A Day in the Life...

6:37 AM
I wake up to a magnitude 3.2 earthquake. Everyone else in the house sleeps right on through. At first, I thought it was Cody and Tanner banging around out in the hallway, but then I realized that I just didn't hear something - I felt it, too. The last earthquake we actually felt was this past Christmas. Still waiting on the big one!

9:30 AM
We're off to the mall with Granny to buy new shoes for fall. Sadly, they only had one pair in the girls' size, so the second pair is being shipped to us. That's okay since the girls won't be wearing them for a while.

11:00AM
The nice sales lady in Dillard's is convinced that one of the girls is a boy - even though I told her more than once they were both girls. They were both wearing white sandals, smocked bishop dresses, Mallory had a bow in her hair, and I tried girl's sandals on both Anna Claire and Mallory. I never knew whether she thought Anna Claire or Mallory was the boy. As we walked away, I heard her tell the other sales lady, "one is a boy and one is a girl." gaaahhhh!

12:30 PM
The girls make their first trip to my new favorite fabric shop, Sew 'n Sew. I needed some fabric for a new project and didn't know when I would get back out there. Let's just say a fabric shop is not the place to take little ones. They weren't bad, but there was just way too much for them to get into. While we were there though, amidst the rows and rows, shelves and shelves of hundreds of bolts of fabric, do you know it was Anna Claire who spotted the "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" fabric. That was like finding a needle in a haystack! They had two prints. One is the children in the back of the book and the other is a white background with all the animals printed all over it. Both girls loved it, but I'm not sure it would make a cute dress.

1:30 PM
Mallory takes a one hour nap and Anna Claire sleeps for two hours. That's right, Anna Claire.

5:30 PM
The girls eat, among other things, roasted sweet potatoes topped with bleu cheese for supper. They love bleu cheese! Can babies eat bleu cheese?

6:00 PM
While I am running the girls' bathwater, Walter is taking off the girls' diapers. He sends Anna Claire down the hall to find me in the bathroom, and she poops on the floor - a first.

7:30 PM
The girls have been sleeping soundly for an hour...

Day at the Museum

One of the girls' favorite exhibits at the Children's Museum yesterday was the grocery store. It looks as though they were making some healthy choices.

(Photo courtesy of Grandmom.)

In other news...

morning nap
Anna Claire and Mallory :30
afternoon nap
Anna Claire and Mallory 1:00

I am slowly but surely relaxing about the whole nap thing. I feel good offering them the opportunity to nap twice a day. I definitely think it was a good thing for both girls to go back to two naps. Whether they are sleeping or just "resting" they seem much better off than they were last week during our one-nap-a-day experiment.

Hide and Seek

This morning, the girls went to the Children's Museum with Grandmom and Aunt Dot. I hear they had so much fun! In the meantime, the girls have been having lost of fun "running" up and down the hallway and "hiding" in the nursery. Hide and seek is thier new favorite game to play together. I was barely able to capture these shots as they ran towards me. Pardon the blurriness.

Morning nap

Mallory - :30 in the car

Anna Claire - none

Afternoon nap

Mallory - :45 + :20

Anna Claire - 1:30

All Smiles

Why does this almost-fifteen-month-old think she no longer needs a nap?Monday

nighttime sleep for Anna Claire and Mallory - 11 1/2 hours

10:30am nap for both girls - 30 minutes
2:00pm nap for Mallory 1 1/2 hours; Anna Claire "rested" for 1 hour

What Now?

Seven days in and our new nap routine is not working for Anna Claire or Mallory.

Neither of the girls is functioning well on just one nap. Mallory is exhausted all morning long (she fell asleep on her stroller ride yesterday), and while Anna Claire can make it a bit longer, she is fit to be tied by around 11:00. And when it is nap time, they are only sleeping between forty-five minutes to one and a half hours (shouldn't they be exhausted???). That doesn't seem to be enough to keep them happy for the rest of the afternoon into evening.

I had to channel my frustration of not knowing what to do about napping by doing something creative this weekend, so I sewed the girls a new diaper bag. I haven't sewn anything since I made the girls' dresses, and I must say, difficult as it was, the diaper bag took less time and turned out much better than the dresses. I must be learning!

The exterior...
The interior...

I guess Mallory needed to find a creative outlet for her frustration with me depriving her of sleep, so she colored on the closet doors in the playroom.

Since school is back in session, and we don't have a lot of excitement going on, I'm going to log the girls naps here for a while to better keep track of their "data", so I can try to do a better job of figuring things out. I'll try to include some cute pictures of the girls to make things more interesting this week.

Sunday
wake-up & bottle 7am-ish (slept for 12 hours)
breakfast 8:30
snack 10
lunch 11:30
nap 12-1:00 (!)
snack 2:00
dinner 5:30
bath 6:15
bottle and bed 6:45

Where do we go from here? I'll need to sleep on it tonight and figure out what tomorrow's schedule needs to look like. Bear with me...

New Nap Routine

Due to Anna Claire's insistence that she no longer needs a morning nap and Mallory's recent confusion about when to nap, when not to nap, and how long to nap, we decided to go cold turkey(mistake?) and drop the morning nap for both girls keeping them on the same nap schedule.

Here's Mallory yesterday begging for her morning nap...I felt so bad because I knew if I put her down she would fall fast asleep. She's smiling here, but she was so drowsy...And then things got serious at lunch. I thought she would fall asleep in her booster seat... Immediately after lunch I put both girls down for their new afternoon nap at 12:30. Mallory was up forty-five minutes later (she was absolutely begging me for a nap earlier in the day!). Her fussing quickly turned to babbling which quickly turned to silence. Thirty minutes later, however, she was up again - this time for good, and not long after that so was Anna Claire. Aren't they supposed to sleep longer when they transition to just one nap?

Of course, my fear is that this means thy are, in fact, not ready for just one nap and their little biological clocks are freaking out because mommy is messing with their perfectly fine schedule - even if Anna Claire won't nap in the morning. Or, it could be that they are transitioning and their biological clocks are freaking out, and they just need more time to adjust. Note to self: Do not forget the three day rule!

New Schedule...
Morning Bottle 7:00
Snack 10:30
Lunch 12:00
Nap 12:30
Snack 3:00
Bedtime Bottle 6:30

Do we sick to it, or go back? Ugh! I hate not knowing if I'm doing the right thing.

This Is How We Do It

Yep, sometimes we play in the backyard in t-shirts and diapers and shoes that don't match. So unladylike, but so much fun.

Celebration Town

Yesterday was Connor's birthday party at Celebration Town. The girls had never been any place like this, so at first they didn't know what to think. It didn't take long for them to join the party. They had SO MUCH FUN...

Bouncing around...

In no time at all the girls were going down the slide all by themselves!

The girls didn't stop moving for a second (which is why most of our pictures are blurry!), and they sure did sleep good last night!

Pigtails

Does it get any cuter? Mallory's hair gets longer and thicker by the day, and now it's long enough for pigtails if you can get her to sit still long enough.

Sunday Morning: Nap Time

Mallory... Anna Claire...

Thirty minutes into nap time, Anna Claire is still awake - smiling, laughing, singing, and banging around in her crib. Thankfully, Mallory sleeps through it all.

This has been Anna Claire's "routine" for two weeks now. I thought maybe she was just discombobulated since I've been working semi-part-time, but I don't think it should have taken her this long to adjust. She is just not at all tired anymore at her mid-morning nap time, 9:30. The bigger problem? By 11:00 the crankiness has set in, but afternoon naps don't begin until 1:30.

So, what to do? I have no idea what's best. Move morning nap back so Anna Claire is tired? Cut out morning nap for Anna Claire? For both girls? If we cut out morning nap it makes sense to move afternoon nap earlier. They have always been on the same sleeping schedule which has made life so easy. The thought of putting the girls on two different napping schedules does not thrill me.

Ugh! I do not like schedule changes, but looking back, I have to admit things always seem to work themselves out just fine for everyone. Time will tell...

Saturday Evening

Waiting for steaks to finish on the grill...

The girls got to play in the shade of the front yard for a bit this evening while Walter grilled dinner in the sweltering heat -- but it sure tasted good!

In other news, Mallory hasn't quite been herself lately. She has been quite fussy with a runny nose, hasn't slept well for two nights, and her temp is 99.8 (nothing to be alarmed about but a little higher than her normal which tells me that she is, indeed, feeling yucky). There's nothing worse than a cold in the heat of the summer. Hopefully, she'll be smiling again soon!

Tuesday Morning

I have already been to work several days, but I am officially back on contract tomorrow, so the girls and I decided to make the most of our last official day of summer break (though I do have Friday off!!). We had a great day just hanging out at home. Sometimes that's so much more fun than going out and about. Here's how we spent our Tuesday morning...

As usual, Anna Claire and Mallory both woke up from a great night's sleep with smiles on their faces.I went into the kitchen to get breakfast ready and came back to the playroom to find Mallory like this. Would you just look at that baby belly!!Breakfast: French toast, sausage, cantaloupe, and blackberries.

Playing on the back porch before it got too hot...Anna Claire wanted to swing...
Mallory wanted to play in the water...The girls "helped" me organize some of their newborn baby clothes to sell. The girls realized playing in storage bins is just as fun as playing in the laundry basket.
As a matter of fact, they wouldn't get out of the bin so I could fix their snack, so I just moved them into the living room and they sat in the bin and watched Yo Gabba Gabba. They sat there forever (longer than I actually needed them to) and were just mesmerized by the TV. What have I started? Anna Claire is loving on her sister...

Back to work tomorrow. It's going to be a long day. I already miss my babies!

So, You Think You Can Dance?

Well, just take a look at Anna Claire and Mallory. They've got moves!

Anna Claire was really getting down right before I grabbed the video camera. Both girls have always liked music, but more recently, they have really been into their music and dancing whether it be videos on the lap top, their TV shows, cd's, or the music their toys play. These girls have become dancing machines. I just wish the video showed more of their faces - all smiles!