Visit with Kelley and Brent

Friends Kelley and Brent and their son James, born 10 days after T&B, visited this morning. The boys did well playing parallel and sometimes almost together. There were no major tantrums or catastrophes, so we count the visit as a win.

More fun on Christmas

Great Christmas sweaters from Great Aunt Lucy. Plus goldfish as a mid-morning snack.

Horns and music makers, as well as a mini fire engine and dump truck, from Grandma Joanie and Grandpa Stu.

Theo has developed a new skill. When he would like something Beckett has, he has learned he cannot simply go over and take it from him. He has realized that trade often works better, and with less intervention from caregivers. So when he decided he wanted the fire engine Beckett was playing with, he brought over a dump truck to exchange. Beckett sometimes goes for it, but this time did not.

Uncle Jon and Theo enjoying some QT together.

Grandpa Stu coloring with the boys using their new washable markers.

Theo helping to open one of Grandpa Stu's presents.

Mid-morning on Christmas the boys were cranky and whiny. We went for a nice stroll and after checking out some neighborhood snowmen, the boys fell asleep. They slept long enough for me to shovel out the driveway from the plow.

Grandma Kathy and the boys playing with their new block set.

The morning after Christmas Beck got a little bit of a fever and just wanted some cuddle time with Grandma Kathy.

The boys and Mama checking out Farfaria, a new app from Auntie Clairebear that tells stories out loud.

New favorite activity: watching the plows go by, or watching Daddy snowblow.

Now the boys are too big to share one stool, so they each have their own station in front of the windows.

Theo explaining some stuff to Santa.

Post-Christmas post

Saturday we had a special visit from Grandpa Greg (and Uncle Jon). The boys squoze a little extra use out of those cute Christmas sweaters and enjoyed some reading time with Grandpa Greg.

This Christmas we here at the House of Lovebo (aka the Genoveses) hosted Christmas for the first time. Grandpa Greg and Grandma Kathy as well as Uncle Jon joined us from Johnstown and Grandpa Stu and Grandma Joanie came up from Ithaca. We had a full house, lots of holiday cheer, and a ton of wonderful food.

Mama bought this from a fellow Multiple Moms Mingle member a week ago but when she brought it home all it caused was tears and fighting because the boys both wanted to play with it. Fast forward a week, and Theo has wisely decided not to fight Beck for it. Beck now rides his VROOM all around the house. $5 well spent.

Great job not touching the Christmas tree, Beckett!

Theo playing with the hammer and balls.

Christmas table set for 9!

Christmas morning in front of the tree.

One of the most unique presents the boys received were two Y bikes. Theo's a little short for it yet but Beck enjoys walking around on it.

Beck and Grandma Kathy.

 Beck trying out his Y bike.

Mama's favorite parts about having 19 month olds

• The sense of humor. From playing peekaboo to mimicking us to teasing that they don't want (whatever it is they obviously want), I find them hilarious. One of my favorite things that Beck does now is to say "nah," and shaking his head no when he doesn't want something. It's just such a grown-up mannerism, it makes us laugh every time (which of course encourages him!).
• The helping. Parents who don't let their children help them with things are just doing themselves a disservice. First of all, kids from even a young age really want to be helpful. Second, they actually CAN be helpful. The boys can take the diapers off the drying rack and put them in the hamper, empty the bottom rack of the dishwasher and hand them to me to put away, put books and toys away, and clean their own faces after meals. It's great to see that they are gaining skills and self-confidence, and even better that they can start to pull their own weight around here!
• The working at language. Before he goes to sleep at night or nap, Beck sometimes just practices all his sounds. I can hear him say "pa, ma, da, thuh, ba" etc. from his crib. Both of them put things in front of me and point so I can name them again and again. It seems like every day or two now they each have a new word. New phrase of the day: brown bear, because of one of their favorite books.
• The routine. After so many months at the beginning when there was no routine, and no time I could count on that was my own, it is such a gift to know they will sleep for somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 hours each and every afternoon, and will go to sleep at 7pm and sleep until morning. For a little while a few months ago I was trying to encourage them to sleep longer in the morning without nursing, but the only achievement of that period was that we all slept pretty poorly from about 4am until 6am. Now the boys are back to waking up to nurse at 4 or 5 (sometimes 6), and then going back to sleep. Grandma Joanie reminded me recently that really does count as sleeping "through the night," since it is 9 or 10 hours of sleep uninterrupted at night. After nursing, they go back to sleep for a couple of hours. Theo has been pretty consistently waking up at 6:30, and Beck at 7:30 or 8.

Fun in the snow

 Yesterday Mama slept in and woke up to a winter wonderland. Luckily we had nowhere to go (except to pick up chinese food for dinner-the boys' first!) so we just watched the snow come down. We got about twelve inches all told by the end of the day. When the boys woke up from their naps Jeff went out with the snowblower and I bundled them up to go outside. 45 minutes later we were ready to go outside.

I dropped Theo down in the snow, Christmas Story-style, to see what he would do. He loved it. I kept offering to pick him up and he kept shaking his head no.

The snowblower was absolutely mesmerizing. The boys stood in place like this for a good five to ten minutes while watching Jeff do the sidewalks.

The boys tried out their Christmas sweaters and their only Christmas book, Llama Llama Holiday Drama.

Go kart adventure

Last Friday Daddy Lovebo and Uncle Jon and his girlfriend Rachel went go-karting at the new place at Destiny USA. The boys and I enjoyed watching the racers travel around the course.

They have this cool around about half the course so we could sit and watch the racers during their laps. This picture makes it look like the guys hated every second of it, but I swear, they had fun! We also had a nice lunch at Pizzeria Uno afterward.

Daddy Lovebo would like you to know that the reason the pictures are primarily of Uncle Jon is that Daddy Lovebo was going too fast to capture his image clearly. 

18 month checkup

Tuesday was the boys' 18 month pediatrician visit. After hemming and hawing since their last visit about giving the boys the varicella vaccine for chicken pox, we decided to let them get vaccinated. So today we did shot #2 for Hepatitis A and shot #1 of varicella. Theo went first, watched the needles going in, and never so much as whimpered. What a tough guy. Beck handled the first shot okay, and looked up at me kind of confused. When the second shot hit him, he was looking right at me--and screamed. But besides the shots, everything else went pretty well. The boys cooperated well with the measuring and weighing and examining. Theo has his yucky old diaper rash which may or may not be related to yeast or thrush or an infection. He has sensitive skin and gets rashes so easily, it makes me so sad. But Grandma Joanie's theory is that maybe they have a sensitivity to blueberries, which sometimes compose 50% of their daily volume of food intake. So we're cutting down on the blueberries and seeing how things go. Theo's still in about the 10-15th percentile for height, a little higher for weight and head circumference. Beck's at about the 50th percentile for height and head circumference, and about the 25th for weight. My question for Dr. Morisseau was whether the boys are retarded because they don't talk very much. Thankfully, she said no. She said that kids normally have about 10 words at this age, which means 10 verbal noises that mean something to them. We realized that with animal noises and sounds they make that aren't quite articulated words but mean a particular thing in their world, they definitely have at least ten words each.

We are Santa's elves, Ho Ho!

This hat (which was a present from Bryn's mother) won me first prize at my office Christmas party last year. Oh...and Beckett and Theo seem to like it too.

 

Jeff enjoying the Christmas tree he put up and decorated this weekend. The boys have been doing great with staying away from the ornaments. 

We all enjoyed a great visit with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Greg as well as great aunt Renee and uncle John and his GF Rachel. We also bought a train table (and trains, which they're not quite ready for yet) off Craigslist, which was a great find.

Theo also loves being pushed and pulled across the floor in the laundry hamper.

The boys enjoyed our singing holiday hats.

Theo loves the hook-on chairs we got for traveling. We had them out yesterday because we hosted neighbors Kristina and Will and their three boys (including 2.5 year old twins) for dinner. Theo's favorite thing is to get into the chair as best he can from the ground, then propel himself forward in it like a sled or something.

Dinner with four adults and five children under 5 was as loud and hectic as you can imagine, but there was no crying and no throwing food. In fact, after a good pause to take it all in, Theo and Beck ate well and enjoyed watching the bigger boys run around.