Twins - 1 year old!

One year old. I cannot even believe it! The twins aren’t our little NICU babies any longer – they are toddlers!!!

This last year has been so hard, so sleep deprived and yet so magical all at the same time. The twins have brought more joy into our lives than we ever could have imagined.

At a year old…

Savannah

Nicknames: Sue Sue, Suess, Savannah banana

23lbs – 89%

30in tall – 79%

18in head circumference – 72%

Oliver

Nicknames: Ollie, Ollie bollie, super dude 

22lbs – 61%

30in tall – 57%

17.75in head circumference - 22%

People look at these kids and they always comment how healthy they look. I can’t even explain how much joy that brings me, since it took a good long while until they looked healthy.  It took a myriad of doctors and nurses, over a month in the NICU, liters of oxygen, 8 months of quarantine (from August until April), and huge sacrifices to give them breast milk until a year!!!!

These two are best friends. They do everything together. They hardly are apart all day (when they are awake). They follow each other around, steal things from each other, and generally just move through the house like a tornado in unison. It is very rare that they play in separate areas of the house. Even if they are doing their own thing – they are almost always next to each other.

Savannah started to do this thing a couple of months ago, where she would use her feet to spin her in circles– and Oliver started doing it too. They both do it all the time – but they specifically do it to get a coveted item away from each other. It is hilarious. They will start facing each other, fighting over a toy or item (usually my phone) and then the person who has the item will turn in a circle so they are facing the other. The other baby will get mad and crawl around, and the other baby will turn again. They do this back and forth and it never stops being funny.

They both LOVE TO READ! I can’t even explain how much this makes my heart soar. We have all their board books (we had to remove all their paper books since they were getting ruined in a big way) on the island where they can reach them. 9 times out of 10, they ignore their toys and play with their books. They pull them all off the shelf and sit there and turn the pages in them. I LOVE THIS!! They both will sit on my lap while I read them book after book. They rarely get bored and lose attention. They will sit there and have me read to them as long as I will. This has been the case for a couple of months. What babies do you know who will sit still and devour books like that!? And it isn’t like they aren’t crazy, hyper, exploration babies. These kids love to explore and move. But they will sit still and read! Their favorite books are: “On The Farm”, the Shape book (it has a wheel that turns shapes in a box and Oliver will sit there forever turning the wheel to look at the shapes turn), The Alaska counting book, the books where they have textures they can feel, any word type books – shapes, animals, etc.

They love our phones. Their very favorite thing to play with - and they fight over my phone all the time.

They poop. OH DO THEY POOP. They each have at LEAST 3 poopy diapers a day. They average closer to 5 a day – each. They poop so much I can’t keep them from getting diaper rash.

When they wake up in the morning - I have to hold them for about 5 minutes. If I put them right down they cry. They love their morning snuggles. They don't act hungry at all in the morning - they just want to play hard once they've snuggled enough.

They eat 3 meals a day and have some snacks. They have 3-5 4oz bottles a day. They are such amazing eaters!! They have been for a while, though. Favorite foods are: hotdogs, chicken (especially my homemade chicken nuggets), bananas, watermelon. Savannah's very favorite food is blueberries!! She INHALES them - Oliver doesn't like them.

They know the baby gate signifies the end of their kingdom - and they make a dash for it whenever it is left open. I will have forgotten to close it and I will hear them pattering down the hall. I'll go look and Oliver will be leading the way with Savannah close behind. I will say "stop!!" or something like that - they will look back at me, squeal, and crawl even faster down the hall to our bedroom. They are so funny!! They know they aren't supposed to pass the baby gate and it's too funny. They will play very independently from me as long as i'm in the kitchen/living room with them doing nothing. The moment I try to get anything done they are all over me. I definitely can't do the dishes or I have two babies in the dishwasher. I can't sweep - they try and eat my pile. I haven't been able to vacuum because they are terrified of the vacuum - but finally they are starting to get over that. No way can I fold laundry! If I'm trying to get stuff done they just follow me around. If I leave the room they stand at the baby gate and scream. If I sit there and do nothing - they will usually play together and leave me alone.

They love when I sing to them. The songs they love most are: If you are happy and you know it, One little monkey swinging in the tree, Head, shoulders, knees and toes, and The itsy bitsy spider. We've been working on clapping for a long, long time. Every time we sing "If you are happy and you know it" I clap my hands, Oliver's hands and Savannah's hands. They have just started to clap their hands!!! They also have started to wave occasionally. Oliver said "mama" a ton the other day while holding onto my legs or when reaching for me. It seemed like he really was saying "mama" but he hasn't done it since.

We've been signing to them since 6 months. We sign the words: milk, eat, done, drink, sleep, more. Savannah especially shows she knows the words and signs for the words but doesn't consistently sign back. She has signed milk off and on for a couple months. The only one they consistently do is "done" when they want out of their high chairs.

Savannah

This girl! I can't help but smile when I think about her!!

She loves to smile and laugh. She is our ultra happy sunshine girl. 

She still just has the two bottom teeth (although the top 4 are ready to break through any day). Her smiles are insanely cute, with the two bottom teeth poking through.

She loves to explore and get into things. Her favorite toys are books. She loves pulling herself up onto things, and is starting to walk a little around furniture. She crawls lighting fast - beat only by her brother in speed. Wherever he takes off to - she is behind going as fast as she can to catch up to him. They always look like they are playing follow the leader, and she follows his every move when he crawls. 

When she crawls - she breaths fast and heavy. Like a big loud pant. It is so funny. You always know if it is Savannah coming by her loud panting.

She still loves her naps. She naps twice a day - at 10 and 2. This girl does not do well missing her naps. You put her down and she goes right to sleep.

She still doesn't snuggle. She will crawl over and want to be held - but never snuggles. Even when she's tired - she just wants to be put in her bed. 

She loves to growl and she is still obsessed with her tongue. She loves to mimic us. If we make a noise she loves to make it back. 

She is rarely cranky and mostly always happy - probably because she takes such awesome naps.

She pulls herself up on furniture and will walk when we hold her hands, but she's just starting to do this. When Oliver was pulling himself up on furniture at the beginning, we thought he was going to have brain damage. He would pull himself up and then want to sit down or walk - so he'd just fall over. All day long for a week or two he was falling over and banging his head all day long. But he eventually learned how to walk along furniture and to sit down. Savannah on the other hand is terrified of falling over. She would pull herself up - and when she wanted to sit down she would clench whatever she was holding onto super tight and scream and scream until we got her. We started to help her sit down, and she could do it on her own after a bit. But she would still scream and scream until we came and held her hand. We wouldn't help her at all - just hold her hand, but that was enough and she would sit right down. She can now sit down great. She crawls like a pro, pulls herself up, walks a little around furniture, walks holding our hands, sits down and definitely climbs.

She puts EVERYTHING IN HER MOUTH. I realize most babies do this, and so does Oliver - but she puts 5x the amount of things in her mouth as Oliver does. I'm constantly pulling things out of her mouth. The other day I was driving and she somehow found a piece of paper. I watched as she pulled pieces of paper off and ate them, one by one. And there wasn't a thing I could do about it. We went to the Pineview Reservoir the other day and she wouldn't stop eating the sand. Handfuls of it. I had to hold her hands down or put her in the middle of a mesh floaty so she couldn't get the sand. Whenever I was holding her and had my attention on something else or Oliver was needing me - I would look down and she would be just shoveling handfuls of sand in her mouth. SO GROSS. That can't taste good - and the texture should be horrible. But it was to the point where we needed to go home because I couldn't watch them both at the same time and stop her from eating sand. One day she ate the entire corner off something I was buying at the grocery store. She was in the cart and I didn't notice her eating it - until I got the the checkout counter and the whole corner was missing of a cardboard package.

She has very white skin and turns red so fast! She sunburns so quickly. When she is out in the sun, she will often turn red like she is really sunburnt. But once we are home and  she is cool, her skin goes back to white.

Oliver

This kid! He has the best smile. He is harder to get to laugh and smile - but when he does, it melts your heart. He has such a nice smile and laugh. His laugh isn't typical - it's super quirky and awesome.

He crawls so fast!! He is amazing. He is pretty much walking, but too scared to really take off. He will stand for a long time on his own (haven't timed him but a minute or more consistently) and has taken up to 6 steps on his own consistently. He will let go of furniture to take a step on his own to another piece of furniture. But the stinker still isn't walking. He can - he's just too scared. Which really is strange since he was fearlessly pulling himself up on furniture and falling left and right before. But with walking he takes no risks. He will promptly sit down most the time I try and get him to walk.

He is still a sleeping nightmare. He acts like sleeping is painful, torturous! In order to get him to take a nap I have to snuggle him to sleep with a bottle and hold him his entire nap. The moment I put him down the kid is up. So I literally hold him for hours in order to get his naps. He fights us at night time, too. It's rough getting him to sleep! At night though, he will allow us to put him in his crib and he sleeps through the night (FINALLY!!).

He loves to snuggle!! He will come up to me throughout the day and just want a good snuggle before playing on. I love it!! He wants to be snuggled to sleep (which I partly love and partly need to stop so I can get things done!)

His focus on books is amazing. I love how he concentrates as he looks through them. His favorite toy is definitely books. 

His hair keeps getting curlier and I love it! It's so cute.

He got all 4 top teeth at once - poor guy. He definitely is a very painful teether.

He is a tender little guy and will get very upset if you raise your voice at him, laugh at him or seem upset. He is starting to get a temper and will hit and scratch when angry. This has resulted in Savannah, mom and dad being covered in scratch marks. We've been very firm with him and he has pretty much stopped the hitting and scratching.

He has really olive skin and tans like a dream - even with tons of sunscreen on.

We love these kids! They are amazing and we feel so blessed to have had them a whole year!