Three Months*

Three whole months have passed since the twins were born. Things change quickly at this stage, not least of which is the sudden jump in sleep we seem to be getting. It may just be a fluke, or a short term improvement, but I'll take it.

In the last two nights, both Emma and Logan have slept through the night. Emma is the sleeping champion with last night being her best one yet. While it took us until midnight to get them to go down for the night, once they went down Emma slept until 8:30 am. Unfortunately Logan only slept until 5:30 am, so we didn't get near as much sleep as we might have if they had been in synch. Oh well. I am holding out hope that one day he will sleep longer. I suspect he's just trying to get more feedings in so that he can surge ahead of Emma on the weight gain.

On Monday I had Eric take the twins in to the doctor because of a skin issue I'd noticed on Sunday. (I don't know about you, but I always seem to notice something wrong with my children on a Saturday or Sunday, long past business hours.) Upon returning, Eric gave me the lowdown: lucky us it's eczema, cradle cap is no worse even though the back of Logan's head is creeping me out, the vomiting isn't a milk allergy (so my love of ice cream is safe) but it does appear to be gastroesophageal reflux so we have to sit them up for at least 20 minutes after nursing to keep it under control. Regardless of how bad the cradle cap and eczema looked to me, the doctor was completely unconcerned and suggested cortisone for each. While in some ways it was reassuring that he'd clearly seen far worse cases than ours, I didn't feel reassured that these skin issues would be going away any time soon. Poor little things! Their lovely soft baby skin now feels like something you'd find on a crocodile.

We also found out that they now both weigh 13 pounds each. The two of them together are still about one pound short of Oliver's current weight. They're trying to catch up. We saw Oliver (and Misty, Lee and Marlena) on Saturday and marveled at the difference in their sizes. Yes, Oliver is 5 months older than the twins, however he is clearly built on a different scale than my children. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures since I thought I'd have a second visit with Misty but the weather interfered. Le sigh!

Moving on...

Emma has good control of her hands now and is working on determining if she likes her whole fist in her mouth or just the first two fingers of her right hand. Caitlin liked the middle two fingers of her right hand, so it will be interesting to see if that preference repeats. Logan doesn't show much interest in putting his fingers in his mouth, but is showing good control when he reaches out and plays with assorted toys on the swing, vibrating chair or playmat.

The twins have decided to become polar opposites on the bath issue. Emma loves taking a bath and hates being removed, having lotion applied and getting dressed. Logan hates being washed but doesn't mind being in the water and loves getting lotioned up and dressed. Either way there's crying in the bathroom. Thankfully Emma is no longer doing her brain melting scream, so it has become a bearable level of screaming.

My bathing beauty.

Feet!

They coo at one another a lot more now and are fascinated by Caitlin. She's the coolest thing ever and can interrupt a crying jag by singing to them. She's not always excited to be pressed into service as a baby calming device but enjoys being the one that can get them to calm down. We heap on the praise when this happens. Anytime she does anything related to the twins voluntarily we lay it on thick. Sometimes the things she sings or talks to the twins about are a little weird or heartbreaking. She was telling a crying Emma that she needed to stop crying while I was nursing Logan because it wasn't Emma's turn to get attention and that as long as Emma cried Caitlin wouldn't be able to get attention. Ooof! Have I mentioned that I'm really looking forward to the twins getting bigger and more interactive with Caitlin?

She really needs attention and now Emma knows it, too.

I tossed the twins into a pair of outfits my mom gave me and learned a little something: infant boys really don't like button down shirts. It took way more effort to get him in and out of that shirt than it will ever be worth. He objected to the business casual wear. Loudly. Emma, on the other hand, tried to eat her dress. Does that mean she likes it?

Surrounded.
Dogs from Caitlin. Bears from Great-Aunt Lenore. Bugs with links from Nana Sue.

Logan smiling at Caitlin.

Emma, captured in a rare moment not trying to eat the dress.

In some ways, it feels like a lot more time has passed than three months, while in other ways it seems like time has just whipped past. I suspect it has a lot to do with sleep deprivation: it does funny things to your sense of time. After seeing how mature Oliver looked at eight months, I'm really looking forward to seeing how the twins will develop and change over the coming months.

* I've been trying to write this post all night, but in between cluster feeds and a vomiting-while-sleeping issue (resulting in an immediate bath and a strip down of bedding), it has taken until 12:30 am to get started.