Key Biscayne

Today there was a break in the rain long enough for us to venture out to Key Biscayne and check out the beaches.  It's a lovely little Key with lots of beaches that are not as crowded or as pretentious as South Beach.

Jason took Zane out to the sand first

He didn't like it.

But he did like to EAT the sand

Lily was very busy counting each speck of sand...[34, 35, 36, 37, 38...]

Zane calmed down when he saw some ladies, such a flirt...

[547, 548, 549, 550, 551...]

All in all it was a nice trip, Zane finally got a handle on the squishy sand and Lily sat quietly enjoying the ocean

Rain Rain Go Away!

It is so very stormy here. The babies haven't been outside for days and they are slowly losing their minds (as is mommy). 

So we decided to go through some old clothes and send them to babies in need of them. We sat on the floor and divided the clothes up to send to a mission in Zambia. We had to be careful to not send anything long-sleeved or that might offend. It's not very nice to send "Daddy's favorite" or "Mommy's precious angel" shirts to an orphanage. 

  The sorting didn't take long but the babies were way more interested in the diaper champ, oh the ADD mind of an almost toddler...

Rainy days

The month of May so far has been very very wet.  It rains almost everyday.  The sky turns black and it pours something awful for about an hour.  It makes it humid and gross outside, however during the storm it's always nice and cool. During snack time today, I opened up the back door and we all watched the storm together.

Lily left most of the watermelon but ate the cantelope

Zane finished everything on his plate...as always

BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS

It is a well known fact that as babies get exhausted they become more and more hyper (hence the longer you keep a baby awake the harder it is to put them to sleep).  Chances are, if your baby is acting crazy, they are probably overtired.  Tonight, mom had to do bedtime by herself and things were a little slower than normal.  The babies were getting more and more tired, and by the time bedtime rolled around they were literally bouncing off the walls.  I now know where that term comes from because Zane was running into the walls over and over again.  He bounced like a pinball hitting side to side down the hallway, ran into Lily's room and ran into the side wall before getting up and running into the door.  Lily hit her head 4 times before bedtime all from just randomly jumping here and there...it was a pretty messy bedtime.

Peek-a-boo and Pools

Lily and Zane decided to play peek-a-boo with us around the hallway corner.  Tres adorable

We also headed outside to give the pool another go round.  This time they were a lot more calm and Zane even had a little bit of fun.  Lily of course had a blast...

Playtime: Sponsored by Cheerios

Lily thought it would be fun to dump all her cheerios onto the floor

...and then have a game of pick them up and eat them

They stuck everywhere

Hey...howyu doin'

Zane is obsessed with the window turn handles in the house.  All the windows have them and so he likes to go around to each one, turn it and open up the windows.  Cute, but makes for some hot days.

...and then the cheerios were long forgotten and awaited mom's vacuum cleaner to get picked up

11 months! T minus 31 days until a year

Setting:  The front room

Players: Zane, Mom & a chair

Scene:  Zane grabs a dining room chair and pushes it along the wood floor, mom is busy tending to other things and hears a crash, followed by a loud scream.  She looks back to find the chair laid down on the floor with two arms sticking through the chair slats flailing about.  Poor Zane pulled the chair down on top of him and now has a nasty bruise across his face from where a chair slat smacked into him while the chair back pinned him to the floor.  Bad mommy.

In nicer news:

HAPPY 11 MONTHS OLD BABIES!!!!!!

Some Pictures

Zane watching the Astros

Hey look! My pineapple grew! Isn't Florida amazing!  Just kidding, this is somebody's pineapple that I saw on my walk.  It takes 3 years to get to this point.

All the Royal Poincianas are in bloom and are absolutely beautiful

My next project....grow a coconut tree.  This guy is growing one in his front yard

Very cool plant

Zane & Lily on our walk

Lily: Get...off...my...car

Preparing for the summer beach trip

In mid-June we will be taking a trip up to Destin for a fantastic beach vacation with the Hawthorne family...in order to prepare the babies for the trip we are slowly introducing elements of the vacation to them so we can avoid major freak outs.  I'm weaning them from bottles, going to try to get them to nap in pack & plays, we're going to go play with sand and introducing them to water.  The babies love their bathtimes but that's because its nice warm water.  Today, we took them outside to play in some cooler water.  At first neither of them liked it, but in time they grew to think it was great fun.  Well, Zane didn't exactly call it fun, but he was ok with it.  Lily of course had a great time, as she does with most things, and liked splashing around in the water.

Warning: Babies may sufficate on packaging

Nana sent us a box and the babies were very excited about what was inside.  Not the actual contents but with the packing material

Nap Fixin' Part 3

1:10pm Zane down

2:10pm Zane still asleep...mom bored. Figure out that ceiling fan is moving at 1 rotation per second with a diameter of 3.5 feet giving and circumference of about 11.  So that's 11 feet per second and about 7.5 miles per hour.

2:25pm Zane wakes up happy.  woo hoo!

1-800-252-5400

Nap Log - Day Two

1:00pm both babies go down for naps

1:30pm Zane lifts his head up but goes back to sleep on his own

1:45pm Zane lifts his head up again, I put my hand on his back and he goes back to sleep

1:50pm I get bored and start playing with a pacifier

1:51pm Pacifier makes a pop! Zane wakes up, I hate myself, but get him back to sleep

1:52pm Lily starts crying 

2:17pm Zane is up for good but Lily is still crying

2:20pm Give up on Lily and go to get her...find her siting up in her crib, clutching her bunny bear, with tears streaming down her face and her other arm caught in between the crib slats

2:21pm Consider calling CPS on myself and rescue Lily from the crib, wipe her face and calm her down

2:22pm Forgive myself and try again tomorrow

A botany and circadian lesson

We have a very lovely tree in our backyard and since we moved in, it has always puzzled me what type of tree it is.  It's bark is all sorts of different shades and textures, it has leaves that continuously fall, the branches seem to droop almost like a willow, it produces black berries the size of grapes and has the most delicious smelling flowers you've ever laid your nose on.  
Today, I FIGURED IT OUT.  I've been internet-searching this tree forever and finally, I came across it's species.  It's a Canaga tree which produces the Ylang-ylang flower.  And that is why it smells so amazing.

Here's a close up of the Ylang-ylang flowers and off to the left you can see the black fruit growing.  So now I know, and now you know.

TAKING BACK NAPS!

The past week and a half have been awful in nap-land.  Zane started the whole ordeal by starting to take 20-30 minute naps. This is common when a developmental leap is reached (him walking) however, it leads to a very cranky and very tired baby.  

Lily soon followed the new trend because, even though they are in different rooms, with white-noise machines blaring, they still hear each other (twin magic).  

Today, I said enough!, my sanity threatening to leaving me.  Lily is an excellent self-soother so I said, "I'm sorry honey, you're just going to have to figure this one out, while I work on your brother", and laid her down for her nap, she quickly fell asleep.  Zane fought with all his might to not go down, but eventually mommy won and he drifted off.  

I laid on the ground next to his crib with a monitor on Lily and the work began.  15 minutes into his nap he woke up, I put him back down. At 30 minutes he woke up, I put him back down.  At this time I saw Lily's monitor start flashing red lights.  I sighed, relieved myself of maternal guilt and thought "you can do it babe".  The lights flared for 10 minutes and then disappeared.  Zane tried to get up once more at the 1 hour mark, and I put him back down.  At 1 hr and 30 minutes (his standard nap length), he let out a sigh, stretched his little baby body, sat up and smiled at me.  I proudly twirled him out of his crib, and he laughed instead of screamed for the first time since this madness began.  

Lily slept for a total of 2 hours (her standard nap length) and joyfully woke up ready to play.  The late afternoon and evening were peaceful and now both babies are zonked out for the night.  The afternoon nap battle was won today, but the war is far from over.  It will take at least a week to reprogram my willful children.

Fun times and not so fun times

Fun Times!

-Lily and Zane are reading together. 

-Zane is walking like a pro but can't seem to navigate away from things in his path, you'll see how he gets mad at things that ruin is momentum

-Lily's hilarious crawling (yes this is how she has chosen to crawl) and playtime

Not so Fun!

Fake Crying

Sleeping Diagram

Thank you for all of your emails about my previous sleep entry.  The main question was, now what exactly was your schedule??  There is no magic formula, but this is what worked for us.  Therefore, to answer your emails in a pictoral fashion...this is what the babies schedules looked like.  So far there have been 6 distinct sleep phases in their lives.  If you want to count the horrible nap situation for Zane that we have going on right now, maybe I could say 7 phases.  But anyway...I'll go through them.

White is awake time, Black is sleep time

1. [0 to 6 weeks]

Short waketimes, night feedings.

Babies are just born and brought home from the hospital, we have them on a 3 hour feeding schedule and naps are about 2 hours long.  Their waketime is about an hour long.  The 3 blue boxes represent feeding time but we did dream feeding.  Dream feeding is where you lift the baby out of the crib gently, sit in the dark and quiet, feed them, burp them (change their diaper if you want to...that is if they stay calm/asleep for it) and place them back into bed with no "awake time".  Note:  At the 3am blue box we did not get the babies from their cribs, but they would wake up on their own for this feeding.  Some days they would stretch all the way to 4am, but they mostly stuck close to 3am.

2. [6 weeks to 12 weeks]

Colic sets in.  

At the 6pm wake time, the babies would eat their 6pm bottle, have a bath and then all hell would break loose.  They would scream and curl up in little balls until 8:20pm.  Oh, how I would watch the clock counting down until 8:20pm where magically...silence would fall over the house and the babies would drift off to sleep.  We would dream feed them at 10pm and they would wake up on their own for a 2am feeding but quickly return to sleep.  Consequently, because of the late bedtime, their 1st morning waketime would be ultrashort because they were overtired.  Unfortunately, this would shift their 9am feeding forward as well and sort of throw part of the day off.

3. [13 weeks to 19 weeks]

Daycare begins and late nap starts to disappear, colic ends, sleeping through the night.  

The morning waketime was extra long, because I had to drive them to day care.  Also the naps were shorter because, well, daycare is not a very conducive environment for sleeping.  Their early evening nap also started to disappear and become a catnap of 45 minutes long.  The babies were both sleeping through the night and this was a blissful time in baby-raising land.  Note: Colic was over so the bedtime was shifted forward.

4. [20 weeks to 25 weeks]

Early mornings, Earlier nights.  

The babies were waking extra early (5:30am) and were starting to extend their evening waketime.  Bedtime had to be ultra early because of the early wakeups but also both of the babies were still recovering from their illnesses (Lily=RSV, Zane=RSV, Pneumonia, Bronchiolitis)...NOTE:  During this time period there were multiple night wakings (anywhere from 2 to 6 a night).  Most likely because there was a lot of stress going on at this time.  The babies were not sleeping in their cribs, we were not at home, Dad was living in Miami, they were still recovering from being sick...this was a very difficult time in baby-land.

5. [27 weeks to 40 weeks]

Shift from a 3 hour schedule to a 4 hour schedule.  

This probably should have been done earlier but we had to get moved to Miami and settled in first.  We shifted our feeding schedule from every 3 hours during the day, to every 4 hours during the day.  Also, we moved East so their morning wakeup shifted forward an hour (THANK GOD!).  Because of the change in schedule a nap was dropped and we now had 2 strong naps and 1 late evening catnap.  Because of the catnap bedtime was a little late (around 8:15pm)

6.  [41 weeks to present]

Late evening nap is dropped.  

With much protest, I decided it was time for the late evening catnap to be dropped.  The babies were starting to fight bedtime because that little nap was giving them too much energy before bedtime.  It took almost a week for them to push through the early evening without the nap, but eventually they got there.  NOTE:  Because the last nap of the day was dropped, we moved bedtime earlier (anywhere from 7:15 to 7:30pm), so that the babies did not become overtired.  Shifting the bedtime earlier, also shifted the morning wake-up later.  PS...it's a myth that keeping a baby up later will make them sleep later, in fact, it only makes them wake-up earlier!

Sleep Queues:  There is a whole list of sleeping queues that babies will give and it's up to you to watch carefully to learn them.  As soon as Jason or I would start to see the babies give off their sleep vibes, we would rush them to their cribs to catch that wave of sleepiness.  Early on, there weren't that many queues so it was up to us to establish their sleep cycles for them.  That is sleep training.

BUT!  If you are going to try to sleep train your child (or your next one) just remember the old saying.... You can lead a baby to their crib, but you can't make them sleep.  Somedays nothing you do will work, and other days it all magically falls into place.

All alone with fruity children

I miss Jason already...he's in Panama all week which means mama's here doing bedtime by herself. Doing it alone was much easier when they weren't going every direction. With Zane walking and Lily crawling all over the place it's like chasing animals around the zoo.

Today for our snack we had a fruit salad. This is part of my efforts to get more magnesium and potassium into Mr. Zane to hopefully help out his napping (or lack there of). 

Do you see the bags under the poor little guys eyes :-(   He needs sleep help fast.

Lily was the messier eater today, normally she's clean as can be after chow

She didn't finish all her fruit

But Zane basically licked his tray clean

Sleep training - an insight into our madness

For those of you who have been involved in the twins' lives, you know that they are sleep trained.  What that basically means is that we created a sleep schedule for them since birth and trained them to follow it.  The method that Jason and I used was a combination of three book techniques...Baby Wise, Baby Whisperer, and Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child.

There are many debates as to whether sleep training your child or just letting them sleep when they want to is the better method.  There is no right or wrong answer, and most of it depends on your parenting style.  Parent directed sleeping was the best method for us, because, well we have two and chaos easily ensues, but also, Jason and I are type A personalities and need an order to the universe.

Our method worked well, Zane was sleeping through the night (11 to 12 hours of continuous sleep) at 12 weeks old and Lily at 13 weeks old, age adjusted that would be 9 & 10 weeks.  They started with 4 naps at birth, moved to 3 at 6 months, moved to 2 at 9 months and will remain with two until 18 months.

There are battles along the way, and sleep training is not fun some days, but it helps keep us tuned into what's going on with them and predict behavior.  Currently, Zane is taking 2 very short naps during the day and does not seem satisfied with such little sleep.  He's still sleeping 12 hours at night, but his day sleep is out of hand.  I'm currently going to adjust his diet to provide him with more potassium and magnesium and see if that helps.  He seems to come out of REM sleep screaming and I think it's because he is moving around too much during his dreams.  Hopefully the increase in potassium and magnesium will calm his muscles during sleep and things will get back on track.

Here's a template that records sleep behaviors, if you're interested:

Sleep Log

Publish at Scribd or explore others: tips natural

Zane Walks and Lily Talks

Zane has always been the muscle man of the two, he rolled over first, sat up first, crawled first, and now walked first...he is also trying to scale anything that can hold him.  I'm sure in short time, you will see an entry on here about taking him to ER due to crib diving....sigh.

Zane's been shuffling about for a week or two now, but I can never seem to catch it on video.  Most of the time it's because as soon as he sees the video camera come out, all he wants to do is attack it.  This time, we hid it!  So here's Zane on a hidden camera...shhh don't tell him!

(The reason why Jason holds up the Coke can is because both babies are obsessed with aluminum cans.  No....they've never had Coke.  Also, notice Lily throw up her arm to ask for the can, thought it was cute too :)   )

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Ok ok ok...I know you are not supposed to compare children but it's really hard to do with twins.  Lily has always been very very smart.  So smart it's sort of scary.  She figures things out with ease, completes puzzles, puts blocks into shape sorters, and copies sounds like no ones business.  I don't know if I mentioned this on this blog but when she was 6 months old, there was a nest of doves outside her window.  Instead of crying when she woke up from her naps, she would go "whoooo whoooo whooo"  I couldn't figure out why she was doing that until one day I heard "whoooo whoooo whooo", thinking it was Lily awake out of a nap I went into her room only to discover she was still asleep but the doves outside were singing.  She also meows.  A lot.  When we're out on a walk and she sees a cat, she will go "meoooow, meoooow"...and also when Bailey enters a room.

Here's a short video of her language skills at 10 months old!

Around the block - a tour of my neighborhood

Decided to take some pictures yesterday while we were on our walk, so you could see some of the flora around our streets...Click on any picture to make it bigger

Who's that curly haired boy

It's Mr. Zane :) (excuse the snotty nose..he's still sick)

Amber coming from a tree...no mosquito inside (ie Jurassic Park)

Hibiscus 

A fallen coconut (do you see how close to the sidewalk that is! coconuts scare me)

The killer coconuts

I'm sure some lizards died at the hands of these coconuts

Rainbow tree with Monarch buzzing about

No idea what kind of hedges these are but they make orange and red baby pumpkin looking berries 

EDIT: This is a Surinam Cherry plant

Yes there are pine trees in Florida

How big is your Sego Palm?  Not as big as the ones here!

Bananananana tree

A hedge FILLED with Poison Oak.  After taking this picture I went up to this ladies front door to tell her that her hedge was filled with poison oak and to be careful.  She opened up the door but talked through the screen.  She then apologized for not opening the screen but she was afraid of the pig flu.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that a mesh door screen would not protect her from an influenza virus...

Jealous of our bougainvillea?

This little plant has outer leaves that turn white in the sun, makes it look like its covered in snow

Cool plants that just grow out of the sidewalk

Weird spidery hanging plant

Mangos are getting bigger!

Did you know mimosas have red flowers??? I had no idea

EDIT: ok, thanks to GiGi I now know that these are not mimosas but poincianas

The border between our yard and our neighbors is jasmine...YES those are jasmine plants, they smell wonderful

Our palms in our front yard bearing fruit

Our Koi tree...

...and it's beautiful bright orange flowers (that the stupid squirrels are always eating!)

Our palms are blooming right now and guess what! I'm allergic to palms.  My sinuses are killing me

This is one of our lizard friends.  There is a whole family that lives in our attic.  I don't mind, they are very cute and eat small insects :)

And...that's a small tour of our neighborhood.  If you come to visit, I'll show you the real stuff in HD!!