Friday, September 24, 2010

Up and Down, Round Two

So babysitter #2 just cancelled on us. She didn't even bother to contact us herself, instead relying on sitter #1 to let us know that she was ill. Sitter #1 offered to get some random friend from her hall to come with her to help out, but that just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Sitter #1 said she felt confident that she could handle the twins on her own because she used to sit for triplets back home, but considering that it takes every ounce of mental and physical strength/energy/dedication of two parents to take care of these two boys (especially during bedtime hours), I just don't believe that her prior experience taking care of pre-school triplets lends itself to the same skill required to comfort infants who can barely hold their heads up.

The "up" to this is that H is going to ask her if she might like to walk the boys around campus for an hour while we hang out at the departmental event. So I might actually get to go. We'll see. But, we are definitely cancelling for the evening dinner thing, 'cos it just doesn't feel right to me to leave the boys with one person (an 18 year old that I don't really know at all, that H barely knows...).



Another up?

JACK SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! He had a rough time going down-- he was up and down, up and down, over and over from 7:30 to 9:45 p.m. I finally gave him a pacifier (he never accepts a pacifier, but for some reason, he took one last night), and he konked out just after 9:45. When I woke up at 4:00 a.m., I was terrified that something had happened to him, but he snuffled a bit and kicked his leg a little and reassured me that he was still alive before settling back in until 6:30 a.m. Good stuff.

Down?

Henry has decided that it's Mama or NO ONE. He can be in a dead sleep, and as soon as he's in Papa's arms, he starts screaming. Fun! So even though Jack slept through the night, I got almost no sleep because my back hurt from contorting myself into crazy positions to accomodate Henry's desire to have his body squished right up against mine in the most incredibly awkward way...


Up?
I got Alexa's new book for my birthday, along with a John Denver CD, a Willie Nelson CD, and another book and a mix CD (the boys chose the songs, apparently...), and $100 cash. Oh, and some of those ice cream cupcake things from Colds.tone Creamery. And my Kindl.e will arrive sometime next week.

Down?
Um, no "down" associated with birthday presents, I don't think.

Up?

I got some incredible deals on diapers this past week, using this site:
Thrifty Couple

I'm probably the last person on the planet to know about this site, but I was able to get three jumbo packs of diapers for (essentially) free. (Well, $14 altogether, plus a $10 Rite Aid card rebate, and $6 in Rite Aid reward dollars, so actually, technically they were -$2) It's just nice to get a decent deal on things every now and then. We used to use about half cloth and half disposable, but I've gotten really lazy lately, and were down to about 10-20% cloth and the rest disposable. And DANG, disposables are expensive!

Down?

If I hadn't found good deals, I might have been more encouraged to use cloth more often. Oh, well.

So yeah. The ups and downs just keep coming...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday! Sounds like you made out pretty good. I think you made the right decision with the sitter(s). Congrats on at least one sleeping through the night.

Esperanza said...

Happy Birthday. Sorry to hear you had to cancel dinner, but I think that was the best thing to do. I know it's hard right now, and we never get to do what we want to do, but that will change in time. We will eventually get to have some time to ourselves to do what we want. Right now we just have to be selfless, incredibly selfless. A friend of mine said that sometimes she feels like motherhood is about deprivation, and I totally see that. I'm sorry you're being deprived of your big day!

Unknown said...

Good for trusting your instincts. Your babies are precious and who looks after them has to feel right or you wouldn't enjoy that evening anyway.

Lisa (ICLW #86|)

Photogrl said...

Oh, Kate...I'm so sorry sitter #2 cancelled on you!

I really hope #1 was available to watch the boys at H's event. You deserved a little down time on your birthday.

At least you got some great presents...I'm hoping Henry gets the memo, about sleeping like Jack did, soon!

Melis.sa said...

You are awesome. People stink sometimes.

You are doing such an awesome job with your boys. I hope you get to enjoy yourself this weekend.

:)

jenn said...

I'm so glad that Jack slept all night!!! Now- I hope he has a nice little conversation with Henry on how AWESOME it is to sleep all night long & you reach that magical place where you actually get more than 4 hours sleep.

Happy birthday & I am sorry it didn't turn out exactly as planned, but I hope that you get your night out sooner rather than later!

Ironically enough- my cheapness has taken all premium brand diapers & wipes out of our house to the point that when my mom gave us a pack of luv's & a box of huggie's - pumpkin got a wicked rash! Apparently she prefers the target cheapie brand too! Which is a shame because there are rarely coupons for them- and never to that extent!