pause

Sometimes I wish I could hit pause. As tired as we sometimes are, every age so far has been the "best" age (I know this probably won't last forever, and I enjoyed this recent post on the topic)

I wish I had yesterday's daycare pick up on film.

I entered with the giant Bob as usual. The girls were in the back of the room with their teachers reading (note: this corner is labeled the "drama corner". I always chuckle to myself when I read the sign and wonder if Avery hangs out there a lot, teehee). They both SHRIEKED and continued to do so as they toddled towards me, hands up in the air, grins on their faces. We had a good hug, and they didn't want to let go so Ms. Andrea helped me load up all their stuff.  They had on these pucci-esque Adidas tops and purple capris, Avery with her brown shoes and Quinn with her pink ones, with pink socks with blue polka dots.

I really wish the moment was on film. Priceless.

all the stuff

I saw a post in my blog feed today that hit home on a few points.

Twins require a lot of stuff. I mean all babies do (to the extent you want/choose to buy/have stuff, I know you COULD get buy with nothing but a car seat and a crib), but there is just so much stuff. Assuming you live "normally" and not in a 400 sqft cabin, you need 2 car seats, 2 cribs, 2 high chairs, and a double stroller. And then there is the nice to have stuff - 2 baby containment devices at minimum for little guys and 2 more for bigger babies, a playmat, a pack and play, a single stroller, a dresser, a changing table, toys. We have a small house, and honestly, all their stuff takes up a lot of space, and I think we're relatively minimal.

We had

• 2 travel swings and a bouncer (none of which got a TON of use, but the bouncer was pretty popular for its lights. They never were into the vibration). And two Boppies.
• 2 exersaucers and one of those jumper things that hangs from the doorway
• 2 space saver highchairs (which still require chairs, but the footprint is smaller than a normal high chair, and they convert to boosters - sometimes I think the ones that clip on the table would be nice but its nice to face both babies to you...or the computer to Skype or the TV to stop crying).
• 2 infant seats (you could, in theory, skip these, but I can't really contemplate the logistics of moving two floppy babies in and out of the car without them) and now 2 convertible seats (the infant seats are still used sometimes and live on our enclosed porch). Oh, and a baby carrier. We have an Ergo (love) and a Moby (ok).
• a double snap and go (again, could skip, but this thing was FANTASTIC when they still slept all the time and was so nice for going anywhere in the winter), a double Bob, a double umbrella stroller. The post also made a good point about the selection of double strollers. It isn't the same as singles. They're much bigger in general, and the ones that aren't sacrifice something (eg, the City Select is pretty tight for two bigger toddlers, one baby gets a view of a back in the Phil & Ted, the City Mini double is quite wide folded AND needs two hands unlike its singleton counterpart.)
• and the toys. People keep giving us toys. This is awesome, but man there's a lot of them. And they already fight over them. Nevermind that we have two cars and two copies of some books. They want the same one. 
• then there is the dozen of bottle parts. And now food containers. and the clothes and diapers. All takes up space.

They're awfully cute though. And its fun to see them pass food at dinner, or squeal as they tickle each other.

its starttinggg

I haven't gotten a mini-tantrum on video yet, but I did nab some fighting.

oh sleep

We have our ups and downs. I need to write about this again, but I kind of want to wait until they sleep through the night consistently. Which will be soon. I hope. It's been pretty good lately though, maybe one waking each. knock on wood.

We started giving them blankets.  I was pretty nervous about this for a while, but they love them...and I'm not as much of a nervous nelly as I thought I'd be.  We do cotton or crochet for bedtime, but they sometimes get snuggly fleece ones for nap.

Quinn in her nest.

Avery, not a morning baby.

Coloring!

where did the babies go?

Seriously. We're having more and more moments of "what??! you're a baby! how can you do that?"

note: our tape job here was not sufficient for the Master Ripper

I think our pediatrician was right (um, 5 weeks ago) when she told me they're not babies anymore...

can you see the crayon lipstick on Chomps McGee?

cooking

This past weekend, we decided to rearrange the kitchen cabinets to be more kid-friendly. The girls aren't in the kitchen a lot, and really love unpacking stuff from the pantry when they're in there.

Turns out ziplocks full of pancake mix are not toddler proof.