17 posts from 2006

My seventeen year old has cute game that he plays with the twins.  They always go after his PlayStation controller if he leaves it unattended, and one day one of them messed up his game.  So he said, "Well, that's just brilliant!" because he was exasperated.  Both babies repeated, "Buh!" 

So now it is a game.  Robert says "Brilliant!" and they immediately look at him, stopping whatever they are doing, and go "Buh!"  They will do it about 10 times.  It is so funny!  I tried to get them to repeat it after me, but I guess it's not the same without that deep masculine voice!

"Brilliant!"

I have this really yummy oat bran muffin mix that I make frequently, and the babies must like them.  Today they saw me take some out of the oven, and they both ran over and reached up with both arms towards them, saying, "Muh! Muh!" But how do you explain to 14 month olds that the muffins have to cool off?!

Tonight I went out by myself.  It was the first time I went out at night by myself since the twins were born! My Mothers of Multiples group was having a Christmas party.  It was a lot of fun, good food, and a really fun Christmas present exchange.

When I got home, Alexander was awake.  He saw me at the doorway, said, "Oh!" and then took off running for me!  That is the first time I have seen him run!  I bent down to pick him up, and just as he got almost to me, our big doofy dog went between us and almost knocked him over.  But I grabbed him and scooped him up and he just laid his head on my shoulder.  Awwwww...

It sure is nice to be missed!

Christopher was playing peekaboo today by trying to cover his eyes with his hands!  It was very cute!

Friday they were playing together in a toy tunnel we have.  One would crawl into it, look at the other, crawl out, the other would go in, etc.  They were laughing and laughing and a couple times tried to go in the tunnel at the same time.  I was afraid they would bump heads!

It is very neat to see them playing together!!

Now that the babies can walk, I think in some ways life will be easier.  A month or two ago, after my mother and I exhausted ourselves trying to hold them at church (have your arms recovered yet, Mom?), I decided to just bring the double stroller in with us and put them in there.  I have been staying in the back with them in the stroller.  Today they wore their shoes.  It is getting cold here anyway so they need the shoes for warmth as well as walking.  They were not happy in the stroller, so I let them out in the foyer.  They loved walking around and bending down and looking through the little stained glass windows in the wall and doors.  They were also very obedient!  The church had set up a lifesize Jesse tree in the foyer, with pebbles in the base.  Christopher noticed them and Alexander came over to see what he was looking at.  I was concerned they would try to eat them, so I came over and covered both sides with my arms and clearly said, "They are not for you!"  Christopher stopped trying to get them right away, but I had to correct Alexander several times.  However, then he never went back to them.  At the end, the usher propped open the door and Christopher was tempted to go through it, but did not when I told him not to.  Yippee!!  I was thinking next week we could skip bringing the stroller in maybe.  We'll see.

Today for the first time ever, Alexander and Christopher wore shoes!  We went to an LLL meeting and they walked all around the room, playing with the toys and acting like big kids.  Well, except when they needed to come over to Mama and nurse!

With the older three kids, I bought them all brand new Stride Rite white baby shoes.  When Ryan was about one and starting to walk, it seemed ridiculous to buy him new shoes when I had these perfectly good baby shoes already.  So he wore the ones we already had, and he was hard on them like the other children were not.  I bought the babies shoes at a yard sale, but I guessed at the size and they were too small.  So I was thinking I needed to buy them shoes and that just isn't in the budget right now.  Then I thought, "Well, they can wear the old ones too! They still look decent."  So that is what we did, and they really seemed to like them!

Happy First Shoes Day, Alexander and Christopher!!

One week after Alexander started walking, and with a lot less practice, Christopher is up and walking around too!!!  It is such an amazing sight to watch the two of them toddling around.  The unfortunate side effect of being able to walk is that now big brother Ryan, who is 3, thinks they are tough like him and can take whatever he wants to dish out!

It is fascinating to watch two little people develop and to see them work on what they want to master.  Christopher crawled before Alexander, because Alexander was only interested in walking.  He would walk if you held onto his hands.  Both of them could take a few steps and walk holding onto something like the toy shopping cart.  But this week Alexander figured it out and is walking all over the house.  He is a perfectionist, though, and gets upset when he falls.  He doesn't know how to stand up unassisted, so when he falls he either needs someone to stand him back up or he has to crawl over to something and pull up.

Christopher, the pragmatist, figures he already has a means of transportation, so why mess around with walking?  He has decided to climb!  So far he has climbed onto the small chairs we have, the shelf for the baby toys, and the bench that Ryan stands on to play with his toys.  This last one I was not happy about, and Ryan isn't either.  I thought his toys would be safe up there for quite a bit longer. 

Having read a lot about Montessori education over the past six months, it really makes me think.  Here we have two children with the same genes in the same environment who want to learn to do different things.  I am sure that eventually Christopher will learn to walk and Alexander will learn to climb.  So why do we try to make all children learn the same thing at the same time, instead of giving them the freedom to master whatever they are interested in at that time?

I woke up this morning to Christopher knocking on my bedroom door.  Since I had little sleep the past two nights, I slept in this morning and the older children had gotten Christopher out of his playpen when he woke up.  He played for a long time, and then I guess he got tired of waiting for me and crawled over the door and started banging on it.

I thought this was amazing!  Consider the progress he's made in the last year, from one month old to 13 months old.  At one month old, when he needed something, all he could do was scream.  Several times I wondered if I would ever wake up to anything but babies screaming ever again!  Now, at 13 months old, he knew what he needed, he knew where I was, he could move his body to come to me, he knew how to deal with the obstacle in his way, and he got the result he wanted!

I don't remember my older children learning the concept of knocking on doors this early.  My oldest son told me that he has thought a couple of times that it was the 3 year old knocking on his door, when it was actually one of the babies.

Knock on, babies!!

A friend of mine had a dream that we were neighbors.  I called to her through the window to come help me.  When she came into my house, she saw me sitting on the floor, with tons of twins crawling all over me.  I yelled to her, "Save me from the babies!"

My husband thought this was hysterical, and now whenever he sees me sitting on the floor with the babies and Ryan climbing all over me, he says in a dramatic tone, "Save me from the babies!"