Mr. Personality

It turns out that Mr. Personality is a little over 2 feet tall and lives in our house.  He has eyes that are blue like the sky and a smile and laugh that could warm the heart of the Grinch himself.

Miles' personality has really blossomed over the past month.  He is the most lively, outgoing, giggly little guy.  He loves to use his voice - scream, screech, yell, hum, sing, babble.  He generously doles out large helpings of big grins and giggles. 

We had our photographs taken by Lauren Waterhouse (who did an amazing job and has awesome prices), and Miles really hammed it up for the camera.  I love living with Mr. Personality.  There is never a dull moment in our house, especially now that he is on the move!

Crawling!

I just saw Miles take two proper forward-direction crawls!  He was trying to get to Noah, our cat, who happened to be sitting beside all the books (which are Miles' favorite things).  When Miles reached the books, he plopped down on his stomach to taste test them.  I'm so proud of him!  Go, buddy, go!!

Feeding 10-Month-Olds

Sometimes feeding twins does feel like this.

Here's what it looks like to feed our 10-month-olds (though they are almost 11 months old now).  They wake up around 7:30 and I breastfeed them immediately.  After about 20 minutes, I put them in their high chairs for their solid food breakfast.  I usually make oatmeal (regular oatmeal, not baby oatmeal) and add in some natural apple sauce, full fat yogurt and a dash of cinnamon (sometimes also some wheat germ and/or baby probiotic).

The babies take their morning nap, and around 11 or noon I feed them their lunch.  This varies considerably depending on whether we're at home or out with friends.  Today, I fed them a frozen piece of bagel (good for teething), prunes cut into quarters, a mixture of sweet potato and lentil purees and a little baby arrowroot cookie. 

For dinner, we usually mix up chicken, sweet potatoes, kale/spinach or carrots.  Then for dessert they have full fat yogurt or cottage cheese with some type of fruit (blueberries, apples, mango, peaches, etc).

The babies still breastfeed about 4 or 5 times per day.  It is definitely less than it used to be, but I'm glad that they are still nursing strong.

Tongue Trauma Update

I called the pediatrician this morning, and she said that I shouldn't worry about Vivienne's tongue problem until later this week.  She said it could take 7-10 days to heal.  If I'm not seeing improvement by the end of this week, she said that we should take Vivienne to an ENT. 

She seemed slightly better today, but the healing process is slow going.  I'll be glad when my little baby is back up to full speed.

Somebody's Crawling Backwards

Miles is moving around like crazy now.  He's rolling over, scooting around, belly flopping, and sitting up, but the poor little guy just can't manage to actually crawl forward.  I keep leaving the room for a couple minutes to come back and find him in a position like this:

"I'm stuck under the entertainment center, Mommy!"

Miles backs himself up to the couch, to the chair, to the corner of the room, to the entertainment center.  You name it, he can back himself up into it.  Unfortunately, this often ends in him getting very frustrated because he's continually moving away from whatever he's trying to move toward.  Also, he frequently gets stuck so that he can't back up anymore and he can't sit up.

You'll be crawling forward before you know it, sweetie pie!

Fussy Babies

Well, there is a lot of fussiness around here.  Vivienne's tongue is not really looking any better, and she is still in a lot of pain.  It clearly hurts her to nurse, eat and drink.  We started giving her Tylenol yesterday - the first official medicine that we have ever given our babies.  I'm hoping that the Tylenol will help ease the pain a little bit.  We're also giving her dye-free Benadryl, because the doctor said it would ease the pain a little.  I can't really tell that any of this is making any difference.  The doctor recommended that we not use Orajel.

Miles was pretty fussy yesterday, too.  I think it is because his naps were messed up because of church, but I'm not certain.  He also has a tooth coming through, so maybe that is bothering him a little bit.  It was convenient that the extreme dual fussiness happened over the weekend while Jason was here to help, but now it's Monday and I'm flying solo again. 

I'm hoping that Vivienne's tongue starts to heal soon.  We decided that if it doesn't look much better by tomorrow, I'm going to see about getting a second opinion.  Jason was wondering whether she might be re-injuring it with her teeth somehow.  I have no idea.  My poor, fussy baby.

Water Babies

Today we took Miles and Vivienne to our neighborhood pool for the first time.  The pool was fairly crowded (and it's not a very large pool at all), but we had a good time playing in the water with the babies.  A friend gave us her baby float, and that turned out to be a bit hit (thanks, Rhonda!).  The babies probably would have been content to stay even longer, but we needed to get them home, feed them dinner and get them to bed.  I think both Miles and Vivienne are going to turn into water babies!

Miles loved hitting the water and watching it splash back up.

Our Supermodel.  She's a natural.

His eyes are so blue.