Charlotte & Ruby - 13 months

Charlotte and Ruby are thirteen months old!  This month flew by faster than any other month so far!

The girls LOVE to play on the bean bag in Henry's room.  They tackle each other on it all the time.  I took these pictures on their thirteen month birthday.  (At the end of this post I have all of this month's details!)

Charlotte

Stakes her claim to the bean bag.

Ruby (R) comes in to try to dethrone her.

Ruby plops right down.

Wedges herself into the middle leaving Charlotte no choice but to leave.

Ruby wins.
And all of this took place along with super high pitched shrieks of laughter by both of them.

Charlotte will only take a few bites of pureed baby food.  She throws a fit and refuses to eat it.  Ruby will still eat it somewhat but when she sees Charlotte reject it she starts doing the same thing.  Both of them only want finger foods.  Sometimes pureed food is just easier for me to feed them since I do not have tons of time to have a variety of finger foods ready for them.  (I guess I do have the time but I just do not have the wherewithal!)  I have been sneaking pureed food bites in between real food when I really want them to eat something besides the finger food we have on hand.

Ruby is still only walking four steps in a row and then sits down.  She's been doing this for 5-6 weeks!  Charlotte is finally standing up unassisted for long stretches of time.  On October 30th she just up and took 10 steps in a row out of no where.  Every day since then she takes several steps.  She tends to walk further than Ruby.  

Still no teeth.  So funny.  Their lack of hair and teeth is actually nice in a weird way.  They just look like very mature babies and I get to pretend my girls are not growing into toddlers!!

They lose their minds anytime we put them on a swing at the playground.  It is one of my favorite things to do with them.  I have a video of this I will post soon.  They also love to chase Hank around the yard.  Brett and I each hold a baby and chase Hank in the yard.  The girls go crazy and so does Hank.  Everyone wins except Brett and I who have to keep it up because Hank keeps asking for more.  It is so exhausting!

They "talk" to us a lot more every day.  They love to babble and it's fun to carry on babbling conversations with them.

They have been sleeping tons better since they turned one.  I am not sure why but it's as if all of a sudden they no longer wake up over night.  They cry out from time to time but we don't have to go in there very often anymore.  They also have been sleeping until past 6 am which is very nice.  Except for the last week of this month!  They have been waking up at 4 or 5 am.  It probably coincides with weaning them, but who knows why babies do what they do!?! 

This 4 am business generally is started by Ruby.  Oh sweet Ruby.  You can scream like no other.  Why you do it in the middle of the night and wake up everyone is beyond me.  It's just a few shrill shrieks but they do the trick.  We're awake.  I give you your pacifier and you usually go straight back to sleep.  The problem is now you have woken up your sister!

In general, Charlotte doesn't scream as loud as Ruby.  She does her fair share of hollering but it's not as high pitched as Ruby.  Ruby also is a bit more dramatic.  And I don't mean that as a bad thing.  When Ruby is mad about something, she will arch her back and wail.  If she is sitting on her knees her head can lean so far back it basically touches the ground behind her.  It is so funny and I can't take it seriously.  With her back arched, she lets out one big yell then she sits back up straight and looks at me to see if she made an impact.  When Charlotte cries I tend to respond differently because she really means business when she gets emotional.  She doesn't get upset as easily as Ruby.  They both are so unique!

I have finished breastfeeding them as of last week.  They are getting the hang of drinking cow's milk out of a sippy cup but we still help them from time to time to make sure they actually drink the whole thing and don't just take little sips and throw it.  Sippy cups splattering all over the floor has got to be in my top five list of pet peeves.  I'm thinking of concocting a strap to secure those things to their high chairs.  I feel like I chase down sippy cups the entire time they are in their chairs.

This month they have decided to attach themselves to my legs whenever I am in the kitchen.  I kid you not...it's as if they must come cling on to me anytime I am in there.  I spend a lot of time shuffling around instead of taking steps.

They are climbing like crazy.  They are too small to be scaling the dining chairs, coffee table and train table!  It makes me so nervous!  Hank has tried to "help" them down a few times and they tend to end up with injuries as a result.  It makes Brett really nervous and it's also very hard to leave them unattended for fear that they are going to scale the coffee table and fall off and hurt themselves.  One day I came back from running errands with Hank and Brett had moved the coffee table to the laundry room. I guess after taking them off the table for the 50th time he had had enough!

Both girls have laughs that melt my heart.  I love getting Ruby worked up into a laughing fit just so I can see her nose wrinkle up as she loses it.  Charlotte's laugh attacks are great too because she kind of sounds like she is hyper ventilating and her hold face lights up and her eyes twinkle.

Ruby and Charlotte are both very ticklish.  All I have to do is poke my finger in their ribs and they lose control.  I do this several times a day.  Funny, it would make me so mad as a kid when people did it to me but here I am doing it to my own kids.  I think there is something so addicting about making your own kids laugh.

Happy thirteen months sweet girls!

-a