Mostly June, July & August 2010, Part I

I realize this post will seem very similar to the Meet James and Julia at 6-12 months ones. It was poor planning on my part. The other posts were meant to be more about their personalities at that age. This one is more about what date they first flipped, crawled, etc. I tried not to have too much overlap between the posts. Enjoy?


The Move

The big family news for these months was that we bought our first house! James celebrates move-in day by producing his first turd. He's a precocious boy with the bowels of a boy months older.

Mark and I pose with the babies two weeks after we move in. The field behind us is where 50+ houses will be built in the next year. (8 1/2 months)

Move-in day is August 12th, which is also Mark's and my third anniversary. Two days before was my appearance on Jeopardy! which involved a car trip to LA and bringing a breast pump to the studio. It was a busy couple days to say the least. It was also our first overnight trip away from the babies. Grandma said Julia looked towards the front door as though looking for us, and that she was mopey and James was difficult the first day we were gone.

The first night in the new house the babies were up every 20 minutes, and needed to be rocked to sleep. I suspect it was because they were in a new house and needed reassurance, especially since Mark and I were recently away.

I had an infection for a month which I didn't realize until later that made pumping very painful, so I had to pump at a lower level of suction, which meant I produced less and less milk. When I was only producing 1/6 of one of the babies' total daily intake (even before the infection I only produced less than 50% of the babies' intake), I made the difficult decision to wean. They had long since rejected the breast so my last pumping session was on 9/13. Later I also found out we had been feeding the babies 33 oz. of milk/formula a day when they should have received 16-24 oz. This might help explain why we were told the babies were gaining weight too fast at their 6 month well-check appointment.

Visits
Grandma and Papa visit off and on (mostly on, thankfully) during these three months, and Bubby visits at the end of July. Mark also takes his last week of paternity leave. We Skype with Papa and Robin (my brother's friend, my parents' IT support, and eater of an entire loaf of bread in one sitting) as well as Bubby for the first time in early July. Our friends Kelsi and Drew and their son Ari see the babies for the first time at their house, along with Lila and Brendan who see the babies in a non-sleeping state for the first time.


Bubby and her grandbabies. (8 months)

Kelsi with James; The twins meet Ari (and Kelsi and Drew), which gives Julia a chance to show off her jean diaper. (7 months)

The babies visit (instead of just strolling around) a park for the first time, and lie on a blanket there for their first playdate with Ronan at Oak Meadow Park in Los Gatos.


Playing at a park for the first time with their friend, Ronan. (6 months)

In mid-July James discovers grass and pulls out big clumps of it. During one of our first park playdates, a loose dog approaches so I scoop one twin up in each arm. They also visit a mall for the first time (Valley Fair Mall so Mommy can buy an outfit for Jeopardy!) and make their first trips to Target (Cupertino), Costco, and a favorite restaurant of their parents, Zeni.


Mommy holds Julia while James plays with the grass... (7 1/2 months)


...Then James takes a chomp out of Julia. "Mmm... Pilloff-y." (7 1/2 months)

Flipping

The babies - well, mostly James - begin to get mobile. On 6/16 James turns over from his back to his tummy while trying to grasp the hanging giraffe on the activity mat. He repeats this trick two more times that day, once crying out because he landed on his arm. Julia *mostly* rolls over to her tummy reaching for the cube toy on 7/1, but makes it completely over to her tummy on 7/4. Once she does it she performs her new trick three more times, decides that's enough, and she doesn't do it again until she's a year old! Meanwhile, James is a boy obsessed. He constantly flips over - even when I put him down for a nap. He cries out at night because he sleep-flips and doesn't know how he got that way or how to flip back. One time James was so fixated on flipping he did it while drinking his bottle and didn't understand why milk wouldn't come out while he was laying on his tummy.

Julia's pre-flip over ballet pose. (7 months)

Diapering James is crazy between him trying to flip over, the solid food poops, and fighting off his hand which wants to grab "Li'l James." Sometimes I wish I could hog-tie him. Julia is less mobile, but even more wriggly on the changing table! And their monthly posed photos used to be so simple. Now it's like herding cats. I'll put James down and he'll flip over before I can get the camera.

This is a more recent photo but shows how hard taking pictures of them can be. Julia's already flipped over before we can snap the picture. (15 months)

Pre-Crawling and Crawling

Julia hates tummy time and often ends up with a mouthful of blanket. James, on the other hand, can't get enough of it. On 6/17 he starts doing a self-created exercise in 10 second spurts (we call it "swimming") where his feet move really fast (but his body goes nowhere) and then he pushes himself up and looks at me proudly for approval (see the video). And then he does it all over again. Since April, James has loved to kick when he's happy. Mark says James's legs rubbing together will start a fire.


A rare happy moment of tummy time for Drool-ia. (6 months)

In mid-June James likes to do 180 degree turns while trying to crawl, but he doesn't move forward. By the end of July, James can really travel but we're not sure how. He doesn't exactly crawl, but he does flip and rotate to get around. By 8/5 he can pull himself around slowly, and the next day Papa gets James to crawl 3 feet by putting an empty milk bottle in front of him. The following day he crawls all over the living room.

James paints crawls himself into a corner. (9 months)

My friend Leslie M. describes James's movement as an army crawl, and when she returns to visit less than a week later she notes how he's even gotten better. James crawls over Leslie M.'s legs a week later (a first), and goes from crawling position to sitting (also a first). By mid-late August James can really move. Sometimes he gets caught in a corner of the activity gym and drags it around with him.

Don't hook a leg around that activity gym, James! (6 months)

Sitting

In late June/early July the babies can sit up fairly well, but we continue to prop up pillows all around them to protect against the occasional spill. By the beginning of August, Julia is happy to sit up by herself and play.

James sitting on his own with some extra protection. (6 1/2 months)


Julia sits with Papa. (8 months)