This must be a wonder week

Things are rapidly changing, AGAIN.

My wonderful twice a day nappers seem to have been replaced by a pair of we don't need no stinkin afternoon non-nappers.  I don't know what the hell happened!  They transitioned out of their sleep suits and into a wearable blanket pretty well but a couple of days ago it all went to hell.

They generally get up around 8:30am and go down for a nap at 10:30am.  Then up around noon.  Before this week, they would then go back down around 3pm for another hour or so, then in bed about 7:30pm and asleep by 8pm.  This week, they've just been fussing their way through the afternoon nap and never actually sleeping.  Sometimes one will try to sleep but the other will be having none of it so the sleeper gets maybe 10 minutes worth of dozing.

This makes no sense to me.  I would understand if they were condensing their daytime sleep to one long nap in the middle of the day, but they're still getting exhausted and falling to sleep really quickly so soon after getting up in the morning.  It just makes no sense to only be able to stay awake for 2 hours, and then fight sleep for a 7 hour stretch!

I'm thinking this must be a wonder week, full of developmental leaps that's making them cranky.  I certainly hope so.  Teeny Tiny is kind of flying ahead of Middie Biddie with her physical milestones.  Middie seems to be focusing on her verbal skills and while she chatters a lot, I'm not seeing any progress beyond the chatter she's been doing for a long time now.  It's so much easier to see Teeny's progress.  Will Middie suddenly start using real words one day soon and fly ahead of Teeny Tiny in that regard?  If that's where her energy is going, it would explain why she's still not crawling or making any other apparent physical progression.

Teeny Tiny is hitting development after development.  She pulled herself up to standing the first time a couple of days ago.  Then today, I saw this on the monitor:

Yep, she's up!  Within minutes of this, I saw her playing with the mobile so that finally had to come down today.  Because they like to look at the lights as they drift off, I've set it on the floor for the time being to encourage her to lie down and watch the lights.  Once that safety hazard was taken care of, I saw the camera wildly swing and I ran in to find her tugging at the cord.  Okey dokey, duct tape that sucker to the wall so she can't get her fingers on it.  I'm sure she's going to find the light switch next so I have to remember to manually turn off the main lamp in the room so if she finds it, she's only turning a night light on and off.  

When K got home from work, he dropped the crib to the lowest level.  I'm sure my back will appreciate that!

The new floor, along with the two jerks
that destroyed the carpet which required
us to put in a new floor.

We're still trying to get the floor done but because of the banging, we can only work on it when they are out of the house.  It either wakes them up if we try to get something done while they sleep, or it upsets them if we work on it while they're awake.  During K's week off last week, I took them on a lot of trips to Starbucks to give K an hour or two to make some progress.  Yesterday, they had their first excursion out of the house without mommy or daddy.  My parents babysit every Monday evening, but K is currently doing a show so he's at rehearsal in the evenings, and I'd just as soon stay home since the girls are usually asleep pretty early.  So instead of coming here to watch them while I went somewhere, I asked them to take the girls out for the afternoon so I could work on the floor.  They headed out about 1:30pm and I expected the girls to show tired signs about an hour later and figured they'd be back by 3pm so they could try to take a nap.  On the hottest day of the year so far, I was in a mad dash to get as much of the floor done as possible in the 90 minutes I thought I had to work on it.  So 3:15 rolls around and I keep glancing out the window to see if they are pulling up yet.  I was absolutely sprinting trying to get just one more board in place before they got here.  For another friggin hour!!!  By the time they got back, I was dripping in sweat, I had put in a significant portion of the floor, and I was starving because I hadn't really eaten.  

My parents had taken the girls down by Lake Washington for a stroll and an introduction to ice cream.  Then back to my parents house because it was really sunny and the strolling area didn't have much shade.  My mother walked in the door holding Teeny Tiny and announcing "This one is REALLY crawling!"  She also reports that Middie Biddie chatted her ear off.  My folks being the awesome people that they are stuck around so I could get a quick shower, then they went and got me a burger.  

I think one more afternoon like that and we'll have the primary floor done.  We still have another big family space to do and our bedroom, but those can wait.  The family room has been non-functional since the girls were born and if we have guests, the main living space will suffice.  But when we do those rooms, we're not going to do laminate, we're going to do a floating vinyl floor.  That doesn't make any noise when installing so it can be done while the girls are sleeping, and it goes in so much quicker.  There's also a curved counter to contend with and vinyl can be cut with a blade whereas the laminate requires a chop saw and I don't know how we'll deal with the curve if we try the laminate.  In a few years when the girls are in school, we'll go ahead and put in the laminate (or hire someone to do it for us), but I'd rather get it done half-assed now and have it be done, than to hold out for doing it properly and not get it done at all.

I'm also finally fully weaned off the pump.  It's been about 2 weeks since my last pump and to celebrate, I'm going to get properly fitted for some fancy new bras for my first Mother's Day present.  My boobs worked so hard, it seems only appropriate to reward them.

So here's the run-down of life around here lately:

Schedule:  Hell if I know.  Kind of giving up on leaving the house before 1pm because the girls spend all of their time before then either eating or sleeping.  They don't have any useful awake time until after that first nap and then I can't seem to get them back to sleep.

Food:  Meal planning has gone out the window for the last 2 weeks as evidenced by the amount of burgers we've eaten.  Gotta get back into doing that again.  There's enough milk in the freezer to continue about a 75/25% breast milk to formula ratio until their first birthday.  The girls really like spaghetti, yogurt, and cheerios.

Middie Biddie:  Still stuck on her belly and bitching when she wants to move.  Generally cranky lately for no discernible reason.  Babbling up a storm, but has yet to say a real word or to give meaning to her babbling.  Size 6m clothing, but we might pull out the 6-9m soon.

Teeny Tiny:  Crawling like a champ and pulling herself up.  I expect her to cruise any day.  I think she's signing "milk" but it's hard to tell.  She's experimenting with random yells.  Size 6m clothing.

Me:  I'm pump free!  The steroid shot in my ankle last week seems to be doing it's job and I haven't been in pain since then.  Going in for a complete work up on my feet on Thursday because even though my ankle seems better, my feet still generally hurt.  Size - ummmm, I'm really fat again.  I'll work on that once my feet don't hurt.

K:  Doing his first play in over a year.  Spending as much time at home as he can with the girls, but between work and rehearsals, he's not getting a lot of free time.  His show opens in a month and then his schedule will free up again.  

The House:  The scent of cat urine is mostly sitting our driveway as the garbage guys take away as much of the carpet as we're able to get to the curb every week.  One room is completely unusable due to everything that was randomly thrown into it as we got it out of the way from the main room.  We have about 3/4 of a floor.

The Cats:  Hilarious as they try to figure out the new floor and go slipping and sliding when they intend to gracefully pounce.