Juergensen Family Blog

Today is Memorial Day, and Zoe and I have spent the day at home, but had a wonderful time. We were supposed to go to Pennsylvania with John’s family, but Zoe threw up in the car before we left Montclair, so we stayed at home while everyone else went. It was nice to get a little solo time with Zoe, and with a little imagination I could almost envision what life would be like without her younger sisters, who I have avoided talking about all day.

After we were dropped off, we spent four hours at home in the living room resting and then playing on the couch. It is surprising that this was so much fun because I usually consider being stuck at home to be a form of imprisonment, due to the seemingly neverending mess, laundry to be done, work waiting upstairs and lack of change in scenery. (Working at home is a contributing factor, because you never really leave.) Freed from the need to be productive, with taking care of Zoe as my only job for the day, it was relaxing and fun to be with her without taking care of the needs of the other girls.

After some morning rest, we hung out on the couch as she generously shared her Honey-Nut Cheerios with me. The crunching sound prompted a long discussion of Caramel, the guinea pig at school and what she likes to eat. Next she decided to dress me in blankets, uses part of the doctor’s kit to strap a blue band around my wrist. I brought out a new big-girl kitchen puzzle, which she had fun taking apart but not putting back together. After about four hours of nothing-in-particular, we went for a stroll on a mission to get some Goldfish and we succeeded! (The day was productive afterall.) We went for a walk around the flower garden nearby and picked a few dandelions on the way home. Then instead of wanting a snack, she said “I want a nap” which never happens! It was a perfect end to a perfect afternoon.

Since I never really finished my comments on Zoe on the last post, this seems like a good time. Her enthusiasm for every day things is really wonderful. She still loves saying hello to the diggers every day (fortunately there is a construction site a few blocks away), and the expression “stop to smell the roses” in my mind has been replaced by “stop to see the diggers”. We always walk home from school that way, and sometimes walk that way to school too.

I love listening to her talk in her room at night, and am always amused by the connections she makes. She often uses adjectives, and then says “just like….” with a connection that is usually correct, but not one our conditioned adult minds would make. A mild example today is the leap from crunching cheerios to Caramel (the guinea pig) crunching carrots. While I would probably think of other food I’d like, she thinks of animals eating food. Today I also learned that school is good, which is a relief, and she seemed happy at the thought of going back to school. I started calling summer camp (which she apparently doesn’t want to do) summer school in the hope that some of that enthusiasm would rub off.

Zoe was potty trained a few months after her third birthday and I was amazed at how elated I was. I think I didn’t really believe it was ever going to happen, and that she would be going off to high school and then college still in diapers. I started a post called Potty Power - the video of choice for all the girls, but never finished it because it seemed a bit much. Zoe takes such pride in her “huge” poopies that for months she wanted us to take pictures of them. (Sometimes when she sees huge items, she says “just like my__” - you get the idea.) We obliged because it seemed like a good way to reinforce the accomplishment. Fortunately there hasn’t been much regression though naps are still an issue, and make me wonder how we will ever give up the night-time diaper.

Zoe was a very easy happy girl today. I hope that someday she will be this way with her sisters around, but today I started to really see things from her perspective. It can’t be easy to be the only child and suddenly have twin sisters. Yes, most of us have siblings but most of us don’t have twin siblings. While there are advantages to everyone being the same gender, at this age it may make it harder because she is no longer the only girl. Fortunately our new school schedule in the fall may help, because built into every week is 3 hours on Wednesday morning when her sisters are in school and she is home. I also realized today that it’s not about where we go or what we do, it really is about the quality time.

Kate and Sabrina are 18 months old today. In general we’ve stopped noting the monthly birthdays, but this was a big one because it was the cutoff for Sabrina to walk (or seek medical explanations). More importantly, a friend with twins said things would start to feel normal when the kids could toddle out to the car. She was right!

Everything feels like it is getting a little easier, and the likely causes are better sleep, improved language ability, more mobility, self-entertainment, and of course having an au pair! Sadly, Corinna (our au pair) will be leaving at the end of July, so look for a “Things are getting harder” post sometime in August.

Let’s start with the sleep. As recently as February (15 mos) Kate and Sabrina were still taking bottles, and I was carting the bottles upstairs in the event of an early wake-up (before 6am). However when they got sick and starting throwing up milk, it seemed like a good time to move off of the bottle because trying to coax more milk in them was not a good strategy if it was going to prompt a throw-up. In early March friends brought pizza over for dinner, and since they had none of it, I decided to give them a cereal snack close to bedtime. They slept past 7 until almost 8:00, and we’ve been giving them cereal snacks ever since - especially high fiber cereals because they absorb liquid and make you feel full. Kate and Sabrina are sleeping more quietly now, and I feel better rested all around. Plus it is nice to remove the assortment of bottles from our tiny kitchen - sippy cups are next!

- The other big development is language, which has been a nice bonus for Kate and Sabrina. It is difficult to determine what their first word is, because they aren’t perfectly enunciated but we’ll go through a few. Kate now knows Mommy and Daddy (both are very well enunciated), up, more (possible first word), tea, and done. Sabrina knows up (pronounced upitda), more (ma), all done, but rarely says Mommy or Daddy though she seemed to say them a few months ago. I believe her first word was “no” (prounded “na”), which is funny since she never listens when we say no. They understand far more than they can say, and we communicate with them in a more adult-like fashion than with Zoe.

- Entertainment has greatly improved as well. They love a range of videos, which I try to limit to an hour an evening, and get very excited when big cows come on the screen, taking their cue from Zoe. They have also started doing puzzles, which is a lot of fun and probably good for their development too. Books are still a favorite, and playing chase with Zoe has become a favorite activity for Kate. Zoe seems entertained by the world, and loves going by diggers, and counting cars, and finding school buses and police cars. If this keeps up, driving 8 hours to NC for vacation will be easy for her!

- On the discipline front, we have started time-outs for Kate and Sabrina. We initially called them “baby time outs”, but now that they’re older, they’re the real deal. Fortunately they don’t last nearly as long as Zoe’s, because Kate and Sabrina immediately are upset and cry when they are put in.

Moving on to individual developments, we’ll start with Sabrina since she has the biggest news:

- Sabrina is finally walking! Her transition was actually on her 18 month birthday. It’s as if she knew that it was the cutoff for normalcy, and that she’d have some doctor’s appointments to go to if she didn’t start. It was really fun to see how excited she is about it, and it has made her a happy girl again! (after a few months of fussy and clingy) Now she insists on walking everywhere, including at the zoo, going to the car, down the sidewalk, etc. As for other not-so-exciting developments, we’ve realized she is going to be our problem child because she just doesn’t care when you say no. In fact she finds it funny, bats her long eyelashes and smiles at you until you almost cave in (Daddy does). This happens a lot when eating when you tell her no dropping.

- Kate still loves performing and loves figuring things out. Her newest trick is blinking her eyes when asked “what does the girl do?” She loves playing with Zoe and doing everything she does. She has started responding “yea” when asked a question, and seems to know she is answering in the affirmative. She doesn’t say no, preferring instead to nod her head and say uh-uh (19 month development). On the down side, Kate has quite a temper and will routinely clobber anyone who is annoying her, usually over toy squabbles. Recently I tried a new method of letting Kate & Zoe work it out on their own, so Kate looked to see if I was watching and then hit Zoe double-handed. Kate is our only good eater - she will almost always try something at least once before reaching a verdict and actually eats chicken, in addition to bacon and ham.

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Things seem to be getting a little easier], though admittedly it is hard to determine the cause of “easier”, since we now have more help (45 hours vs. 24) and Zoe is in school part of the day:

- Sabrina has finally decided that she would like to walk, and did a lot of it yesterday evening. She took 9 steps and giggled with pride as if she realized - hey, I can do this. Since she is not a performer by nature, this was quite a breakthrough. Several weeks ago she was cruising along the couch with this look of pride that said she knows she can walk, and I stopped worrying as much. Since she is almost 16 months, it is quite a relief! She is also going through a Mommy clingy phase which I thought we were going to skip altogether. I guess it’s nice to know that at a brief moment in time, I have been the number one person in each of my girls’ lives.

- Kate’s entire personality changed when she started walking. She loves walking and is starting to walk on sidewalks and in the shopping mall. It is fun watching how gleeful she is. She also loves pointing at everything and saying Da. (In Russia I’m sure they would love this.) Kate loves performing and has so many tricks - what does the sheep say? “Baa”, Where’s Mommy? she points, touch your nose, waving, etc. She smiles so widely it is starting to look like a grimace.

- Zoe has now decided that Mommy gets four kisses at night. I’m not sure why four is the magic number, but beggers can’t be choosers and I am thrilled that it is not zero or one. I think she must know that she’s a high maintenance girl, and it is to reward me for the work I do in the day. Our morning routine is now a bit easier - she puts on her clothes, jacket, mittens and hat and we generally make it to school on time, which is pretty good. It is fun talking with her, but as we look at school options next year, the time seems to be flying by a bit too quickly.

They all keep us on our toes, and love switching places, a little like Freaky Friday. Sabrina will start eating well though Kate is usually the good eater, and Kate will start refusing to eat. The sleeping switches back and forth too. Should be fun when they start doing this intentionally.

So I was watching the playoffs this Sunday with Zoe, which happened to be the day the two “home” teams were playing (Giants for me, Steelers for Deb). I’ve been trying to make sure that Zoe becomes a fan of the right team, and coaching her to say “Go Giants, Go!”. And somehow she’s figured out (and I suspect some behind the scenes mommy coaching here) that she can totally get my goat by intead yelling “Go Steelers!!!”. And the more I try to get her to root for the Giants, the more enthusiastically she cheers for the Steelers (who of course aren’t even playing).

Later in the day, when the Steelers are playing I figure I’d at least give Deb a grin. So I lean over to Zoe and say in an obvious stage whisper, “Zoe, tell mommy ‘Go Steelers’”. And so she looks back at me, with a great big grin and yells at the top of her voice: “GO GIANTS!!!”

Deb just looks at me and says, “Boy are you going to have a hard time of it when she turns 16.”

My first thought is what a relief! We made it this far and things seem to be getting better, even if there are new challenges. Looking back, the 10-month update was probably a bit rosy, because I chose to write it on a good day vs. a bad day. Afterall, who wants to hear whining and problems? Things have changed considerably and the girls are so different, I’m not sure they will end up friends, though I keep hoping.

To celebrate their birthdays I took them each to the playground separately, so they could have quality time with Mommy and do the activities they want, without the constraints of the other sisters. This will be a new tradition and the only challenge is figuring out how often, and where the time comes from. An unexpected benefit of the financial meltdown is that business has slowed a bit, so I have a chance to do some of the things I want to with them.

Once again a few weeks have elapsed since I started writing this, because I keep waiting for a good day to write. Sabrina has been sniffly, and it didn’t seem fair to write while she was in a bad mood. Here is a brief summary of Kate and Sabrina at 1 year:

Kate is definitely the most aggressive of our three girls. She is athletic (based on Jumperoo), smart, ambitious, focused, but very demanding and not particularly nice to Sabrina. Kate is learning to walk and smiles widely any time she accomplishes a few steps. It is wonderful to see the joy she experiences from doing something new or better. She went through a few weeks where she wanted to be walked all the time, holding on to your fingers to take a tour of the house. Now she tries it on her own. Kate generally grunts until she gets what she wants (a book read, a walk, etc.) and insists on feeding herself at dinner-time. When you take an object away from her and hide it and try to distract her, she knows where it is and stays focused on it, which is quite different from what we are used to. She loves seeing how things work - opening and closing doors and drawers, putting simple puzzle pieces in their place, and stacking rings. While she has pushed Sabrina quite frequently in the past, I’ve noticed it seems to be when she is playing with something and Sabrina comes over to join her, so now I try to divert Sabrina’s attention. From Kate’s perspective, perhaps it is not fun having a sibling that wants everything you’re playing with. Now instead of pushing she tends to do a block instead, and she does this with Zoe and other kids as well.

Sabrina is the most mellow of the three girls, which we attribute to the lack of red hair. We sometimes wonder if she ended up in the wrong family, and suspect that there is a nice calm family out there who has a crazy redhead in it and has no idea why she is so different from the rest of their kids. Sabrina still makes happy cooing sounds at things that please and they are guaranteed to turn any bad day into a good one. Sabrina is a proficient crawler but seems to have very little interest in walking. She loves rolling around on the floor reveling in her cuteness. She also really loves Zoe’s Potty Power video and squeals in delight when she sees it coming on. Sabrina loves sucking on the tag of her pancake teddy - it is one of her favorite activities. She also loves her music class and dancing in general, whether it be bouncing on the floor or in your arms. While we think of Sabrina as the easiest, I suspect she may end up being the most difficult in the end. She has no respect for the word No or barriers of any type. She is never deterred from going through the barrier to the kitchen, or pulling out the gate so she can go into the bathroom. I’m not sure she has ever listened to NO, except a few times.

All in all, it is fun to see them developing distinct personalities and to be able to write about them separately. Despite my concerns that they may not end up friends, I do have some cause for hope. Recently I saw them sharing a sisterly glance in the back seat of the mini-van, almost like they were both in on an inside joke that the rest of us wouldn’t understand. Dinner time has become somewhat amusing as they pass food that they don’t want between their trays - they must of learned how to “share” from Zoe.

Next year I will put them in separate classes so they can develop their own friendships and get a break from each other. Perhaps absence will make the heart grow fonder.

It seems strange to say, but 2-3 may be my favorite year for Zoe. It is not that she has skipped the terrible twos, but somehow I relate to them which makes them not so bad. Plus her new ability to talk has been really fun, and is a positive offset to the tantrums and intense frustration. Here are the new developments:

• “Orange flowers are so pretty”. It wasn’t her first sentence (”It’s cold out”), but it was my favorite because it has it all - adjectives, colors, observational skills, and a positive outlook. It caught me by surprise, and I stopped to think, why yes they are.

• Zoe loves to sing, mostly her Backyardigans songs. This produces many entertaining moments when she’s singing “I am a sultan” or “Questing, questing, questing” or “Steer baby steer.” I forgot how much fun singing can be.
• In the car, when we stopped for even a second she’d say “wanna get going”, but I have retrained her to say “stop at the red light.” It’s amazing what a difference this makes for me, because one is impatient while the other shows respect for the law.
• We go to the playground quite regularly now - almost any day with nice weather and enough time in it. One of the first days we went, Zoe was so excited to find stairs - it was almost as if the entire purpose of the playground was just to provide new stairs for her to go up and down. Another favorite activity is walking the path looking for the next bench. I have definitely learned that Zoe gets my cautious genes. One day at the playground it took her an hour and a half before she worked up the nerve to go down a slide. When it finally happened it was such a joyous moment for me because I felt like everything was going to be okay, i.e. she was going to be able to function like a “normal” kid in this world. (To anyone who has seen the movie “Parenthood”, it was just like when Steve Martin’s son catches the ball.) Fortunately a few weeks later she decided she also liked the swings, after seeing her baby sisters having fun on them.
• This summer Zoe went to summer camp, and the first day I was in tears leaving her realizing that my little girl was growing up. At first she clung to me intensely, but by the second week she was joining the other kids voluntarily. The third day I showed up a little early to pick her up and was told she hadn’t started eating yet, because she always waits until the other kids finish before starting. (See previous paragraph on being a “normal” kid.) Fortunately I was told Thursday of the first week was a break-through day because she started talking, singing, and eating with other kids. Later she’d come out and say “fun at summner camp” and “friends at summer camp”, which made me feel like things were okay.
• Later in the summer I took her to Sesame Place for a mother-daughter outing, without the babies. The day didn’t go quite as planned. Zoe was fearful of the carousel, and when it started moving I had to restrain her to keep her on the bench. We tried a few times later in the day and worked up to her sitting on the bench alone while I rode the horse. She seemed to like the shows but would spend much of her time walking up and down the stairs rather than watching them. For lunch she licked ketchup off the french fries without eating them. I was starting to feel that the day was a bust, especially when she rejected the water attractions most of the day, aside from jumping in the puddles left by them. Knowing how much Zoe likes water, at 5:00 I decided I was going to go in the wading pool, even if she stood by and watched. Sure enough, she ventured in after me and we had a magical hour of fun as she went running through water, held my hand to go through the water tunnel again and again, and lounged on the water seats in the sun. That fun hour made the entire day!

Okay, there are some rough spots:

• Zoe’s temper can be incredible. She gets so frustrated when things don’t work the way she expects or wants them to. She also insists on doing some things by herself (strapping herself into chairs, closing doors, putting on her shorts, etc.) and any attempt to do them for her can trigger a tantrum.

• Zoe is too aggressive towards her baby sisters. It seemed that once they started crawling, she no longer gave them the cute baby treatment and kisses. Now they can crawl over to Daddy when he comes home, just like her and she no longer has run of the house.

• Zoe is a picky eater, but recently peas have become a favorite which is a welcome change from Life cereal.

Yes there are difficult times, but the ability to reason with her seems to outweigh these. Not that she listens to reason, but it makes me feel better to offer it up. Part of the reason things seem okay is that I kind of relate to things she is going through - who hasn’t been so frustrated they want to break down? And who among us wants their mother to dress them every day? The only thing I really don’t relate to is the mean spiritedness towards her sisters, who generally adore her. In fairness, sometimes she likes to “make them laugh.”

What a difference the last few months have made! Things have either gotten a lot better or a positive trend line makes them feel like they have. Today was an especially good day - it is almost as if they knew I would be writing this post tonight, and they wanted to be on good behavior for their performance review. Here are the updates:

• Crawling. What a difference crawling has made, especially for Kate! Sabrina was the first to crawl, right around 8 months, and Kate was a few weeks later. Almost immediately she went from crying anytime you left the room, to self entertaining for what seemed like long stretches in comparison. It is as if she realized she has places to go and things to do, so you leaving is not the end of her little world. In fact, she often initiates the separation by crawling away. Sabrina was a fast crawler almost from the start, and for her the opposite may be occuring. She has always been the easy baby, but now with her crawling skills she has a fondness for crawling through the barrier into the kitchen. That’s a topic for a different day.
• Eating. Meals seem to be a lot easier these days too. Part of it is that the guesswork in timing is out of the equation - 5:00 to 5:30 is now the ideal start time. Perhaps part of it is that I take the girls to the playground AFTER dinner, not before, which avoids the hunger related meltdowns when we returned from the park. But also, I think they finally have a sense of what needs to happen at dinner and everyone is a bit more patient while waiting for more food to be put in their mouth. While Sabrina started with only 4 foods she’d eat, she has now expanded her list to include most of Kate’s favorites as well. Since there are 63 individual meals in a week (7 days x 3 meals per day x 3 kids), any improvement in 42 of them makes a huge difference in the week.
• Playing together. With the new mobility has come an interest in playing together, much more than before. Sure, they still take each other’s toys and somtimes try to bat the other one away like a fly, but they are at least aware that the other one is there, and often find them entertaining. More on this later.
• Sleep training. What took us so long? Finally when Kate and Sabrina turned 9 months old, and were over 17 lbs, and the 4am and 5am wake-ups were still occuring, I decided something needed to be done. Unfortunately they can cry for 45 minutes straight, unlike Zoe who petered out at 10-20 minutes. Also unfortunate, 45 minutes of crying does not necessarily wake the other baby, so each of the crying spells occurred at different times, making for over 1 1/2 hours of noise. Long story short, it was a rough week, but results started kicking in immediately and now we can go to sleep with confidence we won’t see them again until morning.

  There is more to write (summer time, personalities), but I am tired and signing off now.

As usually happens, I am wrapping up this post almost a month later on Labor Day as summer unofficially ends.

• Summer has been a huge help. Now when everyone is crying at the same time, it is very easy to get the stroller and go for a walk. Often Kate and Sabrina fall asleep on the walk, and when they don’t, they usually enjoy the change of scenery. Zoe loves walking and strolls have a way of calming everyone down. Even better, I figured out how to take all three to the playground by myself, and we go almost every evening, after dinner so moods are better. Kate and Sabrina and now Zoe love swings! Even when they’re in the stroller, Kate and Sabrina like all the attention they receive from the toddlers playing in the playground.
• Self-feeding. Kate has really taken an interest in feeding herself, which makes spoon feeding more difficult, but has the potential to make meals easier. She will try almost anything - tonight was spaghetti. Sabrina has less interest but will usually eat bread, cereal or grated cheese, but looked skeptically at watermelon. Someday soon we may prepare one meal that everyone can eat.

Signing off for now, but hopefully soon I’ll write a post on their personalities.

I wrote the following in late May when I was in Las Vegas for a trade show, but like most things, didn’t get around to posting it until now. It seems it should be included in the blog, as it is part of the story of the first year of having 3 kids. Here it is:

Today I am in Las Vegas and really enjoying the rest and relaxation. I didn’t fully realize how much I needed the break until I got on the plane yesterday and my mind went into a foggy-like lethargic state. It was kind of like what allergy medicine (the good kind) does, but I hadn’t taken any. I attributed it to the lack of good sleep the night before - a mere 4.5 hours - and thought nothing of it until I woke up today in the same state.

It has been a relaxing two days, and there are two more to go. Last night I slept 10 hours elapsed - a few wake-ups, but no major insomnia. It was wonderful. I am enjoying not having to do anything but get myself over to the trade show at the correct time. Thre freedom to wander as I please without thinking about anything but whether this is what I want to be doing is liberating. Yesterday I ate in the diner and had a salad that was mediocre at best. I forgot how much I love salads, and was wondering why I don’t eat them more often when I suddenly remembered the answer - that there is no time to make them and no time to eat them, and I rarely have the ability to go out to eat. This morning I went to the pool and laid in the sun for an hour or so. The only thoughts running through my head were pool or no pool, do I like this song or not, should I have lunch or skip it. It is truly a vacation for the mind.

If it sounds like I would be happy in a life without kids, it isn’t so. Life would be so empty to me and the simple pleasures I am describing would not measure up to the love of my three daughters (or at least two of them at any given moment.) But having three little ones means days are all about keeping the calm, with most minutes from morning to night driven by their needs, their schedules and their moods. Everything I choose to do from going to the bathroom to possibly running an errand requires quick mental calculations of whether the new state is worth the crying that occurs when I leave the room, if anyone is in a position to harm anyone else, logistical considerations of how to bring everyone along, or time calculations of what everyone’s upcoming needs will be in terms of feedings and diapers. It is mentally exhausting.

Here in Las Vegas I am enjoying only having to take care of myself. It is no wonder my mind is in a coma-like state - it has no idea what to do with the void. Fortunately it has figured out that it is time to enjoy the rest & relaxation!

Kate and Sabrina are now 6 months old. To be honest, things are not going quite as smoothly and I am looking forward to moving through this phase. I finally sensed this when I mentally shifted from never believing my little angels would go through the terrible two’s (happy denial) to believing it is right around the corner (when it is really over a year away). Where to begin?

For starters, sleep has taken a hit in the past several weeks. While they still pretty much sleep through the night, they can’t seem to make it all the way to morning. Wake-us at 4am or 5am are becoming routine. As rough as this may be, it beats a 6am wake-up, because they often don’t go back once they’ve had 9 hours of sleep. This is related to the other challenge, which is that Kate sleeps astonishingly little overall for a baby. I estimate she may sleep 10-11 hours a day. If you’re lucky, you get 10 hours at night, and then an hour of naps in 20-40 minute increments at random times the day. Sabrina can usually be depended on for 10 hours at night, and a good 2-3 hours of naps throughout the day. The hard cold reality is that since Kate is a 9-hour sleeper, if I want 8 hours, I need to go to bed at the same time that she does.

(While I began writing this at 6 months, they are now 7 1/2 months and I am just trying to find time to finish the post. To be continued…)

I am going to just touch on a few topics, because it is exhausting to write about it all. Here is a summary:

Kate seemed to get separation anxiety soon after her 4-month birthday. If you’d come into a room and then start to leave, you’d see her smile soon turn to sad expression and soon after to tears. She also loves to be held all the time (who can blame her?), which is difficult when there are two other girls needing at least some minimal attention. Her cries are very intense, and the tone seems to range from desperation (Mommy has deserted me) to anger (how dare you put me down). Fortunately Sabrina is an easygoing baby and doesn’t seem to mind that Kate is being held more than she is. For the most part, if she cries something is usually wrong and it’s either that she’s hungry or that she’s tired. Sometimes she seems oblivious to what is going on around her. While Kate and Zoe tend to cry together - one prompting the other, Sabrina doesn’t see how that should impact her and just goes on with whatever she was doing.

At six months we started transitioning to jarred food from bottles, and that has not been as picturesque as I once imagined. I pictured all three girls seated at the same time and eating dinner, but the reality is that dinner time can be the most stressful time of the day. In the beginning babies need a lot of attention and encouragement to get through their meal, and if you try to do both at the same time, the one who is not receiving attention can get agitated, which makes it difficult to get more food in them. If you do one at a time, then the other who is waiting is often crying for a solid 20-30 minutes in the play area (if they’re hungry). You can intervene, but doing so risks the one who is being fed becoming cranky and then the outcome is a poor feeding.

Twin bonding has also not gone as well as I expected, given the smiles they gave each other at 2-3 months. Once they started rolling, they are rarely facing each other. Sabrina loves to be on the floor rolling, while Kate prefers sitting. So it is like their paths never cross, except occasionally when they happen to look each other’s direction and see that there is another baby in the vicinity - what a surprise! They also compete for toys, which shouldn’t come as a surprise but somehow did. Kate is usually the aggressor, wanting whatever Sabrina has. She can take her toys in the stroller, in their car seats, on the floor - she sees opportunity everywhere. Add to that, Zoe taking both of their toys and it seems like much of the day is spent being referree.

Add to all of this poopy diapers around the clock (John counted 7 for one baby one day) and feedings around the clock, combined with no regular naps and 9 hours (best case) of sleep, and it makes for an exhausted Mom.

Kate and Sabrina turn 4-months old today, and it is time for a long overdue update.

First and foremost, both Kate and Sabrina are happy, calm, and generally pretty easy babies. The smiles and coos started around 2 months, and have continued and increased in frequency. They are a wonderful way to start and end each day. Sometimes it amazes me how easy it is to get them to smile - usually just smiling at them is enough. Sabrina does a classic coo sound with an occasional shriek of delight, while Kate’s almost sounds like she wants to talk.

Just in time for the 4-month birthday, they started consistently sleeping through the night! This week was our first week of 8+ hour nights for both babies, which included one night of double 11’s. (I always equate twins sleep to a roll of the dice, because previously there was little consistency.) Kate had her first 9-hour night before she was 1 month old, and Sabrina did 7 hours soon after, but consistency has been elusive, and without consistency the feeling of fatigue and even desperation was always around. Fortunately that is now coming to an end.

This week we are transitioning to a diet of formula, from a combination of breast milk and formula. Cereal will be in a few months, and then the fun will really begin. So far Sabrina is the superior eater - she can polish off an 8 oz bottle with ease, with a slow-but-steady wins the race pace. Kate gets famished but peters out very quickly. I think she also prefers formula and since most meals are breast milk, she tires rather quickly. At night she often decides sleep is superior to a bottle, and crashes early, which is quite a change from a few months ago when she was the night owl. Perhaps it is the end of football season that did it.

On milestones, Sabrina officially rolled over a week ago, after a few weeks of close calls where she couldn’t get her arm and should loose. Kate also shows interest in rolling, but is much happier pumping her legs. She will be a runner or a soccer player. (Update: Kate rolled over two weeks later, but still lacks interest to do it much.) Kate definitely has the superior grip, and gets very excited when some of her favorite toys are within reach.

Now that they are past the 4-month mark, we’ve brought out the Exersaucer which allows them to be upright looking at toys. Sabrina immediately did a half-rotation, while Kate started gripping the letter E. We also brought out the Jumperoo and Kate seems to like being upright. Both girls are getting tired of being in the bouncers and are making motions to try to sit up. We can’t wait for the sitting but not yet mobile stage!

Big sister Zoe showers love on them, mostly in the form of kisses. She can say both Kate and Sabrina (or at least Sabina), which is quite an accomplishment since she is not yet saying Daddy. Kate is usually receptive to the kisses and any form of attention from Zoe. Sabrina sometimes looks fearful, which is not without cause. Zoe sometimes gets a little aggressive, as would be expected of a toddler.

All in all we’re having a wonderful time.