Wednesday, February 27, 2008

In Which We Sit Upright

Both girls are making strides toward sitting up on their own. Elena is a bit ahead of Clara on this front, but both of them are only hampered by their great desire to stand. They can balance sitting on their own (especially if they tripod by putting their hands down in front of them) but after a few seconds they think, "Hey, wouldn't it be even cooler to stand up?" and they arch their backs and try to figure out how to get us to hold them up again.

A twin mom friend of ours passed on their Bumbo seats to us to borrow, and that has lead to a little increased sitting in the house. Don't worry, we will never, never put the Bumbo seats up on a table or counter, only on the floor (thanks for all the warnings from everyone). It's so fun to see the girls upright and getting able to see their world from that position!

Here's Elena, surveying her territory while chomping on some teethers (her shirt says "Smart as a Fox" and we had to get it for the girls to share because they both ARE just so smart as foxes):


While Clara is not technically in the Bumbo here, but is instead in the Exersaucer, we had to include this because A) she's just as cute as can be, B) she's upright, and C) We had to show everyone the sweet look she gets on her face whenever she sees one of the dogs across the room. She's just trying to sweet-look them into coming over to visit her!

The girls had fun in their Bumbos side by side (although here they were captivated by a bird outside the window):




BUT, that was nothing compared to the fun of playing footsie when they faced each other. It's wonderful to see how these girls light up when they see eachother, and how they are starting to make each other so happy.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Friday, February 8, 2008

The Nursery

We've been thinking for awhile that we should take some pictures of the nursery, since most of the pictures we put up are taken in our bedroom (which is now a second family room!) or in the living room. And truly, the girls do have a very nice room of their own, even if we've never shown it. So, here goes:

Although we didn't plan to go with a "theme," before we even found out about the girls we found this soft green color we liked at a paint store, and Christina painted the top part of the room and one solid wall in that color, leaving the rest the white it was before.
Then, our friend Melissa gave us a large copy of "Guess How Much I Love You," and we loved the colors and illustrations in that. So the girls got framed prints above their bed from the book, and the book itself hangs out over the changing pad/dresser.

Luckily, our friend Ona is a great artist, and she came over and helped Christina paint a tree on one wall of the nursery, in the style of the watercolor illustrations from the book.


The tree is a little hard to see now, but eventually we'll get rid of the futon (when the girls sleep through the night and we're not crashing in there so often between feedings!) and we'll make that a reading nook that is centered around the tree, rather than obscuring it.


One more head-on shot of the main activity area in the nursery - the changing station!

Finally, our friends gave us this beautiful print at our baby shower. We'd never seen this one, but Christina had long been a fan of the style and poetry of the Story People, and this was a perfect print for us.



In case you have trouble reading it, it says:

"For a long time there were only your footprints & laughter in our dreams & even from such small things, we knew we could not wait to love you forever."

What a perfect sentiment. We are exhausted and more uncertain of what the "right" way to parent is than ever, but as we keep saying: "We could be more sure, we could be more rested, but we could not be more happy."

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

What We've Been Up To

The girls are enjoying stories and songs more than ever. Their favorite songs are the "ABC" song and "Patty Cake" but they also love the Garden State soundtrack and listening to their French, Chinese, and Italian cds. So far, we haven't seen strong book preferences, but they really like looking at the pictures of most books if they are in a reading mood.


Clara and Elena have been looking ultra-cute lately. They stare at us (like the two pictures below) and then burst into giggles (it's hard to catch the second part on the camera - they laugh too much!



Up until Friday, we were still working on solid foods (both were okay with rice cereal, both loved bananas, and with avocados Clara liked them and Elena hated them!). However, after talking to the birth family and our doctor, we're starting to think that they have reflux, and that this is part of the reason they might be having a hard time sleeping. So, for now we are trying some medication and laying off the solid food to see if that makes any difference.




They've gotten awfully good with their bottles, though. They love to "help" us hold them. Most of the time, this gets a little in the way, but yesterday they started holding their own bottles for the first time!! They don't usually lie like this to eat, so they don't get this opportunity often, but we had to catch it for you in a photo.



And finally, here is Saint Elena. Doesn't she just look so benevolent here?