7-week-old Robert and Elizabeth came to visit us for 4 days last week/end, bringing with them their mom, Jenni, and their grandma, Mom. Mom and Jenni had made elaborate re-arrangements to be able to come out and visit us, after Colin and I had to cancel our week-long visit to Ohio, due to my fragile back. For a while, we thought we weren’t going to get to meet the twins until they were toddlers!
We all had a great time. As we had suspected, you don’t do much with two 7-week-old babies around. Or rather, you do a bunch of small things, and days just go by. We:
- fed babies
- burped babies
- watched babies sleep
- prepared bottles
- did dishwasher loads
- did laundry loads
- cooked
- ate and snacked
- talked
- coo’d at babies
- watched babies have tummy time, admiring their neck strength
- soothed upset babies by bouncing and rocking and using a bouncy chair and a swinging chair kindly provided by Sue and Michael (very helpful!)
- admired babies
And that was about the gist of most of it!
On Saturday, Anne and the Flynn family came over, which was great fun. Most fun was watching Flynn with the twins. Amazingly, he totally got that he had to be careful with them. At first he was a little upset that he had to wash his hands before handling them, but he got used to that. He pet Elizabeth’s soft hair so gently, and at one point hugged her. I thought he was trying to pick her up, so I told him he had to sit down if he wanted to hold her. He got all excited about this. I wondered what I’d gotten myself and Elizabeth into, but Flynn was wonderful. When I put Elizabeth on his lap, he looked very serious and held onto her very carefully. He touched her only very very gently, and if anybody looked suspiciously like they might take her away, he’d say “NO! I’m holding the baby!”
We had a picnic out in the backyard, enjoying the last of the summer weather (which persisted for Jenni etc’s entire visit!). Flynn swung on the swing in our backyard and climbed on the monkey bars. Our swingset came with the house, and it definitely looks old and weather-beaten, but it seem to be pretty stable after all!
We all went for a beautiful walk at Kubota garden, where Flynn of course enjoyed all of the ponds and bridges.
On Sunday, Jenni, mom, the twins and I we went blackberry picking in our neighborhood. It’s the end of the blackberry season, but between 3 blackberry patches, we managed to collect enough to make a yummy blackberry cobbler.
I think the only other time we left the house was to go grocery shopping and to go get the ultrasound for the twins’ cousin. :)
Mostly, it was all about getting to know the twins. It’s very interesting to see how different they are from each other, even though they are the exact same age. They’re both very sweet and totally cute.
Elizabeth is more easily smily and will seem to imitate some of your facial expressions, such as pursed lips when you blow on her face.
Robert is stronger and can lift his head up high during tummy time. He has a much more serious expression, which I found adorable and which I think may be part of why he reminds us all of grandpa.
Anyway, I’m so glad to have been able to meet the twins! Now when I see pictures of them, it’s totally different, because I feel like I know them.
