Picking Food Up Off The Floor

The Boys are Two!

The boys turned 2, two weeks ago. I was hoping to put up a post that day…but…well, honestly, I’m just tired. By the end of the day it’s all I can do to clean up the kitchen and the yard and help Mike put them to bed. Lately I’ve been veging out in front of the computer watching TV shows like Veronica Mars, House, Heroes, and Criminal Minds. But now the season is over, so I read all my friends Facebook pages instead. Several of my friends with twins say 3 is the magic age, which in some ways is depressing since the boys just turned 2, but at the same time I don’t want to rush them through because this is also a really exciting time for all of us. The boys are learning so much, their language is developing, they are testing their limits (both those imposed by us and their own physical limitations), they’re super curious, and it’s so fun to watch these things developing. I only wish I had more patience and that they could figure out how to listen. I feel like a broken record some days, “Come here please”, “I said, come here “, “Come here now!” “1…2…at three it’s a time out…”, “Do not pull things off of the counter”, “Are you listening to me?”,. “No climbing up the drawers”, “No biting!”, “Are you allowed to throw your toys?”, “Stop screaming, are you allowed to scream?”, “Use your inside voice please” …on and on and on all day long. So, yes I’m exhausted, mentally and physically. But there are also lots of good things that happen in our day and the boys are really adorable, so I thought I’d give a rundown of what we’ve been up to lately, and what’s happened in the past year. Even in my exhaustion, I feel super blessed to have these two little guys in my life. It’s so amazing to me that two years ago this time, they were still in the hospital and we were fighting to bring them home. That in those two short years they have learned to roll over, crawl, walk, run, talk, climb, do somersaults, make music, color and fingerpaint, hit a ball with a bat, kick a ball, swing on big kids swings, count to 10, help make daddy’s coffee, pretend…and so much more!

Highlights from the past year

Bran was in the ER twice, once for losing the tip of his fingernail when Drew closed a door on it (thankfullly it’s healed nicely) and with a bout of pneumonia.

The boys went camping for the first time. We went to Banff with Jeffery and Holly.

They had their 7, 8, 9 ,10, 11, 12, 13, and 14th plane rides.

Went to Washington DC, SanFrancisco, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Ontario.

Spent a week with their Nana and Papa Bowling and Grandma Scott while we had a vacation.

What they’re doing now

The boys like to turn their food into things. Bread, cheese, and fruit, become cars, boats, diggers, trains, and firetrucks. Today Drew’s bread was a digger and then he put some rice on it so it would be “digging” something.

They help me make Mike’s coffee in the morning. You’ll have to ask him how it is. And yes, we’ve had our share of messes in the process.

If the boys burp, they are learning to say “excuse me.” But whenever they do have a burp they’ll start making fake burps so they can keep saying “excuse me.”

They love to say our neighbor, Connie’s, name. They call everyone Connie and every time they see someone next door, they point and say “Connie.”

We just built the boys a swing set. It has been so nice for them. It has 2 swings and a sliding board with a climbing wall. I’ve been building up my arm muscles pushing. The boys love to swing, but when I push I always have to sing either The Wheels on the Bus song, or a version I made up that has the same tune. I think the neighbors are probably getting tired of hearing it. Lately they’ve been sliding down the slide into their little pool. It has been ridiculously hot here. But, really I’m not complaining.

Andrew

Drew really likes to help feed the dog in the morning and at suppertime.

Drew likes to say the word, “careful.” Often as he’s going up or down stairs he will say “carefull” or if he has had a wobbly moment climbing, sliding, or whatever, he’ll say “whoa, carefull.”

His favorite thing right now is trains. I will often find him in the playroom, in the dark, playing with his trains. He also likes to store them in the refridgerator of his kitchen. No idea why. He has a Thomas the Train birthday card that he keeps around and sometimes if he’s sad he’ll carry the card around with him.

Andrew often skirts the line of misbehaving and you can see him plotting out how far he’s willing to go. He’s definitely the tester.

Drew says “Upa Me” when we wants me to pick him up.

The other day Drew came to me whining with a bulging pant leg in his overalls. I pulled out one car, then another, then another, until I had 8 cars! Five minutes later he came back again with 10!

Brandon

Brandon really likes to help me put away groceries. He says “helping” over and over as we’re putting things away. He also does this with emptying the dishwasher.

Brandon loves cars. He especially loves his toy cars from the movie Cars. He has Luigi, Lightning McQueen, and The Sherrif. His favorite is Luigi or Weedgie, as he calls him. Sometimes Weedgie has to go away for awhile. I’m not sure what it is about Luigie that makes Bran like him so much but whenever we watch the movie, he’s always asking where Weedgie is, or pointing Weedgie out. And he always carries Weedgie around the house with him. We have a special place we put him at night because he’s not allowed to take him to bed.

The other day Lisa took the boys to the playground and they picked some lilacs. On the way, there was a little girl crying in one of the yards they passed. Bran wanted to go and take her the flowers. He kept saying, “crying”, “lilac,” or something to that effect.

Bran runs right across the line of misbehavior and often finds himself in time out. It doesn’t help that he becomes obsorbed in whatever he’s doing and can’t hear you to obey. Sometimes I have to get right in his face for him to pay attention.

Bran is always wanting me to “pay cars” with him. He’s constantly coming up to me, holding out his hand and saying “walk” which means walk with me to my toys and play. He only wants to play cars. Playing cars consists of getting all of their cars out and their road and doing something with them. I’m realizing I’m not so creative in this kind of play. How many things can a car do? We get gas, have the car washed, drive up and down the road…the firetruck puts out fires, the cement truck fixes the road. It’s all real life stuff. When Mike plays cars, they build ramps and other fun stuff that I never think of. When Drew plays cars, he lines them all up like a train and then moves cars in and out until he gets them the right way. But usually Bran steals one or two from the middle and fighting ensues…

Bedtime

Bedtime is still a challenge, but naptimes have been mostly a breeze. Often Andrew will ask to go up for his nap before I’m even thinking about it. He usually goes up 20 minutes or so before Brandon because Bran doesn’t seem to need as much sleep. They both usually go down well. Bedtime is more difficult. We’ve gotten to the point where we do our bedtime routine, then we close the door and let them go. At first it was okay, they stayed up too late, but eventually it got shorter so that they were asleep between 8:30-9:30 (we put them down around 8:00). But lately they’ve really been tearing the room up. Already all their clothes are in baskets in our room. But now they’ve taken to pulling out drawers and jumping in them until the bottoms fall out. Once we went up and Brandon had staples from the bottom of the drawer. They climb both dressers (yes they are bolted) and have gotten things off of the top that we didn’t think they could get to. Tonight they ripped some of the wallpaper border off of the wall. I’m pretty certain they don’t get this from me. But they are learning to go to sleep on their own and there is less fighting at bedtime (as in us fighting with them). I guess we’ll just keep trying until we find what works best. I really do wish they were still in their cribs though. Tonight Bran managed to throw Drew’s soother out of their room (there’s a gate across the door), down the stairs and into the living room, the other times he got them half way down the stairs or into our room. If only there was a soother throwing competition we could sign him up for…

So now begins the Terrible Two’s?…gulp.

Posted under: Drew & Bran