13 Months!

...And the month counting continues! :)

The kiddo's are 1 year 1 month (+)! Some of this update overlaps with the 14th month, cause I can't quite remember what they did up until 2 weeks back and what they just started doing... result of me slacking on posting this!

-RM started walking independently a week after turning 13 months. They can both walk across the room in the same pace (speed)... they literally run some times.

-They will caress each other, hug each other, roll over each other, giggle together - its just so adorable!!

-RT has 4 teeth at the top and 4 at the bottom. RM has 4 teeth at the top, 3 at the bottom and one molar on the lower right. He did not have any new tooth coming out for a couple of months now and all of a sudden 4 sprouted out - he was miserable last week.

-They love, love, love going out. They seek any opportunity they can to go outside the house. The love strolling in the Bobs, walking on the grass, checking out puppies, try to follow older kids. Thankfully the weather is getting better finally (besides the spring "showers").

-RM started making tiger roar (imitated me) when he was asked to do so... it is hilarious... he uses his throat (deep sound) to bring on the sound effect.

-Both sleep through the night (STTN) - almost a month now with no middle of the night feed (MOTNF)! They will sleep for around 11 hours at night plus anywhere between 1 to 3 hours during the day time.

-I bathed them both together for the first time yesterday! Now that they sit, stand, walk with great ease... I felt confident bathing them together. RT was very curious with RM's boy parts (I couldn't stop laughing while I was asking her not to touch it - not very nice of me :P)!

-We stopped RT's morning reflux medication 3 weeks ago and RM's medication 2 days back (after the 4 teeth that popped out). I am not commenting on how they are doing, because the last time I spoke too soon.

-They are 100% on table food. I will make something separate only if our food is going to be something super spicy or tangy (we still don't do sour stuff since they are on the reflux meds). I keep experimenting with the snacks, because they just do not want to eat the same stuff everyday (example: cereal)! RT is down to around 20 oz whole milk and RM to around 25ish oz. Them starting with more table food has helped with reducing the milk!

-Milk is through a bottle for both of them. RT takes her sippy for water... she will sip through it intermittently through out the day. RM still not liking anything other than his bottle for water. He will drink water only after meals. We tried the straw bottles, but it was a no go... will give it a shot again in a couple of days.

-Both are in size 4 diapers for at least the last 2-3 months. Night time is size 5. Clothes wise, we are in 18 months, but RT can still sneak in a few 12 month clothes. They both wear size 6 shoes.

-I have to have a separate post for RT. She is one smart girl, and I want to remember what all she did. Here is a sneak preview. I have said before, she understands everything and does all these things without being asked to do so (on her own). She will bring my phone to me when it starts ringing; I put soiled/used clothes on our stairs so I can take it up to our laundry pile (upstairs), she has figured that out and will put her clothes up there too; she will shut the safety gate behind her once she is on the other side of it (imitates us); she will bring RM's jacket and socks to him when we have to step out; she has sharp ears - she will identify a plane by the noise even before you realize - she will wave goodbye to it even if she is drinking milk or busy with something else; if the music we play for their sleep is on and she can hear it on the baby monitor she signs that her brother is sleeping; I brought her a small purse, she will put that on her arm and wave everybody goodbye; she can identify their 1st birthday pictures on the digital photo frame and will start clapping "happy birthday" to herself; one of my friend came over the other day with her 5 month old baby... RT sat besides the baby quietly giving him some toys and being mesmerized by his babyhood!

-RM does quite a few things that RT does, but many a times he is lost in his wild play (pulling things down, rolling over pillows, banging toys, spinning wheels etc). He recently started signing birds, just like his sister. He will bring you his toys (if you ask for it) and then laugh and run away (the toy still with him)! If you ask him not to do something, he will give you a sly smile and do it anyways... he will pretend as if he is ready to attack something (by rocking back and forth) when you ask him not to go near it (his favorite is his sisters poopy diaper!!!).

-We started swim lessons at the Y last Saturday. They are enjoying it!

I have been trying to meet up with some local mommies on meetup.com... and it has been great fun for the kids and myself. I have realized that I am loosing friends! Either things have gone sour during the fertility treatment (a very common phenomenon with quite a few IF'ers )... or our timings and schedules just do not work with our non-parent-friends OR not-so-strictly-schedule-following-parent-friends.

Zzz...!

Finally!! Yes, RM slept (napped) with in a minute of fussing yesterday and then no fuss at all last night. Today's nap wasn't eventful either. So, I guess he's got a hang of it? :P

In short, both are sleeping with out any assistance during nap and at night... and that too STTN without any MOTNF!! Yay!

A Foodie Post!

With a developing taste and a personality, sometimes it is hard to figure out what to serve our little people. Here are some recipes of the items they love. I don't quite follow specific recipes, unless I am baking desserts (I can screw up sweet stuff, if I try to experiment)... so this is more of a list of things required and how to make it (without specific quantity information).

Whole Wheat Tortilla French Toast

Ingredients: Egg, whole wheat tortilla, oil and salt (optional: Cinnamon, milk, sugar).

Beat up the egg and add any of the optional items listed above as per taste preferences. Dip tortilla in the mixture and put it in the (oiled) pan. Since the tortilla is already cooked, you just need to wait till the thin layer of egg cooks.

Green Mac n Cheese

Ingredients: Mac n Cheese (I usually get a whole wheat organic box), spinach, garlic, oil, salt, pepper (optional: onions, carrot, green beans, herbs or any other spices).

Boil the "mac" and keep aside. Saute the spinach (and any other optional veg) and garlic in oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Grind the vegetable mixture. Now proceed to make the mac n cheese the way you would usually make and add the vegetable mixture in.

Grilled Yogurt Chicken

Ingredients: Chicken pieces, oil/butter, plain (non sweetened) yogurt, salt, pepper, chilly powder, ginger and garlic paste (optional: any other herbs and spices as per your taste preferences).

Mix all the ingredients together and let it marinate (the longer the better). Oil the pan/tray and put the marinated pieces in it. Grill till its cooked. Vegetables can be grilled in the same way.

Whole Wheat Pudding

Ingredients: Wheat grain, water, milk, sugar (optional: crushed nuts, Cinnamon).

Soak the wheat over night. Grind the soaked wheat to desired consistency. Add water to the ground wheat mixture and let cook on low flame (heat setting). Once semi-cooked, add milk and sugar and any of the optional items. Let it simmer. Can be served warm or cold.

Green Lentil Soup

Ingredients: Lentil, carrots, green beans, spinach (basically any vegetable that you/your kids like), garlic, black pepper/chilly powder/curry powder (spice), onions, salt, oil.

Saute the onions and garlic, then add finely chopped vegetables. Add the spice and salt. Mix in well and then add the lentil. Let cook on slow flame till the lentil is perfectly cooked.

Any meat can be added to this recipe as well.

Baked Green Eggss

Ingedients: Eggs, milk, salt, pepper, garlic, potatoes, red pepper, spinach (any vegetables that you like).

Finely chop all the vegetables and saute in oil and garlic. Add salt and pepper once cooked. Transfer to a pan/tray. Beat the eggs well and then add it to the vegetables. Let it bake in the oven till the eggs completely cook!

30 Minutes?

Is this for real? RM is quietly laying in his crib after 30 minutes of cry/fuss fest! Am I speaking too soon?

RT went in at the same time as RM today... she fell asleep after 5 minutes of fussing since RM was crying.

Now let's how long they sleep for... the last two days record was 30 and 20 minutes for RM... way too less than his 3+ hour record! RT sleeps anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours at a time.

I have way too many posts this month! ;) The last time I posted this much was in April 2010 (the first month of motherhood)!

(Semi) Live Update

So, tonight... RM started crying hysterically as he got in to his crib. As if he remembered what had happened this morning. I had to walk him a little and pacify him. Pat him while he laid in his crib... is that a mommy caving in? Ughh... this is hard. Is he going to get traumatized and hate his crib or finally realize that this is how it is going to be and deal with it! Aaah parenting!

Thanks for your comments girls! Makes me wanna believe that there is light at the end of this tunnel!

CIO Help?

What to do with a child who just won't nap without assistance?! I hate to make him cry. This is the second day trying to help him fall asleep on his own. And he has gone for 1 hr straight both days! Getting him drowsy before nap, patting, pacifying intermittently, soothing music won't help! He was sleepy when I took him to his crib, he is well fed and the diaper is clean! He can handle around 4 hours from the time he gets up in the morning... and now with all the crying it is 5 hours!! No, I am NOT a cruel Mommy who doesn't want to rock a baby to sleep. I just don't want to be jumping from crib to crib trying to get two toddlers to sleep... because in that case we are just going to have two overly tired cranky sleepless kids in the house! Patienc - breath in - breath out...!

---

Just to be a little bit more clear - so I can seek better advice! We do follow a routine and the kids know it. The only difference is, they kinda recieved individual attention thus far, and so it was easy to accomodate some of their needs (which included attention during sleeping - blame it on burps due to reflux OR Mommy's self built demon?). RT is sleeping by herself (already), she is the one who used to have most issues with sleeping on her own, and RM was the easy one. But for some reason, he has started to get clingy (seperation anxiety kicking back in?). He will get in to the crib... roll around, shut his eyes and almost fall asleep and then... bam! He gets up and wants to be held! I wrote the above part while he had reached his 1 hour mark of crying. He slept after around 1 hr and 10 minutes of crying, but got up in 20 minutes (he usually naps between 1.5 to 3 hrs now a days - mostly one nap a day). We are still going to keep trying. He is a tough cookie - as described in previous post - a focused & determined kid - which is back firing in this case!

Must Haves...

A list of things that I think were the most helpful in the 1st year...

Sony Baby Call Nursery Monitor - We have never ever had any issues with noise or weak signal. One of the best ones in the market I think!

Breathable Baby Bumper Pad - We never ended up buying this whole bedding set for their crib. With the bumpers and pillows and blankets not really recommended for baby bedding, I thought it was a waste of money. So we just ended up getting sheets and the Breathable Baby Bumper. The kids cant step on it and try to climb up and at the same time they are soft enough to cushion any bumps... plus as the name mentions - they are breathable.

Golden Slumbers - A Father's Lullaby - This is what we play when they are ready to go take a nap or go to bed (since birth). Very soothing!

Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo - The best toy ever. You can't beat it when it has over 1000 reviews on Amazon rating it at 4.5 stars!

Baby Trend Double Snap N Go - A must have for a twin Mommy! Light weight and compact. Not very good at maneuverability, but it works perfectly well when the babies are small.

JJ Cole Bundle Me - Best way to keep the babies warm without having to dress up super warm!

Columbia Pigtail Hats - Super cute and super warm. They stay secure... the Velcro is pretty good and it doesn't come off easy.

Medela Pump In Style Advance - Our life line!

The Breastfeeding Mothers Guide To Making More Milk - A bible on making more milk... just like the title suggests! Without this I wouldn't have made it!

Flip video - the best thing ever to capture video on the go and discretely... whenever our twins figure out that we are taking a video of them, they start heading over to the video camera... this is so tiny, that we can actually sometimes capture them without them realizing. I CAN NOT believe, they are actually getting rid of this product! I don't think they ever marketed this enough!

So glad...

I am so glad I decided to blog! I was backing up my blog today and went through some of the posts! It felt so good to have all this writen down and revisit some of the posts! An amazing journey!!

C . I . O

How many times have I visited the CIO! Well, a couple of times for sure!

Finally did it! I thought of myself to be one of the non CIO types. But, you know what, it was important for my sanity and for a healthy family relationship! Till now, I kept going thinking that I do not want the babies to cry. The biggest culprit thus far was reflux! Our babies had major burping issues because of reflux, and reflux probably also lead to very less milk intake (one feed was around 3-4 oz almost up until 8-10 months for both)... which led to multiple feedings till very recently (and thus a lack of proper schedule). So, I refused to make them starve through the night and kept feeding them! Over all both the kids were pretty good night sleepers (besides RT's phase of frequent night wake ups around 6'ish month), so it was okay to get up and feed/burp them and put them to bed again (we do not co-sleep). But as they started turning in to these little toddlers, who ate pretty decently and who once in a blue moon completely slept through the night (STTN)... they decided that they wanted to be held for around 5-10 minutes after each feed (1-2 times in a night (per child) - totaling to up to 4 feeds a night)... sometimes our saga use to go on for an hour (especially for RT)! My mom has been with us off and on ever since the babes were born, so it was manageable... I could sleep in occasionally if it was a very bad night. But, with her leaving now, this was getting to a point where it was almost impossible to manage. So we decided to go for it!

The first night (April 7th), we let them have their first middle of the night feed (MOTNF). But, after RT's feed... she wanted to be held! So she got dropped in to her crib - after pacifying her, I left the room. And the CIO began! She cried for 2.5 hours off and on! For the first 1 hour... we tried to follow the Ferber method. But every time we pacified her, the crying just got stronger! She woke RM up just 5 mins in to her CIO. Though, he slept off in an hour! That was the only night RT cried... she has pretty much STTN since then and no MOTNF either. And I hope it stays that way!

As mentioned above, RM woke up because of RT's cries on April 7th. He slept (after using the Ferber method) in an hour. He has STTN once since then and the remaining nights he has gotten up, CIO for some time and slept on his own (it just seems like Ferber method doesn't do us very good... the kids get worked up too much when they see us and actually start settling themselves for the most part without us interfering). Every time the CIO time has gone down... with the shortest being around 7 minutes. There have been no MOTNF feeds ever since. Though, the wanting to be held part was also being carried forward during the nap times and during falling asleep for the night part as well. So we have had to try the CIO for those two settings as well (starting today - Mommy just has 2 hands and 2 overly active toddlers to handle!). Today for his nap, he cried for an hour and slept for 30 min - it was a crappy nap! Though he fell asleep in less than 10 minutes for tonight.

In short, it seems to be working. I just hope I am not speaking too soon! They both are still adjusting to the lack of almost 5 to 10 oz milk that they consumed at night, so our day time feeding is a little disturbed. Hopefully, this will also help in cutting down the total volume of milk that RM consumes and hopefully not ruin their teeth either. We will be giving a second try on getting rid off the reflux medication soon, and getting them used to falling asleep on their own will probably help if the reflux fights back (aka - the nasty burps)! Personally, I feel less like a zombie and better prep'ed when I get up in the morning. It hurts to see them cry so much - but this is for their and our good, and I am trying carry through all the tears and not give in! RT and RM have been also sleeping in longer in the morning (than the usual)... I guess they are finally starting to realize that they don't get picked up every time they get up!

Can I cook?!

We started reaching the cooking range knobs and are trying to turn them around (by both of them). I hadn't anticipated this for the next couple of months. But here we are - we will be installing the covers for those knobs today! I wonder how long they will last! I have heard they melt away pretty easily (with the heat from the oven) or if not that, I am sure some day they will crack the code!

12th Month Update!

RT weighs 23.91 lbs (with diaper - between 50 to 75 %ile), is 30.7 inches tall with a head circumference of 19.6 and RM weighs 21.35 lbs (with diaper - between 50-75 %ile), is 31.3 inches tall with a head circumference of 19.09. The ped visit was on March 28th (next is July 8th). Just can't fathom how small they were just a year ago!

They were cranky the day of their shots followed by a cold for about a week, followed by more crankiness due to the effect of MMR shots (which is supposed to show up a week after the vaccines are administered)! So things have been a little hectic here.

Oh how I remember the days, when my babies just did not drink enough milk. Not enough through out the day and not enough in one serving. Partially an effect of Reflux. And now, they are drinking too much! Specially RM... he drinks over 40 oz in a day. And he just WANTS it! The ped recommends around 18 oz at this age. How on earth am I supposed to shrink it down to 18? It is not that he is not eating, he is a pretty good eater, but he still wants his milk. RT is fine, she is slowly reducing her milk consumption herself, so I am not concerned about her. We have been trying to increase his water consumption and reducing his feeds, but he is getting up in the middle of night more to drink more! Hah! Latest development: we have managed to reduce RM's volume per feed and his daily feeds are down to 30s. May be it is me who is over feeding him because of the traumatised set of mind that I have from (less feeding in earlier months and weights in 5-10 %ile).

I have been fortunate enough to pretty much have help through out this year! My mother has mostly been with me for all this while and I can't think of how I would have done this without her. My kids adore her! But, she will be going back home in 2 weeks! And then, we are on our own! I guess my kids are pampered! A bit too much? We are going to have to straighten a few things out. We have had a few issues with sleep again after their cold/vaccination - and not sleeping well (through the night) is going to take a toll on Mommy (who is going to be without help soon). So we are definitely heading for a CIO (we actually started last night - more on this soon)!

Some highlights:

-RT walks independently (started a week before the birthday) and is 95% walking and 5% crawling. RM started taking 4-5 steps (a week after his birthday) and hopefully will be following her soon.

-Both give flying kisses. RT has been waving bye and hi for a long time now. RM recently started with bye and hi!

-RT has been repeating words! She will randomly pick up words from what we are saying and repeat it! She repeatedly says Daddy and calls out to RM for sure. We better watch our mouth! RM keeps talking, but no specific words yet (other than Daddy).

-Both have totally different tastes for food. I can't think of a single food item they both like equally... except may be banana! They are starting to get picky about what they want to eat now a days! RM is normally more accepting of different foods. RT is starting to self feed herself, RM still needs to get a hang of it.

-I bought a purse for RT... she will put the handles of the purse around her arms and wave bye-bye (copying Mommy and Granny)!

-RM loves wild play... he loves riding his trike or sitting on one of those battery operated cars etc, RM gets scared of any such toys which make noises and moves fast! She loves to explore but gets intimidated with that much ease too! Both seem to show distinct boy'ish/girl'ish preferences/traits... I am not a pure feminist, and I try to stay neutral with what I try to expose the kids too. But, I see a very distinct nature vs nurture example.

-We have finally succeeded in giving water from a sippy cup! Milk is still through a bottle. We are still finishing some of the formula boxes we have, so some of the feeds are whole milk and some are formula. With time I have realized that you just can't push something on to the kids just because that is the norm in today's society or because the (professional) guidelines say so (that applies to RM's milk consumption situation too (mentioned above)). Kids will do things when they are ready for them, you just need to guide them.

-Both wear size 4 diapers at home during the day. We use one size up at nights and while stepping out of our house. 9 to 12 month clothes were starting to get tight for RM since he turned 11 months... so we switched to 12 to 18 months for him back then. RT wears mostly 12 to 18 months clothes with some 9 to 12 months clothes sprinkled in. Both wear size 6 shoes! They got big feet like their Mommy - I wish that wasn't the case!!

-RM has 2 top and 2 bottom teeth. RT has 2 top and 4 bottom teeth.

-Both understand the idea of giving and taking. As of now, RT is very good at sharing/giving. She will try to feed you her food or give you water from her sippy cup.

-They received quite a few toys at their birthday, but a lot more gift cards, which I think is handy because I can go buy things in intervals. Also, we actually suggested that folks donate to March of Dimes (MOD) - March for Babies instead of bringing gifts, and we collected over $700! I am very pleased. Sometimes, I feel a little guilty that my kids could have received that much more toys! But, this is for a better cause and I know so much about preemies and NICU and its likes, that I am actually so happy we did this! I will be walking for MOD in May.