solo at the doctor's office

In almost 15 months, I've never taken both girls to the doctor's alone. Well, I have, but the once or twice I did one remained in the carrier, untouched.  Chris did a couple of early well visits solo, but since she went back to work we've done them all in the evening so we could have man to man defense (and, let's be honest, we're boring and the pediatrician is a big outing for us...might as well go as a family).

This week she was away for work, so I took both girls for a pseudo well-visit - just flu and polio shots. Now, could I do it again, I would use the same tactic I did when I took them for the 1 year blood draw (+ 100293 extra vials for Quinn for her extra bloodwork for the GI): Bring babies in stroller. Secure babies. Deal with one screaming baby at a time. Have free hands for wallet, keys, et al.

Here's what really happenned:

My mom offered to come with me.
I left the stroller at home.
My mom got a phone call from my brother.
She left the room approximately 9 seconds after the doctor stepped in.
Both started fussing (somewhere around that 1 yr mark, they decided nothing good comes from the lady who sticks things in their ears and legs).
I set Avery on the floor so Quinn could get her shots (seeing as I did Avery first at their bloodwork and she nearly flipped herself out of the stroller screaming while Quinn went). She flipped thefuck out.
Quinn got her shots. And flipped out.
My mom poked her head in to see if everyone was ok. She said something consoling to Avery. I told her Avery hadn't had her shots yet. She returned to her phone call. 
I swapped babies.
Avery went from screaming to screaming like she was having something amputated.
Now I put their pants back on, gathered my bag and sweater, and carried two writhing toddlers - still screaming - to the front desk to get our immunization copies and book their 18 mo well visit.

My mom turns up at this point and takes one for long enough for me to get out my keys.
She returns her when her phone started ringing (which caused the receptionist to look for HER phone).
Now with two arms full of now sobbing toddlers, I throw in the towel on putting the appointment in my calendar and jam the little card into my pants pocket after somehow retrieving it from the countertop which is about armpit height.
I open two doors and let myself into the hallway. Sometime between the desk and the door my mom has hung up the phone. Excellent. She can carry one to the car.
Then her phone rings again. She starts complaining how she can't find anything in her purse. Her phone is in her jacket pocket. Where she put it 30 seconds ago.
I give up on help and carry both kids through another door. I drop my sweater in the parking lot and risk all of our lives retrieving it by squatting down in the dark near the entrance from the road.

I somehow manage to toss both girls into their car seats and placate them with milk before buckling them in.
I start the car.
By now, my mom has returned and finished her last phone call of the 22 minutes since we entered the exam room.

I'd like to note there was no emergency.
But she's been pretty helpful the rest of the week, notably babysitting the (sleeping) girls for 3 hrs last night so I could go out to dinner in Chris's absence, so I'm pretty much over Tuesday night now. And now I know - solo doctor's visit = stroller.

this week's addition

of How Much Have We Grown

a bit hilarious...

Those hoodies are 3 mo Carters, from the first outfits we ever bought the girls.  Clearly they would have been just fine in NB clothes last October (though we had moved to 3 mo jammies by then because we needed length) but we didn't expect to have miniature babies so we'd gotten fall clothes in, well, non-NB. It's economical - they wore those pants all winter, and still fit into the hoodies (ok, they're a bit short, but they're fine for daycare. and still adorable).

14 months

Where does the time go!

Looking at the ducks! Duk-duk-duk. We must say duck a LOT in the bathtub because it was their first obvious word besides mama.

13 months today

Starting to enjoy the slide.

And dirty things. Avery especially loves to stick her hands in dirty things. Potplants. Gravel. Mulch. It is all fun.


This weekend we tried to do a 14 month "photo shoot" before going to the pumpkin patch.

 Clearly it is not as simple as putting two babies on a step.

they're more or less looking at the camera. and sorta kinda smiling.

I think the moral of this month is TODDLERHOOD is starting. They're developing opinions (eg, Avery MUST wear her hooded towel after bath until she decides it is ok to take it off). They fight. Quinn has bitten someone. They SQUEAL with joy when they see you. They're starting to express themselves - they sign more, please, milk, food and all done. They're making noises that might be other words (I think more and please) but I don't really speak toddler yet so I am not sure... They're walking off in different directions...

For those interested in stats and stuff....

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 under 5th percentile as 5th percentile, which is ridiculous...They're barely on the WHO chart in weight, so needless to say, they're not on the CDC chart.

Quinn
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)
On the WHO chart, Quinn is now just over 5th percentile for weight and 2nd 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 :)

Avery
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)

On the WHO chart, Avery is a bit over 10 percentile in weight now (15ish I'd estimate) and around 5th for height. Looks like she might hit 20 lbs around 18 months!

what a difference a year makes

11.5 months really.

They were about 11 weeks in the Oct 2011 pictures, and 14 months on the nose in the pictures from this weekend.

Every time I see Quinn crying the the pumpkins I laugh :)

On the same token, they're still minis.

Christmas 2011, just shy of 5 months (ok, maybe the 3-6 mo dresses were a little ambitious for the 11 and 12 lb peanuts)

September 2012, just shy of 14 months and trying on last year's dresses.

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.