Loading up the van

It's official.  The baby stage is over.  I think that hit me at their 15 month Dr appointment when we were told that other than their 2 year molars and this last incisor that Teeny Tiny is working on, they have all their teeth and then she said that they are officially toddlers.

By the way, they are almost exactly the same size now, both 20lbs and a few ounces.  Yay 25th percentile!

This of course brought to mind whether or not we're going to have another.  The further we get in this parenting adventure, the more we lean towards "no".  I keep enjoying each stage more than the last and I really don't miss the stages we'll never see again.

I just don't like babies!  I never have.  Everyone kept telling me how it would be different when they were my own, but it wasn't!  I still didn't like babies!  I loved mine of course, but I'm a crap baby mom.  We all have our talents and being a mom to babies is not one of mine.  I did what needed to be done to keep them safe and healthy, but I never relished in it.  Nothing in me ever said "I wish they would stay like this forever."  Nope.  Everything in me was "I can't wait until we get to the next stage and this shit is over!"

But I'm shaping up to be a great mom to kids.  No really, I am.  Hard to believe that such a shitty baby mom could turn into a pretty awesome kid mom, but like I said, we all have our talents.  I'm much better at this.  I'm much better at being creative about making toys, about teaching them skills, about learning play in general.  I'm not a good baby snuggler, but I can convince a whining, crying toddler that it would be much more fun to shake the shaker bottles I made than to continue pitching a fit.

I don't want to do being pregnant again.  I don't want to do the baby stage again.  Sure, we'd all love the chance to correct our mistakes, do it better the second time around, to use what I've learned in some capacity, but probably not enough to actually make it happen.  I don't want to miss out on a stage the girls are going through because I have to focus on the needs of a newborn.  I also want to start drawing some focus back to me in a few years when the girls begin school and I can consider starting a career again.

Still leaving the options over of course, just in case empty nest syndrome hits when the girls start school.  I'll also be casually tracking my cycles (I've had 2 so far, 2 months apart, let's see if a pattern emerges) and give us the best chance to get ourselves a surprise.  If someone wants to join our family, we'll be thrilled, but we probably won't be seeking that soul out and actively trying to coax them into our home.

Today, I loaded up the van for a big consignment store drop off.  3 laundry bins stuffed with clothing were sorted, and I didn't pull out anything to hold on to.  The swing we thought we might use for another kid one day, gone.  The snuza alarms that convinced me my babies were breathing all the time, adios.  All the breast pumping supplies and extra bottle nipples that would be gross to share, trashed.  As far as our storage shed is concerned, babies have left the building.

As for those few newborn outfits I did tuck away in a box and that dream I've talked about of just snuggling one baby without another one crying for attention, just one word - grandchildren.  ;-)

Advice for my daughters - the secret of being cool

One of the main reasons I had children was so I would have someone to pass on the things I have learned throughout my oh so long life.  In case I get hit by a bus or something, I feel the need to document some of that advice somewhere.

Today's lesson - the secret of being cool.

I was an unpopular kid.  My unpopularity tortured me during my grade school years.  With older, wiser eyes, I look back on those years and try to see from an outsiders perspective what made me so unpopular and what made the cool kids what they were.

Everyone knows what it is that cool kids have that the uncool kids don't - confidence.  But what does that mean exactly?  How does confidence manifest itself in a way that makes you cool?  When you don't have it, but you try to have it, you generally become an arrogant asshole, and while arrogant assholes sometimes give off the appearance of popularity and often have the general public fooled, in quiet corners everyone is whispering about how much they actually hate the popular assholes.  Even their "best friends" are getting in on that hatred.

A couple of things I remember being cool in the third grade - these little flocked teddy bears and playing with the wax from those individually wrapped cheeses.  Everyone had to have those cheeses for lunch to get the wax to play with and everyone had to collect those stupid little bears.  Why?  Who started it?  Who decided those were cool?  I dunno, but I have an idea.  The person who decided they were cool simply enjoyed them and had no idea she was supposed to be shy about enjoying them to see if others would agree with her before going public with her enjoyment.

Her lack of apology, of question, of seeking approval convinced the entire class that these things were simply cool and she was cool.  Why?  Because she said so.  I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.  I don't even like cheese but I requested my parents put them in my lunch every day because the cool kids had them.  I had the biggest collection of those stupid bears in class.  Did that make me cool?  Not even close.  I was a total poser.

Collecting the trappings of being cool will not make you cool.  It's something I struggle with to this day.  My instincts tell me that if I can have the best / be the best fill in the blank cool thing, I will be cool and people will like me.  So I had the biggest Barbie collection, sticker collection, stupid bear collection, I was the best at tetherball, and doing spinning tricks on the play bar.  I had all the trappings, and I was still a nerd*.

*Kids, back in the day, being a nerd was the worst thing you could be.  It's not like today where being a nerd or a geek is something to be proud of.  If you watch 80's sitcoms, you'll find that all the characters are the cool kids, and each one has that one nerdy friend.  The purpose of the nerdy friend was to make the main character likable, to demonstrate how even though they are an awesome cool kid, they are nice enough to allow a geek to hang out with them.  In real life, those cool kids would never lower themselves to be friends with a nerd.  I'm looking at you Silver Spoons and Family Ties.

So what changed?  What turned the tides and made the geeks the kings of the world that they are today?  Is it the money they earned being smart?  Eh, that helps, but no, that's not it.  I'm pretty sure it's the internet.  All of those geeks, with their unpopular enjoyment of nerdy games and sci-fi suddenly went online and found out that they weren't the only ones creating detailed maps of the Starship Enterprise.  When they discovered they weren't alone, they stopped being ashamed of what they enjoyed.  They reveled in the knowledge they had acquired during their study of whatever their joy was and found others who were impressed by that knowledge.  Communities of geekdom where "geek cred" was cool.  The apologies stopped, the shyness and shame stopped, and the moment those things stopped, cool started.

Personally, there came a moment where I simply gave up trying to figure out cool.  I just couldn't figure it out so I stopped trying.  I said "fuck it" and just started spending my time how I enjoyed spending it.  I spent my highschool years in the theater and pottery rooms.  Did suddenly saying "fuck it" make me cool right away?  Not that I know of.  If I was, no one bothered to mention it to me.  But I had some good friends to watch Monty Python with and generally enjoyed myself.  Years later, people look at the work I put in for years becoming good at pottery and now think it's really cool that I can do it.  Did spending hours upon hours alone and covered in mud make me cool?  Well actually I probably was pretty awesome but I was alone so again, no one around to tell me how awesome I was being while enjoying my cool hobby.

So that's the secret to being cool.  Enjoy what you enjoy and don't apologize for it.  Rock out to the band that others are laughing at.  Master that hobby that sitcoms use as a punchline.  Play that game that others pretend they've never heard of.  If I'm right, and you sincerely make no apologies for enjoying what you enjoy, you will soon find yourself surrounded by people marveling at how cool you are.  And if I'm wrong, who the fuck cares?  At least you've spent your time enjoying yourself instead of wasting your time trying to collect the biggest stupid bear collection in the class.

And for all the totally cool nerds out there, please spend the next 3 minutes celebrating your nerdiness with Weird Al.  One of the first people to become totally cool by being weird.  White and Nerdy video.

Two out of two babies agree

The best seat in the house is the Daddy lap.

 

 
Mommy lap ain't bad either.

Remember when I was bored?

Wow!  Ok, interesting week.

So, remember when I was all bored and feeling useless?  The employment gods changed their minds about that.

In order to get some brain activity, potential income, basically have something to accomplish in my life, I spent the last few weeks treating pottery like a job.  I've been working on Christmas ornaments, throwing them during naps, then decorating after the girls go down for the night.  It's totally got my brain firing again as I geared up with excitement of new ideas to try and constant thoughts swirling around.

Then I get a call from a temp agency I applied to 2 1/2 years ago.  Yeah.  A month after my miscarriage, I went applying to temp agencies and really pushing to get a job and nothing ever went anywhere, then suddenly this call out of the blue years later.  They tell me they have a video capture job, work from home primarily except for an initial meeting, am I still looking for work?  Yup!  Then they tell me they submitted me as a candidate, but someone else got it.  Ok, no prob.  Get a call the next day, that person decided they don't want it after all, so can I get downtown tomorrow to start?  Uhhhhhh, sure!  But I tell them that I'm booked the following day (one of my regular video gigs that's just a couple of hours every month) and they say they can work around that.  Awesome!

The weirdness of it all - when I've needed to work, K has been home to entertain children.  Seriously, this is how it's gone -

Tuesday - 10am meeting for me so I'm gone half the morning, then work from home in the afternoon.  It's K's day off, no problem.

Wednesday - Parents come to watch the girls while I'm at my video gig.  They wake up in the morning about a half hour before I have to leave, then go to sleep about 20 minutes before I get home so I have a couple of hours to work while they nap.

Thursday - I work all day, K's day off.  Project almost finished.

Friday (tomorrow) - Project due at noon, K has the closing shift and will be leaving for the day around 12:30 so I can work all morning.

How did we luck out that exactly the days I need to work, K has been home to entertain?

Now they're talking about having me do the next project too and according to K's schedule, the same thing is going to happen (for the most part).  I go in for a meeting Tuesday morning, then they say the job will take a couple of weeks of working remotely.  Well, K has Thursday and Friday off, then he's taking off the entire following week for a vacation!  I'll probably be calling various relatives to come over for a few hours at a time to just play with babies while I work, but just pure dumb luck in timing means this won't be a daycare scramble.

Oh!  And not only do I have this gig and my usual video gig, but someone contacted me today about making some custom pottery too!  And did I mention that this week I was going to spend K's two days off tearing the bedroom apart, hunkering down and getting the rest of the floor installed?  Yeah, that's now put off for even longer.

So, I guess the lesson here is to find something to devote yourself to, that gets you excited, that you look forward to every day.  Because when you find that, when you really get working on it, other opportunities will do everything they can to keep you from doing it!

And since this is a baby blog and what's a baby blog without babies, here's a picture of the ghetto baby water park I made in my kitchen for these hot days.

Ah, so that's it

I think the household may be coming down with a little something.

Teeny Tiny had some dehydrated poo today and Middie Biddie has an underarm temp of 100.0.  TT wouldn't let me take her temp.  So I think we might just have a little bug running through the household and it's playing out as just a little sluggishness for everybody.

I tried giving the girls a straw cup of water to keep in their play room so they can keep themselves hydrated, but Teeny Tiny likes to play fountain with a mouthful of water.  Other than a bedtime bottle, they've been fully converted to straw cups for drinking.  But until this thing passes, I think I'll just let them have bottles full of water with them to encourage a drink now and then, and there's much less spillage or spitting with a bottle.

Unfortunately, in case they are getting sick, I'm not taking a friend up on an offer for lunch, and I'm going to miss the opportunity for one last play date with the quad family before they move next week.  Oh well.  I know how much I don't want people bringing illness into my household so I'm really strict about not bringing it into other households if there's a possibility we're carrying something.

In other news, I heard from a temp agency I applied to in January of 2011.  They've got a small project for me so I'll be getting a few hours of work this week.  It's a video project, and I just go in tomorrow morning to get the data and instructions and then it's work from home.  You just never know what seeds you're planting when you plant them, or when one might sprout, but this does encourage me to keep on planting.

A night of weird sleep

I didn't sleep so well last night.  I actually haven't been sleeping well for a while, but I go through periods of rough sleep from time to time so I'm used to it.  But K is also complaining of not sleeping well.  He's waking up still really tired.

He had to be at work early this morning so I asked him to wake me up when he left to make sure I would be awake enough to hear when the girls woke up.  If I'm in a deep sleep, sometimes it's hard to wake me and I don't want them to have to get upset for me to know they're awake.  He woke me up while getting ready for work and in our two or three sentence exchange, let's me know that he's been awake since 4:30am.  That's really odd for him.  Usually once he's asleep (and he goes to sleep really quickly), he's firmly asleep until morning.

Then when the girls woke up, they didn't really get going today.  I got their breakfast ready and I think if I hadn't gotten them up, they would have gone back to sleep until pretty late.  After about 90 minutes of half awake playing, they made it pretty clear that they needed to go back to bed and stayed asleep for 2 solid hours.  That's not completely uncommon, when they have a one nap day, it can sometimes be a little over 2 hours, but that's usually if they've stayed up until afternoon, not usually when they go down for a nap at 10:30am.  Even when they woke up, they didn't actually get up.  They just kind of sat there, chilling for a bit, and then finally started chatting with each other for about a half hour.  Usually they want up pretty quickly after waking up.

So I'm not sure what's up.  The whole house just seems to have not slept well last night.

First Year Gear

I've been asked to do a gear round up from a new mommy expecting twins (congratulations!) so this post is going to be a monster.  This is also a good read for anyone looking for a baby shower gift as I'll try to list things that others won't think to get for the new parents.

Disclaimers - I'm just one mommy sharing her experiences.  My needs are likely different from yours.  I'll do what I can to talk about things in such a way to help you decide if what worked for me will work for you.  I also try to favor things that will have a purpose long after the baby stage.  I'm a major homebody, rarely leave the house, so that's a factor in my various opinions.

I have an Amazon Affiliate account (haven't made a penny from it as of yet) and 90% of the shopping I do is via Amazon.  So I'm going to use that account to link to the various products where I can, not necessarily because that's the best place to purchase the item, but because it's the easiest way to show you the item and other peoples opinions on them.  If you decide to purchase from Amazon, going through my links to do so will drop a few pennies into my pockets.

Ok, here goes.

Things you'll want that you won't be prompted to buy from baby registry suggestion lists

A deep freezer
I don't think I've ever heard anyone in any life situation regret purchasing a chest freezer of some sort.  With a baby or two on the way, you'll likely want one for all those freezer meals you prep or have brought to you by kind family members.  If you're pumping, you'll want one for milk storage.  When the kiddos get older, bags of veggies from Costco, home made purees, etc will fill this thing.  It will save you money in the long run as a family when you're able to eat filet mignon by purchasing and freezing from Costco for the same price as a Big Mac.

1 year of Costco membership
A good place to buy furniture, bulk frozen foods, gear, etc.  Since Costco wipes are the best wipes ever, you'll want to be able to buy those.  Costco diapers work just fine too.

As much money for a night nurse as you can get
A good nights sleep will solve more of your problems than any gear you can buy.  If it's a choice between having someone take care of the kids for a full 8 hours or buying $200 worth of doo-dads to try to make your life easier, go for the 8 hours.

Amazon Prime Membership
You're not going to have much time to get to the store and by the time you do, you'll have forgotten a lot of what you wanted to get.  If you have a prime membership, you can sit down and order it and it will be on your doorstep much faster.  The free shipping on gear and furniture will more than pay for it.

Black out shades for the nursery
Darkness makes sleep easier.

Things where brand isn't all that important

Here are the things that most of us spend our pregnancies meticulously comparing but in the end, one really is like any other.  Basically, get the one that appeals to you and doesn't have any major red flags in the reviews.

Changing table
I don't see any reason to buy a specific changing table.  We got dressers from IKEA that are the right height and will be furniture for the girls probably for most of their lives.

Crib
We opted for DaVinci Emily 4 in 1 Convertable Crib with Toddler Rail, White  in hopes that it will serve them for years.  We only bought one to start and got a second crib from my brother just as we were needing to separate the girls.  One thing to be aware of - there have been a lot of recalls and safety guideline changes in the last 2 years.  The hand-me-downs you may receive are likely no longer compliant and it's actually illegal to sell those cribs or give them away.  Triple check any cribs you may be offered to be sure that they are still ok to use.

Glider/Rocking chair
You'll want two (assuming you have a partner/spouse who intends to do the same amount of parenting that you do).  Go to craigs list for this.  Be sure to sit and rock in it before spending your money.  We didn't and the one we got from craigs list squeaks.

Pack and Play
Again, most of these are all the same.  We got one similar to this Graco one as a hand me down that worked just fine as the girls bed for the first couple of months.  I liked having a raised bed for the first couple of months so I didn't have to put them on the floor during the birth recovery period.  Ours also had a changing table attachment which we never really used, but if you take the kiddos to other peoples houses, the changing table attachment will come in very handy and might be worth having.

Swings and Bouncy seats 

For what it's worth, I liked the kind with the bucket style seat.  I think it helped make the babies feel cozy and swaddled.  Start out with this Fisher-Price SpaceSaver Swing and Seat  and then get others according to what you like and don't like about it.  We had a larger one that also swung side to side and one of my girls really liked that but it took up a ton of floor space.

Jumpers and Exersaucers
We couldn't use the jumpers because we didn't have any door frames that you can hang them from.  Once the girls were able to sit up, they were in the exersaucers A LOT.  Definitely worth buying.  One thing to look out for when buying used - I got a hand me down EvenFlo exersaucer with a few toys missing.  The cost of replacing the toys was more than if I had just purchased a fully stocked one at a consignment store.

Play mats / Tummy time mats

Again, they're pretty much all the same.  Most have at least one mirror and dangle things over your kids faces.  Get what appeals to you.

Specific Recommendations

High Chairs
I don't like standard high chairs.  I don't know why, I just have an aversion to them.

I started out buying the The First Years Deluxe Reclining Feeding Seat.  It's really good for that period of time when the babies are still mostly just drinking from bottles for their meals but experimenting with solids.  It reclines back for bottle feeding and takes all of three seconds to then sit them up straight for solids.  If you have family meals at a proper table, or if you take your kids to other peoples houses for meals (like Thanksgiving at Grandma's), this is a good choice.

But here's the piece of gear that every twin mom who has ever visited my house asks about.  My twin feeding table!!!  Here's another place to buy it.  I adore this piece of furniture!  It's so much easier to clean up than a standard high chair because you're wiping down a flat surface.  I hacked it a little bit by adding foam noodles to the edges (to prevent bottles and stuff from rolling off the edge) and I made a fake tray with duct tape to reduce the amount of food that lands in their laps or on the floor.  I cut paper plates in half and then tuck the flat edge under the lip of the seat to hold their food in place.  Of course, no system is perfect.

Rock n Plays
I've never used them, but I've heard a lot of twin mommies swear by rock n plays.  Good for travel, for feeding, for babies with reflux issues, etc.  For the first 6 months, these will likely be life savers.  I probably would have gotten these for myself if I had not had so many other hand me downs of things I could strap my kids to.  If I had it to do all over again, I would have bought these before a crib, swing, bouncy seat, etc.

Bottles
Your kids are going to like what it is they're going to like and you're simply not going to know what that is until you're there.  My hospital starts babies on the Dr. Brown's bottles and we found those to be the best for Teeny Tiny because she did this tongue thing and all over bottle nipples were too mushy for her.  Middie Biddie did better with the Playtex Drop In Nursers because she had a wider, flatter latch.  Don't bother with the smaller sizes.  Yes, it seems ridiculous to put 1oz of milk in an 8oz bottle, but you'll need those larger ones eventually so you may as well get them from the start.

Start with those two brands on your registry and then figure out from there what your babies prefer.  The Dr. Browns fit directly onto Medela pumps and are much easier to clean than the Medela milk storage bottles.  So even if they aren't right for your baby, you'll still get use out of them.  The Drop in nursers are great because you only have to wash the nipple which will drastically reduce your dishwashing time, and if you're out and about, you can always get more at any grocery or drugstore in a pinch.

Stroller
This really depends on your personal needs.  Everybody starts with the Baby Trend Universal Double Snap-N-Go Stroller Frame and from there they figure out what they want and don't want in a stroller.  Get it on craigslist and sell it back when you're done with it.  From what I've seen, most twin moms end up preferring a side by side stroller.

I went with the Maclaren Twin Techno Stroller.  But I don't jog or go over any rough terrain.  It's kind of a pain to open, but it's a good stroller for shopping and stuff.  The others I see most recommended are the
Baby Jogger City Mini GT Double Stroller and the BOB Sport Utility Duallie Stroller.  I'll take the joggers word for it that these are best because I ain't going jogging to test them out for myself.

Car Seats
Trust me, no matter how much shopping you do, you're probably going to come back to the Chicco Keyfit 30 Infant Car Seat and Base.  Main reason - it's the easiest car seat on the market, period.  Another reason - it's also the smallest infant car seat on the market and because of that fact, we were able to put off buying a new car for a full year, and I was driving a two door!  Yet another reason - If you have preemies, this is the car seat they are most likely going to pass the car seat test in at the hospital so you can take them home.  Teeny Tiny passed at 3lbs 15oz.  If you don't trust me and want to keep shopping, one note -  the weight limits on car seats are bullshit.  Today, I weighed Teeny Tiny and she's at 20lbs but probably outgrew the height on this within the last month.  I have yet to see any baby still properly fit in their infant seat within 5lbs of the weight limit.

Monitors
I'm paranoid so I needed breathing monitors.  For twins, you want Snuza Halo Baby Movement Monitor.  Most false alarms were due to the diaper not being on tight enough.

For a nursery monitor, I recommend the Motorola Video Baby Monitor and Two Cameras.  I tried an audio only monitor and it sucked, could hear through the walls better than I could hear through the monitor so I got this in a fit of frustration and have been glad I did ever since.  The visual and sound qualities are both high, I can control the camera from the parent monitor, I can go outside and this is still within range, and now that the girls are older, I'm able to just sing through the monitor when one wakes up and it settles her back down.  Ok, I know some people feel like if they have a video monitor, they'll never be able to stop looking at it and it will stress them out more.  Consider this - once the girls were older and well passed the initial sleep training stage, Middie Biddie was having trouble sleeping and we often had to let her redo the cry it out method.  One night when she was starting her usual crying, we looked in on her through the monitor and saw that her leg had gotten stuck between the crib slats and she really was in distress.  If we didn't have the monitor, we would have let her "cry it out" even though she actually needed us.  I intend to use this thing until the girls go to college.

Sleepwear
At first, you're probably looking for swaddles. HALO SleepSack  is very popular and it's popular for a reason, it's easy and it works.  There are always a ton of these at the consignment stores.  I keep buying larger sizes of sleep sacks (without the swaddle portion) because babies can't climb out of cribs when wearing them.  They can't toss a leg over the rail.

I also liked the Loving Baby Swaddle Blanket because you just tie it in a knot at the chest which is intuitive and easy.

For that weird period of time when the babies are bursting out of swaddles, but still want that tightness to be comfortable, get the Merlin Magic Sleepsuits.  They're totally awesome.  Middie Biddie would just kind of lie in place like a little starfish in hers, but Teeny Tiny was able to move around, practice crawling and all that stuff.

*******
Ok, there are a billion other things I could talk about, I really could go on forever.  But I've been writing this post for a month now, never getting it finished and I need to consider it finished at some point.  Now is as good a time as any.

If you have questions about anything I've missed, please leave them in the comments and I'll respond there.

K's nightmare realized

We're old.  I'm 38 and K is 44.  Not much we can do about that, we're only going to get older.  I hang out online with a group of 2 dozen mommies from my birth board and this is the conversation I woke up to this morning.

As much as I'm feeling old, can we also talk about how cool I am that out of thousands of pregnant women, I fit in with the young, hip crowd?  Yeah, I'm awesome.

K is not feeling so awesome at the moment.  

Yesterday was one of K's days off and he wanted to get the girls out of the house.  So we went on a spontaneous excursion.  We headed out to Target to get a few baby supplies and for some reason we just always have fun when shopping together.  The girls were getting a little crabby so I sent K with the girls to the bathroom to do diaper changes (yes, there was a changing table in the mens room of Target, who knew?).  It takes him quite a while and when he comes out, he's in a foul mood.  He tells me that the girls had a meltdown and it was a wrestling match.  Ok, I accept that at face value and we finish our shopping.  

When we get loaded up in the car, he tells me what's really up his butt.  Someone in the bathroom asked if the girls were his grandchildren.  OUCH!  His age has always been a small sore spot for him, but with this back injury, he's suddenly really feeling it and it's scaring him a bit.  Then to have someone asked if he was a grandpa....K is not in the best of moods.  This is really one of the reasons we are so hesitant to consider trying for another baby.  If we do, I'll be 40 and he'll be 46.  Doable, but also a decade or two beyond the ideal.

I kind of feel that being very mature parents is a real gift to give to the girls, during their formative years.  Before they launch into life, having parents who don't do drama, who have a mature relationship, who see and respond to the world with years of life experience, that's a great model for them.  But it does mean that they are going to get jipped in their years beyond launch.  If they wait as long as we did to have their own kids, we might not be here to meet them.  They're going to face a lot of life without us there to call for advice.

I don't think I would trade it though.  To them, maturity is going to be normal.  Hopefully they will respond to the world with maturity when it's their turn, simply because that's the model of adult behavior they're growing up with.  I do wish we had more energy though.

After Target, we checked out a local park.  It's more for older kids, but we did get to put twins in a swing!

First bite

Teeny Tiny is having an interesting week.  She's teething up a storm with a new molar and spewing massive amounts of baby goo from her mouth.  Yesterday, she walked for the first time rather than just breaking a forward fall with a step or two.  She walked about 4 steps from me to the couch.  You go girl!  No, wait, COME BACK!

And remember yesterdays post that mentioned no behavior problems, no biting?  That is no longer the case.  They were playing and Middie Biddie suddenly started her "I'm in real pain, not just fussing" crying.  I went and got her and pulled her into a snuggle and after a minute started inspecting her fingers thinking maybe she pinched a finger in a toy or something.  Then I felt slime on the back of her upper arm and there they were.  Two perfect teeth indentations.  No broken skin though.

It took about 2 minutes for her to be fine and to hop off my lap to go play some more.  There's now a ring of small welts so I guess Teeny Tiny got her full mouth around the arm.

I didn't see it happen, but considering she's teething pretty hard core, I don't think it was a mean bite.  I think the arm was just something she saw that might feel good if she bit it, so she did.  I'll be keeping an eye out though in case it was a bad behavior and not an honest oops.  I say this as she crawls by me carrying a teething toy in her mouth like a dog.