15 Months: Lots of Fun Antics

TEETH
Ada is currently cutting all 4 eyeteeth. She has her molars in, but had little gaps where the eyeteeth should be. In addition to the front teeth, Julia and Emma have their top and bottom molars, and eyeteeth. Their teething pattern matched tooth for tooth... yet another cue that they may share more DNA.

SLEEP... OR LACK THEREOF
We have had precious little sleep in this household since they were born. The first 5 months was just a nightmare sleep wise because of the sheer time it took to care for preemie triplets with severe reflux. Then they started teething at 4 months and haven't stopped since.

Just as we get the sleep and eat routine settled again, they get the next round of teeth. At least we now have 3 mouths full of pearly whites to show for it.

Ada has been so miserable in the night - even Ty.lenol or Mo.trin didn't do much to help ease her pain. So we've just been taking turns being up with her, mostly between midnight and 5am. On alternating nights, she'd be too exhausted and would sleep for a few more hours at a time, before waking again. It's been rough, because I honestly thought we'd all be sleeping through the night at this point.

On the positive side:

BOOKS AND ANIMALS
Emma picked up the "From Head to Toe" book by Eric Carle and brought it to me with a very clear gesture for me to read it to her. What a great moment!

She and Julia now stand in front of me whenever I read to them, paying close attention. With this book in particular, they do the movements when they see the picture. For example, they thump their chests - with fists - when they see the pic of the gorilla, they raise their shoulders for the buffalo, they imitate a monkey (wave arms) and make the sound, clap hands for the seal, and dance for the crocodile (wiggle hips). The above they'll do just by looking at the picture (without any cue from me). They don't "get" the penguin, donkey, and camel, but imitated the giraffe tonight for the first time. I get so excited when I see that they understand.

OTHER MONKEY BUSINESS
We were at the pediatrician for flu shots and Julia and Emma saw the orangutan decals on the wall, pointed to it, made the baby sign for monkey, and the sound. Ada pointed at it too, and although she makes other sounds and says other words, she's never been into the animal sounds or movements. She's definitely more analytical and independent. She will typically be off somewhere exploring and doing her own thing when I read books. Sometimes I can get her to sit on my lap and read with me, but she loses interest and almost always crawls off somewhere to go do her own thing.

Julia and Emma on the other hand, don't miss a beat. They surprised me when I read the "5 little monkeys jumping on a bed" book to them. The previous night, I wagged my finger and made a stern face when the "doctor" says, "no more monkeys jumping on the bed." Then the next night, when I reached that part in the book, both had little index fingers out, wagging, and made serious faces! Too freaking cute.

Julia pointed to a drawing of a zebra on a coffee cup today, and made the sound for horse.

When they see our dog, all 3 will go, "Woof!" They just LOVE being around him now. Julia and Emma are much gentler with the dog and will mostly just pet him or lean against him. Ada will touch him softly for awhile, and then suddenly grab him. His ears and tail are irresistible. We only allow them near the dog in short spurts, and while holding onto them, so we can whisk them away if needed. The dog is a very gentle, docile hound/retriever mix and I'm more concerned that they would hurt him than I am about him snapping at them. Although, I always want to be careful...


PRETEND PLAY
Ada is doing more and more pretend play. She'll "feed" the soft toys with the huge plastic "egg race" toy spoons and say, "num num." Julia and Emma are catching on too, and find it extremely funny when we pretend eat and feed.

All 3 are now "brushing" my teeth with their finger when I brush their teeth. Julia and Emma started doing that a few days ago. Ada did it tonight and absolutely cracked up. She was giggling and then belly laughing. It's hilarious what they find funny.

SNEEZING FOR LAUGHS
On that note: I put them down for a nap earlier this week, and just as I'm heading out of the door, Ada sneezed. So I said, "Bless you!" and then pretended to sneeze myself. 3 girls giggled. So I made another exaggerated pretend sneeze. Bigger laughs. And another. Even bigger laughs. And another. Belly laughs. I kept going for about 10 minutes and ended up calling grandpa and grandma into the nursery to watch, because it was just so.darn.funny.

OTHER RANDOM WORDS
As of this week, all three girls are saying, "ball." Ada has been dropping, rolling, and throwing balls for a long time, but Julia and Emma have only started doing that the past few weeks.

Ada said "kaboom" today when she dropped something.

Julia says, "doekie doekie" for diaper. She tends to repeat words two or three times.

When Emma walks around with a walking toy, she'll say, "Brrrm brrrm."

EMMA's ATTACHMENTS
Emma is much more attached to things that bring her comfort than her sisters. She would walk around with her blanket all day long like Linus if I let her. Because the blanket stays in her crib, she finds substitutes. Sometimes, it's a burp cloth, or grandma's scarf, and today it was her own sweater. She unzipped it herself, took it off, draped it around her neck, and proceeded to parade around like that for the better part of the afternoon and evening. She'll drape something around her, and then walk to the mirror to go look at herself! Such a little princess.

COUGHING
Ada coughed this morning while eating, and I think she might have refluxed slightly. She slapped her own chest while looking at me with an expression that said, "I've got this down, Mom." She must have seen me do that when something goes down the wrong pipe. It cracks me up when she mimicks something we haven't expressly "taught" her.