Seven Come Eleven

The post title is from a song my dad likes to sing. Not my best title, but do you know how hard it is to come up with a good jokey title for these monthly update posts? And I do try, because I know that this kind of update post is really only interesting to me, my mother and my facebook stalker.  So, onward:

Early in her sixth month, Mira popped out two teeth. Minimal fuss was involved, but then she was also sick so who knows whether she was too busy complaining being stuffed up to worry about the teeth. Or maybe we just wrongly assumed any complaints were about the cold. Also at this point she started rolling over in bed. She prefers to sleep on her stomach, but she wakes up, rolls over and is then pissed off. (Gives me flashbacks to Ada, who liked to sleep on her back, but would roll on her belly and then scream.)

Also early in the month Ian started rolling over and over and over, putting himself in the middle of the room. Mira started to scootch backwards when left on her belly, though she seems to prefer to back herself into corners, jam herself under the couch or otherwise tuck herself into corners.  She has also started doing a really good downward dog, which has me fairly worried that actual crawling may not be too far away. Besides the normal concerns that once crawling the kids will no longer be easily corralled, I am freaked out by how much teeny tiny crap we have on the floor. Legos and dollhouse detritus, sure, but also buttons and dried beans. The beans were just a mistake; Ada got her hands of some beans we had gotten from our CSA. But the buttons were my fault. A year or two ago I found a big stash of buttons at an estate sale. I knew Ada would be thrilled to play with them, sort them, use them in her art projects and pretend kitchen games. I somehow failed to anticipate that they would end up EVERYWHERE, including all over the floors. As I find them I scoop up the buttons and beans, removing them from circulation. Unfortunately I know how many more there are to be found, and fear that Ian and Mira will both be crawling before I get them all. (And even if I do, there is still the small matter of the Legos and dollhouse toys.)

This was the month in which Mira more regularly slept through the night, when she wasn't woken up by her brother. This was also the month in which Ada decided she could not sleep without Chris or myself. I have written about this before, so for now suffice it to say that Ada will now sleep on her own, with the concession that she can sit up reading books before she falls asleep and can do so if she wakes up in the middle of the night. At first I was worried that this would be a problem; the first week of this Ada woke up at least twice a night to read, and was pretty tired and cranky during the day. I told myself that it was worthwhile, because we weren't wrestling her at 3 am. Luckily, the past week or so she has mostly not woken up at night (which I can tell because her overhead light isn't on when I check on her) and she seems better rested. Ada also knows that once her clock says 6am or later she can come into our bed to snuggle, which she has done a few times. I may write about this more later, but I am making a concerted effort to be more snuggly with her during the day and to make sure I give her my full attention when she wants to play (and I am not doing something that actually needs my attention, like making dinner or wiping up poop). The jury is still out on how I am doing with that goal.

Oh, and Mira and Ian started eating this month. This is great, but also sad. Great, because they seem pretty excited about food. The Terrible is two-fold: the poop is so much worse; and feeding two babies is in fact TWICE as time-consuming as feeding one. We started with one meal a day and I have finally caved to feeding them twice, despite the fact that this either takes two adults or one adult with a lot of time on her hands. (Thank goodness for the nanny, who can do this for us three days a week!) I just bought a gently used double stroller on craigslist, which in retrospect seems foolish. I mean, between their naps and meals, when exactly are we all going to leave the house together? Factor in the rain, which generally starts just when I've gotten both kids bundled up for the outdoors, and we may not actually take Mira and Ian outside until they turn 1. Oh well, only 5 more months, right?