17 weeks old, a change of plans and finally meeting some goals

It's hard to believe that the twins will be four months old this week.  They've now finally been around longer than I was on bed rest in order to bring them to term.  We'll take them into the city on Friday for their next well baby visit.  They are so big now (~13-14 lbs.), it almost seems silly that I was so obsessed over their birth weights and whether they would catch up after being so tiny. 

They are both really good babies, I know we are very lucky.  Alistair often doesn't nap as much as Marielle does and sometimes not much at all, but we manage.  I guess the trade off is they sleep great at night.  We haven't had to do anything drastic to get them to start sleeping through the night over time.  I've also just started sleeping though the night pumping, which means I'm now getting more continuous sleep than I have in many months, which is lovely, and ironically is also probably helping my milk supply.

Thankfully, the pumping routine I have set up is still working for us.  Four months down, eight more to go.  It's definitely tough, but I think/hope it's worth it.  I am consistently getting about 40 ozs/day, so we need very little formula, but it is so nice that they are not choosy about what they eat.  We are looking forward to starting to introduce them to food in the near future, when I'm sure they'll make me eat my words about them not being picky.

Things have been very busy around here.  Unfortunately, due to the bride's ailing elderly grandparents, my BIL's wedding has just been moved up from December to June.  Yes, like the month after next June.  So sadly the twins and I will not be traveling to India to attend, as they are just too young yet, but DH and MIL will.  He debated, but I insisted that he go.  She will leave in late May, two months early, to help prepare and DH will go for a week in June, when the twins and I will use the time to travel up to WI to spend time with my extended family.  Thankfully, my mother will be able to make the 300 mile trip with us, as she'll be on her way home from the dedication of my G-ma's memorial at her beloved Berea College.

This has also finally lit a fire under me to start screening sitter candidates, and as much as I was/am dreading the process, I am pleased that I've found several highly qualified nursing, education, and SLP undergrad and grad students, a few of which will hopefully work out.  The goal is get at least one of them started while MIL is still here and get a somewhat regular weekly schedule set up and also have someone who is available for when DH and I want/need to go out.

We will be starting Babygarten classes in June (the Kindermusik class is the same day/time and will therefore have to wait until Fall), and I'd like to have a sitter to come along, if possible, since now MIL will be gone by then.  I'm not sure if we'll get into the swimming class, as they will miss the six month age cut off by several days.  If not, we'll just be taking them to the pool ourselves this summer and enrolling them later.  Now that they are getting bigger, I'm also thinking of rejoining the gym and trying out the childcare there, since I haven't been making time for any exercise (other than carrying babies around) at home.

We are finally finalizing our new life insurance policies, which since we first got them several years ago I had forgotten how long it takes.  The goal of these is not full income replacement, but to make sure that if something were to happen to one or both of us over the 20 year term (while we'll be saving for), the kid's educational opportunities would be secured.  On that note, we are very happy to be ahead of our goal of saving $1K/ea/mo. for their 529 accounts.  Our #2 financial goal (after fully funding our retirement and before buying a beach house) is to fully fund their college and graduate educations, or whatever they decide to pursue.  The estimated cost of a private four year college, like I attended (w/my family's help, and lots of my work and loans), will be over $500K/each by the time they will attend.  We're also putting together a plan for them to live with my younger sister in Brooklyn, and have visitation with BIL and family in India, if something were to happen to both of us before they are grown.

I keep trying to take decent pictures of the nursery, especially since we are already talking about separating them (he can be very loud and wakes her up) which we likely will in the next few months , but I'm running up against the limits of my camera.  I had been thinking of upgrading for awhile, from the two digitals that DH has bought me since we've been together, but obviously now with the kids, we have a good reason.  I am clueless about DSLRs, but there are classes offered nearby, which should help me figure out what I'm doing.  So hopefully the photography around here will be better starting before too long...

To celebrate Mother's Day, we're taking the kids and MIL up to Lake Geneva (and the Grand Geneva specifically) for the weekend.  We really love it there and are so excited to introduce it to them after going by ourselves the last two years.

She grabbed his hand and apparently thinks they are going to make a run for it...  Until she realized they are still immobile...  Oh well, back to scheming...