Avon

That's right, everyone, I'm selling Avon! If you live near me, I'm happy to drop off a catalogue and deliver products as well. If you're not near me, enjoy shopping my website! If you'd like to be added to my emailing list so you can be notified of any specials and new products, please either leave me a comment with your name and email address or send me an email with the same info (you can get my email address from my blogger profile).

Also, if you're considering starting an Avon business yourself, I can put you on the right path and answer any questions you might have. Happy shopping!!

8 @ 8 on 8

Woo!!! WiseGuy @ Woman Anyone? tagged me for this. I'm psyched! Anyhoo, here's how it works.

To do list (i.e. “the rules”):
1. Mention the person who tagged me.
2. Complete the list of 8’s.
3. Tag 8 bloggers & tell them I tagged them.


Eight things I am looking forward to:
1. Watching my children grow up
2. Having more children (a while from now!)
3. Getting down to my goal weight (and staying there)
4. Going to Rochester to show off the kids
5. Getting a straight 10 hours of sleep w/o waking up in a puddle
6. My husband's retirement :-)
7. My husband shaving his beard off (fully)
8. Helping my kids with their homework


Eight things I did yesterday:
1. Created a powerpoint presentation
2. Took my temperature
3. Took my antibiotics
4. Watched countless episodes of M*A*S*H
5. Nursed the twins
6. Ate a salad w/ tuna
7. Signed up to do some paid projects
8. Watched my best friend do Wii Fit


Eight things I wish I could do:
1. Eat as many desserts as I want w/o gaining weight
2. Lose weight really easily
3. Win the lottery
4. Travel the world
5. Act on a soap opera
6. Be a country music singer
7. Get pregnant w/o extra help
8. Compose beautiful music


Eight shows I watch:
1. M*A*S*H
2. Days of our Lives
3. The Biggest Loser
4. The Doctors
5. Scrubs
6. Any PBS kid show
7. Wheel of Fortune
8. Jeopardy!


Eight favorite fruits:
1. Apples (Granny Smith)
2. Bananas (still with a little green and no brown spots)
3. Plums
4. Grapes
5. Tomatoes (yes, they are a fruit)
6. Raspberries
7. Pomegranates
8. Strawberries (especially covered in chocolate)


Eight places I’d like to travel to:
1. Israel
2. United Kingdom
3. France
4. Poland/Russia
5. South Korea (weird obsession with M*A*S*H, I know--and it was filmed in LA, not Korea lol)
6. Los Angeles
7. Montreal, Quebec
8. Norway


Eight places I’ve lived:
1. New Rochelle, NY
2. Rochester, NY (14618)
3. Rochester, NY (14610)
4. Lewisburg, PA
5. Waltham, MA (02453)
6. Waltham, MA (02454)
7. Brighton, MA
8. Arlington, VA


People I’ve tagged:
Earl Gearl @ A day in the life of Preachmans wife
Murgdan @ Conceive This!
Bean @ Hoping for Another Lovebug
A @ Infertility Bites
Mermaid
The Dorns @ One ADornable Family
Chelley N @ This is the story of my life...and I write it every day
Nancy @ TheNewLifeOfNancy

That was so much fun!!!

Baby Pictures

Here are some pictures that my sister and brother-in-law took of the twins. To see more, go to my brother-in-law's blog

This is a cute pic of my little boy, Dovid.


Here's Dovid again!


Here are Chana & Dovid enjoying a nap in their car seats. They're nearly identical! :-)


I love this picture of Chana. She's *just* learning how to smile!


I'm still suffering my mastitis--temperature has been between 100F and 103F for the whole day. I can tell what my temp is based on how awful I'm feeling at any given moment. URGH I really hope I feel better tomorrow! I'm supposed to have a play-date with a friend and then go out to dinner with my best friend later on. *sigh*

Mastitis

Ahh, the joys of breastfeeding. Last night my left breast started to ache. REALLY ache. It was so sore to the touch, I thought it might just fall off. Then I couldn't sleep. I was tossing and turning and getting chills. Finally I said, maybe I have a fever. Bingo. 99.9F and rising. I googled "mastitis," because I was 99% sure that's what it was, and I was 100% correct. I called the doctor on call who noted my symptoms and agreed with me, even though usually fevers with mastitis go above 101F. This was all around 2-3am, so I fed the twins as long as I was up. When I went back to bed, I had a lot of trouble sleeping and finally got out of bed at 8:30am. I felt so rotten that I took my temperature again...101.6F. Whoooops! Looks like 2 extra strength tylenol didn't do a darned thing. And now I was achy all over with a headache to boot. I seriously felt like something the cat dragged in. Time to pull out the big guns--take 3 tylenol instead of 2! I'm feeling a little better, but still headachy. My breast feels much better than it did last night, but still not wonderful. My hubby just went to CVS to fetch my prescription and we'll hope for the best!

Happy ICLW!

Hello ICLWers! Permit me to introduce myself. I'm Elana. :-) You can see my TTC history on the right hand bar, and hopefully you'll notice that I have twins (boy & girl) who are 9 weeks old. They're very sweet and very good (usually). No colic yet (and I'm hoping none ever).

Right now I'm looking for a job that will pay the bills as well as a Nanny to look after the kids, so I go out for interviews all the time (urgh). Wish me luck!

New Diet

I'm starting a diet. I have so much weight to lose (20 babies pounds and 20-40 from pre-babies) and breastfeeding is not dropping the weight off like *everyone* says it will. Obviously I'm going to be doing this safely...I'm not stupid. The diet is called Start Fresh and it's a kosher diet!! Wooo! They even sell kosher diet food (crazy expensive). They give you recipes, including traditional ones for Shabbos and tell you what kinds of things you can and should be eating to help lose the weight the right way. I'm quite excited to get started even though it will mean I actually have to cook--ICK! I hate cooking with a passion. I'd rather be doing nearly anything else.

I'm also job searching. I need to find a position that will pay me enough to pay for a Nanny and actually bring home a "profit" after taxes. We have to pay the bills and this is the only way I know how. Obviously my main search is within Citizens Bank (where I already work), but I don't know if they have any appropriate positions for me to come into. I'm looking to be an executive administrative assistant, so if anyone has any ideas, let me know!

Babies are Funny

My daughter likes to grab her pacifier while she is sucking on it. It's very cute and I'm convinced she's now doing it on purpose (because I've caught her doing it numerous times). The problem is that she doesn't have such good coordination (being a baby and all), so when she pulls her hand away, there goes the paci. Whoops! Unfortunately she also doesn't know how to put it back in so Mommy has to rescue the paci and put it back in.

My son did something completely by accident that was equally as funny. My husband heard him crying and went in to see what he needed. When my husband reached my son, he heard the mobile over the vibrating seat playing a song. Dovid had accidentally pulled the ring that makes the music play. tee hee

All Alone

Well guys, this is it. My sister-in-law is on her way back to Israel, my hubby is at work and my mom is not coming back for another week. I'm officially on my own. YIPE! I'm outnumbered! Luckily, they are doing VERY well with sleeping at night. For example, last night they both had a feeding around 10 or 11pm (can't remember the exact time). Dovid then woke up to feed at 1am and then both he and Chana woke up at 5am. After that feeding they were both quiet until I came in around 10:30am--I was nearly exploding and needed to feed them or pump. If we could just get Dovid to skip that 1am feeding, we'd be golden.

Yesterday my sister-in-law and I had some fun. We went to New Hampshire to visit my RE and show off the twins...I'll have to post the picture we took together. Then on our way home we decided to stop off at Brandeis to have lunch. While we were there we got to see several of my old professors. It was a great time.

Happy Mother's Day

I never thought that I'd actually have a happy Mother's Day, but here I am...actually happy today! Even though the twins were up all night with my sister-in-law and aren't letting us have too much time to think today, I'm still happy. My hubby bought me a card and a necklace and left it for me on my pillow. :-) It was so sweet of him and I have no idea when he had the time to go out and get it. *sigh* Sometimes I still can't beleive that I'm a mommy. It's pretty surreal.

My sister-in-law is currently playing Schubert's Unfinished Symphony for the twins (on YouTube). It happens to be my favorite piece of music ever written...hands down. Go have a listen for yourself and enjoy!

New Bottles

I bought new bottles for the twins yesterday and they LOVE them. If you are breast feeding and bottle feeding, these bottles are awesome. If your baby is spitting up a lot or has gas, these bottles are awesome. It's the Playtex VentAire Advanced. I bought the newborn gift set. They have two types of sets available, one normal and one with wide bottles and nipples for babies who go between breast & bottle. The nipples really are more "life-like". My sister-in-law noticed a difference with the very first feeding! I even noticed a difference! When I mix formula there's usually a ton of bubbles after shaking it up, but after shaking with these bottles the bubbles just disappear. Go out and register for it or buy it yourself! :-)

My daughter slept through the night last night! She took a bottle (5 oz) just after midnight, finished around 12:40a and then slept till 6:40a!!!! She took 6.5 oz @ 6:40 and then she didn't take another feeding until 11:30a. Just amazing! Too bad her little brother got up for a 4a feeding, but he had only taken 3 oz at the midnight feeding.

If you're wondering about the breastfeeding, I get up for the feeding between 9 and noon and nurse them both. Then I breastfeed them during the day--as many times as they need to. If I sense that they're still hungry after a full nursing (i.e. I've been sitting there for an hour and starting to get sore), we'll supplement with a few oz (less than 3) by bottle. This generally only happens much later in the day. Around midnight they start getting bottles. Sometimes I'll pump in the morning if I wake up right after they've finished a feeding and I generally pump right before bed so I don't wake up in a puddle...which happened a few nights ago. lol oops! So far this has been working. My body has adjusted to it and I seem to be producing enough for them during the day. Next time I have a baby it will be one baby and I'll be able to breastfeed full-time. (You hear that, G-d? ONE BABY PLEASE!) hehe

200th Post!

Wow! Can you imagine that I'm already at post #200? Anyone remember my 100th post? It's the one where I posted about the twins being a boy & a girl. Looking back at the pictures from that ultrasound, the one of my son's profile actually looks like him...sorta. They were so tiny at 18 weeks. Little did I know at that point that two weeks later I'd be on modified bed rest and hoping to keep them in at least until "viability"! I don't have anything nearly that exciting to report for post 200.

I forgot to mention that both twins have seen the neurologist and have been given clean bills of mental health (for now). We'll go back for a follow-up in 6 months, but the doctor doesn't suspect he'll find anything troubling. I'm so relieved, because Dovid wasn't breathing for the first 3 minutes of his "life" (in quotes because he was nearly not alive for those minutes). And no oxygen can mean VERY bad things for one's brain. Chana also was oxygen deprived, but not nearly as much as Dovid was...and she started breathing right away. B"H there is nothing to worry about at this point. YAY!

My sister-in-law has decided to extend her stay at least until May 14th, although I'm really pushing to see if she'll stay even longer. I'm terrified for the day when I'm left alone with the twins and I need to be doing all 24 hours worth of feedings. YIPE!!!! At least they are getting MUCH better on that front--both had only 7 feedings yesterday! Much, much better than 12 each! At least if you can do the feedings back-to-back (which most of these weren't), 7 extended feedings doesn't take up *too* much time. Unfortunately that's only in a perfect world. My twins don't always get hungry at the same time (or nearly the same time) so it can turn into 14 regular feedings instead of 7 extended ones.

*Please skip the following paragraph if you don't want to know about my son's...errr...digestive system*
Dovid has been going longer and longer without a poo. When he was born it was once a day, then it was once every other day, and now it's once every three days. I got nervous today because he hadn't had one since Friday evening, so I called the pediatrician. The nurse there said to take a rectal thermometer and pretend to take a temperature...then watch out! So I did that...poor little guy was NOT happy about it at all...and neither was mommy. :-) A few hours later my hubby was feeding him and you hear this GIANT poo sound (and smell to go with it) across the room! Well I was just delighted. (Especially because my hubby took care of the diaper, which had basically exploded all over everything.) Luckily it was a normal mushy baby poo, so no worries of constipation. Hopefully he'll become more regular so I don't have to freak out when I don't see one in a few days. *sigh* The trials and tribulations of motherhood. :-D

Speaking of motherhood, Mother's Day is coming up! My very first one!!! I'm really excited even though my hubby is going to be at work and I don't really expect he'll get me anything exciting. I'll be lucky if he remembers to give me a card--although I have been dropping not-so-subtle hints of the upcoming holiday. We'll see what happens.

Nothing to Report

Not much is going on here. The babies are doing well, although their feedings are still quite sporadic. We're trying to get them on an "every 3 hours or longer at night" shtick--only after a formula bottle and making sure they get at least 3 if not 4 oz. If it's during the day and they're nursing, it's anyone's guess and they will sometimes get hungry 1 or 2 hours after the *start* of a feeding. So if a feeding takes 1/2 an hour, they could be hungry again a 1/2 hour after that. Unfortunately nursing that often just hurts. The babies are (sort of) learning to nurse without the nipple shield, but they're not particularly good at it. I can only do it with one baby at a time and they can't usually go for a whole feeding. Then the next feeding I have to use the shield because I'm sore. *sigh* You'd think babies would have learned how to do this properly in utero and that nipples would evolve to not have nerve endings after 5000 years... :-) Oh well!

Kroger Reusable Bag Contest

Kroger and some other grocery stores are running a great contest.

Now through May 15, Kroger is inviting customers to visit http://www.kroger.com/green to enter the Kroger Reusable Shopping Bag Contest. The contest gives Kroger customers the chance to design their own reusable grocery bag with Kroger.com's easy-to-use design tool.

Great prizes will be awarded to the top 10 bag designs, with one lucky designer winning a $1,000 Kroger gift card and the chance for their bag design to be sold in stores. Judges will also select four finalists who will receive $250 Kroger gift cards and five runners-up who will receive $100 Kroger gift cards.

Kroger has also partnered with Café Press so designers can purchase a reusable bag (and other merchandise) with their design on it.

Ginny @ Mom of Two Dancers is helping to get the word out about this and has an amazing contest ~ Kroger gave her (2) $25 gift cards to give away to her readers.

Go check it out and vote for my bag to win! You can vote once per day!!!