10 Pounds
No, not the name of a new Will Smith movie. That’s how much the boys have each grown (more or less) since they were born. We had our four month well-baby visit today (um, yeah, bad mom made the appointment a week and a half late. Oops), and the boys are following their growth curve VERY well. Andy clocked in at 15 lbs, 3 oz and 25.5 inches, while Will measured 17 lbs, 1.5 oz and 26.5 inches. Interestingly enough, apparently Andy’s head has caught up with Will, since they now both have the same head size. All is well, health wise, and the boys checked out perfect. They seem to be hitting most, if not all, of the developmental milestones which is great considering how early they were.
Poor things had a rough time with the shots, and have been both very cranky and very sleepy this afternoon. They literally slept right through their afternoon feed, and downed their whole bottles without even waking up!
No real answers to my naptime woes, other than that they’ll eventually get older and nap longer than 45 minutes. I’ve sort of relegated myself to this, and am trying not to dwell on the whole thing. We’ll see how long my new attitude lasts. I’m giving it about 14 hours from now when I’m trying to get them to nap again.
Big project for the weekend is to switch out their current clothes for the next size up. They still fit into a lot of the seperates, but the PJs are really tight. The boys, Will in particular, are just really long (75% and 90% each). We’re also visiting a friend to introduce the babies to her husband. He hasn’t had a lot of baby experience, and needs to get some ASAP, if you know what I mean.
Mission Accomplished
They slept apart, and apparently either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Andy was again sideways in his crib. That kid is a mover and a shaker.
Update, 10:10 am: I was trying to quiet them back down to sleep after ANOTHER 45 minute nap this morning. I left the room for less than 5 minutes to see if they would be quiet. They weren’t, so I went back in. Andy had managed to do an almost complete 180 in that short time. Motion activated camera anyone?
7-11
Andy has taken to scooching around the crib at night. I’m not 100% sure how he does it–we think he probably twists his legs and pushed off the side rails. We are still swaddling them while they sleep, so I imagine he looks like a little inchworm moving around. I’m halfway tempted to put in a night vision camera, just so I can find out.
The two start out right next to each other (like an 11) and then somehow Andy twists around so they end up looking like a 7 (their heads make up the point). The first time this happened, I was in there because Will was making noise, and I honestly didn’t think Andy was in the crib. It was really dark, and he just wasn’t there. I had a minute of frantic patting around until I found him.
I think this might signify the end of sharing a crib. Sigh. They grow up so fast.
Update: We now have photographic evidence.
Random Musings
Figured I’d slap a post up here while the boys are winding down in their bouncy seats.
1. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is as awesome as I hoped, though it’s not without its flaws (loading times on a DS game?). The real challenge will be to do something productive this weekend instead of playing constantly. I also need to not forget about Final Fantasy IV, I’m about 2/3 through it.
2. We redeemed our free Dr. Pepper coupons today. Thank you, Axl!
3. We got a light dusting of snow on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, and stupid Waste Management determined that to be such terrible conditions that our trash won’t get picked up until next week. Normally, not a huge deal, but when you have a plethora of dirty diapers to deal with, and an already packed-to-the-brim garbage can, it’s not so fun.
4. I recently figured out that I had a Twitter account, though I have no idea when I created it. I’ve been throwing some updates over there, though I’m not sure why. (= (The same could be said about this blog, but we get at least a few family members checking in here.)
5. On Thursday night, not only was Jack in the Box out of Mini Churros (oh, the horror!), but QFC was out of Tim’s Wasabi Chips too. Tim’s Pepper Jack Chips had to do, and they’re good, but they are a far cry from Wasabi.
10,800,000
Or approximately how many seconds the boys have been alive as of 9:32/34 this morning. That’s four months and two days. Adam yelled at me for not updating on the boys in a while, but it’s been a rough week, and I was a little strapped for time.
First some fun milestones:
1) Andy has rolled over, front to back, about a dozen times. They are deliberate actions and sometimes he gets this little smile right before he flips. It’s like you can read his mind…”I know how to escape from this!” Three of the rolls happened within seconds of me putting down the video camera, after waiting five minutes, because obviously he wasn’t in the mood to roll over.
2) They both have really started to figure out toys. Will is SO funny with them. On the exersaucer, there’s kind of a slot machine toy (three little wheels that spin, and each makes a different noise). The first few times in there, Will would just flail around and randomly hit the wheels. Now, he guns for them and can actually spin each wheel individually. Andy is starting to figure it out too, but he’d rather rub his head against the green dragon toy attached to the exersaucer.
3) They really like Baby Einstein. Now, I know that the APA says no TV until 2, but let’s be honest, that was not going to happen in this house. And 15 minutes of Baby Einstein, twice a week, while I give the other one a bath is not going to hurt them. The nightly hockey games….well, we won’t talk about that. Let’s just say I’m not winning any Mother of the Year awards, and they’re getting really good at craning their necks around to see the TV when we’re trying to feed them.
So, what happened last week? It was awful. They went from taking horrible naps to being up at all hours of the night. When babies don’t sleep during the day, it catches up to them at night, so we had two cranky, overtired, overstimulated babies. For a couple nights, they wouldn’t sleep for more than 2 hours in a row (more like 1.5), but they were off schedule from each other, so I was basically up every 45-60 minutes with one of them. It’s sort of a toss up, get up more often or try to put two crying babies back to sleep at the same time. I’m not sure which is worse.
However, things have been much better in the last couple days. Napping seems to be longer, although they might wake up after 45 minutes, if I leave them alone, they sort of chat themselves back to sleep. They’re only getting up once in the night (Well, twice, if you include the midnight feed, but that’s on Adam’s watch, so I don’t care!). Usually around 4:30 or so, one will wake up. It only takes a minute to get them back down, so not a big deal. The other either sleeps right through, or maybe needs a little patting.
I think there was just a weird combination of things going on. Four months is a big developmental jump, which disrupts sleep. Their eczema was getting worse, so I think they were really itchy too. Plus I still think there’s some early teething going on, since they really like having their gums rubbed. We started using some hydrocortisone cream, as per the doctor, and that has seemed to help their skin a lot. Maybe once they weren’t so itchy, sleep was easier to come by? I don’t know, and I don’t know how long this will last, but luckily I’m not banging my head against a wall anymore. (literally)
Pay to Play, or How to Buy an Album for $75,000
This may be the coolest thing yet. Go read it and come back. (You can scroll past all the paragraphs and just look at the “menu” if you’re lazy. And I know you are.)
(If you’re lazy and lost, Josh Freese has drummed for Nine Inch Nails, is in A Perfect Circle, is a studio drummer on tons of albums, and a creative mo-fo to top it off.)
At first I was going to ask for $10,000 in donations (among other things, Twiggy, Club 33 AND a volvo?!) but I figure why not go for the full $75,000 — I’d like Josh to be our nanny for two weeks. (=
And I know Josh Freese isn’t a household name for the majority of people, but even still, $50 for a 5 minute phone call (along with a CD/DVD and a t-shirt) seems reasonable. $200 more for a signed drum head and drumsticks, AND a lunch date? Tempting, if I lived in Southern California.
It’ll be interesting to see what the album actually sounds like — I’m not sure if his crazy-ass YouTube clips are any indication. (=
I hope this pans out well for him and more artists start offering similar personalized stuff. I’m positive there’s a market for this even for small bands and niche celebrities.
Northwest Trek
A few weeks back, I snuck out of the house on a Saturday for a photostroll with the Seattle Flickr Meetup group at Northwest Trek south of Puyallup. It was freezing (literally) but a really fun time. I can’t wait to go back in warmer weather, and with the boys when they get bigger. (=
Yesterday, in the Lyon House
Except there were two. And they don’t have British accents….yet. Thank goodness for baby crack, oops I mean, teething tablets.
eta: Adam informs me that Stewie, in fact, does not have a British accent. Whatevs. Teething still sucks.
Instrumental
I now own 7 plastic video game guitars and two plastic video game drum sets. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.
Snapshot, 4:31 PM
Will is finally happy in the new exersaucer. Up until today, his legs have not been long enough to touch the bottom, nor is he round enough to fill up the seat. Although neither of those things has changed, another mom clued me into draping his arms over the front. It worked very well, and he sits, longing to grab the toys around him, but not yet coordinated to do so.
Andy is on my lap, facing his brother. I still can’t tell if they’re aware of each other or not. While they can be coerced into smiling at us, they’ve yet to smile at each other. I’m sure that day isn’t too far. But I still have them look at each other a lot to try and encourage it. Andy is happy on my lap and totally not happy when I try to put him on his tummy. Apparently he’s not in the mood for that type of exertion.
We had a fun time at our PEPS meeting today, although I looked like an idiot, complaining about their crappy naps of late, while they both slept through most of the 2.5 hours. Yeah, the carseat is often a nap enducer, but put those kids in the crib and it’s 45 minute tops. Apparently it’s some sort of developmental thing, dropping their blissful 2 hour naps down to much shorter ones in this 3-6 month period. Just becuase it’s normal, doesn’t make it any more fun to deal with.