Our Kids

Well today is Halloween.  It should be interesting.  Last year the girls were too scared to go up to the door to ask for candy, this year Piper might actually do it.  Which leaves me the dilemma of a two, almost three, year old with way too much candy.  The girls have had about 5 pieces of candy total in their whole lives and that has been recently.  Mostly dum dums from the OBGYN office, well meaning nurses doling out candy.  Once they figure out what it is, watch out:)  Anyhoo, the occasional piece of candy does not bother me but I am not really up for the candy smorgasboard that awaits us this evening.

On another note the girls picked out their costumes this year.  Piper was set on being a pumpkin or an orange witch.  Lucky for me I found both costumes at a resale shop.  Piper LOVES the pumpkin but the witch is too “itchy.”  It took much longer for Lela to decide, she said she wanted to be a witch until she saw the costumes.  Then we spent the next 20 min going through all the costumes and Lela telling me “too scary.”  It was the cutest thing ever.  Finally we found a ladybug costume complete with wings and antenna.  She finally gave the much awaited “that’s not too scary” that we all had been waiting for.  So off we will go this evening with our homemade candy bags (they made them) and our costumes with Daddy’s newest little ghoul strapped in her moby wrap for an evening of begging for cavities:)  LOL!

Happy Halloween from the Grinch:)

Well we went to the doctor today for our 1 month check up. It went really well. Landis has moved from two ticks below the lowest line on the growth chart to the 10th percentile for height and weight! Yeah for us. She is now 20 inches long and 7lb6oz. The doctor is very happy and impressed with her weight/height.

I talked to her about the nursing as well. After our one solid 3 hour night we have had several 1 hour nights and last night was no exception. Seems like you get a two hour nap then you are up and eating almost every hour. Of course I am feeding on demand since my main concern is your growth. Well meaning friends say that maybe I am doing it to much and creating a little feeding monster:) But the doctor thinks that you are just trying to catch up and that all your nursing is nutritive and if I can keep it up then I should. So we will keep at it and as soon as you finish catching up, then we will work on a schedule or at least stretching out those feedings a bit.

On a side note you can now see everything. You can’t track voices or people but you can see us. That was abundantly clear yesterday as you stared at yourself in your little mirror and this morning as you gazed up at your Daddy. Hopefully now that you can see us you will like this crazy family you have joined.

I can’t even describe the new nanny in many words. She does everything:) Her name is Chrysler and she is my new van! Jason really tricked out my ride, LOL!

We have three screens that play satellite TV or DVDs and even your XBox! Every row can watch a different channel, show or DVD. It has in dash navigation, bluetooth hands free phone, folding seats, 28 cup holders, satellite radio, MP3, rear back up cameras and so much more. It is really awesome, so many features I don’t even know what to do with them all. He bought it so we can grow with the car so the girls don’t know about the TV or DVD…yet.

The car does just about everything you can imagine and that is why I have dubbed her “the nanny.”  Thanks Jace for tricking out my ride:)

So the girls can finally ride their trikes.  Piper is doing better than Lela because she can actually turn her wheel without flipping over her trike:)  It took them forever to grow into their trikes and only about a week or so to figure out how to pedal and then turn the wheel.  Pretty soon we will be biking our way to the park but for now Piper can only go about 100 feet or so before getting tired and wanting to push her trike.

As for Lela, she is is very concerned about going out of the driveway since that is one of our rules.  If her car or trike is pointed towards the street she gets upset and won’t get on it just in case it goes toward the road.  She is definitely the conscience of the two girls, letting me know when someone, anyone, is out of line.  She loves her routine and is not really fond of change, sometimes I forget this but she reminds me by losing it:)  All is not lost though really, once I realize my mistake and right the schedule she is good as gold.  As for the trike, she will get there when she is ready, just like everything else.

I’m sure every parent feels this way, but it seems like every day I think to myself, “I hope I never forget this moment in life.” Inevitably I get this feeling after one of the girls does something so insanely cute or sweet that I literally walk over to them and give them a hug or a kiss.

So, even though I know I can’t save exactly how I feel at each moment, I wanted to write down some of the times when I thought this, hoping that in a year, two years, or ten, it would be fun to read them and remember how much fun this is.

Lately the girls have been a lot of fun when I come home. I love asking about their day. It used to be that they just ignored my questions — probably because they couldn’t understand them. But now when I ask, “Piper — what did you do today?” I can usually get a fairly good response. It’s funny, though… Piper’s answers always start with “ummm”. She’ll say “umm… played with mommy.”

Lela’s answer are more to the point and quick. When asked the same question, she’ll immediately blurt out “played.”

I still get plenty of non-responses to those questions, so if it seems like one of those days I quickly switch to yes/no questions. “Did you play today?” “Umm…. yeah.” “Did you read books?” “Lela read books with mommy.”

One night, and I explicitly remember this because we were outside swinging in August which is quite rare, I managed to get an extremely detailed schedule of Lela’s day. It was hilarious. She went through the entire day of going to the library with mommy, coming back, eating, going to sleep, going swimming with Erin, and Noa, and Corbin (our neighbors), and even our current activity of swinging. And she wasn’t just rattling it off to me… she was enunciating clearly, emphasizing some points, nodding her head, and even using hand gestures when called for. I couldn’t stop laughing it was so darn cute.

Just last night when I got home from work, Piper immediately came up to me and pointed out the fact that she had a band-aid on the bottom of her foot. She said she stepped on something. I asked her, “Is it getting better?” thinking that I get the standard response of, “Yeah.” Instead, I got what I swear sounded like an impatient answer of, “no, not yet” as she walked away. Throwing a bit of attitude my way!

Some of the other times I get that feeling is when I watch the girls interact. I get a kick out of watching them play with each other, help each other, and sometimes just walk together.  Hearing Piper say, “is that ok, Lela?” in a quizzical tone just makes me smile.

That’s all for now… I better post this since it’s been sitting in my drafts folder for about three weeks now.  Lots has changed since then!

The girls’ imaginations have really kicked in lately.  It is so awesome to watch.  They will play for a couple hours sometimes using nothing but their imaginations.  They are really in to Go Diego Go right now and love to play like they are animal rescuers.  They will go around the yard rescuing Baby Jaguar from a waterfall and then Baby Bear from a tree, all the while rowing their boats away from the crocodiles in the lake, steering their cars (big boulders in the yard) with imaginary steering wheels that they got out of a tree.  I am amazed at what they come up with and how much fun they are having.  Makes you wonder why you even buy them all the plastic toy crap when all they need is a little imagination and some free time to use it.

Jason spent the better part of the morning the other day with Piper at the Mayo clinic getting another consult on her finger.  After two hours in an exam room she came out able to write the letter P.  He taught her to draw a line and then a semi circle.  It is so cute, I am not sure she realizes what she is/can do but even I was impressed.

Tonight I asked the girls if they wanted to take a bath.  They said no (my mistake for asking) and they said that I was stinky (meaning they were not stinky).  Then Lela proceeded to tell me that I was disgusting, which elicited a laugh from their father!  Now the only time we use the word disgusting is when Piper picks her nose and eats it, which is really disgusting.  But it just goes to show how they assimilated that word into their vocabulary and used it correctly, well not really correctly since I am NOT disgusting:)

Oh the things we teach our kids:)

Last night Landis did what she normally does during the day, she slept in three hour increments! Well really 2 hours 30 min or so but with the nursing it was 3 hour shifts. That is what I told her to do when we went to bed at 10:30 but little did I know she would actually do it:)

Also after the nighttime routine Landis has started to have an alert period that lasts a good 45 min or so every morning. The girls love it because she looks at them and Piper makes sure to get in to her field of vision if she can’t or won’t turn her head towards her.

I don’t know what she weighs but she is definitely getting bigger. She is out of her preemie clothes, they still fit but are snug, and is starting to fill out her newborn togs. The preemie clothes did not last long but it is nice to have clothes that actually fit your baby, it makes them look less scrawny:)