Josiah Update

Our sweet Josiah is at present battling a little cold, that for the 1st couple of days attacked his voice and caused a really croupe-like sounding cough as well as caused some breathing issues for him. We were told when he was a baby that when he gets colds that he develops asthmatic symptoms. We used to give him breathing treatments when he was very young to help with that. As he got older though, he started to refuse them, and it was more of a battle to tie him down to take them and made his breathing worse because he was crying and fighting us. Thankfully, he doesn’t get to the point of NOT breathing, but rather it just sounds funny and generally improves if I take him outside and also gets better as the day progresses. It mainly seems to crop up at night or in the early morning it seems. I have been running a humidifier in his room to help, but I plan to keep a close eye on this for the future as he may need to have an inhaler at some point. Asthma runs in the family on my mom’s side.

Here is Josiah in his “Think, think, think” pose like Pooh Bear. The other day in the car, he said to me, “Momma, why are Gordon and James mad?” (They are steam engines from the Thomas the Tank Engine shows.) I told him I didn’t know. Then he said, “I know why they are mad…’cause they’re undinified and croff.” The translation from 3-year-old to adult is "because they are undignified and cross!" And for those of you who have little boys and have watched the show, then that last line should make you laugh. Another line from those shows that always makes me chuckle is to say from time to time, “You have caused confusion and delay!”

Josiah is posed here in front of his rock mountain that he made. He loves to create things now and builds train tracks (that sprawl all over his room and don’t necessarily connect) and takes apart and re-creates various Lego cars/buildings. His new favorite movie for the time being is “The Pirates that Don’t do Anything.” At one point in the movie, the character, Sedgewick, encounters a giant pile of his favorite snack food (cheese curls) and decides to stay and hang out there instead of continue on in the adventure with the other two characters. Just as Sedgewick is ready to eat one of the curls, it comes alive and screams really loudly and then the whole bunch of them start chasing Sedgewick out of the cave. Josiah gets a huge kick out of this and thinks that the “squeeming cheese cools” are funny.

He also has been singing a lot more lately and some of his favorite songs are “The Itsy Spitsy Spider” (yes he sings it that way…so cute), “Spongebob Squarepants” (we get the beginning phrases of this one and lots of mumbles for words he doesn’t know, but he sings it with gusto!), “The Pirates that Don’t Do Anything,” and oddly enough I heard him trying to sing with the KidsBop CD commercial the other day. Speaking of commercials, we were watching the Nick Jr. channel, and between the “shows” there was a commercial for “Space Bags,” which is of course geared to the adults that are watching with their kiddos. He looked at me and said, “I wish to have Space Bags, Momma.” Just imagine his face when on his birthday he unwraps a few Space Bags. Do you think he will like them? Another funny thing is when there are girl toy commercials, I tease him and say, “Do you want a My Little Pony, Josiah?” He says, “No, I want that for Hailey.” She is my friend Melissa’s daughter. Note here that he still WANTS the item, just not for himself.

The other day Grandma got him the “Lightyear Blimp” named “Al-Oft” (get it?) from the Cars movie. That was his favorite toy for a few days and he went around flying his “blump” from place to place. We corrected him a few times to say “blimp,” but it was just so funny to hear him talk about his “blump.” He is such a sweet little boy and I feel priviledged to have him be entrusted to our care on this earth.

Twin Update

Daniel has recently been showing himself as a mechanical genius. He knows how to open the front door (when not bolt locked that is), unscrew a cap off a bottle, turn on and off switches on various appliances (under supervision of course), can open the piano cover (which usually requires an adult with two hands on it), can close doors, push buttons, you name it! I will definitely have to keep my eyes on this one as he is just too smart for his own good! Josiah didn’t even attempt to do doorknobs it seems until he was around two. This Daniel boy isn’t “officially” walking yet and he can do all these things! Sheeesh! He also is trying more and more words as well. I tried to get him to say “all done” after his meal and he says “AH-DOO,” with the same inflection as my “all done,” so he is doing really well!

Caleb is our sneaky escape artist. We always joke around that he is so observant about things in order to see where his nearest escape routes are, and then he attempts to go for them. We block off the front of our living room with a gate, but there is a chink in our defenses, as he has found he can crawl underneath the fireplace area around the chair and under the table on the side of the chair to make his way to the TV and all the yummy-tasting remotes. We blocked his entrance with pillows one day, and that kept him out for a while and then he discovered he could climb on top of the fireplace area and then down underneath the table, bypassing the pillow blockade. Sheeesh! He is still very determined, and yet so sneaky about getting what he wants! When it is quiet and you don’t know where he is…look out! He is very much so a Daddy’s boy, as he just LOVES his Daddy! Whenever Daddy comes home, he giggles with delight and nearly falls over with excitement. Caleb climbed in the recycle bin box the other day and discovered the new fun game, to have Daddy or Mommy push he and his brother around in the box. Many gleeful sounds are heard in our home when the babes are being pushed around in the recycling bin.

Here are the twins together chillin’ on the bench outside. If you look in the archives under July 2008, you will see a comparison shot of them sitting on the bench then as compared to this one here. They have grown so much! As you read above you can see that together we truly have some double trouble though! Caleb will find the escape route and Daniel will manipulate all technology and/or mechanical objects in the way to aid in their escape. Yikes! Thankfully they have a big brother who alerts me with the loud “Uh-OH!” whenever they are doing something they shouldn’t. Hopefully that trend will continue as they grow up!

Developmental Check-Up

We took the boys to a re-check visit at the Neonatal Follow-up Clinic at the hospital. They wanted us to come back to make sure that Daniel was progressing well in his motor skills. As it turns out, he was more advanced (just by a little) than his brother, so all is well for the boys. We will be taking them back there for a full check-up in August when their adjusted age will be 18 months.

The new fun thing to do around the house is to play the piano. I have the living room set up now, where I have blocked off the TV area with the gate and the piano bench holds the gate in place (since they can now figure out how to move the gate if it is just laying against a chair). This means that the piano doesn't have the bench in the way and Daniel is usually the one to open the piano cover and start playing. Oddly enough, usually the piano cover requires too hands to open because it tends to get stuck on one side, but somehow this little 15-month old finds a way to open it anyway. This picture above is a common scene now and once Daniel starts playing, Caleb comes over too and they push each other to one end of the piano and back again as they play. Our dog, Echo, howls and whines as they play. She doesn't like it when the piano is played, even during my lessons! I find it ironic that we have a dog who hates the piano, when I teach on it most everyday. Thankfully though, she is very tolerant of the boys and for that I am grateful.

Caleb loved these little flipping blocks on the wall at the clinic, and was VERY excited to get down and start playing with them. He is our very observant little one and is very aware of his surroudings at all times. If he hears or sees something interesting, he is off in a flash to find it and check it out for himself. If his plans to find that something are thwarted, (ie: Mommy or Daddy jumping in to remove the usually unsafe something) he flops on the floor in a very dramatic way and cries very loudly and pitifully hoping we will return the item to him that very minute. Needless to say, the whole scene doesn't convince Mommy or Daddy to let him have it. He isn't quite as talkative yet, but still manages to communicate things to us in his own way. Whenever he sees his Daddy, he is SO happy! Of all our babies thus far, he is the one most bonded with his Dad. It is very sweet! When Daddy comes home, he almost always falls over with delight. He is also our water baby. When I put him in the bath, he likes to lay on his belly and squirm around. He slips and slides all over the tub and I really have to watch him as he has taken a few gulps full of bathwater a few times as well.

Here is Daniel playing at the clinic before the twins appointment. He was talking to me me here. He loves to babble out words and is most definitely our most communicative baby thus far. He mimics most everything we say or do now and really tries to tell us things. He holds up a play phone to his ear for instance and says what sounds like "hello" but is more like "uh-oh" which is his favorite and most used word thus far. We know when he is done with his meal when he says, "Uh-oh" and promptly tosses his sippy cup off the side of the highchair. And when he has a poopy diaper, he crawls over to me and tugs on my shirt or pant leg and says, "UH" to get my attention. He is also our button pusher, and takes any opportunity he can to find things with buttons to push or mechanisms to figure out. He is very precise with his hand motions and carefully selects the things he wants to play with. He has been walking a few steps here and there on his own, but when he realizes what he is doing he sinks down to the floor again. The developmental specialist said that any day now he will be walking and actually said that Caleb wasn't far behind. We think that Caleb is just so anxious to walk that he isn't as careful as Daniel and so he tends to fall more frequently.

Our Good Puzzler...

Josiah has in recent months shown a real interest in doing puzzles. We have a small 24-piece Lightning McQueen puzzle that he has been putting together over and over for some time and so then got him another one for him to play with. One day we decided to break out this 500-piece puzzle to do as a family and had Josiah "help" us do it also. Surprisingly, he actually did find pieces and place them in the right places, but mostly we strategically placed the right pieces in the general area of where they would go and he would put them in. He loves to do this though and says often as we do puzzles, "I'm a good puzzler, Momma!" And indeed he really is good at it!

Sweet Dreams

Here is sweet Daniel boy getting ready for his nap. When I brought him in to lay down, I found Caleb in the pose you see below and ran to find the camera and couldn't resist taking a picture of Daniel as well though he was obviously very awake.

Our little Caleb insists upon having a bottle to sleep and I came in and found him as pictured here with the bottle held only by his mouth. If he doesn't have a bottle, then he screams for a good 20-30 minutes sometimes before sleeping. Eventually, I will need to break him from this habit, but for now he still has a bottle for sleeping. We have him on whole milk now though, so we are officially done with formula for the time being.