Mr. Grabby Gets Teeth

From the Twin Daddy:

What a difference one year can make

Christmas has come and gone, and we’re settling into our lives as we try to figure out exactly what we’re doing and how to do it.  It’s been a bit over a year since we found out we were pregnant, and in that time the boys have become bigger and taller as the updated growth chart shows.

Alex has pulled ahead of Dominic again by just a bit, and they are both catching up to the average-size full-term baby.  Considering they were almost 6 weeks early, that is not too shabby.

This Morning We Have Teeth

Alex enjoys grabbing your finger and pulling it into his mouth for a quick and slimy “Nummy nummy nummy!!”  This morning you can imagine my surprise when I felt his first two baby teeth poking out.  It’s a bit like some sort of strange voodoo seeing teeth sprouting out of nowhere, and we are both excited about it.

We’re looking at starting solid food in early February, and the boys have been pretty interested in watching us eat.  It’s nice to know that they’ll be getting their chompers in for the first meal.

Our boys have grown a lot in the past month – rolling, standing, proto-walking, grabbing, slobbering and babbling up a storm. We’ll try to update you more soon. For now, we simply hope your holidays are full of friends, family and joy.

Alex (green) and Dom (white) meet Santa and make sure he knows to put them on the nice list!

Nov. 2, 2010 – 5 AM

Perhaps I should have known to distrust a plan that came to me at 5 in the morning while rocking a son in the bathroom with the shower blasting hot water nearby to create our own little sauna and soothe his sore throat. However, it seemed perfectly brilliant to hook up one bottle to the breastpump after we emerged from our steamy retreat, so I could both hold my sick little boy and relieve some of the building pressure. At first, all was going swimmingly until my little one coughed again and got upset. The bottle of milk was quickly set aside to cuddle my son, and shortly after, it came tumbling down – spilling on me, my blanket and the couch. I righted the bottle, saving a couple ounces of milk, and then I came to a crossroads…to either cry or laugh over my spilled milk. I chose to laugh at the “brilliant” plan of a sleepy mama.

Our Little Pumpkin Patch (Dom on the left)

Our sons will have a long series of firsts over the course of the next few weeks and months, and this past month we’ve had some good ones:

Lessons in Carving Pumpkins (Alex on left)

• First Halloween: Dad showed them how to carve jack-o’-lanterns, and they got their first taste of pumpkin (see photo above). They have not yet seen the whole pumpkin-to-pumpkin-pie process as we have a lot of pumpkin guts to turn into goo. Dom and Alex dressed up as a matched set of two peas in a pod and went twin-or-treating on our street – stopping by houses to show off their outfits and be admired but without candy involved (perhaps that should be trick-or-twinning?). They were very good-humored about being carried from door-to-door and smiled at by the neighbors. We also had a huge number of trick-or-treaters this year, and we had to rush out and buy more candy (Puck was down to the last piece by the time I made it home). Shakti was a big hit with many of the children who remember seeing or meeting her on her many walks with Grandma Myrtle and Papa.


Our little peas in their pods (Alex on left)

• First Colds: The evil cold virus has been attacking our family one at a time. First the Twin-Daddy, next the Twin-Mommy, then Dominic and finally Alexander. While both boys have been dealing with the bewildering symptoms of congestion, fever and painful coughing, they have been surprisingly good-natured – still willing to give us those darling grins at times and to play a bit. However, they’ve also needed a great deal more cuddling and sleep, and they’ve expressed their frustration and discomfort too. We’re glad they are both feeling better.

• Storytime: In the last couple of weeks, Alex and Dom have started listening and looking attentively when Grandma does storytime with them while their bottles are warming up in the afternoon. If they take after Mom and Dad, they’ll be big readers later.


Give me some candy!

• Brotherly Love: Over the last couple of weeks, each boy has started to occasionally smile at his brother without his sibling really noticing, and on Sunday (Oct. 31st) they finally spent some time smiling at each other!

• Toes, Rolls and Talking: Last Thursday night (Oct. 28th) while working on sitting up on his Dad’s chest, Dom discovered he had feet and toes, and it was amazing to see the look of fascination on his face as these new parts of his body entered his awareness. Alex rolled over once completely on his own during tummytime! Plus, they both enjoy “chatting” with us, and they have some of the most wonderful big grins and beginnings of a laugh. Puck says they laugh like me and my dad.

We still have so many firsts to look forward to!

In Other News

Shakti turns 11 this next weekend, and she’s doing well, though getting up and down is becoming increasingly difficult for her. She absolutely loves her walks with Grandma Myrtle (who takes her out 2-3 times a day usually), and she likes her walks with Alex and Dom (though those walks don’t tend to be as long).

Grandma Myrtle: As for the grown-ups, well, Puck and I can’t express just how wonderful it has been to have Grandma Myrtle out here with us. It makes a HUGE difference to have a third adult and one who knows so much about children and grandchildren, plus I’ve just really enjoyed having this time with my mom and this chance to learn so much about being a mom from her. Thanks, Mom!

Puck continues to come home and to immediately either help with the boys or start dinner (or both), and Grandma and I handle the nightshift together. He is quite the doting dad and so skilled at soothing and playing with his sons. I love watching him with Alex and Dom.

Anniversary: This month Puck and I celebrate 16 years since we started dating. If we follow tradition, we’ll order some bagel sandwiches just like the ones we ate on our first date in Stillwater. Love you, honey!

 

 

 

We hope you had a happy Halloween!

From the Twin-Daddy:

In my last serious post on October 1st, I talked about how both boys were engaged in social smiling and beginning to  enjoy playing.  We are still moving on from there and now playing usually involves baby laughs.  The baby laugh is a lifting of the chin with a big smile and a long drawn out “Huuuuh!” or sometimes a “Huuuuh huuuh!”  Baby laughs are terribly cute and tend to make life just that much better.

This week we have also seen Dominic take the lead in babbling.  Dominic has been desperately trying to articulate with his Mama, and he’s started experimenting with the different vocal noises he can make.  Keep in mind that we’re already building on a veritable symphony of grunts, snorts, and various expressive wheezes as well as the different shades of crying, squawking, and wallerin.

On Using the Hands

“There is nothing in the world which Nature, wise mistress and benign mother of the universe, with greater genius, and more diligent regard, provides Man for the conservation of his self (of which, more so than any other noble creature, he shows himself very dear of its safety), than the singular privilege of the hand, with which not only does he go procuring all things necessary for the sustenance of his life, but arming himself yet with the sword, noblest instrument of all, he protects and defends himself against any assault whatsoever of inimical force; following nonetheless the strict rule of true valor, and of the art of fencing.”

~Ridofo Capoferro, 1610 (as translated by Swanger and Wilson)

While Alex doesn’t babble as much, he is the Master of Grabby.  He is the one most likely to stealthily grab your shirt while you are changing his diaper.  He has also started guiding random objects towards the all-tasting baby sense organ.  His motto being, “If I can hold it, I might be able to eat it.”  This is the same kid who was tasting his brother’s head and the Great Dane to see if they were edible so this makes some sense.  I don’t know if Alex realizes he has hands yet or if Mr. Grabby is only an opportunistic grabber.  (What this says about his future love life remains pure speculation.)

With that in mind, both kids have now figured out that they have hands which are useful as snacks when the going gets tough.  Each boy is regularly sucking on his fist, and it’s gone from being a target of opportunity (“What the heck!  Hey, can I eat this thing?“) to an intentional target (“Hungry hungry baby fingers!!  Nummy nummy nummy nummy!!“)  I have heard that figuring out you have hands and can interact with the world is the beginning of knowing that you are an “I”.  For the record, self-awareness begins with “Nummy nummy nummy nummy!!”

Tummy-Time

Friday I put both boys down for some tummy-time which they endured with good grace.  Within moments Alex actually managed to roll over for the first time!  I don’t think he knew what he was doing. He wasn’t able to recreate the feat of dexterity again, but he certainly surprised his parents by doing it.  On the other side of the blanket, Dominic worked on baby push ups, lifting up his head to look around and tasting the blanket to see if it was perhaps made of ice cream.

All of this seems to be happening at a blistering and breakneck pace.  As someone who spent months working on collision avoidance algorithms for an autonomous robotic rover, the continous cycling to greater levels of sophisticated behavior seems nothing short of miraculous. No programmer I’ve ever met could match the developmental pace of these two children.  We have come to accept this tsunami of growing intelligence and behavior as normal in babies, but knowing what is required to produce this kind of behavior from a construct like my rover, it shifts this mundanity from the ordinary world into a realm of wonders.

Other Development?

Without a precise scale at the house, I can’t get more data points for my growth chart.  I can tell the boys are gaining weight, because lugging them around in the car seats is getting more difficult.  Just eyeballing my previous data they have been gaining roughly 1000 grams per month thus far.  If that trend continues, we are probably looking at roughly another 2000 grams per kid which comes out to about 7000 grams (7 kg) each or somewhere between 15 and 16 pounds each.

Twinsanity Countdown – Sleep Will Come

Most baby web sites seem to indicate conservatively that babies will sleep better sometime around the 6-month mark.  We could be sleeping through the night as early as 4 months.  With that in mind, I’m bumping up the Twinsanity Interval up to 6 months.  (Of course, this assumes that we will be entering a new phase of twinsanity, but at least it will be a better rested one.)

Alexander and Dominic are 86 days old

12 weeks and 2 day

2 months and 25 days

• Sunday, October 31 is the boys’ first Halloween
• Monday, November 1 and Dom and Alex are 3 months old
• Wednesday, December 1 and the boys meet the pediatrician again for their 4 month appointment
• Saturday, January 1 and the boys are 5 months old
• February 1 is the end of the Twinsanity Interval, and the kids have a half birthday.