Ruby and Charlotte - 10 months

 

Ruby and Charlotte are 10 months old!  And check it out.  I got a picture of Charlotte with a full-on grin.  Here's what they were up to during month nine!

They are crawling so fast.  Having two mobile babies exploring the house is quite a lot of work.  Every few seconds I have to do roll call to find out where all three kids are.  Sometimes I wear one of the babies just to limit the amount of children randomly moving through the house or underfoot.

They are starting to get the idea that their legs are for standing and walking.  Charlotte enjoys pushing the chairs around in our dining room and can entertain herself for 10 minutes at a time doing it.   Ruby has only done it a few times but Charlotte does it every day.  Ruby likes to pull up on my legs a lot when I am in the kitchen.  Sometimes Charlotte will come over and do it too and then I get trapped.  I have had to slowly shuffle across the room a few times because my hands were full and I couldn’t shake them off.

Both girls have been practicing standing without holding on to anything.  Ruby is getting very good at it and practices it all day long.  She will hold on to the train table and let go for as long as 5-6 seconds before she sits down.  Occasionally she will stand up on her own without holding anything, starting from a squatting position.  Charlotte is starting to let go of furniture for a couple of seconds and then sits down once she realizes how funny it feels to not hold on to anything.

They are getting really loud!  They are the loudest at meal times.  Ruby can scream so loud when she is upset or impatient that I wonder if my hearing is going to go out.  Hank puts his hands over his ears and asks me to tell Ruby to stop screaming because it hurts.  We thought it was only Ruby that was loud but in the past week Charlotte has started mimicking Ruby and now they alternate screaming.  It's interesting to see them take turns screaming while staring at each other.  It's like they are coordinating their screams for maximum effect.  Hank notices it too and then he’ll chime in.  When he does it the girls eat it up and start coordinating with him.  Three kids making shrieking sounds = awesome.

They are babbling and talking a lot more too.  We love hearing them talk.  Hank does too and he tries to keep them going whenever they talk.  In the van he will copy them when they talk and that gets them to talk even more.  Hank loves to get them to make noise! 

They love to climb all over us.  Whenever Brett is on the ground playing with Hank the girls like to crawl quickly over to him and attack him.  He loves it!  Whenever I sit on the floor with them while they play, they often try to climb up my legs to get to my lap.  If I take pictures, they drop what they are doing and try to attack my camera.  They laugh when they climb on us and slap us over and over with their hands.

They are so joyful and happy.  Ruby laughs with her mouth wide open, eyes crinkling at the corners and her nose scrunches up.  Just like Henry did as a baby.  Ruby still passes out smiles for free to anyone who asks for one from her.  Charlotte’s demure smile is a little sly and we still have to really earn them.   Charlotte’s laugh is just as adorable as Ruby’s but she doesn’t scrunch her nose as often.  One of my favorite sounds is the sound of both of them laughing whole-heartedly.  Henry can make the girls laugh really well.  They go bananas when he pretends to sneeze for them.  They just think it’s the funniest thing.  It makes him laugh too and then they all three go round and round laughing and making each other laugh.  I love moments like that.

This month they have been eating more and more solid foods, with three meals a day and snacks in the morning and afternoon.  They are still nursing five times a day.  I’m sure we could drop down to four feedings but I don’t care and they sure aren’t complaining.  I’ve got nothing better to do and it’s not like we’re going anywhere.  Ha ha.  I kid - but not really.  Plus, they’re little.  They could use the extra bonus.  They still do not have any teeth but they can gum food with the best of the 90 year olds!

As for sleeping, they still nap twice a day, around two hours each time.  At night, they usually are in bed by 7pm and wake between 6am and 7am.  We try to get away with leaving them in their beds in the morning until 7 because they normally wake up happy and are just babbling with each other.  If they are crying or sound cranky we go in and get them up.  As for night time sleep, Charlotte is a champ and almost never wakes up crying overnight.  Ruby has been getting back to her old self and sleeping well at night.  We finally decided to let her cry it out so we could resume having all three kids sleeping through the night again.  It’s working and she has been getting better at settling herself at night.  We occasionally go in to soothe her but in general all the kiddos are sleeping well.  Now Brett and I need to stop being night owls and get ourselves some sleep.  The bags under my eyes will thank me for it.

Both Ruby and Charlotte are such easy babies.  Even though they are vocal, opinionated, and demand attention when they need it, they are still two little dreams.  I say thanks to God all the time for giving us easy going twins.  He knew just what we could handle.

We love these girls so very much.

-a