The Twins These Days

I keep meaning to include the twins more in recent posts, but John Paul and Cecilia always seem to be doing something funnier or more interesting...  Here's what I want to remember right now about both of them:

Eating snow - we brought in a few bowls so that they wouldn't feel deprived because ain't no way I was taking them out in that...

Elizabeth is by far the clingiest child I've ever had.  I used to think I really WANTED one of those children who would just sit in his or her mom's lap while I chased John Paul and/or Cecilia around trying to keep them from destroying all the things.  But Elizabeth IS that kid who wants to sit in my lap all the time (mostly she wants to nurse), but she also wants to go destroy all the things and climb all the things and fall off all the things...

Despite the clinginess, she really does have some amazingly endearing traits - she absolutely knows how to make any of us smile instantly with that scrunchy-nose megawatt grin.  You'd never guess she still only has 4 teeth, because I swear it looks like about a million when she's smiling at us!

She and Mary Claire both have their own individual dance styles, and it makes me laugh SO hard to see Elizabeth dance.  Mary Claire does a pretty typical stand-and-sway that most babies develop, with the occasional bounce move.  She always looks very serious while she does it.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, likes to run in place, gradually getting her feet farther and farther apart until she's almost doing the splits.  Then she starts walking backwards (feet in normal position), and starts spinning in circles veeeeeery slowly.  When she knows she has your attention, she bellyflops to the floor and, arms and legs thrust out behind her, starts doing something resembling "The Worm" - it's maybe the most hilarious thing I've ever seen in my life.

Mary Claire talks. so. much.  About EVERYTHING.  You can tell what a good mom I am from some of her new vocabulary acquisitions:

"Nina" (Angelina Ballerina, whose books and tv shows she is OBSESSED WITH)
"Pitty" (pretty, which applies to hats, hair, bows, etc.)
"Pee-bee" (TV)
"Fee-bee" (Phoebe from The Magic School Bus)
"Wa-wee-gee" (Luigi, because John Paul found the 1989 Super Mario Bros TV show on Netflix today)
"Hopper" (Grasshopper, at least she learned it from a book and not TV!)
"Book"
"Weed-it" (read it, when she gives me a book)

And my absolute favorite is her latest phrase, "Oh no!"

Seriously, does that inflection not make you want to die of cuteness overload?

Cecilia was very proud of her new purple polka dot shirt and came up to Mary Claire saying, "Do you see my new shirt?  Do you wike it?"  To which Mary Claire responded, "Shuht.  Pitty!" (shirt, pretty) and started poking the polka dots.  Seriously, cutest ever.

Elizabeth's still holding pretty steady in the vocabulary department - much more on the normal curve than crazy Mary Claire!  Ball, Dada, bear, please, up, etc.  She was really excited to learn the word "Hair" and is always grabbing at her few lonely strands saying, "Hay!  Hay!"  "Please" is the most important, because she gets pretty much anything she wants when she points and says please!  This is important, because even though Mary Claire can say please, she refuses.  She'll just whine and then start crying if you suggest she say it.  Every once in a while if it's her idea, she'll say please, but mostly not.

They both seem to be dead-set on subsisting only on breastmilk until they move out.  Seriously.  Actually, they'll eat snow, too.  So that's something.  

But no, they must be eating SOME amount of solid foods because my period's back...  However, it seems as though I am once again spending every waking hour nursing them, only now instead of the good old "nurse the sleeping newborns on the ginormous nursing pillow while reading a book" it's more like "nurse the 20-pound toddlers while trying to keep them from poking each other in the eyes/whacking each other in the face/pulling each other's hair/picking each other's noses/bashing their heads together..."

And don't even get me STARTED with what happens when one of them happens to pull off while nursing...  Immediately the other thinks, "OH!  THAT SIDE'S FREE!" and she GOES for it, at which point the twin sitting on that side is cut off and probably sobbing, so I have to try to lift her OVER the baby who is now no longer sitting next to me, but straddling me, so that SHE can get the other side, which is now free.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Snow and breastmilk.  That's it.  Mary Claire likes to very calmly drop every. single. piece of food on her tray onto the floor, because John Paul laughs and picks it up for her.  Sigh.

I won't detail our sleep crises except to say that they don't sleep.  'Nuf said.