Fifteen Months Old

Today the babies are 15 months old.

For the longest time, I would think about what was happening a year ago -- if I was pregnant, if the babies were in the NICU, if the babies were home, etc. Now, we've had 3 kids in our home for well over a year and really just now seem to be settling into it. . . It's amazing how fast time has gone by. I thought I would be a huge baby person, but I've learned that maybe I'm not. I am LOVING seeing the babies become individuals and their own people. I'm not sorry to see the nighttime feedings, bottles, reflux, and other things go. I do miss the little cuddliness of a new baby and I would never want to skip that experience, but not so much the other things that go with it. What does alarm me about how fast everything has gone by is that it will not slow down. I don't want the next few years to go by as fast as the past year has, but everyone tells me that it will. I really wish that I could just freeze where we are now and enjoy it for a very long time.

It's been a while since I've done an update on what the babies have been doing, so here goes:

Teeth: Rosemary is leading the teeth battle. She has 12 teeth, and all 4 of her one-year molars are fully in. She is such a good teether that we were SHOCKED one day to see ALL FOUR molars had come in with pretty much no warning to us, except that Rosemary had not been eating as much as usual. Piper has 10 teeth, with only 2 of her one-year molars. Piper is not nearly the good teether that Rosemary is, and we all felt the pain of those 2 molars. Henry, well, Henry is Henry -- alway just a little bit behind. He has 6 teeth. The very tips of 2 one-year molars are starting to poke through, but have not come through yet. So far, he has been a surprisingly good teether, so I hope we keep that up.

Weight: The babies 15-month Well Baby Check-Up is on Tuesday, so we will have to wait a little while on the weights. I'm expecting Henry and Piper to pass the 20 pound mark, and Rosemary to be closing in on 18 pounds -- but we'll see soon enough.

Napping and Sleeping: We now only have one nap a day! That works so much better for us and gives us time to actually do something in the morning rather than just rush around for the nap. That started about a month ago when all of the sudden the kids were taking really long morning naps and being incredibly fussy for their afternoon nap. We decided to just stretch out the morning nap until after lunch, and after about a week it was a great success. The afternoon nap ranges from 2 to 3.5 hours. At night, the babies sleep from around 7:15 p.m. at night until 7:30 a.m.

Mobility: We have two walkers!! Piper has been walking (and running) for a while, and Rosemary really mastered the walking skill over the last weekend and rarely crawls now. Both can stand up without pulling up on anything. It looks so funny to see two kids walking around!! Henry is being Henry, but he is actually showing signs of becoming a walker. One day I swear that I could see him thinking about walking to me (he didn't). But, yesterday morning he actually took a few steps toward me and this morning, when he didn't think we were watching, we saw him take two steps. Maybe he's not far behind on walking.

Eating: We quit formula on July 7!!! The babies LOVE their organic, whole milk. They drink more milk than they did formula, and to the point where we have to give them food first so that they don't fill up on milk. We also dropped bottles on July 7, and only use straw sippy cups. Breakfast is at around 8:00 a.m., lunch around 11:30 a.m., a snack at 4:00 p.m., then the whole family sits down for a dinner at about 6:45 p.m., followed by the babies going to bed. The kids are still on table food (and play with a spoon when we remember to give one to them) and eat whatever we eat. Well, actually, they eat better than we eat sometimes. Last night, I was handling a work emergency so Gary whipped up a dinner fit for a king (wild Alaskan salmon and tator tots) for the kids, and then later Gary and I ended up snacking on whatever we could find. . . .

Words: Piper can say "Mama" and "Dada," Henry can say "Dada" and still just smiles when I try to get him to say "Mama," and Rosemary can say "Mama" and "Dada." All three of them say "mmmmmmmmmmmmm" when they want their milk. There is a lot of babbling and laughing going on, but not many other words. I love hearing the babies talk to each other when Gary and I aren't around. The best way to wake up in the morning is to hear our babies laughing and talking with each other. I have no idea what they're saying, but it must be good.

We are really having a blast with these kids. They are amazing little people.