Don't You Wish You Were Me?

After much thought and discussion, we decided that the girls were ready to try cereal. It wasn't an easy decisision; I suppose there aren't many easy decisions in parenting. The girls had gone from waking only once during the night to as much as 3 or 4 times and they were always ravenous when they did wake. During the day they seemed to get enough, but our supper plates were starting to generate interest to them. They are able to sit quite well in their chairs, and so it seemed time to give it a shot.
I make up a bowl with 1 tsp of rice cereal (the least allergenic of the lot) and add enough water to make a very runny gruel. I could use breast milk but we've still got thrush issues, and I could use formula, but the waste generated from mixing up a batch of formula would be very costly, so for now we use water. Sometimes the girls will take it, and sometimes not. I never force the issue and as soon as there are grumpy faces, we end the session. (Mathilde didn't last too much longer after the video was taken). I'll put off introducing other foods until 6 months, but for now the starving baby episodes have been drastically reduced and we're all getting more sleep! An unfortunate side effect of the introduction of solids are the bi-products that it produces. Alas, more of the ever-so-unpopular poopy diapers.
What else can I say about this week? The girls have been traveling around in their cribs a great deal. This started for both of them on the same day, which I think is weird. Yeah, I get that they are twins, but it's still odd that they should do the same thing on the same day. Often I will find them having rotated a complete 180deg from their put-down position. They use their legs and hips to sort of scoot around. They almost roll over from back to front, but still need a little extra boost. I think it comes down to incentive. I just have to find the right thing to reach for.
Their smiles are the absolute best. In the morning I am guaranteed huge baby grins when I go in to pick them up. Hands down, this is the best part of the day. Mathilde immediately cuddles her head into my neck when I pick her up and I just about melt. She is pretty much the ham. I took the girls on my own to the mall the other day, and every stranger who bent in to look at the girls was treated to a Tilly smile. For some reason she has taken to sticking her tongue out and smiling when she greets you. It's disarmingly funny. To be fair, Alexis has some super-charged mega-watt smiles as well. She just likes to make you earn them. She will also giggle at you which is the cutest thing in the entire world. I am not being biased here, it really is the cutest thing in the world.
So, as you can tell, things are going very well. We have our moments. There are times when they are crying that I feel like I want to cry too. There are certainly times where I just don't know that their needs are and I sort of look at them like the aliens that they sort of are. Sometimes I look at them and I think, "I gave you life? We gave you life? You came from us. Amazing!" I'm glad we waited to have children. I think it's nice that we got ourselves out of our way so that we can concentrate on these guys, because they are by far the best thing we ever did. How did we get so lucky? Two beautiful, happy, healthy babies and they came to us. It's astonishing. You can bet that I count my blessings every single day. Have a great weekend guys.