Differences in personalities

My babies are 16 weeks old!

Here is the difference between Matilda and Lucas in a nutshell...

Last night I had Matilda, and Duane had Lucas. I was bouncing one
knee up and down rather violently, and singing equally loud. Matilda
was thrashing her arms up and down, and whenever I stopped, she
kicked and screamed.

Lucas was reclining on Duanes lap while Duane read a magazine. Lucas
was quietly studying the pages. I looked at him and said "Can we
swap babies yet?" :-P

Matilda and Lucas were lying on the floor together. Matilda stared
at the light fixture above her, squealing and "ooohing". Lucas had
his head turned watching CNN.

Sometimes I worry about how introspective Lucas is, but, he is very
engaging, too. Matilda will get on our laps, lock eyes and squeal.
But, Lucas will make very strong eye contact, wait for pauses in the
conversation and then "talk". He tries so hard and we sit and
say "Oh really? Is that so?" Etc. He also smiles at us more
frequently than Matilda. She would rather smile at things that
please her, and us when WE please her... but, Lucas will smile
everytime you make eye contact with him.

VERY different babies! (And my mom says I was just like her, and
Duanes mom says he was just like Lucas!)

My little sweethearts!

We're at my moms this week.

Lucas and Tilly are currently NOT camera shy at all, and we have been using the
digital camera to capture them smiling. I also have a couple of them
holding hands, which they do sometimes when they are laying together
on one of their play blankies (These were posted in the previous entry).

They have a wonderful routine now- they go to bed at 11:00 and get
up for their first bottles at 7 a.m. After their bottle we play for
45 minutes, then they nap in their swings. They take a longer nap
after their 11 a.m. feeding, and they go to bed at 8 p.m. but we
wake them up for their 11 p.m. bottle (actually we wake them around
10) and put them down for the night. They sleep in our room in
their "soothing motions gliders".

One question- what are opinions on the baby einstein videos? Matilda
sometimes gets bored and I keep thinking there is something we are
missing in the realm of entertainment. Songs, games, and toys seem
to only take her so far, and then shes ready for something new!

We hope to have some family pictures taken through the holidays. :-)

Now, Duane and I both believe in attachment parenting as much as you can do with
multiples and Lucas NEVER cries. If he starts to cry, he is picked up
an consoled instantly. I do not believe in Cry It Out. They are too young for
it anyhow. But, Matilda is allowed to sometimes "cry". I put it in
quotation marks because its really not a cry at all- its like this
weird whining "fake cry" and if you say something to her she cackles
and smiles. She does this really bad around 5 a.m. because she wakes
up bored and has trouble getting herself back to sleep. I am up every
5 minutes for about half an hour handing her a pacifyer which falls
out of her mouth as she drifts off then she wakes up again. I probably
would try and ignore her, but, it wakes up Lucas, who does cry when he
wakes up. (A true cry).

Which brings us to daytime. Basically anytime Matilda is bored, wants a new toy, or is fighting sleep she starts whining. My mom thinks its funny, and will go up to her and in a baby voice whine back, and Matilda will laugh at my mom. But, when she really needs to nap it IS annoying. She just whines until she falls asleep. Like I
said above, if it turns into a true cry, I get her and console her,
then put her back down. But, the little fakey cries when I KNOW she
just needs to nap we ignore. We touch her cheek, hand her a pacy,
but then we walk away. If I did pick her up every time she did the
fakey cries, Lucas would NEVER be held. The first day I was here my
mom actually lectured me that she hoped to goodness I did ignore some
of Matildas antics because she worried that Lucas was left out because
he is so good natured and peaceful.

So, here we are staying at my moms, and its been hard to keep them on their schedules, because my poor sister is very sensitive to Tilly's crying, and picks her up at every whine. And my mother is worried I am picking her up too much. Love "back seat" parents. Hee, hee.

Lucas HATES formula. We will be discussing this with the peditrician on the
5th. He will eat at first when he is hungry, but then he stops and
cries when his stomach makes any sort of gurgling sounds. He is on a
soy formula, and not sure where we go from here as I doubt its a
formula problem. You just feed him through the crying until he his
stomach stops making noises and then he eats well, or, he stops
altogether. Well, he will sip his juice (for his bowels) just fine
even when his stomach makes noises because Lucas loves sweeties. :-)
So, my mom decided Lucas should have juice at every bottle even though
it makes him poop and we only use it to move his bowels when he has
trouble. I let him have juice again to shut my mother up, and he had
a "blow out" and a belly ache afterwards. So, then she agreed that we
were right to limit it, but lamented how sad it was since he loves
juice.

13 weeks old!

These were from around 10 weeks of age:





The babies started sleeping longer stretches at 10 weeks. I cheated
and added rice to their bottles because they only woke up at 3 a.m.
to eat ONE OUNCE and it actually seemed to make them sleep deprived
and irritable until about noon the next day because that extra ounce
laid on their stomachs and they "pooped out" on their 7 a.m.
feedings! Once we added the rice (two tablespoons was all) they now
lay down after their 11 o'clock feeding until 6:30 in the morning.
After this we moved them back into our bedroom and Duane and I are
now sleeping together again. :-) My mom couldn't believe we waited
until they were ten weeks old to add it. She said it used to be
standard to add it at 6 weeks. Our peditrician doesn't recommend it,
but they had already prescribed it to Lucas for spit up issues, so it
was more a matter to just adding the same to Matilda.

They both have the same sleeping schedules and eating schedules, and
really are both easy going.

I feed them at 6:30 (at the same time- I prefer to feed them
individually, but for this meal they eat together)), then I use the
treadmill until around 8 a.m. and do yoga. I then do laundry and
clean- this is the only time of day that the twins are content to
just swing and daydream. After their 11 o'clock feeding we take turns
playing in the bouncy (I sit beside them and press buttons on their
toys and rattles) or under their playmat together (same, only we also
bicycle their legs and sing songs during this time). By about 6 I am
wore out and when Duane gets home I go to sleep about 8 and get up at
11 to help with the last feeding until the next day!

We still haven't mastered tummy time I am sorry to say. Matilda was
having horrible temper tantrums and wouldn't eat afterwards. Now I
wait until shes already having a tantrum over something and then use
it to do tummy time!

They are both happy babies and have good dispositions. She is still a
bit demanding, but, I have decided that if I wasn't comparing her to
Lucas (the most well tempered baby ever) I would probably say shes a
good natured patient baby, too!

I am an introvert and while I don't miss "me time" exactly, I
do get "sensory overload" from a lot of twin interaction. This is why
I still require the naps at night even though they now sleep in good
6-7 hour blocks at night. I just get exhausted after hours of
playtime. However, one good nap and I miss them terribly, and get up
all hours of the night to just look in on them.

I told my mom that God gave babies smiles
at 6 weeks of age so mommies kept feeding them. Ha! Up until that age
its pretty thankless. Once mine started smiling I felt as if I was
the most blessed person ever. :-)

We haven't started a nap schedule yet. I am not sure how one does
this, and won't get to see replies to this message since we don't
have internet and I am on Duanes uncles computer. If anyone wants to
chat, call me and give me nap secrets! As of yet, both babies at 13
weeks still like to sleep some after every feeding. I am guessing as
they are awake for longer and longer spells that I will be able to
find a good naptime schedule.

As of yet, they only bathe once a week and I get very
nervous getting them in and out of the tub, so bathing makes all of
us restless and anxious and we all three nap afterwards! I wash their
hands, feet, face and privates everyday.