The twins turned sixteen months on the sixteenth of this month and this is their latest update:
Feeding.
They are still feeding brilliantly and they love to feed themselves. I think they have realised that there are certain foods that is better if I spoon feed them to them as otherwise they wouldn’t get much on their own. This is the case with their morning cereal.. I tried giving them their own bowls and spoons once and very much regretted it straight away. Now they let me feed them their cheerios or rice crispies without moaning.
Speaking of cereals, I have finally found one food that Elisa is not keen on: cheerios! She is a tiny bit better now and will eat some, but when I first started giving them to the kids, she refused them completely. I give a spoonfull with about 5 or 6 cheerios and milk to Eric and he has the whole thing (he actually loves them), but with Elisa, now, I have to give her a spoon full with about two or three cheerios and milk. They both love rice krispies so I tend to vary their cereal quite often. I’m not ready to give them really sugary ones like Sugar Puffs, despite my mother in law saying that it should be ok.
They eat really well at home, but something I’ve noticed in the last few weeks is that they don’t eat as well as they used to when we are out and about, be it in a restaurant or simply at a picnic. I wonder if it’s because there is too much excitement going on, being in a different place and all of that, and they simply forget that they have to eat.
Sleeping.
Not lots to report here, as their sleeping habits have not changed much since my last update. There is actually something to report in this section, but I will be telling you about it on my next post about our visit to see my family in Spain 🙂
Development.
Well, where do I start? So much going on! Ok, I’ll start with TANTRUMS. We have had tantrums for a little bit now, but in the last three or four weeks they have gone from “I’m going to cry until I get what I want” to “I’m going to throw myself backwards onto the floor, hitting my head and hurting myself in the process, whilst I scream blue murder, until I get what I want”. Oh. My. God. At least we have only had one tantrum at a time, I am not sure they have both had one at the same time. They have been upset at the same time, but not full-on tantrum.
I am still learning to deal with these situations, and I must confess that I have not always been very patient with them. I tend to ignore the tantrum child as much as I can (without going crazy myself) and after a few minutes the drama tends to pass. But if I am tired, have had a tough day, or simply don’t have the patience, then I may lose it a bit and raise my voice. But as I said, I and still learning and hopefully I’ll be able to control myself a bit better in the future.
Climbing. They can easily now climb onto the sofas and tables. Chairs will be next. And they have completely mastered coming off the sofa or whatever other surface they are on. They can easily climb onto their quad bike too and ride it without my help (if the bike is in the right position to start with. Although Elisa has actually pulled it and turned it a few times before too). They absolutely love climbing stairs and sometimes that’s all they want to do: go up and down the stairs. Trust me, it can get tiring quite soon…
They know what they want and they let you know about it. They either point or pull or push until they get it. Their range of words has not improved much unfortunately, but they understand more and more each day, so when you ask them, for example “do you want the ball?” they will react with a happy face for yes or an indifferent face for no (or shaking the head for no, if you’re Eric – he’s awesome at saying No..)
Their new thing is dancing. They have always enjoyed music, but in the last couple of weeks they really dance every time there is music in the vicinity. Their absolute favourite song is the theme tune to Friends. We’ve been meaning to record them when the song comes out, but we’re always too late by the time we get the camera out. We must get it before they go off the song, though. It’s way too cute.
Socialising.
Very quiet in this respect lately too. Many groups and classes broke for the summer and the kids and I have been going to soft play and Wellington Country Park only. The soft play that I now go to is called Active Tots and is north of Bramley, which takes me approximately 15-20 minutes to get to. Bouncing Tots closed down as they were changing premises, but their page on facebook and their website have completely disappeared, so maybe Jon is right and they’ve gone out of business! That would be a shame as we loved going there. The other soft play is also very good but not only is it further but it’s also more expensive. They have special twins days when it only costs £6 to go in, but you must leave by 12 and then the kids always fall asleep in the car on the way home, and that completely screws up their routine.
When we are either at Wellington or Active Tots the kids interact with other children. Well, Eric does. He is super sociable and loves to watch older children play and always tries to join in. Elisa, on the other hand, will play with Eric a bit, but prefers to play on her own, or just stay near me. I really don’t have a problem with her being a bit shy but I wouldn’t mind if she tried a tiny bit harder to play with other children. All in time, I suppose.
The funny thing is, she is not totally shy when it comes to strangers. I will talk a bit more about this on my next post about our latest visit to Spain, but she was very comfortable with every body in Spain. She allowed many people to hold her and give her kisses and at no point she was shy about it. So… maybe it’s just other children!
Health.
Elisa has had a cold for the last three or four weeks. It started as a cold, with lots of snot (LOTS), coughing and a tiny bit of a temperature. We had to use Snuffle baby and Olbas oil every night otherwise she just couldn’t breathe and would wake up all the time. The combo of the baby rub and the oil in hot water worked and she managed to sleep decently whilst she was ill. Then, after 5 or 6 days, she got better. But two days later she was ill again. All over again! The same: another 5 or 6 days of lots of snot, coughing and temperature. Then she got better, but her cough has not really left her. She doesn’t really cough much, but when she does it sounds really chesty, if you know what I mean.
She also got a little rash in her face about two or three weeks ago (it was the week before we went to Spain) and in Spain it got a bit worse. Everybody kept saying that it was because of the heat (it was soooo hot!) but we’ve been back in the UK for 4 days now and it is not getting any better. So I am afraid that I am going to have to get an appointment with the doctor for these two thing!
Eric has been fine. He did get a bit of a cold the first time that Elisa got it, but nowhere near so bad and it cleared pretty much straight away. No other issues with him!
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And this is it for now. We had a photoshoot with the kids just a few days before we went to Spain and we loved it. It was such a great experience! We had a few “posed” photos, which weren’t as easy (one or the other didn’t want to collaborate at some stage) but then we just let them run and we got some great shots! I think we’re going to choose some from this session to enlarge and print to put on our living room (we’ve got a very bare wall that has been awaiting some sort of print for a long time!)
This is one of them. Aren’t they big?!
