It's Been Awhile

I think it's been about a month since I last posted. Seth and I went though another round of illness 2 weeks after our whole family was sick. Then the holidays hit, along with ice, more snow, more ice, and snow again. We did end up losing power for about a day. I took the girls up to our church so we didn't have to hang out in a cold dark house. They seemed to have a good time playing with the toys and the climbing gym. I must say it is difficult to have them both on the climber...they both think they can just step right off the top and be fine--not a safe way to get down. So, I found myself trying to corral them to the same area of the climber so I could keep them safe. That lasted for all of 2 minutes and then they decided to be independent and put a fuss if I wouldn't let them venture off on their own.

We had a nice Christmas this year. Our families came to visit us this year, so it was nice to not have to pack up everything and travel and still try to find room to bring home all of the Christmas presents. The toys!! Oh the toys!! We have so many now...I had to buy 3 more storage containers just to keep our house somewhat organized. And the clothes...I'm saving all of the girls' clothes because we haven't decided for sure if we are done having kids. So, their closet is full of storage containers full of clothes they have outgrown. We are running out of room! That's my main challenge right now is finding a place for everything without it taking over our house.

The girls are saying so many new words. They are very mobile now. They love to run up and down the hallway and chase our dog and each other. They also love to run away from me anytime I need to change their diaper, clothes, wash their hands, wipe their noses, etc. Along with that when I finally catch them then they throw a fit and kick and hit me know to let me know they are mad. Not liking that behavior and I am trying to teach them not to hit because it hurts. They hit each other now too. Especially if one takes the other's toy or gets too close. Emily has now hit another child in public--how embarrassing! She was mad at me and was running away and came across another child a few months older than her and just started hitting her. She didn't hit hard, but I could tell it upset the other child. All I could do was tell Emily not to hit, that hitting hurts, ouch! I don't know if it really sunk in or not. It's definitely something I will be asking the Parent's as Teacher's Educator this week.

Okay, it's actually 66 degrees out today and so I'd love to get the girls outside and go for a walk...they are napping, so if they wake up soon then it might be possible. Otherwise, we'll have to wait awhile as the weather forecast is calling for rain and possible snow late this evening and really cold weather for the rest of the week.

We Are Finally Well

It seems like a long time since I last posted. Our whole family was sick for about 2 weeks including myself and it was horrible. Thankfully Seth's mom drove up from Springfield to help out with the girls while we were all sick. I think all the traveling over Thanksgiving just made it worse. For that reason we are staying home for Christmas this year. Our families will probably come visit us so that will be nice.

Emily and Savannah are both getting over their ear infections/colds and I am so glad. Talk about grumpy girls!! They seem to be back to their normal happy selves and have finally started playing with their toys again. When they were sick all they wanted to do was sit in my lap the entire day. Hard to get anything done when you have two babies in your lap.

So, I have been wanting to decorate our house for Christmas, but I'm afraid to put up the big Christmas tree--mainly because I'm afraid the girls will pull it over or chew on a light or ornament. Right now they are in this phase where they think it's funny to do things I tell them not to--especially if it involves putting things in their mouths. They will not mind at all right now. So, I think the big tree is a bad idea. We borrowed a small table top tree from my brother, but it doesn't have lights, so I bought some battery operated small strands of clear lights. Let's just say they are a piece of junk. The first package we opened never would work. The second only works sometimes and the third package of lights worked fine until lunch time today and the lights went out. I guess we'll just have to get the regular plug in lights and barracade the tree so the babies can't play with the light cord. Next year will be more fun I hope. At least the girls will be able to understand not to eat the lights (I hope). I'm hoping to get a good family picture soon to send out with Christmas cards. Seth has a nice camera now so if can get our house cleaned up then maybe we can get a good picture. If not then we may end up going to Portrait Innovations. They take really good pictures.

Words

So I'm so afraid I will forget this, so I writing this down in my blog so that later I can go back and write it down for real and put this in Emily and Savannah's baby book. At 14 1/2 months old the girls are saying quite a few words.

Emily: hi, cup, snack, nap, nigh-nigh(night-night), up, meat, uh-oh, mama, dada, bump, bus, app(apple), breakfast, socks

Savannah: mama, dada, hi, cup, uh-oh, nap, meat, nigh-nigh, app (apple)

Now Savannah uses the baby signs in conjunction with noises more than Emily, so that may be why she has a few less words. She will sign and make the sounds for: elephant, violin, xylophone, dog, cat, truck, lion, silly, mad, head. They both can identify and point to their head, nose, mouth, eyes, ears, hands, fingers, feet, toes, belly, legs, hair--they can identify it in books as well as on other people. Pretty good I think.

The Whole Family Is Sick!

Just like the title says...our whole family is sick! For those of you with kids, no matter what their ages, it's really hard to be a mom to them when you are sick yourself. Luckily, so far, I am not feeling too horrible, just tired, sneezy, and a cold--my husband on the otherhand is just miserable and so is Emily. She has a fever of 102.4 tonight and you can just tell she's feeling awful. On top of that she's sneezing a lot and has a faucet for a nose. Savannah has started sneezing as well...so we'll see what her fate is. She just got over what I think Emily has now, so hopefully Savannah will just have a few sneezes. I hope we all get well in time for Thanksgiving. We have travel plans, but I don't want to try to travel with two sick 14 month olds...not fun!

On the more positive side of things, Emily is getting better and better at walking now. She's also saying a few new words, like "bus", "breakfast", "bump". Savannah seems to keep adding new signs--she waves her arm near her face for "elephant" and also makes the elephant noise. Her favorite animal noise right now is for a pig--she snorts. Anytime she sees a pig toy, stuffed animal, picture, or hears the word pig, Savannah starts snorting. It is so cute! Tonight I took her to Babies R Us with me and she saw some toys with a pig and started snorting in the store. So cute. Anyway, we were there to buy baby gates...we have one at the top of our stairs, but I've decided we need another for the bathroom doorway so I can be putting on makeup and fixing my hair while the girls are awake--it's so hard if I let them into the bathroom because they start trying to play with the toilet paper, take everything out of the drawers, climbing into the bathtub, shut each other fingers in the drawers or bathroom door...so needless to say I can't really get myself ready to go somewhere unless I do it while they are sleeping or EXTREMELY early in the morning--which right now I still need my sleep, so I refuse to get up earlier than 6:30 a.m.. Anyway, back to the gates--I also bought a SuperYard gate to protect our dog, Billy, and "his area". For the past few months I've been using a laundry basket filled with phonebooks to block the girls from getting onto his blanket in his little corner of the living room. This week Savannah discovered she could move the basket and now repeatedly tries to get Billy's toys, or Billy himself. He's usually pretty good around the girls and sometimes will bring them an old sock to play with, but a few days ago Savannah was walking near him and she lost her balance and fell on him. He was startled awake and growled and nipped at her. He's NEVER done that before, so I'm hoping it was a one time incident. Just to be safe, though I'm trying out this new gate in hopes of preventing another incident.

Okay, that's all for today. Until next time...Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Girls Night Out

Finally, I was able to connect with an old friend from college tonight. We live in the same town but hardly ever see each other and only talk on the phone a few times a year now. The last time I saw her was earlier this Spring--the babies weren't even crawling then. She's pregnant now and is due the beginning of May. I am so excited for her and her husband. It's also nice because we have something in common again that has reconnected us. She has lots of pregnancy questions and nursing questions, and I am happy to share my experience with her. This will be her first child, so she's a little scared. Hopefully all my twin pregnancy stories won't scare her too much more!! It is a bit different than being pregnant with just one baby...I'm almost positive of that.

Emily is now a great walker--it didn't seem to take her as long to get the hang of it as is did Savannah, but I guess that's because Emily waited about a month later to start walking. The girls are still into everything and are still increasingly wanting to sit in my lap 20 times a day and read many, many books. It's a good thing, although it can get very tiring after the 12th time of reading the same book in a day. I hope I don't sound too negative about raising twins. It's challenging as raising any child probably is, but it's just a little much to handle day in and day out sometimes. I love weekends!! The babies love having Seth home to play with them, and I love having the extra help and give me small breaks. Sometimes I think I'll go crazy if the weekend doesn't come soon enough...and then one of my girls will do something so silly or so sweet and then I'm glad to be right were I am in life. I really do love these girls so much. I hope one day they will know how much.

Sweet Girls

Well we had to get flu shots this week...and Emily and Savannah both did very well, just cried a little bit. They've been a little cranky these past two days, but nothing too bad. Emily started walking on her own...she practices all the time now--she gets about 5-8 steps before falling down and then she gets back up again...and if she almost falls but catches herself, she stands back up and claps her hands. It's so cute. Aside from that the girls have been wanting to sit in my lap a lot and look at books. I think I read them about 4-5 books about 7 times yesterday. I think we need to add a few new ones to our collection just to give me variety. Maybe we'll get some new ones for Christmas.

On The Mend

Savannah is finally starting to feel a bit better. She had fever for about 3 days and a runny nose and cough--she was just miserable. All she wanted to do for several days was sit in my lap. That was fine with me, but Emily didn't seem to like that..she got a little jealous and wanted to sit in my lap too, just not while Savannah was sitting with me. That's a difficult situation right now, I don't know how to explain the concept of "sharing" mommy or taking turns. I don't think they are old enough to understand that. So, we go through several bouts of crying and desperate attempts to get each other out of my lap...

Today, I feel like all I do is distract, remove, and chase babies. They are getting into everything and trying to climb on things they shouldn't. It's tiring after awhile. It makes me nervous too because I'm afraid they are going to get hurt when I can't get to one or the other twin when she's doing something dangerous. The couch is the main area that they are wanting to climb on now--they try to get over to the end tables and grab everything. One major goal of mine today is to take out the free standing bookshelf from their room. I just got an email from our mothers of multiples group about a family in the area who's 2 year old son (1 of triplets) died because he pulled a dresser down on top of him. I don't want anything like that to happen in our house, so out the bookshelf must go.