17 months

I am so bad at these updates. I guess because I mainly blog about the mother stuff rather than the baby stuff.

Anyway, here goes:

Kendra

1. has gotten really tall in the last couple of weeks, so much so that her jeans are now above her ankles :)
2. Still wearing 6 - 12 month clothes but is finally in size 2 shoes.
3. The nappies thing is mainly solved by Huggies 4. When this bag is finished though, I'm going to try Pampers 4 because it's just softer on their bums.
4. Her hair is also growing and looks crazy most of the time because the minute we brush it she takes her hands and messes up the hair. She calls it brushing her hair. Although we've tried to do teeny-tiny little ponytails and those stayed in for about 10 minutes on Saturday, so we're getting there. 10 seconds to 10 minutes is a huge jump.
5. Not walking unaided yet. I wondered how to judge what proper walking was until I saw the video on MandyH's blog, I thought, "aaah, now that's walking". She will still take 5 steps towards us but is very scared to go it alone if one of us is not there. Poor thing. Maybe it's just her personality?
6. Says the following words - Daddy, there, (they tell me) Mummy (I've never heard it), Connor (nono), hello (to everyone in the street when we go for walks), bye-bye, no no no (!), go go go (this is from me - I say "let's go, let's go, let's go" then she says go go go :), down, light, ball, door, toes, shoes, knee, bag, cat, tweet-tweet, quack-quack, tor-tor (tortoise), more, car, star, hair, shhhh (when Connor's sleeping - I first said to her "shhh, Connor's sleeping" and now she shushes us if anyone's sleeping), thank you (very rarely) and then others that only we know she's saying those words - elbow, balloon, belly button (all sounds like bo-bo but the intonation is different and she points so you know what she's saying). She also says "good girl". 30 words!
7. She is very affectionate and I love it. Wants kisses ALL the time and gives everybody (incl all the stuffed animals) hugs all the time. She hugs my leg while I'm talking to D or V, and then if I start patting her back, she pats my leg. Very cute.
8. Oh, and she can sing "baa baa black sheep" - it's all baa baa baa baa, but the music is correct :) I just say, "Kendra, sing" and off she goes.
9. We think her love language is words of affirmation because she LOVES it (beams) when we say, "good girl" (and of course, repeats it) or "clever girl". Too sweet!

Connor

1. Also getting VERY tall. When he's all stretched out in his cot at night, he looks about 3. One morning I went into their room and he suddenly looked like a big boy. I love them learning new things but I do want to keep them this cute stage forever.
2. He mainly wears 12 - 18 months on top and still wears some 6 - 12 months pants because he's gotten THIN. At 15 months he'd lost 160 g from 12 months and he's slimmed down some more because he's so active. It is very sad that he's starting to lose his babyness. At least he still has the gorgeous baby arms and hands.
3. Still in Pampers 4+. No problems with his nappies.
4. Also not walking unaided much. But he is brave and fearless and LOVES to walk while holding onto a finger. He will come to us over and over (poor thing) but his favourite thing is walking to Daddy. He squeals with delight when D grabs him and they laugh and have a good old time. Truth be told, I'm getting a little jealous because in the last few days, Daddy is Connor's favourite person on the planet. Everything is "Daddy, Daddy" and when I call him D, Connor and Kendra both repeat "D". Again, very cute.
5. Connor's words - Daddy, Mummy (again, I never hear him but I have to trust D and V), Nenna (for Kendra), no no no no no (our boy has very firm boundaries - Connor, can Kendra play with ______ now? NO NO NO NO NO. Okay then!), go go go (ALLLLLLL the time, he goes to the pram and says go go go, that means, "it's time for our walk" or in the mornings from his cot "go go go " which means "dress me, it's time to play"), tweet-tweet, quack-quack, there, star, car, door, hello, bub-bye (he loves saying bub-bye - it is so sweet in the mornings). They love "there" - they get it from me because I'll pick them up out of the cot/ high chair/ car seat, etc. and put them down and say, "there" and now they started doing it too. 13 words!
6. He loves the outside - the MINUTE I open the back door in the mornings he stands at the security gate and looks for birds, aeroplanes, etc. I must admit it's a trick I do when they start throwing a tantrum. I say, "shhh, can you hear the birds? Listen." They're forced to be quiet and listen and sometimes the birds oblige and tweet-tweet.
7. This boy's love language is quality time! We don't have to do anything with him - he plays next to me on the bed or in the study and is happy as a clam. He's been fussing trying to go to bed for a few nights and tonight I took him from his cot, we went to the lounge and just sat and chatted for a bit (5 mins) and then when I said, "okay, baby, time to go to bed now" he went to bed without a murmur.

They have lots of teeth too - 4 molars are out for each baby but not the incisors?

Sleeping is still good (I'm almost scared to write that after reading Cat's post today) but with summer here and it getting lighter earlier, they've been waking closer to the 5:30 mark than the 6:00 one. Then again, we are just so happy about them sleeping we don't CARE!

They are getting very independent with the eating. They'll have some food with us feeding and then they want to feed themselves.

On Sunday they had bread with peanut butter for supper followed by carrots for dessert (I'm not joking - our kids pop carrots like sweets! We go through 1 kg of carrots a week, just for them - see what happens when they learn the word "more"). They ate about half as finger food and then started fussing. I had a brainwave and cut the bread into tiny bits and used plastic baby forks to spear them. They LOVED it and happily ate the rest like that. I'm being kept on my toes!

Anyway, that's enough for an update. I still have a professional blog to write too.

This is why one should update every month instead of every 2 - 3 months as I seem to do. Sorry I'm a slacker!

Also, I thought Connor had like 3 words and now I see he's on track for his 18 months as Dr S said 5 - 10 words by 18 months. Kendra is a big old chatterbox

What's news on your side of the world?

P.S. Tomorrow I want to write about "perfect" mothers.

P.P.S. Hayley, yes, I'm from PE.

(In all the excitement about the triplets yesterday, I forgot it was the 2-year anniversary of me triggering at Rod Stewart's concert. Good times!)