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!