Jocelyn and Perry Olum at 12 months

Jocelyn measures about 29 1/8" long which is 53rd percentile for U.S. girls of her age. She weighs 25.6 lbs., which puts her in the 97th percentile. In the last 2 months she has dropped somewhat relative to her cohort, but is still very heavy.

Perry measures about 30 5/8", which is 77th percentile. He weighs 29.0 lbs., which is percentile 98.5.

Jocelyn walks well and is learning to run. Perry can walk across a room but he has to proceed slowly and carefully and often falls. Both Perry and Jocelyn can crawl up stairs well. Jocelyn backs down stairs easily, but Perry requires a lot of intervention to get him to turnaround and stay that way.

Shortly before their first birthday we started them on the last remaining foods that they weren't eating: wheat, eggs, and dairy. They had no difficulty, so they are now eating everything, although they haven't had red meat.

They typically nap for an hour or an hour and a half in the morning and again for a similar interval in the afternoon, but it's not completely regular. They go to sleep typically between 8:00 and 9:30, and usually wake to nurse once around 4:30. This pattern has existed for about 8 months, but is now somewhat irregular. Sometimes they wake earlier, and sometimes not at all.

Jocelyn can say "up", and maybe an affirmative noise sort of like "ah". Perry does not say anything that we recognize. Both of them have huge receptive vocabularies.


Valerie writes:

The hardest part of writing this is figuring out where to start! There has been an explosion in the twins' abilities recently. Every day they do something new.

They can give hugs and kisses. They love shaking hands when you say, "How do you do?" (Their grandmother Nancy taught them that.) They can feed themselves and drink from sippy cups and bottles all by themselves. They both walk. Jocelyn, especially, likes to take an adult's finger and lead the adult where she wants to go. She can pull really hard when you are trying to go in the wrong direction. They can climb and descend stairs, although Perry still needs help to get turned around at the top so he starts down feet first. They can put rings on a ring-tree. They can nest cups. They recognize toy telephones as phones and hold them to their ears. They can drop a block down a mailing tube. They can nod and shake their heads appropriately. They can clap their hands. They can show you their ears, heads, toes, and noses. They wave bye-bye. Perry brings Ken his baby carrier when he wants to be picked up. They reach their arms towards things they want. They like sliding down a slide. They can climb back up the slide to the top. They can get on and off a small wheeled horse. They can blow a whistle. They love to pull and push large toys around. They love to swing. They like to play "where's baby" by pulling a cloth over their faces and then pulling it off again. Jocelyn will bring you the cloth. Jocelyn says "up", an affirmative noise that may be "yeah", and possibly "ball". We are surprised that she is the first to talk, because Perry has always been more vocal and shown more variety in his phonemes. They bring books to be read. If you ask, "shall I read it?", they nod "yes".

Their car seats have been turned around so they face front. The number of times one person can keep both babies happily playing is increasing. Jocelyn loves to be outside: she will cry and reach towards the door. Once outside she likes to toddle around the driveway or the lawn, play in the sandbox or on the slide, or go for a walk with a stroller or backpack or a ride in a bicycle trailer. Riding in the stroller, she loves to crane her head so she can look at the ground going by or the wheels going around. She likes it when we meet dogs on our walks, and waves bye-bye to them when they go on their way. If you get out the backpack, the babies show their pleasure. Perry especially likes to go in the lake and when you are out walking with him he gets very excited if you go near the path down to the dock.

We take the twins to Ward's Berry Farm, where they have some 4-H farm animals: sheep, goats, cows, chickens and rabbits. Perry very much dislikes it when the sheep baa (the noise is very loud in the confined space of the barn) and clings to whomever is holding him. Both babies look at all the animals with interest. They also like sharing a berry cooler with Mumsy in the store.

The amount of receptive language they have is astounding: stroller, breakfast, drink, giraffe, caterpillar, Lambchop, ball, book, read, again, ring, Daddy, Mommy, Mumsy, Anna, Grandma, toes, bring, give, ears, nose, head, clean pants, poop, walk, out, down, hug, kiss, nursing, dog, cat, duck, the names of all their books, oatmeal, avocado, cookie, lick, "turn the page", hat, bunny, bear, bath, chair, block, ball, horse, pet nicely, no, very good, clap, bye-bye, drink, right back.

We're pleased they can now eat anything we eat. (Of course, they can't chew very well Jocelyn has six teeth, Perry, three.) They've had fish, chicken and turkey (but not red meat). They have wheat and dairy products and even peanut butter. At restaurants, they have discovered the joy of french fries. They don't mind spicy food. We've been very lucky that they haven't shown any signs of food allergies. It is amazing how different their food likes and dislikes are. Jocelyn likes bland food like plain oatmeal or rice, but doesn't care much for tofu. She also likes sweet things like ice cream but isn't big on fruit. Perry likes tofu and fruit. Neither baby is slow to spit out food that is disliked. They fling food off their high chair trays, but it is not always because they don't like whatever it was. They fling their sippy cups, too, mostly, it seems, for the joy of making an adult pick them up again. They will now beg for food an adult is eating. Boy, do they look surprised if they don't like whatever it was. Jocelyn sometimes makes a face at a new food, especially if it is tart, but then may immediately beg for more.

We have also been very lucky that, overall, they have been very healthy. They have had three or four colds, the first in November, at four months. Perry was on antibiotics for a suspected ear infection, but he never showed any symptoms - the doctor thought there was redness on the drum and fluid behind it at a regular check up. Even those two things had cleared at the recheck. In all their tumbles and bumps, they've never had more than a slight bruise.

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