Big Weekend

This weekend was a busy one in the Dodson household. Considering that I have not been out two nights in a row--other than for a wedding--in about a year, I am definitely feeling it today. I didn't even really drink and I still feel hungover. But it was fun, so I guess that makes it worth it.
First, Friday was Andrew's birthday. No, sadly, not the big 30 yet. Just the little 29. We started the morning with a walk to get coffee with the girls, which was nice because andrew had just returned late the night before after a 4 day work trip. In the afternoon we joined Andrew for a work happy hour near his office in honor of his birthday. Then in the evening we met some people for dinner at Tortilla Heights. Tortilla Heights is a relatively new restaurant that has semi-decent fajitas, good queso, good margaritas, and good churros. The queso, margarita, and relatively good prices have made it, as you can guess, Andrew's new 'favorite restaurant' in SF. This is good news because usually he just says "i'm fine with Left at Albuquerque," which means we end up eating really bad Mexican food with lots of B&T people (I know, I'm one too, but whatever) on a Saturday night. (btw, I don't know what bothers Andrew more, the fact that I have a mental block and always want to spell queso "cheso," or the fact that our friend Peter (from Chicago) refers to it as "cheese dip." The lack of queso in CA may be Andrew's biggest beef with the place (well, that and the 10% states tax, ridiculous housing prices, and the fact that we paid $90 for <5 hours of babysitting Friday night). Other than that we are slowly converting him.)

After dinner we went out for drinks, but then I had to get home to relieve the babysitter. Although Andrew was only out about an hour and a half later than me, he managed to make good use of the time apparently. Given that I found him peeing into the shower at 3:30 am, I think it is safe to say that he didn't let the fact that he has a wife and two kids get in the way of celebrating his birthday in true 20-something tyle.

Saturday came along and we had to get ready for baby Dholakia's baby shower. The baby shower was moved to chez Dodson after Reese Glotzbach arrived 5+ weeks early and we figured that she might want her new home to herself. The party was moved here and we had to make the place look more like a home and less like a pre-school. Thanks to Krista and Sudhir the party seemed to go ok. One of the best parts was that we got to meet Peyton Price, who is as beautiful as she looks in pictures. I felt bad actually because I kept saying "wow, she is so beautiful"...but really, she is. I feel bad enough that I gave my daughters my boring brown eyes, and when I see babies like Peyton I feel even WORSE. It was great to hang with Andy and Mackenzie, and of course, it was just cold and ugly enough here that they could ask us why the hell we don't move back to Texas.

So today we basically did our best to recover.

So what else is going on?

--The girls are starting to sleep through the night, which is going to be a nice change in our life. After 4 weeks of Dylan crying all but a few nights for 40+ minutes, during which time I was either spending the day stressing about whether or not she would cry or spending the evening feeling completely exhausted from hearing her cry, the sleep consultant and I decided that she clearly didn't "get it" and that I should just get her down any way that I could. Well wouldn't you know it, the night after I soothed her to sleep she "got it" and she has basically gone to sleep very easily since. It is almost as if she sensed that I was less stressed because I knew that I didn't have to let her cry, and that in turn made her less stressed. Whatever the reason it makes me VERY happy.
I have only had to let them "cry it out" a bit 3 times in the middle of the night so far. The first two times Charlotte cried for about 30 minutes but the cry was more of a cry to herself than a cry for me. The third time was gut wrenching because she was almost asleep when she woke Dylan up. Now I'm all for teaching them not to wake up in the middle of the night, but can you blame a little girl for waking up when her sister is screaming in her ear for 30-40 minutes?? (The fact that they can sleep through each other crying for so long bewilders me. Other than the "waking each other up" issue, I love having them in the same room again because A) I hated having Dylan sleep by herself so far away, and B) I'm ready to claim my own room again.) So after almost two hours of listening to crying on and off (Andrew was out of town) I caved. Since they seem to be on the right path I'm no longer going to beat myself up when I go against the "rules."
The good news is that the girls are so much happier now that they are settling into a sleep routine. It is almost bizarre... you read these books, they tell you how babies will respond to this or that, and then they do almost EXACTLY what the books say they will. It almost creeps me out (I found out, btw, that it 'creeps' Andrew out that I keep a blog. Not quite sure what to make of this new information). Anyway, as you can see the sleep thing has been ruling my life lately, and I'm happy to say that I things are getting much better (and I promise not to go on an on about it anymore as a result).

ps. The first pic is Dylan watching her Daddy open gifts. The second pic shows off the Astros outfits I bought the girls in honor of A's birthday (although they have already told me they are As fans first, but will humor him). C=L I don't have pics of the party because my camera broke shortly after taking these pics.