Day 83 - Baby Gifts - From Babies, that is

My longest stretch yet between posts has been, well, rough. The babes have been frustrating, beautiful, demanding, cute, and aggravating. (In no particular order.) I've not been inspired to write about these trials as nothing terribly noteworthy has happened with respect to developmental milestones. Docs say that they're on target and even ahead of the curve in many regards--growth, coordination, awareness, etc. But it sure has felt a bit stagnant when it comes to those gifts I've mentioned in blogs past. As a reminder, I've considered smiles to be the only real gifts the babes have, at this point, to give willingly. Cuteness doesn't count--and love is arguably not yet present. (Or if it is, it's not yet overtly distinguishable.) Those smiles have sustained me through many a challenge and frustration that at-home-fatherhood has brought. More recently there have been the first hints of some giggling and even some apparent face-recognition. More gifts.

They've both been especially fussy over the past couple of weeks--generally preceding feeding time. Sometimes it seems that, during my days, feeding is all I'm working towards. The crying begins in earnest a half-an-hour or so before [our desired, scheduled] feedings. That's fine, I mean I'm not so delusional that I expect feeding times to be adhered to rigidly --but that's been the trend. And they've seemed relatively comfortable with it. But the fussiness sometimes begins an hour or more prior. And that's....hard.

And then came today's 3:30pm feeding....
We returned from some errands at 3:35--the stress of a five minute discrepancy is manageable--oh, don't you worry about me! I got the bottles ready, set up my work area with burp cloths, bottle holders and the laptop-on-a-tray. (The latter being my "down time" sanity-maintenance-device.) To this mixture I add two whole babies and 16 fl oz. or formula. To my absolute surprise, Boy rejected the bottle, looked up into my eyes, and delivered the biggest, most directly connected smile I've ever seen from him. It completely warmed my occasionally complacent heart. Sometimes I get into the feeding routine and it becomes admittedly a bit methodical; he snapped me right back with those baby blues. Girlie was in good spirits as well, which in and of itself can be a blessing. It was a great, and greatly needed afternoon.