Today was Brooke and Claire’s 1st birthday. It’s hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday that they were waking up screaming at 2am and refusing to go back to sleep until 4:30am. Oh, wait. That was last night, so I guess that explains that. Fortunately, that kind of night is a lot less common now, and we’ve got two healthy daughters who don’t seem any worse for wear for having arrived two months ahead of schedule.
If you could see all the blog entries I’ve written in my head about my girls and being their Daddy, you’d be impressed. For reasons that escape me, though, Brooke and Claire are less interested in giving me time to blog about them than in using my time for their own purposes. Thus, life happens faster than I can write about it.
It would take too long to catch up, so here’s some current highlights instead:
Claire started crawling around 8-9 months old, while Brooke chose to observe first and joined in maybe a couple months later. They both cruise (walk around holding on to things) and are improving at standing without holding on to something to keep from falling. Neither is walking yet, but Claire looks very close.
Claire is a climbing maniac. We have a fenced-in play area we call the “Brookeclaire-ium” with lots of toys in there including various stand-n-play kinds of toys along the inside perimeter. Claire’s favorite activity in there lately is to grab onto the fence and start climbing on top of those toys, threatening to topple over to the unpadded outside. It hasn’t happened yet, but she keeps us on her toes.
We haven’t weighed them lately (they only get weighed at doctor appointments and their next one is coming up), but we think they’re probably around 17 lbs., based on a comparison to our friends’ 8-month old son who already weighs 21 lbs. Our girls are on the little side, but that runs in the family.
Claire has beautiful blue eyes that everyone seems to notice and compliment her on right away. Brooke goes for the much more understated beauty of brown eyes – like her daddy. People never tell us how pretty our eyes are the first time they see them, but we know.
Brooke’s first two bottom teeth are almost all the way in. Claire’s bottom two are in, and now her top two are coming in and she thinks it’s funny to bite us and cause us pain. She has also learned to click the upper and bottom teeth together, which skeeves Mommy.
Sleeping has improved compared to how it used to be, but they’re still not consistent. Sometimes they’ll sleep through the night, sometimes they’ll fuss some but get back to sleep, and sometimes we have nights like last night where time definitely doesn’t fly. Naps are hit and miss, but they usually get at least one good one a day.
Eating has improved compared to how it used to be, but as cute those messy little faces are, it doesn’t feel cute at the time when they’re blocking, spitting, slamming, or otherwise making it difficult to get them fed.
They both have great laughs. Brooke’s big laugh is a rapid tee-hee kind of giggle that reminds me of Daffy Duck when he’s doing his silly laugh, and Claire has a throaty guffaw when she really gets going.
They enjoy weekly playtime at Gymboree, which is like structured playtime at a place full of toys with babies and little kids to play on, with lots of songs and other goodies. They started out pretty shy, but have gradually gotten more adventurous about joining in the fun. As at home, Claire is more the adventurer and enjoys some roughhousing, while Brooke likes to observe and take it all in.
We’re still waiting on first words, but they do babble. Brooke is fond of “ba ba ba” strings, while Claire’s preferred sound is “da da da”. They both like making whatever sound happens when you pat their mouths with a finger or jiggle their belly.
