Thunder

We had some stormy weather tonight and told Matthew that there was thunder.  He then kept saying, "see thunder" ("fun-der") and wanted to look out the windows. We explained to him that you couldn't see thunder, you could only hear it.  But I don't think he quite understood that part.  He also wanted us to make it thunder again -- ah, if only Mommy and Daddy had that power!  :)

This morning, N asked Mattie what color shirt he wanted to wear, and he said, "Green."  Wow -- we were impressed by the amount of understanding that conveyed!

Speaking of colors, it was possible that James was saying "purple" today (holding a purple block), but we're not quite sure.

Mattie is picking up new words right and left, so we may have dodged a bullet this evening.  I was going through the mail when the boys were sitting in their high chairs, and opened a bill from the hospital.  We get bills from the hospital all the time, and lots of them are hard to figure out (it seems like every month or so they decide we owe another thirty bucks, or two hundred bucks, or something going way back to when the boys were first born, not to mention that there's always some charge from any appointment).  But they don't often shock me.  This one did.  I'm pretty sure it's a mistake (I hope so!), but it was for several thousand dollars.  I was just standing there looking at it, and apparently repeating a word that we wouldn't want the babies to use, until Mike finally said, "Please stop saying that in front of the boys!"  Luckily, I think they were too absorbed in their dinner to be paying attention to me at that point!

[The pictures are from the park on Sunday.  In the third one, Mattie wanted to go see the "circle" -- he remembered it from last time we were there and I had called it a circle!]

Not His Day

Today was supposed to be a lot of fun -- our first trip to the Durham Science Museum -- but poor Mattie did not have the best day.

It started in the middle of the night.  He wasn't sleeping well, so I had him in the bed with me.  I had a pillow on the other side of him to keep him from rolling off, which has always worked just fine, but last night he somehow managed to scoot down toward the foot of the bed and fall off the side.  I don't know how it happened, but he was not amused.  (Scared me to death, too.) Fortunately, he also did not appear to be concussed -- he was sitting up on the floor yelling, and quieted down pretty quickly once I picked him up, and I couldn't find any bump on his head (and he didn't throw up or pass out, so that's all good). 

Everything was fine in the morning and we did indeed go to the museum, which is really cool (lots of fun things to do both indoors and outdoors).  But at the very first exhibit we stopped to see, misfortune struck again.  The exhibit was about weather, including the platform in the first picture -- it didn't come out in the photo, but they have this smoke that forms little tornado formations for the kiddies to play in.  That part was all fine, he didn't get swept off to Oz or anything, but once he was back down on the floor, he had gone to look at something else and for some reason turned back and ran full speed into the platform, giving himself a bloody nose.  (Very strange!  The room was kind of dim so we think maybe the shadows just made it hard to see the platform.)

We made it through the rest of the trip without incident.  We thought the boys would nap well after the busy morning, but no -- neither one of them ended up falling asleep.  I had just put Mattie down for the second time when he started crying, and then started doing a strange-sounding cry.  So I went back in and he had managed to get his leg wedged in between two of the crib rails.  At that point we gave up on the napping and just took them downstairs to play.

Mattie was playing on the piano as I was relating all of this on the phone to Auntie Nora, and what does he do?  Slips sideways and hits his face on the corner of the piano chair.  (He's sat on that bench to play the piano a zillion times, and he's never done that before.) 

And then, moments later, James is playing on the floor and manages to somehow hurt himself, and not only that, but the crying makes him throw up. He recovered very quickly after that, but yikes!

So, we had early bedtime tonight, and are hoping for better luck tomorrow!

PS:  On the positive side, Mattie was bringing me foam alphabet letters this morning and telling me what they were, and he's added R and S to his list.  :)

Hey, Mr. Tamborine Man

In addition to his musical stylings, James was practicing his commando skills today.  The retractable canvas gate between the living room and the hall was closed but not locked, and James saw his opportunity -- he dropped to the ground on his tummy, turned backwards, and shimmied under the gate feet first, then popped back up as soon as he was out.  Little escape artist!

New words he may be saying: cheese, neigh (for horse), on and off (turning the light switch on and off; off is more "ah").   

Mattie and Jamesie say Happy Birthday to their cousin Quinny!

Delaying Tactics

We had a nice bedtime routine going, but the last couple of nights Mattie has started to throw some wrenches into the works to push back the actual going to bed.  He has figured out that saying he has to go to the potty will get him out of the bedroom, at least once. (The saving grace is that last night and tonight he actually then DID go to potty.)  But then he wants to see Dada, or Brother, or the moon, or something else.  I am probably a bit too lenient because I've let him do one or two of those before drawing the line and carting him back to bed. 

In other news, we had the great pleasure of visiting our friends and their newborn twins today.  It's hard to believe James and Matthew were ever that little!  (Or, in fact, much littler.) 

Now He Knows His A, Bs

Mattie correctly pointed out A and B on his letter quilt today (and he already knows C, D, E, M, O, 8, and 9). He's also added I and T to his favorite bathtub letters. The random selection continues!

Mattie is also doing a lot of two-word combinations ("Dada outside", "brother ear", etc.), and some three-word combinations, though I'm not sure they count as sentences: "brother cracker uh-oh", after James dropped his cracker, and "Elmo dog wet" after Stanley licked the Elmo doll. His funniest new word/phrase was yesterday he turned on the fan switch in the bathroom, said "fan round and round", and proceeded to turn around in a circle to illustrate. :)

Jamesie's new words are apple (with a fairly clear pronunciation), egg ("eh"), and bee (spontaneously when he found his bee toy). His developmental therapist said he also repeated "tall" when they were building a tower together. He's trying to say treat ("dee").

Yesterday, James was also matching up the balls with the colored rings on his boat toy (putting the green ball on the green ring, the red ball on the red ring, etc.), which was cool to see. He also did pretty well with the shape sorter toy in his therapy session today (where they have to put circles, stars, squares, and triangles in the right openings) -- a big improvement from last week, so he's really getting the hang of it, though there's still some trial and error.

One of the games the therapist was playing with them (Mattie likes to play with the new toys Miss K brings, too) this week was a version of the shell game, where there's a teddy bear hidden under one of a set of cups, and she moves them around fast and switches the cups around, and they have to find where the bear is. I told the boys that they were allowed to play this with Miss K, but that if anyone asked them to bet money on it, they should say no. :) (Next week: Three-card Monte.)

Life Skills

The boys like the new tent/playhouse that Grandma brought them, but they can't be convinced that going in the door is better than going in the windows. :)

We had another first this weekend: we went out to a restaurant, and were able to order a kid's meal that they could eat! (Grilled cheese with a side of applesauce, although only Mattie eats the applesauce.) It's quite exciting that they're at a stage where they can eat enough regular people food that we aren't totally sunk if we don't bring our own food with us somewhere. And also tonight, they figured out how to drink out of straws! Woo-hoo!

Sunday Times

Enjoy the print media while you still can, kiddo. :)


* Not actually the Sunday Times, but the Raleigh N & O.

Warm Welcome

The boys had an exciting day today. We went to a different playground (Wilson Park) to enjoy the nice weather. This park had sand to play with and a hill to climb, both of which were a big hit.

Then, after naptime, some friends came over to watch the UNC game, and James and Matthew got to play with their kids K and E. James had an especially good time with the older kids -- he was "hiding" in his corner near the bookshelf and laughed every time they ran by and "found" him.

And best of all, Grandma arrived! The boys were SO excited to see her -- they ran up to her right away and both demanded to be picked up at once. Then they wanted to run down the hall and have her get them, and no one else would do -- only Grandma! (And that was even before they saw the new toys she brought! James now has a stuffed Elmo of his very own.)

James's word for today is "shoe" ("ooo", no s yet), and he's also trying to say sock (but right now it's "da"). He's said "elbow" again, but is not quite clear yet on the elbow/forearm/wrist distinction. :)

Mattie can now point out the letters C and M (in addition to E and O) on his alphabet quilt, and maybe is doing D as well. I'm not sure how he chooses his next favorite letter!

Using His Powers for Good

Jamesie threw some Cheerios on the floor (see picture below), so Mattie ran into the other room, grabbed his broom, and started sweeping them up. What a helpful boy!

Of course, his other new trick for today was that he bonked his head a little bit, and I asked if he was okay, so then he bumped his head on purpose on the floor, ran over to me for a hug and kiss, then ran back to bump his head again, then ran back for a hug and kiss, repeat. :)

Too Tall

James is still under the weight limit for his infant car seat, but he's now above the height limit, so he gets to graduate to his toddler car seat! (We're a little sad to see the old one go, because the snap-in stroller that goes with it was so convenient. But we're passing it on to another good home, so that makes us happy.)

His new word for yesterday was "boat." (He repeated "off" and "arm" after us, neither one very clearly, but hey, you have to start somewhere!)

Cheering Section

Jamesie was already in the tub when Matthew went potty this evening. I said to James, "Mattie went pee-pee in the potty!" and James clapped his hands. :) What a nice supportive brother!

A few minutes later, Mike was sitting (fully clothed) on the toilet (with the lid closed), and James pointed at him and said, "Pee pee!" So, that's his new word for the day, along with elbow (repeated after we said it).

[Caption for the photo: "Today, on Paci Hoarders..."]

Fox

We saw a fox at the park this weekend (part of the animal exhibits, not running wild), and Mattie was having a lot of fun saying "fox" over and over again. Then, one morning when we were back home, he said, "fox" and ran over to the table, pulled a book (Baby Bear, Baby Bear) out from the bottom of the stack, turned to the page with a fox on it, and pointed to the fox! I was very impressed with his memory!

Mattie knows that things in books are just pictures, but sometimes when he sees something really exciting -- like a mop or a radio -- he grabs at it like he's trying to pull it out into real life. It's very cute. And when he sees something he doesn't quite understand he goes back to it again and again. In the Going to Bed Book (by Sandra Boynton, one of our favorites), the moon appears in the window in the later pages of the book, but not the earlier ones (because the story takes place as it's getting dark). He keeps flipping back and forth between the pages pointing to the window and saying moon (and maybe "no moon" but it could be "da moon"), and I tried to explain to him that the moon only comes up at night and the moon wasn't there because it was still daytime. He didn't seem convinced (and it's been harder to make my case because the past few days the moon actually has been quite visible during the day here.)

Jamesie's recent words are bug ("buh", pointing to pictures of a ladybug) and puppy, and he repeated "bee" after I said it. As part of the Hearing Loss study he's in, we had to fill out a bunch of questionnaires, including one that has us indicate which words he's saying from a long list of common early words. I counted up and according to that list, he's saying 47 words! That seems pretty good to me!

Sharing

The cousins did very well with each other on the most recent trip. Daniel was happy to let the twins play with his toys. The only one he didn't want them to play with was a rocket ship, and even then, when Mattie was playing with it, Daniel went to his Daddy and politely informed him, "I'm not sharing that." By the time Adrian figured out what Daniel meant, I had convinced Mattie to move on to something else. :)

Mattie still grabs toys away from James every once in a while, but it's less often, and usually when we tell him no and ask him to give the toy back, he steps away with it for a couple seconds and then brings it back -- it's almost like you can see him wrestling with really wanting the toy and then his self-control taking over and he's able to do what we ask. I think that's quite good for someone who isn't even two yet!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from James and Matthew!

James's recent new words are bawk (chicken noise), moon, and vacuum ("bak", just like Matthew). He's also definitely saying cracker ("da-der"). He repeated "owl" very clearly when we saw the owl at the park the other day. He is starting to sign two-word combinations of "more" plus something else. This morning it was "more baby" (more Baby Signing Time), but yesterday it was more and then a sign that I couldn't figure out -- but he was clearly signing something, because he did the same gesture several times in a row.

James is also much more interested in Elmo than I would expect from a kid who hasn't seen much Sesame Street. When we arrived at Nora and Adrian's, he immediately spotted an Elmo stool, and an Elmo toy, and happily carried around Daniel's stuffed Elmo for a while. And then this morning he pointed out our Elmo DVD. (We also have a couple of books that James and Matthew like about a patchwork elephant named Elmer. Mattie says Elmer, and I'm pretty sure Jamesie does, too.)

Mattie is doing well with his colors. He's reasonably consistent with blue and white (and says them very clearly), and I think he also knows red and yellow, although his words for those two are a lot less clear. He's added Q and Y and M to the list of letters that he can sometimes identify. He may also have said his first three-word sentence ("Mama, more rice.") and is doing more two-word combinations ("brother seat" for brother's seat; "Mama sit"). He tries to say "hearing aids", although I don't think you'd guess ever that's what it was just from hearing him! Other recent words include "Daniel", "Abby" (the dog), and "airplane."  And Uncle Adrian sang the first verse of "Wheels on the Bus", and asked Daniel what else was on the bus, and Mattie answered (correctly), "baby".

Mattie is doing so much better with going to bed at night, although I think he may be starting in on the delaying tactics. Tonight we were out in the living room and I told him it was about time for night-nights. He brought me a book and I told him we could go in the bedroom and read it ("no, sit") and so then he brought another one, and another one, and another one. No, we didn't read all of them!

And, I am so excited to say, it appears that we have switched Mattie from formula to milk! We forgot to pack his formula when we went to Nora and Adrian's, and since we had some bottles made up for the trip, we didn't realize this until bedtime. So we just gave him a bottle of regular (cow's) milk. He drank it without any protest, and even better, it didn't seem to upset his digestive system like it had the last few times we tried. So we just gave him milk all yesterday and all today, and so far, so good! Woo-hoo!!

Weekend

We spent a lovely weekend with Cousin Daniel (top picture), Auntie Nora, and Uncle Adrian. The weather was nice enough today for an outing to the park and petting barn!

(For the bottom picture: In James's view of the world, all the raptors are owls, so he is probably in the middle of saying "whoo whoo"!  Besides, we told him that bald eagles say, "I love America", and that's a little too advanced for him.)

FM and Numbers

James now has an FM system for his hearing aids. No, this isn't his own personal radio station! It's an attachment that's wirelessly linked to a remote microphone, so that he can clearly hear whoever is speaking. It should be particularly useful in noisy environments or when he starts school.

If you look at the big version of the photo (click on it), the FM is just the part after the little line on the hearing aid behind his ear -- so, it adds a little bit of length to it, but not much (maybe the width of my pinky).

The microphone part looks just like other wireless mikes, small with a clip to attach to clothing. It has a controller a little bigger than a cell phone that goes in your pocket. I anticipate that keeping that away from curious toddlers (who love phones and remotes) will be the most difficult part of the system. We haven't actually used it yet at home.

We had to go back twice to get it, because the first time they had one that didn't have a tamper-proof battery compartment. (That's a fairly important feature with kids, because the batteries are a size that would be easy to swallow, and if swallowed, they cause severe and possibly fatal internal damage.) I shouldn't complain, because a lot of people travel a lot further to come to UNC than we do, but it was annoying to have another hour or so sucked up with parking in the garage, sitting in the waiting room, etc. But, it's done now, so that's good.

James's new recent words are mouth, roar (for lion), and night-night. (He repeated "hammer" after me the other day, but I haven't heard it since then.)

Mattie said a couple of sentences this morning: "dada night-night" and "bird outside." Yay, Mattie! He's also sort of learning some numbers, or at least their names. He started with eight and then nine, and now he's on to six. I think I heard some fives tonight as well. (His main number enthusiasm happens with his foam numbers in the tub.) It's pretty funny because he loves E and so whenever he sees something with capital letters he wants to find the E. So he got to find the E on the cover of his bath book yesterday, but then he also wanted to find 8 and 9. No such luck! By the time we found a number book, he wasn't so interested any more.

James is pretty good at finding "O" but occasionally he'll point out a Q or an 8.

Dr. Teeth

The boys had their first dentist visit today. (I was a little surprised that the waiting room was filled with other kids not too much older than they were!) It all went very well.

The first part of the visit was going over the boys' history. One question on the information form was, "Were there any problems during the pregnancy or the first year? If so, explain." And then they only gave one line for a response. I had to laugh at that one. ("Here is a way in which we are different from normal people.") It was underneath the section where you check off various conditions in the medical history, so for James, I just put "Extensive; see above."

They did not seem too fazed by that, though, and in fact the staff seemed quite knowledgable about preemie issues. Both boys have some little mottling on their front teeth which is probably a preemie developmental thing (basically, that there was some interruption when those teeth were developing, where the body needed to focus on more important things). That shouldn't affect their permanent teeth, and the good thing about it being on the front teeth is that those are the ones that are easiest to brush and keep an eye on (although they don't expect any problems.) For James, they mentioned that there were some cosmetic things they could do if needed, but they didn't recommend it unless it became a problem (translation: unless kids at school were teasing him.) My guess is that it won't be noticable enough to be an issue.

All the staff there were really nice, and obviously experts at dealing with little kids. They started out the visit (after talking to me without the boys) with letting the boys each pick out what color balloon they wanted, and then the hygenist had a stuffed alligator and she demonstrated looking at his teeth before she looked at Matthew's. (Mike had James with a different hygenist.) She looked at his teeth and then brushed them. He was unhappy with it at first, but then I told him it was just like in his Sleepy Baby book (the Sleepy Baby brushes his teeth, and Mattie usually does the sign for toothbrushing at that point -- the sign is rubbing your finger along your teeth, so he gets the idea), and then we sang him the alphabet song while she was doing it, and he calmed down. Jamesie was less cooperative, so he only got the looking and not the brushing. The dentist gave them both a flouride treatment. And they got to pick a little toy out of the toy box.

Both of them are getting some more molars in. As we knew, James's teeth are coming in more slowly than Mattie's did, but they're all in the right sequence, so there's no problem with that.

The dentists didn't make us feel bad about our failure to regularly (translation: ever) brush the boys' teeth, but they gave us good encouragement about how to make it part of the routine. They also didn't seem concerned that the boys were still drinking bottles rather than sippy cups, so maybe I'll continue to not push that transition for a while. (The problem is that we probably have to go cold turkey with Mattie since he's still rejecting milk served in a cup, but we don't want to do anything with James that will reduce his calorie intake. I just can't see it going over well if James is allowed bottles and Mattie isn't.)

The balloons were a big hit for the rest of the afternoon. :)

That Furry Red Svengali

James's new word today? Elmo.

Super Kids

Our neighbors J and Y (and C and little sister E) joined us for the Super Bowl -- or, at least the pre-bedtime part of the Super Bowl. Matthew and James were quite excited to have a baby in the house, and of course, they always have fun playing with C. (Y's barbeque beef was also a big hit with everyone!)

We like both the Packers and the Steelers, but I was rooting more for Pittsburgh and Mike was rooting more for Green Bay. So Jamesie had the Green Bay colors and Mattie had Steeler colors, or at least approximations of those. (The division of teams for the twins mainly happened because the green & gold onesie fits James rather than Mattie.)

The little ones did well entertaining themselves while the adults watch the game and the commercials. We've gotten used to fast-forwarding through commericals, so it was a slightly hard habit to break. :)

Earlier in the day, it was finally warm enough to go back to the playground again. So nice to be outside for a while!

James's new words for today were gate, bear, and balloon. (Go, James! He was fascinated with the balloon displays at the grocery store.) He's also saying cracker, but it doesn't sound that much like cracker ("da der" maybe). Mattie's new words were moose and, I think, "over there."

Mattie's current set of bedtime stories is Sleepy Baby, Spot Looks at Colors, The Bedtime Book, and First Words. So he also says "words" to identify that last book. He's getting better with letters; Mike said he did "Y" and "C" and some others today in the tub. He keeps pointing out 3s and calling them E, but that's a reasonable mistake to make. :)

Mattie continued his winning streak with the potty -- two successes today, including one where he had a dry diaper, and one false alarm. (He's very happy and proud of himself when it works out -- so cute.) Of course, during one of those successes, his aim went a little wild and he managed to get both me and himself with pee! Ah well, such is the cost of progress.

Wee Wee

Mattie had another two successful potty requests today (him indicating he wanted to go and then actually going at least a little). Yay, Mattie! I'm kind of impressed that he's able to do that at all, since getting his clothes and diaper off to put him on the potty takes a little time.

Ha! You might have thought you were past the poo and pee-related updates on this blog, but they strike again. :)

We've given Jamesie the chance to sit on the potty (regular toilet with a baby seat on top), too. He's usually pretty fearless about physical stuff like climbing (a little too fearless for my taste, in fact, since his judgment about things like heights is not yet the best), but in this case, he's like, "No way! You might not have noticed, lady, but there's a big hole in that chair. Pick me back up!"