We thought that we would turn the girls to face forward in the car at around twelve months, but the girls were still under twenty pounds. Finally, this Thanksgiving, we decided to turn them forward. We’re pretty sure they’re twenty pounds, and partly the decision was made for us–the rental car we got while visiting my sister was a two-door, and it was just impossible to get the kids into rear-facing seats. Our one big hope was that Miranda would enjoy her car rides quite a bit more while facing forward.

Overall, it seems to be an improvement. Miranda still fusses in the car when we’ve been in it for too long, but I think she enjoys seeing our faces when we turn around to check on them. One new problem, which I’m guessing we’ll have for a long time, is that when the girls drop something, it no longer stays on their laps. Hopefully, they’ll learn.

Eleanor was leaning against the sofa today and we started calling to her. She leaned forward until she was standing on her own. Then, she very slowly shifted her weight back and forth while bringing her feet forward. She made it all of three inches before sitting down. Does that count? We’ll see if she continues to try in the next few days.

Miranda and Eleanor find it hilarious to feed each other. Normally, they’ll just feed themselves. Often, they’ll offer us some of what they’re eating. Every now and then, they think to feed each other.

In this video, Miranda is feeding Eleanor Cheerios from her snack box. It doesn’t quite get into Eleanor’s mouth, but she helps out.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in XviD format: XviD (1,228 KB).]

Last week we had our fifteen month doctor’s appointment. We knew that the girls would be light again because they were sick just the week before the appointment. Eleanor came in at 31.5 inches tall, and 19 lbs, 8 oz. Miranda was 30.5 inches tall, and 19 lbs, 3 oz. This is actually a loss of weight as compared to their weight check at fourteen months. Our pediatrician wasn’t worried though. She said that it can take up to three weeks after gastroenteritis before kids reach the weight they would have been had they not gotten sick.

While Miranda and Eleanor don’t have a fear of the doctor’s office yet, they don’t seem to like being on the examination table any more. It’s on the examination table that our pediatrician has been poking and prodding them, and checking their ears. If they need to have their ears cleaned, they really complain! Anyway, the nurse was just trying to measure Eleanor’s head circumference and height and Eleanor would have none of it. After a bit of a struggle, though, the nurse got the measurements she needed.

This is a picture of Eleanor struggling.

Miranda lucked out this time around–she didn’t need to get her ears cleaned. Both Eleanor and Miranda got their booster flu shots as well as their other fifteen month immunizations. There was crying, but fortunately not for very long. That evening, Miranda had already picked her bandaids off of her thighs.

Last weekend the girls were still recovering from their gastroenteritis and so they were just starting to return to their normal selves. Then, on Sunday, Eleanor seemed really crabby. She would be fine for a little bit, and then suddenly she would burst out crying. She would eat a little, and then refuse to eat more of what she had been enjoying. It was kind of bizarre behavior. She didn’t seem to be running a temperature. Finally, during one of Eleanor’s bouts of crying with her head thrown back, I took a look inside her mouth and saw that a molar had just started cutting through. It was on the upper right side. It’s a little unusual because Eleanor still doesn’t have all eight of her incisors. She’s missing the bottom two lateral incisors.

Anyway, apparently the first molar can be painful. In general, the girls haven’t fussed about teething, but this one definitely hurt. We switched over to pureed baby food and Eleanor did a lot better with her meals. The two other foods Eleanor would eat while in pain were cheese and goldfish crackers. The mild cheddar cheese was apparently soft enough that it didn’t hurt to eat. With goldfish crackers, Eleanor would nibble on them with her front teeth so that there was no danger of any whole pieces touching her sensitive gums. She didn’t put in that effort with any other foods though. After a couple of days, Eleanor was back to eating the full range of foods. It’s good to know that her crabbiness had a source to it–it just took a little bit for us to figure it out.

The fifteen month photos are up on the site. This past month included Halloween, of course, as well as a wedding, and a trip to the botanical gardens.

Eleanor still has six teeth (four top, two bottom), but Miranda is starting to catch up. Right at the end of the month, Miranda sprouted a third top tooth on the left, and a third bottom tooth on the right. It’s kind of out of order, but that’s fine. Both of them are quite proficient at using the teeth they have for eating most things we give them.

Both of them are pretty good with a spoon, but Miranda will still resort to dropping the spoon and grabbing at the food with her hands. Both can eat food off of a fork, but neither of them can muster the coordination to spear food with a fork yet. We still haven’t cut out their bottles as it’s the most reliable way for them to get their milk, but we’re considering moving to cups soon. Miranda has already pretty much lost interest in her last bottle of the day, so she’s pretty much down to two. Eleanor will still finish all three of hers, though.

The girls are not walking yet. Pretty much all of the other kids in their class at daycare are walking, but Eleanor and Miranda still seem happy enough to crawl around. They will stand on their own every now and then, but they haven’t seemed interested in walking on their own.

Eleanor’s vocabulary has refined a bit. She’ll say “ba va!” to mean “flower”, “ba” to mean “ball”, and “bvvv” to mean “balloon”. She’s a little inconsistent with pointing out who Miranda, Eleanor, Mommy, and Daddy are, but she’s getting better. Miranda’s pretty good at pointing out each of us. She does “more”, “food”, and “done” in sign language pretty proficiently. She can point out her own and Agnes’ eyes, ears, nose, mouth, head, hands, and feet. She’ll say “qua qua qua!” when she sees ducks, or most other birds, and she’ll say “woo woo” to mean “dog”.

Miranda’s gotten pretty good at the shape sorter, but she still has trouble with the triangular blocks. Those are the least forgiving in the orientation needed to put the block into the box. Eleanor will try to kick a ball back to us when we roll it to her (and she’s holding onto something).

Right up until the end of the month, it seemed like the girls were gaining weight well. Then the family was hit by gastroenteritis and the girls got skinny again. We’ll see at their doctor’s appointment if they were still able to maintain a good enough weight.

We’ll have more pictures in another month.

Eleanor and Miranda had their first gastrointestinal illness this week. Up until now they’ve had multiple upper respiratory infections, herpangina, and RSV. Generally, I’ve been pretty immune to most of their illnesses because I was exposed during pediatrics residency, but I never had AGE (acute gastroenteritis)–until now.

It’s been awful. The kids have been vomiting everywhere, and Bernard and I are in the bathroom most of the time. We’ve done multiple loads of laundry everyday. We’ve both missed work this week. The kids are looking skinny, which is not good, because their fifteen-month appointment is next week and they’re going to be underweight again.

Now that the weather’s getting cooler in Southern California, the kids are wearing jackets to go outside. Eleanor wears a periwinkle fleece jacket and Miranda wears a yellow cotton jacket. Both were hand-me-downs from my mom’s friends at church. We’ve been keeping their belongings generally separate since they were born–to try to minimize germ-sharing, and to give them a sense that they are different people. Kids don’t really have a sense of self until about 18 months, so Eleanor and Miranda haven’t really cared about who has which piece of clothing etc. However, we started noticing that Eleanor was growing attached to her jacket. She would try to put it on herself, and failing, would just hold it, even around the house.

A few weeks ago, the kids were with my mom for a few hours while I was at the library preparing a presentation for work. When I got home, my mom was in front of the house with the stroller, about to take the kids to the park. I noticed that Eleanor was pouting, her eyes were red-rimmed, and her face was streaked with tears. Then, I suddenly realized that she was wearing Miranda’s yellow jacket and Miranda was wearing Eleanor’s fleece jacket. My mom asked, “Hey, does Eleanor normally wear the other jacket?”

“YES!!” I answered. Apparently, my mom dressed Eleanor in a Hawaii volcano orange-colored t-shirt, which matched much better with the yellow jacket so she put Miranda’s jacket on Eleanor. Then, as she started to put Eleanor’s jacket on Miranda, Eleanor started complaining, and then tried vigorously to prevent my mom from putting her jacket on Miranda. Then, once Miranda was already dressed, she still kept pulling on the jacket, until Miranda started hitting her back. Anyway, my mom insisted that they stay dressed the way they were, so Eleanor gave up, but was still really upset and sat bitterly in the stroller the whole way to the park.