Developmental Update

It has been a while since I wrote about the developments in the babies.  They continue to change every day.  It's fascinating to watch them grow.

Vivienne has her two bottom teeth, and her top 4 front teeth are all coming in at the same time.  Miles has one top and one bottom tooth in already, and he has one more tooth coming in on top and one on bottom.

Vivienne has finally started crawling.  She has this funny crawl where she sticks her right leg out straight to the side.  It's really cute.  At first, she always crawled like this, and now she's learning that she can actually bend that knee and crawl like a normal baby.  It is so fun to watch her follow her brother around the house.  Miles is still much more efficient with his crawling and tends to outrun her, though she is getting faster every day.

Neither of our babies have taken a pacifier, but they always suck their thumbs while they are falling asleep.  Over the past week, Miles has started sucking hist thumb occasionally during the day.  This seems to happen when he is tired.  He will crawl up in my lap and let me snuggle and rock him.  It's incredibly sweet.  I love it when he does this.

Miles and Vivienne are still breastfeeding.  They only nurse about 3 or 4 times a day, because they are eating a lot of solid food now.  We still only give them water in their sippy cups (and no juice or cow's milk), so they either drink water from the sippies or they drink mother's milk from the source.

Though my babies don't go to daycare, I feel that they are very well socialized.  They stay in the nursery at church every Sunday morning, and they stay with a babysitter (with anywhere from 2 to 6 other kids) during another meeting that I have on Tuesdays.  We have a playgroup that we meet with about once a week and another group of mommies and kiddos that we meet with regularly.  On Wednesdays, we always get lunch with my friend, Kristi, and her four beautiful children.  We rarely spend an entire day at home, and we are often out and about playing with other babies or getting errands done.

I still run with the babies almost every day.  I have been slacking off over the past 3 days, because it has been ridiculously hot (at or above 100 degrees).  The babies seem to really enjoy the time in the stroller.  They don't cry, and they usually babble or laugh at each other while I'm running.  I think they like getting out and seeing the sky and the trees.  I can't wait until they are old enough to see the animals (bunnies, snakes, turtles, deer, geese, ducks, herons, etc).

Miles is already starting to outgrow his 12 month clothes.  Vivienne is still a petite little angel, and can easily fit into 9 month clothes, even with the cloth diapers.  Speaking of cloth diapers, we're still cloth diapering them.  It's really not very much work, and it's definitely less expensive than purchasing disposable diapers (even with coupons).

Both babies say "da da da" and "ma ma ma" and a lot of other sounds, but I don't think they really know who "Dadda" and "Mamma" are yet.  I think it will be difficult to figure out when they finally make that association.

Miles and Vivienne love books.  We read to them every single night before bed, and I often read to them throughout the day when they show interest in their books.  Their favorites right now are Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Goodnight, Moon.