Balloons of all kinds...

Eli and Emerson are balloon lovers. The spent my cousins entire reception holding onto and chasing balloons. If they let go and it floated to the ceiling they merely held up their arm and waited for the person closest to them to rescue it.

One of my Cousins with Eli & his balloon

Emmy and her balloon

And two at once...

This love of balloons also extends to hot air balloons. Our city hosts Hot Air Balloon Races every September and on Friday morning when we were driving Marcus to work the sky above our house was filled with hot air balloons. 

The babies were pointing and saying "Ooohhh" "ooohhh" and once back home I found them doing this... staring out the window at all of the balloons.

 

Random Things...

1.) I'm really sick and can hardly function and both the babies are sick as well. It should be against the rules for all of us to get sick at once. Eli has a little bit of a cough and whenever he has a real cough he also gets a fake cough. It's hilarious that he'll just go around fake coughing.

2.) We discovered today that the babies love Home Depot. The lights, ceiling fans, paint chips it was all very exciting. They also had some American Flags, Eli loves loves loves flags. He kept saying, "Ooohhhh, ooohhh dada oohhh" as he was pointing.

3.) Eli ate a piece of a Banana today and he chewed it. That's never happened before baby steps I suppose.

4.) My grandma's funeral was today. I didn't go, we weren't close at all in fact I don't really have any fond memories of her. I feel guilty for not being more upset, I feel guilty that I wasn't able to go, it's weird that she's gone.

5.) Every time Emerson sees a dog she says gaga or something to that affect. I guess that's her version of dog or puppy?

6.) Speaking of dogs in a desperate attempt to stop the babies from whining Marcus started showing the babies youtube videos of dogs. It was a huge hit they were both so excited at all the puppy videos.

7.) I'm reading Cleaving by Julie Powell (She wrote Julie & Julia) it's quite possibly one of the worst books I've ever read).

8.) The church nursery has a plastic fried chicken leg. It is without question Eli's favorite thing. Every time we take them to the nursery he finds the fake fried chicken and carried it around. We have to pry it out of his hands every time we leave.

16 months old (two days late)...

Eli & Emerson are 16 months old and they're so fun right now (most of the time). In the last month they have both finally figured out the bedtime thing and we can now just lay them down and the go so sleep. No crying, no screaming, no hour long rocking sessions hoping they'll quit fighting.

What's really amazing about this is even if they don't go to sleep immediately they are quiet in their cribs. It makes night time so much more enjoyable for all of us knowing that we're not going to have a fight on our hands.

They are both walking all over the place now which is a whole new adventure. Eli in particular would like to be allowed to walk everywhere. In stores, down the street, up and down the stairs so he fights the stroller quite a bit.

Eli is making a little bit of progress with his eating issues. He still primarily eats purees but he can now eat small pieces of bread and things with break like consistency which is progress. He however still isn't really good about chewing so it makes us both really nervous.

Eli and Emerson also play and interact with one another a lot more these days which is really hilarious to watch. They chase each other all over, Emerson is a little copy cat and does everything Eli does. They make each other laugh all the time. The other thing I've noticed lately is that if one baby gets hurt or is really upset the other one also gets upset.

Yesterday Emerson tripped and hit her head pretty hard on the wall and she was screaming, Eli stopped what he was doing ran over and just looked really scared and worried for her.

As far as talking goes they still don't have many words. Both say hi, both say dada, and sometimes mama, and Emerson can say ball. But they seem to understand a lot of what we're saying and asking which is really fun. If I ever need to distract Eli I just ask him to find me a ball and off he goes searching.

Eli still licks everything. I really wish I knew what this was about. The other day I was sitting on the couch and he walked up and started licking both of my legs one right after the other. It was so odd (and somewhat funny) and then Emerson decided to join in so both babies were licking my legs. This probably can't be normal.

No new teeth. Emerson has 8 (4 up top and 4 on the bottom) and Eli has 6 (four on top and 2 on the bottom).

Emerson still has anxiety around people and is still pretty clingy but we have seem some improvement in that area. A couple of sundays ago we dropped them off at our church nursery and they both went without any issue.

I think those are the main things that's been happening. They're both going to evaluated for EI on Monday. We finally got them an appointment in our new state. Eli is going to see an Occupational Therapist and Emerson a physical therapist. So I guess we'll see where we're at in all of that.

Now for the pictures (I took these pictures on Saturday at the wedding). The entire experience was a big joke. I'm starting to think they plot together to avoid having me take a picture of the two of them together looking at the camera.

Looking to the right...

Looking in opposite directions....

Looking down.

You get the idea I have about 10 more of these pictures before I finally gave up. At another point in the evening I stuck them both in a chair and got this...

Which is the best I could do. At least they're both looking forward. 

The night the babies went to work...

I have so many things to update on: the babies are 16 months today!! Yay (post forthcoming). I still need to post more pictures of our trip but all of that can wait because I need to share the ridiculousness that was my evening.

So, Marcus found a job. It's not his dream job by any means and it's only part time but it's a job none the less and frankly in this economy we aren't being overly choosy. So we had a huge problem I work 9-4 or 5 during the week plus sundays and several evenings each week. Marcus was scheduled to work 8-5 which left a problem of what to do with the babies. So marcus switched his shift to 4-11 which worked great... except that I had to work this evening from about 5-8:30.

Since Marcus literally just found this job we haven't had time to deal with childcare so my sister has just been watching them, except that she had to work this evening as well. So the best solution I could come up with was to just take them with me. While not ideal I'm lucky to have some flexibility in dragging them along (plus my supervisor was a single mom of two for many years so she fully supports and understands my need to bring the kids along).

So I arrive early to set up for the evening and need to haul a billion things inside. So I put the babies in their stroller, strap everything onto the stroller and set off.

First problem: The stroller does not fit through the door of this building that was built a million years ago. Okay, fine I have to open the other side which is never ever opened and we get in and I manage to shut the door and turn off the alarm.

Second problem: It's a super old building with millions of stairs (ok not millions but a lot). We were going to be in the basement of the building and I needed to once again transport a ton of things down the stairs, and there's no elevator and I couldn't even use the stroller past the entry way because of all the stairs. So the best solution I could think of was to shut the babies into a secure common room and then run as fast as possible as I transporting things.

Which worked okay except Emerson was pretty sure that I had abandoned her and was never returning so she was screaming (which was actually kind of reassuring because I figured if I could still here her she was fine).

So that worked. Then we had to leave to go and pick up six pizzas for the evening. So back into the stroller back through the too small door. Which is where we encountered problem number 3.

I could not for the life of me get the side of the door that's never used closed again. I spent around 20 minutes fighting with it, and finally after getting up on top of a chair I figured it out and got it closed. Except to do this I had to bring the babies back inside so instead of using the stroller for transportation I had to take them out, fold it up and get us all to the car.

Both babies thought walking to the car was super fun and they both took off down the ramp straight towards the street. I abandoned my stroller and attempted to walk/carry/shuffle both babies to the car. Three guys seemed pretty amused by my efforts (but of course no offers for help). So we're back in the car off to get pizza.

Problem four: 2 babies + 6 large pizzas = impossible. Seriously do the math it just doesn't add up. Luckily the guy at the pizza place saw my struggle to get both babies into the store and he offered to carry the pizza out to the car for me, but I was on my own back at work. Which once again involved a stupid door (I gave up on the stroller this time).

So again my best solution was to carry both babies in and then run back to the car for the pizza (which again resulted in Emerson feeling abandoned and freaking out).

By this point I was exhausted and wanted to go home and my evening hadn't even started.

Luckily, both babies were perfect during our meeting. Emerson sat in the chair with me and Eli stood right in front of me and I fed them bits of pizza as I talked. Eli eventually mingled around and Emmy just sat right next to me. So we survived but babies, stairs, transporting goods, and pizzas are a very very bad combination.

Seriously, it was awful I wish I could more fully illustrate and explain the chaos that was my evening.

Road Trip...

This weekend we took the babies on their longest road-trip yet. We went to Wyoming for my cousin's wedding. They both did great on the trip. They have new convertible car-seats (yes we're a little slow but they still fit in their infant seats just fine) so they have a whole new view and they can now see each other. Several times on the trip they were playing peek-a-boo with each other or handing each other things and laughing.

We learned several new "fun" things on this trip though, since this is the first time we've traveled by car for such a long distance and the first time we've traveled at all since they've started walking.

One, is that stopping turns into an hour ordeal. We actually didn't have to stop too often because of the timing of our driving but we did have to stop to feed the babies and let them run around a little bit. Emphasis on the running around part. We stopped at a rest area in Wyoming called Little America. Both Marcus and I needed to use the bathroom so we took turns being alone with the babies in a store.

Holy, two babies going two different ways each one getting excited about every random little object on the shelves. It was ridiculous. Now that they can walk they do not want to be carried especially after being in the car so off they went everywhere.

An older man called me over to his table at one point after watching me with the babies for a little bit. He said to me, "Young lady I want you to know that you're going to have your hands full for quite some time." haha um yes... thanks for pointing out the obvious.

We also had an interesting experience our first night in a hotel. We only own one pack and play because we mainly used it when they were younger and could share. So we brought along the one and assumed that our hotel would have cribs (every hotel we've stayed in this last year has had not one but two cribs for the babies).

We arrived at our hotel around 11pm called the front desk and learned that they did not have any cribs. Crap. There's no way they can share a pack in play these days so we at first put Eli in the pack and play (because he's generally the less calm of the two) and put Emerson in the bed with us.

Eli went right to sleep...

Emerson on the other hand thought that it was party time. She kept standing up and jumping on the bed, she was turning circles, attempting to dive over both Marcus and I. Tapping us on the heads when we weren't paying attention. Any attempt to lay her back down elicited giggles as though we were playing the funniest game ever.

So plan two.

Take the sleeping baby out of the pack in play and hope they would stay asleep during the transfer and put then crazy baby in the pack and play. Once again the baby in the pack and play went right to sleep the one in the bed thought it was party time.

So we switched one more time because Eli cannot be trusted in beds he'll just dive off  head first into the darkness of the night.

Emerson ended up staying in our bed that night. I had essentially no sleep between wrestling her back onto the bed into a laying position and then once she was asleep trying to find room on the bed. Emerson is a bit of a wild sleeper.

She doesn't hold still and pretty much goes in circles. I kept waking up to toes in my ribs as she tossed and turned all over. Her wild sleeping habits are why we had to separate them in the first place when they were still pretty young.

Clearly, co-sleeping is not for us.

Luckily our hotel in Wyoming had another pack and play and there ending the sleeping drama.

More later including pictures ...

Head Dive into the bathtub...

Today while at work I got this email from Marcus:

"Emerson Fell head first into the bath tub when Eli was taking a bath. Clothes and all in she went. She popped up and looked very surprised but survived."

When I inquired about how this happened he sent some follow up information:


"She was trying to reach the alligator and her little feet came up and she was a teeter tooter and in she went, and I must say it was a smooth dive into the water.  it was really funny."

Does it make me a really bad mom that I laughed hysterically at this? (It's also Marcus' description of the event that makes me laugh). Marcus sent me a picture of her in the bath with all her clothes on and she looks so pleased with herself.

*Footnote #1- She loves the bath so it doesn't really surprise me that she was pleased that she somehow ended up in the water. It's hard to give both babies a bath at the same time because Emerson seems to think that she needs to do the back float in water so she can kick with her legs and splash with her arms.  Eli does not appreciate being kicked repeatedly by his water loving sister. So we usually give them baths separately while the other one stands and watches. Hence why Emerson was next to the tub but not in it.

*Footnote #2 - We are lucky that all is well and it's a reminder about how quickly something like this can happen. Luckily Marcus was right there and she apparently is a natural diver who was not hurt or scared in this event.

First Haircuts...

We've been (or should I say) I've been resisting giving the babies haircuts. I loved their crazy, messy, hair and many people kept telling me to cut their hair and for me that always makes me want to do the opposite (I don't know why I can't help myself).

See isn't their crazy, messy, hair fun?

She seems satisfied with messy hair

But today for some reason I felt inspired and so after looking up a place that cuts kids hair off we went on our hair cutting adventure.

While we waiting both Eli and Emerson explored a little bit by walking. They've never walked in public before and it struck me that my babies were growing up.

They were both a little nervous at first and just stood in one place but they eventually got brave and set off on their own.

I was trying to get a before shot of both of them but they didn't want to sit still.

Eli went first...

and for the most part it was very uneventful. He kept trying to look at himself in the mirror and he fussed a little bit when she cut around his ears but other than that he did really well.

Isn't he cute?

I'm not going to lie I was tempted to keep his hair like this. It looks cute short on the sides super long on top haha.

And then he was done. Looking all grown up with his new haircut. Another hair dresser took Emerson while Eli was finishing up. Marcus set her in the chair and she immediately started screaming. She was shaking, crying, and was hysterical. Poor baby. When Eli heard his sister start crying he immediately started looking around and getting upset himself so I had to take him over to see her. 

I picked her up and she kind of calmed down, but she was still very unsure about the whole thing.

I held her while we just trimmed up her bangs and the back a little tiny bit. She really didn't need much done.

She was being super dramatic in this picture.

And then she was done. 

I loved that they gave us locks of their hair and certificates for the occasion.