Doodle Days: 3rd Time is a Charm

I’m not sure where the time has gone. The fact that the boys are now 3 months old just plain flabbergasts me. How has 13 weeks gone by? How it possible that we’re now getting into our 6 month clothes? And where did my teeny tiny little men that I could easily carry at the same time go? Wow. Braxton and Carter are growing up, way way too fast if you ask me, but the changes in them are so much fun to watch.

Happy Brothers

Both boys continue to be excellent eaters and their weight shows it. At 10 weeks old Carter was 12lbs 11oz and Braxton was 12lbs 5oz. By now they are probably closer to 14lbs, almost doubling their birth weight. They both went through a phase where their hair fell out, but this month it has started to grow back in, and in different colors. For those people who have a hard time telling them apart, especially as Carter’s face fills out and his cheeks get bigger, you’ll be happy to know that very soon it will be much easier. Braxton’s hair is coming in really dark, matching what he had when he was born, but Carter’s is coming in a dark blonde, just one more thing that makes him more like his daddy.

This month they also racked up a lot of different experiences. I always said that when we had kids I wanted to continue to do the things we had always done, with of course a few adjustments. I have definitely stayed true to my goal and we take our little guys everywhere. Being out and about in the fresh air is wonderful for them, and they are so much more alert that they seem to be taking it all in, or as much as a 3 month old can.

Happy Birthday Uncle Chan

This month we made our first trip home to Seattle and the boys did awesome. On the way up it was just Braxton, Carter, Dudley and I, in an OVER PACKED Honda CRV. Everyone said I was crazy taking them up alone, but we had to do it sometime and we did just fine. It took us 6.5 hours, which included 2 feeding stops, issues with the sun shade not covering Carter that ended in a hillbilly style blanket being rolled up in the window, and a potty stop for mom. We went up for Uncle Chandler’s birthday party, and for the “Meet the Grandbabies Open House” my parents hosted. The whole trip was a ton of fun. The boys went to Buffalo Wild Wings with Uncle Chan and slept through all the noise. They were passed around from person to person at both gatherings and didn’t bat an eye. They slept just as good as they do at home, and didn’t have any crazy fussy spells. My little guys were troopers! It was so great for me to get home and get to see family since I hadn’t been up there since Christmas time, and it was pretty awesome for me to get to show off my babies too. Michael came and met us on Saturday night and followed the boys and I home in my new “Mama Mobile” on Sunday. I was sad to see my yellow car go, and I DID NOT want a van, but based on how stuffed full the CRV was it just made sense. I must say for the record, since that trip I have fallen in love with my Mama Mobile for nothing more that the pure convenience of having space and sliding doors. It works so awesome with the boys!

My First Mother's Day

Beyond our trip home the boys also went to their first GNAC Track Championship (where they slept through even the starting guns), on several shopping trips with mom to the mall and target, to ZVRS to meet mom’s work friends, and out to dinner with mom and dad. They attended their first kiddo birthday party celebrating their best buddy Asher turning one, but were just a little too little to ride on the carousel. They even went to Mother’s Day Brunch at Eola Hills Winery and were absolute superstars! Anywhere we go they seem to do incredible. I just need to be armed with bottles, clean diapers, and a binkie for B-Boy and we rock it. I also have to plan for an extra 20 minutes anywhere we go because we are quite the spectacle. People love seeing twins (especially sweet old ladies) and it seems wherever we are we draw a crowd. Everyone always asks first if they are identical, which makes me smile because I think they look nothing alike, and then how old they are because they are so big. We’re slowly getting used to strangers stopping us wherever we go, but it is pretty sweet of them to be so kind.

Never wake a sleeping wolf. :-)

Beyond travel and outings this month the boys experienced some other new life things. They took their first showers at 9 weeks old and while we were in Seattle. They did surprisingly well. Unfortunately both woke up with blowouts and had poop from what seemed like their knees to their necks. We didn’t have a bathtub at Grandma’s so we had to do something, so a shower it was. Carter loved the whole thing and even laughed when the water ricocheted onto his face. Braxton on the other hand was NOT a fan, but made it through. Since then they have taken other showers with Daddy and have done great.

For the first time this month the boys started responding to my sign language too! I sign with them all the time and usually they just stare at me following the movement of my hands. But in the last 2 weeks they have been responding to the sign MILK. Michael didn’t believe me but I told him the boys were recognizing it. When Carter was crying really hard and I was on the way over with his bottle I told Michael to show him the MILK sign. He looked at me and said “They could care less about your MILK sign.” I told him again to show him the sign and when he did, Carter immediately stopped crying and started looking for his bottle. Score one for Mama, and score more for my smart boys. I can’t wait to see what they recognize next. Right now we are using MILK, MORE, “YAY”, MOM, DAD, and HAPPY BOY the most, but as I said I just sign with them during the day. You wouldn’t believe the conversations we have on the changing table (a time when I usually have both hands free, which doesn’t happen too often J).

11 Weeks Old

And finally saving the best for last, and the reason for my blog title, THEY ARE FINALLY SLEEPING! The 3^rd month is the charm apparently. The beginning of the month they started out giving us about a 4.5 hour stint of sleep. Which at the time felt I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E to the sleep deprived parents. But towards the end of the month it started stretching longer. The night before their 3 month birthday, they slept for 6 full hours. Hallelujah! We have learned that we have to keep them sleeping together though. Even for naps, when one baby isn’t there, they other wakes up much sooner than they should. So they are sleeping together and it’s wonderful. We still have them sleeping in our room because in the middle of the night I tandem nurse them to save a TON of time. I don’t want to go into the nursery, get them out of their cribs, go back to my room to feed them, get them back to sleep, and walk back to the nursery to put them back down. So for now they are still in our room, but they are sleeping so I don’t care where they are. J

Look at that grin!

Even though they do, and prefer to do, everything together, they also have some individual stuff that happened this month. Braxton has become quite the social butterfly and is smiling like crazy. He loves to flirt with any girl/woman and especially put on the charm when we were interviewing our new nanny Danielle. The kid has cheeks for days, and uses them and his smile to his advantage. Carter smiles with his mouth closed sometimes, open others, and with his tongue hanging out too. Braxton on the other hand most often has this big huge gummy grin that just melts your heart, more than ever when it’s accompanied by a coo. His patience are getting a bit better, but he still loves his bottle. He loves it so much in fact that he has decided he would like to never stop eating and as a result screams like crazy when you take the bottle away. If you give in and let him drink more than a 5oz bottle he will most definitely projectile vomit everywhere. It isn’t pretty and last time looked just like it does in the movies! So we are sure to be armed with a pacifier and as soon as the bottle comes out, the binkie goes in, and somehow the world continues to spin without a problem. Braxton rolled over for the first time on May 1^st, and has done it a few times since, but not every time that we put him on his tummy. He is looking around even more than before and is hard to carry sometimes because he whips his head from side to side making sure he doesn’t miss a thing. He is also sporting a sweet hairdo we liken to a “Grandpa Mullet”. He’s pretty bald all the way around like an old man, but the hair on the bottom half in the back is pretty stinkin’ long. Michael congratulates him to having business in the front and a party in the back.

Sleepy Tree Frog

My easy going Carter Man is changing a lot. He’s still a really chill baby, but he has definitely found his voice. No longer does he just fuss a little and wait for a bottle, or get restless but be patient while you are repositioning him. Now he pretty much tells us how it is and what he wants. He doesn’t cry though, he yells, like hollers. And when he gets real mad he scrunches up his face and his lip rolls down even more than before so he can wail. I hate to see him get upset, but that lip thing is pretty freakin’ adorable. He is usually easy to please though, as long as you can “tree frog” him and or walk and carry him around. Carter continues to be a morning baby, and when the sun comes up his eyes fly open and he smiles as if to say “Hello World! I am AWAKE!” He definitely didn’t get this trait from me. Braxton is just like his mommy and likes to sleep in and be a little sac rat. Carter is the reason when they move to their nursery I will be hanging up blackout curtains. I LOVE his smiles any time, but 7am smiles are far better and easier to respond to than 5am! Carter also LOVES his ergo baby and all the times we’ve used it he quickly fell asleep. He is also audibly laughing and sometimes squealing too. There really is nothing like hearing a happy babbling baby, especially 2 of them babbling together.

As we start our 4^th month as a family of five, we are all learning and growing together. But of all the things I have learned so far, the one I am most sure of is I LOVE being a mommy to my sweet Braxton and Carter!