Born March 18, 13 minutes apart
Evan = 5 lbs, 15 oz., 19 inches
Erin = 6 lbs, 2 oz, 19 1/4 inches

Previous Updates

October 31, 2009 Sarah is now fully captivated by Disney's ingenious marketing schemes and is obsessed with princesses and mermaids. She just watched The Little Mermaid for the first time two weeks ago and asked us to send the DVD back to the library to "change it into Snow White." Evan and Erin are at the final stage of teething. We can see the outlines of two teeth for Erin, and one of Evan's is just micrometers below his gum. They are both getting better at sitting up, and both can assume the crawling position (but only Erin shows interest in little crawls). Evan has become more dextrous and has almost caught up to Erin, but he is stronger so he takes what he wants. He also enjoys grabbing her helmet and giving it a rattle every once in a while, but he also tries to hold her hand. Evan is now into blowing raspberries, and Erin enjoys chirping like a bird.

October 16, 2009 Unfortunately there has been a little lull in the time between updates. My birthday resolution is to try to provide these more often. Evan and Erin continue to grow at a remarkable rate. They both now can roll around and play with toys. Erin has already done some early crawling motions. They are both able to sit up for a short period of time, and now eat baby food in addition to milk. Evan has just learned to hold his own bottle, which should bring some relief to his parents! Sarah has grown tall enough to operate some of our light switches without using a stool. She has begun to spell out simple words and can even draw a few letters on her own. She is a great older sister and helps out a lot between tantrums!

(3/29/08) Sarah is a real joy at this stage (dramatic tantrums aside). She is talking a lot, has a vocabulary that increases at least a few words per week, if not per day. She has even started putting together a few words into small sentences ("Where is Elmo?" "What is it?" "I love you, Daddy"). Just today she started counting ("Two birds!"). She is full of energy, loves to do her little dances, and reads constantly. She also likes to draw with crayons. But most imporantly, she loves animals of all shapes and sizes, particularly dogs and birds.

(11/15/07) Sarah is now up to 23lbs and is 50th percentile in weight and 60th percentile in height. She started to walk proficiently just before Halloween and had a great time going around our neighborhood on her first trick-or-treat experience. She would walk right up to the door by herself and rap lightly while Daddy also knocked. She particularly enjoyed the crinkly packages and any of the boxes filled things she could shake. She has increased her vocabulary to include a clear "mommy" and "daddy," as well as "more," "bye bye," "uh-oh" and various animal sounds. More importantly, her sign language capabilities have exploded in the last few weeks after she stayed home sick with her first double ear infection and watched her sign language DVDs over and over. She now regularly uses signs for food, drink, various animals, asking for help, and signs please and thank you. However, her newfound communication skills come at a price: when she says she wants an apple or a cracker, she doesn't mean that you can take your time getting it, and she doesn't take well to any answer that indicates she has already had enough of that food. One of the most interesting developments is that she now can understand words out of context. During a recent car ride back from the zoo, the adults were discussing appetizers for later in the evening and Sarah heard a casual mention of cheese and crackers and immediately began signing her demands that we provide her cheese at that instant. When we explained that we didn't have any cheese, she resorted to her usual response: loud wailing. Consequently, we now have moved to spelling out certain words or saying them in Spanish. Sarah is fascinated by phones of any sort, and particularly fascinated by our cell phones. After she locked Daddy's cell phone during a recent trip (we had to go to a Verizon store to get it unlocked), we gave in and bought her a little toy cell phone (we had sworn we would never do that).

(9/15/07)Sarah has celebrated her first birthday and moved up to the toddler room in daycare. She can stand on her own, say a few words like "more" and sign words for "more" (which has also become "I want" as in "I want the birds the come back" or "I want your cellphone, Mom!"). She cruises around some, but seems perfectly content to get around by crawling. She recently returned from her first trip to Maine where we spent a week at our cabin in Damariscotta. She had a great time and traveled fairly well, but was terrified of the lake. While in Maine she moved from being afraid of dogs to being infatuated with them (thanks to Jon and Anne's Luna), and she is mesmerized by birds. Her transition back to daycare was rough because she was in a new classroom, going through separation anxiety (she had been with us for most of every day for almost two weeks), she was cutting a molar (she now has four molars and a total of twelve teeth), she was switching from two naps to one, and eating new food that daycare provided. She has pretty much adjusted now and returned to her normal happy disposition with lots of smiles and little dances. She loves being a little ham if we have guests (we don't know where she got that from), but when she decides she wants something that you don't want to give her, she appears to enter her terrible twos a year early! We also have no idea where she gets her stubborn streak. (5/30/07) Sarah is now doing a primitive crawl, which is really a combination of lunging forward and actually moving her hands and knees. But she is definitely mobile now. She is up to about 19lbs. She has just started using her first word in sign language, putting her index finger into the palm of her other hand, to let us know when she wants more food. And she is really starting to develop preferences in food (Cheerios, chicken, and cheese are her favorites, while cottage cheese gets rejected.) She can now grab separate pieces of food with different hands at the same time.

(4/08/07) Sarah is getting ready to crawl. She gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth. She has also started pulling herself up using her toy table and the railing of the changing table. She now has two bottom teeth, and uses them as she eats slices of avocado, sweet potato, and her favorite: Cheerios. She can now pick up food and get it into her mouth successfully about 80% of the time. She is still full of joy!

(2/24/07) Sarah is over 16 pounds and her hair is growing rapidly. She is wearing 6 month clothes now and showing signs of growing out of some, although she is mostly tall and skinny. She is ready to teeth any time. She can sit up by herself now, and she has begun eating baby food that Maggie prepares and drinking from a sippy cup. Most importantly, she is a near non-stop source of laughter and joy, and loves giving her mommy and daddy kisses.