Baby Push-Ups

Every day Jack seems to have a new move. He still can't really crawl forwards (thus the photo of J. trying to show him the way), but he did start this new push up move today. It's sort of like plank-position in yoga. He balances all his weight on his hands and toes. It's pretty cute. It's normally followed by a big grunt and then a face plant.

Salvadoran Hats

Elenora, the woman who takes care of Sadie and Jack while we're at work, is from El Salvador. She takes two weeks off every Christmas to go home (and incidentally closes the daycare for two weeks). She brought Jack and Sadie back these adorable hats that she says are the traditional hats for children in her country. I haven't gotten a good shot of Jack in his hat yet, but hope to soon.

The Crawler

Jack has made the first moves of crawling. A few weeks ago he learned how to get up on all fours. Then he started using his hands to push himself backwards. Jack had not been very interested in turning over, but he got sick of waiting for J. and I to put him on his stomach so that he could get on all fours and this week started turning over himself. Now he can get himself across a room (going backwards) before J. and I know what's happened. He's even starting to lurch forward. It's a good thing, it can be heartbreaking to see Jack get excited about a toy, reach for it, and only end up accidentally backing away from the toy.

p.s.: the blog entries may be a bit slow for the next couple weeks. Sadie is now sleeping in the office while we continue to work on sleep training. As a result my computer access is severely limited.

Jumpers

Jumping is so popular in our household we decided that the time had come to get a second jumper. We found a cheap used jumper on Craigslist, that, other than being a bit loud, has proved to be a good investment. Now Sadie and Jack can jump at the same time and we can have dance parties.

Hanging Out with Tatum

Jack and Sadie visited with their friend Tatum on Friday. Tatum spent much of the visit grabbing at Jack's head. She's not the first person to fall in love with Jack's head. Pup commented numerous times on our past visit that Jack had a perfect head. Then we went to visit Pup's sister, Ginny, and one of the first things she said about the babies was that Jack had a perfect head. Some baby must have caught hell in that family for a weird looking head somewhere along the line.

Tatum is able to sit up now. Tatum is often a bit more advanced developmentally because although she was born a month younger than my babes, in adjusted age she is way ahead because she was born at 42 weeks and Jack and Sadie at 33. Despite this knowledge I often find myself a bit jealous when Tatum achieves such seemingly incredible feats so far ahead of my boobalas. I know that it's ridiculous to compare babies' development milestones, but it's also irresistible.

Some astute readers of the blog may wonder why I'm posting at 4:30 in the morning on a work day. We finally broke down and dove into sleep training with Jack. Sadie's next, but to start we decided to tackle the child with the hardest time sleeping. This is night 4 of sleep training Jack. He's actually been doing great, and there has only been a few long spells of crying. Unfortunately 3:00/4:00 AM is one of his hardest spots. He has now been up for 55 minutes, with most of that spent screaming. I'm blogging in between "check ins" to distract myself. Thank god we've seen some good results from the process so far, otherwise I'd be breaking down at the moment, slapping him in a swing, and trying to get some sleep myself before I have to get up for work in an hour and a half.

Welcome to the Playground

We took Jack and Sadie to Lacy Park last weekend. It was a beautiful day. It's hard not to love California in January. We were super excited to discover that the babies were big enough to go in the baby swings for the first time. We had to bolster them up with some baby blankets, but once they were secure in the swings they loved it. It was amazing to be able to play with them on a playground for the first time. I can't believe how much fun it is to try new things with them. After about 10 minutes we tried to take them out of the swings, but Sadie wasn't having it. Jack had had his fill after 1o minutes, but Sadie was in hog heaven and needed another 10 minutes on the

swings before we could resume our walk.

Teeth!!!

That's right folks, not just a tooth, but teeth. About a week ago I felt a tooth in Jack's mouth for the first time. It was pretty damn exciting. Touth-less grins are on their way out. When I felt around tonight I found that not only does he have one tooth coming in, but he has two! One right next to the other. It was mighty challenging, but I did manage to capture his first teeth in a picture. You have to look close, but both teeth are there.

The Auto Mechanic

Every since Sadie learned to roll she has been obsessed with getting under furniture. Numerous family members have put their bets on Sadie growing up to be an auto mechanic. Her proclivity for the underside of things was in full swing at Pud's, where there was LOTS of good furniture to wedge herself under.

Christmas Day Photos

The babies had a wonderful first Christmas. The wrapping papers and ribbons were a giant hit. Sadie could spend hours stuffing ribbon in her mouth and Jack was all about ripping up paper. We spent the morning opening presents. In the afternoon Mum and Pup, the babies' great grandparents, came over for dinner. It was quite an occasion to have four generations of family gathered together to celebrate the holiday.

We're home!

After 15 days away we've had 24 glorious hours home. Traveling with two 8 months olds was challenging to say the least. Sadie and Jack were great on both the flights to and from Philadelphia, but they made up for it by making a pact not to sleep once we arrived at Pud's. After a few days we accepted that sleep was a thing of the past and tried to get over the exhaustion and enjoy being with family. We were lucky to get two full weeks with Pud (J.'s mom), Mum and Pup (J.'s grandparents), Tommy (J.'s uncle) and a week with Ross and Libby (J.'s cousins).

After two weeks we were very happy to say good bye to the cold. Jack and Sadie would not see much of the outside world if we lived in the north east. As you can see the bundling was quite something. The last picture is Marianne (J.'s aunt), Laura and Rachel (J.'s cousins) all struggling to get Jack in his winter coat. Strangely Sadie's winter coat had a calming effect on her. We may be turning on the AC at home and breaking out her winter coat when things get challenging here.

There are more posts about our trip and the babies first Christmas to come!