6 Months - Sleeping, Slurping and Sipping

Well, we are here already - at the half way mark to one year! The days and weeks are just flying by, and soon the twins will be walking and talking. Thankfully for now they are still immobile. :)

And not quite sitting up on their own. :)

Our biggest change this month has been to start on solid food. We are still nursing a lot and taking a few bottles a day to supplement, and have tried avocado, bananas, cooked apple and runny oatmeal. Today we experimented with fresh orange juice (an acid free type that is often given here as one of the first "foods"). We are not having a lot of success, but they're getting the idea slowly. 

It looks like we are transitioning to two naps a day and it's becoming harder and harder to keep the two girls on the same schedule. They are just so different! Lisa is our cat-napper who we can't get much more than an hour out of, and Leila seems like she would sleep all day if we let her. Actually, using the term schedule isn't really accurate - what we have is a very fluid, flexible sort of rhythm to our day. It works for us and has enough structure for me right now. Nights haven't been the best either, but we seem to have turned a corner recently - I actually had one night with a five hour stretch! I'm hoping the addition of solid food will help them get through the night without needing to nurse.

When Lucas was born, we were far from family and so David started making videos of him, every day to share with our friends and family. (You can check out those videos here)

When Elena was born, we were closer to David's family, while mine was still far away in Canada - and I think we made four or five videos of her first days. (You can find more videos of Lucas and Elena here)

Predictably, the twins being the babies in the family are desperately behind in the video department. So I finally managed to piece together a little video of their first six months. 

Double Blessings from Taara Portela on Vimeo.

Preparing for the Twins - The Kids - Part 2

I can't quite believe that in a little over four weeks we'll be welcoming our twins into the world! There are lots of things to get ready still in our house, and while we can do a lot to prepare, we can't really predict how our kids will react to the twins.

A few weeks ago we had a visit from their Aunt Grace and cousin Kevin and were able to spend a few days with them. Kevin turned 9 months old during their trip here. We haven't had a lot of interaction with smaller babies recently, so I was interested to see how they would behave around Kevin.

Lots of fun with family! 

 I was happy to see how gentle Lucas and Elena were with Kevin. We discovered pretty quickly that it was much better to have only one of them playing with Kevin at a time - otherwise the poor little guy was a little overwhelmed with two cousins so close. So I guess it's good we'll have two little girls - each big kid can entertain a little one. :)

I'm not sure exactly what game these two were playing, but it sure looked like they were getting ready to hold their baby sisters! 

Thankfully both my kids were pretty good eaters as babies, but I can already imagine how much more challenging it will be with feeding two at the same time - so I'm sure I'll be asking my little helpers to pitch in. While Kevin was here, both Lucas and Elena had a chance to help feed him. It was pretty cute. Check it out...

Any other tips for helping my kids prepare for the twins' arrival?

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I've been wanting to make this video for a long time - it's so interesting to me to watch my kids imitating and learning from each other. Because they are so close in age it's not just the younger one copying the older one.

Check it out!