March of Dimes Walk

As you know, our daughters were born 7 weeks early, which was a planned outcome, but many other babies don't have to be born early, and suffer physically and mentally as a result. We were lucky that we had no long-term effects from their premature birth, but it was because of incredible medical interventions, research, and excellent care that we even had a chance.

The mission of March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.

Every day, thousands of babies are born too soon, too small and often very sick. I'm walking in March for Babies because I want to do something about this. And I need your help.

Please consider sponsoring my walk on May 15th in Downtown Seattle. Making a secure donation is easy: just visit my MOD profile page and click the 'donate now' button. As little as a few dollars can make a difference.

Thank you for helping me give all babies a healthy start!

More Videos!

Watch the girls go mobile!


Charlotte figures out how to get up on her knees. Then she falls and gets frustrated. We've all been there!



The ladybugs have got this sitting thing figured out. Until Lilah decides she wants to lay down, of course. But she held it for 20 minutes yesterday.



Charlotte demonstrates her crawling skills!

Checkin' in

Drum roll, please.....
pllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll....

Charlotte - length 2'3.5" (47th percentile), weight 14 lb 9 oz (1 percentile), head circumference 45 cm (76th percentile)

Lilah - length 2'2.25" (11th percentile), weight 13 lb 14 oz (0.3 percentile), head circumference 45.5 cm (87th percentile)

Let's note that the method for measuring length is not entirely scientific. They lay the girl down on the paper-covered exam bed and hold a pen flat to the top of her head and draw a line. Then they straighten her leg and put another mark by the base of her heel. In the meantime she might have wiggled down the table slightly, have an arched back, or bent leg, and who can say that the pen was flat to either parts of her body? Needless to say, that inch of difference between the girls may or may not be accurate, but the weights probably are!

We did know ahead of time that Lilah had dropped behind her sister pretty dramatically when she got her cold last month, so it wasn't a surprise, especially since she started out on the lighter side as well. But, now that Charlotte has a few weeks of head start on crawling, maybe she's burning up the calories and things will start to even out. Or it will matter less the older they get. Also a possibility.

Our wonderful Dr. Dunn described their behavioral/physical achievements as 90th percentile. They can stand while holding on to things, create single-syllable sounds and use the same sound repeatedly, use a pincher grasp, play peek-a-boo, and combine syllables. All they aren't doing much is banging objects in two hands together (because why would you hit another toy when you can hit your sister?) and sitting unassisted. But then this weekend they both sat up unassisted for several minutes, apparently proving us wrong. They just never wanted to before, so they'd always try to lay down again. This time I distracted them with goodies and they were perfectly capable. So I'm personally increasing them to 93rd percentile instead.

Either way, THEY STILL AREN'T SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT. *sigh* I had a hint of hope for about a week and then they got sick. Now they each wake up at least twice each in the middle of the night. At least I can hand them a half-bottle and head back to bed now. So I got that going for me, which is nice. (Bonus points if you know the movie quote!)

But lately it seems that it happens multiple times a night and then they're also awake at 5 a.m. I was hoping-hoping-hoping that the time change would mean they fall asleep at 8 p.m. and wake up around 6. No such luck. Apparently they misinterpreted the whole Spring-forward thing and instead fall asleep at 5 p.m. and wake up at 4 a.m. (as was the case yesterday). Wrong way, ladybugs!!

In the last week, Charlotte has really started to branch out on her crawling skills. She pulled herself over to her exersaucer lying on her belly, reached up for the rim and pulled herself up and onto her knees! She's not even knee-crawling yet but she's kneeling unassisted. She even goes inside the coffee table and pulls out baskets and papers and then goes through them once they're on the ground. Sean said that yesterday she made her way down our hallway and cautiously peered in to the guest bedroom, wide-eyed, for a few moments, then pushed her way back to the living room. A bit later she did it again, and again, each time very warily. He said that it reminded him of when our kitten, Cooter, was hesitantly checking out the world while not going too far from his comfort zone. So our daughter is like a cat. Or like a puppy since Nanntastic Cindy found her gnawing on the leg of our barstool.

Lilah, meanwhile, has discovered the fascinating game of peek-a-boo! She will pull any blanket or towel over her face, hold it there for a few seconds, then bring it down and look to make sure you're watching her, with a smile. If you say "Peek-a-boo!” she'll give a little giggle and pull the blanket right back up again.

The best part is when Sean and I get home and the girls do happy arms and bounce up and down and shriek when they see us. It's nice to know that they get so excited to see us! But then we go to wash our hands and it all turns to angry shrieking because they watched us walk away.

So that's where the girls stand right now. Sean and I are still keeping busy (like that's a surprise) with all kinds of projects and on Friday night I'll be heading up to Bellingham with my grown-up girls to see Brandi Carlile! A ladies night out! Whoo-hoo!! We'll be staying in a hotel and I can't decide if all of us moms are a) so well-trained for early mornings that we'll lay awake at daybreak angry that we're wasting our one chance to sleep in, or b) so utterly exhausted that they'll have to call security to pull our sleeping butts out of bed hours after check-out time. I'll let you know!

BabyGap is Disturbing

Why does BabyGap have these jeans? I'm so disturbed. What's more disturbing? That they have so many positive reviews.

Skinny jeans
For the budding fashionista, a pair of skinny jeans, pre-washed for extra softness and made just for her.

Boyfriend jeans
Just like yours. She'll love these stylish and fun boyfriend jeans, pre-washed for extra softness.

They couldn't have called them "Jean Leggings" and "Relaxed Fit"? This is BABYGap!

Google Passive-Agressiveness

When someone asks you to find information that they could have Googled themselves, try this:

Go to www.lmgtfy.com (Let Me Google That For You)
Type in whatever the request was for in the search box (For example, "Where is the Space Needle")
Copy and paste the new URL into an email and reply to the requestor.

This is what they’ll see: http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=where+is+the+space+needle%3F

Enjoy!

9 months!

We're now at 3/4 years old (9 months for the rest of you) and really racking up the milestones. Charlotte figured out how to get up on her hands and knees and can now rock back and forth, although she's still a few days away from being able to get places. Both girls are now so mobile that we've started to find them asleep on their tummies; Lilah grasping a toy and Charlotte hugging a teddy bear. And last Wednesday I got home and Sean told me to feel Charlotte's gums - and there it was...the very first sharp little nub of a tooth, poking it's way through her lower gum.

The odd part was that Lilah's been the one who's been up in the middle of the nights, crying and yelling and angry that we're making her stay in bed. Somewhere between 10-2 in the morning, she wakes up and nothing will put her back to sleep again: not eating, not Tylenol, not rocking, nothing. Eventually one of us will end up in the dark on the couch with her, cuddling and singing and waiting for hours until she finally calms down enough to fall asleep. It's a killer. We actually were confident enough to think that these nights of exhaustion were behind us. Ha.

Lilah pulled this again last night and I was up for so many hours trying to get her to just stop crying that I woke up utterly exhausted and luckily had the chance to work from home instead of having QWERTY imprinted on my cheek. Later in the morning Sean told me to feel Lilah's gums. Ah ha. I rubbed my finger on her lower gumline and felt the reason for our rough night - TWO teeth poking through her gums. It's so interesting that she was literally only days away from her sister in getting teeth, but she one-upped her and had two. Must have hurt like crazy. I forgave her a little. Only a little though, because I was still wiped out.

In the meantime we're finally getting a little nesting done. Between me and the girls being in the hospital for so long, the amount of work it's taken every day, and a serious shortage of funds, we never really fixed things up around here in preparation for the ladybugs. So we've now done a mini bathroom remodel (new cupboard, wainscoating and trim), decorated the hallway (frames and some of my favorites pics), the bedroom (frames and some botanical prints found on etsy), wall-mounted the tv and ran the cords through the walls, had two enormous stumps in our front yard ground down, and now we're on to a pantry remodel. Ambitious, yes, but when Nanntastic Cindy asks how we get so much done every weekend, I reply, "We don't put away laundry."

We took everything out and I spent all weekend repainting the whole room from top to bottom, performing feats of contortion to get behind the ducts, pipes, water heater and furnace. It was was a dusky pink that made everything look dirty and needed a minimum of 2 coats to start. I wanted to keep the room bright since there's a window that brings in lots of natural light, but I also wanted white shelving and Sean's compromise was that part of the room had some color. So, 2 white walls and ceiling and the gray-blue from our bedroom on the other 2 walls. Next weekend we're off to Sean's sister's in Sequim, so it may still be awhile until food re-enters that room....