More Marker Mania

Hmmm...is this an indication...

of what is to come. You can see the wheels turning as I caught her in the act.

Now you might understand why I call her my little billy goat!

Here's another one of Camryn. She can vibrate her tongue at the top of her mouth; like when you make the purring noise for a cat. She does it at the very beginning of this video.

Miles and Camryn are 3 months away from being 1 today! On our shopping expedition this past weekend there was a lady with what looked like a few day old newborn. She was in the baby section and was carrying her around. Seeing such a little tiny baby reminds me how fast mine have gotten so big! I can still carry both of them at the same time, but it definitely has gotten more weighty!

Recent pictures and video

The kids survived the stomach bug. Macey ended up laying around and sleeping all day Sunday. 5+ days of it. Whew. Hope it doesn't return for a WHILE.

Handsome Miles

Beautiful Camryn

Marked up Macey (with her toddler markers, so easy wash)

These next two pictures of Miles need explaining. So we're still splitting them up at naptime. Sure you think, just lower the crib. Sounds easy, but if you're really interested in hearing how our schedule doesn't allow for many "kinks" in it, just ask. Anyway, when we put them in their room for nap Miles and Camryn can see each other, but only if he stands up. Miles often starts falling asleep standing up, sucking on his fingers, with his head laying on the rail. Miles can't sleep like this and starts complaining, so that's our cue to go in and lay him down. He won't lay down on his own. I guess he misses his sister. The same can be said for Camryn as she's often on the end of the pack n play that faces the crib.

Miles snoozing

Camryn dreaming

Sweet sleepers (this isn't how they were put in bed, but this is how they were found; they get put down on opposite ends of the crib and this is Miles's side)

I guess I interrupted the fun

Talking

Hanging out

A glimpse of the fun. Sometimes I feel like the Pied Piper. All 3 of them will follow me at times. I usually have at least one following me and the most frequent being Miles.

The camera battery died as I was recording so it got cut short. But they just crack up at each other. Don't ask me what's so funny, only they know that.

I went on an extended shopping trip today with them in tow. Usually when I go it alone I go to one store, get in, get what we need, and get out as soon as possible. Today we went to THREE stores, just me and the kids. One of those was a pet store. This was the fun store. When it's a thousand degrees outside you have to improvise. Pet store=air conditioned fun viewing of loads of animals. I used the double stroller, so Macey walked around the stores. She was so good at listening to me and staying with me. At our second store a woman with a toddler in her basket commented on how well she was listening. Proud momma moment (but of course I'm not kidding myself...she is only 2, so at any moment things can change). I kept giving her tasks to do, like "okay, we need to find the syrup, will you help me find the syrup." When we found it, she took it off the shelf and loaded it into the bottom of the stroller. Miles and Camryn were great as well.

I have to add a "pat on the back" to Sean and I. Potty training a barely 2 year old with 8 month old twins=big undertaking. If we didn't have such an easy participant we might be singing a different tune. God definitely knows what he's doing...if you ever questioned that.

Oh and Camryn now has 3 teeth through and the other front top tooth is about to come through. If you look closely at the smiling picture of her you can see one of the bottom teeth.

What a holiday!!!

Wow. There were explosions alright, but not of the pretty red, blue, and white colored kind. Explosions coming out of both ends of almost all the kids. Oh what fun. It started Thursday, first thing, and it is still on-going. I don't know how many loads of laundry I've done or how many trips to the potty I've made with Macey. Sometimes you wish you were on a team where you could request a sub. Poor Miles seems to have caught the worst of it. Vomiting and diarrhea. At least the vomiting was not every hour. I'm hoping that this may be the last day of it, but we'll see. Macey just has diarrhea and I'm beginning to suspect the culprit for her may be her 2 year molars. Although it's 10am on Sunday and she still hasn't woke up this morning (that NEVER happens and she went to bed last night at her normal time), so we'll see if she's really ill. She hasn't really acted like she felt bad, just has a case of the "runs". And run do we do. She says "potty, potty, potty" and runs to the bathroom and I'm right behind her. It's the drop everything your doing and take off kind of run. I have to say I'm very proud of her. I think I can say she's potty trained and no longer training. I still do put diapers on her at night, but I don't count that. Camryn threw up on Thursday, but that seems to be the extent of her illness. She seems to have escaped this thing (cross my fingers).

Thursday was quite a morning. It started off well, but then at the lunchtime (really around 11am) is when it all went downhill. I had just finished feeding Miles and Camryn when Macey tells me she needs to go potty. I put her on the potty and realize then that she has diarrhea. So I'm leaving the bathroom, the babies are sitting in their bouncy seats right outside the door, and that's when the exorcist vomit occurs with Miles. I sit him up so he can get it all out as the bouncy seats are reclined. He seemed to stop so I'm doing triage. As I'm in the process of cleaning him up that's when Camryn starts spewing. I have to say "Thank you 1995 2 year old class of Alpha Learning Center for preparing me for days like this"!

In the middle of all the fun times I caught some cute video of Macey. She didn't know I had started recording her. Excuse her ragged appearance...day 2 of survival mode means brushing hair and a full outfit are optional.

Ok, to interpret. First she pointed to the triple stroller and told me stroller. Then she pointed to Miles who was making the clanging noise by pulling on the draw pull. She was advising me of the "no, no" that Miles was doing by getting into the draw. Then Miles puked and she was telling me "uh oh". Play be play courtesy of Macey.

She changed the tune up a bit and changed her dance to go with it.

Here's a quick glimpse of one of the many interactions Miles and Camryn have. I had given up on clothes for Miles by this point in the day. He doesn't appear sick here; it was one of the few moments that he had a little bit of energy.

It's 11am as I'm finishing this post and Macey is still asleep. Miles and Camryn are asleep as well. Their morning nap is at 9am, so I've been kid-free since 9am. I should've been resting or cleaning. Instead I took a long shower, enjoyed the hassle free time to blow dry my hair, etc. and wrote about my kids. Time well spent.

Teeth, potty, on the go...Oh my.

Camryn's first tooth has broken the surface. She wasn't phased by her first tooth, other than running her tongue over it bunches before and after it broke the surface. She hasn't been fussy, cranky, nothing. You can see Miles's teeth pushing their way up as well.

Camryn and Miles are both pulling up and at the beginning stages of "cruising". If you give them incentive to move down the couch or whatever they've pulled up on by putting a toy out of reach, they'll maneuver down to get it. They are fun to watch. Sometimes they go their separate ways to explore and sometimes they are playing together. They still sleep together in their crib at night. Nap times are a different story. We've resorted to putting Camryn in a pack n play for nap because tends to pull up on the side of the crib and protest (i.e. we need to lower the crib mattress so she can't pull herself up). We put her in the pack n play not because her protesting and flip-flopping keeps Miles awake, but because she can't pull up in the pack n play. Miles is all about sleep. He tells you when he's ready for sleep. You put him in the crib and you don't hear a peep from him. He goes to sleep. They've flipped their roles. Camryn was the one that you could just lay down and not hear a word from her. If there's one thing I've learned about dealing with twins, it's that they will switch their roles many times. Seems to me they have an inside joke going...called tag team the parents.

Yep, Macey is potty training. She's doing well so far. Well, she does well with me. Sean is a different story. With me her only accidents have been of the wet nature and only happened because I wasn't paying attention or was otherwise occupied when she needed to go. I'll leave it to Sean to give his side of the adventures in potty training.

We're having fun. There's nothing better than laying on the floor with them and within a matter of seconds having all 3 of them climbing/crawling/rolling on you.

2 and a mind of her own...

Clothes, shoes, hair bows. All things that Macey has an opinion on. Some of her decisions are quite funny. One day she wanted to wear a pair of overalls. These overalls were a size 12M, the buckles were broke (Sean taped them to make them latch), and she didn't want to wear a shirt underneath them. Uh, yes, she wore them, even went out of the house with that on. Another day she wanted to wear three hair bows in her hair. I put them in her hair, but was able to get 2 of them out before we left the house. She's also wanted to wear socks with sandals and she did. She's fallen in love with the one pair of footed pj's she owns. Which is funny because she wouldn't wear them up until recently because she didn't like her feet to be trapped in. Now she refers to them as "stuck". Just tonight I put her in a pair of pj's, sat down to read to her, and she indicated she wanted to pick out her pj's. So she changed into her "backpack" night gown (Dora=backpack).

Oh "stuck". One of Macey's favorite words. It's kinda funny how she learned it. One morning months ago I was getting ready and Macey brought me a roll of tape. I decided to be silly and stuck a piece of it on the bottom of my foot. I lifted my foot, hopped up and down, and said "it's stuck." She laughed and laughed. It made me laugh. From that day on she correctly used stuck (said with an emphasis on the "u").

Another month closer to being a year old

Miles and Camryn are eight months old today! Lots of stuff happening at eight months. Camryn is pulling up on anything she can and climbing on anything she can. She managed to climb up on the bottom step of the stairs. She thinks climbing over you, her brother, a blanket, whatever is a blast. She's perfected the army crawl; she's quite fast. Miles is going the hands/knees crawling route. He loves to stand up and jump. He's not to far from pulling up; he's reaching.

Miles is my less picky eater. He'll pretty much eat anything I put in his mouth. It may not be his favorite, but he'll eat it. Camryn is a little diva. Not only does she make the "I'm about to puke" face, but it then comes right back out and she shakes her head. In order to get her to eat green things I hide it with something she likes. So part of the spoon will have the unacceptable food and then it is covered with the acceptable food. So far so good.

Tonight as I was bathing them I thought about how much they have grown. Coming home they both weighed less than 5 1/2 pounds. My tiny babies are not as tiny anymore.