Rebecca started crawling sometime on Tuesday at daycare. Totally surprised us. She still doesn't want to sit up, but she's doing an army crawl just like Emma. She slept through the night for the first time in a week on Monday night, and then started crawling on Tuesday, so I'm attributing the waking up to some sort of a growth spurt, and then things just clicked. She will sit for a few seconds if she's distracted - if she has a toy or something. And lately, when I'm feeding her, she wants to sit up straighter with her bottle. But if you want her to just sit on the floor, she's not interested. The therapist that comes to daycare and I decided this week to get a referral for a physical therapist to come to daycare and work with her some more. Just this weekend, I started putting her in the shopping carts NOT in her carseat, so just sitting up and strapped in, and she did pretty well.
Becca:
Becca when a cat comes near. She LOVES the cats. They make her giggle.
Julie gets up on her hands and knees and rocks and/or wiggles. She isn't crawling yet, but I don't think it will be long.
Our Julie Cat:
They are all babbling a bit more these days, and they say lots of things that sound like "dada," but they don't really know what they are saying, so we're not counting it as a first word yet. The early interventionist that works with them told me that "da" is the easiest sound for them to make, so I wouldn't be offended when they said "dada" before "mama."
One of our favorite toys right now is the swing that Brook lent us. They LOVE to get underneath it, pull the straps through and chew on them, and then get it swinging with their feet. Occasionally they "learn a lesson" and bop themselves in the head. They are also a little obsessed with the laptop. We were having a video conference with my parents last week, and whenever I moved the laptop onto the floor to get a better shot, they'd make a beeline for it, particularly Emma. Other than that, they mostly just like to steal each other's toys. That's a big game right now.
We took the girls apple picking again last weekend. Of course a million people stopped us and commented. I feel like I did a bit better with it this week. For the most part, people are really supportive. But there are some comments I'm really sick of hearing. "Oh, you have your hands full." No? Really? "I thought one was hard!" Well then it's a good thing you didn't have more. "They're identical!" Um, no they're not. What REALLY made me mad the last time we were there was when someone said, "Oh 2 girls and a boy?" "No, they're all girls." "Oh. I wasn't sure about the one in the middle." IF I JUST TOLD YOU THEY ARE ALL GIRLS, DON'T PROCEED TO TELL ME WHICH OF MY BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRLS YOU THOUGHT WAS A BOY. Anyhow, the girls were pretty well behaved, and we ventured a bit further with them. But honestly, there weren't many apples left. We've been coming to this place for a long time, and it has certainly gotten more and more popular every year, to the point where it's just too much. We're thinking about looking for a new place. I won't make it through the fall without a constant supply of fresh apples, though. It's a must.
Julie and Dad
Becca chillin in the stroller
Emma. We accidentally put them in dresses, and it was a bit chilly up there.
Family pic
The obligatory "how tall" photo
So, we finally finished paying for the girls last week. The insurance company has been "reprocessing" claims for 8 months. It has been a dreadfully agonizing journey, particularly for Greg. He keeps telling the girls that they don't have to worry about the repo man anymore.
Last Friday, daycare had a Parents Night Out fundraiser for the March of Dimes. 4 hours of evening childcare! Of course we took full advantage. Greg and I went out to a wonderful dinner. In fact, it was our 3rd non-fast-food dinner since the girls have been born. Of course we had to pay for it: when we went to pick up the girls at 10:30... Julie and Rebecca were still awake. They're normally asleep by 8:30. They were all asleep by the time we got home, so we thought we were out of the woods. But no such luck. It was an awful night - at some point, all 3 of them were up and crying. We were up pretty much every hour. It took a good 3 nights to recover from that. We are so glad that they are sleeping through the night again now. And very lucky that they do.
It finally cooled down some last week, and we started putting the girls in sweatshirts in the morning. It's been warm again though (and I finally got some long sleeved stuff washed), so we're back to no jackets. It was hot and sticky today - - totally not fall weather. And yet, while out shopping, we saw a Christmas tree lot set up.
We finally got a baby gate (see: crawling), and of course the girls hate it. We just have it in a square configuration right now, so it's like a cage. I mean, play yard. The plan is eventually to mount it to the wall and just block off the living room. I think we're going to have to get to that this weekend.
I managed to take some time off to go to the girls' therapy session with their early interventionist. It was definitely beneficial for me - I got to see what she's doing, and get a lot more information on things to do with the girls. It was also good for me to see the toys she brings. It made me realize that we really needed some more toys - most of what we have are just teethers. (Or, as Greg says, "chew toys.") I thought they were still too little for a lot of stuff, but she adapted things like shape sorters to their level. So we went toy shopping this morning. I took Becca with me, and she slept through most of it. You think she'll ever live down sleeping through her first trip to the toy store?
We finally got 2 of the high chairs set up, and we've been using them for the last week or so. The girls are doing pretty well in them (we normally only feed one at a time right now), and it actually helps keep them a little cleaner. Mostly, it's harder for them to get food on their legs. :) They are still eating fruits and vegetables. We bought some "puffs" last week to try. Emma acts like I'm trying to poison her. Becca just makes a face. But Julie LOVES them. I think she's going to be our adventurous eater. She is starting to try to feed herself. Her hands get sticky from baby food + slobber, but that makes the puffs stick to her hands, and then she has about a 50% success rate of getting them in her mouth from there. We've also been trying out a sippy cup with some water at dinner. Emma again acts like I'm trying to poison her. Julie likes to chew on it. But Becca loves the water, and is really good at drinking out of the cup. She doesn't hold it herself, but she's got the drinking thing down.
Emma tests the high chair.
Julie
Becca eating something orange. Probably sweet potatoes.
We also got a note on Friday that Becca is now able to put the whole pacifier in her mouth at daycare. They've given up on pacifiers at home, except the raspberry ones, but they still use them at daycare, exclusively to chew on them. So I found some of these at Babies R Us today. If she can fit this whole thing in her mouth, we've got a problem.
