What's happens at night in our house.

Our girls, amazingly, sleep through the night. At least in the official interpretation of 'sleep through the night', which I think is 6 or more consecutive hours. It's an absolute gift they do and something we try to never take for granted. Arthur was a horrible sleeper and, as you can imagine, was an extra special shock to our 30+ years or sleeping as long as we wanted. I remember fearing the twins for that reason alone. No sleep. It's just really hard to be a normal human when you're up at night a gazillion times, and we were with Art. And, as if hitting some sort of one in a million jackpot (rather, two in a million), these girls sleep. BOTH of them. And looong. They usually go down by 9 and sleep until 5, 6, or, like last night, 7:30! That's ridiculous in my view by I'm not going to tell them.

Anyway, a ritual of sorts has evolved at night when the girls wake up. It's usually around 5am. I'll roll out of bed and grab whoever's fussing and start changing her diaper. By the time Jessica wakes, pees and comes into the girls' room I'm just about done changing the first baby. She'll finish changing her and whisk her off downstairs to nurse. Then I'll gently wake up the other baby.

That's actually my favorite part, waking up a sleeping baby. They give this massive entire body stretch. Their arms curl towards their ears, their neck arches back, head twisting to the side as if they're trying to scratch an ear on their shoulder blade. Their legs stiffen, every muscle in their little body seems to fully extend. I'll hold her up so she can arch back all the way and I'll wait until the stiff baby slowly turns back into a squishy one. As I change her she'll start realizing how absolutely hungry she is and she'll begin making little sniffs and snorts and grunts, perhaps like a starving pig would. Then I'll bring her downstairs to join her already nursing sister.

As I come down to the bottom of the stairs Jessica looks over and sees this snorting and grunting little baby heading towards like a bullet at eye level. Jessica always smiles and we laugh a little. And then she'll grab the baby and shoo me away back to bed and she'll nurse and watch the Steven and Chris Show, a Canadian talk show aired in the middle of the night at some absurd hour. She Tivos it. I've caught myself staying downstairs a bit as I watch Steve and Chris, two gay hosts (and partners) talking about matching pillows to curtains, livening up your drab wardrobe or something else. I think Jessica once called it the Canadian version of Oprah but a lot less about Oprah.

Then, later, after returning the girls to their crib, fed and milky, Jessica snuggles back into bed. A couple hours later we're woken up by a different child, usually Lewis, who comes wobbling into our room and wants to snuggle. "Paha, Mama, can I snuggle?" And then Art often arrives within a minute of Lewis. The four us snuggle together in our big bed for a while and then our day begins.

Anyway, that's what happens at night in our house!