Personal Space

Twins have no sense of personal space.  They don't mind crawling all over one another or having their ears pulled by the other.

They love sharing books and secrets with each other :) 
Psssst - O is for Owen, Oliver and Ostrich...

Jockeying for Position

I have a feeling the title of this post will be relevant for many more moments and milestones to come with the boys!  But it's funny how early on they already tend to gravitate to playing with the same toy (or trying to get the best position if there's only room for one). 

The good thing is that they are easily distracted by the introduction of a new toy, especially if it has lights and makes noise, so we can usually avoid any "fights" or meltdowns when they both can't have the same toy at once by simply diverting the attention of one or both boys to something else.  Here's a video of them playing nicely together on their "musical playground".  You can see Owen start elbowing Oliver over and off the toy, but Oliver persists and gets back up!  Even after a hand to the face Oliver still holds his ground, this time...

Chasing Shadows

Every now and then Owen notices his shadow on the floor or wall and becomes fascinated by watching it move and trying to catch it.  This was a funny instance of shadow chasing, as he turns to find something else to do, but then retraces his path back to the wall when he notices it again.

Visiting Santa!

We took the boys to meet Santa today and they did very well!  Despite it being 30 minutes past their lunchtime and waiting in line for at least the same amount of time, there was no crying.  Per their usual in public places, they were so taken in by all the new sights and new sounds that they were too busy to fuss or cry.  Owen did have a few nervous moments after letting go of mommy and being handed to a stranger, which is a given for him.  Here's his nervous face after first settling in on Santa's lap.

Then he discovered Santa's face was quite new and interesting and loosened up.

One thing we'll never do again is go without a stroller.  We knew there'd be a little wait, but just figured we'd carry the babies in our arms the whole time since that was our only destination at the mall.  Even having Megan with us as a third person we could rotate a baby off to, we were all tired by the end.  The boys are too squirmy and constantly wanting to get down to crawl around and explore these days to hold for that length of time!

And the official mall photo we waited in line for...

Oliver Loves Cheese and Mama

I've started giving the boys some shredded cheese at lunch and/or dinner.  Oliver took to eating it right away - but depending on the day, picky eater Owen will only eat one or two pieces (while making faces the whole time).  I'm talking a single piece of shredded cheese...it's barely even noticeable!  Oliver on the other hand will eat a whole mouthful at a time and want more.  In this video you can see the cheese hanging out of his mouth :)  He's been saying "mama" a lot lately, especially while eating, so I think he's possibly trying to say yum, yum since we say that a lot while feeding them.

Stormtroopers

Can a boy be too young or too old to love Stormtroopers?!  I don't think so!  On Black Friday we saw a holiday parade at Reston Town Center and Grandbobby, Ryan, and the boys got to take pictures with some characters afterward.  We somehow missed / bypassed Elmo and went right to the Star Wars bunch.  The boys liked the costumes and couldn't stop starring at first.   

Owen was even daring enough to touch one of these guys!

Inside A Baby's Mind

Have you ever wondered what they're thinking sometimes?

Owen, look I took my hat off!!

Let's take yours off too!!

Stop complaining brother.

Enough Oliver, I'm trying to relax...

New Batteries

It seems that all our toys have run out of batteries at exactly the same time. Owen really wanted his play table working again and was even willing to help :) It was cute that he wanted to hold the screwdriver, but maybe I should wait until after they go to bed next time!

Hangin' in the Crib

Even though the babies spend very little time in their cribs when they're not sleeping (or trying to sleep), we take lots of pictures when they're in them just hanging out, most often waiting for us to come get them in the morning.  They play nicely and don't cry when the other is there to "talk" to when they wake up.  But on nights when one baby has to be moved to another room for waking up and being loud in the middle of the night, the next morning they both tend to cry more and look around the room for the other!  Here's a video of Ryan going in to get them in the morning (it looks a little dark because the lights are still low).  You can see they've already been up for awhile enjoying each other's company.

This second video is from a different morning, after I've gone downstairs to warm up their milk.  You can see Owen gets a little fussy once he sees me walk in with his bottle.  He doesn't like to wait when he's hungry!

Some other changes we've had to make to the cribs, other than lowering the mattress, include removing the  cute mobile with jungle animals.  Another baby item with which I am amazed at how short it's useful life is.  It took the boys a couple months to even notice it, and now at 9.5 months all they want to do is tear it down!  They love the animals, but don't understand why they shouldn't rip them and the entire mobile down each time they're in the crib!  So we just put it aside for the next baby :)  Here's Oliver trying to take the giraffe off.

They now have music and lights crib attachments that they are fascinated with even more.  There have been several nights where we are woken up to aquarium sounds on the monitor, to find one of the boys has decided to turn his on or accidentally pushed the button by rolling into it.  Owen likes to try and pull his off...

First Bath Together

A few weeks ago we stopped bathing the boys in their whale tub for little babies, and moved on to bath seats!  I only bought one of these at first to try it out, and it worked well - although more time consuming to actually fill the tub, bathe one baby, take him out to get diapered and dressed, and then bathe the second.  Even though this is a somewhat quick process, the water got a little cooler for the second bath and took more time to warm it back up.  So we bought a second seat and tried them both at once.  The boys love being in the water together, and everything is kept calm as long as they each have their own green ducky to put in their mouths!

Since we started this routine on a weekend, Ryan was home to help out and everything seemed pretty simple.  But during the week, I usually have to start their baths before he gets home in order to have everything done before bedtime.  I realized a small dilemma on my first night alone.  How do I get one baby into the tub without leaving him unattended for a few seconds to go get the other one?  I tried stripping the second down completely and leaving him in his crib so that all I had to do was run back into their room and grab him quickly once the first was in the water.  But of course, in the few seconds I was gone there was pee on the sheet!  And trying to do this in reverse is even harder because they are wet and need dried off and diapered (I wasn't going to risk an accident again).  I still didn't like leaving one of them alone in the tub, even for a few seconds, and came up with another alternative.  This solution isn't that great, but sort of works in the short term - I brought a bumbo seat into the bathroom and use it as a holding station.  Since they can easily escape these seats now, I'm limited to only a few seconds of holding.  And they don't particularly like to be put in the seat afterwards, while wet and wrapped in a towel.  Not to mention that while in the bumbo, they try to reach around and get their hands on everything...including the toilet! 

For now, I just try and minimize bath nights to those when Ryan can be home to help.  Which is good anyway because Oliver has discovered he can worm his way around and out of the seat if he really wants.  So keeping tabs on both of them when they're right in front of me has also become more challenging as well. 

A Little Holiday Jingle

These are silly, but lots of fun!  The twins really live up to their name - by the time I cut out everything but their eyes, nose, and mouth from the pictures...I even had a hard time following who was who on the animation!
http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/r58rbllzZ5rH5Uyb

A Padded Room

About 2 weeks ago I posted about how the boys were pulling up for the first time.  Just a few days after this, they quickly went from doing this once in awhile to every time they hit the ground!  Unfortunately, their little feet weren't the only things hitting the ground... we suddenly had bumps and bruises all around, even with our best efforts to "catch" them each time a fall happened (impossible I know, but we try).  You can see Owen's first fat lip in the picture below.  This was from him getting a little over zealous when trying to pull every book off the shelf in the playroom.
















So I took out our king size pillow top mattress pad that we no longer use and spread it over the rug in the playroom.  It has helped significantly in padding any falls, and changed most of their reactions in the case of an occasional topple from crying and wanting held, to confused and slightly amused looks of "I fell, but on this nice soft pad"...

In this video, Oliver gets distracted by Dee and loses his balance.  Don't worry, she caught him and there was no crying!