15 months...

I should be asleep right now, but one more post awaits - 15 month update!

The last 3 months have flown by and the babies are thriving and growing and doing great.  When the babies were infants, I used to think that nothing could be as hard as that stage.  I now know that the infant stage is not harder, nor easier than what we are doing now - just different.  Molly and Luke are in constant motion.  Gone are the days I could leave them to play, even in a gated area.  They have learned how to bust through each and every "safe" area I have made and managed to find the most dangerous thing to play with.  I am not complaining but I certainly have had to retrain myself and get into a new mode of not ever letting them out of my sight!

Molly was the first to walk and as of last week is now walking more than crawling.  Luke started taking steps last week and over the weekend started taking more and more.  I think he will be proficient in a shorter amount of time than it has taken Molly.  By the time next month is over, I will have 2 walkers, maybe runners on my hands!

Their personalities come out a little more each and every day.  Luke is a mama's boy and Molly a daddy's princess.  As much as Al and I "fight" this, it seems very natural.  Molly is much more laid back than Luke right now.  Of course, Luke is cutting 5 teeth right now and is just miserable.  Molly is working on some teeth as well but hers stay well underneath the surface until the very end, so I am not sure how much she is working on - but the front of her shirts/dresses are always soaking wet, so I know something is working in there.  Luke is starting to get much more aggressive with Molly and although it doesn't seem to bother her, he is bigger and could hurt her.

Table "discipline" has started around here.  Or should I say, "should have started around here".  I haven't been consistent with teaching sign language and I should have been better on that.  Both Molly and Luke enjoy feeding the dogs (I need to cut this in the bud), they both like to throw food and cups (need to work on this too) but they do shake their head when they are all done.  Luke loves to hold a spoon or fork and had great fine motor skills.  Molly has no interest in this at all.  They still won't eat fruit that isn't pureed.  We will be working on this over the summer.

Luke has found his head and will point to it when you ask him.  Molly is starting to learn but isn't as proficient as Luke.  Overall, I think Luke is better with fine motor skills and Molly is excelling at her gross motor skills.  They steal toys from each other equally and I don't intervene too much unless one of them is just mean about taking a toy from the other!

Ely is still doing great with the kids, but is starting to get a bit aggravated when they start playing with a project he is working on.  I am sure we will battle this often this summer.

One of our biggest changes this month was that we took Luke's paci away from him.  Al doesn't want a big boy to be walking around with a paci hanging from his mouth and if I am going to break the habit, I am going to do it before he can say "paci".  The week was as expected - naps were hard to come by but by the time night came, he was so tired he would fall asleep fairly easily.  Since he was taking so long at falling asleep I made the move to keep the babies awake longer in the morning and transitioning to 1 nap a day. This has made all the difference and they are doing great on this schedule (as long as I don't have to wake them up early to get somewhere).  The afternoons get a bit long and they are beyond ready for bed at 7.  We are going on lots of "after dinner" walks!

Now for their stats:

Luke:
weight: 20lb 12 oz (6%)
height: 30.75" (40%)

Molly:
weight: 18lb 10oz (2%)
height: 28" (20%)

Yes, they are still tiny, but are growing just as they should.  We had a great dr. appointment and will go back in 3 months.