The major street near our neighborhood has been in the process of being repaired for some time now. The repairs involved some pretty major road destruction and then reconstruction. In order to do this, traffic has been rerouted to the other side of the street, turning a 4 lane road into a 2 lane road. As you can imagine, traffic has a tendency to back up during the busy times of the day. A couple of days ago, as I was driving through the construction zone, I noticed a sign that read “Thumbs Up for Progress!” and it proceeded to list the total cost of the project ($5,135,672), the number of jobs that the project had created (50), and an estimate of the progress on the project so far (75% complete). Because I don’t often drive in that direction on that road, I had not noticed the sign before, and I decided that it was a great idea. Construction zones tend to create a fair amount of annoyance to everyone who has to live near them or drive through them. We typically spend so much time thinking about how the construction zone is creating an inconvenience in our own lives that we forget that these projects are good for the economy and good for the neighborhood after the work gets completed. The road will be smooth, less likely to flood, and will look better overall.
I decided that given our current situation of dealing with reflux, weight gain, two sick kids and two sick parents with full time jobs, that we needed our own Thumbs Up for Progress analysis to think about. So, here goes…
1. Audrey and Andrew are both happy and calm babies most of the time.
2. Audrey and Andrew have both doubled their birth weights of 7 lbs and 5 lbs by around 3 months of age. They are now 14 lbs and 10 lbs. Andrew is a regular porker, like his momma!
3. Andrew sleeps 8-10 hours at night. Audrey sleeps about 5 hours at night. She would sleep longer, but we make her wake up to eat. Makes me look forward to the teenage years.
4. Our daycare is fantastic. They love our kids. They all have so much experience at working with babies that I have learned valuable knowledge from them.
5. Audrey still vomits almost every day, but she now seems to be able to lie on her back and feel comfortable most of the time. This is a great thing and is definitely progress!
6. Dave and I are now absolute rock stars at changing diapers and cleaning up messes. Between four pets and two infants, someone is always puking, pooping, or blowing other fluids out of themselves.
7. Audrey is stubborn as all get out. Wonder where she gets that?
8. Andrew is close to rolling over.
9. They seem to enjoy “talking” to us and to each other.
10. They enjoy each other’s presence and become calmer when the other is near.
11. They both have great smiles that make your day. I love to see them first thing in the morning!
12. We have learned how to manage a schedule of caring for twins and each working full time jobs. We do need help from time to time, particularly when I travel. We are very tired, but so far we maintain sanity. Well, at least as much as we always have.
13. We are almost 1/3 of the way through the first year already!
14. We’ve both learned how to push a double stroller holding 2 kids with one hand and drag a shopping cart behind.
15. We are experts at swaddle, shake, swing, sway, shush, standing sway, standing swaddle sway, standing swaddle sway shake, and standing swaddle sway shake shush, all of which are sometimes required to feed Audrey.
Two thumbs up for progress!