19 months

Are you kidding? 19 months? geez.

The girls are SO MUCH FUN NOW. Granted, they have their moments of tantrum and such, but they're generally hysterical, and such TODDLERS now.

Happy birthday Mommy!

Avery is into STUFF - she has a tigger and HAS to have it for nap and bedtime at home. And suddenly when she gets up, she wants to take her blanket with her. She isn't a morning person (or an afternoon person too close to naptime) and prefers snuggles, with you and the blanket, standing, for a while when she wakes up. Once in a while (I guess) she sleeps really well and wakes up happy but this isn't that often. Sunday we snuggled on the couch for a solid 45 minutes (when Quinn blissfully slept till 7) together, which was sort of awesome. And Sesame Street was on ;)

LOVE hats. Even Mama's.

Quinn isn't as attached to anything in particular, though they both are addicted to their hats and mittens. MET-in. MET-in. Sometimes they wear them until their food for dinner arrives (if we put them on leaving daycare).

They still are really enjoying daycare, as much as we can tell, but they are ready to go home when 5 pm rolls around. They say hi to me, then run over to get their jackets. Sometimes if I chat too long Avery will start yelling "BYE BYE" in an angry tone. Time to go! Quinn in particular is really getting into dressing herself. She can sometimes get her jacket on flip-over-the-head style, and I found her after nap yesterday with her pants off (and trying to put them back on. She would have succeeded too if she didn't have both legs in one hole). I guess no more velcro diapers for naptime? They also really enjoy taking off their socks (and are getting better at shoes) but can't quite get socks or shoes on yet. They HAVE to try to do both socks and shoes a few times before we can do it. Sometimes this means we help them a couple of times and they remove them then we can put them on for real. And people wonder why it takes so long to get toddlers dressed...

Also loves milkshakes...

They also are learning their letters and numbers. The other day, Avery started pointing at the letters on my teeshirt and saying (the wrong) letters. Not bad, right? They can almost count to three (hit or miss) and randomly walk around saying "nine".  A few days ago Quinn stood on a cushion and I was telling her to get down, and started counting....I said "One" and she looked me in the eye, grinned, held up a finger and said "ONE!".  We about died laughing. Might need to get better about that :)

One Year Ago

I can't believe they're over a year and a half now. They're older than it took us to have them (trying to get pregnant + C's pregnancy) and this time has gone by SO Much faster.

life with twins

fun on the slide. and working on our sharing skills.

life with twins

The girls (especially Quinn) are very into puzzles (shape sorters, puzzles, things that screw together, etc) right now.  Of course, as toddler law dictates, no matter how many we have, they both want the same one.

Snow!

The girls have seen snow before, but this was their first major storm, and the first on the weekend when we could take them out in it!

Verdict: fun, but cold and upsetting when you take off your mittens.

A Twin Registry, Part 5

a short running series on the stuff we actually had (links are stuff we had)

The Little Things

• Nosefrida The Snotsucker Nasal Aspirator Just get it. I know it sounds gross, but it works much better than those bulb things. Get saline too.
• Infant painkillers. Tylenol for the littles, and Motrin for those over 6 months. You'll thank yourself.  and homeopathic teething tablets. I don't know if they work, but the placebo effect is decent if they don't.
• A playmat. They really can amuse themselves for a while in the 2-5 mo range by kicking a rattle.


• A couple of small toys that light up.  The light thing from the top of our big playmat gym thing (It was by Sassy, but I can't find a link) was the biggest hit, and the lights on the bouncer also were popular. There's a variety of pianos and such on the market that I bet they would have LOVED (but we never bought).
• A white noise machine. 


• A humidifier.


• A pack of those terribly small, crappy recieving blankets....use them as changing pads atop your changing pad. Much easier to change when they get smeared with poop. It will happen.


• Prefolds , even if you don't cloth diaper. BEST burp clothes ever (and also work well under baby butts for poop containment).


• Velcro swaddle blankets. I know it sounds frivolous, but unless you're really good at fabric origami in the dark, it is a good idea. Trust me. Two/baby is enough, but three is better.

18 month well visit

Last Thursday, we had our 18 month well visit.  It went really well. I have to admit, I was nervous - it was our first "real" visit with our new pediatrician. So far so good!  Our old doctor left the practice, and we loved her....we know where she is (thanks to the internet), but decided not to follow her because we're very very happy with the practice as a whole.  Sick visits any day of the year?  Well visits in the evening? Can't give that up.

The visit started off a bit awkwardly.  First of all, at 18 months, even my peanuts are a little big for the baby scale. Secondly, they basically flipped out.  After some screaming and thrashing, we went down the hall and tried to get Avery to stand on the big kid scale. Fail. We eventually coax her to sit on it for a hot second and got a weight of 21 lbs on it.  Then we tried Quinn. No go. Limp, screaming noodle.  We managed to weigh her on the baby scale though - she isn't as thrashy as Avery.  We did their heights and head circumferences with some baby pinning maneuvers, and after the nurse left the room, we weighed Avery ourselves on the baby scale for what I believe to be a more accurate number.

Once the doctor came in - and we updated the weight - it was actually pretty smooth sailing. She asked what they're doing now, and while I did ask "so what's normal" - because I need a leading question and to give right answers - she must have thought they were meeting all of their milestones because she stopped checking stuff off on the developmental chart in their files.  I do think we kind of failed the milk question - we disputed a bit if they average 20 or 24 oz a day, and looking back it is more like 24+...but I kind of know that is a "wrong" answer. Sigh. I wish they'd eat more, but we can't force it down their throats, and withholding milk doesn't make them eat more solids. It just makes them pissy.

At the end of the visit, they got one vaccine - polio? I'm not even sure - and a clean bill of health. And we booked their 2 year appointment for July. Kind of weird to be booking 6 months out now. I'm actually a little sad we have so long between visits now. I know development is slower and all, and they're mostly done with vaccines, but I kind of like getting the Parents' Gold Star ;)

percentiles from this site for actual age. I THINK it uses the CDC and not WHO charts, but whatever, good for scanning curves at least. It also reports anything under 5th percentile as 5th percentile, which is ridiculous...

Quinn

CHEESE!

 
Birth: 3 lbs 8 oz & 16 inches
1 month (40w gestational): 5 lbs 13 oz (5th) & 19 inches (5th)
2 months: 7 lbs 13 oz (5th) & 20.5 inches (5th)
3 months: 9 lbs 9 oz (5th) & 22.5 inches (29th)
4 months: 10 lbs 9 oz (5th) and 23 inches (16th)
6 months: 12 lbs 0 oz (5th) and 24.75 inches (24th) 
9 months:  13 lbs 14 oz (5th) and 26 inches (38th)
12 months: 15 lbs 14oz (5th) and 28 inches (25th)
14 months: 17 lbs 6 oz (5th) and 28 inches (8th)
18 months: 19 lbs 5 oz (5th) and 31.25 inches (51st)
 

On the WHO chart, Quinn is now about 10th percentile for weight and 30th for height. This is a big improvement for her weight, which had been below 2nd percentile for a while (in failure to thrive range) and it now estimated her at hitting 20 lbs around 21 months instead of 24 like we estimated at 9 months. WOOT. :)  Also, I am starting to think Quinn is going to end up taller than Avery. She has totally caught up to her sister now despite starting out almost 2 inches shorter!
 
Avery

I'm a daycare kid, yo. The floor at the pediatrician is less of a petri dish than my normal life.

 
Birth: 5 lbs 0 oz (5th) & 17 3/4 inches (5th)
1 month (40w gestational): 7 lbs 13 oz (7th) and 20 inches (38th)
2 months: 8 lbs 14 oz (9th) and 22 inches (46th)
3 months: 10 lbs 4 oz (10th) and 24 inches (80th)
4 months: 11 lbs 13 oz (12th) and 24 1/4 inches (60th)  
6 months: 13 lbs 2 oz (6th) and 26 inches (71st)
9 months: 15 lbs 6 oz (5th) and 27 inches (47th)
12 months: 16 lbs 14 oz (5th)  and 28 inches (25th)
14 months:  18 lbs 4 oz (5th) and 28.5 inches (16th)
18 months: 20 lbs 4 oz (5th ) and 31.25 inches (51st)

 On the WHO chart, Avery is between 10 and 25th percentile in weight now (18ish I'd estimate) and around 30th for height. She did manage to hit 20 lbs!! At 9 months we were estimating she'd get there around 20 months. Way to catch up babies!!

They're also about 5th and 10th percentile weight for height on the WHO chart now, which I am also impressed with, given that at 9 months (half a lifetime ago, wow!) they were at the 5th. Of course, this means they're not on the CDC weight for height chart, but whatever. The GI doctor has conceded Quinn is just fine and just a small person and no longer wants to follow her, so I call that a win.