Technically he’s been doing school for a couple years, but it was preschool. This rite of passage into Kindergarten feels much more significant.

So last night we had our first homework assignment. However…

• school hasn’t even started.
• somehow it was me & Abraham doing the assignment.

The assignment was to construct a little “All About Me” box with a few things in it to help the teacher and other students get to know each other. Cute idea, I’m totally behind it. But when I think about the assignment, I keep thinking about it from my perspective, because I ended up doing most of the work!

Part 1: Find a suitable box.
Part 2: Wrap said box (because I couldn’t just schlep him off to school with a bare cardboard box with Amazon labels all over it). I chose to just use a brown paper bag so he could decorate it in his own style (AND I didn’t have enough of any one kind of wrapping paper).
Part 3: Decorate the box (we did this together today).
Part 4: Help him think of things that would be good for the box. (Which also means steering him away from some of the more, um, how do I say?… creative ideas he came up with.)
Part 5: Print out a picture of our family for the box.

This is getting kinda labor-intensive if you ask me! Last night it took me and Abraham working together about 15 minutes to get the box wrapped. I turned to Abraham at one point and said,

‘Welcome to the world of school-aged children. This is just the beginning, you know. Soon there’s going to be science fairs and colonial bizarres. This isn’t going to end for a looong time.’

Now, I’m not complaining. I value education. I value that I have options and I’m not homeschooling right now. I value that he’s going to a school where he’ll learn new and wonderful things.

But I realized last night that soon I’ll be doing homework for with 4 children. (Sigh…). I am entering into the world of the school-aged mom.

At three weeks, this is Miss Cadence (aka Baby CayCay, Cade, Cage, Cagey, Cackamalatchee):

She seems like she’s grown up a TON in the last few weeks. Not that she’s really doing anything different, she just looks different! Sometimes she looks so grown up, and then I start crying because there’s already three weeks gone of her life, and I’ll only be able to remember so little of it. That’s the part that kills me.

She is a pretty chill baby still, but has some gas issues that sometimes make evenings and nights difficult. Why does it always get worse at night?

Anyway, Cadence is pretty big time, and we love having a little girl in our home.

At three weeks, this is Mister Whitsun (aka Whit, Wichita, Wee Willy Whitsun, Whittaker, Sandwich):

Whit looks soooo much like Orison when he was a baby. So much so that sometimes it feels like a do-over. His cry sounds exactly like Orison’s did, he has swirly cowlicks like Orison did, and he even spits up like Orison did.

This kid can pee through five outfits in a day, no joke. Somehow he finds a way to pee out the side or top of his diaper no matter how diligent mommy is about getting that rascal pointed down! I’ve had 3 boys now, and I’ve never had this problem before. He is so laid-back, though. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all!

He loooves his pacifiers, he’s kinda pokey at the breast, and he loves his supplement bottles (sucks them down in record time). He’s a pretty good burper (as opposed to his sister who takes her sweet old time).

And here’s Molly at three weeks (aka Mom, Mommy):

Overall, I feel like I’m doing pretty well! The twins sleep decently at night. They still get up to nurse 2 times at night, but that’s okay. For some reason the 1am feeding feels awful, but the 4am feeding seems doable. Go figure.

I’m nursing them mostly, and providing some supplemental bottles. They are doing very well with both and gaining weight (which is the most important thing in my mind). I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say right now that I think nipple confusion is the biggest myth ever sold to moms. Okay, there, I said it. Glad to get that off my chest.

I’ve had help at home from various family members and friends every weekday since Abraham went back to work–that’s been the hugest blessing for me. There’s simply no way I would make it through a day at this point. I feel like I could either take care of my big boys by myself or take care of the twins by myself, but definitely not all four together. There is truly a village of people taking care of us right now. I couldn’t be more thankful. And if you want to come help some day, let me know. I’ll put you to work!

We still have meals coming too! Again, so thankful for all of you! Without having to factor meal preparation into my days I can actually keep my head above water. I’ll probably need some ongoing help with that, so if one of your spiritual gifts is browning ground beef or cooking chicken breasts, let me know!

So that’s about it! The twins say “thank you” to all of you for loving them, near and far!

(Photos by Wendy Maybury)

So I searched infant massage and got tons of results for relieving gas. Perfect!

I clicked on the first one and began watching it. It was a woman with her maybe three-month-old daughter and it seemed pretty easy to follow along with, so I backed it up and started it again, this time doing it along with Cadence.

I got two and half minutes into the video when this happened:

WHAT?!?!

Abraham and I were in shock! Our heads snapped over at each other with mouths gaping open. What are the chances of that?

We went back and played it again to make sure we heard it correctly. Talk about weird!

So somewhere out there, another little Cadence’s former gas issues have helped our little Cadence with her gas issues. The internet is so freaky.

We celebrated with our family of SIX(!!!) and our friend Wendy Maybury, who just happens to be a professional photographer and just happened to bring her awesome camera and her love for our kids along.

Morrow is in love with all sports that involve a ball. His favorite at this juncture is basketball. So I attempted basketball cupcakes!

Feel free to submit these to Cake Wrecks if you feel you must. I don’t have the steadiest hand, if you couldn’t tell! I went back and forth between thinking that some of them looked cute and thinking that they looked like spiderwebs. You decide.

Regardless, this was how Morrow felt about them:

And this is how Morrow looked when he was eating one:

Pure enjoyment! I’m no Martha Stewart when it comes to how my cupcakes look, but I’ll take that smile over perfect cupcakes any day!

For the occasion, Cadence wore her first dress! Morrow is in love with the twins. He loves to hold them, give them kisses, throw their dirty diapers in the garbage, and get clean diapers out of the diaper basket.

Orison and Morrow shared some sparkling grape juice for the special day. I love how this picture turned out. It looks like stock photography or something (except for the fact that it looks like our 5-year-old is drinking wine).

I can’t believe it’s been two years since Morrow came into our lives! In some ways it feels like yesterday, and in some ways it feels like we’ve always had him in our family. He brings such laughter into our lives every day.

Happy birthday, Johnner. We love you so very much!

I promise to write some more in the next few days to fill you all in on how things have been going. Most of the time it’s been going really well, thank you GOD!

The babies are amazing, and I love having two. Not to say there won’t be some difficult times when I’ll want to puncture my own ear drums to block out their crying, but hey…so far, so good!

Feel free to gush about them in the comments or over at Abraham’s blog (HA!)

Whitsun Robert (L), Cadence Felicity (R)

Many of you have been thinking about our baby names pretty much since we told you we were having a baby. Somehow our baby-naming philosophy has intrigued you.

Some of you already know this, but we try to name our kids with real English words that mean something significant to us.

So, here we go…

Our newest daughter is Cadence. I’ve always thought of her name being taken from definition #2, “a sequence of notes or chords…”.

It makes me think of a few things, and this is my brain-dump about how this all comes together for me:

• Henri Nouwen’s book The Dance of Life: Weaving Sorrows and Blessings into One Joyful Step. I love this book. I love the title alone.
• To have a dance [of life], you must have music. God is writing music, a score, that we’re all somehow dancing to. Sometimes it’s a jig, sometimes it’s a dirge.
• When I think of the swells and lulls of the music of our lives the past few years, cadence was a fitting word.
• I think of all the times the Bible talks about “a new song.” And when you add her middle name (Felicity=joy) to that, it makes me think (and hope) for the new song of joy that God is writing in our lives through the birth of these twins.

Did you follow that? And of course, her middle name is Felicity, in honor of her older sister, now almost three years in the presence of Christ.

Now, next up…our son Whitsun.

How’s that for unhelpful? Here, maybe this’ll help:

We’re already kinda planning to call him Whit. When I think of Whitsun, I think of:

• Pentecost: how cool was that?
• How little I understand of the Holy Spirit, and how I pray for little Whit, that he will be filled with the Holy Spirit from a young age, following Christ in heart and deed.
• How I pray for our family, for a fresh falling of the Holy Spirit. I want to pray that more often.

And Robert is my dad’s name. I wish I had it on video when he heard that he got the middle name. He was so teary and awesome and cute. My dad is amazing. It was our hope to find a name that went well with Robert, and I think Whitsun does it. We love you so much, Dad/Papa. It’s an honor to have a son who shares your name.

So, Cadence Felicity and Whitsun Robert.

I don’t think Molly will mind me coming on her blog to tell you about our new babies. I’ll just make the announcement and Molly can tell the story with more and better pictures later…

Cadence Felicity
1:54 PM, August 2, 2010
5 lbs, 14 oz
18 7/8″

Whitsun Robert
2:00 PM, August 2, 2010
6 lbs, 8 oz
19″

The babies are healthy and keeping warm in the nursery right now. Molly’s doing great, just very tired.

And for fun I’ll give you a teaser for the birth story… It includes a doctor saying, “Don’t put a sheet on her in case we deliver in the hall.”

Thanks to my small army of volunteers, here’s how it looks!

This is the girl crib:

This is the boy crib:

This is the boy dresser: (see, Jenny, I need your expert dot-placing help!!!)

Here’s the breakdown:

Jenna helped me sew the bumpers. She was the most patient person while I went from learning how to thread my sewing machine, to making my own bias tape, to finishing the final seam. We finished these bumpers a couple nights ago at 12:30am!

My friend Carol (who doesn’t have a blog) sewed the sheets with/for me. She’s a long-time friend of my husband’s family, and I’ve loved getting to know her through the years. Our times together are always special and really fun!

Abraham gave new life to two old dressers with his awesome paint job! I love how they turned out!

Jenny helped me with the vinyl transfer on the wall (“He gives”). Neither of us had ever done one before and it was kinda funny. She also did the dots over the red (girl) dresser. Everything she touches turns beautiful.

Danielle designed and ordered the “He gives” vinyl for me. She’s amazing.

If you look on the red dresser, you’ll see 3 little canvases. They were painted by my friend Andie. She made a second set for the other twin, but after we found out that Twin B was actually a boy, she offered to take them back and repaint them to look a little more boyish. She’s still working on the second set, and I’m so excited to see them (no pressure, Andie! I mean it!).

And also on the red dresser is a figure of a woman carrying two babies. That came from the amazing women at the Real Hope for Haiti Rescue Center, Licia and Lori! When my parents-in-law visited them a couple months ago, they gave this to them for me and told them that this type of figurine is very popular in the Haiti markets, but it was the first time they’d seen one with a woman holding 2 babies! Thank you, Licia & Lori and the whole Zachary clan. You all amaze me with your work and your hearts for people and God!

Now the countdown is ON! 3 more days!!!

]]> http://mollypiper.com/2010/07/the-twins-room-is-done/feed/ 59 http://mollypiper.com/2010/07/grieving-moms-you-never-know-where-youll-meet-one/ http://mollypiper.com/2010/07/grieving-moms-you-never-know-where-youll-meet-one/#comments Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:43:35 +0000 Molly Piper http://mollypiper.com/?p=2075 Last night, Abraham and I went on a double-date with his parents. It was nice to have a relaxing conversation with them over dinner, especially knowing that it’ll be one of my last ones for a very long time.

After dinner, Abraham’s dad wanted to drive out to the suburbs to look at a treadmill he was thinking of buying from Craigslist. We ended up driving through a deluge on the way, which made the trip memorable and funny at times. Seriously, the wind was blowing so hard that the water laying on the street was moving uphill. Lightning and thunder were crashing everywhere around our little minivan.

With my trusty mother-in-law navigating, we arrived at this really nice suburban home and were greeted by a beautiful woman in her mid-late 30s (I’d guess). Dark brown hair, very fit, very smiley. She started demonstrating the treadmill for my father-in-law and things were going well. The rain had let up considerably so I got out of the van to go take a peek.

There’s no hiding at this point that I’m very, very pregnant, so we had a conversation about the obvious. She asked where I was delivering, and I told her. She perked right up, and asked who my doctor was, and I told her. When she heard my doctor’s name she just gushed and said, “I delivered my twins there. She was one of my doctors!” Then, kind of waving her hands in front of herself dismissively, she continued, “But I’m not even going to get into it with you.”

There was something she didn’t want to tell me because I was pregnant. So I just went ahead and told her: “One of the reasons she’s my doctor is because we had a full-term stillbirth in 2007. Dr. Sent-From-God (*not her actual name*) is my rock star doctor.”

Then she just opened right up. She told me about her twins who were born at 25 weeks back in 2002, after 6 weeks of her being in the hospital to try to save the pregnancy. One died soon after birth, and the other lived for a couple months before dying as well.

So there we were, two women standing in a suburban garage with real-life horror stories no one should ever have to tell. But I’m so glad we did. The differences between us were no longer there. We were just two women who’ve gone on living, even while we miss our children.

I was honored to be there, to hear the abridged version of her story. She asked that my father-in-law email her when our twins are born.

We drove away (treadmill in our possession) into a beautiful rainbow that had formed after the huge storm. I’m not kidding–it really happened. None of us had our cameras with us to take a picture (which is extremely rare if you know my mother-in-law).

It felt very profound and symbolic for me, though–terrible, blinding storms followed by a beautiful calm. I don’t know if this woman feels that same peace and calm in her soul. She mentioned “God’s plan” and “keeping the faith.” I was just touched by God’s special comfort to me after our interaction. It was like he was saying, “You’ve gone through horrific times, but there will also be repose. I cause grief, but I also show compassion.”

But even more than that, I felt just this utter sense of God’s presence, his plan, bringing me into this stranger’s garage. I was reminded once again that we never know what’s just below the surface, what trials others who we meet have faced. In some strange way it’s comforting, this crazy bond of suffering. We’ll meet each other in train stations, on airplanes, on the other side of the world, on the internet, at work. It reminded me to keep my eyes and ears and heart open.

I had another ultrasound on Monday morning and have some good things to share:

• Both babies were head-down! That means I should be able to have a normal delivery. That would be incredible, so please pray that they both stay head down. They said there’s still a chance that they could flip, but it’s kind of unlikely.
• Baby A was estimated at 5 pounds, 9 ounces and Baby B was estimated at 6 pounds, 5 ounces. They said that the ultrasound measurements can be off by a pound or more, so I have to hold that pretty loosely. But even if they’re off by a whole pound, the babies are growing well! This also means that I potentially already have over 11 pounds of baby right now.
• Both babies are moving well and their heart rates are very good.

I wish I had a couple pictures for this post, but the babies are growing so big that getting decent pictures of their faces is more and more difficult! It’s just a jumble of baby parts in there.

Update on Mom:

• My blood pressure is good.
• I’m not too terribly swollen.
• It’s excruciating to roll over at night and get up to go to the bathroom. It’s like my muscles just give up. At the worst times I have to wake Abraham to escort me to make sure I don’t fall.
• I’ve been having some help with the boys 2 mornings a week at home from a mother’s helper. She’s an 11-year-old friend of the family and she’s doing AMAZING! And one other morning a week, my friend from church takes the boys to her house for the morning. Having 3 of 5 days covered is helping a ton.
• I’m really sick of cheese sticks and granola bars.
• We’re still planning an induction for August 2, when I’ll be 36.5 weeks along. Due to the unexplained, full-term death in my history, my doctor feels this is the best course of action (and I trust her very much). When weighing near-term prematurity against full-term death, I feel very happy with our decision to go ahead and have them a little early. I know some of you won’t agree, but that’s where I feel at peace for the health and safety of my two babies.
• It’s possible that my body could decide it’s time before 36.5 weeks. They say that 50% of twins come by 35 weeks. I’m praying that everyone stays healthy and happy inside until August 2, though.
• Moving around is exhausting. We have very little on our calendar right now. I suppose that’s just preparing us for how little we’ll be able to do once they come!
• I think we’ve settled on both of their names! We’ve had the girl name for quite some time, but boy names were killing us! It feels good to have that mostly settled. A little suspense for ya!

Thanks for all of your prayers and encouragement! We are so thankful for the support!