Sunday we also kept super busy and the kids spent the afternoon outdoors at a birthday party, playing in a sand box, a tent, with balls, and running around with a bunch of other toddlers. There were cupcakes. There was lemonade. They went wild. They're growing up.
In another not-so-big change we're putting the kids on the potty every day. We're kind of late to the game, I guess, mainly due to my laziness but I finally wised up when I read a little about potty training and how the average age to train used to be under 2 years back in the day. The idea is that if you get them used to sitting on the potty when they're younger and more amenable to doing whatever we want them to do (no power struggles or battles at this point), that is a good thing. Sure enough their little friend down the street who is only 18 months is now out of diapers as of this week! Oh well, I'm a bit of a slacker, but that's okay. Nora and Milo looooove sitting on the potty, so we're incorporating it into our routine. In theory at some point they'll actually do something in the potty, but we'll see.
There are certainly times when Milo & Nora seem more like kids and less like toddlers to me. This past weekend they both figured out how to go up and down shallow stairs like a big person, with their feet, not on their hands or their bottoms. There was something about that image of both kids walking up the stairs like...people...that struck me. I can see their future kidness in them. I can see them running around and riding bikes and climbing all over everything like a couple of little monkeys. Oh wait. They already do that last one.
What has Milo been doing lately other than evoking the ire of neighborhood felines? Well, his other hobbies include saying hi to all of the ladies and guys he encounters (with that language: "hi, lady!"), declaring that he likes-a the music, dancing, looking out the window for planes and helicopters, and identifying birds and insects.
What a happy guy! Milo has finally recovered from his cold. It took over a week. He also appears to have moved beyond his phase of waking up in the middle of the night and crying piteously until Jake holds him. I won't do. It's all, daddy this, daddy that, daddy pick-you-up Milo, and when I go into their room in the morning, the first thing he says is "Where's Daddy?" Milo's really awesome at greeting people, though, so it's hard not to feel great when I walk through the door and he comes running up to me saying, "Hi Mama!" He's so enthusiastic. He'll even say "bless you, Daddy!" when Jake sneezes.
Boy do these kids love being outside. Milo loves to swing, play with the tetherball, watch bubbles, throw inappropriate objects like sticks and rocks, run everywhere, and the other day he even asked me to help him climb a tree. (I didn't). Milo constantly has two skinned knees. Milo continues to be adventurous with food. Any time he sees either one of us eating something he'll immediately say over and over again "Need some? Some? Want some? Need some?" I don't think he knows what "need" means, especially when it comes to something like a brownie. I'm so glad at least one of my kids will eat stuff. Real people stuff. Nora's unwillingness to try anything irritates me almost as much as people who still use internet explorer. Milo will eat from any of the food groups but he does seem to have a particular penchant for anything involving sugar. Finally, something letting me know this kid is mine. What with all of the sporty ball behaviors, I wasn't quite sure at times.
Milo is a bright guy. He knows letters and shapes and numbers and can draw a circle, sort of, which the twin whisperer thinks is a 10th-grade skill, or something, so I'm pretty sure she is ready to sign him up for Mensa at this point. I feel kind of bad because Nora has been saying and doing funny stuff lately, which I share with people and then my friends go on and on about how clever she is, while Milo is just there in the background practicing at throwing the ball over the rocking chair 800 times in a row. But he can do all of that stuff too. And his ball skills, while perhaps not traditionally valued by No Milo's favorite thing now, picked up from Nora, is the kiss as bump healer. A kiss on the elbow, the knee, the head, the ear, or the back will make it all better. "Mama kiss it" is something I hear at least a dozen times a day. It's so great to still have the power to cure what ails him with a simple kiss. Milo also thinks I control things like the airplanes flying over or the sirens sounding in the distance -- I guess at this age, we parents are omnipotent. Oh, the power. The glory. The adulation.
Nora's latest thing is to take off all of her clothes, and sometimes her diaper. She is interested in putting her own clothes on, too, but that's more difficult. It's handy, though, because I can give Nora a sweater and then buy myself at least 10 minutes of free time while she entertains herself by trying to put her arm through the armhole over and over again.The nakedness, though...sometimes it's cute. Sometimes it's a pain, like when a steaming hot pile of crap is sitting on the floor. Nora mostly likes to take off her shirt and then run around patting her belly, sticking it out, and declaring "I have a naked belly." Actually, come to think of it, Nora is pretty interested in all things body these days. She likes to inform people that she has a bottom. She also likes to inform people that she possesses a certain piece of anatomy that belongs only to Milo, but we're working on it. She can now state that Nora is a big girl, and Milo is a big boy. She also knows that Mama is a girl, and Daddy is a boy.
Oh, we still struggle with sleep. We struggle and we struggle. I think that I am an eternal optimist because each time that it gets better for a couple of days I think that we must be turning a corner. Then each time it turns bad again I am surprised all over again, as if this has never happened before. The other night I firmly told her it was time to go to sleep and walked out of the room and listened to Nora yell "Mama open the door", "Mama turn on the light", "Mama get the bunny", and "Mama pick you up!" Boy, was she mad. It actually seems like Nora might think she can make these things happen by saying them. Or maybe she is just vocalizing her internal desires all the time, and night time is no different. Nora just narrates everything that pops into her mind, but the cool thing is that she and Milo both have recently begun to tell me things that happened in the past. So Nora will tell little stories about how she went outside, she went to the park, she went on the slide. Nora saw an airplane (airplanes are big with her too). Nora switches between using "I" and calling herself "Nora". She can say "I like it", or "I did it", or "I want to go outside." But she'll also say "Nora's turn", or sometimes "Nora did it!", or "Nora go downstairs."
Nora's getting into wanting to do things by herself. Go downstairs by herself (which takes about 20 minutes what with all of the dawdling), get up into her chair by herself, put on her shorts by herself, and so forth. It's natural. I have a hair clip and sometimes I'll put it in her hair, and she'll snatch it and say "Nora do it", and then she'll carefully balance the hair clip on top of her head. I can now mostly, thank God, leave the house without Nora having a conniption. She'll just cheerfully say "Bye bye Mama!" as I leave for work. Nora still wants to be held when I cook, and in the night time her clinginess peaks, but it is generally decreasing.
Nora's big thing these days is colors. She loves to identify colors, and is pretty consistently correct with yellow (apparently her favorite), red, orange, and pink. She is pretty good at purple and green. She just can't get blue most of the time, it's weird. I think she likes to say yellow (which she pronounces "lellow"), and so any time she sees anything yellow she'll mention it.Nora has a habit of wiggling her hands and doing a prancy little dance when she is excited or happy. She wears everything on her sleeve. Both kids do, I guess. That is the nature of kiddom at this age. They don't yet realize that we have thoughts and ideas separate from them, and they have no self consciousness as a result. That lack of self consciousness is awesome. There is no embarrassment yet, no reticence. Just complete, utter openness.
Only 3 more months until they're 2. Bring it on!
No comments:
Post a Comment