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Eight!

Della turned 8 years old on August 1, and 8 truly is great with her!

We had her 8 year well check at the end of that month, so here are her official 8-year-old stats:

  • Height:  53″ (87%)
  • Weight:  60.5 lbs. (64%)
  • BMI:  15.1 kg/m2
  • Blood Pressure:  109/69

She continues to be the sweetest girl on earth, and I really don’t think I could possibly love her any more. Her heart is made of pure gold, and that is probably the singular character trait I hope she carries with her forever.

She has the soul of an angel, and she is truly a friend to all. It was so cute – one of the room moms for her class this year is putting together a book for their teacher, who is getting married later this month. It’s a book of marriage advice from 3rd graders. Della’s quote was “Sometimes it will be hard, and sometimes it will be easy. Always be nice to the person you’re married to.” Wise words, my love.

She is also still the sensitive girl she’s always been. The other night after I’d tucked them all in, Morrison came out telling me Della was crying. I could tell she was kind of quiet at bedtime and I thought she was a little sad, but she said nothing was wrong. I was right. When I went in and asked what was the matter, she was practically sobbing and said that no one ever believes her. I said oh sweet pea, I always want to believe you, what are you talking about? Apparently earlier that night Lana didn’t believe her when she said one of Lana’s Shopkins toys was on the front porch when Lana was looking for it, and shortly before bed Ryan and I didn’t believe that his magazine gave her a cut on her finger when he jokingly waved it at her. It did hit her hand, but when she showed us the cut it looked like it had been there for a while. No way did we think it was fresh, let alone from a freak brush against a magazine.  But I guess she put her arm behind her to block the magazine, and when she did so it kind of swung around on the edge of the pages and got her. So I apologized and assured her there was no way we thought she was lying or we weren’t listening to her on purpose, we just honestly thought there was no way it could’ve happened. So I promised that we’d listen to her from now on, because I know she doesn’t make things up just to be heard, and she is such a good kid and always wants to be doing the right thing.

She is the most amazing big sister to all these little ones, and they are beyond lucky to have her. She adores the twins and is my biggest helper, carrying them around and snuggling them in, giving them pacifiers or whatever they need, and generally playing with them as much as she can. Lana and Morrison would follow her to the ends of the earth, and my heart practically jumps out of my chest when I watch the 3 of them playing together.

She has been really into gymnastics the past 2 years, but this fall she decided to switch things up and give dance a shot. She and Lana are in the same hip hop class, and they just started last week. I can’t wait to see the end-of-session performance for this one! We also just started back up with swim lessons, and she is loving it again and doing so well.

She still loves her Shopkins and Happy Places, learning about nature and especially studying the ocean, playing outside with all our neighborhood friends, cooking, reading, doing cartwheels. She has recently started to like doing her own hair, and her new favorite style is pig tails with a headband. So cute! Her favorite colors right now are mint green and coral, and her favorite animal is a cheetah. She wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up and live in Australia in an apartment with some of her best friends. I will definitely go visit! I think she needs to be some sort of organizer, though, because she is constantly organizing things. I took her to the grocery store with me last weekend and I swear every time we stopped in an aisle she turned to the shelves and started straightening the items, making sure everything was where it was supposed to be based on the labels, etc. I thought wow, she’s even tidier than I am! I see so much of my younger self in her. However, life and 5 children have certainly mellowed me out significantly, ha!

We hit the jackpot a million times over with this one, and I feel so lucky to be her mama. I watch her with such love and adoration every day, and I am so proud of the wonderful, kind, smart girl she is. We love you so much, sweet Della Jolee! Happy 8th birthday and many, many, many more, peanut!!

 

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Twins 6 and 7 month stats

Clearly I have neglected this blog yet again, since the twins are almost 8 months old. And because of that fact, I’m doing something I’ve never had to do yet – combine stats posts. Oops. Oh well, at least I’m finally getting them written here.

Life is very busy these days. I often think back to when I started this blog after Della was born – I would sit at my desk at work and post daily, sometimes multiple times a day. Ha! Hahahahaha! If only I had that kind of time now. I mean, no, I don’t wish I was back sitting at a desk all day again, definitely not. But now I get to actually sit down for any length of time longer than 5 minutes without that time being spent folding laundry so infrequently, my poor updates are few and far between. I mean well, really I do. I constantly have a running list in my head of post ideas and kids’ pages notes that I need to write. But I only have so many hours in a day, and I do need to sleep. At least try to sleep with these two little maniacs in our room, anyway.

So anyway… I’ll give you their 6 month well check stats, then a quick update on what they’re up to now (since who cares what they were actually doing at 6 months, oh, so long ago), and a bunch of pictures as usual.

Nat

  • Height:  27″ (67%)
  • Weight:  17 lbs. (40%)
  • Head:  43.2 cm (45%)
  • BMI:  16.4 kg/m2 (25%)

Avit

  • Height:  26.5″ (44%)
  • Weight:  17 lbs. (40%)
  • Head:  43.6 cm (58%)
  • BMI:  17 kg/m2 (40%)

We can already see that these two have distinctly different personalities. Avit is pushing himself up to sitting (and has been for a couple weeks now); can move himself around a room through a combination of rocking/rolling/sitting/repeating (everything but crawling so far); loves to grab anything in sight and mess with it or try to eat it, including Nat’s head or arm or buns, my leg (yes, the other day i was standing on their blanket in the living room and Avit grabbed my leg, wrapped his arms around it, and started licking it!), and all their toys; and generally not nap when I’d like him to. And just 2 days ago he pulled himself up on the edge of the coffee table to standing! Good lord. Nat is much more content to just lie in his spot on the floor, play with his toys, roll over here and there but nothing crazy (no ending up on the opposite side of the room or in the corner facing the wall under the jumperoo like Avit), and take his naps like good little babies should. Sometimes they actually get on opposite nap schedules – Nat takes a decent morning nap; Avit does not. Then after lunch I put Avit down and Nat wakes up for the afternoon. Turds.

I just consistently started solids last week. I tried them a while ago, and neither one had much interest at all, surprisingly. Avit loved his first taste of oatmeal and wanted to grab the spoon and do it all himself. But then when I tried other things like sweet potatoes, he would barely take a bite. Nat got his start at solids later than Avit because I was giving them at dinner time to begin with, and Nat was always taking his 3rd nap then (yes, 3rd nap of the day). So he missed out for a while, but once I gave him his first bite of sweet potatoes, he loved them and actually did a lot better at eating than Avit. Now that we’re into the school routine again, I’ve begun trying to give them their solids at lunch time instead, since dinner time always gets so hectic. Some days it works out that way, some days it doesn’t, but they seem to be doing fine with them at either time of the day.

They both have their bottom front 2 teeth and got those about a month ago. And they instantly started biting me with them while nursing, so that’s super fun. Fortunately I only nurse them once overnight and sometimes once around wake-up time now with bottles of pumped milk and formula throughout the day, but that still hurts when it happens!

Speaking of bottles, they’re still on the same bottle schedule that they’ve been on for months – 4 bottles per day (roughly 9:00 a.m., noon, 3:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m.) that are each a mixture of mostly pumped milk and a little formula. Nat just recently caught up to Avit with having a 6 oz. bottle each time; he had been stuck at 4 oz. for the longest time while Avit chugged down 6 and basically as much as you would give him. Chunk.

Like I said earlier, naps aren’t always the most consistent. Nat can usually be counted on to take 2 solid naps a day if we’re not walking to/from school (I’ve stopped putting him down for that last early evening nap and just stretching things out until bedtime instead), and Avit is happy to take normally just a longer afternoon one. For the past couple days, though, the stars have aligned and I actually have gotten all 3 boys to nap at the same time after lunch for a couple hours, and I haven’t even been giving the twins their solid food. They’ve had colds the past couple days and are all stuffy, so I’m not forcing them to try to swallow mushy food along with all their snot. If they could do that regularly, I’d be happy for them to drop morning and early evening naps all together.

Bedtime is pretty much right after that last bottle, so they’re usually in bed by 6-6:30. No, they are still not sleeping through the night, so everyone can stop asking. They have both done it, sleeping until 5:00 or even 6:00 the next morning, but neither does it with any consistency at all yet. Their schedules are fairly regular with the wake-ups, though – one (usually Nat) wakes around let’s say 1:00 and 5:00; the other might wake up then, too, but lately it’s been in the middle of the other two wake-ups instead, somewhere in the 3:00 hour. So there’s a decent chunk of sleep for the first part of the night, then those early morning hours can get dicey. Nat likes to throw in a crying jag in the 10:00-11:00 hour every couple nights, so that’s real fun, because I know he certainly doesn’t need to be eating then but usually the only way to get him back to sleep is to make him a little bottle. So we’ll see. Hopefully they figure it out soon. Morrison didn’t sleep through consistently until between 8-9 months, so I’m not really that surprised that these 2 aren’t either. And now with school mornings again I get up at 5:30, so I just try to go to bed as early as I can since I know I’ll be up a number of times before my alarm even goes off.

They do make up for my lack of sleep during the days with their smiles and general happy attitudes. Lately Avit has started doing a ton of talking, with “da-da-da” and “ga-ga” sounds and even mimicking Ryan the other night when he was saying hi. Nat does more of a “singing,” with high-pitched little squeals and shrieks like Lana used to do, plus a ton of raspberries blowing and motorboat noises. It’s pretty hysterical. And they both get huge chuckling belly laughs going, which is just amazing. When I pick Nat up, he loves to grab the sides of my neck, pull in real close to my face, and act like he’s going to eat my nose. I love it!

They both still love the jumperoos, being held and played with (obviously), their show on Netflix called Little Baby Bum (i don’t know what it is, but this show has total baby mind control. they can both be screaming crabby, and i’ll put them on the living room floor and turn that show on and they instantly quiet), pacifiers and snuggling into their muslin blankets to sleep, being in the stroller and car, reaching for and grabbing toys now, and watching and interacting with all of us. The big 3 love playing with these little guys, too. I just switched out all their 6 month clothes and brought up everything 6-9, 6-12, and 9 month sizes, and I swear those are all going to be too small soon as well. They’re in size 3 daytime diapers and I just bought the first pack of size 4 overnights. I’m hoping that trying overnight diapers now will help get them through the nights better, too. Yeah, we’ll see.

So, that was more than a quick update, but life is pretty great with these little guys. Like Della said in her note to me last summer when I was so upset when we found out we were having twins, it’s going to be fun! It is a shit ton of work, and every day has to be a very controlled level of chaos or else it can get overwhelming, but I think I’m doing a pretty good job. Plus the big 3 really are excellent helpers, which is a lifesaver. It still sounds so weird to me to hear myself say we have 5 children. I think it always will!

Now for the monthly comparisons. I don’t think I had started writing here when Della was 6 months old, but I’ll give you Lana’s and Morrison’s 6 and 7 month posts:

Lana 6 months; Morrison 6 months; Lana 7 months; Morrison 7 months

And here are all the pictures – Della, Lana, Morrison, then the twins. Whew! Let’s see if I can get their 8 month post written before they turn 16.

 

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These days

These days are full of burp rags and 2 a.m. feedings; diaper after diaper after diaper and tiny baby snuggles.

Watching them take in this whole new world with wide, innocent, beautiful eyes. Something new to them every day, each piece filling my heart more and more.

These days are full of wiping 3-year-old buns and filling milk cups; taking breakfast and lunch orders and cleaning off hands and faces.

Figuring out when to let them try it and when to keep doing it myself. Knowing they want to learn and grow but selfishly wanting them to stay my babies forever. Trying to raise them to be good, kind, strong adults while making sure they live childhood fully.

I tell them constantly – enjoy every single day and year as a kid, because once you’re a grownup, you’re a grownup for the rest of your life. Being a kid is so much more fun!

These days are full of “Mama, watch me,” and “Mama, know what?” and “Mama, can I have that?” and “Mama,” “Mama,” “Mama.”

And I try to answer each and every one, because I know someday I’ll hear it no more.

These days are full of giving back pacifiers and rubbing tiny noses, soothing and calming just by being near.

These days are full of onesies and strollers and bikes and dolls and toys and imagination and creation and fun. Even the really, really long days. Start over in the morning, look back, and I can always see the fun. They’re kids. They do.

These days are full of laundry and messes and cleaning and laundry and messes and cleaning. But they’re mine, and I get to do them. I don’t have to wait until after work or on the weekend.

These days are full of one more kiss when I go to bed. They’re always deep in sleep and smell warm. Like these long summer days of play.

These days are rarely my own and are almost completely for these 5 incredible, magical, wonderful little faces. But that alone makes me ridiculously happy.

 

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Twins 5 month stats

The twins turned 5 months on June 30. No checkup this month either, so this will be another photo post.

Avit is now rolling all over the place, and Nat is very close. He can get his whole lower body over, just gets stuck trying to get his head and shoulders to follow. He likes to stop twisted halfway and just look around, little goofball.

We switched them into a crib from the pack n play in our bedroom a few days ago because they’re getting so big, and Avit was totally steamrolling over Nat all night. He still does, but now at least little Natty Nat has slightly more room to get out of the way. This is very typical of their personalities – Nat is generally very calm and easygoing, whereas I like to describe Avit as a little more high maintenance. Definitely crabbier. And so many times I go into our room to find Avit screaming right in Nat’s face and Nat just lying there, totally asleep.

They love to blow spits to talk to everyone, and the fake coughs are in full effect, just like their big brother and sisters did. I took the arched playmats out of the living room and brought up the jumperoo and 2 bumbo chairs, and they both love being in both of those. A little more physical activity is what they want now instead of just lying around.

They did great on our family vacation up north. Despite sleeping like garbage, they really didn’t add much trouble or hassle to the trip at all. We made sure bottles were ready well before needed, planned enough stops for diaper changes as well as letting the big 3 go to the bathroom while driving, and made sure to be proactive with their needs instead of reactive. Major difference in resultant attitude and decibel level.

These little ones are getting big! They’ve been with us on the outside almost half a year now, and just like Della’s note to me said when I found out last summer that I was having twins – don’t worry, it’ll be fun!

Comparisons, as usual – Della, Lana, Morrison, twins. Seeing any resemblances getting stronger?

And now all twins. Pretty soon they’ll be big enough to each go on their own rug.

 

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Up Nort’

A couple weeks ago we took our first vacation as a family of 7, and it ended up being a lot of fun. We drove up to northern Wisconsin, rented a little cabin for a couple days, and tested the waters of big-family cabin life.

We went to a little place called Delta Lodge in Iron River, WI, which is all the way near the northern border of the state, up by Bayfield and Ashland on Lake Superior. It had 12 cabins on a small inland lake, and we were in cabin #4 – 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, kitchen, living room, and screened-in porch. We shared a dock and campfire pit with the cabin next door, and we got to use a rowboat and kayaks for the whole stay.

We split up the drive north, spending our first vacation night with my aunt and uncle in Eau Claire. That in itself was a great time, because we hadn’t been there in years. It made for a wonderful visit, and the kids had a blast exploring all their land on a couple nice long walks.

We only spent 2 full days at the cabin, after getting there around 3:00 p.m. on the first day and leaving at 10:00 a.m. on the fourth day, but Ryan and I agreed that it was plenty for this first trip. We really just wanted to get a feel of how things would go with this crew at a cabin, and we wanted to check out someplace new since we haven’t done this before. We won’t be going to Canada this summer, so I really wanted the kids to get some swimming and lake time in somewhere. This was perfect.

Ryan took them on row boat rides, Della learned how to kayak, the girls swam like water bugs with me, Morrison loved playing on the dock, they constantly fed hot dog and hamburger buns to the bluegill who lived under our dock, we made s’mores over the campfire, we played games after dinner in the cabin, we celebrated the summer solstice, the twins broke in their new playpen as their bed, and we figured out what we do and don’t want to do the same next year.

There had been some really severe thunderstorms in the area right before we arrived, and by the time we drove home, Lake Superior was still so churned up that the water looked red from all the iron in the soil up there. It was crazy.; it looked like we were on Mars.

It was a great time, and we’re already looking forward to finding another fun spot for next summer.

 

 

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The monkeys are definitely out!

We’re reaching the end of the first week of summer vacation, and it’s off to a great start!

Personally, I love summer vacation, what with the total lack of schedules since I cherish our lazy days and don’t make the kids do tons of activities and lessons in the summer. People keep saying oh man, how are you going to manage all 5 at home this summer, and I just politely smile and nod and think psshht, I got this. Just like any other day.

Lana finished up K4 the day before Della finished 2nd grade, and they both had such wonderful years. I can’t believe Lana’s first full year of school is already over!

But to kick off our summer break I’ve already taken all 5 of them on a run, we got the big 3 signed up for the summer reading program at the library, they had a picnic lunch in the backyard, the girls have both created and started filling nature drawing binders, the girls are also loving the daily entries in their summer bridge workbooks (a sure sign it’s still early in the summer since Della has never wanted to finish it by the time school starts up again), we’ve played at the school playground where Della and I raced on the monkey bars (totally a tie!), and Ryan’s taken them to various parks a couple times plus out to lunch. He’s home for 4 weeks right now finishing his paternity leave from the twins and working on the attic. Plus we play with friends every day. And by playing with friends, I mean all the kids run around together while the parents enjoy cocktails.

We also sold the little wooden playhouse we’ve had in the backyard since Lana was born. The girls were outgrowing it, even though they all still played in it a lot, but they all voted to set up a new picnic area in that space instead of fixing up the playhouse. So away it went, with us all waving goodbye to a good little friend. Fortunately we are all enjoying what I like to call my new cocktail lounge very much.

We’re going on a family trip up north next week, and we’re all really looking forward to that. Summer is here, and life is good!

 

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Twins 4 month stats

Nat and Avit turned 4 months old the same day Morrison turned 3 years old, so that was a very fun day around here.

We did have a 4-month well check, so here are the twins’ official stats:

Nat

  • Weight:  14 lbs. 15 oz. (38%)
  • Height:  25.5″ (62%)
  • Head:  41.2 cm (33%)
  • BMI:  16.2 kg/m2 (24%)

Avit

  • Weight:  14 lbs. 8 oz. (27%)
  • Height:  24.5″ (18%)
  • Head:  42 cm (59%)
  • BMI:  17 kg/m2 (45%)

So Nat is an inch longer and half a pound heavier, yet Avit’s head is slightly bigger. These 2 have gotten so big! No more tiny babies. Not that they ever really were super tiny, though, both being born the same size as most singletons. Just tiny to us.

I can’t remember if I switched their clothes before or after they turned 4 months, but now they wear mostly 6 months sizes. There are just a couple 3-6 month pieces I’ve kept up because they’re cute and run a little bigger, but I couldn’t bear to squeeze their chubby little legs into 3 month sleepers anymore.

I’m bumping up to size 3 diapers for this next shipment, but, in all fairness, I think the brand we use runs a little smaller than others. They’re still almost exclusively breastfed, with their daytime bottles having just a little formula mixed into each one. I haven’t really noticed any difference in their sleep patterns based on the amount of formula they have, but I like mixing it to stretch the milk supply and get them some vitamins and minerals.

They’re still getting their 4 bottles throughout the day, then nursing overnight, and I pump twice a day to keep the stash stocked. We haven’t started any solid foods yet, because they’re still young enough to not really need them, plus I’m lazy and bottles are easy.

I’m finally starting to notice the typical baby 3-nap-a-day pattern – sleep a little while between the last nursing of the morning and the first morning bottle; may or may not sleep after the first morning bottle; take a pretty solid nap after the noon-time bottle (hopefully!); then doze a little off and on after the mid-afternoon bottle. Then they go right to bed after the 6:00ish bottle for the night (hooray!).

Thankfully I’ve noticed a slight increase in their overnight sleep, too. I won’t feed them before about 1:00 at the earliest now, and most nights it’s become closer to 2:00-3:00. A few nights ago one of them actually slept until 4:00! And because I’m still so sleep deprived I can’t remember which one it was, but I think it was Nat. Avit did wake up for about 1:30 and 3:30 feedings that night, but for some reason little Natty Nat didn’t (I think). Then it’s about every 2 hours until morning for feedings after that. So if it’s a 2:00 wakeup, I can generally count on that one to be up again around 4:00 and 6:00, etc. I don’t force them to wake up at the same time anymore, because I’m so tired that I just grab any sleep in between wakeups that I can get. Hopefully they’ll both get to the same wakeup schedule soon, though, and stretch it out even more overnight.

Their smiles and talking sounds are amazing, and Avit has started adding some “D” sounds to all their “G” sounds, coos, and oohs. And they have both now laughed, which about makes my heart explode every time.

I just brought the jumperoo up today and took both arched playmats out, so we’re transitioning them to more activity, too. They’re so close to rolling but just can’t quite get all the way over yet, so maybe getting them a little more physical will help. Lying on the floor like little blobs doesn’t exactly do wonders for large motor skills. They both try to pull themselves up to sitting positions, too, and Nat is so close. He can get himself about halfway up, then curls up into a little ball on his side. It’s pretty funny to watch. They both loved the jumper this morning, though, so I’m sure it’s only a matter of days before they both jump themselves to sleep in it, just like each of the other 3 did.

I say it all the time, but I still can’t believe there are 2 of them. I look at them both every day and just think how happy they make me. All 5 of these kids are little miracles running around my heart.

Now here are the comparisons again. The big 3 first, then the twins.

And now the twins month-by-month. Growing every day!

 

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