Where we've been

(Where haven't we been???)

We apologize to all of you who have visited Two For Fun only to find the same old post. It has been a very busy six weeks for us, so we beg your pardon for neglecting you. We’re going to attempt to make up for some lost time in this post. Below is a (not-so-brief) photo essay of major Perese-Gallagher events since mid-March.

1) We all went to Pittsburgh for Easter. That Saturday, my mom and I got out for pedicures and a little shopping while Kevin and PopPop took care of the babies. On Easter Sunday, we went to Aunt Mary Pat and Uncle Tony's to visit with the O'Connell clan.

Great Grandma O'Connell and Ian on Easter

Great Grandma O'Connell and Eleanor on Easter

2) The following weekend, Kevin and I went to Chicago for Ayelish and Aziz’s wedding and left the babies with GiGi and PopPop Gallagher. It was such a treat to get away for a long weekend and leave the babies in such capable and loving hands. We had a wonderful, restful time (once we recovered from imbibing at the wedding). GiGi and PopPop had a great time too, but they were exhausted by the time we got back home.

Millennium Park

Ayelish and Aziz at their wedding reception

PopPop and GiGi with Eleanor and Ian

PopPop with the kids on the porch

3) The week we got back, both babies started sitting up on their own...

Ian and Eleanor munching away on pieces of their play mat - a favorite past time

4) Then Ian started crawling...

In this video, he's crawling to the tune of Kevin's guitar and my cackle (you'll have to cock you head to the left to watch!)

5) And Eleanor cut two bottom teeth. (We have no decent pictures of them, but they sure are cute and sharp!)

4) In mid-April, we celebrated Uncle Joe Perese’s birthday in Philadelphia. (Again, we have no pictures of the event but we had a great time seeing the Perese clan!)

5) During the following work week, our old friends and housemates Dylan and Gina came through town. Dylan came over with our old friend Ruben after a job interview in DC. It was awesome to see both of them and we're excited at the prospect of Dylan possibly returning to DC. Only a few days later, Gina and Daniel and their two-year-old daughter Zoe came and stayed with us. Zoe is adorable.

Zoe and Ian

5) In the last weekend of April, Kevin and I went to Connecticut for Beth and Patrick’s wedding and left the babies with Aunt Karen and Nannie Perese. On the way back, we met Kara and Dylan’s new baby Ashland and visited with Mannie, Elisa, and Gabriel in Brooklyn. (Unfortunately, we lack documentation of Ashland, Aunt Karen, and Nannie Perese.)

Beth and I at her wedding reception

Gabriel napping on his dad's chest

7) And finally, this past weekend, we went car camping with friends at Caledonia State Park in Pennsylvania. It was fun to hang out with the old Penn State crowd and their offspring. We slept in an embarassingly large tent with enough space to accommodate two adults and a pack-n-play. It was a challenge to take care of the basic business of camping (setting up and taking down the tent, cooking, eating) while wearing a baby, but folks were quite generous in their willingness to hold Eleanor and Ian, so we managed to pull it off. And it's a minor miracle that all of our gear fit into the Camry. Who needs a minivan when you've got a Camry?

SuperDad!

The Boys

The Girls

Baby Zoe, Ian, and Eleanor

(Dirty) Family Portrait

First Solid Food

We camped out on the front porch one sunny afternoon a couple weeks back to feed the babies their first solid food. It was rice cereal and they loved it.

Ian



Eleanor

Nannie and Nanny

Nannie (Kevin’s mom) came down for a visit the weekend before last. She arrived just in time to see the babies before bedtime on Friday evening. During the night, she took care of Ian, who had been congested and fussy for the past week. Maybe Kevin and I slept more soundly when Nannie was here because we missed several of Ian’s awakenings. On Saturday, she took care of the babies while we built Ikea furniture and celebrated our friend Jen’s birthday. She spent lots of time swinging on the front porch with them, watching the world go by. It was quite a nice visit.


Our nanny Yanick is working out great. She has been coming to our place for the past couple Tuesdays to get to know the kids before I return to work on March 11th. I try to keep myself occupied with the myriad of things on our to-do list, and all day I can here all three of them laughing and playing. The only issue is that Eleanor has been resisting bottled breast milk, so Yanick has had difficulty feeding her. But we are giving her a bottle each day to practice and she has made good progress over the past week. We’ll see what Yanick thinks!

Big Weekend

This weekend we had a couple of firsts that were very exciting for us.

Saturday

The weather was nice this weekend, so we got a chance to get out with the kids and take them on their very first hike. It was just a short one in Rock Creek Park, but it was very nice. They both seemed to enjoy the walk and we were comfortable carrying them in their new Ergos (thanks MomMom & PopPop). Ian was bright eyed and curious throughout the entire walk, but Eleanor slept through most of it.

 

Sunday

After a stroll down to the Farmers' Market in town, we came back and were lounging around on Sunday afternoon. The kids were hanging out on a blanket in the living room, Meg was playing with them, and I was playing some guitar for them. Then, all of a sudden, Ian arched his back and gave a good push with one of his legs and Whammo! He rolled over on to his stomach! We were all there for it and Meg and I started cheering for him -- so much so that we scared him and he started to cry!

Not to be out-done by her older brother, Eleanor also rolled over from her stomach to her back less than a half hour later.

This was momentous. It's a milestone that's marking the end of one era (e.g., leaving babies on the couches and changing them on the dinning room table) and the beginning of a new one (chasing babies).

I forget who pointed this out to me, but it certainly is ironic how parents do all kinds of things to encourage their children to achieve these developmental milestones and are excited when they happen, but then they realize that their world has just changed dramatically (almost as much as the child's) and things are gonna get a whole lot more... complicated now. But they/we can't help ourselves. It's instinctual.

 


Before we know it, these little devils will be crawling and walking and riding bikes and driving cars and going to proms and going to college and going on backpacking trips through Nepal.

It's weekends like these and knowing all these changes are coming that make it so hard for me to go into the office on Monday mornings.

News from our little corner of the world...

The past couple months have been great. The babies’ feeding and sleeping schedules have eased up a bit. They eat every 3 hours during the day, rather than every 2 hours like they did before. I am still nursing them but we manage to throw in a bottle every couple weeks to keep them flexible. They are also sleeping through the night now. We put them down at 7 p.m. and we usually don’t hear from them again until 5 a.m. when they want to be fed and put back down for a couple of hours. This is glorious. (Although they may backslide occasionally as they struggle with the pain of teething.) In general, we’re better rested and we can eat dinner and relax or get something accomplished after they go to bed.

I am also getting out of the house with them a lot more. I’ve mastered getting them into the stroller for a walk by myself but getting them into the car is still a challenge. I try to do it a couple times a week so that it’s not such a big deal. A neighbor that I hadn’t known previously had a baby 2 weeks after we did and it turns out that we really enjoy eachother and try to get out for a walk or a visit daily. I recently hosted a meeting of a new infant playgroup. The playgroups are quite nice and give me an opportunity to meet other moms who live nearby. I also went to a Movie Moms movie with the babies at the local theater where I met two other twin moms. We hung out afterwards and will be meeting up again this week.

Our time at home is becoming more fun but more challenging. The babies are cooing, giggling, wriggling, and sitting and standing with support - but they both want constant physical contact with me during the day. I am trying to figure out ways to hold and/or play with them at the same time and activities that they enjoy enough to do on their own. This is really only an issue on the days that they sleep and play on the same schedule. When they sleep and play on opposite schedules, they get my undivided attention. Below are some pics of the babies in their new Exersaucer (which we will use to support their new-found passion for standing)...

Eleanor in the Exersaucer

Ian in the Exersaucer

Kevin and I recently started looking for a nanny to take care of them when I go back to work 2 days a week in March. We are looking for someone with experience with twins or multiple infants and lots of energy for the coming months when they get mobile! We’ve interviewed two candidates and would like to interview a couple more before making a final decision.

And the past couple of weekends have been busy for us. PopPop and MomMom Perese visited two weeks ago, and then Krista visited last weekend. It’s always nice to share the babies with family and friends. Below are some pics from the recent visits...

MomMom and PopPop dress Eleanor after her bath

MomMom and PopPop help Ian and Eleanor nap

Krista cuddles Eleanor and Ian

Happy New Year!

It’s hard to believe that the holidays have come and gone. We traveled to Pittsburgh in November for Thanksgiving with the Gallaghers. Eleanor and Ian met their great grandmother, and many of their great-aunts and uncles and second cousins. It was the longest trip we’d taken with the kids and it went well. On our way there, we left DC at 5 a.m. and arrived before 10 a.m. On our way back home, we left at 10 p.m. and arrived around 3 a.m. The babies slept the entire time during both trips - all we had to do was sacrifice our own sleep! For Christmas, Gallagher festivities were split between Takoma Park and Annapolis and the babies finally met their New York and Denver aunts, uncles, and cousins. Perese festivities were a mere 2.5-hour drive away in Philadelphia, where they met lots of family and friends for the first time. Again, the babies were great in the car and our visit was long enough to space out the big drives. Over the holidays, Kevin and I also managed to get out for a couple dinner and movie dates while the babies were cared for by our families (thanks again GiGi and PopPop, Aunt Karen, and Nannie!).

Meeting Great Grandma at Thanksgiving

GiGi and PopPop Gallagher at Christmas

Cousins Gabriel, Maeva, Eleanor, and Ian

Nannie, and Cousins Ashley and Shane

PopPop Perese 'Row-row-rowing the boat' with Ian

Cousin Ashley at Christmas

Twin Talk

Yesterday (which also marked their 12-week birthday), Eleanor and Ian seemed to have their first conversation while laying on their activity mat.



And then when Eleanor started to fuss, Ian tried to soothe her.