November 8, 2007- "Pish Brother"

The boys are talking so much now and I wanted to jot a few things down so I don't forget them. One of the cute things that I am seeing a lot now is that one of the boys will get on one of the ride-on toys and say to the other "brother, push", which actually sounds more like "pish". It is so cute. The other one will pretty much always run over to push. I always smile when I see/hear this. It is just too cute....priceless.

Another popular thing to say these days is "big truck". Every time we are driving somewhere, they always notice the "big truck" and sometimes "another" one and they point them out to me ("mommy?", "yes Nick/Ben", "big truck", "yes, that is a big truck, isn't it?"). I love that they are always saying "mommy?" to get me to see something or help with something or whatever.

Another favorite word is "help". They will come to me, saying "help, help" and showing me what they need help with. They are also learning many names of veggies, since we have the cut-able veggies now. They know "up" and "down", will request to be picked up or put down, and will point in the right direction when asked.

Another frequent invitation is "sit, sit" and then "read". They are learning a lot more verbs these days. They know walk, run and jump also and love to do all three, but running and jumping are the best. They love trying to use the "handrail" and will try to say that word, although they usually end up just saying "rail".

They love their music and as soon as we get in the car they are saying "music, music". Between songs, they say "music, music" and, "more, more", I hear them singing some of the words. It is so cute to hear them sing.

Ben knows letters A through F very well and picks up letters very quickly. With Nick it's hard to tell what he knows sometimes because he starts playing/joking around. He is quite the kidder. When they are in their cribs, just before or after napping, I will frequently hear Ben laughing at whatever Nick might be doing. I need to sneak a camera in there sometime and tape it.

They have this thing they say when they want to trade something (toy or book) or even to trade places. It sounds like a variation on their pronunciation of "another". One of them will start saying this and will repeat it over and over until the other one either joins in saying it, which means there is agreement on the trade, or the other one starts whining this variation on "another", which means I don't want to give up what I have. The whining of this 'word' can become somewhat annoying and the one wanting to trade does not generally take it as a true "no", but will continue to try to force the trade. 99% of the time it is Ben wanting to trade and Nick not wanting to, when the disagreement on the trade occurs. So I have been trying to teach Nick to "just say no" if he doesn't want to trade. He will say it but I keep having to remind him. Hopefully it will catch on soon and he will do it on his own. I frequently have to tell Ben, "Nick does not want to trade with you right now", which he never wants to hear. The whole transaction is normally very amusing to watch though, except for the whining part when they don't agree.

Today we were at Walmart, shopping for groceries, and I decided, for the first time, to let them ride the little pony in the arcade area. They had never seen anyone else ride it so they had no idea what it was all about. Nick went first, since he is usually the one ready to try new things first. Ben was happy to watch him from the cart and they both had a big smile on their face. I warned Nick when the horse was about to quit moving and that it would be Ben's turn to ride...several times. He was still not very happy when his turn was over. I let them each ride the pony once and then they both rode the Dumbo the Elephant together once and then it was time to leave, which I also gave fair warning about. Ben was fine with this. Nick threw a fit because he did not want to leave. To be fair though, I think he was hungry and tired. He had not eaten very much of his snack before we left home and I think it was getting to him. After we got home and had eaten lunch, he was like a new kid. It's amazing what a little food can do.

We also had to go to Petco to buy some cat food. They love going into this store because we always take time to walk around and look at all of the animals, fish and birds. Today they had some rabbits, a kitten, and some turtles too. We had a nice morning of running errands. They really are such fun to be around and watch and interact with these days. I just love them to death.

Today for lunch I served them some brown beans for the first time, along with some mac and cheese and green beans. They really liked the brown beans a lot.  We have switched out our travel snacks too. We used to always put the goldfish crackers in their snack cups, when they needed to have a snack on the go. Now we are using my husband's Kashi cereal and the boys really like it. They also love raisins now and will actually chew them up, rather than just swallowing them whole, as they did the first time they had them. I am always on the look out for healthy foods that they will enjoy.

The bummer is that it gets harder and harder for me to sneak my peanut M&M's and potato chips as they get older:). Now I have to wait to have my chips until they are sleeping or let them have a few, which I do at times also. I still have yet to really find any foods that they don't like. They continue to amaze me with what they will eat and, so far, they will try anything. I know this can't last but I'm loving it for now.

Our duct tape solution for keeping diapers on is working beautifully. We have not had another diaper removal incident since we started this practice. It seems they cannot take off jeans but I still duct tape their diapers at nap time, just in case. It is getting colder here now so they are sleeping in their footie, blanket PJ's now (little kids look so cute in these jammies). The first thing they tried to do when we put them on was to unzip them, which is pretty easy. So now we put a small piece of duct tape over the zipper and it is pretty hard to get off. They have yet to get it off so we don't duct tape their diapers at night anymore, just the zipper on the jammies. I highly recommend this solution:). I am very thankful for duct tape!