Going Undercover

Hi! Guess what? (*Cue thematic music*)

We’re going undercover. No, not country-hopping as secret spies (oh but that would be fun, huh?), but our blog is going undercover.

We’ve loved sharing our adoption story and day-to-day tidbits about the kids and we sure love how many of you follow along! We have more readers than people we know (hi there, nice to meet you!) and we want to keep going. To protect our privacy as we share our lives and what’s to come (to be continued…), we’re giving everyone an alias and moving to a new site.

It’s shiny! It’s new! Come check it out: www.adoptionistas.com

All of our old stories and photos have been lugged over (I think I pulled a muscle) and everyone has a new alias. We’re also fitting the babies for mini-Glocks and there has been a lot of black spandex around here lately.

We Came. We Saw. We Swam.

Oliver spent most of the time doing this:

While Sailor spent most of the time doing this:

And We Finally Get a Frameable Pic!

Now hanging in the playroom:

Some other cute ones from our photoshoot morning:

 

The little guy who couldn’t even support his head when we first got him is now a tummy time champ!

I guess she now poses with her hand on her hip? This child has too much personality for one tiny baby girl!

This girl loves her books 🙂

Sailor has decided that under certain circumstances (carseat, stroller, highchair) she can hold her own bottle. On our laps she acts like this is a ridiculous idea.

And Again We Try Taking Pictures of the Two of Them.

[for Episode 1, see here]

One smiles adorably while the other chews on a stuffed animal:

Baby down! Baby down! And we’ll claw out his eyes!

“Oooh, what’s this, an EAR?! Let me pull it right off!”

“Argh!! You wanted me to make my pirate face, right?”

First Doc Visit

Took the babies to the pediatrician our first week home. Results:

• Two ear infections (boo, but we suspected as much)
• Oliver: 13 lbs 7 oz
• Sailor: 14 lbs 10 oz
• Order for a gazillion diagnostic tests to double-check for all the things they were tested for in Africa
• Increasing Ollie’s already high-calorie preemie formula to be even higher cal
• Overall, doc said that both babies looked good

The highlight (other than Ol’s weight) was the receptionist, who couldn’t see the babies sitting in the stroller over the counter, asking “would you describe them as latino, hispanic, or mexican?” Nope, no, we wouldn’t, actually. Ryan’s expression was pretty funny.

Because I’m sure you haven’t seen enough pictures of our babies.

(We’re kinda in love.)

Notice the leisurely leg position…

This awkward nap position gave us a laugh.

We Heart Baby Gear.

About a week and a half home now and things have calmed down – the babies still wake 5-10 times a night each (although miraculously, they never wake each other up, even when wailing!). Ryan and I depend heavily on caffeine at this point.

A quick walk though babies r us will have you thinking that there’s so much unnecessary baby stuff. Let me tell you, every piece of baby gear we have is worth it’s weight in gold. Oliver loves the playmat/activity gyms, both babies are thrilled to jump away in the jumperoos while Mamas have their morning coffee, the swing has come in handy during fussy periods, and have we mentioned how awesome car seats are?! Can’t express how much easier it is go out with carseats and a stroller rather than the on-the-chest baby carriers.

Our Britax B Ready stroller (which was never purchased for twins, but for close-in-age foster siblings, should we have gotten some back in the day) ended up being more of a 200-lb nightmare on wheels than a help, so after some fervent, sleep-deprived research and a trip to Buy Buy Baby, we traded in for a side-by-side Britax B Agile. Oh, it’s agile folks. Like nobody’s business. Going out is considerably easier now.

For the people who have brought us amazing homemade dinners, checked in just ask if we need anything, and have politely supported our “no-holding” rule, thank you — this has made life so much easier and we can’t even express how grateful we are.  I know we’re kinda under a rock right now and haven’t responded quickly to texts or emails or calls – we’ll be much better friends once we’re getting some more sleep!

Morning jump during morning joe.

A Whole Bin of Toys?! (2nd day home)

The babies are loving having more than the 12 toys they’re sick of.

Luggage came, interrupting our nap (yeah, we neeeeed those naps – babies still waking every hour at night). Haven’t opened it yet. I fear all of Africa might pop out like something out of Jumanji.

So good to be home.

First Day Home

The babies woke up more times than we cared to keep track of that first night – sometimes every hour, sometimes every 15 minutes. We expected it, not only because of the jet lag and their clocks being now 12 hours off but because of the new place (where are the Muslim loudspeaker prayers and honking traffic and braying donkeys?). Naps, on the other hand, were a God-send. We had to wake them up after 2 hours every time or they’d sleep right through the day.

We wandered around in a zombie-like state. Sleep deprivation + jet lag nausea led to little more than play sessions with the babies and napping when we could. We took advantage of the cold spell to dress the babies in some cold-weather hand-me-downs from the foster siblings that we didn’t think they’d ever wear.

Still no luggage yet, which is kind of a blessing since the prospect of unpacking Africa is quite overwhelming to me.