Hellobee

I can’t believe how far into the twinblings’ second year we are, and it boggles my mind that my next developmental update post will be at the two year mark! Since my last post about the girls three months ago, we’ve seen tremendous progress on language and we are also starting to see bigger emotions. This has been a fun but also challenging quarter as Lilly and Audrey passed through the 19-21 month span of their lives.

Physical

As I detailed in this post, we have put a lot of effort and time into treating Audrey’s walking, foot overpronation, and low muscle tone in the past few months. I am such a huge fan of Audrey’s physical therapist, and she is coaching us on many exercises and activities to help. Some of the things that she encourages are for Audrey to walk on the couch and other unstable surfaces to force her ankles to do extra work, and to climb up slides. This has been good for Audrey and also for me because I have a tendency to really worry about the girls taking a tumble or falling down, and the guidance of the PT has really calmed my fears and allowed me to see that the girls need to learn some physical and other boundaries on their own.

We also have Audrey enrolled in swimming classes, and a gymnastics and open play class through the park district at least partly because of the encouragement of her PT. Our nanny is also fabulous about taking the girls to indoor open play spaces with lots of different surfaces for Audrey to play on, and our PT tells us that the bounce houses that Audrey loves so much are also a great way for her to improve strength in those weak ankles. So it’s a win-win!

Audrey has fun at gymnastics.

Exercise at open play class.

As to be expected during the dreary winter months, the girls have faced down their fair share of colds over the past quarter. I really need to buy stock in whoever makes boogie wipes because of the sheer amount of those grape-smelling snot rags we go through in the Starfish household. And at the risk of providing far too much information, we are also facing a lot of pooping problems right now. We are working with one girl to manage constipation and the other girl to manage diarrhea. We currently have a hunch that our diarrhea-plagued little one is experiencing a dairy intolerance so we plan to get her in to the pediatrician soon for a work-up on that front.

The upside to Chicago winters are playtime in the snow!

Language

In the past three months I stopped counting the number of words that the girls have because it has taken off so fast. They have plenty of two-word phrases, and a sprinkling of three-word phrases. But most of the girls’ words and speech right now consist of labeling and identifying objects and communicating basic needs and wants.

It is fun to watch the girls’ different progression on language, and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Audrey has very clear pronunciation while I often need Lilly to point to help me understand what she’s saying or asking. But in contrast, Lilly uses much longer phrases while Audrey generally sticks to only 1-2 words at a time.

Lilly is happy with a pile of books.

Right after my last update around 18 months, the girls seemed to learn and say colors in a week. Both of them love yellow, maybe because they find it fun to say. Red was really hard for both of them to learn, which is still perplexing to me as I would have thought it easier than yellow.

We work on the alphabet each morning and letter sounds through a huge book of letters that their reading-teacher grandmother gifted them. When I ask the girls to point to the letters of their names and a few other letters, they are successful about half the time. However, my hunch is that this skill is more a function of them knowing where those letters are in their book rather than understanding the alphabet at this time. Still, it’s fun and they often ask for “ABCs!” “ABCs!” for a song and I’d say that their favorite books right now are ABC oriented.

We added a small bookshelf to our living room for easy access to books.

We are also working on counting when the girls show interest. In this area, I’ve focused more on counting practice rather than identifying numbers by sight. They also love their counting books, especially when I take their “counting finger” and point to objects as I count them.

Really, it is just so, so awesome to see the girls’ minds at work during this age and to observe their constant development. It is definitely my favorite part of this age.

Emotional and Social

Oh goodness, the girls’ emotions are so high these days. Honestly, the topic probably warrants a separate post entirely!

Let’s start with the good. On the positive side, the girls are absolutely adorable in their bond right now. They like to dance together holding hands, they frequently give each other hugs, and they are always looking out for each other. Lilly in particular is always telling me what she thinks her sister needs or wants – for example, every time I start a snack or meal time by giving Lilly an item, she immediately points to Audrey and instructs me “Audrey cracker” or “Audrey water.”

The twinblings love to dance together.

And they love to explore together.

And the kisses are the best!

On the negative side, their sisterly bond is definitely not always positive these days. They frequently take objects away from each other and they are terrible at sharing. Like, really terrible. We had a few playdates over this time period and it has been very frustrating for me to observe other kiddos sharing and taking turns, while my little ones are grabbing objects from each other, resulting in loud protests and screams and tantrums. The word “No!” seems to currently be our home’s motto due to the frequency that the girls use it. And we have seen pushing and a lot of finger pointing when one girl doesn’t want the other to touch whatever object she believes to be hers.

An upset twinbling.

I’m told that we are likely soon to be exiting the “stranger anxiety” phase and I’m looking forward to that. The girls are still quite clingy when we are out and about, and Lilly is extremely clingy even in our home. Related to this, it’s very clear to me that Lilly’s love language is touch; she loves snuggles and being held. We’re not quite sure yet which love language is Audrey’s but she is generally much more independent and will even shirk away from a rub on her back if she is engrossed in something.

Lilly does a lot of cuddling with her bunny these days.

Finally, tantrums for the Starfish twinblings are real and increasing. I had an experience with one girl at swim class about a month ago which resulted in a 40-minute tantrum. I learned some things during that experience, and apparently she wanted me to test those new-found skills because she gave me another intense tantrum just this last weekend at swim class. I’m happy to report that I passed the test, and the tantrum duration was reduced to 3-5 minutes. I was patting myself on the back pretty hard that day and I was tempted to walk up to the front desk and demand one of those little ribbons that they pass out to kids who learn to do a lap across the pool or dive for the first time. Celebrating a parenting win!

Sleep and Eating

The biggest change to report on the sleep and eating front is that we’ve officially dropped the morning nap. The girls have maintained their 6:30 – 6:30 nighttime sleep schedule, and their afternoon nap remains 2-2.5 hours long. It’s been a big adjustment on our part to drop the morning nap because we’d had the same schedule for a year! It was nice as parents to have that morning nap to have a warm cup of coffee and get dressed for the day, but I do like that we can get up and out of the house earlier with the girls if needed.

As for eating, no big changes to report. As mentioned earlier, we are suspecting a dairy intolerance for one of the girls and so we’ve been experimenting with cutting back on the milk. And I suppose this quarter has also seen more demand and requests from the girls for particular foods as their language ability has increased, which has been pretty fun. Audrey’s desperate requests for her beloved hummus and Lilly’s demanding requests for her standby crackers will likely forever be seared into my memory.

But of course nothing beats the “love you!” that now accompanies my goodbye routine with the girls in the mornings. Hearing those little voices say those words is easily the best part of my day.