Updates

Milo is picking up all sorts of words from Nora, like "nice" and "night night". He also says "apple" and "no" for nose. Milo can now point to his nose and sometimes his mouth, ear, head, and belly. Milo has also turned cranky (teething?) and spends a lot of time complaining every day. Fortunately I don't really understand what he's saying because I don't speak the language of Utter Discontent.

Nora can also say "apple" now, and "nose", and can point to all of the parts of her face. She repeats signs easily and just today she repeated the sign for "change" (as in change a diaper). Nora's crankiness has passed so now she's generally the content one, basically walking to and fro all the time holding on to little toys. 

Milo likes to carry giant, heavy things as he walks. We have this little piano that he carries everywhere, and a big heavy ball that's bigger than his head. He carries that too. 

I feel like I'm starting to get a sense of how the kids think every now and then. The other day I told Nora that it was time to go upstairs for a nap and she said "bunny!"  The bunny is one of her loveys that she likes to hug and play with when she naps. Meanwhile, any time we have brussels sprouts on our plates at dinner, Milo will excitedly say "ball!" (This has not, however, translated into any interest in actually eating a brussels sprout).

Both babies have started saying "eye" and pointing to their eyes.

Their receptive language is growing by leaps and bounds every day. Recently the twin whisperer asked Nora to go get some blocks, and she went to the container with blocks, picked out two of them, and brought them over. If I tell Milo to go give his bear a hug, he'll do that. The kids will also sometimes hug each other, both saying "nice". 

The way that Nora says the word "shoe" is a little strange, and it comes out sounding a lot like "shit". So Jake started telling her to say "oh shoe", and "take a shoe". Ah, fathers.

Nora is also saying, sometimes, "Mino" for "Milo". Milo's word for Nora is simply a very loud, angry yell.

It's fun to watch the kids learn so many new words and gestures and different ways of communicating. It must be hard to be in that stage where you can understand so much more than you can say. That stage probably lasts a long time. I think sometimes they understand more than we realize, which has resulted in some surprises, like Nora saying "bunny" when I talked about taking a nap. Just the other day Milo started fussing and yelling when we were talking about the President, and I had to remind him that it's okay, Bush is gone and we've got Mr. Obama now. He cheered right up at that.