Dear Jackson & Parker,

Happy Five Months, babies! 

I was intending to write this post yesterday, your actual 20-week birthday, but unfortunately I was struck down by The World’s Worst Migraine and spent the vast majority of the day hunched over the commode puking my GUTS out.  Or in bed with the curtains drawn, whimpering and begging the DAMN DOG to stop licking his DAMN paws already because the ear-splitting sound of said licking was driving me bat-shit crazy.

But don’t worry, I’m sure this wasn’t your fault AT ALL.  Just because Mommy’s hormones are all screwed up from pregnancy and IVF and when I get my period now it usually brings with it the Gift of Pain in the form of a head-splitting, stomach-emptying headache, don’t worry your pretty little heads that you are the cause…Mommy will just suffer through like all good martyrs Mommies.

So…where was I?

Oh yeah, congratulations on making it to five months!  As a quick aside, I was planning to write you every month during my pregnancy to tell you how much Daddy and I were looking forward to meeting you.  And when that didn’t happen, I was planning on shamelessly stealing from other, much more talented bloggers, and write you every month to mark the occasion of your birth.  You see how well THAT all worked out.  Please put this in the ‘Better Late Than Never’ file or perhaps the ‘It’s The Thought That Counts’ file.  Or even the ‘Things I Talk To My Therapist About’ file when the time comes.

Anyhoo…so, five months!  Wow, it’s amazing how much you guys have changed in the last couple of  months.  At first, you mostly just ate and slept, ate and slept.  With some pooping and peeing thrown in for good measure.  And then gradually, you would stay awake a little more each day.  Sometimes you’d be waking up from a nap and sitting in your bouncy chairs looking around.  "Do you think they’re bored?" I’d ask Daddy.  "Um, no.  I think just opening their eyes and looking around at the world is a lot for them right now," he’d say.

Pretty soon you were staying up more between feedings and having playtime.  Sometimes this consisted of laying on your backs on your play mat.  And not much else.  (Jax, you would always turn slightly to the right and that’s why you have a flat head, in case you’re wondering.) 

Other times playtime would include the Watson Family Dance Party. This consisted of you both sitting on your Boppies on the couch, with me in between.  We’d listen to current Top 40 hits I’d downloaded onto the Tivo from Rhapsody (I know!  Mommy is like SO technologically advanced!!) often at inappropriately high decibel levels.  I’d sing off-key and  sometimes we’d even do the wave.  (The wave is that crazy thing I’d make you do with your floppy little arms and it would remind me of attending Cal football games after drinking way too many Gin Fizzes at some fraternity and WAIT WHY AM I TELLING YOU THIS!?!) and anyway, it was lots of fun and then as soon as you got sleepy and or fussy I’d swaddle you both up like little baby burritos and off to bed you’d go.

That was when feeding you was relatively easy and I could do it by myself, with the help of the aforementioned Boppy pillows and a bunch of cotton blankets.

Now you two are very handsey.  You get distracted easily and want to hold your own bottles and get bored after a few ounces and can sometimes be, if I may say so, total PAINS in my ASS.  I think you will soon be ready for some rice cereal, which might help the situation.  Also, I recently purchased two of  these and they seem to be helping. (And might I just add: What an invention!  A little Mommy’s Helper so tiny babies can self-serve the ole formula while Mommy ducks into the kitchen for another glass of Chardonnay — LOVE IT.)

(Kidding.  Of course I’d never them leave them unattended while sucking down formula. Me? Never.)

Changes to your eating patterns have been frustrating at times.  And by ‘frustrating’ I mean hair-pulling, thrashing about, screaming and crying fits.  And I’m talking about MYSELF. I get so worked up when things aren’t going according to some plan I have in my head and for the most part, I think that’s the PPD talking.   I’m trying to roll with it a little better.

And…speaking of rolling! Playtime now includes time on your bellies, and you’ve  both started rolling over from your tummies to your backs, just to get out of the torture known as Tummy Time.  I try to announce this activity with a hearty "It’s TUMMY TIME" just like MC Hammer used to sing in ‘U Can’t Touch This’ ("It’s HAMMER time!") but that has yet to increase your enthusiasm for it, unfortunately.

And I guess the multi-colored parachute pants I don don’t help either.  In my defense, Mr. & Mrs. Miniature Blackwell, I’m still carrying around a million extra pounds of baby weight–thank you very much–and the parachute pants seem to disguise this extra weight AND make me look like I’m about to run out to the gym and lift weights  at any moment so you can suck it, with your disapproving stares and your cute little outfits that I pick out for you so you have no wardrobe concerns of your own at the moment and HOLD ON I think I am getting carried away here.

Ahem. Moving on…

So Parker, you started rolling over first.  You did it twice and then promptly forgot how. Then a week later, Jackson you started rolling over and finally your sister caught back up with you.  Now it seems like the second we place you on your tummies,  BLAM!  There you are, back on your backs, grasping at all the crazy toys we have hanging from the play mat’s canopy thing over your heads.

And you’re finally starting to like the exersaucer contraptions: Jackson you recently learned how to jump up and down and now you love it, and Peanut, your legs are just a leeeeetle too short to reach the bottom of it so it’s not your fav.  But each day it seems like you two change and do something new, which is so exciting for your Dad and me to watch.

In terms of sleeping, Parker you are a champ!  You do down easy at night and for the most part, sleep from 6:30 – 6:00 every night.  Some nights, though, you inexplicably wake up around 7:00 PM and sometimes I sneak you out of your crib, whispering ‘Don’t tell your brother’ and we hang out for a few minutes in the living room while I rock you back to sleep.  (And PS Sorry about all that Big Brother 9 you’re forced to watch…that can’t be good, can it?)

Jax, you are the tricky one when it comes to sleeping.  You always wake up, sometimes as early as 1:00 AM, sometimes as late as 4:00, but once you do it’s a constant cycle of crying-shoving of Binky into mouth-dropping Binky-resume crying-lather-rinse-repeat.  We’ve started bringing you into our room and putting you in the Pack ‘n Play so your Dad can  stick the paci back in your gaping maw without having to get out of  bed.  This is not a good long term solution, capice?  I am hoping that once you start eating some solid foods you begin sleeping better, or somehow miraculously learn how to get yourself back to sleep without the Binky Routine, or perhaps learn how to keep the GODDAMN thing in your mouth without us resorting to Duct-taping it there.  Kidding about that last one.  Sort of.

Jax, you might be considered the more dramatic one. "I wonder where he gets THAT FROM?" your grandmother sneers each time I regale her with another tale of your flair for the dramatic, making a none-too-subtle dig at my more dramatic tendencies.

Parker, you are by far the mellower baby. Sometimes I fear this works against you as the more vocal, needier baby (i.e. that other little creature flailing around next to you on the play mat that you like to stare at) often gets more attention.  Thus is the life of twins, no? 

You do get mad when we’re running a few minutes late to feed you and you’re hungry. Which? Please, I can totally understand that. But it is funny to watch because you go from cool, calm and collected to Def Con 5 (5 = losing one’s SHIT)  in about four seconds flat. One night last week your Nanny was late in giving you lunch and then discovered as she tried to give you the bottle that your nose was plugged. She decided to use the dreaded bulb syringe to extract the offending boogers and let’s just say YOU WERE NOT HAPPY about this turn of events and the whole neighborhood probably knew it.

But you didn’t just cry. No, you sort of yelled at her, if a baby can yell.  It was like baby curse words, really: "WAH BALH DA BLA BLA WAH ME  MEH"  you shrieked on and on until she finally cleaned your nose out and gave you the bottle.  But that was the exception, for the most part you are so easy-going and just kind of hang out, observing everything around you, especially your brother and Bosco, the conveniently-colored black and white dog that you love to follow around the room with your big blue eyes.

So I’ve covered your personality traits, eating and sleeping and playtime and that pretty much tells the story of your lives up to this point.

There are so many BEST parts, really. One is when you’re laying in your cribs and I peek over the side to stick my face close to yours and you both just light up and smile.  One is when you’re in the exersaucer, Jackson, and I come into the room and you start jumping up and down madly and smiling, or when I say "I’m going to eat you for dinner" and pretend to munch on your neck and ears and you giggle uncontrollably.  Parkie, our quiet moments together are sublime, like when I hold your little hands and tell you all about the mommy-daughter mani pedis we will one day get. 

And always, and this goes for both of you, when I stare into your bright blue eyes.

Such a BEST moment.

Wow, I always say, we made you. How crazy is that?!?  How crazy, awesome and incredible is THAT?? And in those moments, and in so many others, everything we went through to have you was worth it.  The heartbreak, the negative pregnancy tests, the poking and prodding by doctors and crazy-ass New Age healer-types alike, the mindbendingly-horrible Chinese herbs I choked down twice a day, the pills, the shots, the months and months that became years and years…and even now the  lack of sleep and my current battle with post partum depression and overwhelm and copious amounts of self-doubt at every step of the way — all of it. 

So beyond worth it.