The Craun-icles of Brian and Nicole: July 2015

And for your viewing pleasure, the many faces of Will.i.am:

And one of big brother for good measure:

Happy 1/2 birthday to Will and Chloe! Our sweet babies are six months! This time has been such a blur, and I would never trade a moment of it. Well, maybe that part where Will was in NICU. That part sucked. Last night Brian and I celebrated by drinking one of the wines Bess and Lauren got us for the babies' baptism.

Weight and height: I don't know that I'll ever forget how small and fragile Will looked when I got to see him for the first time. Now he weighs 16 lbs 4.5 ounces (25th percentile!!!) and is 26" long (22nd percentile). Chloe weighs 17 pounds 6 ounces (73rd percentile) and is 26" long (54th percentile).

Sleeping patterns: Oh, Will, maybe some day he'll sleep through the night. Chloe still likes her sleep. But at night...naps aren't really her strong suit. Will is a great napper though.

He often falls asleep while playing

Eating habits: I only pump 4 times a day now, so they are getting 1-2 bottles of formula to supplement. They usually have some rice cereal once a day, and have gotten much more interested in it, but not nearly as enthusiastic as Dominic was about cereal at this age. We got the green light to start solids, so this also means we'll start the adventure of making our own baby food in an attempt to save money.

The fact I've made it this far in pumping makes me so proud, and it ranks right up there with finishing my marathons. I have spent roughly 1100 hours pumping and saved us hundreds of dollars in formula. We have yet to buy any formula thanks to the samples from the hospital, Similac, and friends, as well as the breastmilk a friend donated. I despise my pump (I'm not the only one who thinks her pump taunts her by saying "f*** you" during my pumps), but I'm not ready to quit just yet. When I started this journey, I set a goal to make it one week longer than I did with Dom (so two months). Then it became when maternity leave ended, then it was when the school year ended, then six months, and now I hope to make it to a year if I can. When work starts again I'm going to drop to three pumps per day to give me time back after work to spend with the kids. Some say that dropping to three pumps caused their bodies to naturally wean. If that happens, so be it. I guess babies only need two ounces of breastmilk a day to reap the antibiotic benefits so I'll keep going until I get less than four ounces a day (or a year, whichever is first).

Look who's holding his bottle by himself!

Boycotting formula

New discoveries they've made: Hands can do more than providing something to look at! They both are able to grab items near them, pass items back and forth, and cross the midline to reach for something. They both chew on their fingers all the time. Teeth are coming soon!

They've figured out how their toys work. Chloe loves the bouncer at daycare, and I think she gets highly disappointed that ours doesn't bounce. I think we're almost to the point where sharing is going to be an issue. As I write this post, Will keeps taking away the little book Chloe is playing with, and she keeps babble-yelling at him.

Accomplishments: Both of them are able to roll from front to back and back to front. They don't really have the concept of barrel rolling yet, thank goodness! Chloe has been pushing up onto her hands the last few days, whereas Will is pretty content hanging out on his elbows. Neither of them is able to sit on their own for longer than a couple seconds, but both can sit with the Boppy supporting them for a while longer. Perhaps my favorite physical accomplishment is that neither of their heads lag when we pull them up from laying to sitting or standing. (Head lag at six months is correlated with autism.)

Looking back at Dom's six month post, it's crazy to see how much more Dom was doing physically than Chloe and Will. I always have a moment of panic when I notice differences, but then I have to remember that they technically are almost a month behind Dominic based on corrected age with Dom being born a week late and Chloe and Will being born almost three weeks early. They'll get there!

Places they went: I finally have been brave enough to venture out with the babies and Dom. We went to the park and the zoo, and it wasn't a huge disaster.

The zoo was actually pretty fun until the very end when Chloe threw a fit because I tried giving her formula after spilling the majority of her breastmilk bottle all over her. We walked through the zoo to meet Dom and my friend Kristen who joined us (and was a major help) to the tune of Chloe's screams and sympathizing looks from others. It took every ounce of my strength to not cry with her; spilling breastmilk sucks.

Ready to go with her pretty bonnet

Watching the carousel

Going to the park was much easier than I imagined it to be, and I'm looking forward to cooler weather this week to take them all again in the mornings we are home together.

They look so big here!

Last summer he was sort of scared to go down that slide. Now he climbs up and goes back down without any issue.

She hung out in there for about an hour, as chill as can be.

Special friends they've made: They are starting to keep each other entertained, which means I can actually do things like laundry and make myself lunch. They both go crazy with excitement when they see us after waking up, or when one of us comes home from work. They just pump their arms and kick their legs. We love it! You can't ever stay in a bad mood when that happens.

We got the the Scout and Violet LeapFrog dogs (on sale and 20% on Cartwheel!). Will loves his!

Dom continues to be the best big brother. He likes to entertain them and tries to play games with them. Case in point, here's how he played Go Fish with Chloe:

Noises and babbles: Both talk to themselves quite a bit. I also like to hold mini-conversations with them. It's like they are starting to get that there's a talking time and a listening time. They've started to make some consonant sounds, and I hear lots of "mmmm"s...or maybe that's just wishful thinking that one of them will say "Mama" as his or her first word. They have mastered gaining joint attention and working a bit on responding to other's requests to jointly attend to something. I love listening to their progression in the communication realm!

Firsts:
Fourth of July and Swim
We went to Omaha to celebrate the 4th with Brian's family, and went swimming in the neighborhood pool. Chloe loved chilling in the water with me; Will not so much. The drive sucked. Chloe HATES long car rides. Her carrier expired so she has a new convertible carseat (another Cartwheel steal) that she seems to like a little more. I was going to write a post called "How to Travel with Twin Infants" when we got back, and it was going to have this picture and one word: Don't.