Updates and news

Well, over the past few weeks, we did some sleep training with the babies, which involved up to 20 minutes of crying at a time per baby. We did our evening routine (playing in the play room after dinner, a bath every other night, changing into PJs, rocking and book reading, and then bed. We would leave the room for 20 minutes to try to get the kids to settle down by themselves. The first night, Jordan wailed for 40 minutes (2 20 minute stretches), despite us going in after 20 minutes to soothe and pat and shush. We vowed not to pick the babies up to rock them back to sleep, unless they were hysterical and clearly not going to settle down. After three nights, Jordan settled with NO crying and slept through the night from about 730 pm to 6 am! Holy crap! A miracle had taken place! Taylor still has trouble settling on her own, and sometimes needs to be swaddled on her upper body, due to flailing arms that prevent settling. But, once swaddled, Taylor also found success in sleep and the moms were so, so happy....And then both kids got sick again and now all bets are off! We are back to copious amounts of rocking, which goes along with copious amounts of snot and coughing. God, this winter sucks donkey balls! Both kids have also had goopy eyes, which thankfully has not turned into pink eye. We are using a home remedy to treat the eye goop, which our pedi nurse practitioner thought was brilliant. We made some weak black tea, and we rub down the eyes with tea soaked cotton balls. Apparently the tanins (sp?) in the tea are good for healing the eyes. The kids hate it, but it worked to clear up Jordan's eyes and it is doing a good job on Taylor's eyes, too!

Jordan now has three teeth on the bottom and he is getting ready to walk. He does this funny crawl where he has one knee on the ground and then the other leg is bent so that his foot is on the ground. It is kind of a walking crawl. He can stand on his own for a few seconds and he loves to walk behind this little push cart we have. He does not need us to help at all and he just walks right along with it. It is so cute! Jordan is also talking up a storm and he seems to be trying to say words. He makes sounds and then points to things and looks at us, as if asking what the word is. Very fascinating to watch! Jordan loves waving, bananas, and dancing.

Taylor has a third tooth trying to cut through on the bottom. She loves to wave bye-bye and laugh and hold her arms up when she wants us to pick her up. She loves bananas, playing with her dino balls toy, and cruising along the furniture. It won't be long before she walks, too, I think. Taylor is a super fast crawler, which is good, because Jordan likes to try to take things away from her. Taylor needs to be able to escape fast!

We are planning a very exciting trip to Florida/Disney World in September. We are going with my brother, Bill, and his family (wife Michelle, daughter Kelly, and son, Will), as well as Penny's sister Cindy and her husband Brian, and Cindy's daughter Heather and her boyfriend, PJ. My mom and other brother, Tim, also live in Florida, so we will get to see them, too! We will be down there for a week and we are all very excited, both for the time together and the Disney experience. Penny and I have been doing lots of planning about how we will make the trip doable for the kids. This includes shorter park days, as well as going back to the condo for naps and swimming in the middle of the day. We are staying at a condo about a mile away from Disney, that we were able to get for next to nothing, through our timeshare organization.

That's about it for now, I guess. We are excited about a visit from my mom and Bill's family next weekend. It will be nice to all get together. While my mom is excited to see all of us, she is most excited to spend a long weekend with all four of her grandchildren in the same place! We have lots of new pics to post, but I will have to try to get to that later today!