Words, words, words

The "verbal explosion" is in full swing for Jimmy and Katie, they are both learning new words daily and putting them together in new and interesting ways. Jimmy still does a lot of talking in his own language, with even longer monologues and more expression. Sarah is starting to make a few sounds that seem intentional, I think I've caught a couple of "mama"s, "buh buh buh" when someone leaves (combined with a little arm wave), and something that may be "more". Katie is really becoming our "little momma" more and more. She knows what the other two aren't allowed to do, and lets them know it with a stern "No! No!"

We're creeping up on potty training time. Jimmy and Katie are already fascinated by the goings-on in the bathroom, and with the contents of their diapers ("Poop?" "No poop in this diaper." "Tee tee?" "Yes, tee-tee"). One day last week Jimmy was looking out the window at the rain pouring down. "What's that?" Russ asked. Without hesitation, Jimmy answered, "Tee tee!" Also, whenever anyone, anywhere passes gas, Katie helpfully announces, "Poop!"

Sarah is becoming quite steady on her feet. She now sets off on her own walking, and often makes it halfway across the room before she loses her balance. It seems like she is making the shift from preferring to crawl to preferring to walk when she can and isn't in too much of a hurry (crawling is, after all, still much faster and easier).

We all went to a local fair over the weekend, and the twins spent most of the time out of the stroller. They had a blast collecting sticks, leaves, and pine cones, but were a little shy when people tried talking to them. It is getting easier to get out of the house with the whole family, especially now that Sarah is eating anything she can fit in her mouth. We have to be careful to give her small enough pieces for her to handle with only four little front teeth, as she will attempt to eat anything and everything (and Jimmy & Katie helpfully try to feed her all sorts of things, edible or not). We are also working with the twins on sitting in their seats at mealtimes for a little while before and after they actually eat, and on using plates and forks, all of which is coming along very well.

Bed time has just become a new adventure, as Katie has defeated the Superyard fence and can now climb into Sarah's crib at will. This makes Sarah very unhappy, and Jimmy too since he can't quite manage the climb himself. For now we have relocated Sarah to a pack & play in our bedroom, tomorrow night we are going to try her mattress right on the floor (with some pillows around it) and then it may be time for everyone to move into toddler beds at once. Thw twins have had one side off of their cribs for a while now, and they're fine that way, except that the mattresses are pretty high off the floor. They don't fall out much, but they do have a hard time climbing back in once they get down, especially Jimmy, so he ends up sleeping on the floor a lot. The toddler beds we're looking at are lower to the ground, which would make the up & down a bit easier on all of them.

There are lots of new photos on the March 2009 page and about six minutes of video that I pieced together from the snippets we captured through the month:

Big Sister, Little Momma

I was nursing Sarah in the (one remaining) comfy chair in the kids' playroom yesterday. Katie climbed up next to us, poked at Sarah's mouth a couple of times and said, very sternly, "No bite Sarah!"

I also managed to capture a few of Sarah's steps on video:


And, while I'm at it, the giggly block-stacking video I mentioned in the previous post:

First Steps, More Words, Eating, Sleeping

Sorry for the disappearing act, we're still here and doing fine. Shortly after my last post, I started going back to the office full time, four days a week (and diving into some new projects that have me working at home on my "days off" too). and the next thing I knew, the entire month of February was gone.

We have been busy at the house as well as at the office. The kids' playroom and bedroom, which were our old living room and bedroom, have new carpet and paint (after some minor, but much-needed repair work on the walls). Since the kitchen is relatively new, compared to the rest of the house anyway, we decided to just give it a fresh coat of paint and leave the rest alone. It's amazing what a new color on the walls does for the place!

We've also had quite a bit of work done outdoors, fill dirt, grading, walkways, and patio. The kids now have an outdoor play area, which is now their favorite place to be. We moved the Kangaroo Climber out there, added a sand/water table (no water until it gets a little warmer, though!), a couple of Cozy Coupe cars, and some balls & toys, and they love it. Jimmy and Katie, with their rapidly expanding verbal skills, now ask for "outside?" several times a day. Fortunately we have the weather for it, even in the middle of winter!

The twins are both picking up new words every day, it seems, and learning how to put them together to tell us things and (more importantly) ask for what they want. When we decipher what Katie is trying to ask us, she grins and says "yessssssss!" Jimmy still tells us a lot of things in his own language, but he is quite serious about it. He often comes up to one of us and runs through what sounds like several very important sentences before walking away. I wish I knew what his words meant!

They both have quite a collection of animal sounds -- when we read Goodnight Moon they chime in with "grrrrrr" (for the bears sitting on chairs) and "meeeeeeeow" (for the kittens). They are finally learning to put names to people too -- Mama, Dada, Jimmy ("Jee-ee"), Katie ("Kay-ee"), Sarah ("Sawa"). Sometimes they fight like crazy over a toy, a seat, or nothing at all, other times their bond is very apparent. One of those times is at night... they started climbing the cribs (into them first, but we realized that this meant they were also able to climb OUT just as easily), so we took the sides off and put a cushion on the floor for the first few weeks. At nap time they both sleep in their beds, but at bed time they start out in bed but more often than not end up on the floor (with all of their blankies, stuffed animals, etc.), curled up together.

Sarah is learning all sorts of things from the twins, sometimes a little too much (like climbing up on the little picnic table). She started standing on her own and taking a step or two a couple of weeks ago, now she's up to five or six steps in a row and standing for nearly a minute at a time. She also finally took to the sippy cup (we never did get her to take a bottle more than once in a while), which is how I was finally able to leave her at home with our (wonderful!!!) nanny and get back to work. She's now holding her own cup, taking two naps a day and going to bed at the same time as the twins, eating everything in sight by the fistful, and has two (bottom) teeth, a third that just came in (on top), and a fourth ready to make an appearance any day now. She is babbling up a storm, starting to wave and say bye-bye ("bah bah bah"), and she loves giving kisses!

I did take some pictures while all that was going on, a few more back in January and a bunch in February. There is also a new video in our YouTube collection of all three laughing at knocking down stacks of blocks.