Baybay & Baybee: Week 25

25 weeks old!

The big milestone for Maya and Ella this week was learning how to stay sitting up on their own! They are both able to stay upright for a few minutes now, without toppling over. Maya is a little bit more steady than her sister, but Ella is not far behind. We still have to be right there to watch when they are sitting, to catch them when they fall, but it's fun to see them perfecting this new skill. By the end of the week, they were getting so good that there were a few occasions when one or the other of us left the room for a minute, forgetting that a baby was sitting. There were a few spills, resulting in a small amount of crying, but fortunately no big bumps on any heads.

Sitting AND playing with toys. So many skills!

Though we haven't been consistent with feeding the girls solids, we are still experimenting every now and than with a new food. This week, carrots were a big hit. Turns out, whole carrots make good "teethers" and keep two babies occupied for quite a while!

A new tasty toy!

Maya really enjoyed trying to fit her whole carrot in her mouth.

We had a couple visits from friends and family this week. It's so nice for the girls (and for us!) to spend time with other people besides Mama and Dada. They really enjoy the opportunity to play with new people, and we enjoy watching them bond with others--plus it gives at least one of us a much-needed break!

Selena is so good with the girls.

Snuggles with Grandma Kathy.

"Hi, Uncle Guy! I would like to eat your finger, please."

Every so often, Brett and I get the urge to rearrange things in the house. It's always exciting to me when this happens, because the new setup feels so fresh and clean and exciting! The inspiration this time was in wanting a better place for the girls to play on the floor, where we could also sit comfortably with them. We moved all the games (almost 200!) into the middle room, and moved the play mat into the living room. The result: a much larger and sunnier place for us to play!

Here are the girls, "sunbathing" in our new living room.

And some additional photos from the week:

Playing in the laundry basket.

Sisters.

Hands.

Playing with Mr. Floppy Ears, the bunny rabbit.

Maya and Ella still hold hands when we nurse. I still love nursing them. It aways feels like special time spent together.

Video of the week:

Maya discovers the power to control the world.

Raising two little jugglers!

There will be more weekly updates to read soon, I promise. In the meantime, here is another video.

Six months old!

On the 10th, Maya and Ella celebrated their half birthday!

Silly photo shoot.

A couple weeks ago, I took a fun series of pictures of Maya and Ella playing together. They came out so cute that I had to share them!

Baybay & Baybee: Week 24

24 weeks old!

While the twins were busy being 24 weeks old, I celebrated my 31st birthday! I had a really nice day. We spent some time walking around downtown, went to the farmer's market, ate lunch at Paul and Elizabeth's and enjoyed the snow.

It snowed for my birthday!

Selena came out to lunch with us and took this picture. Maya and Ella slept in Brett and Selena's arms for nearly the whole meal. It was very relaxing for me. After lunch, Brett and I got some ice cream from Herrell's, where the ice cream is free if it's your birthday!

On Sunday, Dan, Darleen and Lydia came over for a morning visit. We hadn't seen Lydia since she was a couple months old. Now, at a year and a half, she is a running-around-talking-laughing-big-kid! It's amazing how much changes in a year!

Ella with her new friends, Lydia and Dan.

Sunday afternoon, we took a drive up to Greenfield to have a birthday lunch with Spartan and Hannah at their house. Hannah's birthday is the same as mine, and Spartan's is the day after. We have fun celebrating together and I'm glad it worked out this year, despite all of our busy lives. This was likely our last lunch together before Spartan and Hannah become parents, as Hannah is due any day now with a baby boy! We shared a yummy meal of vegetable, wild mushroom, barley soup that Hannah made, and birthday cupcakes from Cafe Evolution.

The difficult part of this week was, once again, our sleep. Lately, our nights have gotten even worse, with many wake-ups from both girls, every few hours. Sometimes they need a diaper change, sometimes they want to eat, but most often, they want their pacifier back and can't get it on their own. On Thursday, we decided to try not using the pacifiers or swaddles at all, to see if they would be able to put themselves back to sleep using their hands to self-sooth. We've tried recently to have more naps without the swaddles and they have been able to (sometimes) get to sleep without them. The pacifiers on the other hand, they are very much reliant on, and really, this wouldn't be a problem if they were sleeping well! So, we started at 10:00 Tuesday morning and made it through that first day and night, then through the whole next day. But that evening around 10:00pm, we gave them their pacifiers back and swaddled them. Brett and I were totally out of energy. Everyone was incredibly cranky and tired. I don't think any of us had gotten more than a 30 minute stretch of sleep in a row, in two days.

This picture of the girls napping without swaddles was taken a couple of days before we decided to do the crazy two days of, "sleep training".

What we did was a combination of letting the babies cry for a short time, and going in to comfort them. At first we just put a hand on their chest, which seemed not to work very well. Later, we picked them up until they were calm, then put them back down. They would eventually get to sleep this way, the shortest time taking 20 minutes. The good things that came out of this were that both girls (especially Ella) found their fingers and were able to gain some comfort from that on their own. Though it was incredibly difficult to hear them cry so much, I think it was good for us in the big picture. Coming out on the other end of the two days, Brett and I were both more relaxed when either girl cried. Doing this also made us feel very thankful for any longish stretches of sleep that we do get! Also, since that night we stopped and went back to the pacifiers and swaddles, we have been only using the pacifiers for sleep, and the swaddles never fully came back, so that's progress!

What we didn't like about letting them cry, besides it just being painful for everyone, was that Maya and Ella seemed so vacant and unhappy during those two days. It's possible that they were just very, very, tired and we'd never seen them like that before. But, part of me worries if they were starting to lose trust in us, wondering why we weren't there for them when they needed/wanted us.

A sleeping Ella, and a very tired Jenny.

Here are some extra pictures that give more glimpses into our week:

Ella is multitasking: Nursing and trying to grab the camera at the same time.

Om nom nom!

Maya reads on the potty.

Standing on Dada's feet and chewing on his thumb.

"Hi, Mama!"

A snowy stroll.

All cozy during the walk.

Evan and Marry, who live upstairs, sweetly made us dinner one night this week. It was delicious. Maya and Ella really wanted some.

Maya balances.

Happy baby!

Playing on the floor with their toys.

Baybay & Baybee: Week 23

23 weeks old!

This was a big week for Maya and Ella: First taste of solid food! We started out with avocado and they both loved eating it! A few days later they had some banana. That was a hit as well. Maya swallowed most of her food both times and Ella mostly licked and sucked at hers, while franticly grabbing at the spoon. We all had fun, but decided after the banana to wait a couple more weeks before continuing with solids regularly. I think sweet potato will be next!

First tastes of food! Mmm!

On Tuesday we got some snow! It wasn't a lot, just a couple of inches, but I was happy to see it stick to the ground. I was beginning to think that we weren't going to get any more snow for the rest of the winter. Unfortunately, we forgot to dig up our carrots before it snowed. Brett tried anyway, when I wanted a few for making soup that evening, but the ground was frozen solid because it's been cold. Brett was very disappointed because he had successfully harvested a bunch of our carrots just a week or so earlier.

Maya says, "Mama! I'm all ready to go out to play in the snow!"

Hmm... now just were did we plant the carrots...

A carrot! (That's all he was able to dig up.)

On Saturday, Brett and I had our first evening out without babies since they were born. We went to see Cheryl Wheeler sing at the Iron Horse. Her concerts are always a blast, and we enjoyed dinner during the show with Steech, who also came to see her! It was a very successful first evening out without babies, and we are looking forward to doing it again sometime. Thanks so much to Kathy for staying with Maya and Ella while they (mostly) slept.

Sometimes Ella's touches are so gentle...

...and sometimes...

...they're really not.

We had a couple other outings of note this week, including a trip down to the Springfield house all together to work on a couple projects. We also got some very sweet kale at the farmer's market, and ate some yummy cheesecake at Guy's apartment in celebration of his birthday.

All bundled up! We were able to get a few things accomplished in Springfield, even with the babies along--it just took a little longer. In this picture, I am taking a break from chopping up branches that fell into the backyard, and am about to nurse two hungry girls who were content to sit and watch me work for an impressively long time.

Grandma Kathy holds Ella at the Winter Fare Farmer's Market.

Brett and Ella and the sweet kale! This picture was taken by a photographer from CISA. A little while later, Ella was nibbling at the kale and I wish I had gotten a picture of that - so cute!

Feet!

Maya and Ella have both discovered their feet. And Ella has discovered how to screech!