Time flies...

In just one weeks time I will be enjoying my last day of parental leave before returning to work. DoT will then start his leave and will be off work until the end of April. I can't believe it's been 5 months since we got the girls in China (exactly five months tomorrow). The time has flown by. I remember how, when I first started my leave, December 11th seemed so far away. And now I'm thinking I was an idiot to agree to let DoT take the second half of the leave. What was I thinking?!! I could be off work until May! Aargh.

While the weeks have flown by, I must say that some days just don't. By the time DoT walks through the door at the end of the day, I'm exhausted. Mostly from hauling around 40 pounds of kid for what feels like hours. I know that I don't have to hold them or carry them nearly as much as I did when we first got back to Canada, but now that they're crawling they seem to get up the stairs in record speed, and then need me to carry them back down. Could be worse I guess -- it could be the other direction. Up until now I've been carrying the two of them at the same time, but now that they're pushing (or past) 20 lbs each, I'm thinking that may soon have to change. It seems so inefficient though... making two trips for everything. DoT's brother's wife (how's that for a mouthful) has the same philosophy, if I remember correctly. DoT's brother once told me their nickname for her was "one-trip Tam".

Aside from all the hauling, I'm also spending what seems like a huge portion of my days picking stuff up. The girls have not yet grasped the idea of putting away one toy before taking out another. So several times a day I pick everything up, if for no other reason than self-preservation. With all the toys spread out everywhere I'm at a real risk of tripping. And if that happened while I was carrying the previously mentioned 40 lbs of kid, that would be bad. I also pick up utensils off the kitchen floor at least 40 gazillion times a day. Both E and A feel the need to have their own spoons or forks when we're eating, even though we feed them using ours. And both of them like to hurl them onto the floor and exclaim "uh oh". Telling them that they can only say "uh oh" when it's an accident doesn't seem to make any impression with them. And then once the utensil is on the floor they become quite agitated if you don't immediately pick it up and hand it back to them. It's quite the fun game. For them.

Wednesday nights I have my piano lesson. So at some point during the day on Wednesdays I clue into that fact and realize that I haven't really practiced much, if at all, during the past week. And I make a last-ditch attempt to do some practicing that day. Well, this past Wednesday I sat down at the piano and about 10 minutes later I heard the girls laughing. That should have been a warning to me. And it kind of was, but the piano non-practicing guilt outweighed it, and I ignored the laughter. Well, five minutes later when I checked on them, they had emptied an entire Kleenex box all over the family room. There were Kleenexes everywhere. When I picked them all up, I also found a box of cheerios that they had figured out how to open and they'd both had their fill.

The latest accomplishment for both of them (aside from emptying the Kleenex box, which they seemed to think was quite an accomplishment and something to be proud of)is standing on their own. They will now both stand up from a squatting position and remain balanced for a little while before sitting back down. They both get a big grin on their faces when they do this, particularly if they last for more than a couple of seconds. If they are distracted by something, they seem to do better. E averages 10 seconds or so, I'd guess, and A is probably about 5 seconds.

Well, I think I better end here. The girls are napping and I have a lot to accomplish during nap time. Have a great weekend, y'all.

Medical update

This morning we took A & E to the pediatrician to get more shots (will they ever end?!). They were scheduled for one shot, but we decided to get them flu shots as well. (The pediatrician recommends it, especially for anyone under 2 years old.) Well, A has a fever today, and possibly a bit of a red throat, so the doctor decided that it would be best to not give her any shots today. So she lucked out. E got the two needles though, and handled it like a real trooper. A will go back in two weeks to get hers.

Updated medical info is as follows:

A -- weighs 21 lbs, 5 oz; and is 74 cm long.
E -- weighs 19 lbs; and is 72.5 cm long.

E did not gain as much weight as A this time around, but she's still following a normal curve so that's fine.

No new pics today. Sorry.

Have a great week.

A couple of pics and a video

To begin, here's a shot of A & E at what was supposed to be naptime. After listening to what I thought was one of them babbling for about 15 minutes, I decided to peek in to see which one was still awake...



As you can see they are still in the same room. We're hoping to find time today or tomorrow to move one of the cribs. (Although they have slept better for the last couple of nights, so somehow it doesn't seem as important now.)

And now, DoT and I proudly present their first piano duet...



Finally, I'll leave you with a couple of photos DoT took yesterday...

















Bye for now.

That's it. We're moving!

Okay, so "we" are not really moving. But one of the girls is. After many months of trying to solve our sleep problems, DoT and I have decided to move the girls into separate rooms. They are still not sleeping well -- waking several times a night, unless we give in, in desperation, and let them sleep with us. And it now seems that their crying is waking the other one up. So, over the course of the next few days we will move one of the cribs into our guest bedroom. (Unfortunately we can't just roll it down the hall, since the cribs are too big to fit through the doorways.) Hopefully we can cut down the nighttime wakings to only one or two -- and maybe even none (dare I dream). :-)

My mom and dad were visiting this weekend, and it was once again great to have others eager to entertain the girls. Yesterday, my folks looked after the girls for much of the day, and DoT and I were able to have some peace, go out to our favourite eatery for lunch (The Lone Star... mmmm, fajitas), and get some Christmas shopping done. It was great. I still feel like I'm really far behind, but at least now we've made a start. And in three weeks I go back to work and DoT starts his parental leave. So, whatever still needs to be done then will be his problem. :-)

The other "big" news around here is that the girls have started tackling the stairs. E started first, and we taught her how to come back down on her own. Then A started following E up the stairs, but she sometimes seems to think she can do it on her feet, rather than crawling. So we have to be careful and make sure one of us is around if she's heading up too. We're working on teaching her to climb up and down crawling, so pretty soon there will probably be no stopping them. Here's a picture of the two of them heading upstairs, both still in their pajamas ...















And here's one of E, having made it to the landing halfway up (taken a few days ago)...




















Well, that's it for today. Hope you all have a great week.

Another little video

DoT took this video this morning. Nothing too exciting about it, but now that it's so easy for me to upload videos, I'm kinda into it. :-)




I'm also showing the long-promised picture of the sweaters that have been knit for A and E. Friends from my monthly craft group knit these.







And, finally, here's a shot of E wearing one of the sweaters. So far, it's the only one of the sweaters that fits either twin. The rest are still a bit big, but will probably fit sometime this winter. This one is even a bit big on E -- I probably should have put A in it, she might fill it out a bit better.

Not a race but...

So a couple of posts ago, I think, I promised to try to get a video uploaded of the girls racing. Well, tonight I have a video for you. Unfortunately, the novelty of the race has worn off somewhat with the girls, so it's harder to get them on camera racing each other. But I do have a video of them both walking. (DoT reminded me that our digital camera will also take short video clips, and luckily I don't have any trouble uploading these.) A is walking with the help of DoT, and E is behind the toy walker.

So here it is....


Unfortunately, A seems to only be interested in watching E, so she's not really looking at the camera. But you get a pretty good shot of E. The colouring is pretty bad (I guess I should have waited to take the video until the daylight), but it's better than nothing.

I also have a picture for you. This is taken from our steps down to the basement, looking up at A & E through the baby gate. When A and E first started holding on to the gate and rattling it, DoT would start chanting "Attica, Attica"... it was pretty funny. (If this doesn't mean much to you, and you care, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attica_Prison_riots.)



Well, that's it for tonight. Blog ya later. :-)

Girls on the move...

So, A is now crawling without too much fanfare. It took her awhile to realize that she was going to have to do it, but now she willingly crawls to whatever toy she wants at the moment -- which usually is whatever toy is in E's hand. Boy, or boy, can I see some epic battles coming over toys when they both get a bit stronger. Both of them will readily snatch a toy away from the other. For now, they're too young to understand about sharing, but it's not a huge problem because we can typically distract one of them with something else. But, as their attention spans get longer, it's gonna be a problem. Oh yes, I see it coming. If only they had dispositions like their mother... kind, considerate, always giving. :-)

So, I do have a video of "the great race" -- A is walking with the help of DoT, and E is racing along beside crawling. The problem is that I seem to be technically incompetent when it comes to video recording or putting video on the web. For some reason when I finalize the CD in the video camera (to make it able to play on other things -- like a computer), all of the various videos on the CD are merged into one video. And it's too big to put on the blog. My computer does have a video editing software on it, but of course it doesn't seem to recognize the file type that the video camera has saved the file as. So, unless someone out there can provide some technical help on Sony Camcorders I'm afraid you're not going to get to see the video. Unless I decide to sacrifice a 30 minute CD, and tape the 10 second race again on a blank CD and then finalize it, even though there is still another 29 minutes of blank space on the CD. Oh who am I kidding... you know I'll do it. I'm just such a giver. (See above.) Expect the video next week, maybe.

Naptime and bedtime are becoming battlegrounds as well. Both E and A now like to stand up in their cribs, and it's almost impossible to get them both to lay down long enough to go to sleep. And if I can get one of them to lay down and almost drop off to sleep, that seems to be the time when the other decides it's time to start bouncing up and down in her crib and making lots of noise -- what with the crib creaking and her celebratory shrieking and laughing. Aargh. It's not too bad when both DoT and I are home at night and one of us can take each of the girls and get her to sleep. But when it's naptime, or when only one of us is home at bedtime, it's a bit of a challenge.

Well, I think I better end here. I hear noises coming from the nursery, so I think naptime is about to end. Have a good week all. And do feel free to add a comment with your suggestions on how to overcome my video problems or how to get two 16 month-olds to lay down like little angels, close their eyes, and go to sleep on command. :-)