... your little girl crawls over to the toilet, pulls herself up, and starts playing with the water.  Not only dangerous, but gross.  Needless to say, I'll be going to the store on my way home for toilet locks.

I almost forgot to blog about this...  Julie and Alex had their first eye exam last week.  I wasn't sure what to expect since they can't say if they see something or not.  The first little test was to "find Heidi".  Heidi was a face on a card of varying darkness/lightness.  The babies had to look at the card with the face rather than the blank one.  The face got lighter and lighter.  Both Alex and Julie did very well.  They could see Heidi at 2.5% (super light).  The doctor then took a toy and a prism and they looked through the prism at the toy.  It made them see two toys and they would look back and forth between them.  Then they put a patch on one eye and did "find Heidi" again.  Switch the patch and do it again.  They were trying to see if the eyes worked together or if one eye was too dominant.  Finally, they got their eyes dilated and the doctor looked at the back of their eyes and checked their actual eyesight prescription.  Both Julie and Alex are currently farsighted, which is typical for babies their age.  Both of their eyes work together equally, so that was good.  Everything checked out health-wise. 

 

Exam-wise, Alex pushed the patch onto his eye so tight that it was like a horrible bandaid being pulled off and he wailed.  His face was all red around his eye.  I felt so awful for him.  Unfortunately, it was the first eye to be covered, so he was terribly displeased that he had to go through it again.  And, then he had to have his eyes dilated.  I took a very unhappy baby back to Laure to watch while Julie had her exam.  Luckily, we had bottles of formula for them.  When Julie's turn came around, I didn't let her touch the patch, although she tried.  She was also a star when it came to the doctor looking at the back of her eyes.  She just sat there and stared at him.  Babies don't do that according to the doctor.  They squirm and squint and close their eyes... this is exactly what Alex did.  It's not surprising since they are in a dark room with this light being shown into their eyes.  So, her exam at that point was about a quarter of the time as Alex's.  The doctor even looked in her eyes twice - I think he was so surprised it was so easy, that he double checked.

Since my last post, Alex decided to add a little something to his repertoire.  He pulled himself up to standing.  done.  just like that. 

Alex and Julie turn 11 months old tomorrow.  Today, Alex figured out how to sit up on his own.  He's crawling better than yesterday, although there's still a little bit of complaining sometimes.  I'm not sure he's fully realized the extent of his freedom yet.  Alex can also stand and cruise around the furniture.  Julie has been crawling for around a month, so has had time to fine tune her technique.  She can crawl to whatever she wants, she can get into a sitting position, she can pull herself up to a standing position, move around and sit back down again.  She can also pick things up from standing, and every once in a while she lets go completely for a few seconds of free standing.  She's just starting to learn to climb on things; she's very determined!

 

Both Julie and Alex are eating solids well.  They can pick up cheerios and put them in their mouths.  They are really liking feeding themselves, so we try to give them a number of finger foods.  They still eat purees, but they are getting chunkier.

 

Julie now has 5 teeth, with the 6th one about to pop through.  Alex has 6 teeth with no signs of new teeth.

 

Julie says da-da-da, ba-ba-ba and ma-ma-ma.  Here's hoping she says Mommy before Daddy!  I haven't noticed any consonant sounds from Alex yet, but it's only a matter of time.

Today, Alex took his first steps towards independence.  He crawled forward several times today.  The first was with both Marc and I in observance and later in the day with Uncles Chris and Patrick.  He had been moving his arms and legs separately in a crawling motion all week, albeit crying and angry every time we put him on his stomach, but today he put all the movements together.  We are so proud of our ltitle boy.  Give him a couple of days and he'll be racing Julie.

I captured a few videos that I wanted to share.  Julie's videos were completely in the moment, so, the lighting was bad and hence the videos are grainy.  Here they are anyway...

 

1) Julie has learned how to crawl and now tries to climb up onto things.  So far, she has been unsuccessful, but I guess it's the next natural thing.  The first time I saw her trying to climb up on something was the treadmill, so I captured a little video.

 

2) Julie also likes to shake the fences and gates that keep her safe.  Here's a video of her doing just that.  Daddy is on the other side of the fence "taunting" her (all in good fun of course!).

 

1) Alex loves the "falling backwards" game.  I'm not entirely sure we should have started this, but they love it!  In this first video, you can see how he arches back his head in anticipation.

 

2) This second video is of the same game but with the added twist of a somersault.

 

 

This past weekend, we did a couple of fun things.  On Saturday, we headed back up to the flat trails to do some hiking.  Julie chatted the entire time; she was having a great time!  Alex liked the ride at first, but then fell asleep in the carrier.  I guess it's comfortable enough, because it wasn't even nap time.

 

Sunday was Father's Day.  Usually, Sunday is the day that Marc gets up early to take care of Alex and Julie, but I let him sleep in as part of his gift.  He then opened his gift from Alex and Julie - a wireless guitar for the XBox games Guitar Hero and Rockband.  Laure helped Julie and Alex sign their cards with their hand prints (which is another story in finger paint, regular paint and ink pads).  We then packed up and went to the Pancake House for brunch.  Alex and Julie did quite well, although Alex tried to gnaw on the wooden high chair, which wasn't exactly the most sanitary.  Then off to the Museum of Flight.  We had a nice time walking around looking at the planes and seeing the history of Boeing.  I think Alex and Julie were bored in the strollers, but they really liked getting out and playing with the toys and sitting in the different aircraft with Daddy.  Julie was saying da-da-da all day, so that was really nice.

 

Alex is starting to get little curls over his ears.  I tried to take a picture, but you just can't see them as well as in real life.  Maybe I'll try to get another picture... it's so adorable, I want to share it with everyone.

 

We had a pretty relaxing weekend this weekend.  We went to Grasslawn park on Saturday and met up with some friends.  They have a little boy, Oliver, who is two weeks older than Alex and Julie.  We hadn't seen them in a couple of months, so it was great to catch up.  We took a bunch of pictures while we were there and posted a few.  I pointed out the shoes in a couple of pictures because they were the first time they've worn them, and they are cool shoes when you see them up close.  Julie's shoes were given to her by Marc's cousin, Kate.  Alex's shoes were given to him by our good friend, Paige.

 

On Sunday, we got out the backpack carriers again.  We went up to our old neighborhood because there are lots of flat trails in the woods.  We did pretty well.  This was the first time Marc used his carrier because he's always been on backup duty to take the carrier if I couldn't handle it.  He said he could really feel it in his legs when walking and I could still feel it in my back, so something isn't adjusted quite right yet.  Carrying a 20 pound baby is not the easiest, but we need to be ready for our trip to Yellowstone.  I don't want to be confined to stroller friendly trails the entire time we're there.  Luckily, Julie and Alex both like being in the carriers.  Julie was chatting away and kicking her feet the entire walk.  Alex was watching over Marc's shoulder for most of the walk and then started leaning his head way over to look around him towards the end.  They're such little characters, it makes me laugh.

Normally, we get out a bunch of toys for Julie and Alex and they play with them in the middle of the floor.  The other day though, they were near the toy bins and went to town!  Alex pulled himself up on his knees, which he doesn't do very often, and started pulling out lots of toys and tasting most of them.

 

Now that Julie is crawling, we've had to start baby-proofing.  We have a couple of gates up, and she loves to crawl to them, pull herself up and shake the gates.  She will also do the splits to sit as close to the gate as possible.

If you read the baby books or talk to a developmental therapist, they will tell you that babies usually sit up on their own before they crawl forward.  Well, not our Julie.  She figured out how to crawl last week and there's no stopping her now!  At that point, she had not figured out how to get into a sitting position on her own.  Two days ago, she worked it out.  When she's in crawling position, she pushes backwards and totally rotates are legs 180 degrees and boom, she's sitting.  She's quite good at it.  So, now, she crawls to whatever she wants to play with and then sits up or lays on her back to play with it.  It's all adorable.  However, she has showed a fondness for electrical cords, so we're doing more baby proofing next week when the supplies come in.  What is it with babies and electrical cords, anyway?

 

Alex is starting to show more interest in crawling.  He can go backwards, but it's frustrating for him because it's not the direction he wants to go.  He also started going sideways - using his arms to crawl in a circle essentially.  So, we know he's well on his way to crawling forwards, although I expect it to take at least another month.  Then again, he loves to stand and maybe he'll just skip over crawling and go right to walking.  He's to the point that if you try to sit him down, he completely straightens out his body like a board so that you have to put him standing.  He's a clever little boy.

 

We're also starting more finger foods with the twins.  They've been eating these little puffs that dissolve in their mouths if they don't chew them.  I'm totally paranoid that they will choke, so I've been slow to introduce other new finger foods.  But, it has to be done eventually.  They are getting pretty good at picking up the puffs from the tray and sticking them in their mouths on their own.  This week, we tried little pieces of banana.  They were too slimey for them to pick up, but they both enjoyed eating them.  Julie has the little kid chewing thing going on and Alex mashes them with his tongue and swallows them whole (I think).  I don't actually see him chewing.  This weekend, we're going to try softened carrots and peaches. 

 

Now that they are feeding themselves, Penny is finally seeing the benefit of babies in the house.  Puffs mysteriously fall to the floor and Penny cleans them right up.  Good dog. :-)

As we mentioned previously, Julie has just taken her first few "steps" forward in crawling.  On Saturday, I caught a video of her tentatively crawling two steps forward then plopping down on her belly.  By this point, about the furthest she had gone was a foot forward.

 

 

Only two days later, she's crawling a lot further and very determinely.  She sees something she wants and she crawls to it.  Today, she crawled the length of the crib in the morning to get a toy, about 6 feet in Kindermusik to get to the toy box, across the floor to get to Penny... there's no stopping this girl.  Her crawling is very cute.  The pinwheel is a prized toy, so we got a little video of her trying to get to the pinwheel.  What a difference two days makes!