A watched baby never sleeps

You know all of those sayings you grew up hearing? I've been making some adjustments to them. "There's no use crying over spilled milk" was obviously not said by someone who was breastfeeding (or someone who spilled milk on the laptop keyboard). And while the premise of "A watched pot never boils" makes sense, I've decided it makes more sense to say "A watched baby never sleeps." It seems true in this house!

We've been having some sleepless nights here. As they did in the womb, the girls seem to wake up and get active around 11 or so at night. That's their party time! So just as George and I are ready to go to bed, we have some fussy girls to feed, change, hold, burp, feed, hold, feed again, hold, rock, check ... well, the process goes on for a few hours. When George was at work the other night, the girls behaved for me. I think they knew Momma couldn't handle that madness, but on most nights, trying to figure out how to get them to sleep is a big mystery. Sometimes we get one to go to sleep, but if the other starts crying, you can bet the the sleepy one is now awake and back in the 'feed, change, hold, burp' cycle.

I used to wonder how they moved so much in my belly (they seemed to be all over the place sometimes). After seeing Adriana move like this, I understood it all a bit better!

At the moment, we're trying to figure out coping mechanisms. I'm trying to take more naps during the day when they seem OK with sleeping, and last night George went into the guest room to get a bit of sleep. Thank goodness he has a few days off! And we're trying to figure out magic tricks to help them quiet down a bit. You know how you can exhale with your lips together and kind of flap them against one another? The girls seem to quiet down with that noise. Odd, but it works! Well, sometimes.

So what's going on other than the sleeping dilemma? Well, we've just had a lot of visitors. Acadia came for a week shortly after the girls were born, and it was lots of fun to get to show off the girls and catch up with Acadia. We took a little trip up to Shapwick to see family, and the girls were actually really good in the car. If they started to get a bit fussy, I just would stroke their head or hold their hand. It seemed to work wonders. After Acadia, we had Megan in for a visit, which was lovely. I think she ended up missing the lovely Spanish weather (I'm afraid summer is nowhere in sight in Reading), but I also think she enjoyed seeing the girls and playing with them. And Bente came to stay after Megan left since George was working. It's been great to have all of the help - I can't imagine how I'm going to cope when the girls have me outnumbered all of the time!

The girls have started to keep their eyes open much more now.

Also, in other very big news, the girls officially have names! They're no longer Twin 1 Boeck Motum and Twin 2 Boeck Motum. (That's how they were labelled in the hospital.) George and I had an appointment at the register office yesterday, so Bente watched the girls for us while we went off to sign the paperwork. It actually makes you feel quite nervous! I think George and I read over the (very short) forms so many times - and I'm still nervous that we've spelled their names incorrectly. But here they are:

Isabella Kathrine Boeck Motum and Adriana Lynn Boeck Motum 

Hooray!