life with twins

As Parents of the Year, we try to ensure the girls have a well rounded diet.

Who doesn't like Thin Mints?

Quinn, it seems.

(disclaimer: they only got one cookie each. Those ones they keep being handed are the scraps we're slipping off their trays. Add THAT to our Parent of the Year nominations under "Scheming Against Toddler(s) Successes")

life with twins

hilarity.

I suppose we shouldn't encourage yogurt flinging, but she was having so much fun.

Dinner time

We've been struggling with dinner a bit (well, all meals at home, but its obvious at dinner). The girls are really fighting the trays on their chairs (space-savers) and don't really stay put at their table yet.

Soooo we are trying to transition them to the grown up table. Besides the slightly bigger mess, the main issue is they're really into buckles right now. Quinn in particular freaks out if you buckle her in because then she can't play with it (& sometimes she succeeds in buckling and asks to be in unclipped so she can do it again). Our new plan is to buckle one side, push up to the table, and not leave the room too much :)

Today was pretty successful though, and they even ate a few bites of dinner!!

2 days of Christmas!

Christmas Eve dinner

9 days of Christmas

Tonight the girls opened their first Christmas gift, a package from a cousin in Texas. They did pretty well with the wrapping paper, so Christmas has promise.

Perhaps more entertaining was dinner though...

16 months!

Our babies toddlers are 16 MONTHS old (actually, 16 months and about 2 weeks. yikes)

babies and their Cookies

16 months. sheesh.

I am having a bit of trouble coming up with what went on this month. It is all a blur with the ear infections and Thanksgiving (and work and all).

They're such TODDLERS now. Attitudes. Avery says No to everything, even if she means Yes. They give kisses and hugs.  Kisses are a big favorite right now. They'll give kisses to the remote control. Speaking of the remote control, they'll bring it to you and sign Please. Maybe we should do less screentime at home (of course, I am typing this with a sick Avery in my lap watching YouTube...).

They LOVE Cookie(monster) and ask for him (well, ask for Sesame Street in general) by name, especially when in their high chairs. We have a (bad?) habit of putting on shows for them when we get home and get dinner together.

They will point out their bellies, heads, eyes, nose and ears and sometimes toes and knees. If you're lucky, they'll show you your belly too and poke it. Same thing for your eyes and nose. Bonus points for trying to remove your nose from your face, nostrils first.

They are really getting into mimicking - brushing teeth, brushing hair....they also love their shoes, and know which pair is theirs. Quinn tries to put them on. As soon as she learns "I DO" we will be in trouble.

They're expert walkers and are starting to climb a bit - I am hoping they don't become CLIMBERS because I'm not really keen on screwing all of our stuff to the walls.  They are good at stairs, despite not using them much. We have just started parking in the back of the house though, so they usually get to go up 4 stairs a few evenings a week. Avery can ALMOST do it one leg at a time.

Blueberries are our favorite food this month, and cheese is making a comeback. They're both also eating pasta now, which is awesome and has made packing lunches easier.  Quinn is a bit less picky and a lot more neat of an eater than Avery, but neither of them has even earned the "one year old garbage disposal" sticker. Toddlerhood might be interesting. They still drink about 20 ounces of milk a day each.

They're finally sleeping pretty well, when not teething or sick, sleeping 7:30-6:30 most nights and napping  2-3 hrs midday. Quinn just got her 8th front tooth and is working on a molar, and Avery has cut all 4 molars in the last couple of weeks. Shockingly these came in much easier than her first few teeth despite their remarkable size.

Overall, they're SO FREAKING cute. I miss them when I am at work now :)

one is tough

For the babies anyway.  As I've mentioned, we have toddlers now. Things are dramatic. Sometimes you get the wrong sippy. Sometimes Mom takes away the paper you were eating. Sometimes you just feel like screaming because it sounds like a good way to express your anger at the fact you're short but too tall to walk under the dining room table without hitting your head and you can't find anymore Kix to pick off the floor for a snack.

Both days this weekend Quinn woke up from her nap and was in hysterics within minutes. I'll skip the play by play, but the lesson learned here is it is not prudent to put tired babies down for their nap before lunch when their routine dictates lunch first. Even if that means lunch is at 10:45, that would be preferable to an hour of hysterics with the occasional bite of cracker because Tiny Toddler is too hungry to know what to do with herself and you offered milk before blueberries upon her waking.

In a similar vein, Avery, who didn't sleep well Saturday night, was hysterical at 6 pm and wasn't eating dinner Sunday, so I put her to bed early. She was up at 11 and had both of her mom's hand feeding her a midnight snack and some milk. Comically really, singleton-wanna-be baby. At least she went right back to sleep!

bitty babies/11 mo

So I totally missed their 11 mo update. Oh well. Sorry kids.

The biggest thing around that time was the latest bout of ear infections (which won us a bunch on omficef, since neither is tolerating the normal stuff...). And a lot of crappy sleep from the ear infections, the sleep, then who knows what. Bad habits on our part I guess. We need to work on that. Another post, another day.


At our 11 month appointment (a checkback on the ears + a weight check), Avery tipped the scales at 16lbs 4oz and Quinn hit 15 lbs on the nose. We'll see how they look on Wednesday. I'm hoping they're creeping back onto the CDC chart, but am going to bring my WHO chart anyway. They do eat and drink, but they're just not garbage disposal babies, which  I admit makes me nervous. Aren't 1 year olds supposed to eat everything in sight?? How did we skip that stage and go right to picky toddlers? 

Beano

On a whim, I gave the girls some beans to try  from a salad on Friday night. Since we are always in search of things the girls can feed themselves- as spoons are quickly becoming the devil- we were excited when they were hits!

And gave beans at the next few meals.

Now the girls are gassy and pooping a lot. It resembles mashed beans...and theyre pooping out way more of it than they consumed in beans! (didn't you hope I would discuss poop today?) A good "cleanse" perhaps?

the big FF

So far our formula experience has been a total failure (hence FF).

Over the course of the week, Quinn has spit up no fewer than 4 entire feedings (two of which were at day care and were breastmilk, not formula). 3 of those were on me. Awesome. The poor baby also had loose stool all last weekend and dehydrated pasty stools Monday and Tuesday (when the spitting up started).  Its really the result of the powerful antibiotic she was on for an unresolved ear infection, but now I'm wary about giving her formula. What if it WAS the formula and not the meds? Unlikely, but thanks to my latest Mother of the Year application - see above re poop and puke...I didn't call the pedi and have her discontinue the meds until she'd been on them for 8 days, 4.5 days after the disagreement with her bowels started - I am a little paranoid. The little bitty peanut lost 1/2 a pound according to our scale. This is not weight she can afford to drop.

The other failure was totally my fault. I'm a researcher, and probably over-read on the baby front. I know lots of things about complications we don't/didn't have (I do follow a couple of Multiples message boards and blogs, so that is a big source of my information).
Formula is simple.
Lots of people, a majority of people, and certainly a majority of Moms of Multiples, formula feed.

I fucked up the formula.

The package clearly says 1 scoop per two ounces, not one scoop per one ounce. No wonder it was so damn thick.  Avery had two bottles like this before I realized it. Oops. (Note the "Recipe" in Try 3 of my original post)

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.