Annika Lucía Knaebel & Luka James Knaebel
Essential birth stats:
Luka James-
Weight: 6 lbs 6 oz
Height: 19 inches
Time of birth: 1:44 AM
Hair: dark to light brown w/ some blond elements
Cute exponential: 10+
Annika Lucía:
Weight: 5 lbs 9 oz
Height: 18 inches
Time of birth: 2:58 AM
Hair: blond, possibly a little curl in it
Cute exponential: 10+
To put things in perspective, their total combined wait is about the equivalent to a Tongan or Samoan singleton, or to two, average sized singleton pregnancies. Whoa. It's a Samoan thing.
Some of our friends and family have given us some baby stuff with Thing 1 & Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss's books on it. Remember them?
or this:
What do you think? Shmoo 1 and Shmoo 2? Hmmm...
Well, the Shmoos are both doing very well and are keeping us very busy. Right now our schedule feels about as full as the final round of an all out fight for key battleground districts in a presidential campaign, with only 47 more campaign stops to cover in the final 48 hours of the campaign. I hope we win!
Another way to say that is that we slept about 3 broken hours last night, which was 1 hour less than the night before that. In spite of that, we are putting in our all for these little cuties, and quickly learning everything we hope to need to know to be minimally competent with newborns by our checkout from this five star hotel tomorrow evening, as planned. Ha! There's a plan? We can plan? It sure doesn't feel that way anymore!
In the meantime, Kristin is recovering in a slow but upwards trajectory after her amazing birth effort. She was truly so strong, and it makes my eyes water now as I think of it. Not to over repeat that, but she was awesome. Awesome. It must be a Samoan thing.
And, while we strive to quickly learn and manage the feeding and infant care schedule, we have had some incredible support along the way. Wayne and Diane have been invaluable in helping us with logistics. Sure, anyone can want to hold the babies, but what if helping also means the unsavory stuff, or letting us rest when all they want to do is stay with their grand kids, never leave their side, and rock them in their laps? Thank you, Wayne and Diane, for everything you have done, for giving us respit from the day to day tasks, letting us rest when needed, and all the other ways you have helped us!
And, then there are our post partum nurse superheroes. Seriously. They make Wonder Woman seem puny in her superhero-ness. They have been so kind, instructive and caring that it's hard to imagine losing their support so soon.
The approach of the nurses is closer to the dogs in the following video, whereas the American medical system's approach to birth recovery and the length of hospital stays seems more like the cat's approach:
But if all continues to go well with Kristin's recovery, we should be heading home tomorrow evening either way, since this hotel is run by the cats, not by the dogs providing the care.
And now for some long-awaited pics:
Meeting Aunt Sarah and uncle Jimmy on Skype... See the resemblance? That's right, I agree.
She's totally a shmoo.
And, they kind of look like these guys:
Or, is it these guys?
Remember them? And they just might just something along the lines of the answers André gives on the census bureaus- mostly white with a little brown. Or is it the other way around? Oh well, I guess we'll see!
And now, in the infamous words of Salvador Dalí's Harvard commencement speech, "I shall be so brief, I have already finished." Ha! Yeah, right! But it is time to feed the kids again. Nothing to it: Double latching football hold,simultaneous breast feeding on the "twins' edition," "My Brest friend" feeding shelf thingamahoobie. That's right. I'm telling you, Kristin is awesome. But pictures of this one are not allowed!
Thank you for your interest and continued support. We will try and post more updates as time and fatigue permit.
Hugs and love to all!
