3 hours

Life is broken up into segments of time. For us, right now, a period of time is 3 hours long. This is because we need to feed the girls every three hours. The girls are getting really big (I'll do a statistic post tomorrow) but they are still too small to let wait until they get hungry. If they're asleep we wake them up and feed them. So at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 0 we're feeding the girls. Seems simple enough, I know, but as any of you who have children know, there are a few catches. The first is a simple arithmetic issue. Neither of the girls is able to take a bottle without direct one on one supervision. So two babies means that you need two adults to feed the girls. Now, throughout the night time hours, this problem, while annoying, is simple to solve. We both get up. The real catch comes when I go to work. Last week I came home a couple of times, but mostly we made it due to the help of some of the nurses Mary Jane works with. Laura, Shannon, Mel, and Wendi all gave up bunches of their valuable time to help Mary Jane out. Thanks girls...you made last week possible.
The next big catch is a time issue.
It currently takes about an hour to feed the girls. Then there's the clean up and what not. When all is said in done in any one period of time (3 hours) we are left with an hour and a half to do...well everything there is to do in life. Everything from eating, to showering, from doing laundry to going to the bathroom, and even sleeping. This of course assumes that neither of the girls are fussy forcing one or both of us to stop everything and comfort. (which we gladly do...Mary Jane is insisting I add this sentence. She's afraid that the previous sentence makes it sound like we're mad at the girls or something. I figured the natural insertion of the next sentence would cut down on that problem...but my editor in chief would really like that assertion to be clear. So here it comes again. We gladly hold our babies. We love them) Now holding and cuddling with the girls is my favorite thing to do, but this really cuts down time to do anything. (see...I think my sentence would have done the trick. Well...either way...its all there) Usually the thing that gets dropped is....sleep (which is no surprise to any parent out there I am sure).
All this will change with time. As the girls get a little bigger and a little older a time will soon come (January...I hope) when they will eat a whole lot faster and stretch to four hours at night. This will change everything. As it is we are lucky to get 3-4 hours of broken up sleep in a 24 hour period of time. That faster eating and four hour time interval will revolutionize life here at 5452 Nagel.
Of course one would expect that even now we would be progressing towards this goal. However, things have steadily gotten worse when it comes to sleep during this last week. This is mostly because of Parker. Emma Jane is steadily eating faster. Parker has taken a sharp turn for the worse when it comes to eating. I believe Mary Jane mentioned a couple of days ago that we were praying for Parker to learn to eat. At that point she was steadily getting better, just excruciatingly slowly. Now she is doing worse. Parker starts screaming half way through her feed like it is really painful. It used to be when she decided she wasn't going to drink any more she just stopped drinking. Now she screams about it like she is in a lot of pain. Then when we drop the remainder of the feed in through the feeding tube she screams like it is hurting her (which is also new). We had a regularly scheduled appointment with the pediatrician last Monday. We talked about it with the doctor and she agreed with Mary Jane's gut feelings. This is probably due to acid reflux. So Parker has been put on zantac. Unfortunately it takes 7-10 days to have any affect. And then there is the possibility she needs something a little stronger. If that is the case we'll have to start the whole process over using a new medication. In the mean time Parker has been steadily getting worse about it. Which means feeding her is taking longer and longer and is breaking mommy and daddy's heart even as it causes her a lot of pain. We are praying this medicine will do the trick.

sorry to end abruptly but I am writing this Saturday night and she is having the biggest breakdown yet....