Margot
and Flynn are now four and a half months old.
It seems strange to me that they were born only four and a half
months ago. Last September and our trip
to India seem a very, very long time ago.
Perhaps it’s the sleep deprivation that makes the past several months
seem like a distant memory. Perhaps it’s
because my memory is not exactly hitting on all cylinders right now.
Margot
and Flynn are now toying with the idea of sleeping through the night. They’ve experimented with it a number of
times over the past few weeks. Some
nights they have slept for as long as six and even eight hours without waking
up for a bottle. A few times both of
them have done it on the same night, but generally they like to take turns and
then consult with one another in the morning through the crib rails.
Flynn, looking through the rails at
Margot: "So, what did you think of
sleeping for so long last night?”
Margot, waving her arms at the mobile
above her head: “I’m not sure yet. It’s
a long time without a bottle, and I think Papa and Daddy like to wake up and hold
us every few hours. They get lonely I
think.”
Flynn, looking up at Margot’s mobile: “Yeah, Daddy gets up for a little snack
himself anyway. I figure I might as well
join him.”
Margot, whispering, and still waving at
her mobile: “Ssshhhh! Not so loud.
Papa doesn’t know about Daddy’s night snacks.”
Flynn, turning to contemplate his own mobile: “You know they have to wind that thing up to
make it go, right?”
Margot: “Oh. Right.”
It
does seem like we’re approaching something akin to a schedule. The twins seem to be thinking about something
that includes bottles between 5 and 6 p.m., then a little awake time with Daddy
and Papa (whoever happens to be home that night), followed by a nap until it’s
time for another bottle between 11 p.m. and midnight, and then sleep again
until 5 or 6 a.m. There are some
variations, but that’s the approximate framework at this point.
So,
perhaps we are finally moving out of the period of acute sleep deprivation. I’m glad we did it on our own – the whole sleep deprivation thing. We had help from grandparents a couple of
times, and both Ken and I traveled for work and that allowed for a bit more
sleep at times (although neither one of us gets a lot of sleep when we are away
for work, even when we need it.) But,
basically, we slogged through more than four months with sleep only in three or
four-hour increments. It is amazing what
you can do without a lot of sleep but with a lot of caffeine and a lot of will
power. And, as hard as it was and as
much as I want to remember the adventure of it all, the feeling of
the intensity of the experience is already fading a bit. I’m beginning to think sometimes that it
couldn’t have happened the way I describe it.
It couldn’t have been that bad, right?
Both of us working full time?
Busiest time of the year?
Traveling for work? Coco starting
school? Three under three? And really
only getting sleep in three or four-hour increments all that time? Seriously?
Perhaps as a reminder I’ll hang on to the memory of the time Ken was
away for work and I woke up one morning and, exhausted and not sure what
exactly had happened the night before, I got up just to make sure there was a
baby in each crib. (There was.) 
Both Margot and Flynn have reached the point where they are smiling a lot and making a lot of sounds. Margot laughed a week ago for the first time. She has also mellowed a lot; she doesn’t demand to be held as much as she used to. Flynn hasn’t laughed yet, but he likes to make sounds more than Margot does. This past week he mastered the art of rolling over. Last night he rolled over a couple of times during the night and, as much as I fear leaving him on his stomach, I didn’t roll him back over every time. I figure it must be the way he likes to sleep. They don’t like being left alone when they are awake and know you’re in the house because they just saw your face hovering above them. You can’t leave them in their cribs while you go make dinner, for example. They will cry until you bring them downstairs and put them in their bouncy chairs on the kitchen floor so they can watch all the activity.
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| Watching dinner prep. |
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| Margot's first "selfie" |
