Happy Birthday, Wendy and Miri!

 The girls turned 1 last week and we feel so happy to have them.

Today at their well child checks, Wendy was 15.8 lbs and 27.9 inches tall, putting her in the 4th percentile for weight actual age and 11th percentile for height actual age. Her head was 17.7 inches around which puts her at the 48th percentile for head, actual age. 

Miri was 19.5 lbs and 28.2 inches tall, so she's in the 44th percentile for weight actual age and 16th percentile for height. Her head was 17.5 inches around, which is the 37th percentile for actual age.

Theo is 41 lbs and 42.5 inches tall.

They are all growing so well.

Wendy and Miri, birthday morning

Miri in front

Wendy

Opening presents from Gabi and Tache

Miri and Wendy eating birthday cupcakes. They loved them

Miri and Wendy in cupcake shirts for their birthdays

Thanksgiving pie that Jay made. It's cherry

Miri and Wendy on Thanksgiving

Miri and Wendy on Thanksgiving

Maybe I'll get a good picture sometime, but those Santa hats are the same ones they wore a year ago in the NICU! Now they fit on the tiny heads of the pumpkins

Pie I made for Thanksgiving

Miri in the blue and Wendy in the pink

The girls celebrated their first birthday! It's been quite a year with the early birth, being in the NICU for 8 weeks and then they got RSV and were in the PICU. And just a few weeks later the world shut down for Covid. This has been a terrible year for so many, but it's the year my girls came home and grew and grew and grew. They bring us so much joy and I'm so glad Theo has them too. 

Wendy has finally outgrown most of the 0-3 month clothes and fits into 3-6 month clothes well. . . and also some of the 6 or 9 months clothes. Clothing sizing is weird. She has 2 teeth on bottom. 

Both girls can say, "Ma ma ma," "Da da da" "La la la," and other sounds. I'm not sure that either really is naming things or if they are mostly just making sounds. They are very cute and will repeat sounds. Wendy also likes to make smacking sounds with her lips and tongue. Miri sometimes likes to shriek happily and I shush her. It's cute but also deafening.

Miri fits well in the 6-9 months clothes. She has 3 teeth -- 2 completely in and a third that just broke through. She is getting a 4th as well. Neither girl has been a really unhappy teether. I'm glad for them. 

I distinctly remember the week of Thanksgiving after Theo turned 1. He just wouldn't sleep and I was up most of the night with him all week while we had out of town family visiting Tucson so I tried to still see people despite the exhaustion. It turned out he was getting 2 teeth that week -- canines on top. Hopefully my girls don't have that much pain in the future when they get their canines.

We made birthday cupcakes for them and let them each have 1. Theo was so excited to have them try a cupcake. They ate most of them. After that we had a dance party and Theo won. We know because he declared himself the winner. The girls really liked it too.

I feel like I've previously typed up explanations of the girls' names but they somehow got deleted instead of posted.

Prior to all my kids' births we had a short list of names and a pretty good idea what we wanted to name each of them. Miri is the only one who actually got the name we were pretty sure on. This is extra funny because we had a specific name for Theo (that he didn't get), a specific name for Wendy (that she didn't get) and then we had 2 names for Miri.

However, Miri is the only one I ever addressed aloud in the womb by name. One night I was tired and doing kicks counts and Miri needed 2 more kicks so I could confirm she was doing well. Wendy has finished hers a long time before and I said, "Miriam, kick!" 

She did.

Wendy's name is Gwendolyn May. Gwendolyn is both beautiful and also Jay's sweet auntie's name. Wendy is a nickname that we liked. May is another name we liked a lot.

Miriam Ann is another great name. I suggested the nickname Miri and I think it suits her really well. She's such a sunny girl. Miriam is a form of Mary, which is both my grandma's name and also Jay's sister's name. Miriam is also Moses's sister's name from the Bible. She is a good sister in the story. Ann is both my and Jay's mom's middle names, so she is named for both of us. My grandma's middle name was Anna and I'm named for her too.

Also worth noting is her initials. Jay's side has a tradition with the initials "M.A." While Miri doesn't fit the tradition, she still has the initials like her cousin, aunt, and grandma. The initials are passed down through oldest daughters. Miri is not the oldest daughter (and neither is Jay). 

I think the girls' personalities are pretty distinct. Wendy likes challenges and is strong and mighty. Miri is more insistent that people play with her. If I'm doing squats, she wants me to hold her and lift her up and play. She will sit on my mom's knee to initiate the game Horsie. Both girls love to play games, but Miri especially.

Miri also is more interested in toys themselves. She will take a rattle and shake it awhile, or she will grab her crocheted bunny and snuggle it and bounce up and down with it (not like a bunny. She doesn't understand bunnies that well. She's still a young baby. She just likes bouncing and holding it.)

Wendy loves toys too -- especially new things, but she spends less time playing with them and more time putting them in her mouth and crawling around with them and putting them places. Now she's getting better at walking and she will walk with toys in her hands. Just yesterday Wendy escaped from the living room where it was blocked off, grabbed a marker that Theo had been using to write Roman Numerals on the windows, then quickly walked through several rooms while Theo and I chased her.

They both will do a bouncy dance to music some of the time, but Miri especially loves it. Theo likes dance parties with his sisters.

I saw Wendy a few days ago slow down eating and then look at a piece of cheese, decide she didn't want it, and then hand it to Miri. Miri promptly ate it. It's fun to see them interact. Miri will pass things in her crib to Wendy, like pacifiers.

I have to watch them both closely in high chairs. While Wendy was known as the escape artist for months, Miri has learned to get out and then she tries to crawl on Wendy's tray to get her food. I swear I feed both of them! Miri is now strapped in with shoulder straps to keep her safe from escaping and then falling.

Theo is excellent at telling the girls apart, but we were going through photos from February and he can't tell them apart in the photos. I don't blame him.

Theo loves to make Numberblocks out of play dough (they are characters that are made of counting blocks that teach math).