Crafting

Just saw this page today and look forward to using some of these ideas for rainy/snowy days with the boys.

PS The sleeping through the night did NOT last, which I actually prefer--if they wake up once to eat, they don't wake up in the morning starving and impatient. Plus they sleep longer.

The start of good things?

Last night the boys slept from 7pm to 6:30am, with no wakeups. They were eager to eat when they did wake up but Mama Lovebo slept well through the night! Unfortunately we didn't get to sleep until nearly midnight after a great, impromptu visit from our neighbors and friends Mark and Mindy and their kids. But it was all worth it!

This weekend we're looking forward to visits with both sets of grandparents!

Theo's First Steps!

Crawling

I have realized lately that I have more pictures of Theo than Beckett. I briefly felt bad about that, til I realized that there are two good reasons, not including favoritism, for the disparity: 1) Beckett has learned that the camera produces an orange light before it flashes, so he has learned to close his eyes when he sees the light; and 2) he is faster than Theo, which means that just as I'm positioning the camera, he's scooted right away.

Speaking of which, today when I got home I was walking around with my boys (each holding one hand, walking around the house together), when Beck came to the staircase. After about 30 seconds of trying just to reach the mail on the third step up, he put his knees on the first step, then pulled himself up to standing, then put his knees on the second step, and pulled himself to standing. So apparently now we can climb stairs up in here.

Eleven Months Old!

Yesterday the boys turned eleven months old. Hard to believe! So quick developmental update:

Theo: military crawls (belly on floor, arms dragging the rest of his body forward); also pivots quickly and likes to test his standing ability; cruises along furniture, walls, from place to place; loves sweet potatoes and anything Mama is eating. He loves to shake his head but hasn't really figured out what that means, yet. But he sure does love to smile and laugh while shaking his head no. Loves to pull himself to standing in the bathtub, which is the only real NO in our house so far; especially loves to do so after I have pulled him down multiple times already, while looking me square in the eye and smiling. Slaps his head with his hand and laughs if I say "Oh my goodness!" Grunts a lot, especially after I've said something I think he'll like (as in, "hah, lady, you think that's so special? You bore me.") Points at ball when asked "where is the ball?" A favorite game is collecting several of an item on one side of him, then picking them up and throwing them on the other side. Back and forth, with both hands grabbing and throwing objects.

Beckett: loves to walk and would do it all day if he could; not so into eating these days--has to be coaxed into most meals because it means momentarily abandoning eating; cruises well between furniture, walls, etc. Last week sometime I was nursing Theo and Beckett was across the room and I realized he wanted to nurse, too. We had a huge box leftover from our new toy storage shelf and I pushed it with my foot across the room so it bridged the gap between us. Beck happily cruised right along the box over to me and put up his hands to be picked up! He's the reason we have to use the gate at the top of the stairs now. He loves cheese and most things Mama's eating. He often watches while Theo is misbehaving, then looks at me like, oh Mama, Theo's trouble! Loves to wave, mostly to nothing, and says "hi" or "hey" a lot. Says something that sounds a lot like "cat" whenever a cat enters the room. It also sounds a lot like "dah" which is what he calls lots of things, as in "that." Has been found standing in his crib several mornings now.

 Theo and Beckett playing with their friend Aria, Stacey's five month old daughter. She did a great job sitting up, and the boys did a mostly good job not shoving her around.

 Theo showing off his skills with the walker. Though his favorite walker trick is to let go with his hands and bring them up above his head, testing out his standing!

 Snack attack!

I. AM. NUMBER. ONE.

Chores chores chores

When it's laundry day around the House of Lovebo, it's serious. Because I do a load of laundry nearly every day, it doesn't often get out of control. But this is after I think two full days of doing no clothes laundry, plus doing sheets and mattress pads and towels, plus washing some new clothes, et al. The boys helped sort (by sort I mean roll around in the dirties, and pick each one up and put it in another spot).

I'm also constantly moving furniture and things around adjusting to how the boys are growing and developing. Beck is fully crawling now and just today pulled down two floor lamps and slammed his fingers in a dresser drawer. We're behind in the baby-proofing and trying to catch up. New developments in the downstairs playroom: no furniture except the changing table/dresser, garbage pail, and diaper pail. That creates a large open space for walking on the padded tiles and throwing toys all over the room.

Beginning of Learning to Share

The battles over toys have begun in earnest. Theo often wants the same toy that Beckett is playing with. Even when Theo gets that toy and Beck starts playing with something else, Theo then wants the new toy. He's THAT kid. The walker is an especially hot commodity, particularly when there are not willing grandparents or friends over to share the load and walk with fingers with the other one. Theo often wins the battles over toys because he is more focused and persistent, whereas Beck often just lets it go. Sometimes he is not happy about having to let go, though.

Jalen with Theo and Beckett

Jalen is Mark and Mindy's second oldest child, and he is great with the babies. Here he is helping to entertain them after mealtime.

Easter with the Grandparents Leibowitz

We had a great trip to Johnstown to celebrate the boys' first Easter with their grandparents, great grandmother Lois, great great aunt Renee, uncle Jon, cousin Kelsey, great uncle Gary, and great aunt and uncle Deb and Rich. They enjoyed all the long runs of carpeting, which made pushing the walker [endlessly] easier. They also ate a fair bit of pizza, ham, and yogurt to celebrate the holy day.

Daddy and Theo

10.5 months

It's been almost two weeks so I think we've truly established a new pattern now: the boys are down to one nap a day. The afternoon nap was becoming more and more of a struggle and yet they seemed to need more sleep, so last week we tried out loading them up with food and milk and a diaper change and then laying them down at 11:30am or so. The first day, last Monday, Theo slept for 3 hours! They seem much happier all day and they're still sleeping 12+ hours at night, so I think we've found a good routine for the time being. It also gives me a good 1.5 hours at the very least to get laundry done, to make dinner, or to check my email, not to mention to make and enjoy lunch in peace.


The boys still enjoy lots of time on the floor for rolling, pivoting (the most amazing physical accomplishment they've achieved yet--in a second they can do a full 180 degree turn), exploring the carpet pad, and grabbing and eating small pieces of leaves, food, and general detritus that hasn't yet been picked up by the vacuum. They have less and less interest in the plastic jungle climb-on thing as they want to be more mobile. They get up on all fours a lot and Beck especially gets up in downward dog pose a lot, with his butt up in the air, up on his hands and feet. While there have been single crawl motions here and there, there is no forward movement yet recorded. Both continue to move well backwards. Case in point: last Tuesday morning I was prepping veggies to go in the slow cooker for chili while the boys were playing in the cabinet in the kitchen where I keep plasticware, etc. I cut my finger and went upstairs to have Jeff deal with it (I am still a wimp when it comes to blood). I was upstairs for no more than 4 minutes while Jeff cleaned it out and bandaged it up. When I came back down I was stunned to find Beckett in the family room, about 20 feet (and down one step) from where I left him. He was grinning up at me, having obviously gone down the one stair backward. Lesson learned: we can't leave the boys alone in the kitchen any more!



The boys are eating three meals a day now: breakfast at 9:30am, lunch when they wake up from their nap, and dinner at 5:30 or 6. They nurse five times a day, or four times if I work and don't come home to nurse them at lunch. We haven't tried putting them down for the one midday nap without nursing first. They also usually have one or two snacks a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Their eating is pretty variable; sometimes they eat what seems to be a huge quantity, and other times they are not interested at all. Usually they alternate, though, so when one is not hungry, the other will eat anything in sight. They are eating more and more "table food"--meaning whatever it is we're eating for that meal, or leftovers from an earlier meal. Their favorite foods seem to be macaroni and cheese, beans, banana bread, and yogurt. Jeff's parents found the yogurt they like at their Price Chopper in Johnstown, so we're back in the chips! We bought a flat of it Saturday when we were visiting and the boys ate a ton of it all weekend.


Mostly the boys want to walk, either holding our hands or with the walker (thanks Ana and Robert!). Theo does more of a shuffle walk, all business, and Beckett does more wandering, checking things out along the way and pausing to look out the window, grab a cabinet handle, touch his toes, pick up a toy, or wave. Beckett has also started walking with only one hand on the walker, or in the hand of the accompanying parent. I think they'll be walking on their own very soon!

Visits with friends and family

We had a great visit to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo with friend Sara E. and her son Preston. This time everyone stayed awake the entire time, which was a first. And when watching the lemurs eating (NB: feeding time at the zoo seems to be at 4pm!), Preston reached over and gently took Beck's hand. How beautiful!



This is the boys sharing a pack and play at the Grandparents Leibowitz this weekend for Easter. As you can see, they still enjoy sharing a small sleeping space! This is wakeup at 7am.

We contracted to resurface our back deck. But then when our contractor took off the decking, he found a whole bunch of structural problems that had to be addressed before continuing. The only upside is that he's a super nice guy and the boys LOVE watching them work!

Getting Ready for Baths!

Getting two babies ready for baths, then bathing them, and then extricating them and dressing them all while never leaving babies unattended in the water can be stressful. I try to break down everything into small steps so that neither baby is alone at any point along the way. So I get them both undressed (down to their diapers) in their rooms, then take them both into the bathroom while I run the water. Then I take off both their diapers while in the bathroom. (Sometimes this small lag between diaper being off and being in the tub creates a small mess--it's a hazard of the process.) Then each is deposited in the water within 10 seconds of each other, so neither baby is out of arms' reach. After they are done playing and after I have washed them both, I drain the water while they are still in the tub so that when I leave the second baby in the tub to take the first out, there is no water left in the tub. (Again, another opportunity for pee outside the diaper.) I sometimes dry and dress them right in the bathroom so that there are no opportunities to drown themselves.

The truth is, the times that they have fallen face first in the water while playing, they have just pushed up like they do on solid ground, lifting their faces out of the water. They don't like it, but they don't just sit face first in the water. It's just too scary to contemplate so we try to exercise extreme caution around the bath!

Oh, and the laundry hamper is full of clean diapers. I take the time when they are playing in the tub to stuff our cloth diapers from my perch on the top of the toilet.

Outdoor Fun

On one of those lovely days last week we went for a great walk up to the top of the reservoir near our house. I pointed out, for the boys, where they were born, where we live, where they were conceived, where Mama stayed in the hospital in September, where Mama had her thyroid out in October, and where Daddy's favorite basketball team plays.

On one of those unbelievable days the week before St. Patrick's Day we spent the afternoon trying out our swings (from Diane and from our neighbors with twin boys down the road) in our tree.


Mindy and her kids took the kids to the park near our house to try out the swings there.

Guess Who's Standing Without Help

Yesterday Beckett took the next step towards walking (no pun intended).  As you will see in the video, he is now able to stand on his own for several seconds at a time.  Stay tuned for a similar video featuring Theo, who was practicing this same skill last night.