Mama Bear is Born

Tuesday I had planned to take the kids back to the MOST but then remembered that it is closed Monday and Tuesday. Since it was cold and rainy and we'd be trapped indoors again all day I loaded the kids up in the car and headed back out to Great Northern Mall toddler play area.

I guess in the back of my mind I knew this day would come. I hadn't anticipated that it would arrive in this type of setting, or so early, though probably I should have. Mama (Bryn)Bear has emerged.

There were about four moms and one dad at the play area, with about 10 kids running around. While Theo and Beckett were running around I noticed one kid, a little ginger about 4 years old, hanging out at the top of the slide, curled up in a fetal position. It looked like he was trying to hide from his dad, or try to see how long it would take for his dad to notice that he was not visible from where his dad was sitting. (Unrelated tangent: dad did NOT notice that his son was missing because he was flirting it up with a mom on the other side of the play area.) I tried to model good communication by asking the little boy to move over ("Excuse me! Would you please move over so we can get by?") but he ignored me and made himself larger so there was no way for the boys to move around him. I asked again, to no avail. I started feeling angry as the kid obviously did what he could to obstruct the babies' path and openly disobey me. The next time I told him to move over, then physically moved him to one side of the slide by sliding him across the surface. He spread out again. By this time I was pretty mad. Theo just watched, looking at me and looking at the boy. I finally picked up the kid and stood him up by the side of the slide. That's when his dad finally came over to do something, and scolded the kid. He continued to be obnoxious by hanging out at the bottom of the slide so my boys couldn't go down without hitting him, and then he would make it difficult for them to stand up and move away. I was really impressed that both Theo and Beckett were watchful of him and patient as they tried to figure out what was going on. Later the boy pushed both boys and, while I stayed nearby wanting to go in and kick this kid in the face, Theo looked at him very puzzled, for a while, and then sighed and walked away. I was very impressed with my little guys and their walking away from a jerk. Not crying or asking for my help, just walking away. And for showing me the patience not to kick the kid in the head.

Around the house

We've spent a lot of time in the house lately since it's been so cold out. I haven't even wanted to take the boys grocery shopping because of all the time they'd have to spend outside just getting to and from the car. So the boys have had lots of opportunities to examine the books in the bookshelf and try out all kinds of acrobatics with their toys and other household items.

Theo got himself wedged in the pasta pot. I only had time to take one blurry pic before I had to help him out.

This Immanuel Kant CAN'T write for crap!

Standing on the vroom. The new biggest challenge. Beck is SO proud of himself.

Mo and Jim next door have a great little playhouse in their yard. It's become a favorite stop on the way home from our regular walk around the block, along with their sandbox.

Theo figuring out how to get himself into the laundry hamper as gracelessly as possible.

Theo somehow figured out how to get himself into the grocery cart without standing on anything to help. Beck then realized the moment was ripe for pushing his brother around.

Beck and Theo boning up on their father advice books.

Trip to the MOST

This morning we took our first expedition to the MOST, the Syracuse science museum. I didn't know what to expect because I haven't been there in years (and then only for an IMAX) but it is a great place for toddlers. And it's only 10 minutes away in downtown Syracuse. Even better: admission is free with our Ithaca Sciencenter membership, and we parked right out front for $1.25. It has an awesome climbing structure that goes at least three stories high, with an air gun that shoots squishy balls, multiple slides, climbing nets, and lots of other cool stuff. It was hard to get good pictures because the boys were rarely standing still and I didn't have great light. It was great to go on a weekday because my guess is that it's pretty busy on weekends and I'd be worried the boys would get stomped by bigger kids (though it's for kids under 4). My guess is we'll make it there at least once a week for the rest of the winter!

Eating us out of house and home

I thought we'd have until the boys were teenagers until we experienced what people have been warning us about since the boys were born: that we would be eaten out of house and home. When Grandma Joanie and Grandpa Stu bought us a new fridge and put the old fridge downstairs, I said, we won't need THAT for a while.

Fast forward one month: now we do. Last night we got our regular order of two calzones from Pizza Pizzaz down the street. I got to eat about half of mine because Theo and Beck ate so much. They would have eaten more but Mama wouldn't share more than half. Last weekend the boys ate tilapia, roasted potatoes and broccoli along with us, then ate two and a half bananas and five clementines between them. What the heck?!? They regularly eat normal adult-sized bowls of cereal with about a cup of milk each. We're now buying as much whole milk as skim milk (what the adults drink)--more than a gallon a week. Today at lunch I made a box of Zatarain's black beans and rice (supposed to be 4 adult servings of rice and beans) and I had to eat a snack after I put the boys down because they ate so darn much!

First game of catch

They could have chose something less dangerous to throw at each other, but it's the thought that counts.

Theo taking off his shirt

We have possibly been watching too many live Usher shows with Theo. Taking off his shirt has become a major hobby.



For reference, a video of live Usher show:

20 Months: Developmental Update

Speech
Beckett is busting out with new words all the time. Theo tends to wait until he's totally mastered a word, then says it to me for the first time. Example: the first time he said "num-nums" it was the most perfectly articulated word I'd heard. Theo also says Mama, Dada, Gaga (Grandpa or Grandma), mail, mailman, milk, bear, bang, boom, more, milk, dog, cat, and a myriad of animal sounds. Beck says boom, bang, star, go, car, excavator, bear, accident, milk, more, num-nums, buh-bye, Mama, Dada, Gaga, cup, cat, lawn mower, sock, ant, apple, and probably some others I'm forgetting. It seems like they are in the midst of  a vocab explosion and it sometimes takes me aback when they bust out with a new word I've never heard.

Motor Skills
Theo continues to be more of a physical risktaker, and Beckett continues to be a little clutzy. He still falls over from a standing or walking position at least once a day. (Hence the learning of the terms "boom" and "bang.") They have just started using their Ybikes a little more all the time, though I actually have them hidden for the next week or two as part of my toy rotation. Beck especially is very interested in rolling trucks, cars, and construction equipment on any surface while saying "vroom." Theo likes to figure out how things work, and likes to push buttons, so he is often found sitting in one place pressing every button on the phone or a remote, or examining the wires in the back of the TV and assorted accoutrements.

Sleep
After a wretched weekend while Daddy Lovebo was in Philadelphia for his Temple program, this week the boys have much improved their sleeping. Since they seem to be more lively in the evening now, and like to run around and play for a while before bed, I have been putting them to bed closer to 8pm now. Every other night they seem to sleep from 8-6, straight through with no wakeups. Sometimes they still wake up closer to 4 or 5, nurse and then go back to sleep. On the mornings they sleep straight til 6am, they will often go back to sleep after nursing, which gives us another half hour or hour of sleep (or a head start on the morning if we're both going to work). This is much more reasonable and though we still don't know why they do what they do when they do it, I feel good about letting them find their own rhythm and knowing when it was time to sleep more consecutive hours of sleep. They are also pretty consistently napping 2-3 or sometimes 4 hours in the afternoon. When I'm with them I put them down around 1:15  and they sleep til at least 3:30 and often closer to 4 or 4:30, sometimes 5pm. When my parents and Mindy are here, I think they are usually put down earlier, closer to 12 or 12:30, and they sleep for two or three hours. They are still a little crankier in the late afternoon/early evening than they are in the morning--more fighting over toys, more whining--but overall they are in really good spirits most of the time.

We've had some fun times with friends lately.

Bob and Ana's son John (almost 1) pushing Beckett on the vroom!

Preston, still eating dinner, entertaining Theo and Beckett from his highchair.

Jess reading to the boys. She walked in and it was like everyone else disappeared--they LOVE her!

Theo and Beckett reading independently, together, on the floor.

 

Beckett helping Mama bring groceries in to the kitchen from the foyer, using his vroom.

Theo and Beck on the couch reading together.

 

Cereal and construction vehicles

The two biggest hits of the last week are: eating cereal and playing with the excavator, bulldozer and dump trucks (and reading about construction vehicles in our new favorite book, Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site.

Oh--one more funny thing about the zoo I forgot to mention. Every time we arrived at a new animal pen, the boys would, almost in unison, say "more!" Like the bald eagle or red wolf or penguin wasn't enough, they wanted MORE. Darn hard to please kids.

 This morning we went to the play area at the Great Northern Mall, about 35 minutes from home in Cicero, north of Syracuse. I had heard good things and hoped that it would be a good play spot for cold or rainy days. It turns out it is a toddler-only play area with lots of fun stuff for the boys' size and age. All the structures are made out of a cool smooth but also soft material, and you have to take your shoes off to go in so everything is tidy and clean. The boys LOVED it. There were lots of other families there but for the most part everyone played well together.

Preparing to go down the slide tandem.

Theo sitting on a dragon.

Beck climbing into the bear's lap ("Behhhr!")

Theo spinning the wheel of death. Just kidding. No death.

The base of the slide has a tunnel to climb through, which Theo loved exploring.

All in all, a great field trip that we will probably repeat many times this winter. The mall is also next to a BJ's so I can imagine hitting up the BJs and then letting the boys run off some energy at the playspace before getting back into the car for the ride home.

Beck hasn't thrown up since early Tuesday morning, and Theo hasn't yet. The boys have both had some diarrhea yesterday and today but they have smartly avoided much food and have been drinking lots, so they have remained in good spirits. We may be rounding the corner because they both ate pretty well at dinner tonight. Nothing crazy, just crackers and some cheese and water, but they did eat a good quantity.

They are playing with each other a lot more lately--chasing each other, playing peekaboo, and playing lots of games that I can't understand but seem to make them laugh a lot while grinning at each other. They also seem more and more concerned about the other. If I offer food to one, he usually will point at the other like I should offer some to his brother, too. Theo also does this funny thing when Mindy is telling me (when I get home from work and she has been with the boys all day) about what they did, and then "tells on" Theo, something that he did that was funny or mischievous, and he looks at her like, "lady, why you telling on me??"

This morning, because it was a balmy 40 degrees and because we were already in the car to go to Time Warner to get a new cable box and remote control, I took the boys to the zoo. I had planned that we might stay inside rather than doing the outdoor route, but then it really wasn't very cold or windy and the boys seemed into looking at the animals, so we did the whole trek around the zoo. There were hardly any other people there except another mom with twin boys who for some reason I couldn't stand and kept trying to get away from but it felt like she was following me until we escaped outside. We had the tigers all to ourselves. In fact, we had ALL the outdoor animals all to ourselves. The animals were very active, and we saw some animals I've had a hard time even spotting before. The lynx was pacing around his cage, the grey wolves appeared to be herding each other and trotting around, the penguins were swimming lazily about like always. The monkeys, fennec foxes and meerkats were the biggest hits with the boys because they move so much and because they are behind glass we could get so much closer. Some kind of monkey had a baby about a month ago and it was awesome to watch the mama cradle that little baby monkey. The snow leopards, twin boys born last June and their mom, were chasing each other and pouncing while their mother looked on. Here are the tigers we saw up close and personal. The tiger triplets were born a few weeks before Theo and Beckett and are now so big that I can't tell which ones are the babies and which one is the mama.

I continue to be immensely grateful to Mindy for taking such great care of our boys, for being flexible when I need to switch up her childcare days, and for allowing them to stay home with someone they trust and love when they've been sick.

Quick update: Beck has a stomach bug, both have rashes on their faces, and Theo has a raging diaper rash. Last night Theo woke up at 2:30 or so to ask for a diaper change (a semi-common request). Beck then got up, after I put Theo back down, to ask for a diaper change. When I put him back down he made a strange sound like something wasn't right, and I felt around his crib and realized there were two separate piles of vomit on either side of his head. He hasn't thrown up since and has been eating to some extent this morning. He first threw up in the early morning Monday sometime after nursing, then threw up on Mindy's son Jared Monday afternoon. Since the vomit in the night last night I haven't seen more. We'll see. I went out to buy disposable diapers and Desitin this morning to try to finally beat Theo's diaper rash, which has been very bad these last few days. I'm now hand-stripping the cloth diapers that have been marked up with diaper ointment residue. I've called the pediatrician about the nondescript rashes on their faces, torsos and necks....

 Daddy and Theo enjoying some cuddle time.

Beckett (with brownie on his face) enjoying pushing his friend Aria (Stacey and Joe's daughter) around the house on his vroom.

The boys showing off their awesome Syracuse Fire Department temporary tattoos. Our neighbor Ryan, a city firefighter, came over Wednesday to bring us dinner--his delicious signature macaroni and cheese--and also brought the tattoos. Needless to say, he was a BIG hit with Theo and Beckett.

Theo on the phone, probably checking his messages.

Beckett helping Mama with some cookie baking.

Beck loves to use the dustpan and broom to clean up our floors. He also usually opens the garbage and dumps the dustpan in, just like Mama.

The boys are working on a lot of new words and sounds. Most notable recently are "popper," "baby," "yes," various attempts at "vacuum," "boom" (most often used by Beckett, while laughing, to describe what happened when he fell down) and "bang," used by Theo while hitting his hand on a wall.

Fun times post-Christmas in Ithaca

Grandma Joanie reading those great big books to Theo and Beckett.

Auntie Alexis came over for a visit the Friday after Christmas. We had a great day of eating pastries, drinking wine in the middle of the day, and playing with the babies.

Beck and his favorite Christmas toy, Hip Hop Randy.

Another favorite Christmas toy, a xylophone. Theo especially loved the sound of banging the keys.

The boys enjoying their new spatulas from Aunt Teddy the chef.

Beck trying on his new fire hat.

 

Saturday we enjoyed a great visit with the Parkes family. 

Nick reading to Beckett and Benji playing with both Theo and Beckett at the same time. At some point when breakfast was over Benji disappeared to find the babies and I found him here, playing with them in the doorway of Grandma Joanie and Grandpa Stu's bathroom. He was playing a kind of coaster hockey with Theo on the floor in the hallway while at the same time playing peekaboo with Beckett behind the pocket door to the bathroom. What a champ!