Twin Engines

1. For teeth. C cut 2 bottom teeth in October at five months, but we are still waiting for the next batch at 8.5 months. Meanwhile, he's sporting the drool bib look. And you can kind of see how his hair got cut! Looking so big!

2. For the next prospective tenants. Yesterday was a debacle, I parked the kids with PBS and cleaned like crazy this morning and took them to open gym at the gymnastics center to get them outta here, only for them to no show.

3. For Aunt L. She's flying in tomorrow to help us move back to MI! Maybe tomorrow I can start packing...

4. For the poop to hit the potty. Today is day 3 of N's The Boss. I will not declare victory until he starts Kindergarden at this point, but he's keeping himself dry from about 7am to 5pm. All bets are off after 5, though. Trying to make him clean up his own mess as much (and as uncomfortably) as possible. He does not like it, so I think the message is getting through. Painfully slow for me, but 3 weeks ago he was not in unders at all, so progress is progress!

While brushing teeth tonight the boys were being so CUTE that I actually thought, "I should take a picture of that," so I ran (waddled) to get my iphone and snap these quick.  I made them do "upstairs teeth" and "downstairs teeth" again to capture these.  Also, this will satisfy those of you who want to see my baby belly.  I'm HUGE, but not as big as I was when I delivered the twins.  Someone, another twin mom no less!, called me "big mama" last weekend.  I told her I was feeling downright skinny!  (No one calls me "big mama" but ME, got that?) 

Happy birthday to my own skinny mama back home in MI.  Love you!

• ride in the shopping cart and buy lotsa diapers. 
• laugh at the little boy ahead of us in the Target checkout who hollers, "Whoa, that's a lotta diapers!" and reply, "Yeah, I have a lotta kids!" (Wait, that was me)
• WALK!
• climb up onto the furniture
• climb off the furniture, going down backward, and keep walking
• fall off the sides of the furniture headfirst (whaaa!)
• cut teeth: N has 14, M has 8, but he's working hard on those molars!
• push our toy trucks around the house making "rrrrrrrrrrr" sounds
• point at tiny airplanes flying far overhead
• dance to the "Veggietales" songs on DVD
• play by ourselves, but only occasionally, when we think Mom's not looking , and only for a few minutes until we see her looking

Despite this week's ominous beginning and subsequent disappointments, Thursday turned out to be a stellar day, not only because Daddy came home, but that:

NATHAN CUT THREE MOLARS IN 24 HOURS!

Yes, that's right.  He's just 12 months old, and the 4th one is about to erupt like Mt. Vesuvius!  Yikes!


And..............................................

MATTHEW TOOK HIS FIRST REAL STEPS YESTERDAY!  It's blurry because he was moving so fast, but I assure you, no one is holding that other hand. 

Lots of stuff has gone wrong this week, but we're keeping a positive attitude and being rewarded with lots of baby smiles (some with 10 teeth!), hugs and steps. 

Our babies turned 11 months old yesterday!  We can hardly believe it!  What a fun weekend we had doing "big boy" stuff to celebrate.  In a nutshell:

I'm catching up to Nathan!  I cut my 4th tooth yesterday, so I'm halfway to his 8.  Hopefully, he'll keep slacking so I can catch him.  Grandma has one of those ride-on cars, too.  Here I am trying it out this morning.  It's doesn't really go anywhere.  Maybe it's broken?  Bring some warm weather from Florida so we can go outside and play when you get here.  Can't wait to show you my new tooth!  Love, Matthew 

Daddy made it home at one a.m. Saturday morning, and both boys came down with the sniffles, so we took it easy this weekend.  Amazingly, Nathan cut his 7th tooth while the snot was pouring down his lip, but I've been assured by doctors that sniffles are NOT associated with teething.  Mmm hmmm....7 cases of the sniffles, 7 teeth.  My butt they're not associated.

Here are a few shots of our lazy weekend:
Matthew's Sunday night bath hair

Last week, I wrote about the boys' first day of school, which was a tad bit hairy.  (We can't go into the Multiples class after all, so we're staying in "Incredible Infants.")  I'm proud to report that today, their second day of baby school, went much, much better!  Why?  Daddy was there!  Yep, herding cats is much easier when there are two wranglers.  (SO, any of you faithful readers who have Thursday mornings available, you're welcome to join us at ECFE when Daddy can't go - I mean it!)

The fellas enjoyed climbing the cushions, laughing at themselves in the mirrors, storytime with Daddy and Mommy (switch babies!), singing time with Mommy and Daddy, and playing with fewer than 11 toys during discussion time because this time I remembered that everything they mouth has to be washed afterward.   In fact, they discovered a barn toy where they press the farm flap characters down, then I flip a switch or push a button and they come back up - it kept them both occupied for hours ten minutes while I talked to my nice neighbor-mommy.  Things are looking better for this class, thank goodness!

In other news:

• it looks like Nathan has another tooth coming in on the bottom and Matthew might be cutting his top teeth soon -the gums are pretty puffy.  Currently, the tooth score is Nathan 6, Matthew 2.
• the car seats' new 'home' is a blockade in front of the computer desk because Nathan is fascinated with the cords and lights
• Matthew has learned to pull himself up to standing along the couch!
• Matthew has also figured out how to open the entertainment center's glass door and pinch his fingers in it, so one chair cushion is now residing in front of it
• We're eating CHEERIOS now!  Oh, my gosh, I just can't believe that one.
• Nathan's doing the the one-armed-one-legged army crawl, Matthew's doing the arm-over-arm army crawl and I'm beginning to think they're just not going to crawl like normal babies.  My mother-in-law says Steve army-crawled until he could walk, so....

I couldn't resisit taking some adorable pictures of the boys this morning in their teddy bear pj's, Christmas gifts from GiGi and Great-Grandpa P. 

It's been a busy week at our house - Nathan's feeling much better, the boys had their six month appointment and shots, and Nathan cut another tooth!

Poor little Nathan has been battling a sinus infection all week.  I feel for the little guy because he's having so much trouble breathing, especially at night.  He falls asleep, then wakes himself up snorting because there is so much mucus up there, so I give him saline drops and suction him out.  Sometimes I get stuff, sometimes not.  He hates it, squirming and crying, getting all worked up.  When he can finally breathe, I try to get him to fall asleep, but then he thinks it's time to play.  Later, when he falls asleep, he wakes up again an hour later.  What to do?  If I don't suction his nose, he's not going to breathe and keep snorting. So do it again, but this time he wants to eat....then play.

And this was the kid who was sleeping 12 hours without making a peep just a week ago!

Today starts day 3 of the antibiotics, which the doctor said would take 2-3 days to start working.  He seemed to feel better during the day yesterday, but last night was a doozy, so I'm believing that today the meds will kick in and tonight will be great.

Except that he cut his second tooth yesterday.

And we have the boys' six month well-baby appointment and shots today.

The good news is Matthew is being his normal, cantankerous self because he's teething with a jealous ferocity!

Nothing is cute about a teething baby who's not feeling well.  Our family did not sleep much last night, so we don't have any funny anecdotes to report. Nathan is sleeping off his all-nighter, but Matthew is feeling fine and wide awake. Mom's tired.

I shouldn't have been so surprised.  After all, my little guys wanted to come into this world earlier than we expected.  Naturally, their teeth do, too.

A few days ago I blogged that we were sleepless and I asked my readers to vote why.  Right now "Time Zone Warp" is winning, probably because my entry was a little biased that direction. I'd like to leave the voting open, but I'm closing it because we've learned the cause:

NATHAN CUT HIS FIRST TOOTH!!!

I couldn't believe it!  Okay, it's not the greatest photo, but I've never claimed to be a photographer.  If you look REAL close, you can see his right central incisor poking up.  And boy, it's sharp!  He chomped down on my finger today and I yelped.

We were all just playing on the floor, the boys were showing off their almost-turning-over skills, I was folding laundry and Steve asked, "What's that in Nathan's mouth?"

"Spitup," I said, because he is the king of cottage-cheese-mouth. 

"No, look!"  And there it was; a gleaming little tooth.

The light bulb came on: so THAT explains it!  All the crying, fussing, and carrying-on that had been going on in our house this week.  Why didn't I expect it?  Because the doctor said that the average child cuts his first tooth at 7 months.  While I DO think that my children are above-average (and who doesn't?), I wasn't expecting their physical development to be ahead of schedule, considering they were preemies born at 35 weeks.

We laughed and smiled, applauded, hugged and kissed, like we do every time one of our sons does something remarkable.

Then we gave them both Tylenol and everyone slept!  Hmm...now I wonder how this nursing thing is going to go?  

 Matthew chewing furiously to catch up with Nathan One-Tooth-Wonder