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Burritos No More

After six full months of sleeping immobilized in their Miracle Blankets (following several months of immobilized sleep in the womb), Eloise and Julian are now both swaddle-weaned at night. (We are still swaddling them for naps. We’re a little bit afraid of what will happen if we stop. Experiments thus far have not been promising.)

Now that they can move around, we can’t have blankets in their cribs anymore, even the tightly tucked ones that we used to use. So we’ve transitioned to wearable blankets, which are vest/sack/gown things that give them a little extra warmth. We have a few fleece ones, but as the weather was getting warmer I started eying these great Aden and Anais muslin ones. I had it in the back of my mind to pick up a couple the next time we made it down to Bellani Maternity, when lo and behold a package of six-month “birthday” gifts arrived from our friends Julia and Jeff in Portland, Oregon, containing — among other things — two muslin sleep sacks!

Julia and Jeff are our “twin twins,” because Julia and I were due on the same day (among other eerie commonalities). Their adorable kids, Ben and Elly, were born one week before Julian and Eloise, and it has been great fun to follow the development of all four of them. Eloise and Elly have been showing uncanny similarities…we’re a little bit nervous about what will happen when we allow those two little firecrackers meet in person.

Anyway, now that Julian and Eloise are unswaddled, they are entertaining us by the degree to which they move around the cribs in their sleep. The other night I heard discordant music playing over the monitor and went up to discover that both had simultaneously kicked on the mobiles in their cribs (they continued to sleep peacefully through the cacophony). Julian can sleep-rotate himself 180 degrees in a matter of minutes. I check on them much more frequently now because I’m curious to see what funny spots they’ve scootched themselves into. (I am easily entertained.)

Another mini-milestone passed.

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Month 6

The Weather Can Bite Me

Why did we celebrate the twins’ first half birthday with a picnic one day early on an overcast and frankly chilly afternoon? Because the damn forecast predicted rain for today, their actual birthday. And of course, today was a ridiculously, infuriatingly glorious day. I passed through the park on our afternoon walk, and it was bursting with families playing, and jugglers—jugglers!—and two guys sitting on a bench playing the accordion and fiddle.

Dammit.

Six Months

Four days old and six months old. Needless to say, the cradle doesn’t get a lot of use anymore by our big hulking babies!

Well holy cabooses, it’s been six months. It feels like just yesterday that it the babies were…oh, about 5.9 months old. (It feels like roughly 10 years since they were born. No indeed, time has not exactly flown by.)

This has been a big month, and a good month overall — our best yet, I’d say. There have been visits by all the aunts and all the grandparents, plus the babies’ first Passover seder. (Julian was a model child, and Eloise…umm, let’s assume she was just trying to do her youngest-child duty and sing the Four Questions, loudly and incessantly, for the entire meal.) Many of the other major milestones have already been documented here: we night- and swaddle-weaned Eloise; I went back to work; we started them on solid foods. Things continue to go well on all three of those fronts, though we are a little disappointed that Julian and Eloise do not seem to have very adventurous palettes yet: rice cereal and applesauce yes, sweet potatoes and carrots a resounding no. (I, however, have discovered that fresh, pureed, unadorned vegetables are quite delicious!)

This month has had more than its fair share of miserably rainy days, which are brutal because they rule out the sanity-saving afternoon stroller excursions that we rely on so heavily. But there have also been some gorgeous spring days, and it has been wonderful to see the babies discover that outdoors does not necessarily equal freezing temperatures and bitter winds. Being outside really seems to interest them and calm them, so in addition to walks in the stroller, we’ve been taking them to the playground, letting them lie on the grass, and setting their Bumbo seats in the sun. Quite frankly it’s been pretty refreshing for us, too, after a long winter of looking at the same few rooms in our house for most of every day. We bought some cute sun hats and some baby sunblock in anticipation of lots of outdoor time as the weather keeps improving.

It’s a lot of the little things that are making the babies so fun and funny these days. Julian has an amusing habit of clasping his hands together up above his body and thumping them down on his chest repeatedly, as though he’s having a little trouble with the ol’ ticker. He also still grins like a goon when you sing any song and replace all the lyrics with “Julian.” Eloise will kick her legs up and jump if you hold her by her armpits and bounce her up and down — it’s so cute. She continues to have independent control of her eyebrows and can easily raise one or the other, allowing her to express her skepticism about all our efforts to impress or entertain her. On the other hand, she hands out face-splitting smiles like they’re going out of style. Even better, she has expanded the circle of people reliably permitted to hold her from two to four (my mom and Abigail have finally survived her hazing rituals and earned her trust).

Speaking of smiling, one thing we’ve noticed recently is that the twins have started smiling when they’re enjoying themselves, as opposed to strictly in response to someone smiling at them. Before it was purely social and seemed largely reflexive (see a smile, make a smile), but now some of their smiles seem to indicate that they are entertained by their activities or our antics. (The big smiles in the official six-month photo are in response to my kicking around the living room chanting “Mama does the can-can! Mama does the can-can!” No sacrifice of dignity is too large for my children.)

Each month brings more and more interest in toys (and, hence, more and more toys into our home). Blocks, rattles, and stuffed animals are great, but so is a giant unopened bag of tortilla chips. They are loving the jumperoo and often enjoying the exersaucer. The cats would probably be the number one plaything if they were stupid enough to get anywhere near the babies; as it is, both kids practically hyperventilate with excitement if a cat looks their way.

The big developmental milestone that seems to have sped in out of nowhere is their ability to sit unsupported. Two weeks ago they could probably balance for 5 seconds before toppling over; these days I bring them downstairs in the morning, sit them on the floor, arrange some toys in front of them, and go back to bed. Okay, I don’t go back to bed, but I do go into the kitchen and make breakfast and do other morning tasks. I can’t believe how quickly this happened. I had been looking forward to it for a long time, suspecting that it might make both babies (particularly Eloise) happier and our lives a bit easier, and so far I seem to have been right on both counts.

There are still times when it’s really hard, of course. Matt is on his own with them a lot more often now, and when I check Trixie Tracker during the day and see that they each have napped for a total of 23 non-simultaneous minutes, I just cringe for him. But the trend definitely continues to be toward easier, and I can honestly say that I am finally enjoying being a parent much of the time. I am not sure that I would repeat the first four months for any amount of money, but it’s a great feeling to have the fog lifting, those brutal days behind us, and all the best stuff ahead. Time is speeding back up, and I know that they’ll be a year old before I know it. To quote from the Joni Mitchell song my parents used to sing me to sleep as a kid: “Take your time, it won’t be long now/’Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down.”

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The Cutest

Rachel just called me upstairs, saying, “You have to see Eloise!” I peeked into her bedroom to see her in her crib… curled up lying on her side! It was the cutest thing I have ever seen. I’m still “eeeeeee”ing.

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Update

Eloise, our little firecracker, has slept in her crib all night un-swaddled for the past three nights! Yes, she’s still woken up crying several times in the night, but we haven’t had to go in there, and she’s put herself to sleep each time. I can’t tell you how proud we are.

(It’s easy to take for granted our little Julian who continues to sleep blissfully through the night, unperturbed by all of the activity in the crib next to him. We think he’ll actually be more of a challenge to wean from the swaddle, but for now he’s content, and so are we.)

Thanks also for all of the helpful suggestions of rainy-day activities. I’m hoping the weather will just be completely awesome for the rest of the spring and summer so I won’t have to use any of them, but in the unlikely event that it, you know, rains in Providence during April and May, I’ll give them a shot.

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