first time I had to give them formula!!! Do you think I might still be a little emotional since having the babies!? Now that I am producing a little more, and have some expressed milk as well, I should be able to go back to just breastmilk soon.

Backtracking a little….we had a wonderful Christmas. We didn’t want to travel with the babies this year so we asked everyone to celebrate with us at our home. It was so nice to stay home with the babies. Christmas Eve we stayed in and made a nice dinner, opened gifts and made cookies for Santa as we usually do. We had a relaxing, laid back day.

And out of all the presents we got….these are our favorites!



Then on Christmas day we got up and opened up Santa gifts. Malichi’s favorite gift was his Magic Show set and Kinzie got her washing machine that she wanted. Way back in October she saw it in a magazine and she said, “Mommy, I want that washing machine so I can do my own laundry and you don’t have to anymore!” Isn’t that sweet. It goes perfectly in her little “house” she has set up downstairs. She was so funny when she opened her presents, she would get all excited and say “it’s just what I always wanted!” And Malichi has been practicing his magic tricks and has done a few Magic Shows for us.

After we finished all of that we headed to Owatonna for Tiffany and Eric’s wedding. They were originally planning to get married in July, but Eric found out he will be deployed to Iraq the beginning of February, so they wanted to move it up. He was back in MN for a few days over Christmas, so the decided to do it then. They had only about a week to put the wedding together. It was small, but beautiful. I can’t believe my baby sister is a married woman now!



The day after Christmas we had all of my family over to celebrate Christmas. My mom went a little crazy with the gifts…she brought over 90 or something like that!



Everyone spent the night and we celebrated with my Aunts and Uncles and cousins on my mom’s side the next day.

New Years Eve and New Years Day we had Aaron’s family here to celebrate Christmas. We all got matching jammies. Cute aren’t we!?



Well Christmas came and went, and now it is already January. The babies are already 6weeks old, and they are growing and changing. Scout weight 8 lbs. 6 oz. and Finley weighs 7 lbs. 7 oz. I can’t believe how well they are gaining weight! They have grown out of their preemie diapers that were even a little big on them when we brought them home from the hospital. I will have to pack away all those tiny preemie clothes now that they have outgrown them as well. They are too big now to put them in the bassinet together, they each sleep in their own now, although we have been letting them sleep in their carseats sometimes because they sleep the best in there!



Finley is still our little sleeper. He is always napping. Scout is awake a lot more, and when she is awake, she always has this surprised look on her face, with her eyes open really really wide and she gets this little wrinkle between her eyes. Aaron does a pretty funny impression of it! Finley is always raising his eyebrows, making wrinkles in his forhead, and pursing his lips like he is going to give you a kiss. He loves to lift his head and look around. He has such a strong neck just like Malichi did at this age. Scout is pretty stingy with her smiles, but we get more out of her than we do Finley. She does like to copy us sticking our tongue out at her though which is pretty cute. Finley is so serious all the time. And when he cries, his little lip comes out and he has the cutest little pout. He mostly fusses, and doesn’t cry too hard, and his little cry is so cute. Scout, she doesn’t even fuss a little first when she’s upset, she just goes right to letting out this loud wail right away. Then she stops, waits a couple seconds and lets out another one. She definitely lets you know when she’s mad! She’s got a little temper on her!

Scout loves to eat. She eats just like Kinzie did as a baby! She’ll eat so fast she starts to choke! And when she is searching for me to eat she looks so cute, she opens her eyes soo wide, and opens her mouth wide, and she gets that little wrinkle in between her eyes. Poor little Finley always has to eat last because she is so demanding! Sometimes I feed them at the same time, but it is really hard to do that on my own. I feel like a cow being milked when them at the same time! Finley is still having a hard time latching on sometimes. A lot of times he eats for a little bit and then he pulls off and then gets frustrated and frantically looks for more. Nursing 2 babies is definitely a big commitment, but It is so worth it to me.

That’s all I’ve got for now! I am really going to try to blog more often, it’s my way of documenting our lives right now!