Here are a few random thoughts that describe our lives currently...
- Pierce continues to be OBSESSED with all wheels and things that spin. I don't know that I've ever seen a one year old with such a fixation. It's really cute though and fun to see him enjoy something so much. He loved the dinosaur eggs at the Crown Center exhibit we went to with Standrew and would have sat in that nest happily playing with the eggs as long as we would have let him.
- Blaine has been so happy and easy going lately. He is pretty much in a good mood from the time he gets up to the time he goes to bed. It's been so fun! He has also learned out to give "kissies". He leans his head in and puts his little lips right on your cheek. Melts us everytime!
- Diego continues to amaze us with his patience for the boys. Blaine is pretty gentle, but Pierce is quite rough. He just lays there as they pet, pat, pull, and crawl over him. He has astounded us and secured his spot as family cat. :)
- They seem to be improving with meal times. I think they are slowly warming up to new foods and have pretty much stopped the defiant throwing of food they don't want. Our one minute time outs actually worked we think!
- They have been really good with independent playing and just lately have started giggling at each other some. They'll be under the kitchen table together and I'll start to hear these darling giggles coming out. I think they're playing a game of chase/peek-a-boo. It's happened two days in a row now and is maybe the cutest thing ever.
- They are still doing really well with sleeping- two naps a day: 9 and 2 and bedtime around 7. Although lately they both haven't been going to sleep at night until almost close to 8. We're not sure what this is about, but I know change for our nice little schedule is on the horizon when they go to one nap. I'm enjoying this consistent schedule with easy put downs for now though.
- Blaine has connected with a lovey, Beary. A few months ago I put a lovey in each of their beds- the bear in Pierce's and the monkey in Blaine's. They were pretty much oblivious to them, but one time B was playing in P's bed and picked up the bear and apparently there was chemistry because he's been sleeping with it ever since. Pierce could care less about the monkey now in his bed, but he seems to have become more attached to his paci. We have to do some distracting to get it away without a short tantrum after he wakes up. It's been so cute, though, to watch Blaine love Beary. He holds it by its little ears and takes it around the house with him. Luckily we haven't had to drag it out with us yet.
- They are doing really well with Child Watch at the Y and the church nursery. Sometimes they'll still cry as I drop them off, but they always tell me that it was just for a minute and they've been playing and fairly happy when I come to pick them up. What a relief! I'm so proud of them for expanding their horizons!
- Pierce seems to have learned the art of the tantrum. He sometimes just sits in one place with a severe whine/cry until he gets what he wants or gets distracted. This can happen when Blaine takes a toy he was playing with, he has to leave a wheel he wasn't ready to, etc. It's been fun to see him have such a will though. He is obviously a baby that knows what he wants.
- Pierce has expanded his "more" sign to mean what we think is a general "I want". He's started doing it at random times: in the car, in the store, playing. It's really cute, but sometimes we're not sure what it is he's wanting! Blaine seems to be starting some signs. Occasionally he'll clap for more, do a small drink sign, and he lifts his arms up for us to pick him up when he's done.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
13 Month Update
Better late than never... (Do I start every post that way?) Anyway, here are a few random things that I knew I wanted to get down.
- Dinner time is our hardest meal of the day. Blaine is doing really well overall with big boy food, but Pierce doesn't want much to do with it. It's almost like the site of meat offends him or something. Are we going to have a vegetarian on our hands? He'll just fuss and whine and, for awhile, throw the food off his tray. This began the institution of time outs. They get a strike each time they throw food and on the 3rd strike we take their tray off, move their chair towards the wall, and leave them in time out for one minute. Then they get to come back and try again. It actually seems to have worked with Pierce! Now he just fusses, but leaves the food there. We've settled for feeding him a pureed veggie and a fruit when he refuses to eat what we've given him. We figure it's the middle ground without starving him before bedtime. I'm not sure when we'll ever be able to eat family dinners. There's just no way BJ and I can sit down and eat while refereeing food and making sure they've gotten a decent amount.
- This has been a sick summer for us and I suspect Child Watch at the Y has something to do with it. I teach on Mondays and Fridays at 4:30 and take the boys with me. That is, when they're not sick which has been more than half the time. They had a cold right after their birthday, then the three of us got a nasty virus at the very end of June complete with coughing and croup for Pierce. It was ugly! Now Blaine has had a runny nose again, but thankfully it hasn't turned into much more than that. Everyone tries to reassure me that they're just building their immune systems, but really? Three illnesses in 6 weeks. That's too much. We'll survive though.
- Blaine is starting to take his first steps. He is quite proficient at standing on his own and started doing it without really realizing it. Sometimes if we reach out for him he'll take a few hurried steps and then fall into our arms. I think he could do more, but is gaining confidence. He took about 8 one time at my mom's though! This is actually the first new accomplishment that I'm kind of sad for. It feels like another chapter of official babyhood is ending. I love carrying them around. That's one of the things about twins that's hard. I've always loved the feeling of carrying a baby on your hip, but I am so much more reliant on our stroller having two. In either case, I'm in no hurry for either of them to walk.
- Pierce still only has two teeth. I'm starting to get slightly concerned, but yesterday I thought I could see a slight outline of his top two....I hope.
- Blaine has become quite the talker lately and I love it. He is constantly chattering away in his own little language complete with voice inflection. One of his favorite sounds lately is "sh" and he often ends his "words" with it. I hear the word "baish" a lot is seems. :) I try to be good about naming things throughout the day and find myself doing it more specifically with him than Pierce since he has shown an aptitude for talking more, but I need to be more equal about it. Pierce still chatters some in his high, whispery voice and has taken to the phrase "gaga".
- They are still taking two naps a day (usually) and they go down so easily now. They take a morning nap around 9 and an afternoon nap around 1:30. Bedtime is usually around 7 these days. (That's a late bedtime for us!) I think I can safely say that we are seeing all of our hard sleep training pay off. This will be an important paragraph for me to go back and read with our next baby at about month 7. There were some incredibly difficult nights and days when it felt like we'd never get there. Letting them go in the middle of the night and setting an alarm for every 30 minutes to listen in, listening to an hour of crying during naptime when I just wanted a quiet break, allowing the other baby to be woken up from a nap due to his brother's crying. Whew...it still makes my stomach twist thinking about it. Certainly one of the hardest things I've ever done. But now they just go right down for naps and bedtime with maybe one fuss as we leave and a few minutes of chatter before drifting off to sleep. Did I really just type that?? I don't know if every baby ends up here eventually without having to go through the sleep training hell that we did, but I'm gonna say no. I think we'd be surprised about other kids' sleep habits who still wake up at night some and have trouble going to sleep. We did it!!
- Nicknames still abound. Here are the current ones (mostly initiated by me I'm sad to say). Blaine: Puppa or Pup (short for Puppa Lup which I think came from Snuggle Puppy and the fact that he held toys in his mouth), Blainer, Blainer Boy. Pierce: Pooh Bear, Piercey, Pixie/Pix (I think my mom called him a little Pixie sometimes and I just feel like it fits.), Pick a lix. I know, I'm weird.
- Dinner time is our hardest meal of the day. Blaine is doing really well overall with big boy food, but Pierce doesn't want much to do with it. It's almost like the site of meat offends him or something. Are we going to have a vegetarian on our hands? He'll just fuss and whine and, for awhile, throw the food off his tray. This began the institution of time outs. They get a strike each time they throw food and on the 3rd strike we take their tray off, move their chair towards the wall, and leave them in time out for one minute. Then they get to come back and try again. It actually seems to have worked with Pierce! Now he just fusses, but leaves the food there. We've settled for feeding him a pureed veggie and a fruit when he refuses to eat what we've given him. We figure it's the middle ground without starving him before bedtime. I'm not sure when we'll ever be able to eat family dinners. There's just no way BJ and I can sit down and eat while refereeing food and making sure they've gotten a decent amount.
- This has been a sick summer for us and I suspect Child Watch at the Y has something to do with it. I teach on Mondays and Fridays at 4:30 and take the boys with me. That is, when they're not sick which has been more than half the time. They had a cold right after their birthday, then the three of us got a nasty virus at the very end of June complete with coughing and croup for Pierce. It was ugly! Now Blaine has had a runny nose again, but thankfully it hasn't turned into much more than that. Everyone tries to reassure me that they're just building their immune systems, but really? Three illnesses in 6 weeks. That's too much. We'll survive though.
- Blaine is starting to take his first steps. He is quite proficient at standing on his own and started doing it without really realizing it. Sometimes if we reach out for him he'll take a few hurried steps and then fall into our arms. I think he could do more, but is gaining confidence. He took about 8 one time at my mom's though! This is actually the first new accomplishment that I'm kind of sad for. It feels like another chapter of official babyhood is ending. I love carrying them around. That's one of the things about twins that's hard. I've always loved the feeling of carrying a baby on your hip, but I am so much more reliant on our stroller having two. In either case, I'm in no hurry for either of them to walk.
- Pierce still only has two teeth. I'm starting to get slightly concerned, but yesterday I thought I could see a slight outline of his top two....I hope.
- Blaine has become quite the talker lately and I love it. He is constantly chattering away in his own little language complete with voice inflection. One of his favorite sounds lately is "sh" and he often ends his "words" with it. I hear the word "baish" a lot is seems. :) I try to be good about naming things throughout the day and find myself doing it more specifically with him than Pierce since he has shown an aptitude for talking more, but I need to be more equal about it. Pierce still chatters some in his high, whispery voice and has taken to the phrase "gaga".
- They are still taking two naps a day (usually) and they go down so easily now. They take a morning nap around 9 and an afternoon nap around 1:30. Bedtime is usually around 7 these days. (That's a late bedtime for us!) I think I can safely say that we are seeing all of our hard sleep training pay off. This will be an important paragraph for me to go back and read with our next baby at about month 7. There were some incredibly difficult nights and days when it felt like we'd never get there. Letting them go in the middle of the night and setting an alarm for every 30 minutes to listen in, listening to an hour of crying during naptime when I just wanted a quiet break, allowing the other baby to be woken up from a nap due to his brother's crying. Whew...it still makes my stomach twist thinking about it. Certainly one of the hardest things I've ever done. But now they just go right down for naps and bedtime with maybe one fuss as we leave and a few minutes of chatter before drifting off to sleep. Did I really just type that?? I don't know if every baby ends up here eventually without having to go through the sleep training hell that we did, but I'm gonna say no. I think we'd be surprised about other kids' sleep habits who still wake up at night some and have trouble going to sleep. We did it!!
- Nicknames still abound. Here are the current ones (mostly initiated by me I'm sad to say). Blaine: Puppa or Pup (short for Puppa Lup which I think came from Snuggle Puppy and the fact that he held toys in his mouth), Blainer, Blainer Boy. Pierce: Pooh Bear, Piercey, Pixie/Pix (I think my mom called him a little Pixie sometimes and I just feel like it fits.), Pick a lix. I know, I'm weird.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Sleep Positions
A few weeks ago we both noticed Blaine's favorite sleep position. He always ends up on his tummy towards the front of his crib with his hand tucked under the bumper. When you walk in all you can see his his little hand resting on the side of the mattress under the bumper. BJ realized that if we lay him in his crib tummy down, he will usually put his head right down, tuck his hand in, and settle right away. We think he may almost look forward to sleep now. It's so cute!
Pierce doesn't really have one go-to position, but we often find him curled up on his side. He may be our little side sleeper like me. I think he tends to move around a little more (also like me) as he sleeps.
We try to go into their room most nights before we go to bed to watch them sleep for a little while and make sure everyone is warm enough. One night we discovered Blaine completely bunched up in a little ball and it hit me that he was cold! So we covered him with a blanket and I think that was one of my favorite mommy moments.
Pierce doesn't really have one go-to position, but we often find him curled up on his side. He may be our little side sleeper like me. I think he tends to move around a little more (also like me) as he sleeps.
We try to go into their room most nights before we go to bed to watch them sleep for a little while and make sure everyone is warm enough. One night we discovered Blaine completely bunched up in a little ball and it hit me that he was cold! So we covered him with a blanket and I think that was one of my favorite mommy moments.
Pierce at One
He's still Pooh Bear! I'm not sure when that nickname will dissolve, but I love it and it just fits! Pierce is still our happy, laid back baby, but is quite mobile now. He finally started doing a real crawl, but sometimes still reverts back to his salamander army crawl. Either way, he's quick! He also started pulling up all the time, but is still a little wobbly. Whenever I see him from behind I always say he looks too little to be able to stand. I love seeing him at the fireplace standing next to the book basket, pulling a book out, sitting down to look at it for awhile and then pulling out another one. He is our little book worm and can sit quietly looking at books for quite awhile. A couple of times I've been in the kitchen and have noticed how quiet it
is. When I looked into the living room, expecting to see trouble, there
little Pierce is reading books.Sometimes he'll even "read" us one including voices and "rawrs". He is really good at independent playing. He is also quite talented at mimicking noises- especially lip smacking!
He is still pretty soft spoken, but gets shrill when he wants to. I think his little mouth is one of my favorite features of him. He has a sassy way about him at times and I know we're in trouble because he grins with a very charming smile every time he hears the word "no". He's never shown the same sensitive streak that Blaine did.
His favorite foods are goldfish, bananas, puffs, cheese, and bread. He can be a little fickle about big boy food and I think would eat pureed baby food the rest of his life if we let him. We're still on Pierce time. :) He is still pretty good at his 2 signs (more and drink), but we haven't been very good at working on new ones. My fault!
He still loves bath time and has expanded that love to the pool that he and Blaine got from us for their birthday. He is usually the second one in, but loves it once he's in there. Oddly enough though, a new interest has been the grass. He used to not want any part of his body touching it, but one afternoon he got out of the pool and crawled all the way across the backyard to stand at the fence. I'm not sure how long he would have stayed there, but I brought him back because I worried about him getting a sunburn! I think he realized that grass was like really tall, colorful carpet that can be pulled and put in his mouth. :)
Overall, Pierce is such a happy baby. He is so good natured and smiles so much. I think he could end up being the comic relief of our family. Happy 1st Birthday, Pooh Bear!
He is still pretty soft spoken, but gets shrill when he wants to. I think his little mouth is one of my favorite features of him. He has a sassy way about him at times and I know we're in trouble because he grins with a very charming smile every time he hears the word "no". He's never shown the same sensitive streak that Blaine did.
His favorite foods are goldfish, bananas, puffs, cheese, and bread. He can be a little fickle about big boy food and I think would eat pureed baby food the rest of his life if we let him. We're still on Pierce time. :) He is still pretty good at his 2 signs (more and drink), but we haven't been very good at working on new ones. My fault!
He still loves bath time and has expanded that love to the pool that he and Blaine got from us for their birthday. He is usually the second one in, but loves it once he's in there. Oddly enough though, a new interest has been the grass. He used to not want any part of his body touching it, but one afternoon he got out of the pool and crawled all the way across the backyard to stand at the fence. I'm not sure how long he would have stayed there, but I brought him back because I worried about him getting a sunburn! I think he realized that grass was like really tall, colorful carpet that can be pulled and put in his mouth. :)
Overall, Pierce is such a happy baby. He is so good natured and smiles so much. I think he could end up being the comic relief of our family. Happy 1st Birthday, Pooh Bear!
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