Meet James at 6-12 Months, Part I

James was my mellow easy baby the first six months, but he became the more difficult one between six and twelve months as he got more mobile. As he learned more skills like flipping over, clapping, crawling, and pulling himself up, he would not easily go down for naps because all he wanted to do was practice his new skills. It was cute - you could sometimes hear James awake in the middle of the night, clapping - but it also made things challenging. When the twins would be put down for naps, James would pull up and stand in his crib on the side next to Julia's and jump up and down excitedly like an ape, and then neither would sleep. Between that and the first one waking up in the morning waking up the other with their crying, we ended up moving Julia to a separate room.

James pulling himself up for the first time. You can see Mommy in the mirror taking a photo of this momentous occasion. (9 1/2 months)

Rrrrrrrrrrrrip! (9 1/2 months)

James became very willful and hated being thwarted from something he was doing. Basically he entered the terrible twos at 11 months. He was just a boy with a busy schedule of changing table shelves to bang on, hardwood floors to bang on, mirrored doors to bang on, and toys to bang together, and he didn't like being interrupted from those activities.

James was harder these months but he was still my Sweet Boy and my Sweetie who loved affection and being held. He also had the softest, happiest voice when he babbled. Like Julia he liked playing with our faces but he was much more gentle. His stranger anxiety was at its peak these months and when a new person would smile at him and we'd see his lower lip start protruding, we knew we were in trouble. To strangers James was our serious shy boy, but at home he was my Giggles.


Our gentle face explorer. (8 1/2 months)

We had to hide books and bottles from James or he'd cry upon seeing them if he couldn't get to them. He also was very vocal during solid feedings and always wanted the food faster or wanted to skip the food entirely to get to the bottle. Even though he was crying he'd continue to eat so it was hard to know when he was actually done. There were few foods that James didn't like; we called him The Garbage Disposal.

I fed the babies milk in Boppy pillows until about 10 months. When James would finish his bottle, he'd just flip over and crawl off. He was a boy that loved flipping over. As soon as he mastered that, taking monthly growth photos of him lying down next to Patrick Pup became a two person activity - one to photograph, the other to wrangle. James would flip over (or try to) on the changing table and in the crib. He was the potato bug of babies. And then for a week or two in the middle of the night he'd wake up and, confused as to why he was flipped over and unable to right himself, he'd cry out and we'd have to right him like a turtle. I would put the babies in Bumbo seats for reading time and James figured out how to hurl himself backwards out of his seat. He also liked to upend the Bumbo seat like the Hulk.


This is the last time I took monthly growth photos on my own. Notice that James is already in mid-flip. (9 months)


James likes to wrestle his Bumbo seat. (9 months)


"Hmmm... Me not sure how I feel about Bumbo seat staying on ground. Hulk have to think about this." (33 years?)

The Twins' 1st Birthday

The day before the twins' first birthday was their 12 month "well check" visit with their doctor. After finding out that James's head is in the 93rd percentile (go James?!), they both got their booster shots. FIVE pokes each. Then we stopped by to visit the first person to ever see them - their birth doctor, Dr. Crites (not to be confused with zombie gynecologist) who was great through the last hard months of my pregnancy. Unfortunately the twins were still pretty cranky from the shots. (Note to self: what was I thinking getting their vaccinations the day before their birthday?)


Julia recognizes her birth doctor.


James making the same face as the last time he saw this doctor.

The next morning James had a slight fever when he woke up. I slept in and when I entered the family room a few hours later, my mom started telling me that James felt really hot. And then before I could even cross the room to him she said, "He's not focusing!" James's eyes stared straight ahead, totally blankly, his mouth was pursed together, sort of making fish lips that opened and closed very slightly. He was totally non-responsive. Thankfully I had looked up fevers in What to Expect: The First Year when James first woke up that morning, and I had read the section on febrile seizures. This was a classic febrile seizure, which don't always involve convulsions (neither did James's), and the book said as long as the seizure didn't last more than 5 minutes it was basically harmless. We took off his clothes and put a cold wet washcloth on him (a cold wet washcloth is actually what NOT to do when someone has a fever because their shivering can increase the temperature). After about 3 minutes, with the seizure continuing, I called 9-1-1. An ambulance and fire truck arrived a few minutes later, and James seemed to snap out of the seizure when the EMTs got to him, which meant the seizure lasted about 6 minutes.

The EMTs wanted to take James to the hospital, so I rode up front in the ambulance. I felt guilty taking pictures but I didn't take any last time (yes, James rode in an ambulance in July) and I knew by this point he was okay. The driver gave him a stuffed spider monkey, which technically was his first birthday gift. I'm guessing they keep a supply of stuffed animals for little ones. However, someone should educate them that they shouldn't be giving ones with choking-hazard bead eyes to babies under three. Or maybe it's their way of drumming up more business?...


New Year's resolution: No more trips to the emergency room for my babies.

By the way, we live three long blocks from the hospital and the ambulance trip came to $1399 before our insurance covered the whole shebang. (The two hour hospital stay came to $6131, and we only chipped in a $50 co-pay.)

James's temperature was 105.3 when we arrived at the hospital. The febrile seizure was due to his fever rising too fast, not the actual high temperature number. Febrile seizures are genetic and his Uncle Michael had one when he was three. James had an x-ray and some blood tests to rule out a viral infection, and with medication his temperature significantly decreased so we were discharged. In the meantime, we overheard the nurses at the nurses' station chatting about how cute James was, and Mark delighted James by throwing him into the air.

That night James's temperature rose to 103.6, but came down again. Most of the doctors thought that James's fever was due to the vaccinations but they changed their minds when Julia and I both came down with fevers five days later. We probably caught whatever it was that Uncle Michael gave to Grandma who infected James who passed it on to Julia and me who gave it to Mark. Thanks, Uncle Michael! (And Michael thought what he had was allergies...)


"Fever, schmever. Throw me in the air again, Daddy!"

The original plan for the twins' birthday was for them to open presents, go to the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo, and destroy some cupcakes. We only had time to have them open some gifts just before dinner. They were much less into ripping open wrapping paper than we expected.


Julia is thoroughly unimpressed by her gift of Busy Balls.


"This box is definitely better than the Busy Balls."



The next day the babies got to eat smash the snowman cupcakes that we had purchased at Whole Foods. Julia didn't really want to eat hers or smash it, and seemed uninterested in the whole thing. James on the other hand, took some time to warm up to it, but took to smashing his like a fish to water. (Or like The Hulk to smashing stuff.)

"Hulk just want opportunity to smash cupcake."

The birthday cupcakes




At first James doesn't seem interested but then he gets the hang of it...


...some might say too much so.


"If you think I'm a slob you should see Julia. Oh you did? Okay, yeah I'm a slob."


But he's a cute slob!


Before the cake smashing began, Mark smartly chose Julia's cupcake as the one he would finish eating.


Meanwhile, I got left with this.