Just before lunch. Daddy was getting it all ready and Holly came out demanding a breadstick. Not wanting to spoil their appetites Daddy gave her a half of one and hoped she would not show Rosie. However, Holly thought this to be quite iniquitous and said "Ro-Ro!" quite hotly and held out her hand on behalf of her sister!

Also... up until yesterday we have had a very convenient kip from 12-2pm when Mummy and Daddy can attend to their own little luxuries. Luxuries like thinking straight and breathing slowly. However yesterday Rosie didn't sleep at all during the day, and now, as I type, they are both standing in their cots protesting their lack of need for sleep. It's not a new trend. It's not. IT'S NOT.

Bipedal is our mode of choice these days - and we can fly up stairs with alarming speed given half a chance...
We dismantled the highchairs last week and turned them into little tables and chairs that they look very cute sitting at.
What else...? Well, we've been ill for about six weeks with a whole spectrum of different bugs resulting in me throwing up two nights ago, and Tamsin being in bed as I type with a rash and the knowledge that any minute now she's going to have to sprint to the bathroom! Kids seem happier now though...

Very obediently, when told that it is bedtime, both little chickens waddle out to the bottom of the stairs and wait for us to open the gate.

And, very cutely, when we are fed up these days, we toddle off and get our coats!

Wandering round Battersea Park today. Rosie went off in a bit of a huff. But, she spotted a man walking along rather stuffily with his hands behind his back and his nose in the air. She stopped. Put her nose in the air. Her hands behind her back. And walked along next to him in perfect imitation.....

Over the past week the monkeys have been practising standing up and toddling about. Rosie can do a couple of steps, and Holly is now striding around a far as her stamina will allow!

After a few optimistic assertions that one or other has said a coherent word here or there, yesterday Rosie very definitely said "No!" It was clearly a word because Tamsin had just said it and Rosie managed to achieve a perfect impression of her mummy!

We've been pretty sleepless for the past few months. Ugh. One or other (though Rosie, more often than not) is up in the night and needed between 20 minutes and an hour of cuddling to get back to sleep. Or so we thought. Reaching the end of our tether last Saturday we reached instead for Christopher Green's "Toddler Taming" - something Daddy had been resisting for a long time. So Saturday night we "ignored" the screaming for ten minutes, went in, picked up, crying stopped, put down, crying started, we walked out and "ignored" again for 12 minutes. Then 14. 16. Then 18. By 20 minutes it had stopped, though this amounted to some considerable crying time. Next morning, instead of crying for us to fetch them, we found both monkeys sitting quietly in their beds fiddling with teddies!

And the following night they slept through.

And tonight....?

Rather more cutely: nursery recently changed their nap place from cots to little mattress rolls on the floor. They put Rosie and Holly to bed on their mats and sneaked out. Then when they went back in, Rosie Woo had crawled over and climbed into bed with Holly!

Sorry about the gap!

Well we're one now - hurrah! We can crawl around at top speed and pull ourselves up to stand, then whizz along the edges of furniture. We like to point at things and say "ooh", we like to wave at people as they leave, and we like to wave at nonsentient objects as they stick around purposelessly. We usually sleep through the night. Usually.

Oh, and Rosie likes to bite Holly. But then, Holly likes to whack Rosie on the head with blunt instruments so all's fair in a roundabout way. We both like to hit the TV screen with stacking toys

Hold up, nursery had them in high-chairs this afternoon, so hell we'll get ours down and use them too!
So we did, and it was fab!

Christening today. Got dipped. Behaved. Daddy drank hard to bury the pretence of faith.

First day of nursery! Went brilliantly - wahaay!

We slept through until 6am today, 29.07, and have done every day this week! First day of nursery tomorrow so none too soon...

Well, Daddy went to America this week and when he came back both babies were rolling hither and thither, tums-to-backs-to-tums. So now we wake up on our tummies most days!

Holly rolled over three times today! Tamsin rolled her back after the first time and she scowled at her and rolled back! Needless to say Daddy hasn't seen any evidence of this breakthrough yet!

We're all in St Ives - Hooray! Rosie Woo and Hollypeanut seem to be wonderfully chilled wherever they are, although Rosie was a bit over-fascinated by the Fore Street Deli - but hey, so is Daddy.

After weeks of trying, Rosie rolled over today.

Well TONIGHT was Mummy and Daddy's first night out without the babies. They were ridiculously over-concerned and tried to teach Babs and Jooley how to babysit properly before Mummy pushed Daddy out the door and said "let them get on with it!" Despite concerns that they wouldn't take a bottle, let alone drink anything, or go to bed or sleep, both babies finished everything and dropped off to sleep like angels - SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT for the first time! Three cheers for Babs and Jooley!

Forgot to mention the enormous relief of having secured two places at the nursery at Jim's work. Whew! Now we only have to find two hundred and seventy quid per week, which is slightly less inconceivable...

Bit of a gap there while we grew big. Now we're both in the region of 11lbs and we smile ever such a lot. While if we laid them next to each other they used to determinedly face away from each other, even if we then swapped them around, now we seem to be more interested in each other's face! Best of all though is that tonight we are in our cot, one at one end and one at the other and we look very cute indeed!