Communication

Aside from the whining, this age is great! The girls are super cute and amaze me every single day. It's really easy to teach them signs now and they are starting to talk. Tilly is taking the lead here and can sign: more, eat, milk, light, shoes, baby. She can say Baby, Dada, Mama, Elsie (a-tay!), agua, and most one-syllable B works although they all sound the same. Vowels could use some work. We are also starting on letters and she can identify A, B, O, and S. Both girls can understand multi-step commands such as 'pick up the socks from under the crib and put them in the hamper'. It's not a secret that I am putting them to work as early as possible. They can sing, dance, and jump (bounce up and down) on command.  Elsie is up to 14 teeth.   
We get at least a 90 minute nap every day and I'm trying to push it back to start at noon. Right now we've gotten it to move from 11 to 11:30. This means going out in the morning to places further than the grocery store. This is what our busy week looked like with am & pm activities:

Monday - they took turns pushing each other in the Kinderwagon to the coffeeshop. This took almost an hour even though it was a 2-block walk. Then we had a playdate at VVP and went to eat gelato.
Tuesday - toddler music class which they LOVED. Then we had a BBQ & pool party, which was dangerous because this particular pool was not baby-friendly. Oops.
Wednesday - grocery shopping, yawn. Then we trekked across town in the rain to visit a friend
Thursday - playdate in Newport. Then a water playdate in HP. Tilly & Elsie are very popular.