Another burst of baby changes

After quite a long time of no real developments, the girls are suddenly exploding with new skills and behaviors.  

Middie Biddie is still kind of struggling with walking.  Basically, it seems to take her about a week to add another step that she's able to take before faceplanting.  Or maybe it's another step that she's willing to take rather than able.  I've never seen her attempt to walk across a room and fall, she only goes from one thing to hold to another if it's 2 steps away, and she'll only attempt 3 or 4 steps if she's heading towards a pair of open arms.  She is the cautious one!  But she is getting herself standing without pulling up on anything and practicing her balance a little bit.

We're doing a lot of walking with Middie Biddie holding fingers, trying to encourage her to get comfortable with the concept.  Teeny Tiny will grab a pant leg and walk around the room with us so we have a baby conga line going.  Today, TT grabbed one of my fingers and just walked around me in circles making me a little dizzy.  I was able to kind of teach her to do that dance turn under my arm.  

Teeny Tiny is running all over the place of course, no fear there.  She loves dancing just like always and is getting a little more complicated with it.  More than just random wiggling, she now seems to have a beat and she tilts her head one way while shaking her body the other way.  It's the cutest thing that she simply will not allow me to capture on camera.  I now have a ton of videos of her doing one little bop and then just wandering around the room making me think she'll do the dance again.  I got a very small glimpse of it on camera, but just a hint of the cuteness.

Words are suddenly popping out everywhere.  I'm not sure how much has true meaning and how much is just knowing which sounds go after which question.

Who am I?  Mama!!

Who are you?  Bay-bay!!

What does Clifford say?  Bow-wow (sort of)

As I taught the girls to eat and would introduce them to new foods, I would make this kind of gulping "ahh-oom" noise to encourage them to enjoy it.  Now, TT will make that noise and kind of smack her mouth with her hand when she's hungry.  It's not official sign language but it works for me!  Actual communication of desires!  

In general, they are suddenly trying to imitate what we say.  I'll admit I'm not the greatest at talking to my kids.  They say you should narrate everything you're doing to help them develop language but I just don't.  Now that they're trying to imitate, I'm doing it a lot more.  I guess I'm just someone who needs feedback.

Teeny Tiny is stacking blocks and will now stack rings on her ring stacker even if she has to walk around to collect the various pieces that have scattered around the room.  Both absolutely delight in having a ball rolled to them so that can kind of fling it back to me.  Both are obsessed with books.  The board books are getting shredded and they are constantly bringing them to me and sitting on my lap for a story.  Even when I'm reading one, the other will get another book and bring it over, often smacking me in the face with it.  Our next shopping trip will be looking for books that can't be destroyed and are soft.  I'm going to start looking like an abuse victim soon with bruises on my face from the corners of books and limping with my carved up ankle.

They're also starting to climb so we're looking at babyproofing the rest of the house and reducing the gates in the house.  It also means that they are reaching stuff on K's desk.  I'm going to have to talk to him about it when he gets home.  He thinks he keeps it clean with his stuff out of reach, but they brought me stuff off his desk today that I would prefer they not be able to reach.

They're starting to play with each other a bit more.  The other day they were giggling while Middie Biddie tried to plop a piece of cheese into Teeny Tiny's open mouth at lunch.  I think once Middie Biddie gets properly walking, their relationship is going to blossom with all sorts of games.

We're consolidated down to one nap now.  Anywhere from 90 minutes to 3 hours.

K's back isn't getting better.  I got on his case last night because he's not really doing the exercises necessary to get better.  He's not going to like it but I'm really going to become a nag about that.  Yeah, it might damage the relationship as he gets annoyed with me for a few months, but if the trade off is reducing his pain, it's worth it.  The pain itself is damaging the relationship so I'm looking at the long game here.  

Tomorrow is K's day off so we're going to go down to the Y and look at their daycare facilities and find out how to go about getting the girls enrolled in some sort of mommy and me swimming class.  My parents have offered to help with that so that the girls and I can go even if K has to work (no way I'm taking children into a pool if they outnumber me!), but hopefully this will also encourage K to start swimming to exercise his back, and me to start slimming down.  Being able to leave the girls at the daycare for an hour or so will also take away a big excuse for us not to exercise.  

I gotta tell ya, ever since having the girls, I feel really old.  K is feeling it too.  With my ankle and general aches and pains, I haven't really felt decent since they were born.  K has gone from majorly sleep deprived during their infancy to overworked and tired during their older babyhood, and into severely injured and aching in their toddlerhood.  He literally has not had 1 full day of feeling good and full of energy since they got here.  It's worth it of course, but ugh!  We really should have met and started our family about 10 years before we did.  No, I take that back, maturity is awesome.  What we should have done was found a way to exchange these bodies for nice healthy younger versions.  But I guess the warranty has expired and we're stuck with what we've got.