12 month update

Before I begin, Lauren did a fabulous job recounting the twins' bday weekend on her blog (see The Holy Lands to the right) as did Matt on his 12 month letter on his running blog (see also to the right). So I will skip the details of their party weekend and jump straight to specifics about their development and life in the crazy Jank house.

Instead of doing the necessary household evils like folding laundry and picking up from our two tornadoes, I am sitting down to update on the myriad of changes in G&A. Life has really changed for us in the past month. G&A are attending two day school programs from 9am-2pm on M-Th, which is when I head to my nursing home and adult day center and do counseling with my clients. It took the babies about three weeks to get into our new routine, and I'm still trying to adjust! Since G&A are out of our house, their nap schedule is totally wacky. Fortunately for the teachers at their schools, they nap for at least an hour there. But poor Mama, when we get home, I have two babies velcroed to my legs! No naps in the afternoon...and my twelve months olds definitely need more than an hour of napping each day. Needless to say, I need them to nap more too! We'll see how things continue to change in the next few weeks.
(Writer's note: This entry will be broken up into segments as G&A keep awaking from their naps, so I don't think I have time to write everything now...)

Physical Mobility/Communication:
We have seen the most dramatic changes in George in the past month. He is now crawling at lightening speed from one end of the house to the other. When Pop and Nana were here, he fell in love with his Pop! While Pop was fixing our plumbing in the front bathroom and installing cabinet safety locks, G was his little assistant. G found a new love of toys....drills, rulers, hardware, etc.
G would crawl everywhere Pop went.

In the past few days, he has begun to pull up on furniture, legs, moving ottomans, push toys....it has been wonderful to watch!! From a physical therapy viewpoint, he still shows greater strength on his left side but yesterday he was trying with all of his might to push up on that right leg! He is one determined little kiddo! Just last night, G began cruising...he walked along the couch and went from dining chair to dining chair (trying to pet our cat Louise of course--a little motivation never hurts!). He is able to walk confidently behind slower-rolling push toys and loves to push boxes around the house. He loves to bounce up and down, stand on his head in "downward dog", and wave his arms around in excitement while bouncing. He loves anything that looks like something he is not supposed to have, like the broom, He babbles, coos, and squeals, but only a few distinguishable words: "daddy" and "Pop". His sister understands more than we do!

Hard for us to believe, but Abigail is still not walking! She has been cruising for months and crawling everywhere, but we are learning that our petite little flower is pretty cautious. She stands independently at times and will take a few steps here and there, but has not shown any desire to be a full-time upright walker. She is so funny, she pushes G over, steps on him, tackles him, literally runs behind push toys (sometimes runs over G with the toy), and goes anywhere her heart desires. She loves to sit in her "Abigail" chair (constructed and handpainted by the Millers) and ride her music pony...she can even get on and off by herself. She has a great vocab: "momomo" (mama milk), "dada", "bubba", "mama", "mo" (monkey--her treasured lovie), "Pop", "Nana" and "nigh-nigh" (night night).

Even though A is still small, she weighed in at 17.1 lbs. and 28" long at her one year check-up. Pretty different than her big bro who weighs 20.4 lbs. and 30" long--G looks so much bigger than A. We weighed them yesterday on our bathroom scale and A was 18 lbs. and G was 23 lbs. Not "official" but wow, they feel like they are really gaining weight! She wears 6-9 mo clothes and G wears 9-12 mo clothes with a 12-18 mo. thrown in occasionally. Cloth diapers are fabulous, but they definitely make their clothes fit more snug.

Cuisine a les bebes:
Food has been an interesting change for our two one-year-olds. Matt and I made their food, pureeing and mashing, until they were about ten months old. We tried to choose healthy selections, lots of fresh vegetables and fruits. We are now transitioning to more finger foods and trying to have them eat what we are eating.

They are both becoming more opinionated about their diets. They would eat nothing but carbs!! His faves: crackers, pb&j sandwiches, o's & graham crackers. He will eat green beans, squash, yogurt, and fruit. A will try nearly anything, but prefers yogurt, pb, fruit, and all carbs. They are dramatic about their preferences...throwing food or tossing their sippie cups when they are done. They are consistent about using sign language for "more" or "all done" to express their needs. They are drinking soymilk and diluted juice from sippies with straws. I am still breastfeeding 2-3x day. I planned to wean them at a year, but they decided they were not done and I wasn't ready to stop either, so we are continuing. With G's health problems, it helped me to know that continuing to BF will be better for G and A will benefit as well (more on that later).

Gotta run...babies are awake and ready for a snack!! Stay tuned for more later on George's ears...