free roam of the house

You can find Thing 1 & Thing 2 on enjoying the kitchen floor these days.

Thing 1 hugs her Giraffe. I asked her to give it a kiss and instead she had the Giraffe kiss her.

Thing 2 enjoys looking at herself on the camera while I take pictures. I addition to her 6 big chompers, 2 new ones on the bottom are peaking out.

Thing 1 converses with Thing 2 on the big chair. I bet they're trying to compare notes on how to be more mischievous.

A-ha! You see? You see Thing 2's face? They probably had just come up with something really bad to do.

Freedom!

I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned yesterday. Most of Big Brother's toys are now in the hallway and only the girls' toys are in the living room. I vacuumed, I mopped, I disinfected. It was back breaking work and now, finally, the girls can roam around outside the play yard! They absolutely loved it. They can now go and roam through the entire kitchen and living room.

Thing 1 went to the bookshelf that Big Brother used to love to go to and empty. She pulled the books one at a time until it was completely empty and then tried to climb on the pile of books. I think he may may climb in it like her brother used to do.

Of course we had to put the baby gates back on. And with that, we had to teach Big Brother to open it, which is not too easy for him and then there's Daddy complaining about it. He hates the gate. But hey, what can you do. The girls need to be able to crawl around and learn to climb up and down of stuff and practice taking steps. Now we have to be very vigilant about Big Brother's little toys lying around.

and so it begins...

The girls have started to want and take each other's toys. Though Jojo is crying in this video, don't feel sorry for her because she can handle herself. Sometimes they play intercept all over the living room floor trying to what the other has.

Kitchen Floor Time

(Click on the pictures to see an enlarged version.)

Katie and Jojo were having floor time this morning, barricated in the livingroom by the exersaucers, the couch, the chairs, and some pillows. But it didn't take Katie long to realize that she could escape by crawling under the exersaucers. And of course, after having done it once, she knows to keep coming back. We finally just let her explore the kitchen. She's so much faster on the kitchen than on the carpet!

It didn't take long before big brother joined in on the fun of crawling on all fours. He taught her the finer points of crawling by crawling under the table, the chair, the high-chairs. In the meantime, Jojo was all alone in the livingroom. She was content to just play by herself sitting up, until Daddy took her to the kitchen to join in the fun. She was a lot more restrained than Katie. She took in the new surrounding and took her time exploring one thing before moving on to the next.

With all these bodies on the floor, it wasn't long before there were casualties. Big brother slipped and somehow ended up with a busted lip, but the popsicle quieted him instantly. And then there was Katie, who was enjoying holding pulling up, but have yet to work out how to get her legs under her, so she ended up hitting her mouth as well.

It was a "free for all" morning, and I think it went quite well.

By the way, don't be thinking, "My, she's let her self go. Just look at those hairy legs!" Those are not mine. I swear!

Jojo has just made me a liar!

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jojo crawl toward the baby wipes. Of course, being the sadist that I am, I took it away and moved it farther to see if she'd do it again. She crawled about 2 feet to get to it. Yay, Jojo!

But instead of an arm over arm, military-type crawl, she did an inch worm move. She planted both her elbows on the floor and brought her butt up bringing both her legs up closer to her. And when her legs were up, she pushed with them to move forward and she did it all over again.

My fear of having to chase after 2 babies going in 2 different directions is now not far from being realized. Yikes!

Twins Mobility Check

Katie is still crawling with her torso down. She experiments with lifting her butt off the floor and pushes forward, but she reverts back to the military-type crawl. But she is very very fast! I put her down on the livingroom floor, and turn around to grab a diaper and she's already 3 feet away! She pulls up when we reach for her and when I set her hands on something firm. But she doesn't do it on her own yet. She doesn't step forward on her own when we hold her up by her hands.

Jojo still moves in a circle, but hasn't yet started moving forward. We've coaxed her but she is just not motivated enough to want to do it. But she does scoot when she's sitting down. I don't quite know how she does it, but I could be sitting right in front of her and still don't know how she moves 2 feet from where I set her down. She tried to pull up using the exersaucer one day, but the thing is highly unstable so she never tried again. She pulls up to standing position when we reach for her and she takes steps when we hold on to her. If we hold her by her hands, she takes steps on her own. She gets her legs crossed sometimes though. I had her holding on to the side of the crib one day, and she managed to move sideways. She is experimenting on cruising, but she eventually falls down because she steps over her other leg.

I have pictures to post, but not on the computer I am using at the moment. And I'm too lazy to change computers.

Both Katie and Jojo have a cold and their noses are dripping like a faucet. Katie has taken to refusing the breast for this reason. I had to pump one night and just gave her breastmilk through a bottle.

Matty's skin is suffering form little itchy bumps, no doubt caused by pollen. Thankfully, he's been on allergy medication for a couple of weeks now, so at least he's not itching as bad and not sneezing like he usually does this time of year.

Little Miss Speedy Gonzales

Katie only started moving forward 3-4 days ago and all of a sudden, she's giving Speedy Gonzales a run for his money. This was taken yesterday. (It's a piece of a Thomas The Tank Engine railroad that motivated her.)

I'd like to thank my little angels for easing me into this before they both start crawling everywhere and drive me crazy.

Katie Crawls and Jojo Scoots

Katie has started to crawl. She is doing a military-type crawl. All I had to do was entice her with a few toys and off she crawls. I thought it may take her a few days to do it regularly, but I was wrong. The minute I put her down on the floor sitting up, she leans forward as close to the floor as she can and then stretches her legs and off she goes.

Jojo still goes around and around and only accassionally experiments with moving forward. It seems she prefer to do the butt-shuffling instead of crawling. I've seen her bounce around in time to a music, but apparently that's how she moves forward too.

I am in such big trouble! I put them both down on the floor yesterday in order to fix Matty something to eat, and when I checked on the girls 10 minutes later, they were far from where I orginally set them up.