Cruising and spices

Whew...has it really been a month!?! So much has happened since the last posting. We've been up here in Vancouver for more than a month now, and there are still boxes everywhere. We've got a total of 6 teeth, 4 to Logan and 2 to Carter, and with the amount of drool happening recently I'm sure that there are more to come.

The boys had their 9 month check up last week (though they were officially 9 months on the 30 of Jan) and Logan has finally bypassed his brother in size. He was always bigger on the growth scans when they were in my belly, so that really doesn't surprise me too much. Logan, who entered the world at 4 lbs 8 oz is now 19 lbs 14.2 oz and is 28 inches tall (which puts him in approximately the 40th percentile for length and weight) and Carter, who was born at 5 lbs 2 oz is now 19 lbs 9 oz and 27.5 inches tall (which puts him at about 30th for weight and 20th for height). Logan is in the 75th percentile for his head, and Carter is about 50th. The cool this is, they no longer are adjusting percentiles because they were early (5 weeks you know) so their running with the big boys now, and doing a pretty good job, I'd say.

Carter has been standing up for a few months now, and has been cruising (I think the term is) along things for at least a month. He's even figured out how to get down without falling over! He's perfected his crawl, which is a true crawl on all fours, and seems to get around pretty fast if he's motivated. He has a habit of standing on the edge of his crib and yelling for us when he wants up and out, which is funny unless it's 20 minutes after we've laid him down for his nap or 3 am.

Logan can stand too, and does so at the edge of his crib when his brother eggs him on, but doesn't have the cruising ability down like Carter. He instead prefers to get back down to his butt and take off with his belly crawl. He rarely gets up on all fours because he's so fast the other way. "Why bother?" he tells me. He also nods his head (like he's saying "no") at random times, and sometime he wiggles a little so it looks like he's dancing. It's very cute. He's shown us a precursor to a wave, which was actually directed at a stranger saying hello to him while he was in his stroller. He claps his fists together, but hasn't got the open palm yet.

Both little guys are still eating very well, and still get 3 solid food meals a day. I've started spicing their food a little, adding cinnamon to their cereal, dill to their rice or curry to their lentils. They don't like lentils plain, but they'll usually tolerate them with a little spice.

About 2 weeks ago, we reached that terrible point most parent's reach when they have to respond to the age old question of "are they sleeping through the night?" with a well...not really. We had been pulling them in to our bed in the middle of the night when they'd get really fussy, but it got to the point where we would just put them in our bed once we came to bed. We weren't sleeping great and knew that in the long run we needed to teach them good sleep habits. Unfortunately I did a little research and realized we should have started 6 months ago. Oops.

We started sleep training while the cribs were still in our room and all I can say is, it gets easier. Last Sunday we finally moved the cribs in to their own room (they're cribs have been in our room) and aside from a few middle of the night trips across the house in a zombie like state, it's been working well. I wouldn't say great yet, but we're getting there.

Stay tuned, I promise there will be some new pictures soon.