Here we go again…
Feeding.
No major changes at all in this area this past month. They still struggle with breakfast sometimes. Some days they will devour whatever I give them, other days they don’t even want their milk first thing in the morning. It is really a guessing game, but at the same time, they seem to be perfectly healthy and with a good weight, so I am not extremely worried.
Their favourite foods have not changed much either. They still love sausages, baked beans, corn on the cob, cheese, melon, oranges, pears and apples. I am struggling to get them to drink water (or anything else) during the day. I always have a glass available and offer it to them, but they tend to refuse it. Other times they ask for water and then they’ll only have the smallest sip ever. But, again, it’s not summer, they don’t need hydrating as regularly as when it’s hot.
Sleeping.
Bad, bad, bad month.
Oh man, I don’t even want to talk about it.
Eric has been sleeping in our bed almost every single night this month. I think he slept in his own cot like twice. Not good. In addition to that, Elisa has also had a couple of bad nights, so we have ended up setting up the sofa bed downstairs and having to take her down. When they were little we were able to fit all four of us in our bed, but they are too big now. Plus Elisa moves around a lot, and it’s just not comfortable.
One night Eric woke up at about 3am. All he wanted to do was to go downstairs. On any other night this would have not been a problem. We would have gone downstairs, sit on the sofa and he would have probably fallen asleep immediately. But this time, Elisa and daddy were downstairs on the sofa bed, so it was out of bounds. Eric started crying and crying, and nothing that I did would settle him. He cried for over an hours, and then decided to take him for a car ride at 4am. And guess what. It did not f*cking work. He eventually settled back to sleep at 4:45 or something like that. Horrible.
So yeah, exhausting.
Development.
Elisa has finally started saying some words. She tries to copy Eric when he says something. So now she also says ball and star, and a few others. Eric is really kicking off with the words. On top of all the other ones he knew, now he says key and door, and stairs and hot, and many others. I still try to teach them all the Spanish equivalent words, but they are always so complicated in comparison to the English versions! No wonder they stick to the easy ones…
I haven’t had them weighed or measured for a long time, but you can clearly see that Eric is much taller than Elisa. I would say around 6 cms taller. He is also heavier, despite the fact that he is thinner than her (she still has a big potty belly), so I think that means that he will be big boned! Jokingly I said to Jon the other day that I really hope that Elisa does not turn out to be as tall as his mum and Eric as tall as my brother! (Jon’s mum is really short and my brother is really tall) It would be such a mismatch!
They are both learning to jump now. It is so cute, because they know the theory but they really struggle to get off the ground! They have seen many other kids jumping around and they feel like they are missing out, but then they can’t do it themselves! They are great climbers though. We have been to quite a few soft play areas in the last few weeks and they have ventured into the older kids sections without much problem. As I was saying last time, Elisa is quite an adrenaline junkie and she loves going up high and coming down the big slides.
Socialising.
We have been out and about a lot this past month. Soft play, play groups, twins club, etc. I see them play on their own a lot, but they also get on well with other children. I went with a friend and her twins to soft play just the other day and at the beginning all four of them were doing their own thing, but after 45 minutes or so all four of them were playing together (well, throwing balls at each other – if that counts as playing)
I feel more comfortable with them going places now. In fact, I think this is the happiest we’ve all been when out and about. They don’t love the pushchair, though, so they will start complaining about it within half an hour or so. But walking is great now, and they do hold my hand when I need them to walk by my side.
Health.
If I had written this update just a few days ago, it would have gone like this: A bit of a cold a couple of weeks back, with lots of snots, but nothing major. However, just two days ago Eric got quite ill. We had been to playgroup and he had been fine. But when we got home for lunch he vomited all over the kitchen and then got a fever that afternoon. And he has been poorly since.
They also got conjunctivitis on Monday but it cleared pretty quickly. On Tuesday I called the doctors for a repeat prescription for eye drops and they gave me a different product than last time. This one is much better as you only need to apply it twice a day. But as I say, their eyes got much better on their own by Tuesday afternoon, before applying the eye drops.
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So, in summary. It has been a bittersweet month. Sweet because we have been out and about a lot and they have had lots of fun. But bitter because bad nights sleep and now this sickness, whatever it is that is making Eric ill.
I really struggle to get them both on one picture at the same time, so this is the best I could come up with:
