Nine. Months. Seriously???

Unreal. Time is just flying by! Yesterday, I had the amazing privilege of holding wee little Lewis, just over a week old. He's newest addition to the already lovely Burns' family (love you guys!) and it was the first time holding a baby younger than our boys since they were born. I almost cried! Not for being clucky, but I barely remember our big guys ever being that small! Just so tiny and helpless... Wow...

It's such a different story now. Our once wee boys are turning into such little men. Yesterday, afternoon we spent a bit of time sitting on a blanket, in the sunshine, watching their Dad trimming a few trees around the house. There they sat in their sun hats, clapping and crawling, giggling and keeping a keen eye on the local tuis. It's so cool to see them change so much in such a little amount of time.

I can honestly say, this has been THE most difficult thing I have ever done. EVER. I know that, yeah, someday it will get easier, someday I may regain a sliver of sanity, maybe catch up on sleep, but for now we go on day to day, just scraping by, just surviving. Everyone said it would be hard, no one said it would be easy. But not one person ever actually warns you of, sadly, how much you're going suffer. All completely worth it, don't get me wrong. But be prepared to suffer and be tested at ever single turn.

Hendrik on the move.

 

With Hendrik now commando crawling, and Willem not too far off, I'm starting to feel a sense of relief. But I'm sure that won't last. They'll soon go from crawling to walking to running - in completely different directions I'm sure.

Duets with Willem

Our wee mover and shaker, Hendrik

 

In all of this chaos, one of the most rewarding things at the moment is food. They love it. They can't get enough of it and will scream at you until they are completely satisfied. I must say, baby led weaning is the way to go! Well, for us at least. I love watching them try new foods. Textures, hot, cold, flavours, they are curious about it all!

Some of their favourites are omelettes with spinach, parsley, and cheese. Chicken and pesto. Peas with mint and ricotta. Kiwi fruit. Mandarins. Oranges. Garlic hummus. Porridge. Greek yogurt. Apples. Roasted chips. Fruit bread. BBQ chicken and BBQ pineapple. The list goes on...

 

So, this bread, (yummo) was based off of this recipe from a great blog. We switched it up a little bit since strawberries aren't quite in season here, but a cup of frozen raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries did the trick. It bakes up quite nicely. Because we have a fan-forced oven, foil over the top of a perfectly browned bread helped it not to burn. The boys loved it. I loved it. Win win!

 

As our little nuggets become their own people, I love seeing all of those things that people say twins do. They are becoming good little playmates. They are babbling amongst themselves when I'm not in the room. They sing together. They cry together, which is a killer for me and appropriate of an entire blog post all it's own. And while, they are stealing each other's toys, they are also starting to pass them back and forth to each other. It's pretty damn cool.

On that note. I'm keen to start writing about a lot of our experiences with the boys. Pregnancy, feeding, sleep, dealing with stress, marriage, etc. Twins affects everyone differently. There are a lot of books and a lot of other blogs and websites about it all, but I think it's good to gather as much information as you possibly can in the early days. So for my therapy, and so other people can take what's worked for us and what's not... Consider this my challenge.

Happy 9 months, my dear darling boys, Hendrik and Willem... xx