Settling in at home

The boys have been home for 4 weeks now and are almost 4 months old. We are thrilled that these guys are doing so well. It's great to have them home and it's also a round the clock gig. Kristen is off work through the end of the year. I'm taking one day a week off from work for the foreseeable future, which is great to spend with the family and challenging at work with how busy things are (working on an exciting confidential corporate headquarters project). Fortunately my architectural engineering school work prepared my for the late nights and all-nighters, this time taking care of family and without the nicotine (but still with too much caffeine).

We have also had A LOT of help which we really appreciate. The Graves and Adelmans have been taking Char to school along with each of their two kids. Neighbors and friends have been bringing us food and taking Char on play dates. Juli and the Sheringtons have been helping out. Juli takes a 9pm-2am shift once a week all while taking care of her own twins and training for a marathon (and working) - amazing person! We're just so lucky to have such great friends. Kristen's parents were in town and now my dad is here which has been key to breaking up the 24-hr care.

The boys are still in the living room, so at night we rotate through. I stay up until 2, then Kristen gets up, and the early morning is the grandparents shift. Hopefully, getting a quick nap between feedings.

They are eating and growing, although it can take up to 2 hrs per feeding if going solo, with feedings every 3-4 hrs. It's a struggle to get Bennett to eat. He's back in the 3rd percentile of weight (as of a few weeks ago) so we really spend time to get him to eat. He wants to just sleep. Andrew is awake a lot more now. They both get in their tummy time during the day and both have rolled over. I think Bennett is over 8 lbs now and Andrew over 10, about 4 times their birth weights. Every indication is that Bennett's eye surgery worked.

Charlotte is doing well. She loves the boys but leaves them alone most of the time. She's taken to playing family with her stuffed animals. We try and spend some time with just her but she's starting to learn to play on her own more. She's definitely watching more TV but we're still trying to limit it. She learned from Richard how to walk the teeter-totter and ran a 200M Octoberfest race with friends at Grant Park with our first family outing while Laura babysat. The boys are still mostly on lockdown due to their weakened immune system.

These photos are going to be random order again since this is how the app uploads them and I don't have the time to reorganize and I'm sure iPhone autocorrect has gotten the better of me again.