Bah, bah, bah

BUDDY and Buggy are both now repeating single syllables over and over, most often the one that sounds like "bah." The New Family Mom will not be happy if either of their first words is Dada. "Bah" better morph into "Ma" before it becomes "Da."

"Bah, bah"

"Bah, bah, bah!"

Both have had "conversations" with both Mom and Dad and each other. These are vocalizations usually originate from a child prompting a response from a Parent similar to, "Is that right? Fascinating!" And as soon as the Parent has finished, the child will vocalize again. It makes Dad wonder if they have learned the rules of conversation, you talk, Dad listens, Dad talks, you listen. They seem to follow these rules with each other too.

If so then they are more mature than the talking heads on the Sunday morning talk shows.


They have changed in other ways too.

They are sleeping less during the day taking fewer naps and staying up longer (without crabbiness) between them. Any single nap session still lasts little as 30 minutes, or as long as 2 plus hours. Afternoon naps seem to be the longer ones while morning naps are short. Once awake from a short nap, EJ is not always ready to get up and is not good at soothing himself back to sleep. He indicates then when Mom or Dad will change, feed, and try to soothe him, but to no success. They seem to sleep well at night, going to bed as early as 6:30 or as late as 8:30. They wake as early as 4:30 and sleep as late as 8:30. Their down time is a poor predictor of their up time. Early down times are met with early up times and late up times with about the same frequency. Late down times are the same. 

Buddy has been up on all fours, but only very briefly. As strong as he is in most of his body, he seems weak in that position. His primary means of locomotion is still rolling over. And, he is fast. Move him several feet away from his object of desire, and he is on top of it again within seconds. This makes changing a diaper on the floor a real challenge. Let go of him for a moment and he will be three rollovers away before you can nab him. And he squeals with delight when Dad rolls him back to the original place. Dad doesn't exactly delight in it.

Buggy now crawls forward as much as she crawls backward. Just today she figured out that she can get out from underneath the Exer-Saucer as well as get in there. Though she'll still cry for Dad if she doesn't egress quickly enough.

She is more determined to reach a self set goal than he. Just now Dad observed him contemplating entry under the Exer-saucer. The lip is a four inch high barrier to entry. He quickly gave up when the effort required exceeded his interest in getting in. She, comparatively, will not quit until her goal is met.

They no longer favor their left hands. They currently seem ambidextrous. Dad'll see how that goes. He thinks they might yet be right handed.

Solid food is such a large portion of their diet that the Parents may have only five bottles to wash on any given day. They have begun to make baby food for the Twins. That is labor intensive, and Dad can see the value in buying the stuff from Gerber. When you have more money than time, you buy convenience. When the opposite is true, you make your own.

Most of their diet is pureed veg, fruit, oats, and, still, formula. They have had some pureed meat, but that has not been popular. From the way it smells, Dad is highly sympathetic.

He has offered them a few flavored rice puffs. They will keenly observe Dad putting food into his mouth and imitate him. They will pick the puffs up, move them to their mouths, but neither has actually gotten one in there. Dad tends to interfere by inserting it for them. Their reaction to it, at first, was comic. "What's this? Something I cannot immediately swallow? I have to gum it into bits and then swallow?" Their old pros at it now, though she choked on one on two different occasions.

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