6 Months Old & Doctor's Appointment

Today, the girls have been with us for half a year. I have been fortunate enough to spend these last six months watching them grow and change. Sometimes it feels like it flew past me in a blur, but more often than not, I have experienced it fully - meaning it has felt like six months. I know it differs greatly for Ches, who has been back at work since the day after we brought the girls home from the hospital.

Here are the current stats for Alina & Avery:

AVERY
Weight: 16 lbs 7 oz (50th-75th Percentile)
Length: 24.75 in (10th-25th Percentile)
Head Circumference: 43.75 cm (75th-90th Percentile)

ALINA
Weight: 17 lbs 2.5 oz (75th Percentile)
Length: 25.75 in (50th Percentile)
Head Circumference: 44 cm (90th Percentile)

That is a solid gain of three pounds per girl over the last 2 months. The doctor was so impressed with their development of their abilities. They are quick learners. Object permanence is no problem, other than babies getting pissed that there is a toy they know exists beyond their reach.

They are ready for solid foods, as they spend at least one bottle meal a day chewing on the nipple instead of drinking. They love blowing bubbles in their milk and have fun trying to teach themselves how to hold the bottle. They understand the nipple goes in the mouth, but not that they have to lift it up to get the good stuff. Maybe they are having too much fun just playing around!

The new sounds of the month have been roaring like dinosaurs and a little funky cough noise, which they doctor said they developed to manage all of the saliva. Often time, in the morning, we will be awoken by some great roar from their bedroom alerting us to their happy & wide awake state. Ches has been sweet, trying to give me extra sleep, but his attempts are thwarted by these tiny dinosaurs that are way too busy exploring the range of their vocal ability. Alina is a bit ahead in this area, as she will often spend minutes at a time shouting "Ba ba ba ba ba, da, da, da, da, da, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, blah, blah, blah, blah!"

Avery seems moments away from truly crawling. She has the commando crawl down pat, but when she gets on the flat palms and knees, she just rocks front to back and will occasionally rocket forward with one push. We know this means that one day soon, she will be no where near where we last placed her! Alina is a star roller and they both love to thump. They thump by banging either their hands or their feet really hard on the ground/crib mattress/changing table. Ches relates it to calling for a sand worm from Dune. I think of Thumper from Bambi.

They are grabbing everything. I love how I will often think "Wow, they are doing ______so much" only to then be shocked a week later at how much more they can be doing the same task. For example, they used to reach for all of their toys - hence me previously stating how they are grabbing everything. Now, it is way beyond toys. Anything and everything that is within reach is or should be theirs. I thought I had to pay special attention before! They keep me on my toes! It is really hard to watch two babies all the time and still try to do something as basic as sterilize.

They get frustrated really easily these days. We have a circuit here, including: 2 bouncies, a swing, a jumper, floor rolling in living room on mats, floor rolling in their bedroom, being held, walk/drive outdoors. We used to be able to keep them in any one station for at least 15 minutes before a needed switch. Now, sometimes 5 minutes is too long. We probably spend most of the time in their room, all three of us chilling on the ground. Bouncies just frustrate them b/c they want to sit up, but just don't quite have the muscles for it yet.

They love cold teething toys. We have a gallon-sized plastic bag full of teethers in the fridge ready to go at any moment. They have been big fans of the brand Nuby. Each girls has both of the front 2 bottom teeth coming in. We can see the cute little teeth whenever they smile now. We are also going through bibs continually. We had to ask the doctor about their drooling because their saliva started to have this distinct odor to it that was unfamiliar to us. Dr. Monk immediately responded with another questions: "Does it smell like decaying flesh?" Ches and I paused then laughed a little, not know how to respond to that question. Guess becoming familiar with the scent of decaying flesh is a part of med school that is not public knowledge.

They have hair! It is finally starting to grow back in. We have noticed a major difference in just the past 30 days. It actually gets matted when wet in the bath! It probably does look like much to others, but it is apparent to us! And, not sure if you saw this up top, but their heads are humongous. They are already wearing 12-18 month hats, and might grow out of those soon. The doctor complimented them on their beautiful foreheads stating, "The better to grow those frontal lobes!" That is where a lot of the cool stuff happens (executive functions and all).

We get many special moments of being close with the girls, with them gently feeling our faces - okay, sometimes not so gently and more along the lines of slapping/pulling, but whatever. They still love cuddling and want to be close for kisses. They prefer it if we are singing and will hold conversations with us. Overall, they are very responsive to us as their caregivers. We need to work on socialization as they are fairly isolated with us hermits for parents and are entering the months where stranger anxiety is to be expected.

SIDs risk has dropped greatly for our gals, so Chesley has been able to move back into the bedroom. His back is very thankful, as the air mattress left much to be desired in the department of comfort. Since I am not allowed heat in our bedroom, I will be thankful to have my personal space heater back with the temperatures starting to drop.

UF vs Tennessee

Courtesy of Lori & Hunter, our girls could really get in the Gator spirit for the first conference game of the year. The whole family donned their best Gator gear to cheer on the Alma mater. Ches only made the babies cry twice this game, so it is an overall improvement. Luckily, the Gators triumphed and I did not have to hear Ches complain about Rocky Top too much!

Alina and Avery were way more content for this Gator Girls photo shoot than the last time this was attempted. Now the hard part is getting them to stay still for anything! At least with one baby you can easily hope to get a few decent shots without the baby making movement blurs, but with twins, you pretty much have to be on sport mode all of the time. Please enjoy some of the images from last Saturday.

And since it is another college game day - GO GATORS!!! Beat Kentucky!

Two Anniversaries and a Cold

Five years ago, we were all piling into a limo to head to the spot where Ches and I were married. It has been an absolutely amazing five years with the love of my life. It is funny to think back to the details of that day, such as: the company organizing our Las Vegas wedding trying to cancel it the morning of but me not getting the message till later, or wearing a tight corset all day long so that I was unable to eat our fabulous gourmet dinner and settled for Little Caesars late that night.

I feel so lucky to have been able to spend so much time with Chesley and look forward to many years of adventure & joy. Words suck and fall desperately short of conveying the depth of emotion I have for my husband.

One year ago from yesterday (9/22), we had our first doctor's appointment. Dr. Scheve was setting up the ultrasound, telling us how she almost always jokes around with her patients, telling them she sees two babies. Once set up and going she then proceeds to tell us she sees two heartbeats. I am immediately skeptical, but can see the look on Ches' face (since I could not actually see the monitor). All Ches could manage was a simple "What?" Both heartbeats were shown to both of us, confirming the existence of twins inside of me.

Definitely in a state of shock we left the doctor's office. I called mom, who also found herself quite taken aback. Dad was driving home from work and rolled his window down to shout it out loud for everyone on the UF campus to hear. John had the best response by yelling "Get the f*%k out!"

Today, which as of 8 AM, is looking like it will be a stunningly gorgeous day. I am feeling a good bit better than I felt the past two days. You see, we knew it was inevitable, but I got sick. We dreaded the day one of us would get sick and then would probably pass it along to the babies and then have a cesspool instead of an apartment.

I started to feel a little scratch in my throat on Wednesday morning. By 3 PM, I was really sick. I felt weak and foggy. Thankfully, my white knight came home early to take over for me. Feeling even worse on Thursday morning, he opted to stay at home to take care of the babies (all 3 of us!). I insisted I could watch the girls, but Ches knew better as I was already a little faint after just 15 minutes in the morning. What a great caretaker he is! I slept from 9 AM to 1 PM and then took it easy with a few cat naps. I am not completely better today, but I cannot imagine how much worse I would feel if I had not been granted all of the rest for recuperation yesterday.

Crazy what can happen in 5 or 1 years. I love you, Chesley! Thank you for everything!

Avery's Mad Walking Skills

We took this video a couple of weeks ago. Avery LOVES to walk! We will help her walk down the hallway, around the living room, through the kitchen, anywhere she pleases! She will even change direction if a fluffy kitty should happen to cross her path! Here is a snippet of her awesome abilities!

Avery, too!

We felt the first bit of a tooth coming up in Avery's mouth on Sunday, September 18th. I wonder if every baby has the same first tooth come in? Both Alina and Avery will have their bottom left front tooth before any others. Alina's is almost to the point where you can see it when she smiles.

And the drool just keeps coming. We had to call the doctor about how much the girls were doing this weird cough/laugh, gurgle noise. He said it was perfectly normal due to the amount of saliva they are dealing with, especially if they inherited my overactive salivary gland! I didn't realize how essential bibs were prior to starting solid foods!

All in all, they are still absolutely amazing little girls! Even with their teeth starting to come in, there was only a day or two of increased fussiness (and gnawing on mommy's chin - see below). They are still comfortably sleeping at night. Hopefully, their pain does not get any worse! We hate to see them hurting!

Sorry the video is a little dark

The After Feeding Stupor

More often than not, there is a period of time immediately following the consumption of a bottle, where the girls become dead to the world. That is why I take those opportunities to clip nails! Of late, after their breakfast and bedtime snack, we haven't even bothered burping them. Here are a couple of cute pictures of them in their stupor.

Robyn's Departure

First off, I am really late on this post. Believe it or not, it is harder to find free time now that we are minus Robyn.

We fall short when trying to think of a way to concisely state everything Robyn has done for us. Let me try: Robyn & John dropped everything in their personal lives to rush up to the Pacific Northwest when they heard I entered the hospital. Then she spent the next 6 months taking complete care of me, Chesley, and the babies. I mean laundry, cleaned bathrooms, dinner every night, breakfast every morning, watched the girls for date night once a week, taught me how to be a mother, rearranged our furniture, made fun of Days of Our Lives with me, gave us oodles of sleep, showered our daughters in attention, love, and learning opportunities.

We spent Friday, September 2nd, as a family on a trip across the Sound to wander Ikea. We were on a mission to find a new entertainment center to replace the baby death trap we currently have. Don't get me wrong, the tower of cinder blocks and wood planks that constitute our entertainment center have serviced us well, since before I was even on the scene. But it feels about time to upgrade our college life furnishings. Anyhoo, we topped the evening off with a dinner at Spaghetti Factory, one of Robyn's favorite places.

We all huddled into the car to catch the earliest ferry on September 3rd. I am still impressed that Robyn can squeeze and fit between the two car seats! I am sure the girls miss her sitting back there with them. We kept the girls in their PJs. They loved the airport! It must have been all of the bright lights, but they could not stop looking everywhere. We waited while Robyn checked in. After that, goodbyes were said. We are so glad we went to the airport to say goodbye.

Now, my days are notably lacking in adult interaction. It feels like I have to run at such a high level of energy until Ches comes home. Then I want to just crash and let him watch the girls, but dinner has to be made, chores done, and then it is usually straight into bath time followed by bedtime. We are more tired and have a harder time fitting even littler things in, such as trolling craigslist for cheap baby stuff.

At the same time, we also have a sense of pride of being able to make it on our own. I especially feel proud to have survived this first week and a half without Robyn while Ches goes to work. The girls have been rapidly improving on their mobility skills. They have also learned how to vigorously shake their arms, making feeding time a bit tricky. But we have managed to survive (even the basil plant is still alive!).

Robyn was already Ches' mom before her stay up here, but she truly became my mom as well. I feel honored to know such a cool chica and even more so to have been able to learn so much. She passed down tidbits of wisdom (and yummy recipes), but I gained much from observing her too. We are very excited to know she and John will be back up here fort the girls' first birthday.

Thank you, Robyn! And thank you, John, for letting us keep her so long! We love and miss you both!

Double the Room

Last night was the first for the girls in individual cribs. Before this point, they have happily shared one crib. A while ago, when sharing the crib, they would often be awoken after only a few hours of sleep by bumping heads. We broke down and bought a crib divider (pictured below). I remember being so happy when they went a solid 5 hours the first night they slept with the divider in place.Now they are just too darn big to share a crib. So we spent the weekend getting the room ready (we are seriously lacking on space to put baby stuff!) and Chesley proved his mastery of instruction following by building the crib. He even showed me where the instructions were wrong at one point. We went through many configuration in the tiny room and finally settled on the most functional arrangement.

Here is what it looks like now! We will be hanging a cool map of the world with animated animals on the large bare wall. Chesley is holding Avery while Alina is chilling in the bouncie, taking in her new digs.
We think they liked the extra space as they were put to bed at 9 PM last night and did not wake up for their bottle until 6 AM. I guess that will technically fly as the first night of sleeping through the whole thing.

Not Just Gums Anymore

It is a regular occurrence for Alina & Avery to gnaw on our fingers. They gnaw on everything. But today, as Alina was in the middle of a serious gumming session on my thumb, I felt something rough. Sure enough, her first tooth has begun to emerge from her bottom gum. It is barely there, but definitely visible. How fast do baby teeth grow in?

Guess that explains why Alina has been extra vigorous in her teething efforts. Ches checked Avery, but she still is all gums. I can't even imagine how cute they are going to be with a few teeth. They are seeming more in the mood for food, too. They smack their lips whenever we are eating and have recently taken up the habit of trying to chew the nipples on the bottles instead of drinking.

Just wanted to post about this first in the Wilson household. Pretty exciting!

Football Has Finally Returned

Ches anxiously awaits the beginning of each new season of football. This year, not only was he interested to see the style of play from the new coaches at University of Florida, he was eager to introduce his daughters to his world of football. From the college to professional to sometimes even arena, his passion for football runs deep. I am honestly surprised he did not already sign them up for fantasy football (I know as soon as he reads that, he is going to think of how good of an idea that would have been).

We had a very busy morning on the day of the Gator season opener. As to be explained further in a later post, we all packed up in the car to catch the 5:20 AM ferry - it is truly impressive how we managed to get everyone ready and in the car on time - to wish Robyn farewell at the airport. The girls were completely off schedule. After the goodbye, we dropped our car off at the dealer for an oil change, had to find a place to feed Alina & Avery, and then were planning on shopping around, and possibly doing, professional photographs of the girls before picking up our car again. Our Subaru place has a great, free loaner car program.

After attempting and failing to feed the twins, we received the call telling us about the severity of our car problems. We spent some time calling around and going over options. Luckily, we were already closer to home than the dealership (hour away from our apartment), since we would be keeping our loaner car for a whole week! It was getting late and we wanted to make sure we would be home in time for the game.

We got prepped & pumped for the game (see video below). Avery was in the swing digging the movement on the screen and Chesley was holding Alina on his lap. As Ches posted on facebook, "Exactly one play into the Gators' football season and I had the girls crying. Thanks Demps.... Guess I need to adjust my TV yelling." Let me explain...

The first play of the game was Demps returning the kickoff. Ches was so excited that by the time Demps was on the fifty yard line, he was standing with Alina held in front of him, bouncing her up and down screaming very loudly. Alina was not very happy about this celebration. As a token of her sympathy, Avery chimed in on the crying. So there were two wailing babies, an angry mommy, and a very apologetic daddy.

Our friend, Curt, said that the girls must have been unhappy about the holding call that overturned the touchdown. Regardless, it was definitely a memorable event!

Squeaky Teething

I love when she makes this sound! It is too cute!

Stars Are Born!

A few weeks ago, we went to pick up Ches from work. When I got off the elevator, I was next to another mom who happened to have the exact same car seat as us. I commented about that and she asked if we were there for the photo shoot auditions. I told her we were just there to pick up Ches.

After talking to Ches, we decided to at least stroll on by. As we hovered outside the door, trying to get a judgment on the situation, someone walked out and saw that we had identical girls. He turned out to be the photographer and owner of the company (Kicky Pants) holding the audition for their Spring catalog of kids clothes size 3 months to 6 years. He said "You have twins! Please say you are coming in!" So we did.

Some basic shots were taken and we were told we would hear back soon. His wife was also at the audition. She was eight and a half months pregnant with their fourth child. Obviously, they would be busy for the next bit! We waited to hear back. After a few weeks we assumed that nothing would come of it. Then, this past week, we got a call and email regarding wanting to include Alina and Avery in their photo shoot that weekend!

We went this morning. We were worried about timing it right since Alina and Avery were thrown off schedule from the previous day saying good bye to Mimi at the airport. Everything seemed to be timed just right since they would be waking up from their post meal morning snooze. Avery donned something I wish I could describe but want to respect the company's privacy...but it was freaking adorable! She dressed very easily and happily, then was ready for her close up!

It took a while (probably 15 minutes) of trying out different support styles. Since they are so young and cannot sit up yet, they have to be supported in order to showcase the clothes and have happy babies. After determining the right color blanket and style of set up, they got down to business. Avery was so cute and smiley! She enjoyed looking around at the three people running the shoot.

Alina, this whole time, was happily patient. She was laughing from time to time as we danced and waited. When it came her turn, Ches went to lay her down. As soon as her let go and the guy helped to position her, she broke down crying! She did not enjoy being away from daddy with strange people. We picked her back up when we saw she was not in the mood at that moment. She calmed down and got happy in mommy's arms.

Avery was dressed and ready in her second outfit by that time so they took more pictures of her. We tried Alina again to no avail. Avery loved the attention so much that she did four outfit changes! After that Alina had a successful string of photos. Both of our girls were so amazing. We are so proud of them! Avery was great with new people and Alina tried a new situation and persevered.

We will not know until Spring 2012, when the catalog comes out, if any pictures get used. Regardless, he said the pictures from the shoot would be available for download after the catalog is released. We are just happy to get to own some professionally done photos! Thank you, Kicky Pants, for such a unique experience!