9 Months

I can't believe that the boys I gave birth to just yesterday are 9 months now. I don't understand how I can be so sad about them growing up so fast and yet so excited about each new stage they reach. I didn't get a chance to write yesterday on their actual 9 month birthday. We went to Sea World on Glen's last day off before starting his new job. When we got back from Sea World, hoping to cool off in the air conditioning, we walked in to a broken air conditioner and the room was 85 degrees. It continued to get hotter and was 88-89 when we finally had some repairmen come in. Anyway, I was grouchy, the boys were grouchy and hot, and we were trying to stay out of here because it was miserable. But I do want to record where the boys are developmentally.



Luke you are:

• Army crawling like a pro. You can get pretty much anywhere you want to now.
• Eating like a pro. You will try anything I offer and lately have been eating a lot of solid food.
• Have 2 teeth (bottom) - they came in July 12.
• Slept through the night once (July 13). But even with all the transitions with our move, you have done a good job of sleeping and until the last couple nights, were only waking once.
• Still love blowing raspberries.
• Size 3 diapers
• Some 6 month clothes, mostly 6-9 months and some 9 month clothes.
• Not talking a lot, but I'm sure it's because Micah does all the "talking" for you.

Micah you:

• Had 2 teeth as of yesterday, but today at 9 months 1 day, you have three teeth (bottom left came in today).
• Can get to sitting position on your own.
• Getting up onto your knees and lunging forward. A herky jerky crawl.
• Trying to pull up to standing in your pack n play and on the highchair. You can get your bum off the floor, but so far that's as far as you can go.
• Size 3 diapers
• Some 6 month clothes, mostly 6-9 months and some 9 month clothes.
• Chattering a lot. You say "da da" pretty well in context. You say it a lot out of context too. You also have said "hi" several times.

I don't have weights for the boys as our scale is packed up and in storage for now. I'll have 9 1/2 month weights.

Some funny things that have happened lately -

• The boys were playing together on the floor while I was on the computer. I heard Luke start to whine a little and when I looked over, his head was in Micah's lap and Micah was hitting/patting him over the head repeatedly.
• Luke was attempting to crawl over my legs on the floor. He put his face down to my leg and started blowing raspberries. He got the juiciest sounds and kept doing it over and over. My leg was dripping with drool by the time I made him stop. :)
• We were at Target and I was wearing Micah in the bjorn. A few different times someone would come up close to us or we'd walk next to someone and I swear Micah said "hi" to each of the people.
• While the boys were sitting together on the floor, Luke leans over and grabs Micah, kind of like a hug (?) almost taking him down.

Well, I've stalled long enough on this post. It's now 9 months and 3 days. I don't want to forget anything. Speaking of forget, I need to remember to do their 9 month pictures today - we're running a little late this month.

Blogging

I've been reading blogs pretty religiously since I had my babies. I found that reading them on my iphone at night while feeding babies worked really well. I couldn't really do anything else at that time, so I might as well read about other moms of multiples. I have learned so much from other bloggers. There is so much I don't know about blogging, but I decided to start this one as a way to keep track of my boys' development and the goings on in our lives. I can't seem to find the time to really learn how to do anything but the very basics. I even have trouble posting pictures. Ugh. So I feel pretty self-conscious about my blog and haven't told anyone about it. But just tonight I saw that www.multiplesandmore.blogspot.com/ is encouraging their readers to comment, so I thought I would give it a try.

I have so much to learn. Where did you learn the ins and outs of blogging? And how did you manage to learn about it when busy with children?

Moving

We are kind of in transition right now. Last Thursday we left for a two day drive to our new city in Texas. We arrived last Friday and are staying in a temporary apartment until we can get into the house we are renting. It's been busy and stressful and crazy and kind of exciting. We spent three nights in temporary facilities in Arizona while our house was being cleaned. We had a two bedroom place and Luke actually slept through the night the second night there. I don't know how that happened as he/they were sleeping in pack n plays in a new place. (We haven't had another night like that unfortunately.) Glen's parents flew down to help us with our drive and house hunting. Here in Texas we are in a one-bedroom place and the bedroom is tiny. We managed to rearrange the furniture and fit the pack n plays both in there, end to end. It's been crazy since we arrived here. Micah seems to have regressed in his sleep to how it was before the sleep training. He's waking 3-5 times each night and often won't go back to sleep unless he nurses. Sometimes all I have to do is pick him up and rock with him for a couple minutes and he's fine. I don't know if he is just unsettled because this is a new place and a different bed, if he's uncomfortable or in pain, or if he's just doing it because he's getting away with it. We can't really do any kind of sleep training because we share walls with other people and don't want to disturb them for hours on end. Waking so often is really getting old. He's also waking early the last couple mornings, like at 4:30 and 5:40. Every night I think I can't go on any longer and then during the day I somehow manage to get through. I'm trying to get at least one nap in each day, but we've been busy so that's not always possible. Luke is suddenly the better sleeper and is waking once or twice each night.

So we found a place to rent. It's a four bedroom house with two master bedrooms, one on the main level and the other upstairs. The one on the main floor is very nice and big and has an awesome bathroom and closet. We want to be upstairs with the boys, though, so we'll be in the smaller master with the smaller bathroom and closet. That's fine, though. The downstairs master will make a great guest room. It has a good size living room and formal dining room. I think that for now we'll use the formal dining space as a play space for the boys. There is a pretty good size breakfast nook off the kitchen that our tables will fit in and the highchairs. The dining room leads to the backyard, which is kind of small but nice and grassy with no neighbors behind. They have a storage shed which will be nice for the stuff that we can't fit into the garage. The main floor also has a laundry room and a powder room. Upstairs is a good size loft area that will fit our ping pong table. To the left are two bedrooms connected by a jack and jill bathroom. The rooms are nice and big with walk in closets. We think the boys will go in the back bedroom where it will hopefully be quieter. I'm not totally confident about that decision because it's farther for me to walk to get to them in the middle of the night. The other room will probably be a scrapbooking room/playroom/catch all room. To the right of the loft is the master bedroom. The house is in a really great neighborhood. I preferred a different house, but wasn't as happy with the neighborhood. There is a small park and a swimming pool about half a mile away which we can't wait to use. The bad news is that we won't be able to move in until August 7 (our 11th anniversary), but because that is a Saturday we can't have our stuff delivered until Monday, the 9th. We are so cramped here in our temporary place that we're thinking about camping out in the house for two nights by borrowing air mattresses, sheets, etc.

Luke is becoming so proficient with the army crawl. We've tried getting him up on his knees and he just doesn't want to do it. Micah is finally getting himself to a sitting position -all the time. He also gets up on his knees and lunges forward. He's getting so close to crawling. Of all times for him to start crawling is when we're in a hotel with gross floors and junk all over from our move. The other big developmental news is that Luke got two teeth on Monday the 12.

So I guess that's it for now. We're tired, the boys are actually sleeping, so I should probably head that way.
So, there's a lot going on in our lives.

Sleep and Doctor's Appointment and other randomness

Somehow the boys flipped their playgym over and Luke crawled inside. I like this picture because he looks mischievous.

Here's Micah showing off his two teeth.

The cutest advertisement ever for Huggies.

Playing together.

They like their new toy.

Sleep:

Turns out after writing about our success with the Sleep Sense program over the last week and a half, we had a pretty bad night with the boys that same night. I really should learn my lesson about writing positive things about sleep. Last night was another rough night. Luke's been chewing on his fingers, so I'm pretty sure his teeth are bugging him and that's what's waking him up. Our problem is that once he's awake, the only thing that will get him back to sleep is nursing. Last night I ended up feeding him 3 times! It's out of control. Tomorrow starts a three day weekend, so I think we might try to tackle the waking to eat issue. We saw their pediatrician today and talked about the nighttime feedings. She thinks we should try everything we can to get them to sleep without feeding them and feed as a last resort. When I'm exhausted in the middle of the night, it's just quicker to feed them - it's like 10 minutes tops versus 30 minutes of walking or rocking, or just letting them cry. But I don't know how much longer I can go on with 2-3 wake ups each night. Naps during the day help, but they aren't a guarantee and I could be a lot more productive if I didn't have to take a nap every day. Did I write last time about giving them bottles in the middle of the night? We did it one night, one feeding, for one boy. It's just a whole lot more work. I need to keep the long term goal in mind. But when I can barely get out of bed because I'm so tired, it's easy to forget the long term and focus in on the now.

Okay, what I really wanted to say about sleep...I love watching the boys fall asleep. The sleep sense program had us in the room with them for the first 9 nights and days until they fell asleep. She mentions that one positive about it is that you get to watch them learn to self soothe. It's so true. By now, I should be laying them down and walking out of the room, but most naps I choose to stay in there until they fall asleep just because it's so interesting to me how long it takes them, what position they end up in, plus they're just so darn cute when they are asleep. I hope I'm not setting up a bad habit. So for their afternoon nap today I put Luke down and he started crying immediately. I know he was tired because he couldn't stop yawning during lunch and then was rubbing his eyes like crazy before I put him down. He cried for about 4 minutes and fell asleep on his back with his blanket on the side of his face and kind of on his chest. So sweet. I laid Micah down and he didn't fuss, but he started playing with the blanket that is hanging over the window and he can reach through his crib slats. He was making happy sounds, and then before I even realized it, he was laying on his stomach completely still - asleep. I don't like that Luke still cries about half the time when we put him down, but that might just be something he needs to do before falling asleep. Or maybe he'll stop eventually as he gets used to this routine.

Doctor:

We took Luke to the doctor today. It was supposed to be his 9 month well-baby visit, but we're leaving before he turns 9 months, so it's more like an 8 month visit. I have to start by saying the boys have the best pediatrician ever! We love her and are so sad to be leaving Dr. Conner. We were most concerned about Luke's head size because at the last two visits, it's jumped up in size. She says it's staying steady with size and isn't worried about it. I wish we'd have pursued it further with her, but I'll choose not to worry if she's not worried. His weight dropped a little according to the growth charts, but she said he's clearly not malnourished, so it's not concerning. He weighed 17 lbs 6 oz. I think she said that puts him in the 10-25%. But he's proportional when compared to his height which was around 26 inches (we weren't impressed with the accuracy of the height measurements). The appointments were all booked, so we couldn't get Micah in, but they let us weigh him and get his height while we were there. We take him back next week for his 9 month (8 month) well-baby. Micah weighed 17 lbs, 12 oz (6 oz more than Luke!) and his height was 26 inches and something (she said 5 cm longer than Luke - again, not impressed with her accuracy).

Bottle Feeding:

We've had such a problem getting the boys to take bottles. It's my fault because it's just easier to breastfeed, so that's what I do during the day. Ideally I'd like to give them one bottle a day at least so they are used to it. It's such a fight getting them to take them, that I don't want to give them bottles, so I don't. But until they are willingly taking bottles, I'm pretty much tied to them or the house every four hours. Yesterday I had Baby Signing time on and they were happily watching it when I got the bottles ready for them. I wasn't really thinking and left the show on during feeding time. They both drank all of the milk from their bottles! Their eyes were peeled to the tv, but they finished their bottles, without even a fight. Today I tried bottles with the tv off and they really weren't too interested, especially Micah. I turned on the Baby Signing time dvd and again they took their bottles without a fight. They didn't drink as much and it took Micah a long time to settle down and drink, but we're making progress. Probably another bad habit I'm starting. I want to try giving them bottles somewhere in public where they are interested in what is going on around them, distracted from the bottles and see if they take their bottles.

Talking:

Micah is now saying da da da da. He said it in the car today when we were on our way to the doctor. Did he know he was going to see "Dada"? Later when he was done with his bottle, I signed and said "all done" and it definitely sounded like Micah repeated "All done" (aw da). I really should make more of an effort to get them to speak. I especially need to be working on "Mama".