The twins at 15 months

We’re not exactly sure why the twins get one appointment at 15 months and then another one at 18 months but, whatever, they had their 15 month appointment last week.

Luke -   25lbs. (51%), 32.5 in. (80%), Head 48 1/2 cm. (81%)

Violet – 21 lbs. 13 oz. (27%), 30.5 in. (42%), Head 47 cm. (76%)

Beagle – still overweight, but she missed breakfast yesterday…

Highlights from the “Special Instructions” we get from the doctor included these gems:

“PLAYTIME : Don’t expect your child to share toys with other children.”

and

“SAFETY: This can be a challenging age.”

ah, so true.

Scarred for Life?

I hope I’m not doing some sort of irreparable harm to my poor kids, but we still have them sleeping in the same crib at night.  The thing is, they sleep together so well.  The twins have been sleeping together since they were born.  It isn’t always hugs and sunshine in the crib; they’ve come out with war wounds each. 

I know it’s weird to say irreparable harm, but I can remember an attic door in my childhood home that was right next to my bed.  I somehow came to convince myself that I had to sleep up against that door to keep it shut (hey, I was young and imaginary monsters are scary).  That turned into years of sleeping up against a wall in any bed I found myself sleeping in.  I could make it a night or two if necessary, but I preferred to find my way back to beds up against walls.  I’m doing fine, now, thanks for asking.  It took some therapy and some healing time, but I’m off the wall.

What kind of harm might I do to these poor twins?  Imagine that they have to sleep with one hand constantly touching each other.  That turns into relationships where they must sleep touching their partner in the night.  They could lose a chance at Mr. or Mrs. Right just because they are a night-toucher.  The horror…  All due to their parents who let them sleep in the same crib for too long.

We need to work on getting some Toddler beds this year.

The Twins' 1st Birthday

Luke and Violet enjoyed their 1st birthday celebration yesterday.  We waited for this special day to introduce them to chocolate.  Jen made banana cake with dark chocolate buttercream frosting from scratch, and it was a big hit. Here's the before shot...

Violet got a little more excited about the chocolate.  The texture was just right to smear into the hair.  Perfect.  Bath time!  Despite the fact that they each had huge pieces, they felt compelled to steal cake from each other.  Ah, siblings.  Needless to say, the post-cake-sugar-high was something to behold.

There's a little more of this on YouTube.

 

We'll slowly start adding some more goodies to their diet over the next couple of weeks: whole milk, cheese, butter (technically, not new to them), eggs and berries.

Naturally, the wrapping paper was the favorite new toy.

The paper or the boxes...

 

Luke put on a show with their new walk-behind toy.  Thanks Grammy and Papster!

Too much Love?

More videos today.  Livvie loves the twins.  Here's a little example of just how much she loves to hold Violet.

 

You can catch a glimpse of the cut Luke gave himself on the nose below.  Well, maybe he gave it to himself.  It's hard to tell.  There's lots of yelling that goes on upstairs when they go to bed and we let them work most it out on their own.  You've got to stay on top of those fingernails, they grow fast.

Barriers don't work very well with the twins now (Violet is climbing over one below).  They attempt to climb everything and are getting pretty good at it.  They are both getting more demanding about being picked up and held, too.  I guess the view is just better from above.

They are both actively trying to figure out how to go down stairs.  Up is easy, but the technique is trickier in reverse.  Violet tries to finesse her way down, Luke likes to lead with his head.

Finally, here's a short video of Luke's dismount from the couch.  Violet had a similar smooth exit earlier in the day (not caught on video) when Jen let her play on the couch and got distracted. 

Movie Night

Last night was movie night at Rich and Erika's.  Yes, cheesesticks and popcorn were basically what all of the kids ate for dinner.  We've given up trying to enforce proper nutrition during playdates, it doesn't work.

The kids watched The Sword in the Stone and then Shrek the Third.  We've been hearing all about what Shrek did all day today.

The end of night is always hard.  Livvie typically breaks down with inconsolable weeping when we leave tell her it's after midnight and the party's over.  Karsten ended the night upright and asleep on the couch with the movie-music blaring.  That's a kid who knows how to party right there.

 

Luke and Violet went to bed without any fuss at 8 o'clock and let us enjoy adult time.  They are great about sleeping while we're out as long as we put them in two separate pack n' plays.  At home they sleep together at night, but most naps are done separately now (one up and one down).  The pack n' plays are smaller and there's just too much mauling that occurs in close-quarters.

I know there are some kids that wake up at 6am, but all three of ours slept-in until 9am for us.  Wahoo!

Entropy

Olivia loves putting things together: puzzles, dresses on dolls, home-made bears (ha! another story later about that one).  She's been doing that sort of stuff for so long that I forgot about this whole disassembling phase that the twins are currently in. 

With the twins, towers must be immediately demolished, toys must be removed from all containers, and the air table is very popular for the two minutes it takes to rip all of the pieces off of it.  I know it's just how they learn, but it gets a little old picking up the same toys every night.  I wish I could remember when they switch and start trying to put things together.

It's hard to begrudge the cleaning up too much.  Every day they wake up surprised to find everything put back together (usually in a different spot).  It's like Christmas everyday!  In fact, this is roughly what their Christmas will look like this year.  We'll wrap up some of their existing toys and admire how well they play with the wrapping paper.

Meanwhile, Olivia is reaching new creative heights.  She has gotten pretty good at using each of the cameras.  Despite nearly destroying Michael's noise-canceling travel headphones (not bitter, no, not at all), she has never damaged any of the cameras and we (correction, Michael, not Jen) even trust her with the big SLR now.  She was sitting and taking the picture of Violet above and liked the way that her dress looked, so she snapped this abstract little gem (ok, to be fair, she snapped about 10 of these, but it's digital).