Sonja turned over, Nikolas is taking swim lessons

Two nights ago Sonja woke me up at 5am crying.... I considered letting her cry and go back to sleep because she had already eaten around 1 or 2am so really she needed to be trained to sleep until 7 or 8am, but I gave in, and then I found she had a real reason for crying--she turned over onto her belly! She was also turned 180 degrees on the bed, her head where her feet used to be. We've had her sleeping in the playpen since she outgrew the bassinet, but the playpen mattress is too soft and wobbly for her now and makes it more difficult to move and turn so that wakes her up more. It's time to set up the other crib in the bedroom, which we still keep in the living room as they daytime bed.
Michael now sometimes turns onto his right side for a change.
When Michael wakes up and gets tired of looking around and supporting himself on his forearms, he starts yelling really loudly, calling for attention. As soon as I touch his back, he starts giggling and yelling at the same time, and kicking hard with arms and legs, excited that he'll be picked up. Sonja, on the other hand, is normally on her back and when I approach to get her, she gives me the biggest smile and usually an excited shrill, and starts banging her legs against the mattress the same way Nikolas did when he was her size, and waving her arms. When I pick her up, she immediately pulls her knees up very high and glues herself around my waist like a little koala. If I let go of her, she'd most likely stay attached!

Nikolas has been taking swim lessons with Aagneya, Abbie and another girl from their apartment complex. While the instructor spends a lot of time singing songs with kids in a circle and getting them to dip their faces in the water, Nikolas is completely bored with that stuff and asks me to jump in the water from the edge of the pool instead. He has no fear of water. Dipping his face in the water and blowing bubbles has been his bath-time activity for a while, nothing new there. It's much more fun to climb out of the pool, hold my hands and jump in the water. I let him get completely submerged to see how he'd react: if he'd blow air by himself or hold air or swallow water, so I'd know what we'll need to work on, and surprisingly, he seems to be blowing bubbles through his nose because he hasn't gotten any water in his nose after numerous jumps! I saw some bubbles coming out and they looked like they were coming from his nose. Anyway, I can get him to kick with his legs, but he likes to hold on to me with his arms so we have to work on scooping water with his hands. In the middle of kicking with his legs and moving through the pool he likes to suddenly turn onto his back and dip the back of his head in the water just enough so his face won't get wet.
No matter how cold he gets in the water, he enjoys it so much that he won't come out by himself!
By the time I've finished this blog entry, the lessons have ended. The result: Nikolas is enjoying his newly discovered love for water, especially jumping and splashing in it, and, surprisingly to me, he has memorized the songs that the instructor has been singing at every lesson, which Nikolas kept ignoring every time ('The wheels of the bus' is the one he keeps singing at home now).

Twins' 4-month checkup

Sonja
weight: 13lbs 10oz (50%)
height: 24 3/4" (50-75%)

Michael:
weight: 12lbs 12oz (10%)
height: 24 1/4" (25%)

Teething (all three)

Two major events with the babies:
1. Sonja and Michael are both struggling with teething pains.
2. Last night, for the first time, neither Sonja nor Michael woke up to eat in the middle of the night from 9pm until 8am. (As I read this blog a couple of weeks later, I have to correct myself and note that the all-night sleep was an isolated event--they still wake up at 12/1am and then again at 5:30/6am, usually only Sonja for the second feeding).

Teething or what?
Still on the subject of teething, Nikolas has 10 teeth in the bottom jaw and 5 in the upper right, 4 in the upper left with the 5th just starting to come out.
Nikolas's cuteness is proportional to the amount of attention he is getting. When the babies get the most of it and mommy isn't able to grow five arms to handle everyone, he yells, cries, hits his head against the floor....he can also sneak up to a baby in an instant when no one is looking and slap it out of jealousy. When he knows he'll be criticized, he says 'Budi dobar!' ('Be good!'), which is what we tell him way too frequently.
Our major focus is on the balance between babies' needs and Nikolas's entertainment. When he is happy, he is the best kid in the world! And really, it's not very hard to make him feel attended to: just talk with him about the animals in the backyard or fish at the pond where we took him fishing (where he might have actually killed a few fish by smacking the fishing pole on the water), read him a book (for the past week he's been sitting more peacefully when one reads him a book and going through pages and talking about the pictures instead of climbing on the reader--he also selects poems or stories and says, we've read that one, read me this one, etc.), play some music and dance with him, tickle him and talk with him on the floor at his eye level. I've discovered that being at his eye level changes the depth of our communication: he feels more grown-up so he makes his tone more serious and calm and his sentences and stories extra long: 'Nikolas ide u sobu da se igra sa blokovima'(Nikolas is going to the room to play with blocks,) or 'Nikolas je vidio orlove u zoloskom vrtu i pauna sa pilicima' (Nikolas saw eagles in the zoo, and a peacock with chicks.)
He is *constantly* talking or singing. Now not only does he recite songs and poems in Serbocroatian but he has also memorized several Mother Goose songs that daddy reads to him often. He also likes to show off counting to 20, and to be funny he invents little rhymes like those nicknames that he has made for us plus more that doesn't always make much sense but it makes him and us laugh (he'll point out that it's funny in case we are not sure what he is saying!)
We find Nikolas on every piece of furniture that he can climb, and he also likes pulling all the pillows off the couches and piling them on the floor to make a little gym for himself. Every now and then he'll throw in a 'yoga' pose (this is what he learned as yoga almost a year ago! I plan to teach him some real stuff.)
Nikolas enjoys being helpful. He'll pass me a clean diaper while I change a baby, and he'll take the dirty one and throw it in trash (picture below). He'll also pick up his toys and put them in designated boxes when asked to. Oh, and he'll take my coffee mug and put it on the dining table when I'm done. He looks so proud when he helps out :) He walks with a special bounce :)

Babbling, tummy-time, reaching for toes and toys...

Michael will absolutely not sleep on his back anymore. He first turns on his belly and then moves all around the bed, using all the space available! Sonja started turning laterally as well, I saw her last night while I sat in the room feeding Michael. Normally she likes to lie on the back and kick with her legs that the mattress shakes and makes so much noise as if a big kid is jumping on it! She's got strong legs, just like Nikolas when he was a baby. They don't mind tummy time anymore. Not that they enjoy being put down on their bellies by us and not by themselves, but when they are there they hold their heads upright and they reach for toys. That was a surprise last week... after a few days of no tummy time at all, I put them together in the crib and they both pushed upward in a perfect cobra pose, their necks completely vertical. And they didn't immediately begin to complain either.
Michael during tummy time (spit-up extra):

Sonja:

During diaper changes I started pulling them up from lying to sitting by their hands, and for the past week or so they've been strong enough to do it easily. Sonja would continue to push off with her legs to standing while she has the momentum :) Also, both can now reach their toes to play with them. Sonja did it first last week because I introduced her to her toes first when we were playing a couple of weeks ago.
The two had a long 'conversation' this morning for almost 45min before I came in to nurse them. Michael is great at making various sounds and pitches, and Sonja is catching up. She is still louder, although Michael is now showing more vocal strength than before.
Sonja dominates this video (Michael got camera-shy and stopped babbling):

Rolling, communicating...

Michael has been turning over for a week or two now, and Sonja is attempting to do the same. Today we watched her push over to one side trying to turn onto her belly (didn't succeed that time).
They both love being talked to and Michael likes to respond to every sound, while Sonja watches and then talks in bursts. Right now she's lost her voice again due to a cold. She is coughing a lot. Michael is catching it too, and Nikolas is so stuffy he can barely breathe at night.

Today the babies were very cute watching each other while Divna and I held them close together. Michael immediately reached his hands to touch Sonja and smiled at her, while Sonja watched him with a warm smile.

Here is Michael deep into his first book:

Nikolas and 3-months-old babies

Sonja and Michael are both now examining and playing with their hands and grabbing toys.
Their mouths are foaming, which is probably the sign of teeth moving through their gums. This hasn't made them cranky yet and hopefully it won't hurt like it didn't hurt Nikolas.
Michael has already turned from his back onto his belly one night, and the rest of the time he turns laterally by up to 360 degrees. Sonja is better at keeping her head up when we put her on her belly. Neither likes belly time yet.
Nikolas, our house comedian, says he won't nap because he had already slept today and woke up this morning. We took him to see Cirque Du Soleil on Mothers' Day. We all loved it, he was curious about the acrobatics, although towards the end he fell asleep as it was his nap time. One of his favorite phrases is 'it's funny'/'to je smijesno'. He has a good sense of humor, although when he pokes a baby it's really not that funny...but most of the time, we have to give him credit, like when he takes a funny fall, or dances funny, or twists words in a funny way on purpose, etc. He likes to dictate us around, and I'm not sure how to deal with that yet. From telling us where to sit and what to play with him, to what he wants to eat and what should go 'back to fridge'.
A typical dinnertime conversation:
'Nikolas, would you like some meat?'
'No, no meat for Nikolas.'
'Ok, mommy will eat your meat.'
'Noooo, that's Nikolas's meat! Meat for Nikolas!'
And then he smears everything around the tray or plays with pieces calling them trucks...
He has given us nicknames: mama-mimmi, daddy-diddy, Nikolas-diddy, baka-bibi, deko-mlijeko (milk)....

Pictures from a baby playdate:
A closeup of pensive Michael:

Nikolas and 2 1/2-month-old babies

Sonja used to be louder and used to grunt a lot, but she has mellowed down quite a bit and these days she spend most of the time eating and sleeping. When she is awake, she doesn't fuss much, and will spend 15-30min alone in the bed observing people or the mobile overhead (neither likes it when it turns and play music, only when one of us shuffles the hanging toys by hand) . She can even fall asleep on her own like that. Michael will talk to himself and look around, but eventually he'll get bored and cry to be picked up. He definitely spends more time awake. No wonder Sonja is surpassing his weight more and more, growing in her sleep. She now wears 6-month clothes size! She weighs about 13lb, and Michael 12lb.
They both smile at us widely, and wave their arms and legs when we show up above their crib.
Sonja is starting to notice her hands while she waves them in front of her face trying to stick a thumb in her mouth, and then she stops and checks them out like some toy.
Michael is still not too interested in his hands, but he loves the playmat and he stares at the toys hanging above him with more curiosity than Sonja does.

Michael:
Sonja:
Both like to suck on their thumbs--Michael on his left and Sonja on her right thumb:
Nikolas still skips most of the naps since he yanked the curtain rod out of the wall! We are trying to figure out another way to keep the sun out of his room that won't also give him another choice in house demolition! Even without naps he is so unbelievably full of energy, and constantly gives us near heart attacks as we watch him stand on his high chair, throw himself on the sofa head first with his legs so high that I always expect them to flip over his neck, etc.
He is now having fun with the language and just made up nicknames for all of us: daddy-diddy, mama-mimi, Nikolas-diddy, deko-mlijeko, baka-bibby... He is a pro at switching subjects to distract us when we criticize him: we'd say, Nikolas, did you just throw that toy close to the baby, and he'll point to the window and say, look, there is a bird outside, the bird is looking for a mouse to eat for dinner....he is so going to be a lawyer when he grows up....