After a year sabbatical...

We are back! The last year has flown by, so much so that I forgot we even had a blog. The husband and I are going to attempt to launch this bad boy again by alternating postings. Instead of trying to catch up on the past year, we are going to pretend we never left. See? We saved ourselves time and saved you time. Already a full service blog.

The general bedtime routine has been set for almost three years, but the participation of the wee ones has varied from compliance to complete mutiny. We have been in “big kid” beds since mid-January and the transition has actually been one of the easier parental situations to navigate. Still, not without entertainment.

Silas will venture from his bed a few times each evening, usually stopping about 2 minutes before Cory has “had enough” (I swear that boy has perfected the art of pushing us juuuuussst to the edge). I will say it is pretty darn cute hearing the crinkle of a little diaper shuffling across the floor, seeing little fingers slowly pull the door a couple of inches open, and one little blue eye peering out to see if it is Daddy or Mommy who will appear. If it is Daddy who arrives, Silas high-tails it back to bed very quickly…if I happen to be on Hall Monitor duty, he continues to open the door and asks for a quick “rocky rock” in the rocking chair. I know…I know…

Grace takes a little more time to ready herself each night; carefully placing each animal and dolly in their designated location on her bed, before asking me to lay with her for a few moments. I don’t mind at all; I actually like this decompress time each day. It is nice to lie still, very quietly, and enjoy being a Mama…or, depending on the day, sneak peeks at the door wondering if it is time for Vikings to start yet.

A couple of nights ago, Gracie was in a particularly feisty mood and apparently wasn’t quite ready to call it an evening yet. She let me escape easily enough, but proceeded to call me back into her room every 5 – 10 minutes to tell me about various topics of great importance. Now some of you (I could probably guess who…by name!) may be thinking, “Why did you keep going back in? Just let her call for you and she would have eventually fallen asleep. You didn’t have to go back in and out for almost an hour.” Well, you’re right. I didn’t have to. But I did…and boy, am I glad. If I had just let her give up asking for me, I would have missed out on these verbatim nuggets:

1 - "I lost my barrette"
2 - "I can hear a bunny"
3 - "I need a daddy smoochie"
4 - "Maybe you should buy me a barrette"
5 - "I have a crumb on my cheek"
6 - "I have a string in my sock"
7 - "Maybe a bee is sleeping"
8 - "I just need a big crazy hug"
9 - "My pony needs a blanket"

Grace and Malarie dozing one afternoon.

Monkey See Monkey Do

Things have seemed as busy as Grand Central Station these days. The little beans are into absolutely everything, and have mastered the art of distraction. I swear they plan their mischief while conversing over breakfast in their high chairs, because the minute they are finished, one will run to the coffee table to climb and stand up in the middle while the other scoots a chair out from the dining room to stand up and rock on it! When only one parent is home, this makes for very quick action needed as lots of instant decision making is made (whose potential injury would be more severe = whomever is captured from the high surface first). We also have had 11 showings of our home (it is on the market) in just 10 days, feeling grateful to have such activity, but most of them are during the day when I am at work. I am convinced Cory is secretly a saint for being able to keep his sanity and a clean house while keeping the kids relatively injury-free.

We have decided Silas has no “off” button, from the moment he wakes up, he is ready to go. I swear his third parent might actually be the Energizer bunny (that reference might have dated me, does that little pink guy still grace commercials?). When Cory was at his board meeting this week, he decided a great new game was to run to one side of the room, pick up full speed, stop about 6 inches from me and plop down on his bum. This game was made into quite the spectacle when I started to repeat his sound effects (“BOOM”). This went on for almost twenty minutes. *Heart Melts* If you know Gracie, you can guess where she was this whole time, quietly giggling in my lap.

Gracie is picking things up like a fresh swiffer cloth (I assume those work, Cory handles most of the floor cleaning, yes ladies, be jealous). Each morning she sits in my lap as I put on my makeup. I assumed she was waking up slowly each morning and not really paying attention to what I was doing, until Monday morning. As I was putting on eye shadow, I glanced down and saw she had grabbed my concealer stick (closed) and was dipping it into the eye shadow, then putting it on her temples. She was so serious and when I asked her what she was doing, her smiled stretched across her face and she closed her eyes to show off her work. She also assumes her normal seat on my hip as I brush my teeth every morning. As of this morning, she hollers “teet!” when my toothbrush makes an appearance, and she leans over next to me to spit. *Heart Melts*

We took them to the Children’s Museum in downtown Kzoo Saturday. I think they could have played for hours in the little kids rooms. As I watched them climb into pint size chairs and mosey up to the coloring table, an overwhelming sensation struck me...not sure what the word is for it…but it was a feeling of amazement (for what they are able to do these days), happiness (for seeing them play together ), humor (because of course the crayons belonged on the table, not in the cups..ALL of the crayons mind you), a little sprinkle of sadness (while they will always be my babies, to anyone else, they are probably little kids now)…and love (because man o man these babies exemplify love).

Like Sand Through the Hourglass...

The sickness has set in again at our house, taking down our little Goo within 12 hours of her first cough. She was up practically the whole night Thursday, poor little love. As much as I hate to see her sick, there is nothing better than a snuggling baby…and man did she want to snuggle! This was perfectly acceptable for me, however when I went to work Friday morning, Cory was left to figure out how to take care of Si without ever actually putting Grace down. That man never ceases to amaze me!

Last week, we had our second adventure in the Great White, also known as our front yard. This situation turned out much better than our previous, as we parents actually planned ahead. Our ratio of time spent getting ready to play in the snow vs. time spent playing in the snow was greatly skewed, but it was well worth it. I don’t think I will ever be able to see the little ones toddling around in their gear without thinking of the infamous scene from “The Christmas Story.” I truly believe the clothing we had on them outweighed them two fold. They had a little trouble trying to run in their snow boots, but when they fell on the ground they didn’t seem to mind at all. Next time we have a decent amount of snow, I think we may try our hand at sledding down a little nearby hill.

Silas has started to let his boyness show every single day, he loves to push and yell and run around with his arms flapping as if he may take flight any moment. Grace usually quietly watches nearby and giggles nervously when he comes close to her. They are also becoming quite the pair, they play with one another all day long and make each other laugh or cry…and sometimes a cross between the two emotions. At meal/snack time you can see their bond most clearly as they babble back and forth and pass food or drinks from one tray to the other. (The dogs wisely position themselves on the floor in between the highchairs, as about 60% of the food falls during this passing game)

Each week, we try to teach the little ones more pretend play. I think it is important to have an imagination, so fostering that need is one of our biggest goals right now. They have the pretend feeding down pat, and routinely give each other “bite bites” out of the play spoon, and sometimes feed their stuffed animals. A few days ago I started crawling around the floor meowing (Cory walked in about 2 min into this and just stared at me, I think he has been preparing himself for a couple of years for the day when I finally lost it..so he didn’t seem too surprised). Grace started howling with laughter and threw herself on the carpet and started crawling and shaking her head from side to side. Si just watched us for a moment, then collapsed onto the floor too and started giggling. We then transitioned into becoming dogs and barking, this was the biggest hit. Last night, when I came home from work, I said “Let’s pretend to be doggies” and both little ones started barking (well, their version of barking…a weird arf noise), smiling, and crawling around. It cracked me up, and then we really had quite the time when I began to chase them. Oh how I love little moments like this, there truly is nothing better.

I cannot believe how different they are, the little personalities are becoming more apparent each day:

Grace is very attached to me, and prefers the nook in my arm to most other locations. She loves to observe any situation before involving herself. She likes to do things on her own schedule and has quite the opinion on most topics, which she makes clear by “Nu Nu” noises. She loves to sit in our laps and read books, and likes to brush my hair. If Silas opens a cabinet we forgot to lock, she stands back and exclaims “No no No no!” When I leave for work, she runs to the front window to watch me go, and squeals when I come home. She melts my heart on a hourly basis.

Si is loud and active, he very rarely sits still. He has been known to run in and out of the kitchen just yelling and laughing for reasons unbeknownst to us. He always wants to play with Gracie, even though she doesn’t always want to play with him. He loves to throw things, climb onto objects, and make loud noises. He also is sensitive; he becomes upset whenever Cory or I leave the room… leaving for work every morning is tough; when he sees me put my coat on he starts to cry and hold his arms up to me. He is a wonderful combination of liveliness and softness. He melts my heart on a hourly basis.

Life. Is. Good.

What is this white stuff? Ah! It's COLD!

My how time continues to fly by. New words (or at least forms of new words, some of which only Mama and Dada can understand) are being spoken every day. Grace has found her voice – well, she always knew how to yell  - and has started to repeat things we say as well as ask for items by name. It is so much fun to see their faces light up when they repeat a word, makes me realize how special the little things really are. The kiddos have discovered that their play pots and pans are fun to use on their kitchen “stove” and have started to stir in them with spoons and add “salt and pepper.” If anyone is in the market for a set of play cookware, I ordered the wooden set from Educo and have fallen in love with it! When I came home from work last week, Grandma had even taught them how to offer her a taste from whatever they had cooked!

Gracie and Si are becoming increasingly aware of my absence during the day. When I put my coat on, there is either screeching and running toward me for “uppeeee” accompanied by lots of tears, or little hands waving bye-bye at me. Of course, their moods depend on which send off I receive. Either way, when I am home, they are very attached to me. I love of every minute of feeling them snuggle close, but sometimes it can be difficult to do so with two at once while also trying to make dinner, fold laundry, etc. When Cory holds either of them, they stretch their little arms as far as they can in my direction and call “Mama Mama Mama.”  This has been increasing over the past two months, and now they actually push each other out of my lap during story times in an effort to have me to themselves. Gracie has also been known to push Cory away from me if he tries to give me a hug when I am holding her. Quite the personality on our little spit fire!

We had our first, long overdue, good snowfall in Kalamazoo early last week. We took the opportunity to take the little ones outside so they could see what this snow business really was all about. Gracie stood on the back patio in the little spot we cleared for them, whooping and laughing. Si, ever the little rambunctious boy, took off into snow bank (mind you, we did not have snow pants on nor gloves, we really just thought it would be a moment of “see this is snow now let’s go back inside"…I guess we are still amateurs at this!). He was mesmerized for a moment, touching and giggling at the little fluffy clouds he found himself in, until he realized his hands were cold…very, very cold. He began screeching like a little banshee monkey, screaming for us to save him from the horrible stark white blob. Cory quickly scooped him up and took him inside to blow on his hands and thaw them out. When Gracie and I followed shortly after, I found my two boys snuggled up together for warmth. Woops! Fail! Let’s just hope we haven’t made him fearful of the great white…now I see how easy it is to traumatize someone! I guess I shouldn’t give my parents such a hard time about instilling a deep fear of clowns in me. In the meantime, this Mama probably needs to invest in snow pants and gloves for her little babies.

Little More Conversation

Lots to report over the last month. The little beans are beginning to repeat words very frequently. So far, we have the following being attempted…I’ll include the English translation as well. Silas is a little bit ahead of Grace in regards to speaking, but she is never more than a day or two behind.

Dyeba - Diaper

Mimi – Mickey

Muh – Milk

Baf – Bath

DugDug  - Dog

Cacka – Cracker

Boon – Spoon

Tus – Toes

Dew – Shoe

Noh – Nose

Tos – Toast (sounds very similar to Tus..luckily those are entirely different things)

Kkkkkkk – Kitty

Bo – Bowl

WuBu – Waterbug (one of the bath toys)

Mote - Remote (yes, this is Silas' favorite thing to carry around...it doesn't work but I think he feels like Dada when he holds it)

They both are officially running and don’t fall much at all anymore. They also are playing more with one another each day. There have even been a couple of moments where they will go to the other side of the room and sit together to “read” a book.

The twins two favorite things to do currently are; sit in our laps while we read a book, and stacking wooden blocks... although the big box Papa brought up last week has provided hours of fun as well.

They also discovered that Fat Sam (kitty) loves to chase ribbon. This apparently is the funniest thing they have ever seen, and they erupt into laughter when Sam chases them as they run with the ribbon. When Fat Sam becomes tired (which is common, I mean, he is fat) Grace will take the ribbon and shake it on his head, trying to tempt him to get it. It is neat to see them quickly putting two and two together.

On one of the last nice days toward the end of November we took the little ones to Celery Flats to play in the big leaf piles. They had a ball!

Finally, last weekend we took them downtown to Santa. What a nice setup Kalamazoo has; Santa has a village, a house, and a little craft room…this is definitely where we will go each year instead of facing the mall Santa. When we first approached the Big Man, Silas smiled and tried to touch his beard…and I felt Grace’s fingers grip my shoulder tighter and tighter. We took a couple of practice shots with Cory and I in the frame, then quickly moved for the one golden picture…see below.

Boo!

Our house was still plagued with “the sickness” on Halloween. I took a vacation day from work so that I could stay home and help Cory with the little ones. After nap time, they seemed the least congested, so we took them outside in the yard to take a few pictures. These costumes are in pristine condition, because about 20 minutes is all of the wear they experienced! Grace and Si kept looking at each other in the costumes and cracking up, how funny to see your best buddy in a crazy get up! Big Mama bought the sizes based on their age, and forgot they are only in the 10-20 percentiles…so they were swimming in them. Gracie’s belly should have came to just above her thighs, and you’ll notice it is actually around her ankles. Silas’ feet were actually where the knees of the kid should be, so when he walked (or tried to walk, the costumes were not conducive to moving in their oversized state) you could see the feet of the costume dragging behind.

As a side story, their Papa (my dad) asked about a month ago what his little grandchildren would be for Halloween. I responded proudly “A skunk and a sea otter!” Little did I know that this would rock Papa’s world! He was flabbergasted that his little ones wouldn’t be a cowboy and princess. He very sternly indicated from here on out, he would choose the Halloween costumes. So, looks like this was my last year to have complete control!

There is no Birthday like a First Birthday!

What a wonderful blessed day October 21, 2010 was! How excited I was to celebrate the one year anniversary of our two little beans birth on October 21, 2011! The day didn’t start like every other Friday. The day didn’t start with a scream from upstairs, a little voice desperately trying to tell Mama and Dada that they were ready to start the day. The day didn’t start with Mama frantically rushing around the house with a baby on her hip trying to put on liquid eyeliner and still coo words of encouragement to the other little bean pulling at her pant leg.

This special day started with the sound of a little voice quietly talking to make-believe friends. Silas' voice raised and lowered as he spoke to his buddies painted on his bedroom wall, most surely explaining to them the meaning of life. As I laid in bed listening to him, I replayed in my head what I was doing a year ago at that time…which was receiving a hefty dose of petocin, and how different it was from what I was doing at this moment, at that time I knew I loved the little babies, but I had no idea how deeply the love would grow once I could hold them.

Listening to Silas babble on is truly the best way to wake up in the morning. When his voice started to become louder, I knew it was time to go gather up our little boy and start the day. I softly climbed up our creaky wooden stairs, trying not to wake Grace. I slowly opened the door to find our little man sitting in the middle of his mattress holding his blankie with a big smile. I walked over to him and whispered “Happy Birthday my little love.” He snuggled in the way only babies can do, nestling in the crook of my neck and relaxing his body. I wish I could start every Friday this way.

Grace was up within minutes, hollering at either Cory or I to attend to her. Even she knew it was a special day, because she just whooped out for us a little high pitched noise, not a frantic “Hey, come and get me guys!” yell. As Cory brought her downstairs her eyes settled on a Mickey mouse helium balloon and she could not look away. She kept pointing, willing her little arms to reach higher and farther so she could touch this unusual floating picture of her dear friend. “Happy Birthday little love!” I exclaimed to her, and she clapped her hands. For the second time in an hour, my heart melted and I reflected back on the momentous anniversary we would be celebrating today.

Around 1:30, Grandma Helen came and helped me prepare the rest of the decorations…which consisted primarily of us spending 20 minutes deciding how the happy birthday banner should be hung. We then waited for the little ones to wake up from their nap. Around 2:30 the rest of the crew showed up, Aunt Bitty, Nana and Papa. The little beans were very excited to see their loved ones all in one place at one time! We opened presents (or rather, I opened presents and convinced them to tip over a couple of bags) and they couldn’t decide what to play with first. I think most of the time after they were opened was spent by Grace and Silas walking around in circles debating what to look at or touch first/next. Smiles and giggles were in abundance, and the babies kept trying to practice their new skill (climbing and standing on anything they can) on most of the toys/boxes the toys came in.

After presents, we moved upstairs to eat cake. Cory made the babies a vanilla cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting, and made espresso cupcakes for the adults. Grace had the most fun with the frosting and just kept smacking her hands in it. The cake was dense as the recipe used yogurt and minimal sugar, so when you picked up the cake it didn’t crumble. Grace picked up hers after about a minute and threw it across the room, to where the dogs were eagerly waiting. We had to quickly scramble and give her smaller left over pieces, because we didn’t have nearly enough mess on her face yet nor enough pictures. Silas was straight down to business and systematically ate all of the frosting off first, then picked the cake brick up and took bite after bite. After one or two glances at Cory and I as if to say “really? You are letting this happen” they were giggling and munching.

All in all, it was a practically perfect birthday, I wish Uncle Jay, Aunt Mandy, Reese & Ronin could have been there, but I am sure there will be many more occasions soon for everyone to be a part of. Thank you all for the love and support you have given over the past year to all four of us, it has been appreciated and never taken for granted. I cannot wait to see what is in store for our little beans in the coming year!