Updates On Everything!

My apologies for the absenteeism, but it's been a very busy week as you'll see if you read on, and we have a VERY BIG DAY planned for tomorrow as Nate and Seth will be celebrating their first half-birthday and enjoying (or perhaps not enjoying?) eating solids for the very first time. Either way, there WILL be photos taken. : )

Without further ado, sweet potatoes were the winner in the poll as you can see:

... and sweet potatoes they shall have! I made them myself today and it was actually pretty easy. I also made peas which were a lot messier and not so easy (peas were my pick in the poll, btw), so perhaps I'll be buying those in the jar from now on. I'd like to make what I can manage to make for my babies though. I picked up bananas today and I'd like to try out avocado too, especially since neither require cooking.

Toothwatch 2010:  We have a tooth! Nate got his very first tooth (bottom front on the left if you're facing him) on Monday, July the 26th. I noticed it first thing in the morning – and so did he! He LOVES playing with his new tooth and he really loves it if you do too. He will grab my hand, locate a suitable finger and put it in his mouth and just gnaw away. So adorable!

Toothwatch 2010 still remains in high alert though until we see a tooth from Seth. In the meantime, we're still patiently waiting.

The laundry: It's fixed and better than ever. Our landlord's resident handiperson finally came to clean out the vents and the dryer has worked more than fine since then. I honestly don't recall ever putting a wet load in there and having it dry in one cycle so this is a real treat. Even with the cloth diapers I no longer have the machines running all day. It's strangely quiet in here at times without the incessant hum of the washer or dryer, but I'm not complaining (too loudly). That's what the radio is for I guess!

Nate's Plagiocephaly: We've had our second appointment and I really hope this is working and that we've made the right choice. I feel good about it for whatever that's worth. Our osteopath, Samara, is a delight (the boys are so at ease there, especially Nate since he's the one being treated), and a good source of info to boot. She recommended a naturopathic remedy for teething pain that's surprisingly available at most drugstores called Camilia. It comes in pre-measured vials and so far it seems to be working for both Nate and Seth when they need something to help soothe their sore gums. It works pretty quickly too, which is a nice bonus.

And lastly, because I can't post without including something other than a picture of a graph after all this time, here are the boys enjoying some tummy time in the nursery.

I wish Seth was not so distracted by the camera, because I realize a lot of you who haven't seen him in action must think this poor child has one expression and never moves – when nothing could be further from the truth. Seth is a mover and a shaker and it's no coincidence he eats almost as much as his brother and is still so very lean. He also makes great expressions, smiles, dances a jig, you name it... but I'll probably never catch any of that on camera because he is so distracted by the thing he stops whatever he's doing and just stares deep into the lens. I had to record for a really long time for him to get back to the activity that made me grab the camera in the first place – and you can still see how he keeps pausing because the camera is so distracting to him.

Nate on the other hand, was only distracted by the song Seth was activating from their Jungle gym. Otherwise, he was very busy doing a faceplant and recovering from said faceplant.

Nate again, showing you all how it's done with Sophie:

The Johnny Cash is a nice touch too I think. ; )

And lastly, a very sleepy Seth, because sometimes all that activity is tiring. I put him down next to me for a second and he went from high-action Seth to unconscious in half that time. I had to stop what I was doing and grab the camera. 

Hope you enjoyed the updates – I think I covered almost everything. I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow and all the fun stuff we have planned and will try to update sooner rather than later so you can all see what we got up to.

- L.

Nate's Big Appointment

Nate's appointment with the Osteopath on Tuesday went very well – at least I think so.

It's hard to imagine that such a gentle process will have much of a result, but I'm glad we are taking this route for now. The Osteopath (Samara) was so nice and obviously loves working with babies. She had plenty of toys and fun things handy to keep both our boys entertained during Nate's visit, and Nate seemed totally unfazed while his head was being gently manipulated. She felt that just 3-4 visits would make a big difference which surprised me.

Samara also recommended a special pillow that helps cradle the head and prevent flattening even when babies are laying on their backs. Here is Nate posing with his new pillow for you all:



And here's a close-up of the pillow:



It's a butterfly (how cute is that?), but also a very clever (and comfy!) design and when Nate is laying on it's easy to see how it works. In theory. It was kind of pricey for a pillow ($42), so I hope it really DOES work.

And since Nate (and his pillow) are looking so nice in green, I'm also posting a couple of pics of the boys sporting their new green onesies and socks, courtesy of Gamma Rita. There are also pants that go with this, but it's been waaay too hot for pants here lately. Probably too hot for socks too, but I couldn't resist putting them on anyway this morning before the afternoon heat made anything more than diapers and covers completely ridiculous.

Enjoy!



– Hey Seth? Pull my finger?
– Ohhh... I have a bad feeling 'bout that Nate.



– How 'bout I pull your ear instead?
– Ha ha! You's a pretty funny guy Seth! Pulling my ear has same effect though. Joke's still on you.

- L.

A Note About The Poll

If you voted earlier today and noticed the poll seemed buggy, it was. Blogger has been having ongoing issues with their polling widget, so I've replaced it with a third party poller by Micropoll and everything seems to be working just fine now. If your vote got lost in the shuffle, or didn't get recorded to start with, please take a moment and vote again.

Remember: two sets of tiny taste buds are counting on you! : )

- L.

One Year Ago

One year ago our babies were 10 weeks old in utero. All their major organs had formed and their hearts were beating at a comfortable 170 and 174 beats per minute. Baby A and Baby B were the only names we had for Nate and Seth at that time; we wouldn't know for another 6 weeks that there was a very strong possibility we going to be blessed with boys. And me? I sat on tenterhooks, hardly breathing, waiting and willing the first trimester to pass so we could share our news. It was the hardest secret I've ever had to keep.

Recently, I found an awesome gallery online which probably has one of the best collections of 3D ultrasound, MRI and lab images I've ever seen, including images from the very beginnings of cell division. This image of twins at 10 weeks however is one of my favorites.

How perfect they already would have been even at 10 weeks. It doesn't even seem possible. I was in awe looking through all the images this morning and wanted to share. The complete gallery can be found here. Amazing.

- L.

Gearing Up For The Big Day

Now that Nate and Seth are almost 6 months old, the big day when we'll be feeding them solids for the first time is fast approaching. Don't worry – I'll be sure to catch every goopy detail with my camera, but in the meantime you can let us know precisely which goopy detail you'd most like to see the babies eating wearing by VOTING in the poll at the top of the upper left column.

As part of getting ready for the big event, we ordered 2 of the coolest highchairs I've ever seen: the HiLo chair from Age Design. Each converts from a high chair to a seat for kids simply by flipping the seat around and is suitable from 6 months to 6 years. It also comes in some pretty hot colors and of course, we got the red ones.

M. picked them both up Saturday afternoon and set the first one up as soon as he got home. Here it is:





Pretty cool, huh? We absolutely loved it (still do!), but...

When M. went to set up the second one that evening I heard him say "uh-oh" all the way from the other end of the house. Uh-oh indeed.

The second chair is made of completely different wood and it's not even the same colour. I'm not sure how this happened really because the company only makes the chair in natural beech and dark wood (according to their site) and yet the wood second chair is made from looks like oak.

I took some pics (of course). The lighter wood in both these shots is from the chair we had already set up:





This shot is a sideview of the legs and you can see that not only is the type of wood not the same, but one is made from pressed board (on the right), while the one on the left is solid wood.



Weird.

The thing is I probably wouldn't have even noticed anything was wrong if we'd only ordered one chair – but since we need two it would be nice if they match. I called the store we picked up the chairs from on Sunday morning, but for some reason they handle their online orders online only so I've emailed their order center but I have a feeling I won't hear anything until today at the earliest. Kind of frustrating that we couldn't just take it back to the store yesterday and switch it for one that matches the chair we already set up, but hopefully it will all be resolved swiftly. We're kind of on a deadline here. ; )

And just in case you thought I was going to leave you with another wordy post with only some product shots, fear not! I couldn't not put the babies in the chair to see what they thought of it and I also couldn't not have my camera handy when I did so.

Seth had a fine time modelling as usual.





And then I tried it out on Nate...



... who apparently found the new chair to be the MOST EXCITING THING EVER! He had this look on his face for at least 5 minutes. I thought his eyes were going to pop right out of his head – it was hard to stop laughing long enough to take a picture.

Then he kind of got over it and that's when I nabbed this video:



Nom!

And um, yeah. It was hard to keep the camera steady(ish) since I was holding back the laughs here too. In all fairness though, I did tell him the chair was "for eating".

- L.

Sometimes A Mama Knows Best

And I'm not talking about me.

Remember the Great Bath Saga? You know, when we tried to transition from the kitchen sink to our first baby bath? You can refresh your memory here, and make sure you take time to read the comment my mom left at the end of the post – especially this part:

When I arrive I'll show you what a baby tub looks like and those poor wee bibies will have a whale of a time!

Well, sure enough after my mom arrived we bought a proper tub without haste. This is a proper tub for those who don't know:



Seth handled it pretty well for the first few seconds...



... but it didn't last, so the rest of the pics are of my "bibies" having a "whale of a time" as it were:







Ha! At the time I have to admit I snickered a little taking these pictures. Not at the babies, of course, but at my mom. I giggled. I teased.

I was smug.

But you know, in the end, mom was right. It took a few tries, but my babies are back to enjoying their baths like good little Aquarians once more. The only crying that has taken place over the last couple of weeks was once or twice when I took a baby out of the bath.

Go figure!

Well, the $50 bucket is at least useful for filling the new bath (which cost a whopping $12 by the way).

And now that Nate and Seth are enjoying bathtime again, I thought it was high time to invest in some bath toys.



I think they're going to have fun with these and I can't wait to try them out on the next bath day!

- L.

P.S. Thank you mom!

More Updates!

Well, where were we? Ah, yes...

The laundry: I didn't even have a chance to update you all yet and let you know our machines were finally fixed a week ago Friday when our dryer conked out again last Friday. Unbelievable. Same problem too (smoky smell in the barrel) so I'm assuming the part that makes the heat overloaded again. Our landlords have actually been very proactive during this process, which has been a refreshing change. Maybe they've been reading our blog. ; )

They are sending the guy who installed the dryer as well as hooked up the venting over on Monday to take a look at how things are venting and if there's a problem there. Makes sense since this is the third heating element that's died in a machine that isn't quite 4 years old. In the meantime we are using the dryer downstairs with our landlords' blessing, so no more clandestine trips to the basement after dark. Hopefully this will all be resolved soon, and I'm just so thankful it's summer so we can take advantage of drying things outside too – especially diapers. So far we've made it through this whole ordeal without having to pick up disposables.

Toothwatch 2010: Still waiting, but we are so close. There are some very pointy little bits just waiting to burst through for both Nate and Seth – I can't wait to see that first little flash of white on either. It's been a long wait.

Nate's Plagiocephaly (AKA Baby Flathead): I first wrote about this way back in April after we'd brought it up with our pediatrician. Although some cases are treated with a helmet, her advice to us was that 90% of plagio cases will resolve themselves if left completely untreated. She asked at the time if he was favoring a particular side (called torticollis) because this can actually be a sign of a serious medical problem, but fortunately not in our case. Our pedi gave us some literature at the time which recommended using a rolled up towel or blanket to reposition Nate, and we also bought his a sleep positioner for nighttime, both of which completely corrected the torticollis.

His head on the other hand, while showing some improvement in the past 4 months is still noticeably flat so we decided to follow up with another appointment last week just to make sure we're still on the right track. Our pedi again gave us the stats and said that most babies with a flat spot will have a round head by the time they reach toddlerhood and that a lot of changes happen once babies are sitting up, crawling and just generally moving around while upright more. But, you know, I'm a mama and it's my job to worry at least a little, especially when I hear scary news that severe plagiocephaly can cause problems with vision and hearing.

Nate's doctor was still very reluctant to recommend a visit to the specialist at Sick Kids though, and I got the impression that she finds that babies that go there end up with a helmet regardless of the severity of the problem, which if true is a shame since those helmets are custom made and very expensive – as in thousands of dollars expensive so it's not something you would want to invest in if you didn't absolutely have to. Instead she referred us to an osteopath and we have our first appt. with them on Tuesday. I'm not sure how the process works, but I'm very curious to see what they have to say and hopefully they can put some of my mama worries to rest. I'll keep you all posted.

Well, that was pretty wordy! I have a ton of pics sitting here waiting for me to write the posts that go with them, but I wanted to bring you all up to date on everything else first. I promise some fun stuff featuring the cutest babies EVER* is coming along shortly though! : )

- L.

*EVER in the whole world, at any place or any time EVER. I hope that covers it. *whew*