Trial and Error

This morning.

The babies are sleeping and I'm sitting in the dark, enjoying the relative quiet and hoping that the house stays this way for the next few hours. I need to write a bit, and snack a bit, wash up a bit, and then rest much more than a bit. I'm tired.

The babies' Uncle John came to visit today. They both enjoyed playing with him. . .
Carmen especially.
The mellow, serene newborn Carmen has become a silly, outgoing, exuberantly happy baby, while David, sensitive and sweet, has grown more relaxed and thoughtful. In other words, it is Carmen's turn to keep us busy.

Both babies' nighttime sleeping habits have been even stranger than usual, lately. When it began I suspected we were on the verge of a developmental leap, but after a couple of days of strange nightwakings and giddy, overtired babes, Matt and I were on the verge of temporary insanity, and desperate for a fix. Matt decided that maybe the babies were simply ready for something besides milk.

I was skeptical of this, but sweet potatoes are a happy, mostly harmless little vegetable, so last weekend we bought one and steamed it and mashed it. If they wouldn't eat it, at least they could squish it. Carmen felt indifferent to the whole affair,
while David looked only politely interested.
Neither ate any measurable amount of their sweet potato mash, thereby eliminating Matt's theory with a resounding "heck, no."

Later in the week I was busy preparing for my day and David noticed my bag of carrots. He studied it with interest. The carrots did not interest him as much as the crinkly sound of the plastic bag they came in. To buy myself a couple of minutes more to continue my chores, I handed him a carrot. He studied it, tasted it, felt its fresh-from-the-fridge coolness, and then compared carrot to finger.
The finger won, and the carrot rolled to the floor, where the cat swiped at it. Just as well; babies shouldn't be playing with carrots, anyway (little bits can break off and become a choking hazard). Carmen had a similar experience later in the week--after watching me eat one she held the carrot, looked at it, said, "You people eat this stuff?" and then proceeded to suck on her first two fingers. One more strike against Matt's theory. They'll let us know when they're ready to start nibbling off our plates soon enough.

I'm still voting for the developmental leap theory. In the past week, both babies have rapidly progressed in their abilities to sit, communicate, and grasp. In ways measurable and immeasurable, they are dramatically different little people from a week--or even a day--ago.

Yesterday, David sat unassisted for at least forty minutes while I folded some laundry and busied myself around the house. This morning both Carmen and David sat for quite a long while as Matt sorted diapers.

They amaze--and amuse--us. I hope they find us at least half as interesting.

Time for me to go to sleep. It's been a difficult couple of weeks, with work and babies and our issues with sleep (or, lack thereof). Tomorrow is a busy day, with more of the same, and hopefully time to replace the cheap rice cooker/steamer I bought at Target last week with one I actually like. Dad already returned the old one for me, so now I have the somewhat more interesting job of buying the new one. Then later in the week I'll steam, puree, and freeze some of this week's produce from Gundermann Farms. It's the last of the season. When the babies do start genuinely playing and experimenting with food, we'll have a stash of local organic butternut squash, yellow squash, and sweet potatoes to start us off. The butternut squash is already prepared and divided in the deep freeze, waiting for us. Mmmm!

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This is us at Shanghai Joe's (see previous post below). Carmen is hungry, can you tell? The drool/spitup spot on Matt's shoulder is a semi-permanent badge of parenthood. He wears it proudly.