So the boys and I had a good time the other night at bedtime (hence why they're in diapers only). They're playing a really funny game here, dancing around like chickens and "speaking" like them too!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Polite babies making big, watery messes.
Eli and Jude have grown tremendously since they entered pre-school. If there's one good thing that has come out of Alex's current job, it's certainly that our boys have become polite, sociable little boys. Both Eli and Jude are working on saying "please" and "thank you" when they want something and when they receive something, and generally will use polite language for other things.
They're also showing more and more empathy for each other after a lull in their general attitudes towards each other. Eli and Jude definitely love to do crazy things, such as jumping off couches, running around bonking into things, climbing their dresser and jumping off, and oftentimes, they hurt themselves. They've become really good at asking "What happened?" to each other, obviously very concerned about why their brother was sad. Unfortunately, they also do this when they know exactly what's wrong, too. Eli has gotten into the habit of waking his brother up as they're going to sleep, and while Jude cries out, Eli says "What happened?" over and over. It's definitely a work in progress!
More on language, the boys are becoming masters already. They know all their numbers through 10, all their capital letters (we haven't done lowercase ones much yet.... something that's really strange honestly is that most of the toddler toys don't have lowercase letters on them...) and I'm slowly starting to teach them words to recognize in the books they read. They can "read" some of the books already, but I really think it's that they just remember what Alex and I say when we read it to them, so it's not true letter recognition, rather a memory exercise. They are catching on well though, and we've been complimented on how smart they are at school already. I'm really proud!
Oh, speaking of bedtime behavior, Eli and Jude have been developing a fear of the dark. I had hoped that keeping their room dark through their early years would stave off this fear, but I suppose it's just natural. For their birthdays, Granddad got them a night light- a "jellyfish" tank that has a motorized light that turns on and changes colors every so often while pushing the rubber jellies through the water. Eli and Jude absolutely love it, and because they love it so much, they've wanted to touch and play with the jellyfish. This recently came to a head one morning when the boys woke up, climbed up on the table and tipped over the tank, which contained about a 3 liters of water. The boys were sitting up on the dresser, stunned by the mass amount of water they were sitting in and screamed out for help, to which I came running only to find that the jellies were all over the place, with water streaming down the sides of the dresser. Each boy was sitting soaked, and very upset about their friends' plight. Alex remembered that the tank was supposed to be ages 7+, and I guess the boys were just too tempted to leave it alone, so we've had to remove it now for the time being. I'm going to try to see if it still works at all once the motor is all dried out, but in the meantime, we've purchased two little baby-resistant night-lights: a green turtle and a blue car. The night lights are rubberized, rechargeable and seem to have little to no exposed parts that the boys can get into trouble with. I'm hoping that this will solve the problem of the lightless room for the boys, but they do ask us each night still about the jellies. They love fish and water, so I think that we'll just have to get a shelf far out of their reach to hold up the jellyfish tank. Although, since the jellyfish tank is AA battery-sucking, I'm not really so upset to see it not in regular use. I wish it could have been AC powered!
Finally, potty training is going. Yup, it's going, not much to really report about it yet. The boys are letting us know that they have to pee and poop, but it's still generally too late to use the potty exclusively. Their accuracy is definitely improving though, and I hope that the praise we give them for great potty use will sink in as a good habit soon. I really, really am tired of diapers.
They're also showing more and more empathy for each other after a lull in their general attitudes towards each other. Eli and Jude definitely love to do crazy things, such as jumping off couches, running around bonking into things, climbing their dresser and jumping off, and oftentimes, they hurt themselves. They've become really good at asking "What happened?" to each other, obviously very concerned about why their brother was sad. Unfortunately, they also do this when they know exactly what's wrong, too. Eli has gotten into the habit of waking his brother up as they're going to sleep, and while Jude cries out, Eli says "What happened?" over and over. It's definitely a work in progress!
More on language, the boys are becoming masters already. They know all their numbers through 10, all their capital letters (we haven't done lowercase ones much yet.... something that's really strange honestly is that most of the toddler toys don't have lowercase letters on them...) and I'm slowly starting to teach them words to recognize in the books they read. They can "read" some of the books already, but I really think it's that they just remember what Alex and I say when we read it to them, so it's not true letter recognition, rather a memory exercise. They are catching on well though, and we've been complimented on how smart they are at school already. I'm really proud!
Oh, speaking of bedtime behavior, Eli and Jude have been developing a fear of the dark. I had hoped that keeping their room dark through their early years would stave off this fear, but I suppose it's just natural. For their birthdays, Granddad got them a night light- a "jellyfish" tank that has a motorized light that turns on and changes colors every so often while pushing the rubber jellies through the water. Eli and Jude absolutely love it, and because they love it so much, they've wanted to touch and play with the jellyfish. This recently came to a head one morning when the boys woke up, climbed up on the table and tipped over the tank, which contained about a 3 liters of water. The boys were sitting up on the dresser, stunned by the mass amount of water they were sitting in and screamed out for help, to which I came running only to find that the jellies were all over the place, with water streaming down the sides of the dresser. Each boy was sitting soaked, and very upset about their friends' plight. Alex remembered that the tank was supposed to be ages 7+, and I guess the boys were just too tempted to leave it alone, so we've had to remove it now for the time being. I'm going to try to see if it still works at all once the motor is all dried out, but in the meantime, we've purchased two little baby-resistant night-lights: a green turtle and a blue car. The night lights are rubberized, rechargeable and seem to have little to no exposed parts that the boys can get into trouble with. I'm hoping that this will solve the problem of the lightless room for the boys, but they do ask us each night still about the jellies. They love fish and water, so I think that we'll just have to get a shelf far out of their reach to hold up the jellyfish tank. Although, since the jellyfish tank is AA battery-sucking, I'm not really so upset to see it not in regular use. I wish it could have been AC powered!
Finally, potty training is going. Yup, it's going, not much to really report about it yet. The boys are letting us know that they have to pee and poop, but it's still generally too late to use the potty exclusively. Their accuracy is definitely improving though, and I hope that the praise we give them for great potty use will sink in as a good habit soon. I really, really am tired of diapers.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
More silliness at bedtime
As a follow-up to the last post regarding our T.V., I am immensely happy that we got a new one. It was definitely on the list of "would-likes" this year, and despite the fact that we were forced into buying it now, the TV we purchased is a huge upgrade that we got for a good deal. 46" TV absolutely dominates a 32" one, and the fact that its black levels are more than 10 times better doesn't hurt either!
Anyway, back to the actual blog. The boys certainly are growing fast these days. They know all their numbers from 1 to 10, even venturing into the teens occasionally, they know their letters, they know their colors... I can't believe how fast they're growing. They're making complete sentences these days, although they're generally 3 to 4 words max. So smart....
Right now as I'm typing this up, they're fighting over a guitar strap that each of them wants to play with. Sharing has definitely become more of a problem as they're growing, and I hope we can afford to double everything from now until they turn 19 (if you're reading this from the future kids, yes, you're only getting 1 car as of now).
At least bedtime is still fun, even though it's chaotic. Now that Alex is back at work again, the boys are back at school so that tires them out more during the day and they get to sleep earlier. We like that, but they've still got tons of energy to keep going. One day, they'll go to sleep well by themselves, but its still a struggle today!
Here's a good look at their new game, combining "The Ground is Lava" with "Race to the mats!". I think it's really cute! P.S.: Sorry about the aspect ratio; I was filming in portrait mode, generally the worst for showing movies on computers. I'll make sure to get back to landscape next time.
Anyway, back to the actual blog. The boys certainly are growing fast these days. They know all their numbers from 1 to 10, even venturing into the teens occasionally, they know their letters, they know their colors... I can't believe how fast they're growing. They're making complete sentences these days, although they're generally 3 to 4 words max. So smart....
Right now as I'm typing this up, they're fighting over a guitar strap that each of them wants to play with. Sharing has definitely become more of a problem as they're growing, and I hope we can afford to double everything from now until they turn 19 (if you're reading this from the future kids, yes, you're only getting 1 car as of now).
At least bedtime is still fun, even though it's chaotic. Now that Alex is back at work again, the boys are back at school so that tires them out more during the day and they get to sleep earlier. We like that, but they've still got tons of energy to keep going. One day, they'll go to sleep well by themselves, but its still a struggle today!
Here's a good look at their new game, combining "The Ground is Lava" with "Race to the mats!". I think it's really cute! P.S.: Sorry about the aspect ratio; I was filming in portrait mode, generally the worst for showing movies on computers. I'll make sure to get back to landscape next time.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Snow Day Ruined
Friday was a snow day. It was awesome. We had about a half inch of snow here at our apartment (sorry, only one picture!) and the entire city shut down. My physical therapy was rescheduled and all of the schools Travis can substitute at were closed. The boys and I stayed in our pajamas and snuggled on the couch to watch movies under a blanket. All that was missing was a mug of hot cocoa. Frankly, it was turning out to be an awesome, quiet snow day. Of course, this is when the day decided to stop being so awesome.
I wasn't present for what I'm about to describe so I'm not sure exactly what happened. I think I was in the bathroom or something. Apparently, Travis and the boys were playing with the multitude of balls littering our living room (thanks, Mom for that ball pit by the way... : ) ) and somehow a racquetball found its way into the mix. You know, one of those sort of heavy, blue bouncy balls. Anyway, one of the boys threw it directly into the television. The tv seemed okay at first so the offender got a time-out and they moved on. We turned off the tv and put Eli and Jude down for their nap after lunch. Once the boys were settled, Travis and I plopped ourselves back on the couch to play our respective video games - him Fallout 3, me The Sims 3 - and it became clear the tv was broken. Travis turned it on and there were green lines all the way across the entire screen. Thinking it was the PS3, he changed the input and the lines remained. I had no idea why it would act like that but Travis knew exactly what happened.
So, the poor old tv is being sold for scrap parts on Craig's List and we bought a new one from Costco. Not exactly how I envisioned spending our coming tax return, but the new tv is really nice and we plan to keep it for the next 10+ years. Needless to say, there is no more throwing of balls anywhere near the television.
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