Thursday, July 21, 2016

Chloe and Will: One and a Half

Life with these two munchkins is such a whirlwind. Our house is a mess and our patience is often worn thin, but we wouldn't change a moment of it.





Weight and height: Chloe is about 31" tall (36th percentile) and weighs about 29 lbs (98th percentile...I'm hoping there was some sort of error because she made a huge jump in a very short time and that doesn't make sense). Will is about the same height (20th percentile) and weighs about 26 lbs (73rd percentile).

Sleeping patterns: Thank the Lord, they are great sleepers. They are so tired from running around all day that they usually go to bed between 5:30 and 6:00, and they sleep for about 12 hours. They take one afternoon nap at daycare, but we do two naps at home because they totally need it.

Eating habits: Will loves to eat. I feel like that's all he does. He also likes to hoard his food in his snack cups, and if he's tired and cranky he may just hold on to food for awhile. When we went to MN for my cousin's graduation party, he held on to a chicken nugget for like three hours. Gross.

They like to share their food with others and will try to push it in our mouths. Gross again. They also like to share their food with the floor. I recently made them start picking it up in hopes of curbing that behavior. It's not working.

Places they went: We go to the park almost every morning that I'm home from work. They love going on walks in the stroller. As long as the stroller is moving, they are happy.

For far trips, we went to MN for my cousin's graduation party and they got to meet more of our family. They also went to Omaha a few holidays. I have no idea how they slept through all the loud fireworks on the 4th!

Special friends they've made: I don't know if they have special friends at daycare but they are playing more and more together. They like to wrestle and tease/taunt each other. Some times they are really great at sharing and other times they are awful to each other. Chloe is very much the nurturer. She likes to wipe Will's nose if he sneezes and she tries to help change Will's diaper. I love watching them play together. They are highly entertaining.

Noises and babbles: They both babble a ton. Will sounds like he's speaking Chinese and Chloe sounds like gibberish. It's hilarious because they both sound like they've got something serious and important to say.

Chloe now says "mi" for milk, "mo" for more, "tank oo" for thank you, "shoes", "puppy" for every animal, "baby" for every kid, "no", "yeah", "eh" for eat, "eh go" for "here you go". Will now says "mi", "mo", "eh" for eat, "mmm" for vroom, "cat", and "Maws" for Marbles. They both say "mine", "hi", "uh oh" and do the hand motions that go with those. Will is hilarious when he says "uh oh" because he makes the best concerned face.

They have excellent comprehension, which is great for when I tell them to go upstairs to change their diapers or to pick up some food they've thrown on the floor. I think they love it best when I say playroom, outside, or bath.

Chloe has mastered sign faster than Will. Actually I think because we tend to do the same thing for both of them, Will usually doesn't have a need to use sign. So if Chloe signs milk or says "mi" then we tend to give both of them milk. Ugh, I need to stop doing that! What was necessary for survival in the beginning of twin life probably isn't the best thing for Will's developing language.

Dom loves to do some of the training I do at work with Chloe and Will. He helps them practice signing more by giving them a little bit of something to eat or a few pushes on the swing and then makes them sign more before he'll give them more. Such a great big brother!

Favorite things:
Some of Chloe's favorite things right now include:

  • Swinging. She loves the swings at the park, and she especially loves to swing high.
  • Dancing. Every time there's music she busts a move.
  • Cuddling. She will sit in any empty lap. I love when I'm sitting on the floor and she stands in front of me and then backs up into my lap. Sweet girl.
  • Blankies. She has to have her blankie near her at all times when we're at home, and often times hoards three or more blankies at once. She likes to chew on them which is disgusting.
  • Making people laugh. If she does something that makes someone laugh, she will do that thing over and over.
  • Singing. She sometimes walks around the house singing some tune she's made up. Adorable.
  • Hitting people. If she gets mad, she will hit. She gets a lot of timeouts.  
  • Bath time. She gets mad if she has to get out. She also likes swimming. 
  • Saying no. To everything.
  • Shoes. She has to wear them in the house and she likes to carry her's around. She also loves her slippers (these big furry leopard print boots). 
  • Giving hugs. Especially if she's in trouble and doesn't want to get yelled at.
Some of Will's favorite things right now include: 
  • Dancing. His dancing is hilarious. He really doesn't move his feet.
  • Making noise. He makes car noises when he plays with trucks and cars, yells a lot especially at the cats, stomps his feet, and likes to slam things around.
  • Any toy that makes noise. And he will find that toy that makes noise and hold the button down or push it over and over. His favorites are sirens on Dom's trucks and Dom's leaf blower and weed trimmer. I've learned to tune them out.
  • Shaking our floor lamp. He broke one in March. I think he's set on breaking the new one, too.
  • Putting things in containers and carrying them around. See food hoarding above. Plus everything else. If somethings missing in our house, the first place to look is the space under the seat on one of their little ride-on toys.
  • Climbing. He climbs everything. Daredevil.
  • Temper tantrums. If Will gets mad, watch out. Dude has a temper and will throw whatever is near him. If you take something away from him to fix it or refill it, he gets pissed and when you try to give it back, he'll throw that thing he wanted back. And then he'll throw a fit until you give him that thing back after he throws it.
  • Using his killer smile to get out of trouble. Sometimes it works.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Chloe and Will: ONE YEAR!


Happy (belated) birthday, Chloe and Will! We love you so!



Weight and height: Chloe is 22 lbs, 5 oz (83rd percentile) and 29.25 inches tall (52nd percentile). William is 21 lbs (44th percentile) and the same height as Chloe (25th percentile for boys). A year ago Will wasn't even on the growth charts for weight! 
Way to go, Will!

Sleeping patterns:  Knock on wood - Will is sleeping through the night more now! They still go to bed at 6 and wake up around 5:30ish. They both take a few naps throughout the day, although those naps are short at daycare. I love listening to the two of them in their room when they first wake up or when they're supposed to be napping. They chatter to each other and Chloe always makes Will laugh. They also inevitably destroy their room:  the changing pad and anything else that was on the dresser ends up on the floor, anything in their cribs (including socks) gets thrown on the floor, and Chloe knocks over the lamp on the little table by the rocker. God help us if they ever try to climb out of their cribs. As I write this, Chloe is supposed to be napping but I'm watching her run laps in her crib. Someone is clearly feeling better.  Update:  Now she's holding on to the rail, leaning back, and chanting gibberish. Go the f to sleep, girlfriend!

Eating habits:  Still no teeth for Chloe. She goes through drooly spurts and I think they're going to pop through then they don't. Who knows when those will come. Will has two teeth so he's starting to bite into things. They both eat whatever we eat, for the most part. Chloe is starting to get the hang of those puree pouches, but Will prefers to squeeze the contents onto his highchair tray. Puffs and yogurt bites reign supreme on the favorite foods list.

New discoveries they've made:  They love the sounds of items dropping to the floor, and they both are little charmers, saving their smiles and giggles for their benefit it seems. I've taken both of them to Target (Not at the same time! I'm not crazy!), and they had giant smiles on their faces whenever the cart moved.

Accomplishments: Chloe has been walking since shortly after New Year's Eve. She looks like a drunk midget. It's amazing, though, how much better she's gotten after a few weeks. Will is starting to stand on his own more without holding on to something. He wants to walk so bad, but hesitates, then drops to the ground and crawls to where he wants to go. He'll be waking very soon!

Places they went:  Our last month has been uneventful as far as trips to places. I love having both sets of grandparents close!

Special friends they've made: Dom is the favorite still; both Chloe and Will sounds like they say "Dom" sometimes, but it's hard to differentiate "DomDom" from "DaDa". Marbles is another favorite. That cat is so patient with them. I think she loves the attention.

The best part about having twins is the built-in friendship. They play together often, and I love watching them together. Sometimes their play gets rough or they steal things from each other, but most often they are giggling at each other.

Noises and babbles:  Chloe babbles all the time; she's a little chatterbug and sometimes it sounds like she's singing to herself. She likes to make this noise that's kind of like a growl so we call her Gremlin when she does that. She also makes raspberries when she's upset about something. She's done it a few times while I'm feeding her and she ends up spraying yogurt or whatever all over me.

Will is more quiet than Chloe, which has me worried a lot of the time that he's delayed. He's not far off the Ages and Stages Questionnaire for his age in communication, and I need to remember that he was almost a month early plus he's a boy. I hope I'm just being hyper-sensitive because of what I do for a living. Maybe I should cut him some slack since he's been expending so much energy jumping up to higher percentile ranks in his weight!

Firsts:
Christmas
We celebrated Christmas early with Brian's family, then spent Christmas Eve and Day with my family. Ally and Austin were in town so all the grandkids were there. Next year there will be EIGHT grandkids, with the addition of Jen and Ryan's little boy in July. Present opening was extreme chaos because all the kids opened gifts at the same time. Wrapping paper, bows, and tissue paper was flying everywhere, and I loved it. My parents made the kids a play kitchen out of their old entertainment center. It was too big to keep in the house, so the bigger kids played in the garage. We need that to happen every year! 

New Year's Eve
Babies can be so boring sometimes. The kids all went to bed at normal times. We did the countdown on Netflix for Dom, then we managed to stay up until like 11:02 so we could see the ball drop in NYC.

First Birthday Party
They LOVE cake. Their cake smashes were so much more exciting than Dom was with his cake smash (Dom didn't like his cake!). My perfect photos didn't exactly work the way I wanted it to because Will had a poopy diapy that we didn't know about until Chloe had already dug into her cake, and we think the audience scared him. Baby girl didn't care about everyone watching her, though; she had to show everyone her handfuls of cake and frosting. Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us!

Likes and Dislikes:

A few of Chloe's favorite things:
- Playing peek-a-boo. She'll pull anything over her face and pull it down again.
- Smiling, giggling, and chattering.
- Food. All of it, especially fruit.
- Her blankies. She's a big fan of Aden and Anais swaddle blankets.
- Climbing stairs and walking.
- Chewing on wipes.
- Playing in water. 

Her dislikes:
- Strangers.
- Not getting her way.

A few of Will's favorite things:
- Pooping. Dude poops all the time.
- Stealing things from his siblings while laughing a little evil laugh.
- Playing airplane. Watch for drools (he drooled in my mouth once!).
- Being tickled. He'll curl up and laugh.
- Climbing everything.
- Driving cars and trucks back and forth.
- Cheerios and Puffs.
- All electronics, especially my phone.
- Mommy milk. He rolls his eyes back when he gets a bottle.
- Playing in water.

His dislikes:
- Anything getting in his way of something he wants to do.
- Having something he's playing with or looking at taken away.

Well, this is my last monthly update. Thank you all for all the support and prayers throughout my pregnancy and this past year. Mom, Dad, Julie, and Mitch - thank you for everything you've done to help us!

I think Dom, Brian, and I surpassed whatever expectations I had in my mind for us as we ventured into life with twins. I'm so proud of the big brother Dominic is, and the father Brian is. We are a great team! I'm proud of myself for making it a year of pumping for two. Chloe and Will definitely made me feel complete and immeasurably happy. Most of all, I'm excited for what's to come. That's enough sappiness for now.