Starting Solids

We’ve tried cereal! It was a big event at our house yesterday morning, without much luck. Eventually, Patrick got the hang of it and started opening his mouth. Luke never quite did. We’ll try again today.

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Patrick: "I thought it was delicious!"

Luke: "Don't even try to feed me that stuff!"

P&L: "We'd rather just eat our hands anyway!"

My mother mentioned how funny it is that in most of their pictures, the boys are doing pretty much the same things with their hands. I guess I hadn't noticed, but looking back, it seems true.

The letter “O” seems to be the first letter Joe recognized. Now, every letter is an “o.” He brought me his canister of magnetic letters and said “O, O, O!” Joe is getting better about listening to longer books than just Goodnight, Moon. He can actually sit through the Berenstein Bears’ (as long as we read it pretty quickly) and he LOVES pointing out things in the pictures. It’s really amazing how much he knows that we didn’t necessarily teach him.

This picture shows how not to fight with an almost-two-year-old about getting dressed in the morning.

Luke rolled over! They hardly ever get tummy time because they hate it. It’s really just babies crying into the floor, then yarfing, then rubbing their faces in it until I rescue them and set them upright. It’s no wonder that he learned to roll over on his second tummy time venture. Luke also writhes and wiggles his way out of his car seat (not buckled in, of course)

We’re having a Rummage! For all those of you from KC, that means a garage sale (or garbage sale, as my sister calls it) We’re trying to get rid of lots of junk and random furniture that we’ve been holding on to for no good reason. It’s a little overwhelming. We can’t even find every thing that we want to sell, let alone price it and set it out. Wish us luck!

Hood-winked

Patrick, Joe and Luke posing for a shot

We’ve been hood-winked. Joe woke up from his nap very early the other day and I went back in to tell him it wasn’t time to get up yet. He kept holding his hands in the air and saying “Up! Up!” When he realized that this tactic wasn’t working, he said (in the sweetest voice he could muster,) “Hug, mommy?” Who could resist, really? I gave him a little hug, and he tried to climb out of the crib holding on to my neck. Needless to say, we let him get out of bed. I’m a sucker.

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Another little trick of Joseph's: He will say "kee kee, kee kee" until I ask "cookie?" (as in, "are you trying to say 'cookie?'") As soon as I say it, he exclaims "Okay!" and fully expects me to give him a cookie - as if I were offering! Clever little duck.

Dang. I never thought I would be one of those moms. “No TV for my kids,” I thought (and probably said.) Unfortunately, TV is such an easy babysitter. Mornings are a little crazy, especially if the babies need a bath or to eat before Joe is settled into an activity. It’s nice to know that Joseph is occupied as he watches Sesame Street, Caillou and “Barmey” – Barney. I’m so embarrassed.

The babies look at each other to fall asleep at night. It’s very precious. They haven’t figured out that they can look at each other while nursing yet. When they are close together, one will inevitable put the other one’s hand in his mouth. We’re not sure if they realize that they’re not chewing on their own hand.

Just in time for March Madness, Joe now says “get-ball” (basketball) “airball” and “Seesh!” (swoosh) We had to teach him “airball” after a game of mini b-ball with mommy. “Swoosh” came after playing with daddy, of course.

Joseph's Big Day

Today is Joseph’s feast day. We celebrated yesterday with a trip to McDonald’s for some pancakes after church. (If you want to go out to breakfast with babies, it’s pretty much your only option on Sunday mornings). After our nap, we took Joe to a little park to play. He had a great time climbing the stairs and walking across the bridge and sliding down the big kid slide. He didn’t seem to notice the cold – a balmy 40 degrees, but sunny. It was a lovely day.

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On Saturday, we all went for a walk. I snapped this picture because I though it was funny – three kids and no one was in the stroller!
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In case you were wondering how the babies are doing, Joe sums it up well: When asked, “What do babies say?” Joe responds, “Waaaa Waaaa!”

We can’t seem to figure it out, but ever since Scott got back from his trip, they’ve been kind of a mess. It’s been hard on both of us, especially in the evenings when they are the fussiest and when we both are in the most need of a break. It’s like they have colic again. Any suggestions?
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Joe loves coloring now. He mostly colors in his coloring books, but he surprised daddy the other day with a splash of color inside a book he had listed on EBay. Woops! He is also adding words to his vocabulary at an astounding rate. He is increasing his two-word combos, too (like “go Chiefs!” – where the heck did he get that one this time of the year?) He also went for a hair cut Saturday morning. He cried through the whole thing, but he didn’t squirm too badly.

Patrick's Big Day

We’ve decided that since Patrick has such a huge feast day celebration, we should celebrate all of the boys’ feast days. Joe’s is on Sunday (technically, celebrated on Monday this year) and Luke’s isn’t until October. We couldn’t really celebrate with Patrick, besides dressing him up and eating our fun St. Patrick ’s Day treat – Blarney Stones – in front of him.
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So, if you will notice, Patrick is not smiling in the picture. It seems that whenever I make a generalization about the babies and post it on the blog, it changes. (eg, Patrick smiles more easily) In that phenomenon (and hope, really) I have another generalization that I wouldn’t mind changing as soon as it’s posted:
The babies haven’t slept well since Scott got home from China. I was so proud of their long stretches at night, only getting up once, really. Now, it’s every 3 hours, without fail. Let’s hope posting this helps!

Goofing Around

Luke: "Um, excuse me... Could you please get off my lap!"

Patrick: "Mmmmph... Mmmmm..."

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Luke: "Hey, Patrick, smell your bib! (I can't believe he fell for that old trick!)"

"What? We weren't doing anything wrong?"

Joseph and I were singing “If you're happy and you know it...” He loves doing all of the actions. When he finally figured out how to stamp his feet, (kind of) he said "yay, Joe Joe!" Talk about some good self esteem.

I asked him if he wanted to play with the babies, he said “yeah!” so we played peek-a-boo, or “Ka-boo” as Joe called it. The babies loved it!

Joe has several new words including “hair-pane” (airplane – Aunt Janelle would be proud) and “Chee’s” when he sees Chiefs gear (all of the Uncles would be proud!)

Joe was requesting a CD by pointing to the radio and saying “hee-dee” so I put on his favorite one – the one that has his name in all of the songs, but that wasn’t what he wanted “Elmo hee-dee, Elmo, Elmo” I finally got the message – he has a Sesame Street songs CD that he wanted. When I figured it out, and he realized that he got across what he wanted, we were both very proud of each other.

Uncle Chris Visits

“Uckle Kees” (as Joe says, but not both words together) came to visit us for part of his spring break. He and Joe played football and watched a show about baseball, and we all went out for Mexican food. Yum! Thanks for coming to visit us!

It’s Girl Scout cookie time. Scott and I had three different young ladies to buy from, since we didn’t want to seem cheap, we ended up with nine boxes. Well, I must admit that I have absolutely no will power. The cookies have been disappearing at a rate of one box per day. How embarrassing. We've had to hide the remaining two boxes. We'll probably find them again in a few months and be so excited. I really thought 9 would be stocking up. :(

As frustrated as we get sometimes with Joe’s love of the word “no,” since he’s been able to say two words together, things have been better. It sounds so much nicer to hear “No, mommy” or “No, daddy” in a sweet little voice. (“Mommy” and “Daddy” are pretty new, too. That also sounds cuter than “mama” and “dada”)

His vocabulary is really growing. We’re so glad that he’s not afraid to try new words, either. For example, the word “poop,” which he said over and over when we were out to eat. Scott and Chris thought this was pretty funny, so I’m afraid we will be hearing it again, probably in church as with all embarrassing words. We play a lot of pointing games with books, and I’m always interested to see what he knows that I don’t realize he knows. The other day, I asked him to find the rainbow in a picture. We’ve never talked about rainbows, but he knew exactly what it was. He’s also starting to learn directions and some prepositions – “look under the table for your cup”, or “bring me the book on top of the sofa,” almost always gets the correct response. This is probably nothing spectacular, given his age and where he should be in his development, but it’s pretty fascinating for us to see it for the first time.

Tales from Packerland

What happened to my sweet little Joe? It seems that the terrible twos have come to our house a bit early. Getting dressed in the morning and for bed is now a big struggle, and Joe gets totally upset at the most random things. This morning, I think he experienced some serious jealousy when I dressed the twins in matching Packers outfits. Joe kept trying to pull one of the outfits over his head and threw it on the ground and whined in frustration. We had to dress everyone in Packers gear to make the morning go more smoothly

We think it’s wonderful that the twins already have preferences and different personalities. Here’s a little sampling:

Luke:
* More focused eater but takes him longer
* He’s a thinker – he gives us the serious face (furrowed brow, pursed lips) pretty often
* After having him in the Baby Bjorn for an hour, it was soaked through. Lots of drool! But he gurgles and blows bubbles with it usually
* Huge dimple on right cheek and more hair than Patrick
* Easily entertained with an interesting toy
* Relaxes when I rub my fingertips over his nose and cheeks

Patrick:
* He’s our talker. He’s taken to squealing with delight and making all sorts of crazy noises

* Doesn't really giggle or gurgle
* Smiles come more easily, although not in the above picture...
* He’s very interested in people and faces
* Fatter cheeks (maybe that’s where his right dimple disappeared to?)
* The baby that wakes up first for night feedings and in the morning is almost always Patrick
* Relaxes when I rub my fingertips over his forehead

Tonight, I bought Joe a potty chair. He’s been only slightly interested in watching daddy go potty, so we thought we would introduce his new piece of furniture early – just in case. He’s showing no other “signs of readiness” according to all of the best parenting books, but we thought it couldn’t hurt. I guess Joe liked his chair because we didn’t even get it put together before he insisted that he sit on it.

Our Day at the Domes

We took a trip to the Milwaukee Botanical Gardens in an attempt to cure Suzanne and Joseph's cabin fever. The Botanical Gardens consist of three large domes. One is an arid environment, the second is a rain forest and the third is a flower landscape and large model train display. The trains were Joe's favorite dome by far.

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Joseph, Patrick and Daddy waiting on the arrival of the next train.

Mommy and Luke pose for a picture.

Jeez Daddy, did you brush your teeth?

Joseph takes a momentary break from watching the trains to (unsuccessfully) get the attention of a lovely female patron.

We are currently receiving our (hopefully) last snow storm of the year. All in all, they are calling for five inches by morning. Grammie and Grandad told us that it is sunny and 70 in Kansas City. We are so jealous!