a hectic sunday morning

This is what happens when Mommy tries to do dishes and get ready for church without putting a video on to entertain the twins.



Of course, I couldn't really be mad at them. I left the box of kleenex on the end table next to the couch, and I know Ryan can now climb up onto the couch by himself. It wasn't an issue all week because there were enough people around to watch it, and I forgot to move the box again when they left.

... so I grabbed the camera.

(Oh, and that small trash can was empty to begin with...)

preparations

We are in cleaning mode right now. A little bit yesterday, a little today, and finishing up tomorrow. Barry's parents, sister, brother and his wife will all be here Wednesday night through Saturday morning. I'm looking forward to it, but it's also a lot of work.

We'll eat some good food, do some household projects, and celebrate Joel's birthday (it's not until December, but still).

The kids going to have fun playing with everyone, and hopefully the extra dog will learn to be good with them.

complete thoughts

It always surprises me when the twins make another developmental leap... I know it shouldn't.

Ryan has been babbling complete sentences for weeks now; meaning that he babbles for 5 seconds but you can't pick out a single word. This morning he said two phrases very clearly. They were complete thoughts, at the right moment, and totally shocked me.

He was sitting in my lap, and Alyna was playing inside an end table next to the couch. He heard her playing, got off my lap, and headed in the opposite direction. When he heard a noise from her he quickly turned around and walked to where she was. He saw her and said, "There she is," with a big smile on his face. Every word was clearly articulated.

A little later I pulled the exercise mat out of the closet and helped them both do somersaults and back bends. I showed Ryan to put his head down and then lifted his hips to roll him over. On about the third time he popped right up and said, "I did it." Again it was very clear.

He also has a new habit of saying "ya, ya, ya, ya," when he's doing something that you're telling him not to do. It reminds me of the "yep, yep" aliens that used to be on "Sesame Street" (which they've never seen).

Alyna has been using her body language more these days to express herself. She points and makes hand gestures when she wants something/someone. She says a "ma" word that essentially means "mine."

Yesterday I rotated in a box of toys that had been put up a month ago. It was lots of fun seeing what they picked out to play with that they had missed. I think the rolling puppy dog will definitely stay out here from now on.

more childproofing

Since they turned 1 we had opened up the dining room and kitchen areas for the toddling twins to explore. They just weren't content to stay in the living room anymore. That led us to move things around, and put things away. Now we have to do it again. Things that they hadn't touched in 2 months are now in their sights.

We have a wooden stand holding a crock with a spout which holds 5 gallon jugs of purified water. Grandma warned me I'd have to put it up higher somewhere or they would let the water run everywhere. We actually have taught them that it is not for them to touch, and for the most part they obey.

Last night Ryan decided to put his hands on the stand and push... sure enough, the 19 pound strong man had enough leverage to tip the 30+ pound water stand... but fortunately it was caught by the bookshelf next to it before it tipped far enough to spill over. So we have moved it to the counter top where it is partially blocking a cabinet we don't use every day.

He also climbed up into the bookshelf next to that water jug for the first time yesterday. It's a pretty flimsy shelf unit, but we kept it so full of things for them to pull off that they actually hadn't played with the shelves. The 4 corners are poles, and Ryan managed to climb through the poles onto the shelf. His legs were still hanging out the end. When I saw it, I actually made him wait there fussing until I got a picture. Today, Alyna started trying to shake the whole shelf unit to get things off the top shelf... so away goes the bookshelf. We'll have to put our clutter somewhere else.

They also have started to pull out the low drawers and climb inside them. We thought it was fine at first until we realized they were actually bending the bottoms out of the drawers. Barry can fix them, but every time they climb in it breaks again.

There have been a couple other instances this week where the twins found things on the floor they shouldn't have...

Sometimes being a parent is very scary.

sweet stuff

The other night before bed, the four of use sat on the couch reading books. At this moment Ryan was in my lap, and Alyna was in Barry's lap. I reached over and stroked Barry's hair. Alyna glanced up with a curious look on her face. Then she reached up and stroked her Daddy's hair too. So I reached over and stroked her hair. She grinned, and went back to reading her book.

Ryan and Alyna woke up at 6 yesterday morning, and we were trying very hard to get them to go back to sleep. They have had colds for several days now, but keep waking up early and cranky. Barry finally decided to take Alyna into our room and see if she would sleep on his chest. I tried that with Ryan for about 30 seconds before he decided it would be more fun just to play there. So we tried the recliner in their room, and finally moved to the living room because he just wanted to play. He would lay with me on the couch for 5 minutes, then get up and run around the room for 5 minutes, and then come back for another snuggle. At one point he lifted his head off my chest and asked, "nina? dada?" I smiled and said, "Alyna and Daddy are sleeping," at which point he slid off the couch and started to run down the hallway to go wake them up. I had to rush to grab him. We snuggled, ate breakfast, and played together until about 8 o'clock when Alyna finally woke up and Daddy brought her out.

This morning they slept until 7... hooray for that.

Oh, and I'd like to say congratulations to my dad. Not only has he lost over 25 pounds and gotten off all his medications just since this summer, but he has also joined the online community full blast. He joined Facebook and a started a blog all in one week. If you know him or would like to find out about how he's gotten healthy, visit his blog.
Kerbe's Blog: Can You Hear God Singing

that's what parents do

As parents in our generation, there is lots of information available about where our children are "supposed" to be developmentally. In some ways this is a bad thing. We worry about when our children will reach the next milestone, whether they will be as smart as their peers, and whether they are growing to their full potential.

We know Alyna and Ryan are very smart because they are reaching milestones above their monthly age. They each say half a dozen words regularly and clearly. They are starting to follow directions and play games. They each have areas where they excel.

Our worry lately has been mostly in the growth area. Since the babies were only 5 lbs at birth we knew they had some catching up to do. All the books say that twins will catch up in every way by age 2. That is all well and good, but it doesn't make us feel better when we see our friend's 9 month old who is bigger than our 13 month olds.

Ryan is about an inch taller than Alyna, but she weighs half a pound more. She is the first of the two to officially cross the 20 pound mark. I checked this morning on the growth percentile chart and they seem to be fine. When they were born, both were in the 5-10 percentiles in weight, and Ryan was in the 10-25 percentile for height.

Ryan is in the 10-25 percentile for height, 5 percentile for weight.

Alyna is in the 5 percentile for height, 10-25 percentile for weight.

The doctor's are never worried. Our babies are healthy and growing. That's all you are supposed to look at. If they are growing and not dropping percentiles, then they are fine. So we have to be patient and know that God knows exactly how fast they should grow.

Nothing is safe

Ryan managed to pop off the bolt cap that covers the screw in the base of the toilet. Alyna managed to stuff it in her mouth, but couldn't get it back out so she came to me with all this cheerios drool dripping from her mouth.

I discovered Ryan can reach the lowest of the buttons now on the washer/dryer control panels. So the control lock button that I thought was useless 3 years ago is now a very nice feature to have.

Ugh, nothing is truly childproof it seems. The worst part is that you don't know about it until they get into it.




Oh, and I got 7 hours uninterrupted sleep last night (plus some snooze time) so I feel great this morning.

a tired house

It just seems that whenever the weather changes, the babies get restless and fussy. We had 2 or 3 really good nights sleep last week, but the past few days have been trying. They keep alternating waking up every couple hours which leaves Mommy with very few full sleep cycles. Last night we went to bed at 9:30 and I got 5 hours good sleep plus a couple naps before 6:15 wake up this morning.

And they are crying and cranky about everything.

They've been that way the last couple days. Ryan's got a front top tooth that's bulging and about to pop through. I know that must be painful, but he's also just tired because he wakes up before he should and just cries and won't go back to sleep.

In other news:

Ryan can now climb on the couch whenever he feels like it... and up on the back of the couch. He was very close to climbing into our front load washing machine yesterday before I pulled him out.

Alyna is giving kisses making the smooch sound now. I'm teaching her to blow kisses too.

At least one of them has figured out how to open the sliding glass door, so it must remain locked now.

They thought it was great fun the other night when we played at a friend's house and they could climb into his toddler bed all by themselves.

They like to have cage fighting sessions in one of the cribs playing with the mobile and wrestling with each other. Alyna actually grabs the crib and wants in whenever we are in their room... but only if Ryan is going to be in there too.

Alyna follows the dog around the yard with tennis balls to give him. She thinks it's hilarious when he takes them from her hand.

Play time fun

The twins are definitely starting to show their imaginations more.

Everything goes "Vroom". As Ryan is running through the house, no toys in hand, he trills his lips. He loves to push the cars all over the house, and our wood floors are great for it. He will definitely be getting more cars for Christmas.

Everything is a phone. Alyna and Ryan both put any random toy up to their ear and babble into it. It's precious, and a little scary. They have our two old cell phones to play with, and fight over them often (yes, even though there are 2).

Everything is food and drink. Alyna likes to feed people. She will hold food and toys up to our mouths and wait for us to say "Mmmm" or "Yummy". Then she pulls it away and giggles. I think she'll be getting a tea set for Christmas.



Alyna loves the peg puzzles now, and mostly can match up the pieces to where they go even if she can't always situate them right to go in.

The blue tub that we use to hold the miscellaneous toys is now most often used as a boat. They dump everything out and sit in it.



They are starting to grasp the game of chase. When we're outside in the yard and they are a few feet away we turn and say "I'm gonna get you," as we run at them. Ryan will even laugh and run the other wait laughing even more as you reach him. Then we turn and say, "you can't get me," and pretend to run the other way. He will chase after you. Alyna is a little slower at this game because her favorite part is the hug and tickle when you catch her. Of course, this also backfires because they are starting to run away in situations where we are trying to teach them to stay put.

They wrestle a lot with each other and Daddy, and they still love to play peek-a-boo in the curtains. It's so much fun to watch them grow.

Let's Go

One of the twin's favorite phrases to hear is "Let's Go" whether it's to go outside, go bye bye, or just to their room to play. They love to go to another place. During the day they have the run of the living room, kitchen, and dining room, but that is never enough. We dread the cold days of winter ahead, and are trying to get the garage in shape for kids to play in on those days.

I'm glad they like to go places (especially Alyna). She is perfectly content to sit in a cart for an hour as long as we're moving. She doesn't like being stationary very long, and loves to see all the people along the way. She has started to point at pictures of things on items in the grocery store like dogs, babies, and cheerios. Ryan likes to go places, but he's more uncertain once we get there. He's too active to enjoy riding around in the cart for very long.

Yesterday morning we went to the MOPS play group, and as I got them in the car I realized we would be a full 14 minutes early. I left the time I usually leave for church not accounting for the fact that the MOPS meeting place is only a 2 minute drive and I didn't have a reason to be 5 minutes early. So we just drove around for a while, and they were content to watch the world go by.

It was Barry's sleeping day for night shift, and he usually gets up around 4:30 pm. So at 4, I decided to load the kids up and go fill the water jugs and pick up a Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza. As I put on their shoes and socks they were very excited. Ryan giggled as I put him in his car seat. Then as we pulled out of the driveway Alyna gave a full belly laugh.

... Oh, and both Ryan and Alyna slept from 7:30 pm until 6 am, with just a quick diaper change for Alyna at 4:30 am... no fussing. And no I didn't really change anything except Alyna slept through the 9 pm feed.

a better night

Just wanted to let you know we had a better night last night. At least I did. It was Barry's night to stay up all night to prepare for night shift, and now he's asleep, so I don't know how many times he went in to the room. I just know that I went to sleep before 10, and didn't wake up again until 4:08 am. I heard Barry check on Alyna, so used the bathroom and went back to bed. At 4:30 she was crying again/still... so I went to help.

Barry had changed her diaper, and was trying to put her back to sleep. In the past we've given in with a bottle too much and are trying not to do that anymore. We gave her gas-x and teething tablets to cover the bases. Then Ryan woke up too, and we changed his diaper. We picked up and put down until 5. Alyna thought that the rocking to sleep the previous night would be a much better way for Mommy to do things. "Not gonna happen." Eventually she was worn out and gave in.

Ryan cried again 5 minutes after I left the room. I went back in because I could tell it was his "I have to pee" cry. He really does hate the feeling. So I held him while he peed, and then changed his diaper... again.

They both slept until 6:30, which is normal this week because of the time change. I gave them bottles and put them back in their cribs, but they weren't happy about that. Ryan kept saying his "I ditty ditty." I think it's this week's version of potty. So I took them out to the potty chairs, and sure enough he peed in the potty 4 minutes later. Now Mommy just needs to start being less selfish with her time and add potty breaks regularly during the day too.

This morning is playtime with the MOPS moms. We go to the nursery and let the kids play while we talk. I'm really looking forward to it.

night troubles

We've had lots of restless nights lately, and I'm seriously in need of advice from other moms. So please comment if you have anything that may help.

Alyna still wakes up with gas pains about 5 hours after her last bottle. Yes, we still do a bottle at bedtime, and Alyna still gets a 9 pm bottle too. If we don't give her that extra bottle, the wakeup is about midnight. If we give her that bottle it is pushed to 2 or 3 am. We've switched off formula to powdered goat's milk which is supposed to be easier to digest.

Alyna woke at 2:20 am, and would go back to sleep after about 15-20 minutes of crying, but then would cry out in pain every 5-10 minutes. We gave her some Gas-X and teething tablets during this time. After about an hour of that she fully awoke again and cried, and I went in to comfort her. She calmed down as I held her but her breathing was irregular like it is with the gas pains. She gasps in short breaths, and then breathes out again pausing before gasping in breathes again. After 20 minutes of putting her down when she calmed down and having her start crying again, I gave in and held her in the recliner until her breathing became regular again. So at 4 am I finally went back to sleep.

Their diet is mostly meat, fruits, veggies, and cheerios. I just don't know what else to do to help her sleep without the pains coming. She does have some nights where she doesn't do this, but there doesn't seem to be a pattern.

I'm really tired and exhausted.