Our Kids

Clumsy…..that is what Piper has been lately. I don’t have any confirmation but I suspect she is in a growth spurt. We have not made it through one day this week where she has not fallen, run in to something or banged her hands on something. Either she is growing or she needs glasses (which is a possibility). I suppose I will keep watching her and see, I could measure her too but that sounds like so much work, LOL!

Day two of school went well, they really seem to like going. This is the first class we have taken where they don’t beg me not to take them 3 hours before we go. The teacher, Ms. Maria, is really nice and they seem to have fun. Today they colored pictures and made apples with glitter leaves….what’s with the glitter (it is such a pain cuz it ends up everywhere:). Anyway, stay tuned for more tales of bonked noggins or googley eyes:)

Well the girls started their first day of “preschool” yesterday. I put it in quotes because it is more like an arts and crafts class with a trip to the library and a snack thrown in, but they liked it. They get their name tag and they are in a class with 10 other kids, 9 girls (another set of twins) and one boy. Everyone says it is good for them and they seem to like it so I am okay with it. They are not learning anything like letters, numbers or whatnot this is more for social and fun.

Landis has just had probably the worst week of her life. Poor little bugger had high temps 102+ and was lethargic for days, on top of that her two top teeth are struggling to come in, she had runny poo, could not nurse and then after the fever a rash broke out. She was generally pissed off but seems to be coming out of it now. The rash is still here but should go away soon, it is aggravated by heat and it is STILL hot here but cooling down. At least the rash does not itch or bother her, just looks bad on her beautiful skin. She is a trooper though and such a big girl.

Now on to the swimming. After a couple years being around water Piper is getting really confident, too confident in my opinion. She gets so excited and confident about swimming I think she might just hurl herself in to the deep end and she is no where near ready for that. So I think we will go today and check out the swim center that just opened near our house. Lela is not ready for classes so we will wait on her, she actually “pretends” to swim and holds her breath and moves her arms above water in her tube (so cute). My thought is that if she is getting that confident around water she needs to learn some strokes. More on that later:)

We went to our first big show with the girls. This Friday Jason took the day off and we went downtown to see a show, Walking with Dinosaurs. We were a little nervous because it is touted as a real dinosaur experience and we thought the girls might be scared. We do a lot of dinosaur activities and the girls really like them even calling many of them by name. We spent the last couple weeks talking about dinosaurs and the show in general and the girls seemed excited the morning of.

When we got there and into the arena I was a little concerned because it turned out my kick ass seats that I got at a steal ($15 for $50 tickets) were in the third row! That means we were up close and personal with these giant dinosaurs. It turned out to be an awesome experience for us all. Jason and I really enjoyed the show and the shear size and realistic details were totally cool. Piper would shout out the names of the dinos and Lela did too but she had her ears plugged with her fingers for the whole two hours! Landis was there too and slept through the gigantic TRex that was right over our heads roaring so I guess she liked it just fine too:)

The girls did great and I have high hopes for our symphony tickets for this season, we may even get crazy and throw in a few plays!

Soccer started this week for the girls. They did really well, I was surprised at how many parents stayed out there with the kids so it made it kind of crowded and crazy. Jason stayed on the field with the girls and did the activities for them for the first half of practice and then he pulled back. They did super dribbling down the field and scoring goals. We will see how it progresses but after 40 min (the class is 45) they were done with soccer, it was pretty hot out there so I can’t blame them. By the time practice was over I was sitting in the air conditioned car waiting for them with Landis (I am such a wimp).

Landis is getting her two front teeth at the same time. She is going to be so cute. You can just see them under the gums. Her gums are very swollen and soft and I think one little place is poking through the skin but you can’t feel anything with your fingers. We figured something is going on because she sleeps for about 5 hours and then is up every hour after that. I don’t think we had the 5 hour stint last night because she was up almost every hour from 11PM on. She isn’t fussy just wakeful. We are using a Baltic Amber Teething necklace and I don’t know if it works or not but she doesn’t have a fever and she doesn’t seem uncomfortable from the teething. The girls were both very good teethers too so it might just be coincidence.

Speaking of the girls, Landis is so different from them as babies. It might just be because she is watching them all the time and is way more adventurous. She loves to get on the trampoline and bounce up and down, she also likes to climb in her bouncy chair and bounce. She will crawl up on anything and this week we found out she can climb up the girls slide using the slide side all the way to the top. She is quite the little daredevil and is quick when the bathroom door is opened, she can get to the potty before you can close the door.

Another thing she is doing lately happens when she is sleepy. When she is sleepy she will go to the nearest pillow and put her head down and then just lay there and smile at you. She will then sit up and lay down again and again, it is super cute. I wish that she would then go to sleep but alas that is not happening….yet. She is a great peek a boo player. She will hold whatever object you give her in front of her eyes and then pull it away when you ask her where the baby is.

I think she is going to hear this a lot, “xx is not for eating” where xx is pretty much everything except food. LOL! She still loves to put everything in her mouth so you have to watch her like a hawk. Good thing the girls still eat really healthy because often times you will find Piper feeding Landis little bits of food. The other morning I came out and the girls were seated at their little table eating breakfast and Piper had made a little pile of food on the table for Landis who was standing at the table eating with them. It was a Kodak moment but of course I missed it.

We have a regular romper room in the front room of the house. The heat is still in effect here in AZ so we set up a trampoline, slide and tubes to crawl through this week. It was lots of fun and managed to keep the girls entertained off and on. One time we were sliding and Lela slid down and told me her that she hurt her armbow. I said, “your armbow?” and she said “yes.” She then proceeded to point to her elbow which she affectionately called her armbow….how cute:)

The other night I was serving up the surprisingly easy and lazy dinner of tofu hot dogs with buns, oven roasted broccoli and oven roasted sweet and russet potatoes. Now Lela takes after her Grammie Kathie and LOVES her some potatoes. Lela proceeded to fix her own food, something she does on a regular basis these days, and she took all her potatoes and put them in her hot dog bun and ate it like a potato sammie. It was so cute. She also ate her tofu dog and her broccoli but her sandwich took the cake:)

I am all for the eat when hungry approach to raising kids. Our kids still eat when hungry and often times don’t join us for dinner or join us and don’t eat. Today was obviously a hungry day for them after a few days of not eating much at all. Both of the girls ate all of the following today:

Bowl of cereal (Puffins for Piper, Cheerios for Lela) with 4 strawberries
6 oz spinach smoothie (bananas, strawberries and spinach blended)
1/2 piece whole wheat toast with peanut butter and 1/2 cup grapes
1 cup of Chinese cabbage salad with chickpeas and 2 vegetable egg rolls
1 cup of watermelon
8 animal crackers
1/2 cup of snack mix (raw cashews, almonds, raisins, cheerios, pretzels, sesame sticks)
1 cup air popped corn
1/2 cup peas, 1/2 cup corn, 1/2 of a sweet potato
1 cup of broccoli, steamed
1 cup of soy yogurt
8 oz of soy milk

Good lordie be those chits were hungry today:)

Ok, I’m surely going to jinx things by writing this, but…

Mystique rocked today’s round of tantrums. We’ve (obviously) been talking a lot about them, what to do, why they happen, etc… We tried something a little different today that seemed to work with Lela especially. When she (in her opinion) was wronged and started to throw a fit, we removed her from the situation by taking her to a “safe” place. Most times that was her bedroom. We (Mystique) explained what we were doing and when she wanted to be a big girl she could come out and finish things up. Until then, she could stay in her safe place.

When Lela came out she was sniffling a bit, but she did what was right. In one case Lela didn’t like the color of the bowl that her food was in… she, of course, wanted whatever bowl Piper had. When she came out after her safe-place-stay she quietly got her bowl of food and sat with us at the table. We welcomed her to the table and commented on how nice it was to eat lunch with Lela, hoping the positive reinforcement would help things.

Just now as Mystique was getting the girls ready for bed we had another episode with Lela — the toothpaste thing again. Lela went to her bedroom, Mystique finished up with Piper, and as Piper was just about done, Lela again came out from her room and asked to put her toothpaste on again. Mystique let her know the rules and Lela did it just fine.

It was great. It seems so simple but that’s what parenting is — removing the complex to get at the basics.

I had the day off today and it was an awesome day with the family.