Lucky Eights

So it looks like I have good blog Karma (furiously knocking on wood). I was worried that blogging about progress would bring bad luck (Ok, there was alot of complaining, too). On night eight of sleep training Anna went into her crib awake, but a little drowsy. She fussed while I was holding her a bit, but when I left the room there wasn't any crying at all. It felt fantastic.

In other news, Alex has started crawling! And he is very good at it, much quicker than Anna. When she started, Anna wasn't much interested in leaving the loosely defined 'play area' we have set up in the living room. Not Alex, he's much more interested in where mommy went (the kitchen) or what's under the changing table (harmless nursing pillow) and what could possibly be up those steps (certain death).

Cursing

Ferber is my new four letter word. So is ‘crib-lowering,’ ‘night-light,’ ‘bumper-removing,’ ‘teething,’ and ‘transitioning-to-solid-foods.’ All at the same time. It’s the less than perfect storm.

We have started to put Anna through sleep training, to get her to go to sleep easier at night. Starting out was extremely difficult, she is a very willful half-Russian child. By the time she is two she will know all the right buttons to push on both parents. Easily. The first two nights was ten minute increments. Ten minutes can really be a lifetime. Really. In between was two minutes of patting, singing, and general worrying/calming. And no holding or picking up (the horror!). She is already used to that aspect, when we go into her room during the night if she is has woken up it is usually to give her back her pacifier and pat her some to help her fall asleep again. Night 1 lasted for an hour and a half. Night 2 lasted for 30 minutes. Nights 3 and 4 she fell asleep during the bottle portion of the pajamas, bottle, story, cuddle, off to bed routine. Night 5 was a bump up to 15 minute increments and lasted exactly 15 minutes. I was just about to go up to her when she stopped crying and fell asleep. Night 6 was a repeat of night 5, just as I was about to go up to her she stopped crying. And night 7 was a very short 4 minute cry/moan/whine. I’d like to say it’s getting better, but I don’t feel that way. Sure, the times are decreasing, I can see that. But the intensity is still the same. The crying, oh, the crying. It reaches into my stomach and pulls it out though my soul (see the button-pushing reference above). Melodramatic? You bet your ass. I earned it.

At the same time all this is going on both babies have become very good at sitting up on their own and are making lame attempts at pulling themselves up. Neither has managed to make it more than an inch off their bottom, but it necessitates taking off the bumpers of both cribs and lowering the mattress platforms down to a safer level. I think this has thrown Alex off his game, with the night-light next to his crib it’s now very bright. I have covered the light so it doesn’t shine right on him but he is still waking up during the night, which is very unusual for him. It could also be teething, but with all these things happening at one time it’s hard to be sure. The first night without the bumpers on poor Anna woke up screaming because her arm and/or foot was caught in the bars. I say “arm or foot” because it was not me who jumped out of bed like a madman and ran down to make sure she was ok, it was Z. And don’t think I didn’t get an earful about this, and the lost pacifier that fell out of the crib and bounced all the way down to the China, and the fact that our poor son was being blinded by the ‘bright-as-the-sun’ night light. Luckily for me child services wasn’t called in for such negligence. But cooler heads prevailed the next morning, or should I say, my cold shoulder prevailed the next morning. I am a good example of why you shouldn’t go to bed angry; I don’t forget about it the next day.

And what can I say about the transition to solid foods? Trying to think of a meal plan for two adults is hard enough, now I have to factor two babies into the equation? Damn. Does this mean Z and I have to really start eating vegetables? At the table?!??! It was so much simpler when…oh hell. It was never simple, who am I trying to kid? One of my challenges is how to tell when they’ve had enough, or if I’m giving them enough variety. And I don’t think I’m ready for them to feed themselves. Oh God the mess! If I spoon feed them through elementary school, would that be too weird?

Yesterday Z and I had to go into the city to take care of a few things. Needless to say the babies got a little rowdy waiting for papa to finish up. Here is a shot of me (unamused) trying to keep Alex amused. What you can't see is that he has no pants on due to the fact that he pooped out of them (for the second time that day!) and I had no more spares for him. It was a lovely day.

Every Day Something New

Anna has gotten her first tooth. Finally. I haven't spotted it yet but I feel it. She is so squirmy that I can't get a good look. I'll have to wait a bit.

Right on the heels of the first tooth came the dreaded first colds. At eight months, I think we waited long enough. I picked up the babies last Friday from daycare and Alex had a runny nose. "oh boy, he's never had that before." That's what ran through my head. And sure enough, all night Friday he was up hourly, crying and complaining and snuffly. All day Saturday was tissue patrol, and blue sucky thing from the hospital, and loud angry protests from a very sensitive nose. Then Anna woke up with congestion on Sunday morning. Ugh. Fortunately Alex was perking up and slept well Sunday night, but Anna was up most of the night and Z and I took shifts staying up with her. More blue sucky thing, more tissue swiping. More snot than I've seen in a long time. Monday was recovery, Alex went to daycare and Mommy and Anna stayed home, making beef stew and napping. By now everyone seems back to normal. Their noses are still runny but they seem to have a lot more energy.

Last night Anna sat up for the first time. It was so unexpected, and really, I don't know when the milestones are supposed to happen, I really can't keep up. One minute she was rolling around on the floor, doing the army crawl here and there, and the next minute she was sitting up! It's possible that she should have been doing that long already, but the feeling I got when I saw her do it, it was as if she had... I don't know, brought home her first paycheck? I think the reason I was so surprised and proud was that she hadn't been showing any 'sitting-up' tendencies or making any attempts to do it that I or day care have seen.
Okay, that was way too many words spent talking about sitting up. Tonight Grammy comes to visit! She hasn't seen the babies since Christmas so I'm heading out to the outlets today for some spiffy baby gear. Anna needs new clothes anyway, I'm really pushing the limits of the six month outfits. The pants are turning into capris!

Anyway, I was playing around with the movie making software on my computer and made this video. It's rough, but I'm putting together ideas for a video to make for Alex and Anna's first birthday. I've never posted a video, I hope it works. If not, don't worry, you're not missing much.

A Full Weekend

We had a nice three-day weekend, my babysitter needed Friday off so I put in for a vacation day. It happened to fall in the same week as the Philly Auto Show and we all headed into the city. There are no pics, however. I just wasn't feeling up to it, and I didn't see any fun cars to sit the kids or myself in for a shot. It was still a nice distraction for us all.

On Saturday Alex wasn't himself so we decided to keep him home from swimming lessons. I went with Anna, and I'm so used to packing for two kids that I don't know how to pack any other way. There was the car seat, the diaper bag, my wallet, the beach bag for the towels and my stuff. What the hell? I felt like I was going for a sleepover, not 25 minutes in the pool!

After that I was on my own with the babies for most of Saturday. With Alex's fussiness/borderline obnoxiousness I was stretched thin by the time Z got home. The highlight of the day was Anna getting up on her hands and knees, ready to zoom off. It was so fun to watch, I held my breath because I didn't want to scare her if I yelled. She didn't actually go anywhere, but it'll be any day now. Go baby!

Then Sunday morning Anna had another first. She managed to get a Cheerio in her mouth and chewed on it for the first time! I've been putting Cheerios on the high chairs for a few weeks now, but mostly it's been a lot of pushing around the tray. Today Anna got one in a couple times. Go baby! (Again!)

Around lunch time I decided to try to take some nice pictures. My makeshift backdrop (the bedsheet) makes me a little sad when I look at them, but one day I'll have Photoshop or iPhoto (wink wink!) and get them edited a little better. Until then I'll have to be satisfied with what I get, but I'm thinking they came out pretty good for a point and shoot digital!

Getting Out of the House

I've learned so far that winters are going to be a real challenge when you're stuck inside with two kids.  Since it's gotten colder our weekends have consisted of trying to find places that are friendly to families with double strollers:  swimming lessons at the YMCA, the King of Prussia Mall, IKEA, my mom's place, the King of Prussia Mall.  You get the idea.  Right now the babies are still at an age where we can take them out without complete chaos going down, but that won't last for long.  This past weekend we went to the Mall and hung out in the food court, where it took Z and I approximately two hours to 1) order our food (me alone while he watched the kids) 2) to eat our food 3) play with/feed/keep from crying/entertain/photograph the babies. 

Here are some pics from our day.

Relaxing at Home

Six Months, Christmas, Swimming, Teeth

It's been so long since I've posted I don't know where to start. Plus I don't have much time, both the babies and Z are taking a nap. Who knows how long the quiet will last.

First, Christmas. It was very nice, and a dramatic difference from last year, where I could barely make the meal and had an even tougher time eating it and keeping it down! The babies had a nice time, especially when we had all the family together. Our little house was packed, we may have to move the celebration north next year.

The day after Christmas we discovered that Alex had two teeth coming in! And he's so laid back about it we had no idea. Anna, on the other hand, has no teeth and seems to be very sensitive to the teething process. I expect she'll have one coming soon enough.

Our six-month well visit was the week of New Year's. It was a nice appointment, no surprises. Alex weighs 20 pounds, while Anna weighed in at 15. It's a difference I notice every time I pick up his car seat to lift him into the mini van. They had immunizations at the appointment, and both cried. Anna took very little effort to console, surprisingly, but Alex got so upset that he got a red spotty rash around his face. It went away quickly but made us all nervous for a bit.

Finally, today was our fist swimming lesson! Anna took to it easily, but she always loved her baths. Alex was on the fence, and only at the end, when papa played peek-a-boo with him, did he really laugh and have fun. Both Z and I had a great time, too. My only complaint is the crazy timing. Who wants to shave their legs in January? Sheesh.

Santa!!!

Today was Pictures with Santa day! Anna was taking a nap and woke up just before this picture was taken. There were a few shots in the beginning where it looked like Santa had slipped her some children's Benadryl because her head was slumped over completely. I actually wish we had opted for one of those pictures instead. They were so funny I couldn't stop laughing. Unlike Sandy's experience (you can check it out here http://thehardels.blogspot.com/) we managed to get our two kids looking in the general vicinity of the camera. At least you blocked the view of Santa's water bottle, Sandy!

I'm glad we went with Sandy and her family, it was a great way to kick off the holiday madness.

We walked around the mall for a bit after this and ran into another couple with 7 week-old boy/girl twins. As I chatted with them I remembered that when Alex and Anna were that age both Z and I were very hesitant to take them out at all, so I had to congratulate them. Especially on such a miserable rainy day.