Kissing Siblings

Well it's been a while since our last update so here it goes. As usual, I'm too lazy and tired to write up a coherent post so it's time for another list.

• Thursday, Shae and the babies are heading up to King City/Lockwood to help prep for Shae's dad's retirement party. I'll be flying up next Thursday, so that means for a week it's just going to be me and Mr. Box down here. I'm sure I'll miss Shae and the munchkins, but it's going to be nice to have some quiet and relaxation around here. I'm not even sure what I'll do with all that extra sleep.
  
  
• The babies are doing great but have taken a step backwards in a few areas, most importantly in their sleeping habits. For a while, things were pretty good. We put them down around 7 or 8 and Jack slept through the night and Ella woke up once (at most) to eat. Let's just say that's not the case anymore. Both babies are up at least once, and usually twice every night. Several nights recently Shae has spent half the night sitting in our glider in the baby room.
  
  
• They also seem to have forgotten how to drink out of their faster speed nipples. We moved them from the slow nipples to the "variable" nipples because they were taking so long to eat (and because the variable speed nipples don't spill if the babies fall asleep with them in their mouths). They did just fine with the new nipples for about a week, and then apparently forgot how to drink out of them and just started making a mess. We had to go back to the slow nipples for a while and now we're back to trying to get them on the faster ones again. We'll see how it goes.
  
  
• This is a little awkward, and I'm not sure I would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but Jack and Ella french kissed this morning. They were laying next to Shae in our bed facing each other and all of a sudden they were kissing. Seriously, Jack's tongue went into his sister's mouth. Gross. If you don't think I'm telling this story to every single date either one of them brings home you obviously don't know me very well.
  
  
• Ella is doing great, and is growing up pretty fast. She has so many expressions and loves to smile. Unfortunately, she keeps losing her hair. Between her cradle cap and Jack pulling her hair out she's getting pretty thin up top. Looking back at her newborn photos it's hard to believe how much hair she had then.
  
  
• Ella may not look as much like a mini-Pat like her brother does, but there can't be any doubt about whose daughter she is. The other day she was laying on the couch laughing at her own farts. Fart, laugh. Fart, laugh. Yup, that's my daughter.
  
  
• Jack is doing great too. His reflux is getting much better, and he doesn't puke after every meal anymore. It's nice to be able to feed him and not have half of it come right back up all over us. We still have to be careful not to feed him too much, but it's way better than a week or two ago.
  
  
• Both Jack and Ella have started to get into an oral phase. After not having much interest in pacifiers, a couple of days ago Jack became obsessed with them. Now whenever he gets fussy we just shove a pacifier in his mouth and he's happy as can be. On one hand, we really don't want a baby who's addicted to pacifiers, but on the other it is really convenient to just shove a pacifier in his mouth and shut him up. Ella kind of likes pacifiers too, but she is happy with her thumb, my hand, Shae's neck, or pretty much anything else she can find. The other day she almost left a hickey on Shae's arm.
  
  
• The babies really love Lunchbox, especially our baby girl. She stares at him and smiles, and loves it when he gives her kisses. It's hilarious to watch, and Lunchbox enjoys it too.
  
  
• You can already kind of see which kid is going to doing to do certain things first. Ella is going to roll over, crawl, and walk WAY before Jack. She's already about to roll over, and I wouldn't be surprised if she starts flipping onto her stomach while she's up North. I think Jack's going to talk first, but Shae disagrees. Ella makes a lot of noise, but Jack seems to already be trying to talk. He just lays there and babbles to us all day.

That's about it for now. If you haven't checked out our gallery lately, take a look because we add pictures all the time. I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures from Shae's trip North. Also, Shae has been playing around with some images lately, and her pics blog has some cool new images.