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!

I'm having a bit of a hard time right now, nothing to do with C and E they are as delightful as ever. Have I mentioned they keep wanting to do somersaults? They position themselves with head on the ground between their hands, feet on the ground and bums in the air and then whinge until I flip them over, lather rinse repeat x2. We have Krabbelgruppe to thank for this exciting development, now it's all the girls want to do. Enya also managed to climb out her high chair, onto the chair next to it and from there on to the ground. Thankfully I didn't see this "amazing" feat as it would have given me heart failure, instead Z described it to me. Her harness has gone back on her chair, we'd taken it off to use outside when we were out walking.

Anyways I will get back to more regular posting ASAP.

Hide and seek

Ciara hasn't quite grasped the concept of hide-and-seek yet, she loves to pop out from behind the couch to a chorus of "where is Ciara? Ciara, where are you? ....aahhhh there you are". She runs from one side of the couch to the other, cackling madly the whole time and pop out and then repeat it from the beginning again. The fact she is supposed to wait for us to find her is irrelevent, we take too long so it's boring and the laughter erupting from her would give her away everytime anyway!

Enya on the other hand has just learnt how to play catch, we've been chasing her for a while and, except when in her excitement she spins on the spot, it's worked very well. Toay for the first time though she started chasing me! She was so proud of herself when she caught me, it really was lovely to see.

They are also both suddenly fascinated by the butterflys we painted on their bedroom walls, they've been there since before the girls came home but they seem to suddenly have noticed them. Enya delights in running up to and touching the butterflys in her reach. She'll run backwards and forwards between them as if to check they haven't suddenly flown away.

The terrible two were particularly terrible yesterday, thye broke my brush, emptied the pot plant soil all over the lounge floor twice and then proceeded to eat the soil, unrolled the toilet roll all over the bathroom floor and then tore it up into the smallest possible pieces (it's now sitting in a box on top of our loo, in their defence they did help me pick it up) and Enya's shoes took another dunking this time in the bath. I was so exhausted by the end of the day I was in bed by half past 8. Today I gave in and put them down for a morning nap as well as midday nap, (this would be after they emptied the pot plant soil out again though) and they've slept an hour and a half each time. I find this age to be really fun but a lot more work and way more exhausting than when they were little babies!

More photos

Yes I have just downloaded the camera, which means you all get an overdose of (cute) baby photos!!


The next two photos I would title as "Sisterly love"



Ciara


Enya


Helping mommy with sorting the washing

Some pictures of said table