6 months at lightning speed!

Whoa! Where did the last 6 months go? I know that time definitely seems to go faster when you have kids, but now that I have two 4-year-olds, two babies, and a start-up company to keep up with, time has never moved so quickly. Yes, Franklin and Carlton are six months old today! I keep remembering a phrase that someone told me when I was overwhelmed by taking care of Cora & Greta. It goes something like this: "for mothers the days are long, but the years are short." How true that is. The four years of Greta & Cora's lives seem to have also flown by, but I know that there were days that I thought would never end.

As I did with Cora & Greta, I took Carlton & Franklin to have six month portraits made. They are not able to sit up on their own yet, so it made things quite interesting. Carlton was asleep when we (Mom went with us) got there, so he wasn't as happy as Franklin, who was Mr. Smiley the whole time, but neither boy cried at all the entire time, so that was nice. I've been working on giving them tummy time and encouraging them to roll over and try sitting up, all the time wondering what I'm doing to myself! In fact, today Carlton rolled over more times than he has total to date so far. He kept rolling from his back onto his tummy and then getting frustrated. Franklin is quite content to lie on his back wiggling and kicking. I try to remind myself to ENJOY these days before they become mobile since they won't stop moving once they're able to. That's Franklin in the light blue and Carlton in the red.

Oh, and I finally started feeding them some baby cereal a couple of weeks ago. Our whole family has been sick off and on for the past three to four weeks, the holidays were busy, and our internet service has been sporadic lately, so my online time has been rather limited. Anyway, I have to say (while trying hard not to toot my own horn too much) that I am SOOOOO happy that someone (not naming any names) invented the Baby Dipper bowl and got it to market before I had to spoon-feed another baby. I haven't gotten the high chairs set up yet since they're only eating a tiny amount of cereal once a day, so I use the Bumbo seats and a little stool as a table, placing a Baby Dipper bowl on the stool and using my hand that's not holding the spoon to wipe their faces or hands or to hold their arms down while I try to get the spoon of food to their mouths. I'll post a couple of pictures from one of our first experiences with the Baby Dipper bowl. By the way, Carlton is much more interested in eating than Franklin is, but Franklin seems to slowly be getting more interested in actually eating than just pushing the food out of his mouth. I know it's early yet, but I'm ready for them to be eager to eat. That's Carlton on the left and Franklin on the right.