she's back

Maya had a happy day today and she napped!

My sweet, happy, and well rested girl.

I was so happy that she decided to nap again today. The last week and a half had been pretty tough. Maya has been quite fussy and not napping well. I'm not sure which started first, the not napping or the fussiness, but they feed on each other and made our sweet baby into quite the grump. We thought the root of the problem might be teething but still no teeth have appeared.

Here's a few things I tried differently today.
1. Let the babies sleep together again. They took all their naps in the same bed.
2. I snuggled the babies and had some more quiet time than normal before putting them down for naps.
3. I tried hard not to stress too much (when I stress, the babies stress...it helped that I went to bed at 9pm last night so I was well rested today).
4. We fed the babies a different brand of formula than we had been giving them for the last week or so (they get one bottle a day, just before going to sleep).

Maybe the changes helped. Maybe they just took it easy on me for one day. Who knows....



Just in case I am starting to get over confident, Maya also gave me a warning glare to let me know that she is still in charge.

solids

Our doctor said we could start offering the babies solid food at four months. After our battle with breastfeeding and finally getting into a feeding routine, I was pretty hesitant. But now that the babies are 5 and a half months old we decided to give it a shot just to see the babies' reactions. We have offered the babies rice cereal a couple of times over the past weeks. Maya was much more interested in her fingers and pacifier. Max seemed to enjoy the cereal. When I offered him a frozen banana today, he was thrilled. Maya couldn't be bothered. I don't think I am ready to make food a regular part of the day, but it was a fun activity.

thing one and thing two

We have noticed that Max has an almost uncontrollable smile. Even when he is a bit sad, tired, and/or hungry, if we smile at him, he will smile back.

Maya has been spending a lot of time lately with at least one fist in her mouth. She has also been having a harder time sleeping lately and has been more grumpy than her normal happy self. We are thinking the combination of fist-munching and grumpiness might be early signs of teething. The babies are only five months old, which is a little young to be teething, but my mom has said that I had a tooth come in at four months old. Any suggestions for dealing with teething, fussy babies would be appreciated. We've tried frozen teething rings and the like.

These cute onesies were given to us by my long time friend Tara and her husband Jeff. We love them (the outfits and the friends)! Our little "Things" first wore these outfits when we went to library story time, which is starting to become part of our weekly schedule. The kids seem to really enjoy the singing and the movement along with looking at the books and other babies in the room. When the babies wore these onesies, we appropriately read Dr. Seuss books.

On other occasions, Maya has worn the Thing 1 onesie because she was born first. This morning, Lonnie put the Thing 1 on Max as a reward for being such a good boy lately (very little crying and grumpiness like the other one). I am always telling Lonnie that we need to try to not compare them too much. :)

rollin', rollin', rollin'

I love the look of amazement on Max's face.


This week, Max figured out how to roll over from his back to his stomach. It is now one of his favorite activities. Almost as soon as we put him on his back, he will swing his legs around and contort his arms. You can see the concentration on his face and hear it in his grunts and groans. On Thursday, he even rolled from his back to his belly and then on to his back again. He and Maya have been rolling from their bellies to their backs for over a month and a half now, but only when they are really in the mood.