Still waiting...

The Dr. said it can take up to a week for the reflux medication to completely kick in, we're on day 6 and I'm not completely convinced that it's helping. Poor Jackson still seems to be in constant pain some times of the day, he just screams and screams, pours out the tears, and arches his neck and back as hard as he can. I'm hoping day 7 will bring the magic with it and he'll get some relief.

The wrath of Genevieve

Genevieve has 2 current issues that we're hoping she'll outgrow. One of them she will, one of them... well, we'll have to wait and see. Her 1st issue is with food - she loves to eat but has trouble keeping the food down. She's a proficient puker - there's no nice way to say it! Her 2nd issue is anger management - she has 3 stages but the first 2 are passed very quickly. Starting to feel annoyed, irritated, and full out irate. There's no middle ground if her needs/wishes aren't met RIGHT away! I think she's cute when she screams, so here's a random picture:

For some reason we have many pictures of angry Genevieve while she's wearing dresses?! I hope this doesn't bode poorly for the future of her dozens and dozens of dresses just waiting for her to grow into them!

To go along with the random picture, I have a random story for the "baby book" about not messing with Genevieve. Last night her father had the nerve to tell her that feeding her was a waste of his time, due to the fact she was happily leaking half the bottle out of her mouth, and not really swallowing. Genevieve took immediate exception to that statement - she is a clever girl, after all - and puked up the whole bottle all over her father. He had to spend 20 minutes cleaning up... I'm guessing he'll think twice before calling ANY time spent with her a waste again? :-)

Blessing Day

We're members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and in our church it is customary for the fathers to give their infants blessings when they're young. We had the chance to have all my extended family join us at our ward yesterday, and Jackson and Genevieve were blessed. Genevieve wore the same dress I was blessed in, very cool! Here they are looking spiffy, all dressed up for their first day at church.

As happens quite often, one of the first pictures was the best - with 2 infants it's hard to get a good shot:


Here they are mid photo shoot, getting restless (or is it that they're resting?):


And, here they are telling us that the photo shoot is over:


Lastly, my artsy (not on purpose - the flash didn't go off!) shot of Bentley enjoying the photo shoot:

Living Dress Up Dolls

Babies are fun to dress up. Here's a photo of the latest dress up fun we've had with Genevieve:


She's wearing a dress that I (her grandmother) wore when I was an infant. (Genevieve's father asked how I could be sure it was my dress because I, like Genevieve, am a twin and therefore maybe this dress was worn by my twin sister and not by me. Regardless, it's still a family heirloom.)

Jackson models a cute shirt (garage sale find) and pants (former Bentley attire):


Bentley is adorable in his dinosaur bath towel:


And here are the twins yesterday when they wore matching outfits with coordinating sunglasses:


So many outfits, so little time. The twins have already outgrown a goodly number of cute outfits. Why must babies grow so fast?!

Fun at the Fair

Bentley and Matt went to the state fair today with Tyler, I stayed home with the twins. The reports are that it was a fun time, although Bentley couldn't be convinced to try a funnel cake - the kid missed out! I think half the fun of the fair is the food, but apparently Bentley didn't want to venture outside the comfort zone of french fries. Oh well, maybe next year?!

Bentley enjoyed checking out the amusement rides, although he isn't quite big enough to ride them yet. He also enjoyed the Irish Cloggers and part of the Lumberjack show. The favorite activity though, of course, was the big barn full of animals! The huge bull (2400 lbs) was not a hit, but he enjoyed the pigs, goats, turkeys, ... Matt says they practicied their animal noises - he's always claiming Bentley knows many animal sounds. I haven't yet heard these noises so I can't verify, but I'll take his word for it. :-) Hopefully next year all five of us can make it out for a day of adventure together!

Sleeping through the Night

This past week I pulled out the parenting book I read/used with Bentley, and decided that maybe it's time to get these twins on more a schedule so they'll sleep longer at night. We're on Day 3, and they're doing great! Day 1 they slept 7 1/2 hours at night, and last night they slept 8 hours. Maybe I'm just dreaming, but who knows - maybe we can get them to sleep 10 hours? Their EASY (eat/activity/sleep/YOU time!) routine is providing happiness in our home. :-) Now if we can continue to make this happen - that will be the trick.

Resting together

They won't both fit in the bouncer together for long, which is too bad. They're awfully cute . :-)

And yes - Jackson is in the pink blanket and Genevieve is using the blue one. Sometimes these things happen around here! At least they have their own clothing on....

Genevieve and the bumbo

Genevieve trying out the $5 bumbo:


Genevieve unhappy in the bumbo and Bentley unsure what to do about it:


Genevieve, after deciding green wasn't her color and convincing Mom to buy her a purple bumbo (which I had to pay $20 for on Craig's list - the things we do for fashion!):

Twinks 2 month check up

Jackson and Genevieve had their 2 month check in yesterday. Their Dr. was very impressed with their weight gain, they have made it onto the growth charts!

Genevieve weighed in at 10 lbs 6 oz (50th %) and 22 inches (30%), and Jackson weighed in at 10 lbs 12 oz (25th %) and 21.5 inches (10th %). I think Jackson might have another inch in him if he would ever straighten his neck and back out! At this same age Bentley was at 10 lbs 8 oz and 22 inches, so they're neck and neck with him. Very impressive since they were born 6 weeks early. I can't believe Genevieve is in the 50th % for weight. Yikes, must be that special high calorie preemie formula!

For the physical/intellectual milestones the twins are still behaving more like newborns than 2 month old babies. This is because they will most likely develop skills (like discovering their hands, smiling to interact with us, etc) based on their adjusted age - when they were due, not when they were actually born. At this age Bentley was already giving us huge grins, and cooing and ahhing with us. I can't wait until the twins can interact with us a little more!

The Dr. gave Jackson a prescription for reflux medication, and we'll see if it helps with the incessant arching and screaming. I hope so, the poor kid seems so unhappy half the time... Here'a picture of Genevieve and Jackson showing off their bandaids from their four immunizations each. Ouch!

Do they look alike?

Here's Bentley, at 7 weeks:

Here's Jackson, at 7 weeks:

I think there is a similiarity there!

It Finally Happened

We all have been waiting for months--over a year, really--for this event to occur. I've seen babies who are five months old happily perform this act, but our grandson had until today utterly refused to do it. We adults have discussed the topic numerous times, shaking our heads in amazement that the wonder child would not do this activity on his own. We've tried now and again over the months to get him to do it, but NO! NO! NO! he refused to indulge us. He liked the status quo.

Then this afternoon the twins were screaming loudly since they wanted their bottles NOW. I put Bentley in the big recliner with one of his favorite blankets. I told him that I'd be back soon. Then I scooped up one of the twins to change a diaper. Bentley was not pleased to see me go off with a baby, but he knows that's how it works sometimes. After changing the baby's diaper, I went in the kitchen and got Bentley's bottle from his mom and took it over to him in the recliner and offered it to him. I was still holding a baby. Bentley took the bottle from me, popped it into his mouth, and held it himself. Yes--Bentley held his own bottle!!! He's never done that for longer than ten seconds before, but this afternoon he quite agreeably held his own bottle for the entire time it took to drink as much as he wanted.

Bentley has finally accepted that the level of care around his home has changed radically and isn't going to improve in the near future. He's a pragmatist--although it took him two months to cave in to the new regime.

Playground Time

We take Bentley to the playground at the local schools or parks quite regularly. We love to watch him climb and slide and run and throw and just have fun. Today we took the twins along, too. This is how they spent their time:


Here is how Bentley spent his time:

An odd bathtime activity

Bentley always enjoys bathtime. A chance to play with water, what's not to like? Lately he's been enjoying the rubber ducky. First he will "drown" the duckie, then "resucitate" the duckie, and then take a moment to admire his work and start the whole process over again. I told him there are easier ways to get a drink of water...

Thank you Grandma & Opa!

Matt's business trip has seemed more like a vacation than a hardship, as Grandma and Opa have taken a twin home with them every night. It's less than half the work when there is just one baby, I do believe! I might have to conspire to send Matt away on a few more trips... ? Just kidding... I think.

The 1st of many hair "dos"

I stumbled across the headbands (and many other tempting hair clips, barrets, and pony tail holders) while in Walmart today and realized Genevieve didn't own any headbands yet. For $2.59 we decided to correct that glaring wardrobe problem. I think it was a good choice!

Teal rocks

Bentley and I coordinated our clothes today, and it wasn't even on purpose... how odd is it that we both own tops in this particular shade? :-)

Baby Bliss on the way

This is a picture of my super duper archer:

Jackson spends half of his waking time arching like crazy, and sometimes crying like crazy too. I think he might have some form of reflux. Above, he arched and scooted himself up in the carseat, and managed to knock the carseat backwards because he was squirming so hard while doing so.

I hate listening to the poor kid scream, he sounds so unhappy... I've researched reflux solutions online, as I'm reluctant to automatically resort to prescription drugs to help. I read about gripe water on an online message board and my Mother tracked it down from that vague reference. She found that gripe water is an herbal solution mix, and she found it marketed under the name of Baby Bliss. The testomonials assure me that this product is amazing. Amazon, as always, was there to help me and all I had to do was hit the one click order button! It's like magic...

Bliss is on the way and we'll see if it lives up to the hype.

Special Order Only...

Today the twins and I had an afternoon of fun together while Bentley spent time with Grandpa and Grandma Altman. First we went to the Double Cuddles support group at Providence with our buddies Patrick, Cassidy, and Amrita. Then we decided to venture out to the big world of Walmart.

This was the first time I was out with the twins both in the double stroller, where it was obvious both babies were with me and that they were twins. They had many admirers at the store, but my favorite was the 3 year old in the shoe section. She told me how pretty my children were, and hung around to oooh and ahhh at them for a while. As her Mother dragged her off I heard her asking "can we buy those here, Mommy?". Her Mother told her babies aren't available from Walmart.

Oddly enough I recall a similiar incident with Bentley about a year ago, when an older couple asked me what aisle they could pick up a cute baby like him on... I told them that he was a special order only item!

Right? Wrong?: Depends on Your Ears

Bentley and I disagree on how to wear sunglasses. Whenever I put sunglasses on him, I put them so that the ear thingies (?!) bend down towards his ear. He prefers to wear them with the bend going up away from his ear--not as irritating perhaps?


Although, he seems to think Nefer should wear them with the ear thingies going down. Of course, Nefer's ears are rather large.

Bang! Clang! Rattle!

Yet another new game with balls has been instituted at our home by the ever clever Bentley. He discovered that if he threw his green rubber ball on to the bottom shelf of the plant stand it made a wonderful sound--bang, clang, rattle! While Bentley found the sound mellifluous, his opa did not. Opa thought it was tinny and noisy and, well, unpleasant. But, being a good opa, he let his grandson continue to throw the ball over and over and over onto the bottom shelf. The shelf is anchored to the wall fortunately, although not because I anticipated it being turned into a musical instrument. (I was afraid Bentley might try to climb it.) I wonder what the plants on the upper shelves think of this activity? If they all start dropping leaves will it be because of the noise or the jarring impact of each throw?