Our Kids

That’s how my morning started… Lela standing in front of me at 5:45am saying “sit sofa?”  Piper was also there and she actually greeted me with a “hi. daddy.”  Yes, it’s true… we’re back to getting up before 6am again.  Hence the blog post — I’m hoping the girls read it again and sleep in until after 6am tomorrow!

I’m actually getting pretty used to getting up before 6am now, so it’s really not too bad, possibly even good for me.  This morning was nice because the girls were in a good mood.  A lot of times it will just be Lela who wanders into the bedroom while Piper is still in the process of waking up (it can take a little while for Piper to fully wake up.)  But when it’s both the girls saying “hi,” it’s usually going to be a nice morning.

Of course, there’s always those exception days… and this morning became such a day.  The girls were closing the bathroom door and Piper accidentally (so she says) pinched three of Lela’s fingers in the door.  And not a soft, “scary-not-hurting” pinch.  It was a rather big pinch and actually broke the skin on Lela’s middle finger.   Ow-ow-ouch.  Poor Lela.  It took quite a while to get her calmed again… while that was going on, Piper was such a sweet sister.  She came over and asked “Lela ok?” and I said she hurt her finger.  “Lela band-aid?”  But Lela said “no no no!” (she doesn’t like anyone looking at anything she hurt).

Then I asked Lela if she wanted me to put some ice on it (she answered “no”, of course).  Piper picked up on that and started asking Lela about ice, too.  And when she wasn’t looking after Lela, Piper would play by herself, knowing that I had to tend to Lela.

Lela calmed down right around 6:30 or so.  That’s when Piper decided that she wanted to watch a DVD on their portable player.  I showed her where it was and she picked it up.

And dropped it on her big toe. Yep. I managed to bust up both of my girls in the span of 40 minutes.  Now I had Piper upset.  She wanted a band-aid on her big toe.  Thankfully, Lela took over the consoling role and picked up the DVD and walked with us back to the sofa.

Mystique took over from there and I was off to shower and head off to work, knowing that my work was done.

Jason

The girls are becoming more like real little people every day.  They eat at the table with big forks and spoons feeding themselves, they sleep in big girl beds, they pick out their own clothes, brush their own teeth complete with rinse and spit at the ends.  They are both potty trained and Lela doesn’t wear diapers at night or during her naps.  Piper doesn’t wear a diaper during a nap but does at night, she will still use it early in the morning before you get in there but during the day she is dry as a bone:)  She has a lot more bladder control than when Lela was training but Lela has been trained for more than 8 months so that is to be expected.  At night they still let us cuddle them in our laps as we sing and read and while you are looking down into their big eyes they are still our little babies even though they are mostly arms and legs at this point.  I guess that is one of the joys of parenting, looking down (or up) at your child and seeing how far they have come.

I have been amazed at the progress the girls have made in the speech department.  Considering that 6 months ago they were not even saying 10 words between them, but signing over 100 each, it really is cool.  They frequently speak in 4-5 word sentences and can clearly articulate what they want/need.  I have had others tell me they are surprised and how clearly they speak since you can understand 90% of what they say.  They still talk to each other in their own little language and can carry on long conversations about who knows what.  They don’t sign too much anymore but they recently began learning to sign their favorite songs.  They also are picking up little bits of Spanish, today when I put them down for nap they said “Adios” when I left the room.

The girls are really becoming mini me.  So far I have managed to act respectably in their presence so all is well, LOL!  Since there are two of them using the potty sometimes I have one in each bathroom.  While tending to one I will get “the call” from the other to come and finish the job.  So I say “I’m coming” or “be right there.”  Well the girls have gone to calling each other around the house and the one being called will answer with an “I’m coming” and “be right there.”  It is so cute.  They have picked up on all my little sayings, which so far is good.  We did go through one little phase where I was jokingly calling daddy a fat, lazy pig.  It was almost too funny to hear Piper say it but we nipped it in the bud because we could not stop laughing and it was going to become a thing, they quickly forgot it was ever funny and have moved on to other sayings.

Okay so I will be the first to admit that Lela can be a little clumsy at times.  Now I don’t think she is THAT clumsy because she has not hurt herself badly….yet.  She has fallen down the stairs, run into walls, lost her balance and numerous other things but she seems to fall well I guess.  Anyway, she was having a clumsy moment at a restaurant recently and she was sitting at the booth and somehow fell forward and hit her head on the table.  Now any injury is traumatic to her so Jason was done eating and took her and Piper outside.  They were so cute when I got out there sitting on a kid sized bench and laughing.  So I had to take their picture.  After doing so Lela wanted to take Pipers picture so I gave her the camera.  She took Pipers picture and then I said it was time to go.  She turned around to go and tripped over one of those concrete barriers at the front of a parking space.  Lucky for us she was carrying our camera and it broke her fall, unlucky for us it also broke our digital camera.  So no pictures for a while, we are researching and contemplating what to buy.  Hope you can stand the wait.  In the meantime I have missed a ton of cute pics, boohoo.

Lela has this funny thing she does when she gets hurt. Besides getting pretty upset she doesn’t want you, or anything else, to touch her owie. So the other day I noticed she was walking on just her heel. I asked her 15 times if she hurt her foot and she said, “NO.” Then Jason asked her and she said, “NOOOOO.” She walked like that for two days and started hobbling like a pirate, I half expected her to say “Aye maties” every time she turned around. A small welt did appear later on day one and I figure she got a bug bite. After about 2.5 days of peg leggin’ it around she is finally walking on it again. It was quite a funny sight to see:)

The title of this post is a reference to how Piper says “early.”  She really stresses a “u” sound in the beginning.  Cute.

The title of the post is also a reference to when the girls have been getting up recently.  Uuurly.  As in 5:15, 5:10, and 5:30am.  Not so cute.  That makes for a long day for everyone (of course it affects me the least because I escape to work.)

This morning, though, the girls slept in until 6:10am or so.  Mystique has been getting up and “walking” with our neighbor and Otto at 6am each morning for the past few weeks.  Pretty impressive.  I quoted “walking” because she took me on a “walk” one morning.  It’s not walking.  It’s a controlled run.  And I don’t run very well.  I think five minutes in I was already complaining.

Anyways, sometimes if the girls are up, Mystique will take them with her.  They seem to like it.  Of course, they’re sitting snug in a jogger with milk and toast.  Who wouldn’t like that?

Today Mystique was gone by the time the girls woke up.  It’s funny how the girls wake up in random moods.  Sometimes they’re happy and simply walk out to the family room and greet me with “Hi daddy!”  Other times, like this morning with Piper, they’re in a bit of a fussy mood.  Piper really wanted her mommy.  So much so, that she walked out to the kitchen with two blankets and a pillow case saying/whining, “mommy.  mommy.  mommy.”  She then proceeded to lay down in the hall (a tired-tantrum) and repeated “mommy.”  Lela was sitting with me so I asked her, “what’s Piper doing?”  Her answer: “saying mommy.”  Too funny.

The tired “tantrum” didn’t last all that long… in a couple of minutes I was saying “where’s Piper?” and she would giggle with her head under blanket.  Silly girls.

In other news… we’ve rearranged the house a bit which I think will work out nicely.  The office just off of the kitchen has turned into a “ploffice” — combination play room and office.  It’s great because the room has double doors that we can keep open and the girls can play in there while we’re in the kitchen area and even the family room area.  They’re much more likely to go in there and play without us than they were with their old playroom (which was down a hall and sometimes dark).

It’s fun watching the girls play together and have their little conversations.  They’ve picked up a lot of our little sayings that I never thinking about.  Piper will see something and say “oooohhh”, or she’ll play the “what’s that?” game with Lela and say “that’s right!” with a correct answer.

Well, that’s about it.  All is well, of course.  The girls are certainly challenging us and stretching us thin at times, but that’s just the way it goes.  It’s been so much fun I think we’ll start again in the fall

Here we are!  My folks have been in town after a 30 day trip up the CA coast and Alaska so we have been having fun visiting and catching up with Nana and Papa.  The usual things are happening and the girls just keep learning more and more and faster and faster.  They are more in love than ever, giggling, laughing, holding hands, playing catch with each other and the like.  Still no interest in other playmates but we keep exposing them to other chitlens anyway.  We are going through the preschool drama and it is so scary.  We want to encourage learning but I don’t think we are ready for preschool away from home.  We are expecting a third Haslup beauty in October so I see a housekeeper and a part time nanny in my future.  My friend Molly is doing an in home preschool program that looks promising so we are looking into that as well.  The girls are showing real interest in reading and spelling words which is cool and a bit scary.  They sing all the time and get most of the words right.  They love letters and say things like T is for train and L is for Lela, D is for Dog etc.

They like to dress themselves, do things for themselves like get their own milk etc.  Piper can play the “easy level” memory game on thomasandfriends.com with about 90% accuracy which is so cool to watch.  She loves it, she points and Lela drives the mouse around.  Both of the girls can get into the big girl swings and get themselves going if they can touch the ground (so the swings have to be low).  Lela is in a growth spurt at the moment and is almost up to 29lbs and Piper is holding strong at 25 lbs but growing a little taller every so often.  They are in excellent health, I could not have asked for more healthy babies.  Piper is well on her way to being potty trained even with all the extra excitement, she just needed to wait until she was ready.  All in all we are having lots of fun watching them explore their world, we are so blessed to have them and be able to live in their innocence and joy each day.

PS.  Sometimes they cry and fuss and can be cranky and their poop doesn’t smell like roses, LOL!