Fifteen Months

Oh, fifteen months, how I love you.  You have brought me some of the funniest, happiest, most entertaining little girls I could imagine.  You brought me girls who can walk to get where they want to go, who can point to indicate what they want, rather than just sitting and screaming on the floor while we desparately hand them everything in sight.  Puffs?  Milk?  Tv remote?  Cell phone?  (The last two almost always work, by the way, which is why my kids go nuts when they see someone on the phone.)

Seriously, though, I do love this age.  Addison and Mackenzie are SO funny sometimes, and the thing is, they are beginning to understand when they do something funny and want to do it over and over again to make us keep laughing.  Every night after their bath, we sit on the floor in their bedroom and wrestle, tickle, snuggle, shriek, and laugh.  It's easily my favorite part of the day. 

Both girls are walking fairly steadily now.  Believe it or not, I love having walkers.  Everyone talks about how much they get into stuff when they can walk, but I have found that it's absolutely no more than it was before they could walk.  Except now that they can walk to it, they are so much happier (and mama and babies are both much less frustrated!).  I guess with the two of them, we had to babyproof and keep such an eye out anyway, that the walking really doesn't make much of a difference.  It's so cool to walk down the hallway and see them following me like little ducklings.  Of course, it's not quite as fun when we are trying to go play in the front yard and Addison is trying to head down the (brick) steps before Mackenzie gets out the door (and I'm trying to hold onto two little hands to prevent falls on the concrete porch).  But, eh, we get where we're going eventually.

Mackenzie showing her teeth.

Addison and Mackenzie each have 8 teeth (4 on top, 4 on bottom), and naturally, they have begun to experiment with the biting.  Nothing too serious so far...but Addison did get Mackenzie pretty good on the arm one night in the tub.  They don't seem to be doing it on purpose or in a vicious way--just more like they're experimenting to figure out what they can do with those little teeth in their mouths.  Mackenzie fell last week, and I was seriously afraid she had knocked out one of those precious teeth at first.  She went down on the hardwood in the hallway, and by the time I picked her up, blood was pouring from her mouth.  Thankfully, no teeth were damaged, at least not that I can see.  We looked like a scene from bad horror movie for a little bit though...and sweet little Addison just crawled around behind us from room to room, making sure her sissy was okay.  (She was.)

Getting cleaned up after her fall.  She doesn't look too traumatized, does she?

Mackenzie is trying to say more words, but Addison doesn't seem to have much interest in talking yet.  She "sings" a lot, especially riding in the car, but no real words most of the time.  (She has said "bye", "mama", and "dada" in the past, but has no interest in doing it right now.)  Mackenzie consistently says "bye-bye", and she can say "mama" and "daddy" when she wants to.  She tries to say something that sounds like "sissy", and she can say "mum-mum" (baby rice cake snacks).  They have a squeaking noise that we say is the frog sound, and Addison particularly loves to do it.  They have learned to wink this month, which I NEED to get on video, because it's freaking adorable.  (I'm totally mommy-gushing in this post, but indulge me this time!)  Addison lowers her head and daintily blinks her eyes, and Mackenzie does a split-second face squinch and shrugs her shoulders.  So, so cute.

We are working on adding body parts to the list.  So far, they can point out their nose, eyes (and unfortunately, each other's eyes as well), ears, hair, toes, tongue, teeth, and belly buttons.  I tell them all the time what smart little girls I think they are.  : )  I am trying to teach them a few signs so they can tell me when they want to eat, want a drink of milk, etc., instead of that aforementioned trial-and-error thing we do to figure it out.  When I was pregnant, I bought a book wtih the basic signs for babies, thinking I would start working with them early on to learn a few important ones.  Well...let's just say those plans went out the window once I realized that having twin infants was going to be much harder than I ever imagined!  So far, they aren't catching on too well, but I'm not very good at working at it consistently either.

I keep saying it, but Addison and Mackenzie are just hilarious right now, and the rate at which they learn new things is absolutely amazing.  It blows my mind when all of a sudden they pull out a trick I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THEY COULD DO.  We used to sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" all the time, but we all got a little sick of it and haven't sung it in a couple of months.  Well, the other day, I started singing, and Addison did the hand motions!  I have NO IDEA where she learned that, or if she remembered it from before.  They learned how to stand on their heads (feet on the ground, bent over at the waist, with their heads down on the floor) one day this week, and now it's their new favorite trick.  All it takes is one of them doing something to elicit a laugh or applause from us and her sister will be doing the same within minutes.  I can just imagine what they will come home doing once they start Mother's Day Out in the fall.

The only thing I have to complain about right now is the minor sleep thing with Mackenzie.  She seems to be having dreams or a bit of separation anxiety.  She usually wakes up sometime in the night and I have to rock her back to sleep (I don't rock them when they go down and night, and I would prefer if she could go back to sleep without it...Addison usually can).  It's really not that big of a deal, even when it's a bit more dramatic and she winds up in the bed with me.  I tend to get more bent out of shape than I should over a little bit of broken sleep.  I think it's a holdover from those first few months, when it was so important to maintain the schedule and routine and do everything exactly right when it came to sleep.  Cuddling with a sleeping baby is not the worst way to spend the night...except when she tosses, kicks, and head-butts me in her sleep...that part I could do without.  I just try to remember that it's just a phase, and one day, not too far from now, she won't want me to snuggle with her. 

My dainty little girls can finally wear some of their 12-month clothes, but still wear a lot of 6-9 month ones.  They are also ready to move up to a size three shoe.  We go to the doctor for checkup and shots next week. I'm interested to see how much they weigh, but I'm pretty sure it's not 20 lbs.  They eat pretty well, though, so I'm not complaining!  They are getting a little more picky at times, but their favorite foods are lima beans, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cantaloupe, yogurt, puffs, fig newtons, and ice cream (thanks to their daddy, who shares a blizzard with them about once a week!). 

Life is good right now...crazy and busy at times, but fun, and always full of love.