Good Night Gorilla

Our girls love their books! Shruthi knows all the book names. You just tell her a book name, she brings it over and flops down in my lap. Their new favorite is 'Good Night Gorilla'. I've read it 7 times on Mon and they were still not done with it. We stopped at 7 times only because I hid the book;) That's what we are doing now, after reading 'good night gorilla' a few times, we just hide it. If not we would be reading that book the whole day;)

Vennela still has a black eye, must have been two weeks since she ran into the table. And Shruthi fell face down in our driveway and has scrapes on her nose and face to prove it;)

First road trip

We did our first road trip this past weekend, went to Rehoboth Beach, DE. It was fun, girls liked it. It was about a 3 hour drive, they did fine for all the 3 hours in the car. We just forgot to note down the name and address of the hotel;) I had to call a friend and find out which hotel are staying at. This was a perfect time to be at the beach, no big crowds, and the weather was nice, not too warm and not too cold. We were worried that they won't sleep in the hotel room, but they slept fine in the playpens. The first day, they had a blast on the beach. They both loved the waves, kept running in to the water. It was hard holding on to both of them, they weren't scared of the water at all. They loved the sand slipping from under their feet, with each wave. It was hard keeping them in the room, whenever we opened the door, they just ran out the door;) All the playing in the water must have tired them out, they slept till 7am the next morning. Vennela was too tired from all the playing in the water, she didn't even want to go in the water on Sun. She just kept walking back to the stroller, as if to say, I'm done, let's get out of here.We stopped by Roy''s on the way back, a nicer place to change diapers than the back of a van, in a gas station;) All of us went to an Eastern store instituion, Holly's for lunch. Girls were happy to be back home, they must have missed home, went straight to their room and started playing with their toys. I guess it's not that bad traveling with kids, we just have to be prepared and go with the flow...

Started taking them walks early in the morning. It's quiet nice in the mornings, a little chill in the air and all the birds out making noises. Both babies love watching the birds. We usually do a 30 min loop, give Swapna a quiet morning.

We left both of them with Robyn & Scott this afternoon, for 1.5 hours, while we packed. The first time for them to be away from us. Robyn said they were fine, didn't cause any trouble, except for Vennela, who went into Farful, the puppy's cage. But as soon as we went to pick them up, Vennela threw a bigger temper tantrum, screaming, hitting her head on the floor, the whole package.

Both of them are walking really well now. Vennela loves her walker, walks all over the home with it, doesn't let poor Shruthi any where near the walker.

The biggest trouble we have now is changing their diapers. It started about a week ago. Now we need two people to change their diapers;)

In their developmental checkup, the doc said that they are doing well in every category except for their speech, she says they are at the level of 11 month olds. I guess the babies too it personally, for the past few days, they won't stop talking, blabbering away non-stop.

update

Too much stuff going on. Two more weeks before the big move, in exactly two weeks, we will be in our new home, surrounded by boxes, trying to figure out where all the stuff is and where the babies are, we are having a hard enough time keeping track of them in this small home, not sure what we will do in that big home. We will definitely miss this house, had been our home for the last 8 years.

Both babies are doing great, walking with the walker and taking small baby steps. They already had their initiation with falling down, Shruthi already scraped her knee, didn't seem to bother her much. She hasn't figured out how to turn the walker, so as soon as she hits something, she stops and starts screaming. She won't need the walker for much longer, her walking is improving every day.

Sometimes we don't know what to do with our little trouble maker, Vennela. First she figured out how to turn on the TV, then the DVD player and this morning, she somehow turned off Swapna's Cisco router, took Swapna 30 mins to get it back online;) She got three timeouts today, for hitting Shruthi. We are not sure if she is intentionally hitting Shruthi or if she is playing.

This past Sat was bad, think we set a record, Shruthi threw up three times and Vennela twice. It was all because of Swapna's infamous sambar rice. That was the first time they tried it and looks like they didn't like it at all.

Our poor, dying TV

Our new, nice, fancy, LCD TV is on it last legs;) Vennela figured out how to turn on the TV;) She walks over to the TV and she knows which button to press to turn it on. They did press some other button, now we can't turn it off. Only way to turn it off is to unplug it. We dont have enough energy to research how to turn it off. Let me know if anyone is looking to buy a used LCD TV.

They started drinking regular milk over the weekend. We were worried that it may take them a while to get used the regular milk, but they didn't seem to notice the difference. We gave 50/50 formula/regular milk to Vennela for a couple of days, but now it's all real stuff.

Drove down to Sarita's on Sun, for Meghana's b'day party. We were worried that they would not like being in big crowds, but they were fine. On the way back, Vennela threw up in the van. The 'barf bag' that Amy gave us and we thought we would never use came in handy:) We pulled over on the freeway, cleaned her up and back on her way. Our first freeway adventure.

Big Week

Had their first birthday on Tuesday! We had big plans, wanted to take them to the zoo, but the weather was crappy, so ended up staying home. Swapna baked them each a cake. They had more fun playing with the icing.

Their 1 year doctor check up went well. Shruthi is at 22.5lbs and 30 inches and Vennela is at 20lb and 29.5 inches.

Yesterday evening Vennela was near my laptop for a few mins and then walked away. Remu noticed that she had something in her mouth - it was a key from my laptop keyboard! She managed pull off one of the keys. She will be a handful for us;)

They have a brand new cousin now, Sudha had a baby girl on May 8th:)

It works! Don't know why we haven't tried it before. We started leaving them in their cribs around 6:30pm. They cry for about 30 mins and then fall asleep. They are sleeping much better this way, waking up fewer times at night, even then, they are going back to sleep themselves. It works during the day too, makes the days a lot less stressful.

Fri morning I brought them both in to the living room and started making their oat meal. They were unusually quiet, came back and checked up on them - Shruthi was busy dumping a cup of tea on my cell phone, which wasn't designed to be doused with cold chai;) And Vennela was busy pulling down the toilet paper in the bathroom, can't leave them out of sight for even a single minute.

Both babies are standing up and sitting down on their own. It already started, both going for whatever the other has;) We are letting them fight it out, for now, don't know what else we can do.

Went to National Cathedral's annual flower mart on Sat. It was fun, lots and lots of kids and activities for kids. Kids got free baloons, so they were happy.

Tomorrow is their 1st b'day! They are big girls now, one year olds!