Katie's first bloody lip

I was spending time with the girls on the floor just having a great time. Katie now pulls up to full standing on her own and she enjoys trying to reach whatever she could get her hands on. Jojo is also pulling up, but she is not a pro at it yet.

Jojo was standing up holding on to the couch, and Katie was standing holding on to a wooden chair. Both their backs were against mine, leaning on me, using me to balance. But shortly after, Katie came tumbling back. I picked her up and saw blood in her mouth. She was crying, my sleeve was covered with blood, Jojo was crying because I had left her. It was insane!

When I finally got Katie's bleeding to stop, I saw that the frenelum (the connective tissue in the middle of the upper front teeth that connects the gum to the upper lip) was torn. I wasn't too terribly worried about it, but I thought I should call the pediatrician anyway. I don't want Katie to end up with a lisp or something worse because of it! The nurse took an hour to call me back and said this had just happened to her 3 year old son and everything should just be fine. I proceeded to describe the length of the cut and that I thought it looked deep. She then asked me if I thought she needed stitches. Um. Yeah, Ok. I'm not a doctor! Instead of answering, I kept on describing the cut. She told me to go ahead and bring Katie in.

The doctor took all of 1 minute to look at Katie's gum and said she'll be alright and sent us home.

Grrrr!! I knew that Katie would be OK, but I wasn't about to ignore a health professional. I just wanted to hear the nurse say "yeah, nothing to worry about". But in the middle of telling me that, she decided to call us in!

Interestingly enough, big brother's first bloody episode was 1 week before his 1st birthday. The twins are going to be a year old in 2 weeks.

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!