Wednesday, March 26, 2008

9 months old!

Jackson and Genevieve are well on the way to the big number 1! This month it has been fun to see them playing and getting into everything, chasing each other and chasing us down.

Most parenting books and websites will tell you that until about age 2 1/2 children engage in mostly parallel play. They might play in the same room, or even right next to other children, but they're not too interested in playing together or interacting. It's different with twins. Probably because they've been "blessed" (maybe they think forced?!) into close quarters for so long. Whatever the reason, they definitely interact with each other and it's not just parallel play.


What's new?

The twins can now move faster than the speed of light (or at least it seems that way to their slightly overwhelmed Mom). They pull up on everything and sometimes come tumbling back down. Genevieve has become more graceful with her falls, but Jackson seems to have a knack for bruising up his face while falling from whatever he's grabbed onto. I'm hoping he learns better falling form from his sister before too many more bruises show up.

Sometimes I forget they are "allowed" seperate likes and dislikes - and then I am reminded of that fact again. During eating time Jackson loves yogurt and bananas, Genevieve tolerates them because he likes them. Genevieve loves sweet potatoes, Jackson tolerates them. Both agree on intense dislike of sweet peas, for whatever reason. They enjoy ritz, vanilla wafers, and those very bland Gerber baby puffs. We discovered this past week that Genevieve loves bread. We're starting to feed the twins more table food and they do a good job with it. The lack of teeth hinders Jackson a bit but he valiantly works around it! They are very messy eaters, but we keep feeding them anyway. :-) Here's Jackson saying no way to the sweet peas:


Bentley has been whispering to the twins about what a waste of time naps are. I think he has them convinced, as half of the time I can only manage to get 1 nap out of them for the day. I've reminded them that they aren't supposed to move to 1 nap a day until they're at least a year old but they don't seem to care.

As for new baby tricks...

Genevieve can mimic singing. Well, kind of. :-) If you hum something at her sometimes she'll hum it back. I'll admit the non-discerning ear may just think she's shrieking in a loud voice... but that's not the case!

Jackson loves to clap. Genevieve claps on occasion (today she clapped because I "made" Jackson scream due to a face cleaning... hmmm...), but Jackson claps all the time. He claps when he sees food coming his way. He claps when you look at him and smile. He claps when we watch T.V.. He loves to clap! His clapping technique is not traditional - he holds one hand steady and claps the other hand into it. Genevieve claps in the more classic form with both hands moving towards eachother and meeting.


Jackson is still the strong and silent type. I think we've caught him throwing out mama and dada once or twice, in moments of weakness, but he's still holding out on mastery of the English language.

Genevieve decided to master Jackson's trademark look - the flatline mouth. Here she is demonstrating her new skill.


We have their 9 month check up on Friday, so stay tuned for the newest stats. Until then, here's a goodbye photo from our masters of havoc:

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