The wee babes turned 13 months old today, and it's been a big month of milestones for both of them.

But first, The Evaluation, which was on Wednesday of last week. Two Early Intervention specialists (a speech therapist and a physical therapist) came to the house to assess the twins. The reason for their visit, as I mentioned here, was their pediatrician's slight concern that neither twin was pulling up or crawling on all fours yet. Nicholas decided to do both the day after his 12-month checkup. Luci started crawling on all fours a few weeks ago, but hadn't yet pulled up.

The visit was actually a lot of fun for the twins (shiny new toys to play with!) and super-informative for me. The therapists performed a full evaluation (speech, fine motor, and gross motor skills) by basically watching how the twins played with toys, moved around the room, and interacted with them, me, and eachother.

The result? Both babies are completely are completely average in the gross motor skills department for their adjusted age (11.5 months). Luci is obviously a little less advanced than Nicholas, but she's still fine. For speech and fine motor skills, both twins are average and even slightly abve average when compared with their peers (other 13-month-olds). They said that Nicholas is focused on his gross motor skills and that Luci is focused on her speech and fine motor skills, and that in a few weeks, they'll likely switch. Neither is going to qualify for any kind of therapy.

The speech therapist also told me that in a few months, the twins might develop their own language for communicating with eachother: twin talk. It will sound like gibberish to us, but to them, it will be a "secret" way to interact with eachother. Cool! But also, bizarre.

I'm glad I went through with the evaluation. If I didn't, and they didn't progress as they should, I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself.

Luci is now doing wonderfully with crawling on all fours. We've seen her pull up a handful of times (but still not consistently), but she really enjoys being upright. She loves to "walk" by holding our hands, and she likes playing at her table with her brother. Thanks again for this, Kellie!


Her language skills are really developing, and she blows kisses in addition to giving them, waves bye-bye, and follows simple instructions (hand me your sippy cup, press this button, give me a kiss, etc.). She's going through a bit of a mommyitis stage (which is proving difficult to deal with, since her brother has had this since birth), and she becomes wildly upset during diaper changes (thrashing, kicking, and crying), but in general is a sweet babe whom I've decided to keep (today anyway).

The feisty middle child is much more pleasant, calm, and low-maintenance during the day than her brother, but at night, all hell breaks loose. At least 4-5 times a week, she is awake and screaming in the middle of the night for over an hour. We can't figure out why. It's not a diaper issue, a warmth issue, or a sick issue. The hubs will try to rock her back to sleep after we let her CIO for awhile, and sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't. This would be incredibly frustrating under normal circumstances, but with my workload, I'm going to bed between 11:30pm and midnight and getting up for the day around 6am. I am wiped out, and to have an hour of precious sleep snatched away sucks. Seriously, WTF gives, Luci-Lu?

Nicholas is a crawling, pulling up, beginning-to-cruise ball of trouble. He's obsessed with trying to open cabinets he shouldn't be in, and trying to escape from Shawshank, which we've recently re-erected in our family room.

He too waves bye-bye, gives kisses (his are accompanied by less drool than his sister's) and can follow directions when he's in the mood. His favorite activities include the "throwing the sippy cup off the tray" game and positioning his legs parallel to the floor when we lift him up and encourage him to hold our hands and practice walking. This is very odd, considering the boy loves to pull up on everything.My mom recently bought the kids a little CD player, and the boy adores dancing to the music.

I'm noticing a lot more interaction between them lately; mainly, if one of them has a toy, the other wants it and attempts to take it. Fights ensure, but so far, no bloodshed, although Nico did bite Luci's finger today when she wouldn't give up a book he wanted.

Both twins are going through a maddening fussy-eating spell. They are rejecting foods they used to love left and right. About the only constants in their diets are cheese, yogurt, Cheerios, and bread. Huh. This is eerily similar to my own diet. Herein may lie the problem.

I've all but eliminated their morning nap. If the twins weren't up by 7am, I used to wake them up and then put them down for an AM nap around 9. However, in the last few months, I found them either refusing to sleep in the morning, or else sleeping so well that they wouldn't sleep longer than an hour in the afternoon. Considering I still stash Isabella in her room for a "nap" each day for two hours along with the twins and then use that time to work, the afternoon nap is more important to me than the morning nap, during which I still had Isabella to care for. If they get up exceptionally early, I'll still put them down for a morning and afternoon nap. But I don't wake them up anymore, and more often than not, they're on a one-nap-a-day schedule.

And then there's nursing. I am still nursing them - Nicholas, only once a day, right before bed, and Luci before bed and also, before her nap, because she will not settle down for me unless I do. She stopped taking a pacifier around 5 months old, and I do believe that I am her pacifier.

I do not like being her pacifier.

I have lots to say on this subject. Stay tuned.

My twins are still hugely high-maintenance, but I'm beginning to think that if it was only Luci or Nicholas instead of Luci and Nicholas, I wouldn't think I had a high-maintenance baby, if that makes any sense. It's the fact that there's two that's making life so hard right now.

Luci

Likes: Using toys to pound the sh*t out of her brother's head, brushing her own hair

Dislikes: Diaper changes, her mother attempting to do anything else but hold her

Nicholas

Likes: Oscar-worthy crying jags, music

Dislikes: Connecting skull with sliding glass door, his mother attempting to do anything but hold him

Teeth Count: Nicholas 2, Luci 0 (The question is, will she break Isabella's record of 15 months of toothlessness?)

Word Count: Nicholas: Mama, Dada, Uh-oh, cat