Category — Month-by-month

Once again, I’ve been slacking on monthly progress reports, so here you go. If you’re not into this sort of thing, then skip it.

The girls turned 18 months old last week. At their well-visit with the pediatrician, I made their next appointment for November. It almost blew right past me that this will be their two-year well check. TWO YEARS OLD. This makes me panic.

Anyhow. Moving on.

Eating

As I reported a little while back, I weaned the girls at 16.5 months (and promptly got pregnant on that same cycle). They just drink whole milk, some juice and water now.

Eating has gotten pretty casual with them. They graze most of the day, maybe sitting down for real meals a few times a week. This hasn’t posed a problem with eating out — they actually do really great when we eat out, only whining or fussing if they’re exhausted.

I think they recently came out of a growth spurt because there were a few weeks there where they were eating and drinking like insatiable hogs. In the past few days, it’s slowed down to a more manageable pace.

They will eat or try most anything we give them. We’re super lucky in this department.

Sleeping

Luckily, no complaints here either. They go to bed between 7 – 8 p.m. and sleep till 7 – 8 in the morning. I think they have dreams now, because someone will occasionally wake up in a state of terror.

Just one nap, generally 3 hours in the early afternoon.

Sizes

They’re both just over 22 pounds and 32 inches tall, so still in the 25% percentile for weight and 50% for height. They wear 18 month clothes, size 5 shoes and size 4 diapers.

Communication

This is one topic where I find myself comparing the girls to other kids and I HATE doing that.

I speak exclusively in Spanish to the girls, while Chris mixes English, some Spanish and some Greek to them. Then throw in more Greek, Spanish and even French with my in-laws and my mom, and we’re all over the place. I totally encourage it. Everything I’ve ever read encourages it. The pediatrician encourages it. I have ZERO issue with it.

But along with living in a multi-lingual family comes a delay of some vocabulary and I sometimes have to remind myself of that. Normally I don’t even think about it. It’s when I’m around other kids in single-language households — kids who understand all sorts of words and commands, who speak quite a bit — that I have to cover my ears.

Right now, I’d say the girls have about 20 words in Spanish and English that they can say, but they understand a lot. Good enough for me.

Challenges

This is a new topic for me in these monthly overviews because “real” challenges are just starting to emerge.

Behavior is a big one. Honestly, the girls have not been awful so far. Far from it, really. The things we’re dealing with right now is the occasional throwing of toys and food, some light hitting (to each other and to me and Chris, but no issues with other kids), and some tantrums (at bedtime and when we make them do something they don’t want to do — duh).

Mostly, we just take it in stride. Chris is pretty good about keeping his cool. I lose my patience sometimes, especially if there’s a lot of crying/whining involved. I just try to remind myself that this too shall pass, they’re very little still and don’t have the tools and vocabulary to deal with things. Pretty much 100% of what they do is completely, totally normal and is to be expected. Breathe. Cry. Repeat.

Personalities

Sigh, where do I start? They are just amazing little girls.

Elise is so sweet. She loves to love people and things. She loves her blankie, she loves Daddy, she loves sucking her thumb. She likes to rest and observe. When we walk into a new situation, she’ll often hang back and stand in one spot for a while, watching what everyone else is doing before making her move.

What’s most salient about her personality is how detail oriented she is. In a room full of activity, Elise will find the little piece of lint in the corner and will study it for ages. She’ll turn it over in her hands, talk to it, show it to you for your opinion. One time, she fell off a chair, flat on her face. She didn’t cry because she was instantly distracted by a little stick she found in the carpet. She LOVES to read, both to herself and being read to.

Meanwhile, Althea tends to be more outgoing and big-picture. She’ll wave “hi” to everybody around her. We walk into a new situation and she’ll charge right in, finding someone or something to play with. She sings and shrieks and bursts into laughter. She dances and claps. She puts on a show and makes silly faces. Her sense of humor is already evident, too, and she loves making people laugh. Her favorite person in the whole world is Daddy.

What’s interesting is that, just because Elise tends to be more subdued doesn’t mean that she’s more compliant. Of the two, Elise is more likely to not want to follow directions. If we’re at a park, for instance, and I start walking away to get everyone to the car, Althea will follow and Elise will stay back and do whatever she damn well pleases. She has a strong independent streak to her and likes to do things her way. Althea is more likely to imitate and do things when asked (well, as much as an 18 month old will follow directions), though she does tend to be more destructive.

I don’t want to categorize either of the girls as the “outgoing one” or the “quiet one,” because it’s simply not true. There are times when Althea breaks down and Elise is in charge. Althea often initiates kissing and hugging with her sister, even though Elise tends to be “softer.”

Just goes to show that, no matter how much we want to label twins, no matter how much we culturally romanticize the notion of twinship, twins — yes, even identical ones — are very much two different people.

(I haven’t done a general health/habits post in ages, so bear with me if you’re not into this sort of thing.)

The girls turned 15 months old last week. I’m starting to feel like a legitimate parent with actual, like….kids. While sharing a park with some morose-looking teenagers a few weeks ago, I had one of those out-of-body experiences where it hit me: I was no longer that rebellious, chain-smoking, misunderstood teen; I was now “that lady with kids,” a total buzz kill, a bust.

Or whatever kids are saying these days.

Anyhow, moving along….

General stats

As of this morning’s well-check, the girls have finally broken the 20-pound mark.  Both are at about 20lbs 5oz, which puts them, as usual, in the 10th percentile (20th if you go by the WHO breastfed baby charts). Both are measuring almost 30.5 inches (50th percentile).

They’re fitting comfortably in 12-18 months clothes and are now in size 4 diapers.

Sleeping

The days of two, two-hour naps every day are behind us, sadly. During the past six weeks or so, their morning nap got later and the afternoon nap phased out. Problem is, now they get super cranky and tired in the early evenings. It’s a bit of a rough transition. Their general routine is:

7:30 a.m. – Wake, nurse
8:30 a.m. – Breakfast
10:30 a.m. – Nap
12:00 p.m. – Wake, sometimes nurse
12:30 p.m. – Lunch
1:00 – 4:00 p.m. – Out and about
4:30/5:00 p.m. – Evening meltdowns begin
6:30 p.m. – Bath, nurse, read books
7:00 p.m. – Bed

I’m thinking it’s time to move up bedtime. I just keep forgetting. Aside from the occasional bad dream or teething, they still sleep solidly through the night.

Eating

We’re down to nursing two or three times a day. They don’t drink much whole milk, though — maybe three or four ounces a day. They just don’t seem to like it much, which is fine with me because the organic stuff is expensive.

They eat pretty much anything in the way of solids — that is, when they’re not scooping up food and dropping it over the side of the high chair. I still haven’t given them any nuts, honey or soy. They’re pretty good at using a fork and spoon, though I don’t offer utensils all the time.

Personalities and behavior

I hate to continue to peg one twin as “the happy twin” or “the serious twin.” They both have their own sense of humor, likes and dislikes, funky moods.

Elise loves: sleeping, birds, swings, avocados, squash, sucking her left thumb (so much that it has a callous), bananas, being held, dance and music, Yo Gabba Gabba, reading

Althea loves: avocados, Yo Gabba Gabba, reading, sucking on her sleep sack (which both girls now use as blankies), bananas, swings, kitties, making people laugh, playing in the sand, pointing at different body parts

As I posted earlier, we’re going through a pretty exhausting clingy phase. And tantrums are becoming pretty commonplace, though they’re thankfully short and not terribly loud. Althea’s tantrums remind me of those weird fainting goats — she arches her body backward, then slowly and dramatically lays on the ground, carefully placing her head down so as not to hurt herself. Meanwhile, Elise opens her mouth into a perfect “O,” turns bright red and cries.

Milestones

The girls are excellent walkers; people actually comment on how mature their walking skills are. There’s none of the tip-toeing or awkward knee-bending of a toddler. They can go up and down stairs (well, when they notice the stairs), get off beds and couches by themselves and sit on rocking horses the right way (which was apparently a difficult concept to grasp).

They don’t have many words yet. Both girls say Daddy, but only Althea says Ama. They both say bebe (baby),  “bah” for ball and “peh” for pelo (hair). But they understand a lot. They can point to their hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, feet, hands, stomach and bellybuttons (all in Spanish, I might add!). They recognize that a baby can exist in various places and in various forms — as a picture on the yogurt container, or a cartoon on TV, or a real baby in person. They know when it’s mealtime and bathtime. They understand sientate (sit down), and they raise their feet to put on socks and shoes.

I know that they understand “no,” mainly because it’s their favorite word to use and their favorite command to defy.

I’ve hesitated to post about this because I thought it was just some random thing. But it’s lingering — no, festering– so I need to share so that I might help other clueless, first-time parents.

The girls’ first year was full of plenty of tribulation, but overall, it was relatively easy as far I imagined raising twins would be.

Now? Ummm, not so much. For the past month or so, the girls have shown that they are regular kids.

It started with some extra-needy days. Elise would whimper for attention. Althea would need to be held. Teething, I figured, or just a random needy day. Hell, I’m 32 and I still have those days.

But weeks later, I’m pretty sure this isn’t random.

Some days aren’t too bad. I have to pay more attention to one daughter over the other, or we need to get out for extra playtime to distract. My patience is tried, but not broken.

Other days, though, are exhausting. Ex. Haus. Ting.

From the moment the girls wake up until bedtime some 12+ hours later, it seems like someone is constantly crying, whining, begging and clinging. Demanding to be constantly entertained. Rejecting food and drinks. Pushing the other sister, fighting for my attention, whining for no apparent reason. They’re really starting to understand requests and directives, and they’re blatantly defying them.

It’s maddening. Yet the defiance is somehow more manageable to me than the inexplicable crying.

The inexplicable crying ALL. DAY. LONG.

When Chris checks in with me during the week and asks how the girls are doing, I try to explain to him how tenuous my nerves are:

“I’m about to lose it.”

“Incessant crying since 9 a.m. Where are you?”

“Contemplating taking a leisurely walk on I-75 during rush hour. Leaving the girls at Toys R Us.”

From my conversations with other moms, this clingy-crying stage is painfully common at this 1+- year-old mark.  Thing is, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t end.

Ever.

It’s no longer one or two tentative steps. She’s walking across rooms now, slowly but surely. (Sorry for the shitty video quality — I caught it with my phone.)

Sigh. The last month of infancy. Though they’re not toddling yet, and hence probably can’t be referred to as toddlers, they’re something a little older than babies, right? Some kind of crazy baby limbo. Anyway. Updates.

Feeding

Still nursing four times a day. They have a big breakfast, while the rest of the sessions get shorter and shorter, maybe three or four minutes long. The girls launch themselves off the nursing pillow and just want to play. I’ve started wearing a  nursing necklace again to keep them on long enough to empty my boobs, which has helped some.

They go through six jars of baby food a day, as well as some finger/table food. I clip a lot of coupons.

Sleeping

Nothing new here — two naps a day, sleeping through the night still. I think that they’re wanting to stay awake longer between the morning and afternoon naps. Time to tweak the schedule.

Milestones

Standing unassisted is soooo four weeks ago. Now we’re cruising around and, as I posted a few days ago, Althea is practicing unassisted steps. I think she’s a ways from walking still, but she’s definitely interested.

Something strangely cool is that they LOVE drinking from a straw. They actually drank an entire juice box EACH. It seems so grown-up to me. How can I possibly have two kids that know how to drink from straws?

We recently attended some birthday parties — one for another set of twins, one for a big group of us from mommy group (early first-birthday party for us). The girls had pizza, juice and cupcakes and sat in little chairs at a table. It was effing adorable.

Oh, and they’ve decided to protest Winblows. We’ve got a couple of budding geeks here.

Sizes

By my non-technical calculations, Elise is about 18 pounds and Althea’s about 17.5. They’re in 12-month size clothing now. Still size three diapers. I’m convinced they’re never going to grow out of them. I wouldn’t mind so much, but the baby on the diaper box is  so freaking creepy looking.

Much to my surprise, the girls turned 10 months old last week. Double digits. Edging uncomfortably close to a year old.

I’ll add some boring details, but I can sum it all up by saying that they’re amazing.

They laugh, they cry, they chase each other, they give goofy looks. I love wrapping my arms around their little bodies. I love seeing their smiling eyes when they wake up in the morning. I love hearing their squeals and shrieks of delight. Everything about them makes me giddy with love and joy. I never knew  I could love this much.

Feeding

The girls are down to nursing four times a day. We go through five jars of baby food (and I specifically say “we” because man, some of that shit’s pretty tasty) and about 3/4 cup of cereal a day, not to mention slivers of bread with cream cheese, teething biscuits, puffs and Mum-Mums. I occasionally give them bits of what I’m eating. The most exotic thing they’ve tried is spanakopita. They are half Greek, after all.

Really, though, I haven’t pushed the solids super hard. I’m starting to realize that they should probably learn how to eat real people food kind of soon, especially since my boobs are getting tired (that’s a whole different post).

Sleeping

I am incredibly grateful that they still take two decent naps per day. I am incredibly even more grateful that we’re having a good stretch of sleeping through the night again, despite teething and milestones and all that other baby stuff.

Milestones

Things are getting pretty interesting in the milestone department.

Both have been standing unsupported occasionally for a few weeks now, but they’re now practicing it on a daily basis, several times a day. It’s AWESOME. I love love love cheering them on when they let go of something and visibly work their muscles and equilibrium to stand on their own.

One really cool thing that I need to get on camera is that Elise is catching on to hand movements. She’s understanding the motion of clapping, even if she doesn’t get that the hands are supposed to slap together. For her, it’s more like a mushing together of hands and fingers. But she tries.

Also, when they’re done eating solid food, I always tap the bowl, proclaim that it’s empty and then brush my hands together and announce “No hay mas!” — “No more!” Elise is starting to imitate it.

Elise now has six teeth and Althea has five. They’re drooling like crazy again with all the new teeth coming in.

Sizes

They’re in 9-12 month clothes (which are oddly hard to find) and still in size three diapers. They’re weighing in at just over 17 pounds.

Personalities

The girls are both exuberant and full of love and life. But in general, Elise is the more contemplative and serious girl, while Althea has the sense of adventure and abandon.

Elise is more calculated in her endeavors. She might not always be the first at something, but she seems to perfect things first. Althea, on the other hand, bulldozes her way around. If she sees Elise with a toy she wants, she’ll bolt all the way across a room to steal it from her.

Perhaps pictures might tell the story better.

Elise? A little introspective and happy.

Althea? Toys in the attic.

The girls had their (late) nine-month appointment on Friday. Elise is at 17lb 1oz and Althea is at 17lb 2oz. (For the first time ever, Althea outweighed her sister!) Elise was twisting around during her measurements and measured about 26 3/8 inches long (pretty sure that’s wrong), while Althea measured 27 inches long. Both had 17″ heads.

The pediatrician was the “partner” pediatrician of the practice, the same guy that kinda sorta pissed me off at their four-month checkup. I didn’t like him much the first time we met him and definitely didn’t like him much this time.

Both times, he’s questioned my ability to successfully breastfeed the girls.

“Well, they’re in the 25th percentile  blah blah blah. At this age, babies need at least 16 ounces of milk a day blah blah blah. So the question is, are you producing four cups of a milk a day?”

I exhaled so that my flapjack, B-cup boobies would disappear. Because I knew he was looking.

(BY THE WAY. Breast size has basically zero to do with milk output.)

The babies aren’t gaining weight as rapidly anymore. The doctor therefore  gave me a sideways warning about “needing to do something” if the girls don’t gain weight more quickly by their 12-month appointment.

First, isn’t it super common to slow down weight gain as the babies increase movement? Both of the girls are crawling like crazy and standing all the time. They’re burning more calories than I am. They haven’t lost weight. They’ve gained since the last appointment. They just aren’t gaining like crazy anymore.

Second, I thought the growth charts were CHARTS, not CONTESTS. It isn’t a race to the 100th percentile, right? Aside from my post-baby muffin top, I’m not a large or tall woman by any means, and Chris is a natural stringbean.

Third, I fucking HATE that the human body’s ability to naturally care for itself is so constantly questioned by modern medicine. Advances in medicine are awesome — hell, lifesaving – for countless people/babies/moms, but why does that have to mean that other folks have to undergo or face the threat of unnecessary intervention? For what? To fund pharmaceutical statistics so that Glaxo can make another overnight vaccine?

Can you tell I get a wee bit defensive and suspicious of “modern” medicine every now and again?

Like any 21st-century mother, I posted about my hatred of the AAP on my Facebook status. (Unlike a 21st-century mother, I did not post to Twitter because, frankly, I’m too lazy to keep up with anything that requires a character count without paying me by the word.)

Anyhow.

I plan to start checking out other semi-crunchy pediatricians before the girls turn one.

Um and holy shit the girls are going to turn one.  Suck on that, doctor.

Hi! We’re now nine months old.

9 months old

Eating

We nurse usually five times a day — sometimes four, sometimes six or seven. The girls now get two full jars each of baby food a day (so four total — per day), along with about 1/4 cup of cereal each. This  means my stash of baby food is being rapidly depleted day by day. They’ve also tried toast and bagels with cream cheese, which they both love. Chunky food is definitely NOT on their list of favorite foods. Small pieces of undefinable dirt and crumbs from the floor ARE on the list.

Sleeping

Elise continues to have problems sleeping. She usually always wakes once within a few hours of going down for the night. She refuses to be nursed and I can only sometimes get her back to sleep on her own. The past few nights, Chris has taken her on short walks outside. That does the trick every time. I suspect it’s a combination of developmental milestones and being off routine (with family visiting).

Luckily, Althea sleeps through Elise’s screaming.

They do one 2-hour nap in the morning about 2 hours after waking, and another 2 hour nap about 2 hours after that.

Personalities

The girls do a lot of things alike and/or at the same time, but they are very different people. Elise is becoming our slightly more serious or introspective girl. In general, her physical movements are more calculated and thought out. She’ll watch Althea do something for several days before attempting it herself. When Elise sits up, she’s balanced and planted in place. She’ll study things and when she’s uncomfortable, she turns toward me for comfort.

Althea, on the other hand, shrieks and squeals and laughs like a mad woman. When she sits, anything can distract her, causing more than a few encounters between the tile floor and her skull. She climbs and conquers and attacks. Though she’s independent in many ways, she still wants comfort and attention from me and Chris.

Milestones

Althea has her two top and bottom front teeth in. Elise has her bottom two front teeth in and one top front tooth. Her second top tooth is STILL torturing her, but out of nowhere, her left eye tooth appeared. (By the way, anyone who says that teeth don’t bother with nursing is a liar.)

Their hair is growing quite a bit these days. I’m not much of a girly type, but that wispy baby hair is just begging for little bows and clips.

Both girls can stand for quite a while. A couple of times, Elise has been standing with a toy in one hand and the other on a wall and tried to grab the toy with both hands, only to fall on her butt. The other day, she released both hands from the wall and fell after a second. Although Althea’s generally our more athletic baby, I have a feeling Elise will be the first to stand on her own. However, Althea will be the first to climb Mt. Everest.

They talk a LOT these days. Dadada, mamama, tetetetete, ch, k, ba, brr, beh, ahhh, ohh, ehhhh, th, ssss, la, le, and so on.

I’m kind of freaking the hell out. I don’t understand how it’s possible that we’re approaching their first birthday. I see them as these helpless newborn babies still, but every once in a while I glace at their figures in their cribs and realize how long they are, how much they’ve grown, how they’re starting to look like little girls.

Althea - 9 months

Elise - 9 months

I haven’t washed my hair since Saturday. The babies are playing with cups and spoons. Althea just ate a piece of paper when I wasn’t looking. It’s 8 a.m. and I’ve been up since 4. Things are not looking good for today.

Sleep in general has been a nightmare, so to speak. Over the past five or six or god-knows-how-many-at-this-point weeks or so, the babies went from sleeping through the night, to waking once a night, to waking up to four or five times a night, back to waking once.  Last night, I stirred awake at 4 a.m., expecting the girls to wake any moment. Go figure, they slept through till 6:30 this morning. I, of course, did not.

Back when the girls went through some sort of horrible four-month sleep regression thing, I found Ask Moxie, so I turned to her for this latest sleep problem. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t find this and this. Seven months and nine months are very common hell months and, since these things take a few weeks to work themselves out, we can say that months seven through nine are shit.

I’m behind on updates so I figured I’d start with the most expired news and work my way up.

The girls turned eight months old (almost two weeks ago…woops) and they’re changing by the day.

Milestones

Both have been teething for a couple of weeks now, culminating in the appearance of Althea’s first top tooth! Elise’s teeth are torturing her, visible right under the gums but refusing to poke through.

Both girls have  sitting and crawling DOWN. Althea continues to show her gymnastic ability by standing up pretty regularly now. I’m starting to find her standing in her crib after naps now.

Althea standing in her crib

Babbling is crazy-fun frequent, with tons of sounds — ta, ba, dada, ma, pa, th, ch, derr, and lots of vowel sounds. Althea’s taken to shrieking too. Fun, right?

We’ve reluctantly given up our beloved Double Snap ‘n Go stroller and infant seats and traded up to a big-girl stroller and car seats. We like our new Jeep Traveler Tandem and we opted for the Graco My Ride 65 car seats — it has the highest rear-facing weight limit at 40 pounds, goes to 65 pounds forward-facing, has DOUBLE cup holders bitches ‘cuz that’s how we roll, is super soft and cushy, and was a technically-reasonable-but-still-painful-to-shell-out $150. (Each, of course. Yeah, ouch.)

New car seats, yo

New stroller

Sleeping

Sleeping has been . . . rough. After months of sleeping through the night really well, they reverted back to newborn behavior, waking two, three, sometimes four times a night. Of course, this has coincided with the teething, crawling, standing up, increased babbling, etc. We’ve gone back to two consecutive nights of sleeping through again, so hopefully we’ve overcome this bump.

I wish I had known not to get so smug about babies who sleep through the night because just when everything’s golden, they go and start growing up on you.

Still taking two good naps in the morning and afternoon, with an occasional evening catnap if they’re cranky.

Eating

The girls nurse five to six times a day and are now eating solids for breakfast and dinner. We started meats last week, which has resulted in stink-awful poop. Then again, more solid poop means the end of blowouts. Gotta love that.

While I love love love breastfeeding, I have to admit that I’m pretty much over it. I would like to have my body back for a bit. I just want to make it to one year so I don’t have to buy any formula, then I hope to start the weaning process. At the same time, the thought of weaning, of not seeing those four bright eyes peering up at me, of not having their tiny hands exploring my face, arms and chest, of not being needed – kind of breaks my heart.

To complicate things, I think the girls are now grown-up enough to like breastfeeding. Sure, they’ve always liked it in the sense that it’s warm and snuggly and delicious, but now I think they’re aware enough of what they like and dislike to show a desire to  nurse when they’re not hungry. They climb on me and whine and tug at my shirt, even after eating. I feel bad to turn them away. I feel like a bad mom for not being a human pacifier. But . . . well, I refuse to be a human pacifier. It’s rough. Sigh.

Sizes

We’re just about ready to move into 9-12 month clothes. Waaahhhh, another expense. Can they just go naked till they’re ready for school? Still in size three diapers. I’ve gone back to cloth diapering part-time, actually. That’s another post altogether. I’m guessing they weigh about 16.5 pounds now.

In other news, we did finally get a Big Badass Camera. We opted for the Canon Rebel EOS xsi. Love it! Very easy to use. Here are some recent photos.

Althea 8 months

Elise 8 months

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