March 2015

Leo and Adrian turned three weeks old yesterday and things are going pretty well.

I might be overly optimistic, but the time between their feedings seems to be increasing a little bit. Yesterday was a 23 hour day and they did 7 feedings -- an average of 3,5 hours. That's an improvement over the 8 to 9 feedings they did only 10 days ago. And this morning they skipped a feeding! When I woke up at 7.30 am I realized we never did the 5.00 am feeding. That's probably just a random occurrence -- but it was a very welcome five hour stretch of sleep.

Leo is a fast and effective eater -- he is often satisfied after 15 minutes and then falls asleep. Well, for most feedings that is. The ones between 6.00 pm and 3.00 am are more complicated as both boys tend to fuss and need more rocking and pacifying.

Leo gained a good amount of weight since his birth and he is strong. At the pediatrician, he rolled over already.

Here are some pictures from a few days ago, when he was two weeks old.

Today Nora went to the pediatrician for her 3 year check-up. Except for a flu shot a few months ago this was Nora's first doctor appointment since a year ago.

We've read a lot of books about "going to the doctor", including Ани, who goes for a check-up too. So Nora knew roughly what to expect.

There were no shots this time and Nora did well during the visit, but I could tell it made quite an impression on her. Before we left, when I put her in the car seat, she asked me: "papa, wat gaat dokter Kim doen?". She was weighed, they took her blood pressure and length and checked her eyes and various developmental milestones.

She got quiet when the doctor talked to her in English -- even words she usually does know -- but that was no problem.

Adrian takes his time with feedings -- he just loves to hang out with mama. He gets a very warm face when he is done eating and happily falls asleep. He is often the one who wakes up first for the next round.

He has a distinct cry, it goes "laaa, laaaa".

Here are some pictures from him from yesterday when he was exactly two weeks old.

He gained a few ounces since he was born, and his body feels a little stronger and bigger already.

Leo and Adrian received their first package this week. Thank you very much for the nice presents!

They are two weeks old now, a first milestone in their development. They graduated to a bigger diaper size yesterday after some incidents. We used the Newborn size diapers I ordered 3 years ago but now we still have some left over.

It was a very icy day and our front steps are slippery so the mailman left our Amazon package for today down the stairs: another huge box of diapers, but now in the next size up (size 1). We go through a huge amount of diapers per day. It's great to be able to order everything without having to leave the house -- we even bought a new garbage can online.

When Nora was born I went back to work after two weeks -- that would be tomorrow. Thankfully that's not the case and I'm staying home for another three weeks.

So far I can say that twins are harder because there is more work but it is not twice as hard as one baby, thankfully. It is also very helpful that we have been through all this before: it is less scary and we care less about the small stuff.

They are super regular and wake up by themselves every three hours to eat. Getting up in the middle for the night is not as hard as it sound, as long as you can take a nap or two during the day. The scariest part is that you never know if they'll truly fall asleep after a feeding. If one of them has hiccups or something bothering them, it might take a while before we can all go back to sleep. That will get better over time -- they are still very little of course. It's very special to be around them, and I am very happy. It's great also to spend more time with Nora: she usually hangs out with us in the bedroom and we talk and read books a lot.