Date Night

Eric and I had our first date Sunday night!  My parents offered to babysit, so we got ourselves ready (this included my pumping and nursing), packed up the babies with bottles and lots of diapers, and left them at my parents'.  We then went to a small restaurant in a nearby town (I am standing in front of the restaurant in the picture.  We took a second picture, in which my eyes were open, but Eric deleted/lost it somehow) with two bottles of wine.  I felt like a normal person!  I looked like a normal person!  We had a lovely dinner together and did manage to talk about things that were unrelated to the babies.  The food was also very good.  As I have said before, breastfeeding makes me extremely hungry, so I ate every bit of sauce on every plate and asked for seconds on bread.  The dessert we had was sooo good.  It was a vanilla/yellow layer cake, in between the layers was a rhubarb-strawberry compote, and then it was iced with a sour cream icing.  I think I'll try to make it this weekend with my mom.  Or have her make it, since I am always getting caught up in breastfeeding when it is time to do something useful.

There was an update I forgot to mention in my last post-- Asher has been able to turn himself over from his tummy to his back.  He first did it almost two weeks ago.  I had put him down for tummy time and ran to get myself some coffee in the kitchen.  When I came back out to the living room, he was on his back!  I put him back on his tummy and could see him working to do it again, but he didn't.  Since then, he has rolled himself one other time.  Maybe it will become a regular occurrence!  Asher is very good at tummy time, and is very strong.  Benjamin tolerates it for much shorter periods of time, and then becomes fussy and squawky.

Right now, Asher is the more patient of the two.  Asher is often happy to sit in a chair or lie on his tummy and just move his arms and legs and look around.  But if Benjamin is awake, he wants to be held.  This makes things very difficult sometimes, because it is not possible to hold Ben and feed Asher at the same time.  They are both awake more frequently now, but not always at the same time.

Of course I have the usual mommy worries about what if they're not eating enough (or, on other days, why are they eating so much?!?), why aren't they smiling at us yet, what if they are already delayed, etc.  I am not sure if I should expect them to be a little late on early milestones, since they were 4 weeks early, but I will ask the pediatrician when we go. 

We are looking into getting some help with the babies.  My mom helps everyday, but I know she is eager to have more of her own life (I know how it feels! I miss my old life!).  I am thinking perhaps a mother's helper in the mornings so that I can have some breakfast, pee, pump, and shower regularly.  And then I am going back to work 1 day a week in July and we will need someone to come spend that afternoon and evening with the babies.  It is hard to think of the money we will be spending on childcare that we don't have, but my mental health is worth it.  I guess this is the money we'll spend rather than send me to therapy!