Singin'

Sort of. We discovered that when we sing in monotone, the babies join along. It's hilarious. But don't worry, we are working on their consonants all the time. In fact, we think that Eleanor may be saying "Mom" and "DaDa" to us already.

The three of us are making noise in the video below - until Eleanor excitedly grabs Ian's face. He seemed fine at first, but then I had to intervene.

Singin' and grabbin'

Swingin'

My neighbor Laura showed me how to swing both babies at one time. We all think it's the coolest thing - the babies seem to prefer it to swinging alone!

Eleanor's side



Ian's side

A window into the near future

This afternoon we're going to visit our former neighbor who has 14-month-old twin boys. Each time we visit, it's an eye-opening experience. I remember watching her feed them at the same time as newborns and thinking I'd never be able to pull it off. Then, when they came to our baby shower in Annapolis as five-month-olds, I remember wondering how they made it out the door that morning. And when I last saw them, they were 9-months-old - only a little older than Eleanor and Ian are right now. Both boys were scooting on their bellies to get to their mother and whining to be picked up. At the same time. I remember thinking that it looked a little tricky.

Ian's scooting and whining now (not literally right now - right now he's sleeping peacefully in his crib upstairs). He likes to check out shoes, dog toys, and electronic gadgets. Yesterday morning, in the course of an hour, he made four frightening moves:

1. Crawled over to the outlet in his room where the humidifier is plugged in
2. Crawled onto a bookshelf in the living room (I was freaked out but impressed with this)
3. Crawled over the threshold of the back door, which we leave open for Jorge (this left my little guy dirtier than I've ever seen him - it was his first mid-day clothing change that wasn't the result of a bodily function)
4. Crawled over to explore Jorge's food and water bowls

By the time their morning nap came around, I felt like I'd had an entire day's worth of new experiences.

Thankfully, Eleanor still enjoys sitting and rolling. The scooting she does tends to be backwards, lodging her under furniture. She gets very frustrated, but at least she doesn't get very far.

I don't know what I'll do when they're both moving ... I'll have to watch the other twin mom today for some strategies.

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.