Fawkes and Phoenix hit eleven months today. I celebrated by dropping them off with their Nonny and Pappy.

It was a productive day. Summer Sands had some renovations after the Hurricane Florence and needed some updated room pictures. Since my mother-in-law is the manager, I was able to coordinate dropping the boys off with her after their first nap so I could go take care of that.

Craig, the aforementioned Pappy, was at the hotel and left a parking ticket on my windshield as a joke. I was pretty confused about it until I went to ask Earl, who was manning the front desk, about it. I had noticed that the license plate number on the ticket wasn’t mine, but it took me a minute to realize what it was: OICU812. I put it on Craig’s windshield then texted him about it. Then I texted Laura and told her I was going to have to charge extra for the mental distress her employee caused me.

I also had another client over on that side of town who wanted to meet to talk about some website updates, so I scheduled it for right after the photo shoot. I timed it perfectly, actually, as I arrived in his office right on time.

By the time I finished that, Laura had texted me and told me she was putting Fawkes and Phoenix down for their afternoon nap and to take my time, take care of other things if I needed to. As it turned out, I had another client practically right next door to the previous one. He had actually come over and helped clear up the yard after the hurricane, so I dropped in on him for a little bit just to chat and catch up.

I hadn’t eaten all day and a Subway caught my eye, so I grabbed a combo then went to pick up the boys, who had just woken up. Laura had sent a picture of all the food they’d eaten at lunch. I don’t know how we’re going to afford to feed three teenage boys.

Tristen was taking care of the front desk and got home a little bit later than usual, but not by too much.

Amanda called me to tell me Milly couldn’t find her school folder and thought she’d left it at school, so she wanted to check and make sure she hadn’t left it over here yesterday. I found it on her bed and put it in the window between the kitchen and the back room by the carport door. Amanda had to do something near the house, so she was planning on picking Milly up then coming to get the folder.

A little later, I went back to make sure I had put the folder where it was, but I couldn’t find it. I looked all over the house for it, then Tristen looked for it. After a bit, Tristen said she thought she had heard the door open and close at one point, so I called Amanda and asked if they’d already come by. They had! Milly had come in, grabbed the folder, and left! She said she had shouted hello and had seen the boys in the living room, but I think I was in the bathroom and Tristen had gone into the boys’ room for a second. I told Milly that if something like that happens again she needed to make sure an adult heard and acknowledged her. On top of that, it was a little hurtful that she didn’t bother to actually say hi or give a hug or anything. I had been looking forward to seeing her, since I won’t see her again until next Tuesday.

Milly also left a jacket she had left here. It was sitting on top of the folder. Thought I was losing my freakin’ mind.

Outside of spending most of my day out and about, there wasn’t a whole lot that was different from usual. Tristen took care of dinner for the boys while I got some work done. She took a shower, I swapped the boys out of the shower for her, put diapers and pajamas on them, got bottles ready.

There is a good bit that’s changed with them since I last did an update on the boys though.

Tonight was the first night we brushed their six teeth each. They did a good job with it in that it didn’t bother them- they seemed to enjoy it. And they didn’t grab at the toothbrush either.

Fawkes’s hair is starting to get some curl to it. You’ve been able to see it when his hair is wet for a while, but the back is getting some texture to it now. Phoenix’s hair has always been a little behind Fawkes’s, so I expect his will start curling up soon too. Maybe it’s just the length that’s letting it change.

They’re crawling around and climbing up on things, which is nothing new, although Fawkes pulled himself into the tub this evening, which is new. He cried for a few seconds, but he got over it quick. They might as well start walking. People keep saying they’ll be a handful when they do start walking, but they can already get wherever they want. They’ll be more of a handful to me when they start climbing on things even more. I mean, they need to learn to walk before New Baby gets here anyway, as it’s going to be very difficult to strap on or carry three babies and we don’t have a triplet stroller.

Phoenix has been doing this thing for a bit where he makes an “Ah-ah-ah” noise while shaking his head. Sometimes it seems like he’s dancing. They both seem more communicative.

Neither one has really picked up on the sign language yet, although I show it to them every morning during their bottle time. Sometimes they’ll flail their arms around when they want more of something, but I think that’s just what babies do.

On the topic of bottles, we ran out of our last container of formula a week or so ago and decided to not buy more. We started giving them bottles of almond milk, but we were going through a half gallon carton in a day or so, so now we’re doing half almond milk, half water. We talked about scaling back the number of times throughout the day that we give them bottles, and just yesterday I decided to try just doing when they wake up and when they go to sleep. They’re liking food so much anyway that I think they can pretty much be done with bottles.

Also not new, but the boys interact a bit more with each other. We rearranged their room a few days ago because they kept pulling the camera down by the electrical cord, and Fawkes even unplugged it a few times, so we wanted to move the cribs to where they couldn’t do that. They’re now on opposite walls (and the camera is tacked up by the ceiling to give a wide enough view to see both cribs), so we worried it might bother them that they can’t wake up and laugh at each other and steal WubbaNubs from each other. They still don’t play with each other a lot, but they do laugh at each other and stuff now and then.

They’ve really enjoyed their Cousin Bash lately too. He makes them belly laugh. And they’re intrigued with little Cousin Gabriel, too.

That’s about it. One last big birthday before I probably quit doing these periodic updates, at least until New Baby gets here.