Look at me Mom!

“Hey!”

“Colin, it’s 4:00 in the morning.”

“Hey! Hey!”

“Okay, okay. I’m coming in.”

I had been sleeping on the couch (because my back hurts and the couch makes it hurt less, for whatever reason) when Colin started shouting what sounded very much like “Hey!” from his crib at 4:00 this morning. I tried to ignore him for a little while to see if he would go back to sleep, but he just kept getting louder, so I gave up and went in to see what he needed.

And there he stood, in his crib, leaning over the side rail all proud of his little self. 

Yes, our boy who can’t get into a sitting position on his own (or out of it for that matter) has figured out how the pull himself up in his crib. 

To be honest, it wasn’t a surprise. He had done the same thing once during the day with John, and is pulling up on everything in sight. But I was kind of hoping we could skip the pull-up-in-the-crib-in-the-middle-of-the-night thing. Oh well.

First on our agenda for today — lower the crib mattress. We didn’t need to rush into moving the mattress with Veronica. She’s not likely to vault herself over the side of the crib. That’s just not her style. 

Colin, on the other hand, is the baby most likely to take up sky diving before the age of 7. The boy has no fear (and consequently, no sense of danger). So he spent the rest of the night (awake) in bed with me, so I could keep him from going airborne.

So I’m tired, he’s proud of himself, and we’re on our way to having the first baby who started walking before he could sit. (Okay, probably not the first. But one of the few, I would guess.)

Crazy kid.

The cheese stands alone …

And so does Veronica. Yes, our girl has mastered the art of balancing on two feet. She is cruising all over now, and loves to walk around (as long as you’re holding her hands). She even took a single step on her own a couple of times. It won’t be long now before she realizes she can do it (walking that is) all by herself.

And this has made Colin jealous, so he is working on standing alone too. (We’ll just skip the whole sitting up thing, Mom. This standing and walking bit looks so much more interesting.) Now that we’ve gotten the constipation problem mostly under control (thank you Miralax), Colin is doing much better with sitting — he can sit on his own for as much as 20 minutes, but he can’t get into or out of the sitting position on his own. But he no longer wants to be put into the sitting position, he wants to stand or kneel. And he can get there on his own. He just can’t always get back down.

Both babies also are making strides in communication as well. Veronica is regularly signing “more.” It is her go-to sign for everything, in fact. If she wants something, she signs “more.” If she’s happy, she signs “more.” So we’ve been trying hard to get her to pick up some additional signs to make our lives easier.

Finally, she has added some new signs to her repertoire. She will now sign milk; banana (sometimes); please (started doing this for ice cream); up; and today, spontaneously, she added bath.

I say spontaneously because we haven’t shown her the sign for bath. But this morning, when I was changing the babies’ diapers on the bed, Veronica sat up, pointed to the bathroom and started moving her hands across her body like she was bathing. When I asked if she wanted a bath, she started signing “more.”

Colin isn’t quite as far along with the signing, but he now will regularly sign “more,” and has done what we think might be his attempt at “milk” a couple of times. As with everything, I’m sure Colin will pick up the signs when he feels like he’ll benefit from using them and ignore us until then. He’s very practical that way.

Life continues to get more interesting, chasing two mobile and independent babies around the house. But in many ways, it is getting more fun too.

Piddles and puddles and piles, oh my!

I sometimes let the babies crawl around naked during the last diaper change before bedtime. They enjoy the freedom and I think it’s good for their little tushies to air out a bit. Occasionally I’ve had to clean up a little puddle, but nothing much.

Until last night.

I had both Colin and Veronica upstairs while John was down doing something (dishes, making a bottle, working … already I don’t remember), so I decided I would strip them both down for bed. I took Veronica’s diaper off first, and she immediately crawled to the bedroom door, peed on the carpet and went out to play in the living room. 

So I cleaned up the little piddle on the carpet and went to change Colin. As soon as I set him down, he headed into the bathroom to play with the scale, so I quick went to check on Veronica. 

They were both doing fine, so I put a couple of clothes away and went to check on them again. I shouldn’t have waited. 

Veronica was standing at her big cube, looking very excitedly at the ground. I went to see what she was getting so happy about. It was a GIANT. Pile. of. Poop. 

GIANT! I mean, I don’t know where it all came from. It never would have all fit into a diaper. And there was my baby girl, reaching for it. Argh! I managed to snatch her up before her hand made contact, and took her into the bathroom to clean her up. 

And there I found Colin, happily rolling around in the biggest puddle of pee imaginable. It was a freaking lake. He was covered from head to toe in pee, and giggling away as he rolled through it again. (Did I mention John was downstairs?)

My hands were full of poopy Veronica, so how was I supposed to pick up pee-covered Colin? I decided pee was less of an issue, and quickly cleaned Veronica up first. By the time I got back into the bathroom for Colin, he had managed to spread the pee-puddle pretty thoroughly around the bathroom. 

At this point, John came up and after seeing the poo pile and the soaking wet Colin, figured out pretty quickly what happened — and laughed at me. But he did help clean up the mess, so I’ll forgive him. 

Oh, the joys of parenting twins.