Leah, Emma and Claire (and Jen and John)

My parents are here on their final visit before they head to Florida for the winter. The girls are all healthy again and we’ve been busy doing things that are easier with 4 adults around.

 Yesterday we took the 3 of them downtown for lunch with Dad and a trip on the ferry (aka ferris boat). Once again I sold the ferry before doing any research. Sure enough they are on winter schedule and Centre Island is closed for the season. We ended up taking the smallest ferry I’ve ever been on over to Ward’s Island and back. The girls enjoyed it and they kept on calling the CN tower a big needle. The weather was really warm yesterday and it wasn’t even cold on the lake. They did really well at walking and only said they were tired and needed a rest a couple of times. Claire was happy to look around and as usual was low maintenance.

Leah and Emma enjoyed seeing all the tall buildings and going for lunch with John. The highlight for them was playing on some cow statues in the courtyard outside John’s building. They also had fun on the GO train although the trip back could have ended about 3 stops sooner.

Claire is eating again and has even figured out eating puffs. She is pretty slow on the eating front but now I’m hoping we can move on to self feeding. I love the beginning of self feeding - throw her in the chair, give her some puffs, and sit back while it takes her 30 mins to eat them! We bought her one of those net feeders and she likes sucking ice more than anything else we’ve tried - also a good distraction while I do other things. Sleeping is still so so. I’m giving her more bottles now - not actively weaning her because I am not ready to do night time bottles quite yet.

Claire is now into waving at everyone. She has added saying “hibye” when she does it. It is pretty cute and I’ll have to get it on video. For the record her first word in context was MumMum for me.

Leah and Emma are doing pretty well. Leah isn’t sleeping as long as she should and we are noticing some of her behaviour crap coming back. I’m pretty sure it’s sleep although it might be just excitment with my parents here and halloween. She can get pretty wound up. Emma is good - she has been sleeping in til nearly 9 on the days that Leah is considerate enough to quietly get up. When Emma is tired she gets defiant. Neither one of them is particularly pleasant when they’re not well rested.

Halloween party today at school and trick or treating tonight. Exciting stuff. 

On the cow.

This time last week was the beginning of the first cold to really come through our house this year.  Sunday Leah went down, Monday Emma went down, Tuesday was John’s day and Claire took Wednesday. Thankfully John’s parents were here til Tuesday morning when they went home - and got sick.

After much observation, John and I decided that life as a sick person is quite possibly at it’s best when you’re 3. There is no school (real school anyway) to worry about missing and you’re at an age where you understand that when you’re really sick you lay on a couch and drift in and out of conciousness, only awakening to drink the offerings and open your mouth for medicine. Emma and Leah lay on the couch for two days and then I took them to the doctor where I lost a debate and put them on antibiotics for double ear infections and a very bad cold including sore throats and 5 kleenex boxes worth of snot.

At the total other end of the spectrum is a sick baby. Claire has been congested for about a week now but she was completely down from 11pm Tuesday night right through til late Wednesday night. In that 24 hour stretch she didn’t sleep for more than an hour and she didn’t sleep unless she was on one of our chests. When she was awake she wasn’t happy unless she was being held. One nice thing that came of all this is that she now likes to lay on her chest on you - a position she has squirmed out of since she was days old.     

Next we move to the working adult. Fortunately this one is easy to analyze since one of John’s single coworkers came down with a similar illness and also took two days off work to recover. I’m sure it is obvious what the recovery consisted of for a man with 3 sick daughters vs a man with nothing but Benylin and a bed. Needless to say, single friend went back to work with 36 out of 48 hours of sleep while John is still sick.  

Then there is me who is half happy and half bitter that I never seem to get sick. Just for fun on our Friday night, John and I debated which was a better deal in our house - sick or healthy. On my side there is John sleeping in til 9:30am every day that he hasn’t gone to work. For John there is being ill and only getting to sleep til 9:30am. It’s actually a pretty pointless debate since in reality they both suck.  I just get bitter because I have all these grand ideas of lying in bed sick all day - John has shown me that it is impossible. No matter how snotty they are - they will find you - and make you play playdoh.

The recap of the last little bit:
- John parents were here (and in Guelph) for 10 days. We got a lot done around the house and John and I went out for dinner on night and to Ikea on a Saturday. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned that the girls are still too short to go into the playroom at Ikea. I can’t wait.

-Emma is pretty much back to loving school. They missed picture day on Monday and are becoming part of a rare breed of 3 year olds that have never been professionally photographed. I was actually pretty disappointed. They both had a turn at being special helper this week and were really proud of themselves.

-Nevermind the princess crap, we are getting reports from the teachers (as well as countless mention at home) that the girls have crushes on two of the little boys in their class. It is comical (as long as you aren’t John) to see them talk about these two boys. Last week one of the boys drew them a picture - it is proudly displayed on our fridge. I will say that one of my daughters has waaaay better taste than the other

-I got a new camera! The LCD screen on our old one broke and it was the push I needed. I am sick of delay on our old camera as well as the poor video. I’m still fiddling with it but so far I am very impressed. Here’s a video I took of Claire last night.

-I did my first 5km run….well we’ll call it a walk/run! It was interesting - much harder than I expected and my expectations were pretty low seeing as I’ve never been much of an endurance runner. John met me at the finish line and the first words out of my mouth were never again After some reflection I think I might try again in the spring. It’s definitely motivating when it comes to finding time to use the treadmill. I am in total awe of people that can run long distances.

-Emma started swimming last Saturday morning. Leah was too sick for her class on Sunday. We had this week off due to a swim meet.

-We went to the pumpkin patch with Coby, Carrie and Ronan and froze. We went again today just the 5 of us and it was much more pleasant in the 25C heat.

-Claire started pulling up to standing. She can also wave.

-We had John’s parents and Drew and Jen over for Thanksgiving. We thought about everything we had to be thankful for!

-Leah left Lambie sitting on the table in the sun today and she got a terrible sunburn. She was very sick and needed her Mommy and her Granny (me) to give her hugs so she could feel better.

That’s all that I can think of. I’m going to try and make an effort to update this more now that we’re all on the road to recovery.
                                             

Hair:
Still straight. Getting longer. Coppery colour.

Eyes:
Greeny brown

 Teeth:
She got her top right one for a total of 6. I think she is working on two new top teeth.

Size:
Measured on the 10th. 17lbs 10ozs and 37 inches long (I think she’s longer - she was having a fit about laying naked on the protective paper.)

Eating:
She was eating really well until we gave her yogurt. Now it’s a fight to get anything that isn’t yogurt into her. I was hoping it was her teeth that was causing her to like cold stuff but I think she just likes yogurt. Claire is very stubborn. I am now a pro at mixing things with yogurt.

I have her cheerios. She plays with them and drops them on the floor. She will eat baby cookies.

She is still nursing (mostly at night…) a few times a day. She can go quite a long time during the day and I have to remember to feed her because she won’t cry. I am trying to get as much into her during the day in hopes of getting her to go longer at night. It’s not working.

She still gets a bottle of formula at bedtime.

Sleep:
Claire is a sleeping disaster this month. I just read last month’s update and it seems like an impossible dream at this point.

We are having a hard time getting her to nap. She seems to want to nap when she’s in the car and will fall asleep on the way to drop off the girls and then wake up when I have to take her out to drop them off. The catnap settles her need for sleep but then she’ll fall asleep again when we pick them up and again get woken up. If she naps at home she never lasts long.

Bedtime is going well and she is usually asleep by 7:45. She usually gets up at least twice before I go to bed and then every 2-3 hours for the rest of the night.

She is back in bed with us. She had a cold a couple of weeks ago and on night three of hourly wakings I gave in. I bought my first book this month and it has lowered my sleep expectations as well as reinforced our decisions.

Getting Around:
Claire started crawling this month and is now into everything. She did the commando for a couple of days and then figured out there was a better way. She is pulling up onto her knees. She has taken some good spills but she recovers quickly. She isn’t overly daring but sometimes she gets excited and loses her balance. She likes to stand if you hold her up and you have to bend her knees to get her to go down. She also does this funny move where she goes up on pointed toes and puts her butt up in the air. She also has the v sit position mastered - I think babies would find pilates a piece of cake.

Things she’s saying:
We have heard so many sounds this month. B, D, G, E, I, M, N, P,V, W, Y combined with uh, ah, ee, um. I know I’m missing some but she’s always talking and copying us. She does have her serious moments but I doubt Claire’s speech is going to be delayed by having two sisters.

Things she’s doing this month
-eating yogurt, yogurt and more yogurt
-being stubborn
-making faces. Current favourites are the “you did not just put a vegetable in my mouth” disgusted look and the “I’m so hurt you gave me to a stranger” lip quiver.
-she settles well in nursery and by all reports has a lot of fun. She also naps for them…little monkey.
-being surprising good natured on very little sleep
-repeating sounds we make
-initiating games of peekaboo around corners or with a blanket
-crawling around and discovering toys. She loves to pull out the baskets and empty them one thing at a time
-Doing the stiff body when we try and put her in the carseat
-losing her attachment to her soother
-showing an interest in books and sitting still while we show her things
-playing with her sisters. She loves when they tickle her. She also crawls around looking for them.
-playing with the door stoppers
-hanging out near the closet mirror and giggling at herself

Personality:
I think the trait that sticks out the most this month is how stubborn Claire is. Her resolve is quite impressive - and very frustrating.

She is still very easy going during the day and is content to crawl around the main floor exploring. She loves when she gets down into the basement - so many things she can explore with supervision. Emma and Leah are all over the rules and serve as two extra sets of eyes when it comes to keeping Claire safe.

My only complaint is that I wish she’d sleep more. It’s been way too long since I had 5 hours of consective sleep nevermind 8 hours!

Claire - 9 months

“I had yogurt for dinner….”

John decided to work from home today.  Usually John is off to work before they get up in the morning but on the odd day that he goes in late they always ask if he’s not going to work that day. They fall over themselves in excitement when he says he’s not going. Needless to say Saturday and Sunday are popular days with the little ones.

John was on a call when I dropped them off at school today but he told them he would come pick them up so they could show him their school. I dropped them off without incident and drove home and sat on the steps reading my book while Claire napped in the car (she has a nasty habit of napping around school time).

When we went to pick them up they bolted past me screaming DADDY!!! I went to sign the sheet and noticed that there was the word dad written by both their names. Apparently they had been going on and on about how their dad was going to pick them up.

I got my first twin related feedback today. Apparently during circle time the girls were getting distracted by each other. In the car Leah said that Emma had to sit behind her to catch her in case she fell back.. One of the teachers said it was the first time they’ve noticed that they have a special bond. John and I have been noticing it more and more these past few weeks. They are all of a sudden best buds and pronounce their love for each other all the time. You catch them snuggling on the couch and holding hands willingly. It’s cute.

Tomorrow we have a busy day. I don’t think I mentioned that I am doing Mothers Are People Too again. I wasn’t going to do it but then I thought it was a good opportunity to get Claire used to other people. Tomorrow afternoon we are going to hunt for leaves in the woods of Oakville (the community trail) with Grace and Patrick - Rick Mercer stole my thunder  last night by revealing the mysteries of leaf waxing to Tara (originally from England - thought I was crazy when I said waxing leaves was fun…). And then tomorrow night Maddy is coming over for the evening. John and I will have to put four children to bed tomorrow night. It should be interesting. We are not having another baby but I think if we had a moment of weakness tomorrow will be a night to reflect back on!

Exciting times around here lately as we are now outnumbered by little people that can move. Claire is getting quicker by the day but she still hasn’t got into much trouble. Lucky for us, we never bothered decorating or buying living room furniture so Claire can pretty much do what she wants on the main floor. The girls have been told that if they want to do things that don’t involve Claire they can either go into the basement or take their stuff up to the table. End of discussion.

I am very grateful we have a finished basement. It boggles the mind how many little things we own. 

Claire is doing better now. She had a really bad cold and wasn’t sleeping well so we have reverted to some of our old habits. I bought my first parenting book (The no cry baby sleep solution) and I relate to a lot of the things the author has to say. The one thing I have FINALLY realized is that it’s not at all fair for me to compare Claire to Leah and Emma. One day it just hit me that the girls weren’t born good sleepers/nappers/routiners - they spent 23 days all by themselves in an incubator to get like that. It’s actually sad when you think about it. Unfortunately this realization came to me after my second attempt to let Claire cry. Both times she cried for an hour. We won’t be doing that again. Call me soft but I think it’s mean to do that to a baby who we’ve taught the opposite. Once she learns how to sleep and then pulls no sleeping crap I will be mean - don’t worry I haven’t completely lost it!

Things are going better with Emma. She still gets very clingy when I’m dropping them off but I am able to talk her down. Yesterday Leah finally helped me out and put her hand on Emma’s chest and said “Don’t cry Emma, I’ll hold your hand.” They both ran off without looking back. I have noticed that Emma is also more assertive with strange kids at the park so I think she is slowly learning that she can speak up rather than getting scared.

Nothing much new to report with Leah except that she is a little bit obsessed with being a princess (a yellow one of course). I went so far as to buy her a truck this past weekend but no go. I’m sure there are women out there who would kill for a little girl that wants to be a princess. Too bad I’m not one of them. John and I have agreed to sit down and talk about our princess strategy going forward. And while some of you might think I’m joking, those that know me will know that this is serious stuff!

Life beyond kids is good. On Sunday night John and I played Scrabble. We have been trying to play Scrabble for 2 weeks.

I must also remember to say that John has taken full credit for getting the girls out of pullups at night. In a moment of genius he forgot to put them on the girls one night and they woke up dry. We’ve never looked back.

Claire started crawling last night after dinner. She’s been wiggling and dragging herself around but she’s finally worked out proper crawling.