Stories of the Swiderski Sisters (and their parents): Battling giant squirrels, displeasing Dave Matthews

It must be due to very odd sleep patterns in mom and dad, but we have been having some wicked weird dreams. Last night I battled a giant squirrel to a sword fight at a Renaissance Festival, and I tried to play bass in the Dave Matthews Band during a coffee shop performance, but teed him off when he realized that I knew nothing about playing bass guitar. There was also a Vikings-Cowboys scrimmage on my high school's basketball court somewhere in there... I should sell the rights to this stuff. Molly dreamt that Mark and Ellen were pregnant.

Claire had her first check-up yesterday. Mom and Dad impressed themselves by getting there on time (I'd venture to say even a few minutes early)! We were most interested in her weight, since she had lost about 12% of her initial birth weight in the first few days, which is 2% more than they'd like to see. But given that she was a c-section baby, they weren't too concerned... regardless, we wanted to make sure she was gaining weight again. And she was... almost too much in the eyes of Dr. Bush. Claire went from birth weight of 7lbs 5oz, to discharge weight of 6lbs 7oz, to yesterday's weigh-in of 6lbs 15oz. That means she's over halfway back to her birth weight in 3 days when the goal is to get back to birth weight in 2 weeks. So we have a few recommendations from the doc to help pace it out a little better. But regardless... when Claire's hungry, Claire eats. Doc says Molly is producing milk for twins right now, so does anyone need some?

Claire had some epic naps throughout the day, but also had a 2nd consecutive evening of fussiness between 7p - 10p. Part of the reason we think was changes we were making to her feeding schedule (I laughed a little out loud when typing that... I like to think we have some control). She finally went down at 10p, back up at 11p, and then down until we woke her up to eat at 3:30! Then she slept again until 7:15. That is FANTASTIC.

Mom is doing really well. She still has some pain at the incision, and her milk factories are a little sore, but overall she as been a champion. I am incredibly impressed with her attitude and fortitudinous with all of this new mother stuff: getting a lot less sleep than before, no semblance to a pattern to her day, constantly dealing with a hungry purple monkey (although Claire is a little less purple these days). I feel very lucky.

The pictures have slowed down a bit, so not much to add at the end here. But we did upload all of our Claire pictures to a Picasa online album so you can view them all and download higher-quality images for your own wallpaper/printing desires! Just click on the slideshow at the top of our blog, or go to her album.

Claire wearing a onesie decorated by her Great Godmother Ginger