6 Months
Well, the twins turned 6 months old Saturday.
Carrie can Catie had their 6-month appointment this morning. Sheila went, and I bowed out since I'll have to be gone from work two afternoons this week already. Early report: Carrie is 14lb, 11oz and Catie is 16lb, 6oz. This puts Carrie in the 25% weight-to-age ratio, while Catie is hovering at 50-60%. This is big for Carrie, as she had previously been in the 5-7% range. Hooray for big babies
Both of them are taking to solids, rice ceral and orange vegatable for now. Carrie was hesitant for a few days, but Catie is a little tounge-out vaccume. Feeding twins at this stage is much more fun then feeding a single baby. With a singleton, there's a pause/rest/wait for the baby to swallow between every spoon that makes you want to say "hurry up!" at the little muncher. With twins, its spoon-feed-switch. And I'm the first to admit: they share a spoon. Germs blah blah, they stick each other's fingers in their mouths. If I'm not bothered by it, and the wife doesn't tsk-tsk me, it's fine.
Carrie's neck is improving, but that means it went from bright red down to pink. The powder we're using is much better than the anti-viral creams, yet waking up in the morning it stinks. The doctor gave Sheila something new this morning, I'll have to see what's going on with it. The infection is, however, getting behind her ears and into her armpits.
On Friday we bought a new (used) stroller. A Joovy Big Caboose. It's a double stroller, but it had a spot behind the second seat /in front of the pushbar for a toddler (Cece) to sit or stand. Sheila wanted this style because some of the spots she wants to walk to are just out of Cece's walking range (library, park, train station) yet a full fledged triple would have been overkill and never would have fit in the minivan. Great condition, but it got only mediocre reviews due to pushing it up hills. It doesn't fit in the back area of our minivan, but that spot is so small our single stroller barely fits there. However, it does fit in the 'between the seats' portion of middle seats. Not a big deal, as for now it will be in the garage for Sheila to pull out for walks/yard time, and the bucket double stroller will remain in the minivan. Anywhere Sheila drives to will end up being within Cece's walking range, so goes the theory.
And I counted: we now own five strollers. Wow. Ok, one is a junky double stroller that can't really hold a baby anymore, but is good for a one and three-year-old. I'll sell that one for $20 or so at some point, right now it's up in the rafters of the garage. Then there's the main stroller we've been using, a Graco. Catie fits it well, while Carrie is in the Bjorn, and the other two walk. I've purposfully not been taking Cece out in this stroller, just the wagon, so she doens't think its "hers". She's a wagon girl. I've got an umbrella stroller in the trunk of my car, kinda forgotten. There's the bucket stroller for the twins, which is just a frame to hold the bucket seats. The Joovy can hold both buckets also, but that's set up in the garage while this one is in the minivan, and will be returned to my sister when Catie outgrows her bucket.
The thought of the twins outgrowing the buckets scares me. Right now they are as portable as they can be, just toss the seats into the bases in the back of the minivan, and they lock in place. But Catie, and probablly both, won't be walking when they are moved up to the convertable or the front-facing seats. I'm trying to come up in my mind a seating arrangement that doens't involve me crawling into the back of the car every time all six of us go somewhere, but it's not comin up: Tommy needs to sit in the seat closest to the door since he's in the "booster" model that isn't attached physically to the seat. This way we can remove his booster and fold up the seat in order to get into the back, as my shorter-armed wife currently has to do for the bucket seats anyways.