10 Months

 This round of photographs was HARD. They're fully mobile and do not like to sit still. Especially Amelia, you would have thought I was torturing her. I didn't get many any good photos of her...so sorry about that. She just was not having it! I got some chuckles out of this set of pics though.

The biggest update is that both girls are fully mobile. They crawl, go from crawling to sitting, pull up to standing, and basically just get into everything. I've had to do about fifty rounds of baby proofing but they still find things to get. They've started pulling stuff off the dining room table. Guess it's time to actually put away the mountain of diapers.... ;)

We're also transitioning to one nap a day. I was fighting epic battles to get naps, most of the time the second nap was a complete bust. I decided everyone would be much happier if we just stopped trying for two naps. Yesterday and today we've only had one nap and it's gone pretty well. Eleanor slept for only an hour, but fell back asleep in my arms for another 45 minutes. Amelia slept for two hours straight through. I'm liking one nap a day. It makes me feel like I can get out and do stuff more. Today we went and picked blue berries and blackberries.

Food wise we're moving away from purees to just regular old table food, which the girls love. They really like feeding themselves whatever we're eating. Current favorites are blackberries, chicken, black beans, apples (that have been boiled), steamed broccoli, peas, and steamed carrots. We've also just now started to add a (small) lunch on most days. So we're up to three meals a day!

Eleanor, as I mentioned before, crawls and pulls up to standing. She even (unfortunately) can climb stairs! As always, Eleanor is the sleepless wonder and this is still one of the primary challenges with her. She usually will go down for a nap for 45 minutes to an hour. I wish it were longer but hey, I can at least get a shower in. Night time is a total crap shoot. Sometimes she's up every 2.5 hours sometimes she sleeps longer but is still usually up at least twice. I do feel a little crazy from the sleep deprivation but I'm confident she will eventually sleep. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

 As you can kind of see, Eleanor has two teeth! They came in about a week ago within a day of each other. She doesn't let me look in her mouth too much, but I think the top teeth are coming down pretty soon too.

 Oh, Amelia. She just didn't want to sit still! She's fully mobile too. Crawling, pulling up to standing, walking along furniture and will walk if you hold her hands! She's very go go go  until she drops to sleep. Constantly in motion exploring everything!

I have plenty of pictures like this. Sitting was an unhappy time, haha. No teeth for Amelia, but I think she might get them soon. She eats basically anything we put in front of her. Just today she learned how to drop food to the dog. Wonderful life skill to have ;) She sleeps pretty well at night- usually just up once around midnight. This morning she slept from 12:30-8:15! Technically that's sleeping through the night. Her naps are usually an hour and a half long but sometimes as long as 2.5 hours.

As for me, the past couple of weeks have been difficult. Since having the babies, I've struggled off and on with anxiety and probably some depression. A lot of it is related directly to lack of sleep, but I wanted to share a little bit about some of the emotional stuff because I was NOT expecting it and felt alone. I'm not sure if I officially have post partum anxiety or post partum depression, though it would not surprise me if I did, but my struggles caught me off guard because they weren't the classic anxious or depressive thoughts. For me, I just have moments of pure anger, usually set off by something very inconsequential. On more than one occasion I've had to remove myself from baby care for a few minutes to calm down. As I've done a little research, I realize this can be a symptom of PPD instead of classic depressed feelings. I've set up coping mechanisms-- talking to Brad, removing myself from the situation, learning to let go of things... but it usually comes down to something I'm trying to exert control over that cannot be controlled. My anxious thoughts are generally pretty morbid anxious thoughts-- what if I fall down the stairs with the babies? what if they don't wake up from sleeping? what if what if what if! Thankfully these are not all consuming thoughts and generally go hand in hand with days that I've felt pretty angry. I think the two go hand in hand. Usually, my struggles are not all consuming and are completely tied to not sleeping. On nights I get a manageable amount of sleep, no angry or anxious thoughts.

Anyway, I just wanted to put this out there because 1.) it feels good to be honest. Its been HARD these last 10 months and I don't want anyone to think I have my crap together. I don't. haha. 2.) I don't want anyone else to feel like they're the only angry mom out there. It does not make you a bad mother. It makes you normal. I very much encourage anyone who is struggling with these things so much that they're interfering with your everyday life to please not keep it to yourself. Discuss it with your doctor and talk about what your options are. You do not have to feel this way indefinitely.