Our Kids

I think the girls have moved from babies to little people.  They are officially in real tennis shoes and it makes them look so darn grown up.  They can run and jump and that makes them seem grown up as well.  They can climb all over the jungle gym and can help you with getting their clothes on and off, they brush their teeth, feed themselves and a whole slew of other things.  It is so cute.  Lucky for us they still give us large doses of hugs and kisses so that we don’t mourn the passing of the baby phase.  For us every phase has been more fun than the last, as a parent I hope to always look forward as fondly as I look back.

Howdy!  Sorry, I never got around to finalizing my ‘weekend with daddy’ series… things, of course, are fine.  I survived the weekend, and more importantly, the girls survived without any lasting negative effects.  We hope.

Overall the weekend was great.  It seemed like the girls were a bit overtired come Sunday, but they’ve definitely recovered from that with some good sleeps Sunday night and Monday.  Lately, though, it seems like they’ve been moving their bedtime up a bit, slowly going from 6:30pm to 7pm, to 7:15pm.  It might also be because there’s a lot of new and exciting things during the day with their grandparents staying with us, so we’ll see where that leads.

The girls have been pretty chatty in the morning when we unload the dishwasher.  They might be having a conversation between themselves but I don’t understand a word of it.  It’s cute as heck to watch, though… Lela really gets into what she’s saying, grabbing a bowl with both hands, leaning forward a bit, and just jabbering away, punctuating each word with a head nod.  I need to get that on video sometime.

We met our new neighbors next door a couple weeks ago.  Turns out they’re from Billings, which is kind of funny… moved here a year or so ago.  Goes to show that Montana folks are still the friendliest people we meet

Anyhow, they’ve got a little dog named Max that visits us every now and then.  Piper loves Max.  She’s still a little hesitant with him, but with some encouragement she’ll pet Max and just get the biggest kick out of it.   It’s fun to watch.

It’s the end of the day and all is well.  These girls are the best… we had such a great day together.  After their nap we had a snack of apples and grapes, then off we went to Target for some light bulbs.  No problems there, so once we got back home we packed up the jogger and went back to the park, which I now affectionately call “Potty Park.”

The girls had fun exploring the playground and surrounding park… Piper got a kick out of grabbing a bottlecap off the ground (Bud Light… classy) and running away from me when I said “Piper please put that down.”  Giggle giggle, run run run!  Of course Lela got in the game and pretty soon I had two little girls running in different directions.  Good thing I’m still faster than them!

Since I’m visiting my parents tomorrow (yes, I’m cheating), I gave the girls a bath so they wouldn’t stick like daddy.  Since Mystique’s parents are staying with us we took off the plastic duck that protects the girls from the bathtub faucet.  I soon found out the other reason we have that duck… it also protects daddy and the girls from someone (Piper) flipping on the shower while the bathtub was filling.  That was quite a surprise to the girls, who were both in the bathtub.  Luckily it was Piper who was directly under the showerhead and she really doesn’t mind it much, but she did have a surprised look on her face.  So did I since I happened to be in the line of fire, as well.  I was glad to have avoided that potential Lela tragedy, but later on she yelled at me a bit because I dared to wash her hair.  Oh well… at least they’re clean.

We finished up the evening with a little Signing Times on the TV (pretty much the only show the girls watch and they love it).  While the girls danced, sang, and signed, I cleaned up the mess I made in the kitchen.  Finally, around 6:45pm after brushing our teeth and putting on pajamas, the girls looked pretty tired so off we went to bed.  Haven’t heard a peep since!

So that’s it… day one down, two to go.  I think I got a “mama?” every couple of hours… they increased in frequency as bedtime neared.  I explained that mommy was at work and they seemed ok with that.

These poor little girls of ours… starting this morning, they’re stuck with just daddy for the next three days! Yikes! Video of their reaction later

So Mystique and her parents (who came in on Tuesday) are off to Los Angeles for the healthy life expo. That leave me in charge from friday morning to sunday night. So far I’ve made it through morning one pretty well… it’s just after 2pm and the girls are still napping, so everything seems somewhat normal.

Of course, everything didn’t start out so well… this morning after everyone abandoned, er, left us, we took a stroll down to the park in our neighborhood. I was prepared to spend a good deal of time there since it was so nice out and I know the girls love playing there. I had hats, music, apples, and even Lela’s porta-potty.

It started out well… Lela sliding down the slide all by herself, Piper running around in the sand and driving the “car” (which isn’t a car, but don’t tell her that). Then I heard Lela say “potty” (which sounds suspiciously like papa). So I got off the play structure, helped Lela off the slide, and we held hands as we walked through the sand to the stroller to get her potty.

Of course I didn’t realize that she was pretty much telling me that she had already gone potty in her pants. I don’t know if it was the excitement of spending a weekend with daddy, or possibly the slide, or (most likely) I didn’t hear her first “potty”’s and was too late.

So there we were, barely 20 minutes into our first foray to the park, and I had a wet baby, a sandy baby, and an embarrassed dad. Wheee!
We went home and got cleaned up, had some snacks, and played a lot. The girls, the little angels that they are, went down for a nap right on schedule at 12:30. Once they wake up we’ll have a snack and head off to the store for some light bulbs and video games

Stay tuned to the website… I’ll try to update throughout the weekend.

Well the girls never really got sick just runny noses.  Not bad since it seems like most of the school kids I run into have a cold.  I think they picked up some germs from the playground.  I have to get better about hand washing.  I think I don’t like hoisting them up to the sink and then it is uncomfortable for them when they get there since their little bellies are pressed up against the vanity.  I think I need to buy a tall step stool, we have tried a few things but they need something tall and the bathroom needs something small:)  I think Ikea might have just what we need.

Other than that, Lela is still wanting a different thing every minute while Piper seems to like playing with one thing for longer periods of time.  They are definitely developing their own personas, which is great.  Lela still can’t sleep without Piper by her side, which is cute but a pain for Peeps (she handles it really well though and is mostly patient while Lela falls asleep and then we go and get Piper for another 20 min or so of mommy and daddy time).  They are napping well, once a day for about 2 hours at about 1230 or 1 and still going down around 7P and getting up around 645A.  They are super good girls, active, playful, mindful, and inquisitive.  We have been blessed with two delightful children and everyday I am grateful.  People say it is our parenting but I think most of it is up to their personalities and we just got lucky.

Well the girls are feeling puny which leaves the rest of us not feeling so hot either.  I just knew I should never have taken them out of the house, just kidding.  Since they have hardly ever been sick, and I wouldn’t call this sick, I can’t complain.  They have the sniffles, the runny nose that Lela had a couple days ago was not from her teeth as I suspected.  Piper is now congested so it must have been a little bug that they caught.  No fevers and great attitudes, just a little trouble sleeping for Piper due to congestion which causes trouble sleeping for Lela due to the fact that she CAN’T or WON’T sleep without Piper.  I am sure we will have kicked this to the curb in the next couple of days.

That Lela is cutting about 5 teeth at once, the girls both have a runny nose, and Lela has had two accidents.  One was Piper’s fault because she would not hurry inside so Lela could go poo and the other was a true accident because she was sitting on my lap all reclined and peaceful when she decided to toot, so she pushed out the little toot and peed on herself and me:)  Other than that excitement it is status quo at the hacienda.

So I am starting to think that Lela is getting bored of me, or this house.  Who can blame her since we have been indoors for many moons, but the time for outdoor play is fast approaching and it should be wicked fun since the girls are extremely mobile, agile, fast and all the rest of the adjectives that scare the poop out of parents.  The reason I think she is bored is because she asks me for milk all the time (when she is not hungry), then crackers, then “me me me” (her favorite show), then potty, then milk, then cracker, then outside, then outside, then outside, then potty, then cracker, then apple, then pear, then beans….well you get the picture.  Now she doesn’t want any of that stuff but she insists and insists, I give in about 1 out of 4 times and when I do give her exactly what she asked for she just looks at it and then puts it down and asks for something else.  So either she is testing me in some horrible way that toddlers do, or she is bored of my company and is looking for salvation in a slice of apple, a piece of cracker and a glass of milk.

We have been making extra effort to get out of the house and go to the park, walk a bit, swim in our little pool out front, color, paint and draw with sidewalk chalk.  Anything to keep them occupied, it seems to work but makes for crazy days where nothing gets picked up inside, no food gets cooked for Jason, no laundry done and no rest for the weary (me or Jason).  I think that now is the time for us to get a dog, I mean really how much dirtier can the place really get and won’t it be such fun for the girls!