Our Kids

So after the bug made its way around the family, even Jason, we are all back to about 95%.  The girls have not gotten back into the swing of things with their eating.  So far they take one or two bites and say they are done.  It could be that I am offering them food to often but they also keep wanting to get into their chairs.  I on the other hand am now starving.  After a week of hardly eating I could eat the whole house.  That is the only downside to a plant based diet, I don’t really want to crack open a butternut squash and eat it raw, so cooking is involved and that equals time and that equals eating another apple! LOL!

The girls love stickers, I think I mentioned that before.  Anyhoo, I use those address labels that come in the mail, thanks to a hint from Grandma Kathie.  The girls love to stick them all on a piece of paper.  Lela sticks hers in a seemingly random pattern all over the page while Piper likes to stick hers all on top of one another until she has a big pile of stickers.  It is so interesting how different they are even with simple things like stickers.

Piper has started asking where Lela is when she is out of site so that is new.  They ask more and more where Daddy is or where I am.  But once you tell them they seem content with your answer.  Piper is such a daddy’s girl it is unreal.  All weekend he is the ONLY one that can put on her shoes, change her diaper, carry her around etc.  I know it gets exhausting for him since it is constant (during the week she is not like that with me, she doesn’t need to be held all the time).  He hardly gets the chance to love on Lela but that works out good for me because she is the cuddler and I get all the cuddles to myself.  Eventually we will have Daddy nights where the girls get to spend some alone time with Daddy but for now he will just have to keep lifting weights so that he can hoist them both around on the weekend.

So the girls have started to mimic me which is very cute (ask me again in 6 months).  Anyway, they are ALWAYS pointing out every spec of dirt, dust, hair, cracker…well you get it…to me and they keep pointing it out until I pick it up.  Nevermind the fact that they are the reason for most of those specs of cracker etc.  Also if anything is moved out of place they don’t like it one bit.  Lela has started saying uh oh and then covering her mouth with her hand and repeating uh oh uh oh uh oh until I fix the offending item.

I have started to tell them “I know” when they point out something that has gone awry or fallen by the wayside.  They point out the crumb and I say “I know, I will get it” or just “I know” and then I go and get it.  So Lela has started saying, yep you guessed it…’I know’.  It is soo cute, it comes out like one word eyeknow eyeknow eyeknow.  They also both said Mommy today.  They usually say mama but today I said I know mommy is cleaning it up and they both went around saying mommy mommy mommy.  The vocab is definitely growing but we still get lots of grunts and groans and tons of signs.

Darn those stomach bugs, I just don’t like them (I wanted to use a stronger word here but I am working on that).  Anyway, the girls and I got struck with a stomach bug.  Lucky for us it was not too bad.  Lela got the brunt of it with some vomiting and what not for about 12 hours.  Then she just slept it off and is feeling better.  It takes a few days to get over so no one, except Jason, has had much of an appetite around the hacienda.  I could barely look or smell food without feeling a wave of nausea so I imagine it is the same for the girls.  Other than that all is well, we have been really mellow today and will be for a couple more days just until we are back to 100%.  I don’t know where we picked it up from since we have been staying close to home.  I assume it was the playground at the school, but who knows.  So I am cleaning house today while the girls are napping and then we will see what we can get into this afternoon that is a little bit more exciting.

Poor Lela.  It’s really not her fault… it’s her mom’s fault for writing about her magical ability of just barely missing walls, doors, and other objects as she walks in one direction with her head turned in a completely different direction.

Tonight after dinner Lela wanted to do something so I told her I’d read with her if she got a book.  That made her so happy… both Lela and Piper enjoy reading books so Lela jumped up at the chance to read with me.  We were in the kitchen and she started to head to her book collection to pick one.  She had the biggest grin on her face… it was a classic Lela smile and then some.  I saw it clearly because even though the playroom was off in a direction opposite from me, she had her head turned with that big grin on her face.

She had to navigate through a hallway, but her trajectory was spot-on… she’d make it through to the hallway no problem.  Until she turned her head at the last minute which swung her just enough to the left to run right into the wall.  Her little head made a great ‘bonk’ and there went her excitement about reading a book.  Instead she was surprised, started to cry, and got a big hug from daddy who was trying not to laugh.  If only I had the video camera… that was classic ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ material.  (Or I guess YouTube material these days.)

Well it appears that I have been MIA from blogging for a few days, sorry about that.  I wish I could report that we were doing something really fun like making apple butter or knitting but alas we were not.  The girls are very active right now so we were going to the park a lot and walking around a lot.  That lead to many fights over walking and leaving the house which I did not enjoy.  So we have taken to going in our own backyard and it has been fun/interesting.  We have a few play things out there and Jason and I are working on getting a play area set up.  We play in the backyard in the morning and then go over to the park in the late afternoon.  That gets us through most of the day.  They absolutely love to be outside which is great since the weather is going to be super for the next 6+months!

I am going to my first mother of multiples meeting tomorrow.  I decided to get involved and see if I can support other moms and garner some support for myself in case I have any twin issues.  So far so good, we went through some fighting and hitting and biting but it was all very short lived.  Lela is super with her potty training and Piper is still totally not interested.  Today I finally moved her potty out of the way since no one ever sits on it and I just trip over it.  I might get it out again but from the looks of things she will be potty training at like 3 or maybe even 5, LOL!  Not really we will try again in a few weeks, she is just not ready.  Having only one in diapers though has been quite a break, you don’t realize it when you are doing it but we go through a lot less these days.  Sorry for the boring post, I will try to drum up something a little more exciting for next time.

So today’s post is all about Piper. First of all I keep meaning to blog about how she runs. It is the cutest thing ever and we finally decided what to liken it to. She runs like the gingerbread man but a girl version. She doesn’t bend her legs hardly at all or her arms so her feet hit the ground really hard. It is the funniest thing, she can really go but she looks just like the gingerbread man from Shrek running for his life. Hilarious.

Oh and Piper got her first haircut, it was very ceremonious. I hoisted her onto Jason’s sink and used his clippers to cut about 1.5 inches from her bangs. She did not like it so they are not exactly straight but that is life. This week I noticed she was always trying to pick what looked like eensy weensy spider webs from her face. Turns out it was her fine flaxen hair that had grown long over her eyes. So we fixed that.

Piper is also asking for panties and saying she wants her diaper off. Even choosing panties over diapers. So you would think this was a positive step except for the fact that she still won’t sit on the potty. So yesterday she went to play in her playroom without panties and she played quite some time before she told me that she had to teetee, which was cute. She thought it was hilarious, so she insisted that I put a diaper on her so she could “teetee”. Today she wanted her diaper off so I offered her panties which she happily accepted. Then she went about her business, laughing, walking and peeing her pants! LOL. I picked her up to hug her and she was all wet. Never would have known otherwise, she did not care in the slightest until I pointed out she was wet. Then she started walking like she had just rode a horse from Phoenix to Montana and wanted to be changed pronto.

Okay so I don’t think the girls need more sleep, from the sounds of things from other parents the girls are getting more sleep than the rest of the kids we run into.  Also I think they are just getting more active and interested in things and are able to tell me what they think more and more.  So the crankiness is just the normal “I’m growing up” stuff, I think (I am sure I will change my mind tomorrow:).

We have a new friend in the neighborhood, her name is Hope and her mom’s name is Renee.  She is 16 months old but very friendly and just about the girls speed.  We went to Hope’s house this morning and played for about 15 min and then we went to the park to meet my DSMOM (desert sky mom of multiples) “buddy”, Mary (and her twins Piper and Zoe, 2.5 yrs) (she was assigned by the group to introduce me around and such, but we really like her) and her friend Stacy (plus 2 toddlers and 1 infant).  The park was hoppin’ with lots of kids but the girls did okay.  Piper will go near other kids but mostly just stands in their way and looks at them.  Lela I need to hold or carry around, she is getting better at not crying when kids get near but still very cautious.  She did a marathon swing session for about 30+ minutes while Piper went around staring at everyone.

It was fun, Hope left after about an hour, it was warm and she was getting tired.  We stayed on and chatted when we could to the other moms.  It was nice to get out with the girls and when we got home they had had enough of me and played in the playroom by themselves for quite some time (20 min) while I started cleaning the house.  They are napping now and we will see what we are going to do this afternoon.  Yesterday we went to the covered park at the school (school is out of session) from about 430 to 6PM which was great because they skipped that 530PM where the heck is daddy crying spell.  I don’t handle that one as well since it is late in the day and we are all tired.  So we might try the park again, they really liked it and it was nice for me too:)  Well I should jet so I can finish cleaning.

The girls have still been a tad bit on the cranky (read temper tantrum) side of things so I am guessing we need more sleep.  They went down for their nap today about an hour early and I did not get much protest.  We will see how long they sleep.  I have been getting out with them to the park and letting them run/walk a lot more so maybe that is tiring them out too much.  They can go go go but maybe they are go go going too long and need to take it in smaller spurts.  I guess I got too excited with the cooler temperatures:)  We need to pace ourselves!