Jake and Abby are six months old! I saw a commercial the other day where someone said "you only have a baby for a year". NO. FALSE. I will have babies forever. I can't handle them turning in to toddlers, I'm not ready.
We went for our six month shots on Monday and GOOD LORD was it awful. Last month they only got Synagis, but this time they got everything under the sun, a total of 4 shots AND an oral vaccine AND a finger prick to test their hemoglobin that left Abby's hand looking like she was in a horror movie. They both screamed bloody murder basically the entire time we were at the doctor's office, then came home, slept for almost 5 hours, woke up for an hour, slept for another hour, woke up for an hour...then slept for 13 hours. Madness. I felt bad for them at the time, but ever since then they have been super cranky and squawky so my sympathies have worn off.
We got another great report from the pediatrician, and everyone is growing growing growing. Abby was 12 pounds even, and 26.5 inches long - she grew 2.5 inches in the last month!! Crazy. She is now 1% for weight on the growth charts, and 77% for height. Jake was 14 pounds, 10 ounces and 27.5 inches long - 5% for weight, 86% for height. Tall skinny babies! On Valentine's Day we are going back to the NICU for a follow up clinic where they'll see one of their old neonatal doctors, physical therapy, speech therapy, and a bunch of other people to see how they're developing. I'm happy that we will have them as good success stories for 31 week babies, so when other women who are in the place I was last summer waiting for preemies look up what to expect for 31 weekers, we are helping to have a good story to tell them.
Here is our routine these days - I like to do this every once in awhile because some day soon I think I will look back with great nostalgia on the amount of naps that were taken during the day!
7:00am wake up, 7:30am breakfast bottles, 8:15am back to sleep for our first nap
11:00am wake up, 11:30am lunch bottles, play until nap at 1:00pm
2:00pm wake up, 2:30pm afternoon bottles, play until last nap at 4:00pm
5:00pm wake up, play and/or bath (yeah, still not doing this often enough) until last bottles and everyone asleep by 7:00pm
I would say this schedule works really well about 50% of the time, another 25% of the time Jake cuts one of the naps too short for Abby's taste, and the other 25% of the time Jake cuts EVERY nap too short for Abby's taste and then we have lots of tears around bed time! We're about to start tweaking it a little because we got the go ahead to start solids - so exciting! So we're going to start with avocado on Sunday (so that Jeff can be home to see it) and see how they do. I predict Jake will LOVE it, and Abby will smile a lot but nothing will end up in her mouth. We shall see.
With Jeff working 6 days a week and sick recently, I have basically been taking care of the babies almost non stop for the last 3 weeks. To keep from going crazy, I have swallowed my germ paranoia and taken them out for some adventures - to Carter's one day, to Baby Gap another. I find it's easier to get out of the house with them if I have retail therapy as a motivator. They nap in the car, they don't fuss in the stroller, and so far no one has gotten sick, so it's working for us. I'm still going to avoid grocery stores and malls, but an empty store in the middle of the day seems pretty safe from a germ standpoint, so I think everyone will survive if we get out every once in awhile.
Finally, everyone has started rolling all over the place, and Jake especially is trying to crawl SO hard it's hilarious to watch. I feel like I can see the minutes of having tiny babies slip by so quickly, so I am trying to enjoy every one of them!! Here's some pictures from the last month:
