5 months!

Today the girls turned 5 months. I cannot believe how quickly time is flying by.

These girls never fail to delight me and make me feel rushes of love and joy. They are giggling and playing peek a boo and stomping their legs when they are sitting in their bouncers, watching us stomp our legs. They are cooing and babbling and Ruby in particular has this way of gasping as if in shock, and then letting out a loud "ooooeeeeerrrr". Ava is still more quiet, but likes to coo softly when held and sung to. But oh boy, can she yell when she's in the car and wanting her dummy!  Ava rolled 3 times in a row a couple of days ago and we managed to get it on film.

So much to capture and so much to remember!

They also exhaust me and challenge me and make me question simple decisions like should I try and put them to bed now or wait another half hour? Should I rock her to sleep or is that just taking the easy way out and i should try and teach her to self settle....And then Josh will have another baby in his arms and will ask me what the next step is and I just want to put my hands in the air and go "I have no bloody idea". Well, sometimes I do say that, but sometimes I give a suggestion and sometimes it works and then wow, what a sense of achievement.

I've learnt that there is no such thing as a good day or a bad day. Instead, there are good periods in a day and bad periods.

Sleep times are becoming a bit of a battle. I don't know why. We used to be able to put them to bed after 1 1/2 hours of wake time and it would be relatively easy. But not anymore. I've tried pushing it out to 2 hours, but not sure if that is working. Sometimes we can pop Ruby in her bassinette and she will put herself to sleep. Haven't managed to do that with Ava in aaaages. Other times I have to rock them to sleep or feed them to sleep. And then I beat myself up cos these are bad habits. But Josh says we need to cut ourselves some slack and sometimes you just have to do whatever works.

So yeah, motherhood seems to be full of highs and lows, all within a day.

Today they got immunised and thankfully it went really well. Little bit of crying but nothing too bad. And a bit of grouchiness for the rest of the day but that was too be expected. Now they don't have to get any more injections for another 10 months. Thank goodness for that!

Photo time!

Ava having bath time.

Ruby getting distracted by dad with his camera!

New jeans!

Story time.

I popped out to have breakfast and this is what I came back to :)

Changelings

The girls turned 15 weeks and just like that, they changed.

They both had a meltdown at bedtime. Which has never happened before (as in, both melting down at the same time). Thank goodness J was home with me. They cried for about 1 1/2 hours before they both passed out in our arms, absolutely exhausted.

Then the next day they refused to go to bed and would scream and cry until their faces turned blotchy and red and they reached choking point. Again, both at the same time. And so this continued for 4 days, but felt like eternity. J had a quiet week, which was a bit of a worry financially, but emotionally, oh my gosh, I am so glad he has been at home so much.

We managed to keep their bedtime routine the same and they still would go to sleep around 6pm and be out until 4ish in the morning. So we'd spend all day just waiting for 5pm to come around so we could bath them and get them ready for bed so we could get a bit of a break.

We put it down to the 4th wonder week as they have just rolled, are starting to use both hands at the same time, grabbing more and can recognise themselves in the mirror.

But we haven't ruled out teething either as they both have had pink, flushed cheeks, weird watery poos and ridiculous amounts of drool. I've started rubbing Ava's gums with my fingers and I notice she seems to be chomping on my finger instead of sucking like she normally does. So tomorrow we will head out to get some teething powder and hopefully it will provide them with some relief.

Oh yeah, so all of this lasted 4 days. Then today we noticed that the girls were sleepy after being up for an hour and a half. Which is what they used to do before they hit 15 weeks. We wrapped them up and put them in their bassinets and whatdoyouknow! They went to sleep with no fuss. And today they have had about 4 naps. So yeah, I think we've turned the corner. They are still fussing quite a bit and chomping so will try teething stuff. But I think the wonder week effects are starting to die down. Fingers crossed!