One thing I love about Germany is come sunny public holidays, the whole country goes walking! Even on a Sunday morning when we look out our kitchen window I see streams of people marching up our road, heading for the forest trails at the end of the street.

Today was a beautiful sunny warm day and so in honour of the germans we went for a walk. Although we took the buggy with, Ciara and Enya weren't too interested in riding in it. Most of the time they spent running every which way, inspecting the stones and sticks lying around, attemting to climb onto the wooden bences lining the trail and generally expending loads of energy. We probably only walked about a kilometer before stopping for coffee and cake, it was a welcome refueling stop for us all.

Enya fell quite often, she seems to only have 2 speeds- still or full speed ahead and on the uneven surfaces she kept going sprawling. She doesn't like having her hands dirty, everytime she fell she'd hold her hands out for one of us to dust the dirt off. Enya kept having brief rides in the pram, she obviously still has to build her endurance up whereas Ciara is like an everyready battery- she keeps going!! Ciara is fascinated by stones, she collects them and then carries them with her. Every so often she'll come up and give us one with a "bitte" (please), although she usually demands it back immediately after. We have to watch her quite closely as well as she keeps putting the gravel in her mouth, because I never feed her you know!! ;0)

Anyway enjoy the pictures



PS you may notice the girls are wearing summer sandals with socks, what can I say they are half german!!

Shoe guilt

Today we went shopping, firstly I needed to get good sunhats that fit the girls. Then I wanted to get some summer sandals for Enya as Ciara already had a pair from a good friend and if the weather certainly warrants them.

I had a blast finding the sunhats. Thank goodness Ren was with me to help me choose between the gorgeous hats we found. In the end I chose different hats for them althoug both have a neck protector flap so the hats will definitely come in handy in Turkey. I just need to sew on a strap to keep them on the girls' heads, don't ask me why but none of the hats had chin straps!

While we were in the shoe shop looking for sandals with buckles, (why don't they have any shoes with buckles anymore? My girls don't keep velcro fastening shoes on for very long!) Enya tried on a pair of shoes that are a size smaller than her present pair, suddenly she was walking steadier and with a narrower base. I knew her shoes were a bit big, but we got her measured at the specialist childrens shoe store and this was the size they recommended (yes for the same shoes). Part of her problem with walking outside has certainly been due to the uneven surface but even more has been the difficulty balancing with boats on her feet. Thank goodness we've only had them on her when she was outside and only for the last few weeks.

So Enya now also has a new pair of shoes that fit and she is feeling a lot more confident about walking around outside. Onward and forward!

Zoo visit

Playing with the car in the physios waiting room

After our 9:15 physio appointment we hightailed it up to Cologne to enjoy the fantastic weather and finally visit the zoo there. I had to haul out the sunscreen and sunhats (last years do NOT fit this year!) and we were all in short sleeves. I felt really sorry for all the babies bundled up in winter fleeces and sheepskin pram bags, especially as most of their mommies were wearing short sleeve t-shirts!!
Ciara taking herself for a walk

Enya wandering around


The girls seemed to enjoy themselves especially when we let them out the buggy to run around. I felt it was too cruel to expect them to spend the whole visit in the buggy and with two of us there we could watch/rescue one child each. They particulaly enjoyed pushing the buggy around with our supervision- this may be a trick to keep track of them in public places in the future, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them doing this :0(.

I had the feeling Ciara and Enya are still not that interested in the animals, not even the rhino that came within one meter of us behind a full length window. But Renee and I had a great time and C and E had a day out. We only got home around 6 pm and after food and a bath, the girls crashed for the night and we didn't hear a peep out of them again.


Ren with Ciara


Sippys don't get too excited, C and E believe these are teething/ chewing toys



I haven't included any photos of the animals because shortly after we arrived my camera battery died, followed quickly by my video cameras battery so not a lot of photos/film!

T-6 hours

My little sister arrives in 6 hours and I can't wait to see her! She hasn't seen the girls since their birthday last year and so much has chnaged since then! At that time Ciara just started to crawl properly (literally the day before her birthday) while Enya could army crawl about 1m. Now they both walk/run everywhere, babble constantly and are into everything. NOTHING IS SAFE anymore!!

I've enjoyed the last 2 days having C and E all to myself and not having to consider anyone else's schedule or needs in my planning, but I must be honest I was counting down the minutes yesterday evening until bedtime. They turned ratty and whingy yesterday afternoon, I think they are missing Z.

Ciara ate her yogurt last night all by herself, I think I gave her 2 teaspoons , and she didn't even spill much of it. Enya has also made a huge leap forward in self feeding and was this morning loading her spoon with cereal and bringing it to her mouth without any assistance. Admittedly I could have fed a third child with everything that was spilled on the table and floor but the progress is exciting. That is definitely been the plus of this weekend alone, I'm being forced to leave the comfortable routines and allow the girls to experiment and develop independance at the table. And I would say the rapid progress shows that it was overdue!

I'm not even panicking (much) that Enya only ate half a small rissole and half a slice of snackbread smeared with peanut butter for lunch. She ate what she wanted and good is. I'm reading a book called "Child of Mine" by Ellyn Satter, it's all about feeding, and she stresses how important it is that the child be allowed to determine how much of whatever they eat. The amount is their responsibility, my responsibility is the what, where and when. Of course this only really applies when there is no underlying medical/psychoogical reason for children not eating.

The weight difference between my girls is increasing again, we are now at nearly 2.5kg difference after staying at only 2kg difference for a long time. I honestly don't understand why, as the amounts of food they are offered are not that different. Ciara does eat more but not every meal or even everyday, she just seems to use it more efficiently. Oh well in the long run it has certainly made the twins experience cheaper as Enya inherits all Ciara's clothes!

Toy box wars

The latest craze in the House of Z is fighting over possession of the toy box: Enya voicing her displeasure



given that Miss C outweighs Miss E by 2.5kg, it will be no surprise who the winner was!

I had a really enjoyable day today, it started off a little dicey with Ciara refusing to eat any breakfast. Probably because I've decided to ramp things up a bit, we go on holiday (fortnight in Turkey, I can't wait) in 2 months and they need to be able to eat at least some table foods by then, so they got grated apple with their instant baby oats this morning. Ciara hated it but Enya ate all of hers and some of Ciara's as well!

I then cooked most of the morning which made them grumpy but thanks to no breakfast Ciara gobbled down lunch. Lunch was spaghetti bolognese with normal spaghetti that I cut into 1-2 cm pieces (up to now they've only had a few little pasta shells or more usually noodle granules), both girls managed this easily. The best part was they also ate a salmon football (firm salmon paste in a crumb mantle-delicious even for me, a fish hater) for the first time. Usually when it's offered they'll only eat a bite or two. Then this afternoon while they were napping I made them Tofu rissoles and let them have a bite when they woke up (actually for lunch tomorrow) and they both came back for seconds so that hopefully bodes well for eating tomorrow!! We still have some episodes where Enya gags on the more solid foods but she now seems to be able to stop the vomitting that always used to follow a gag. She is also taking proper bites when we give her a biscuit instead of just gnawing around the edge and she is also making chewing motions which is a distinct improvement over a few weeks ago!

This evening, for the first time while bathing them alone, I put them both in the bath together. We usually bath them one after another, with one of us in the bath with them, as they tend to be all over the place in the water. Today though I left out the bath seat, made it a very shallow bath, stripped them both before putting them into the bath and removed them both from the water before trying to dry them. It worked a dream and they had so much fun splashing each other that this is going to be my method of choice. Excepting, of course, the pee on the carpet and the telephone and the sleeping bag that landed up in the bath water, tonight was an all round success.


Now if only I can work out how to clean their teeth without me physically having to hold them down!! They don't cry (much) when we clean their teeth they would just "rather not thank you mommy!".

Abandoned

Z has gone off to his beloved scottish mountains and left me all alone with the girls, I hasten to add with my full agreement. Z gets cranky when he doesn't see mountains for a while and he hasn't been near mountains since before the girls were born! I mean come on, we spent our summer holiday last year in the Netherlands, it doesn't get much flatter! Thankfully my younger sister arrives on Monday so I won't be alone for long.

It's not that I can't manage the girls by myself, I do everyday. But with no family close by and friends that have their own families, it's nice to get a break and have another pair of hands when feeding them bottles or solids.

Ciara now refuses to eat unless we give her a spoon too, unfortunately she needs very close supervision as she is a bit unpredictable. Enya needs to be encouraged to use her spoon which requires a lot of input from me and neither girl is prepared to wait for the other to finish so solids are given simultaneously. Hence the relief when meals are one adult per child!

In return for Z going to Scotland, I get to go visit my sister in Houston in the autumn. I've only been to the States once so far (a shopping weekend to NYC)so I'm really looking forward to this, especially when my sister tells me how warm Houston is. I was only going to book for a week but Z keeps telling me to go for longer, I think he just wants C and E all to himself! Up to now he has spent a maximum of 8 hours all alone with the girls without me and is definitely not used to their tricks. I'll be very interested to see how he survives the week and I think he will have a steep learning curve. Perhaps I'll even get a bit more understanding when the house is in a state when he comes home from work! We will see.

Sunshine

Well spring has finally arrived, we've had 2 beautiful semi warm sunny days on a trot and the forecast is that it will only get better, for this week at least.

Yesterday we met up with another set of twins from the NICU. They are about 6 weeks older than C and E (adjusted of course, actual they are about 2 weeks younger) and so much bigger, even than Ciara! We had brunch together and then took the 4 kids to the local park to play. Somehow it was a lot easier this time although I had to keep herding Ciara away from the stream. Enya had a wonderful time on the roundabout (a sit down roundabout, veeeerry nice!) while Ciara enjoyed playing with the ball Maren, the other twins mom, brought.

Even in the couple of weeks since we were last in the park I can see a huge improvement in Enya's confidence and mobility, she still falls over on the the uneven ground but she gets up and runs off again. Two weeks ago she would have crawled to me and refused to go anywhere unless I was holding her hand.

Unfortunately we only had about 45 minutes in the park before Maren needed to leave to pick up her older son from Kindergarten, but we all had fun and have agreed to do it again in the very near future.

I had to laugh though at the reaction we got as 2 sets of twins walking down the street. The funniest part though was when we met a friend of Maren with only one 6 month old son also in a pram going in the same direction. As all 3 of us were pushing prams and walking together down the street together, a passerby called out that we were missing a baby. Twins, the new normality!!

In the afternooon I took them out again to run in "our" huge backgarden, I wanted the girls to get a bit of sun as I'm feeling a bit guilty that they are no longer getting Vit D supplements- our paed told us to stop after 15 months actual, I kept on until February (15 months adjusted) but the Developmental follow up doc thought they should be on it for the first 2 years. My compromise is to let them enjoy the late afternoon sunshine when we get it!