The twins at 33 months

Here’s the twins’ latest update.

Feeding.

There has been no changes since my last update in this respect. Their breakfasts aren’t brilliant at the moment, though. They’ve gone back to having a bottle of milk first thing in the morning (we got rid of the bottles in the mornings for quite a few months, since they were having cereal instead), and they are not really into cereal any more.

However, they are still eating pretty much the same their other meals. Eric’s favourite foods are: cucumber, sausages, grapes, melon, carrots, peas. Elisa’s ones are: fried eggs, tomato soup, apples and pears, cucumber, rice, and quiche.

 

Sleeping.

They are going to bed very well in the last few weeks. We still have bedtime tantrums, because they don’t want to come upstairs, or they don’t want to get in the bath, or they don’t want to stop playing… But when we’ve conquered all of those tasks, they are very good at taking their bottle and going into their cot straight away and falling asleep on their own.

We dropped the naps a while back, and at nursery I asked the carers to not put them down for a nap, as it was better for us to put them to bed. However, they have been falling asleep at nursery a few times, but it hasn’t affected their bedtime so much (going to bed a bit later, but that’s all). So we have now agreed with the carers that if they want to have a nap, to let them have it, as long as it’s only like an hour long maximum, and they are up by 2:30 in the afternoon.

 

Development.

I am afraid that we have not started potty training yet. I know they are ready, Eric specially has been doing wee-wees and poos in the potty at nursery for a while. However, when we get home, they keep doing their number ones and twos in their nappy without even announcing it. I know that I have to take the lead, take off their nappies and ask constantly, I just haven’t had the patience yet.

At the same time, there is no rush. As long as they are potty trained before they go into pre-school, all is good. I don’t want to put any pressure on them and I don’t want to make my life difficult, so we are taking it slowly.

They are loving their balance bikes that they got for Christmas. Elisa got the gist straight away. She is a pro! Eric had a few problems. There are two positions for the seat, one was too low for him making his feet drag along, and the other is just a tad too high, making it hard for him to touch the floor for pushing along and stopping. For a while we used so sponges taped to the seat, to make it an in-between size and it worked. But we got rid of the sponges because they were getting nasty dirty, so he is now on the lowest level. His feet drag a bit, but he is getting used to lifting them to coast along. He is getting much better!

 

Socialising.

They have lots of friends at nursery, and they seem to be getting quite well (or well enough) with most of them. Unfortunately they don’t have many chances to socialise with them outside the nursery environment. A couple of weekends ago the nursery organised a get-together at Playdays. The plan was that it would give the children a chance to see their friends outside nursery and also a good opportunity for the parents to get to know each other. Unfortunately, apart from Marc, I didn’t recognise any other of their classmates, if there were any…

A friend has suggested that when the weather starts getting nicer, we could organise playdates in her garden (which is nice and big), so maybe that will help them get used to playing with other children!

 

Health.

So, the dreaded chicken pox is done and dusted!

Just a few days after returning from Spain, Elisa came back from nursery with a few mild spots in her chest. We didn’t think much of it (after all, Elisa did use to have some skin issues when she was younger), and put her to bed. However, the following morning she woke up completely covered in red spots. We called the nursery and told them that she had chicken pox and she wouldn’t be attending until the following week. Now I was praying that Eric would get them at the same time, as I didn’t want to have to go through the same again a few days later! My prayers were answered and that same evening Eric started getting spots too.

The first day of each one of them having the spots was easy. They seemed to be in a good mood most of the time, only looking a bit “off” a couple of times. So I thought to myself “this chicken pox thing is easy!”. Little did I know… That night Elisa had a terrible night. She kept itching and scratching and crying. We brought her to our bed, where she continued to itch, scratch and cry. It was not a pleasant night.

Unfortunately, the following night it was Eric’s turn! Exactly the same as night before with Elisa. Lots of itching, scratching and whimpering. Elisa was ok that night, as we managed to give her a full dose of calpol and a full dose of piriton. Eric however decided that we was going to spit every single bit of medicine that we gave him.

All in all, the “bad” part of the chicken pox lasted three days, and two days at either end that weren’t that bad. However, they both still have scars. Eric has got three in his face, and Elisa has got several all over her body. I put some cream on her everyday to try and smooth them out, but I suppose time will be the better healer.

 

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In other news, I have made a pledge to get out my DSLR more often and try to take nicer photos of them both. Whilst doing their scrapbook, I am noticing that the quality of the photos we take with the iPhones are not anywhere as good as they could be. So the big camera is now downstairs. They don’t like having their photos taken, so I can only take a few at a time whilst they don’t notice. A couple of friends of mine who take amazing photos of their kids said the trick is not giving up and getting them used to the camera, so they don’t react any more when they see the camera out.