One year later...

Yesterday we realized it was a momentous occasion:

A tale of two June 13ths -- 2012 and 2013

The boys have now been home for one year! 
 
It's crazy and amazing, but D and S turned one year old on April 27th!  And, we're just two weeks away from being "one year" adjusted age -- not really sure the adjusted part matters a whole lot at this point, but the date feels pretty momentous to hit, nonetheless. 

(We didn't do anything too big for their birthdays.  We're just not big party people.  Just cake with my parents on the day of their birthday and a party with my husband's family a few weekends ago.)

I'll save you the "where does the time go" shtick because I know I sound like a broken record...

I still have moments where I look at the boys and then look at my husband and say "Wow.  Do you know that we're the parents of twins?"  It's just kind of unfathomable.  It's a "forest for the trees" kind of thing.  I have to step back sometimes and realize what our lives look like to really "get" it.  I had the same sorts of feelings when we were in the throes of IF and IVF.  Living it day-to-day it seemed to be just what life was.  But, stepping back and thinking about it, I still can't believe that we actually did IVF.  I think back to my childhood when I first heard of it and I never would have believed that it was something that I would use in the future.

I don't know what I'm blathering on about.  It just all seems kind of amazing and so big sometimes.

Anyway, here we are.  The boys are a year old.  We're the parents of toddlers.  They're starting to seem like such "kids," now.


In an attempt to be SLIGHTLY more concise, I'm going to do this sorta bullet-style:

Let's start with S


(This whole "identify your children by a letter" thing is starting to annoy me. I'm considering new names for the boys... stay tuned.)

S...

• is about 19 pounds and 29 inches.  He's around the 11th percentile for weight and height for his adjusted age.  He actually looks pretty proportional.  
• is a great nighttime sleeper.  He's been sleeping from 7:30 pm to 6 or so am for several months, now.  His brother wakes him up sometimes but he falls right back to sleep.
• is becoming a pretty decent napper.  Usually two naps a day.  Sometimes they're 45 minutes each.  Sometimes at least one is 2 hours.  So lovely when that happens.
• is a good eater, but...
• has a cow's milk allergy.  Removing dairy made a huge difference to all the rashes he was getting.  But, they're coming back, again, and we can't figure out what's causing it.  He didn't show a reaction to soy at the allergist before, but I'm afraid he might be developing one.  Because it often goes along with the fact that he...
• is allergic to peanuts.  I really don't know how he managed to get sensitized to peanuts already as we haven't given him any.  But, there it is.  He'll likely grow out of the dairy allergy but probably not the peanut one.  We're de-peanuting the house and have an epi-pen with us at all times.  We have no idea how strong his reaction might be.
• still has zero teeth but is still trying his darndest to chew.  
• is still working on a sippy cup -- he doesn't quite get the concept of gravity...
• is wearing 12 month onesies (for length) but some 6 month pants.  Long, skinny torso and short legs.  
• is so incredibly sweet.  Loves to play with his brother.  And by "play with" I mean "steal toys from."  Gets angry sometimes but usually is incredibly snuggly and happy.
• crawls and cruises and stands independently and LOVES to walk holding our hands or his stroller.  He's taken a few independent steps here and there but he's not a fan.  
• loves his blankie.
• says "mama" and "dada" and "MUM" when he wants to eat (from the rice cracker mum-mums he adores).  
• signs "milk" for milk (and water and sometimes just for food in general -- we're working on it) and waves bye-bye.
• passes things to us and loves to put his toys in the box and "dip" his food in our hands
• loves to turn the pages of his books..
• shakes his head "no."
• loves watching the cat through the window (oh, yeah, he's allergic to her, too...)
• figured out how to climb on the sofa by himself.
• loves being held upside down.
• turns on and off the music player and dances.
• is amazing.

I could go on and on.  I'll stop now.



Now, it's D's turn


D...

• is about 18 pounds and 29 inches.  He's around the 5th percentile or so for weight and 11th for height for his adjusted age.  (I had these more precisely before but I'm too lazy to look them back up...)  The extra pound his brother has on him is pretty obvious.  D looks pretty skinny without a shirt on.  We're trying to bulk him up.
• has slept through the night maybe three times.  Sigh.  But, he's at least finally starting to get a little more predictable as to when he wakes up.  Usually either at 11:30 or 1 am.  My husband is in charge of him at that point (I get up with them at 6 while he sleeps in until 8:30 or 9) and can only get him to go back down with milk.  I'd say we need to break him of that habit (he'll often go back down for me without milk) but he will drink a lot at that time of the night and we really do need to work on his weight, so... eh, it works.
• is hit or miss when it comes to naps.  Two or three naps a day usually 45 minutes long with very, very rare 1 1/2 hour to 2 hour naps thrown in.  
• is a good eater.  Loves avocado (good calorie and fat source).  Pretty much eats anything we throw at him.
• has three teeth and is working on number four.  We call him "toothy joe."  I have no idea why.
• is working on using a sippy cup.  He's slowly starting to figure out how gravity works. 
• is wearing 12 month onesies (again, for length, some of them are hilariously wide on him) and 6 month pants for the waist size.
• is an amazingly happy baby.  When he does get sad, though, he gets SO upset.  But, calms pretty easily. 
• HATES when his brother takes his toys.
• LOVES his blankie (I mean LOVES).  When I ask him "where's your blankie?" he'll look around the room and find it and then go snuggle with it on the floor.  SO cute.  (The boys' blankies are a bunch of cloth diapers that we used to use for spit rags.  Luckily they don't seem to care which one they use as we have about 60 and can keep them in constant laundry rotation...)
• says "mama" and "dada" and "MUM" and something approximating "kitkat" (for the cat) and will sometimes answer the question "what does a pig say?" by grunting.
• waves "bye bye."
• crawls and cruises and stands and walks independently! -- he's even figured out how to step up onto the workout mat from the floor and keep his balance on his own.  Crazy.
• loves all things with wheels.
• loves books -- will sit and stare at them and turn the pages and turn them over and over looking at the pictures and, of course, chew them. 
• got his first cat scratch.  
• probably didn't learn his lesson about not grabbing the kitty's tail...
• is amazing.

There's just so much more that I could say.  But I won't.  That's enough, really.

Anyway, I'm going to stop there as I've been trying to post this for about a month and a half, now, and this is getting ridiculous!!