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.