Our babies are turning into little girls.

So I figured it had to be a while since the last post. Then there were the timely prods from two of our overseas friends (yes Jenna and Tom we mean you) that it was time for a blog update, and Megan has gone out to see Les Miserable tonight (which I would detest), and O and E are asleep, so I pop onto the computer and find it is exactly 6 months to the day since the last post! Crazy. Like the time I went to the dentist after way too long, to find it was 8 years to the day of my last visit.

Chillin'

So I must bust this blog post out quick smart, because I can tell you things never stop when you have twins, mostly in good way mind!  The girls are now 15 months old, and even allowing for their 10 week prematurity they are now more like little girls than babies.

Of course they had a big day on their birthday on the 21st of October, and our house was besieged with many wonderful friends young and old. A special mention goes out to Yvonne and Nigel who bought the girls the spectacular party frocks and shoes, which they rocked on the day.

Olive Cass Huddleston at one year.

Eliza Molly Huddleston, 12 months old!

The girls are very sweet at the moment and enjoy doing many things together. Their activities include swimming (with a bit of help from Megan (occasionally their Gran Jan) and I), reading and moving in opposite directions, fast! 

The girls favourite is anything Hairy McClairy related.

Paddling pool (from Granny Wini and Grandad) today, but they love the big pool too.

On the move - in different directions.

The thing that they seem to love most though is company (particularly family) and they were so happy over the Christmas break as we holidayed at Megan's parents spectacular new home in Martinborough. While I'm sure the girls appreciated the significant architectual merit of the Cabbage Tree homestead, what they most loved was having their Grandparents, Uncle James, Aunty Aya and cousins Oskar and Niamh to take turns cuddling them. And before we popped over the hill they shared similar cuddly visits with Their Aunty Kath, Uncle Nick and cuzzies Finnegan and Holly.

Aunty Aya and Lizey Lou.

Granddad gets a whole lotta Olive.

Eliza and Uncle James.

 

Uncle Nic and Super Liza.

Aunty Kath and SE.

Holly and Finnegan with their little cuzzies.

Amazing too for Megan and I to have our first real break in a while, where we had the support of others to help look after the girls around the clock. It was a tonic indeed, especially when we were being fed amazing food too as usual.

The girls were also spoiled in terms of eating treats, with Olive a big fan of ice cream and Christmas cake, and Eliza developed a murderous hunger for cherries (as pictured).

Why haven't they been feeding me this stuff before?

There's been a murdah!

We've said it before in this blog, but time is proving us spectacularly accurate - our girls are incredibly different. They even crawl differently! Olive is the classic old fashioned crawler, Eliza bum shuffles. Olive loves to cuddle, Eliza has ants in her pants. Olive has a great appetite, Eliza is notoriously tricky to feed (except cherries). Olive is very verbal (a horse goes "neigh-neigh"), Eliza prefers laughing and pointing. Olive is happy to cruise, Eliza is determined to walk.  Olive loves to sleep, Eliza fights it. Although we are blessed with the fact that they both get a solid 11 hours a night (touch wood).

Sleepy Olive.

Busy Lizy.

The race to stand.

Little Olive always chatting.

Eliza on point.

Olive's curly locks.

We are so blessed to have these two amazing babies at once. We love every single nuance of them, and they fill our lives with joy.

Why do you support West Ham Dad? They always lose.

The girls are ready for the day.

At the last post I was tip toeing through my first weeks of daddy daycare, and it went very well indeed. The task was abetted by great help from our (then) student nanny Chelsea. I was at home full time with the girls, with four day a week support from Chelsea and lots of visits from my Mum Janice and Megan's mum Winifred, for about 5 months altogether.

Live in Nanny and Mummy spoiled girls.

When an opportunity to do some Wellington-based work in November came up with the Gibson Group, we discussed this with Chelsea and she felt capable of flying solo. So that is what we are doing through till June, except Chelsea (now fully qualified) is living in, in our Studio.

So Megs and I are going to continue on this way until my current contract expires in June, and we have no idea what will happen next, it might be time for another blog post! The one thing we do know is that we'll cherish every moment of being the Huddleston Family until then!

bye bye - see you in the next blog (before we're teenagers)

Ch Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

Oh Boy, it has been a long while since our last post and so much has happened. It has been 4 months so I guess that is to be expected, but what is surprising is just how many of these changes have been positive. Where to begin?

Long time no post.

Let's start back a ways... Megan and I decided around April that she would return to her full time position at Xero, and that I would take over as the primary carer for Olive and Eliza. Megan loved her role in this blossoming company and relished a chance to return, but Olive and Eliza are a big handful... Eliza's nasal gastric tube precluded normal day care options. So our best option was to swap the typical gender roles and for me to become the Daddy Day Carer.

Hudsie left holding the babies.

By the start of June most of my free-lance TV work was complete, and I was able to spend a super month with Megan and our Student Nanny Jess, learning the way things worked. This training period was quite blissful, and a great opportunity for the four Huddlestons to spend more quality time together. Time at home is so much more fun than time in a hospital, however good the care we had in NICU.

Jess the girls first student nanny.

This time was also daunting because I was painfully aware that I would have to take over the reins  at the start of July. And Megan had very big parenting shoes to fill - she had set the bar very high. Not only doing a great job of training up Jess, but stopping at nothing to give Olive and Eliza the very best. Including steaming vegetables and freezing them in ice trays to provide the increasing amount of solids their diet required, and reading all manner of parenting books (and iPhone apps) to ensure all of their needs were catered for.

Mummy is the boss.

To compound my worries about my ability to adapt to this new role was the fact that Jess's course ended on Megan's first day at work (coincidentally my birthday July 2). Also our next Nanny, Chelsea, would not be available for 2 and a half weeks. Into this breach stepped Megan's Mum Winifred, who moved down from Martinborough to help me with my first fortnight solo. This was another amazing effort from Megan's family, as it meant leaving David and the vineyard to their own devices for 12 days.

Both Girls love Granny Wini bath day.

Together Winifred and I made a great team. She let me find my way with the girls, and lending a hand where required while also keeping the home fires burning, keeping on top of the abundant washing, keeping the house tidy and making amazing meals. The fortnight surprised us all, with the transition going completely smoothly in every respect. With Winifred's help I gained enough confidence to be looking forward to training up Chelsea who started on July 17.

Eliza always has cuddles for her Granddad.

What's-more Megan is loving being back at work, in a swanky new office, with almost twice the number of staff  than the company she left 9 months earlier. That company is going places. She does miss the girls, but has such busy days that she doesn't dwell on it overly, plus she is confident that things are going ok at home and our girls are in good hands.

Chelsea has taken to her 4 day a week role like a duck to water, and Winifred is still coming down on Mondays to cover Tuesday. Also my Mum Janice pops in very regularly for cuddles and to help the girls feed, so it is all going incredibly well.

Chelsea being put through her paces by Olive.

But we're saving the best news till last, but if you've been watching the photos closely you might have guessed already. Our girls are doing so well...

O.L.I.V.E. for Olive... E.L.I.Z.A that's Eliza!

Olive is an absolute treasure. She is cheeky, confident and a complete individual. She has packed on the calories and is now a whopping 7.5 kg. She is a superstar in the jolly jumper and she absolutely loves going to bed. Whenever we put her down she squeals until she gets her thumb in her mouth then she's straight off to sleep. Also her most endearing quality is her tuneful and very loud singing which she indulges in whenever she is happy, which is a lot of the time. The quiet house often suddenly resounds to a spectacular "Ahhhhahhhhhahhhhhhhh". When you echo this cry back at her she cackles with pleasure. Such a lovely girl!

Butter wouldn't melt!

And Eliza has turned a corner! After a lot of patient experimentation and trial and error with feeding strategies, she is rid of her ghastly nasal gastric tube. She pulled it out herself on Friday the 21st of July and we began a trial period without it. On Tuesday 24th her Speech and Language Therapist Germaine showed us a new method of feeding her, with immediate results. By Wednesday the 25th she was eating enough calories to thrive. Since then she has made the magic number of calories required every day for 5 days in a row.

Look folks no tube!

She is such a lovely wee girl - quick to smile, alert and knowing. She especially loves Zizou, our cat. Since losing the tube, she is so much more obviously happy within herself now. No NG tube means the experience of eating has become more enjoyable and less time consuming. She is able to eat, be satisfied and then play with her sister. It is such a joy for us all to see her blooming as she is. The added bonus is without the tube you can see quite clearly what a beautiful wee girl she is (and has always been) under all that dreadful sticky tape.

I'm a big girl now.

She weighs in at 5.5kg, exactly 2 kilos lighter than Olive, but she is eating so hungrily, we are confident she will soon begin to bridge the gap between them. Right now our challenge with her is convincing her to share Olive's bedroom happily, but the days of having her cot in our room are numbered!

Sharing

With Eliza's tube gone we really feel like things are much more manageable and normal. We'd love to thank everyone who has helped us through this time, listened to us, cooked for us, visited, or sent messages of support. Your love and support has made this whole journey so much easier, and we are looking forward to spreading our wings now, and seeing you all outside Karori really soon.

Lounging

Arohanui
HOME

No news is good news.

I'm sure any parents following our progress would not have been surprised by the lengthy gap between our blog posts since getting both of our beautiful girls home. It has been almost 2 months since our last report, and a famously busy period it has been too.

Feeding time at the Huddlestons.

Eliza's long awaited home-coming coincided with an unprecedented period of my needing to be away for work. Within a week of both twins being resident in Karori, I was off on a 3 week shoot, I returned for 5 days, before heading to Auckland on a 2 week edit. I came back from that for a fortnight, and now tomorrow I'm back up to Auckland for 2 final weeks of cutting, but with the luxury of coming home for Easter.

I left Megan holding the babies. Plural.

Suffice to say Megan has had a crash course in twin parenting, but with amazing and admirable assistance from her family. Her Aunty Mani covered my first 3 weeks away. And her Mum Winifred assisted over that period, and then came to stay with Megan for my first fortnight in Auckland. I came home from Auckland for weekends and have just done the last fortnight at  home, and I can say with a huge degree of confidence that going away to "work" definitely means expending the least labour.

Great Aunt Mani with double trouble

Granny Winni and her Olive

We'll always be indebted to Mani and Winifred for helping out as they have over this period. It has helped  in so many ways, and Megan has become an expert Mum already. Our two girls are very different characters, and they have a lot of nuances to master when dealing with them. Megan seems to have learned them all already, and I'm struggling to catch up.

Olive shows her Daddy the ropes

You're going a bit grey Dad.

Speaking of our girls, they are progressing spectacularly well. Olive has just about hit the 5 kilo mark, and Eliza is a gnats under 4 kilos now. Olive is still well ahead in terms of her feeding... Eliza may well retain her nasal gastric tube for many months still, until she settles onto solids. Olive is also just ahead developmentally, she is giggling while Eliza is smiling, but maybe Eliza is just a tougher audience.

What a fine pair.

I'm sure you'll see from the pictures they are both perfect. Just in slightly different ways.









As for us as a family, the only way is up from here. Olive has been sleeping through the night for several weeks now, and a recent development with Eliza's pump feeding means she is now being fed over a 7 hour period at night too. Which means Megan is finally able to sleep for longer periods of 6 hours +. We have an excellent trainee Nanny Jessica who helps out Mon, Wed, Thu and Fridays. And Winifred is coming over the hill and helping Tuesdays too.

Jessica the hired help!

Now I just need to knock this final block of Auckland work off, and we will all be full steam ahead to Primary School, Secondary School, Uni, the Silver Ferns, Medical School, the U.N. No pressure girls...