The Honeymoon continues

The girls are teething and Living Juicy!

No one told us how painful teething is - it makes me cringe seeing their little gums splitting with the clear/white teeth coming through. It's hard not to OD them on Orajel, as that's what I'd want on my teeth. "Pea-size" dosage doesn't seem like enough, but don't worry - even the slightly larger pea-size dose we give them still doesn't seem to do anything in soothing them. :) Poor little angels.

The good news - outside of those teething times, we live in our honeymoon of a new family. Some of our funnest observations are as follows:

A) The girls have striking personalities - and they are sisters through and through. It's entertaining to see them "work out" who gets the toy (that could be just a piece of paper, or their favorite toy seems to be the phone - they hold it up to their ear and babble "dada?, yayayay," which is probably the Good Lords evil way of foreshadowing my future. . . ). They battle it out with a few pushes, some "BAAAAHHHHHSS" or in most cases with a nice YANK soon followed by running and holding it above their head with one hand as the other chases while crying (as our neighbor keenly observed, "All noise, no water").

B) Today my future hopes came true: I hoped that when the girls get older they will police each other - cause I know Suzanne and I won't always be there when they are misbehaving or are tempted to do the forbidden. . . although we'll be there to "handle" the situation when we find out. :) But hopefully by them policing each other we won't have to "handle" as much as my parents had to. . . Well, as some of you may know we're trying to ween the girls from sucking their thumbs. It was cute and a necessity to make it home - but being the hard-nosed/cold turkey believer, that time is over. As our dentist guided us in our first visit (Dec. 10), it's better to stop early because if we wait it may delay potty training or other developmental habits - because we shouldn't focus on changing more than 1 major change at a time. Well - today Isabelle saw me "take" Gabby's thumb out. . . much to Gabby's displeasure. Later in the day I saw Isabelle look at Gabrielle and give her this look that said, "OOOOOO, you're not suppose to do that. . ." Needless to say, when I looked at Gabrielle she had her thumb in her mouth and before I could "handle" the situation, Isabelle helped her sister take her thumb out - aka Thumb-sucking police. PERFECT! After laughing and admiring my dream come true - I did have to stop Gabby from slapping Isabelle. :) Ahhh, we can only hope this is the first of many "policings".

C) Thank goodness their "Izzy slaps" (Isabelle was the first to coin this behavior), or as their Aunt Wendy described little Orson's "forearm shivers", have subsided into just shaking their head "No" with a "stiff arm" to confirm they don't want to eat something. This new "stiff arm" has saved many peas, beans, bananas, carrots, etc. from flying on the floor and all over the kitchen. The honeymoon continues. . .

Live'n Juicy,

Pa/Ma'GI

New Year Resolution. . .

As Suzanne says on our voicemail. . . BACK by popular demand. . . Izzy and Gabby's blog! I've been thinking about continuing the blog after getting some voicemails, emails, and conversations with some of our friends. Although it wasn't our initial intention to continue the blog after we got back, it seems like a good way to keep people up-to-date. So - let's try weekly, although it may be bi-weekly if we're out of town, updates. We'll try to add pictures and video as that's what people really want to see, right?

It occurred to me the other day that we're probably living the honeymoon of parenting. The girls are truly great - they sleep 12 hrs. a night, take two naps on schedule, eat pretty much anything (especially any sweets that they see Suzanne or Grandpa eating), and live more juicy than most 14.5 month old adoptees. Here have been some of the highlights since the last entry:

1) Meeting aunts, uncles, cousins, Grandma/pa, and many many friends. At first there were stranger anxiety, but that has been down-graded to "stranger amazement". One phenomenon has been how kids immediately adapt to other kids. They love meeting other kids, playing with them, and communicating in "kid" language (the "ba's, da's, laughter at what appears to be nothing, or high-pitched yells of glee. . . it's a language like no other). Our plan is to start them in day-care in February, so hopefully this phenomenon will continue there, too. :)

2) First steps - Gabrielle took her first step on December 7th. It is easy to remember because we were in the doctors office when she decided she wanted a toy I was holding on the other side of the room. Five steps later she had it in hand and Suzanne and I just looked at each other in amazement. Isabelle lived up to Grandpa's prediction - she'd walk by Christmas. December 20th she stumbled her first four steps and now she's stride for stride with Gabby. It's quite the treat just watching them explore wherever we are, now being able to stop, bend over and pick an object, and then raise it above their head with glee. Their grins as they waive their prize are priceless. Their health and development are of "no worry" of our peditrician, although they weighed out in the 1% of US kids, and 75% height. Long and light. After a month of the best organic whole milk and all the other new foods, we're confident they've put on at least 3 or 4 pounds. :)

3) Bonding with Grandpa. . . then Grandma straight from Rwanda. We've been fortunate enough to have this adoption hit "winter break" in Otterbien's trimester. That means my parents are both have been "off" until after the new year. Grandpa was able to bond with the girls for the first two weeks at home then had to take a short break to take care of his dad, and Grandma made it back just in time to do her bonding. They also helped Suzanne and I get back to work and most importantly helped support us as we adjusted to this Parenting thing. We've already put our votes in for them to be mom & dad/grandma & grandpa of the year. We're confident they'll run away with the award. FYI - grandpa has nicknamed Gabby = the National Geographic Explorer (she's quite curious and ventures wherever there's something new or interesting), Izzy = the Mystery Women because you're never quite sure what you're going to get with her - she may scream at the top of her lungs one minute and be laughing endlessly the next.

4) First Christmas and New Year's Eve at home: Both were pretty low key. Well, if you call 7 kids ages 14 months - 7 years old running around our house "low key". Grandma (Great Grandma to the kids) Powell even made the trek to the land of the Frozen Tundra. The girls were more "present-struck" so they didn't rip open any presents this year. . . but Grandma sure had a good time! New Years came in with a wet diaper right on schedule - 11:59 just in time that we could all welcome in the New Year together. Thankfully that hasn't become a trend.

5) Finally, today was picture day. . . I'm sure every parents dream. Well, for twins, the margin of error was double. Thankfully, Gabby was like a supermodel and we were able to squeeze off a couple (yes, more than one), nice pictures even though the drama queen was in full effect - tears and all! Well, in between constant tears and wailing that brought a crowd to make sure everything was OK - 3 adults and 2 kids can mean nothing but trouble. . . sheez. . . the photographer showed her talents by capturing some cute pictures. In the next blog, if I remember (knock on wood), we'll post the link so you can see the goods.

Well, Happy New Year and look forward to seeing you all in very soon!

Live'n Juicy in 2008!
Pa and Ma'GI