You turned 5 months old this past Sunday, on the day of the Super Bowl. A year ago, Mommy and I would have never dreamed we would be in our current situation of having 5 month old twins! We knew there was one of you, but hadn’t quite yet received word of the second blessing. My how things change.
This has been a very big month for you two. Tops on the list of milestones has to be the introduction of “solid” foods to your diet. Soon after your 4 month check-up, we began giving you rice cereal, mixed with breast milk. It started off more like milk with a touch of rice flake. You were both intrigued by the new manner of feeding by spoon, and it took a little time for you to get the hang of it. There was a lot of modeling of proper mouth opening by Mommy and I, which was always followed by huge open mouth grins and laughing by you two. It was such a fun game.
Slowly, but surely, you got the hang of it, and we kept increasing the consistency of the cereal until it was as thick as grits. Not cheesy grits, but plain grits, requiring a bit of chewing motion and testing your swallowing ability. Once you got the hang of that, which took about a week, we moved into veggies. Mommy made you some delicious pureed peas, and this past Saturday you got to try them out. George took one bite and was a bit confused, but pushed through and ended up eating his whole serving. Abigail took one bite and gave a very confused look. She was not so sure of this new taste, and kept her lips quite pursed throughout the whole experience. When we decided to mix the peas with a little rice cereal, she recognized that this was indeed food and reluctantly ate some. She’s still not so sure of the peas, but will eat them in a 50/50 mixture with rice cereal. We’ll try acorn squash this weekend.
This month also featured a trip to Nana and Pop’s house to celebrate Pop’s 72nd Birthday. We had a full car on the way down to Shreveport, with Mommy and I up front, you two in the back seat, and Boomer in the rear of the Jeep. We also had a load up top in the car top carrier. We decided to try driving at night to let you two sleep, and it worked out great. We left Norman at 7PM, and only had to stop once to feed you in Dallas, and pulled into Shreveport at 1AM. We were very pleased.
We had a great time in Shreveport, getting to introduce you two to a large number of our friends and family. Friday, we got to have luch at Earthereal and meet John and Katie. Then we went over to Pop’s old shop to meet the guys over there. Then we got to hang out with Kendal, Lauren, Camper and Carlisle, which included a dinner at Superior where we were seated at a large round table in the middle of the dining room, and drew quite a crowd of onlookers. People were amazed to see such a crowd at one table.
Saturday we saw the Morris’ crew and had a great party for Pop at Monjunis where you got to meet the Millers, the Blackwoods, the Pitts, Tucker, Sandy, Joby, Jim and Margrette, and the Stephens. Even though you two were very tired and cried for part of the party, everyone enjoyed getting to meet you.
The drive back Sunday didn’t go nearly as smooth as the trip there. We left a little earlier, at 5PM, and we ended up having to stop more often as you two were getting tired of being in your seats. We ended up getting in at 1AM, so an extra 2 hours of travel time. We have vowed to travel only late at night from here on. But we did have a great experience on the way home. We were needing a place to feed you around 9:30PM in Dallas, and decided to head to Central Market, as we also needed some supplies not available in Norman. They close at 10PM, but allowed us to stay until we were finished feeding you two. And the very nice manager on duty even brought Mommy a glass of water while I was out walking Boomer. First class group there.
The other highlight was a visit from Grammy and Grandpa the first of February. It was a little rocky as you had to remember who they were at first, but you two had a great time with them, including going on walks and getting held a lot. And Grammy got to feed you peas and laughed the whole time at your faces covered in the green goo.
That’s it for now. We’ll see what fun awaits this month.
Love, Daddy
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