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.