Tale of the tape: 2 months / 2 years

Good things seem to be happening in twos lately. My baby sister Annabelle turns two months old today, just a few weeks after I myself turned two years old. And last week, we were able to go to the doctor as a twosome for our respective checkups.

And let me tell you, there are few things more adorable than two tiny sisters laying on an exam bed next to each other in just their diapers, waiting for the nurse to measure them. The sheer cuteness of that situation would’ve broken any cameras that dared try to capture it, so Mom and Dad wisely chose not to snap any photos. Or they just forgot. Either way.

But as usual, I thoroughly enjoyed the view of downtown from the Polyclinic windows. Not so much the tall buildings, but the large trucks and buses making their way up and down the road.

Anyway, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Here’s how the two of us measured up:

Annabelle

Birth weight: 7 pounds, 6 ounces.

2-month weight: 9 pounds, 9 ounces (17th percentile).

Birth length: 21 inches.

2-month length: 21.5 inches (21st percentile).

Birth head circumference: Not available.

2-month head circumference: 38.9 centimeters (78th percentile).

Yes, that’s right. My baby sister is extremely short, extremely skinny, but with an extremely large head. She’s the human embodiment of the female symbol. Or a lollipop.

Eliza

Birth weight: 7 pounds, 7.6 ounces.

6-month weight: 17 pounds, 6 ounces.

1-year weight: 22 pounds, 8 ounces.

18-month weight: 25 pounds, 3.2 ounces.

2-year weight: 27 pounds, 13 ounces (64th percentile).

  

Birth length: 20.25 inches.

6-month height: 26.5 inches.

1-year height: 29.5 inches.

18-month height: 32.25 inches.

2-year height: 35.25 inches (83rd percentile).

  

Birth head circumference: Not available.

6-month head circumference: 43.5 centimeters.

1-year head circumference: 46.4 centimeters.

18-month head circumference: 47.9 centimeters.

2-year head circumference: 48.9 centimeters (84th percentile).

In case you didn’t notice, I’d like to point out that my sister and I are both on the high end of the spectrum for head circumference. So in the spirit of the theme of twos, I'd like to apologize profusely to my mother on both my behalf and my sister's.

Happy Halloween!

Hello, friends! Annabelle here again, still basking in the afterglow of my first Halloween. Can you believe there’s a holiday where you go door-to-door, begging people for candy, and instead of calling the cops, people actually give it to you! This world is awesome!

Mom and Dad were particularly excited about this Halloween. I’ve been told that they didn’t enjoy the holiday nearly as much back when they were living in a condo, because they never got any trick-or-treaters. [Editor’s note: The five separate locked doors between the building’s front door and our front door may have had something to do with that.] But since we’re now in a house this year, they had their jack-o-lanterns all set up and bought a few gigantic bags of candy, ready for the onslaught of tiny costumed beggars. Ten minutes after Dad and Eliza got home from work/daycare, we got our first set of trick-or-treaters – five kids from our neighborhood. Seems promising, right?

Wrong. Those five kids would end up being the only trick-or-treaters we got the entire night. Mom was disappointed, and Dad pretended to be as he wolfed down countless unclaimed Snickers, Twizzlers and Butterfingers.

Speaking of trick-or-treating, in the days leading up to Halloween, plenty of people asked Mom and Dad if they were planning on taking Eliza and me out. Mom and Dad’s response was that they were going to wait until their daughters could A) walk an entire trick-or-treating route without being carried, and B) say “trick or treat” without being prompted. Since neither one of us has fulfilled both of those goals yet, we stayed home. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t get to wear costumes!

I’ve heard that Mom and Eliza set the bar pretty high last year, so we didn’t even try beating that. In the end, Mom, Eliza and I chose to go with another group-themed costume: Me as the peapod...

Eliza as a carrot (in a costume handmade by our Ya-Ya!)...

and Mom as a chef.

Apparently we impressed a few people, because Eliza and I took home the “Cutest Baby Costume” award at the Halloween party we went to on Saturday night. It came as a bit of a shock, considering Eliza decided she didn’t want to wear the hat from her costume for more than 3 seconds at a time. See that photo up at the top of the screen? That’s literally the best photo of the two of us together in our costumes.

Still, it was nice to see that Ya-Ya’s hard work in making Eliza’s costume was properly appreciated, as was Mom’s effort in putting me in the same used costume that my sister wore two years ago.

Meanwhile, Dad also got into the costume spirit, but he chose partner up with my Uncle Ben, and they went as Wreck-It Ralph and Fix-It Felix. At first I was offended and assumed that he thought he was too cool to take part in our family theme, but then I realized that a man carrying around a toy hammer has probably never thought he was too cool for anything.