Mom guilt

We are working on sleep training. Quinn sleeps 7-430 easily, and often until 6. We are working on making it always 6!

Avery is not the great sleeper (she goes to sleep fine but is up at midnight and 4 looking for food). She is 7 months now, so we are really working on ending that business. She had a cold last week but was recovered by Monday, so we started Ferber (again). She cried from 11:45 to 1:40 am, then slept until 730.

Tuesday she alternated crying and playing in her crib from 12 to 1:50 and 3:30 to 5:15.

Ferber lies.

Or maybe not.

She got sent home from daycare with a low fever Wednesday. The fever alone wasnt the issue - she refused to be put down. She was a clingy mess for her grandma Thursday.

Thursday night I broke down and brought her to the pedi. Double ear infection, which appears to be a dramatic first diagnosis as the pedi (who we haven't seen before) commented "she's not even a frequent flyer".

So today, I am home with her waiting for the antibiotics to work their magic.

finalized

We're legally a family.

Even if the federal government doesn't think so.

Nursery

It's been a while since I posted an update to our house. In all honesty, we lost a lot of steam once we moved in (which coincided with my wife going back to work, so that's not shocking).

But the nursery is the CLOSEST we have to a complete room...
To refresh your memory...from when we were looking at the house (this is the view from the corner to the left of the window when looking at the window):

I'm reading something on the wall there...

same vantage point now:

There's not really a giant candle on the wall...its a shadow from the light fixture

From just before we had the floors redone, about a week before moving in (this is the view from the doorway)

freshly painted, just before we had the floors redone.

now:

mostly done!

The room IS small, but its a perfectly good size for two little babies. I added that old Ikea bookcase on a whim, and it works pretty nicely. The top four bins have clothes - currently footless sleep and plays, sleep and plays, fleece sleep and plays, and sleep sacks. The dresser houses all their pants and onsies, and the closet (to the right of this vantage point) has their dresses, sweats, and linens. There's also a changing table beyond the dresser which is chock full of our diapers. You can just see a midge, but we also have a fluffy green rug from Ikea that I am a little in love with.  We didn't really MEAN to give the room a green theme...it just sort of happened.

At this point, our main to-dos are replacing the light fixture with a small ceiling fan and refinishing that rocker (its half stripped, hence the coverage blanket). Sometime before next winter we also need to enclose that radiator. It gets HOT, way too hot for little hands.

Bonus photo: The tree the girls' Grammy painted for them, and a product of my crafty Saturday night.

yum

At the girls' 4 month well visit, our pediatrician advised waiting until closer to 6 months to start solids since a) they were a month early and b) Quinn's muscle control is a little behind.  At their 6 month well visit, she was impressed with their muscle control - even miss Quinn's! - and basically implored us to start solids asap given their weight for length and Avery's drop in percentiles (I DO think that was due to the Sickness more so than her solids intake, given that we've (well, Chris) has gone from being 12 hrs ahead on milk to 24 hrs ahead without thawing any...).

So after I picked them up from daycare on Friday, we popped into the grocery store to get some baby cereal.  The pediatrician said to get a whole grain (rather than white rice) so I opted for oatmeal. I don't really think there's any nutritional value to baby cereal, but figured we'd give it a shot as a first food (and we haven't had time to make anything for them yet).

We made the first batch super thin. Avery loved it and sort of whined each time Quinn was fed instead of her. She also grabbed the spoon and tried to eat it.

Quinn was on the fence.

On Sunday, we gave avocado a shot.
(I'd found some PERFECTLY ripe ones at the store on Friday. Seriously perfect specimens.)

We just mashed up some of the meat and gave each girl a slice. In retrospect, that was too much too soon. Avery just wasn't having anything to do with it, and Quinn must have gotten too big of a chunk from the slice  I gave her into her mouth because she gagged and threw up most of her breakfast bottle. Sweet.

They liked the oatmeal last night though (Quinn especially, ironically enough), so we'll try some avocado again tonight with milk mixed in to thin it out.

6 mo well visit/peanuts

Our 6 month well visit was sort of a failure, given how the babies have been sick for a week now. Quinn got an official croup diagnosis (and it's likely Avery had it, we just didn't know since she had lost her voice. Most pathetic thing ever, a 6 mo old who can't make noise crying).  So we got weighed and measured and generally checked out, chatted about sleep and solids (more on this later), and sent on our merry way with a script for new vitamins and steriods for the croup.

Our last well visit was at 4 months, and they're more or less managed to grow on their curve. Both dropped a smidge in weight percentiles, but in all honesty, I think it is from The Sickness, as they'd both been eating around 60-70% of their norm for a few days. 

percentiles from this site for actual age. It uses the CDC and not WHO charts, but whatever, good for scanning curves at least. It also reports anything at 5% or under as 5, which is ridiculous...Quinn is more like 3rd, if that, in weight when you look at the chart.
Quinn

Who's excited to start solids?

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)


Avery

but today, we're watching Baby Einstein

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)

I hope they'll do a weight check when we go back for their shots in two weeks, since  Avery dropped off her curve for weight for length and that's apparently more concerning than being tiny :)  They're both about 3rd percentile on weight-for-length on the WHO charts now (they're way below on the CDC chart. I guess American babies tend to be chubby?)

sick babies suck

I don't have much more to say on this topic today.
I am tired.
And now I have a cold.
I know this is JUST the beginning.

yes, I look well rested. I made Mommy sleep on the couch with me.

But its been almost a week.
Let's get the happy babies back.

6 months old

How is that possible? They've been outside babies 70% of the time they were fetuses!! Crazy.

Where are we at 6 months?

so we're sick for our 6 month birthday...

But we are REALLY FLIPPING CUTE most days!

(our home photo shoot trial a couple of weeks ago)

Avery

Quinn

We go to their 6 mo baby well visit on 2/1, so no height/weight stats yet, but I think they're doing amazing.  They're pretty much caught up to their peers (I guess that as many months as weeks early thing is about right)..  In short:


Avery is a barrel of laughs. She's more solid feeling than Quinn, and lends herself well to being "tossed" and flipped around (to the extent you can do these things with a 6 mo old baby).  She seems to enjoy these things a ton, with this big open mouth grin, but she only giggles at the end.  She has a VOICE when she is upset. She still loves to stand in the exersaucer, and is flipping belly to back and starting to sit unsupported.  She's a bit of a ham and loves to flash her gums for strangers.

Quinn is the inquisitive one. She is a lot lighter (feeling anyway) and still squishier. She also loves to stand but really loves the playmat. She can do tummy time forever and is rolling in both directions. She just learned to blow raspberries last week and that is her new favorite thing in the world!  Quinn is a total morning person and all smiles at 6 am. She also may be compassionate - she always stares at Avery when she's crying!