Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Oh, and Leah found her tongue...


Milestones and such

I don't spend a lot of time assessing whether Leah and Elliot are hitting their milestones according to the charts and books, but I actually think that they are right on schedule and doing really well, especially given that they were born three weeks early.  However, I do want to make a point of writing down what they are doing more often (since I suck at keeping up with their baby books), so I'll try to start making note of their current skills here.  At six months and two weeks they are:
  • Sitting unassisted for long periods of time.  They both will topple if they try to reach for something out of range or if they look up quickly and lose balance, but they are really quite stable.  They cannot, however, get into a sitting position on their own yet.
  • Reaching and dragging toys towards them.
  • Laughing (they have been doing it for a while, but now we can reliably get them to giggle by tickling them or "squishing" them).
  • Blowing rasperries and babbling a bit. 
  • Staring at books being read to them (and grab and eat them, which is not as helpful).
  • Rolling over both ways with ease.
  • Trying desperately to crawl, especially when there is a cat within view.  It is hilarious to watch them frantically kicking their legs and waving their arms, but their bellies are stuck to the floor.  They get incredibly frustrated.  I predict Leah will crawl first because I have seen her get up on her knees momentarily and she has a lighter load to carry.
  • Holding their own bottles.  Elliot is doing it pretty consistently.  He actually does it one-handed, which is one of the cutest things ever.  He's so chill about it.  Leah can do it, but isn't as interested in doing it all the time. 
  • Pulling things off their faces if we cover them (like burp cloths and such).  The beginnings of peekaboo, I suppose.
That's what I can remember for the moment.  We are very close to having mobile babies, I believe, which is frightening in itself.  Craig doesn't think that the babies will go out of their way to destroy all of our possessions, but I'm pretty sure they will.  I hope he is right.  

They are eating their solids very well.  So far, they are fans of sweet potatoes, applesauce, banana, avocado (took a few tries), carrots and oatmeal.    Tonight we plan to try pears and then squash this weekend.  Thanks to Craig for making all of our baby food (with the exception of the cereals). 

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

I think I know, but I don't.

I think I know how my babies will respond to various things, but clearly, I don't. Last night, I fed Elliot and sang to him in the guest room, before putting him to bed (swaddled) in the pack and play at 7ish. He was wide awake. He whined, so I went back in to top him up with a bit more milk so I was positive he had eaten enough. I left, with the expectation of going back in after 3 minutes of crying, a la Ferber. He cried off and on, but never met the 3 minute mark. By 7:30, silence. Pure, golden silence. And that was that until 6:30am. Wait, what? He slept for 11 hours straight. This is the first time he slept anywhere but in his bouncy seat in 4 months. He has never slept all night before.


Nary I should forget that Leah too slept ALL night. I have the world's best babies. For today. We shall see what happens tonight. It really is amazing what a full night of sleep will do to a person. Good things, I tell you. There is an animated blue bird singing on my shoulder at this very moment. It's wonderful to be alive. For today.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Earliest photographic evidence of our spawn.


That's Leah on the right with the jauntily placed hat. Already the fashion plate at a few minutes old.

Our evil overlords


Can you see it? The evil? It's there. I promise.

Hey! What's new?

Oh gee! there you are, blog. Long time. I've lost a lot of weight since I saw you last. And birthed a couple kids. They're 6.5 months old now. Fancy that. I was thinking last night that I need to start this blog back up again for my own sanity. I need to purge. And then I need to brush my teeth and start blogging again.

We have been blessed with very well behaved and delightful babies. They are also out-of-control adorable. Currently, though, Craig and I are operating on about 10 hours of sleep over three days. Parenting = hard. And exhausting. Maybe not as bad for those who have babies that sleep, and we've been very lucky for the most part, but we've entered a tough period that I call "the third circle of hell". And you don't sleep that close to hell. Too damned loud, what with all the screaming and so forth.
I love my babies, but I love my sanity also. Again, they are awesome babies: never colicky, very little fussiness, good eaters and up until now, acceptable sleepers. But they are six months old, and baby sleep bootcamp cannot wait any longer.