December 11, 2007 - Oh Shoot

I was working in the kitchen on Saturday and the dad was working in his home office, as the boys played in his office. I overheard the dad say "oh shoot", soon followed by the boys saying "oh, shoot", "daddy?, oh, shoot", "daddy, oh, shoot" and the dad laughing in the background. They were both saying it repeatedly. I smiled and *again* thought of how children are so easily influenced by what we do and say.

Yesterday, Nick said "more milk please" without prompting. I think that was our first three word sentence without prompting.

The boys will now say "me?, me?", when they see (for instance) that I am getting ready to go upstairs for something and they want to go with me. Yesterday I started telling them to say "I go?" instead of me?. They repeated it over and over, as they are apt to do now days to learn.

After we put the boys in their cribs for the night, we normally rub their backs for a short time and talk softly to them, before we leave their room. Nick has started saying "back, back", anytime he wants us to rub his back...and also when he puts a book or toy back on the shelf, but that's another story. He also likes to rub his Ya Ya's back, which is cute. Last night they were taking turns lying on the floor on a little blanket and rubbing each other's back. It was very cute. They have now gotten to where they like having a small blanket in their crib when they go to sleep. They especially like it when we put Ya Ya and Bear under the blanket and they will say (Nick) "night night Ya Ya", (Ben) "night night Bear", over and over.

One of their favorite things to say now is "oatmeal?". They say it all the time. They used to say it more like "meetmo" but have recently learned to say it correctly. Their pronunciation is improving rapidly these days.

And in other news, Ben is getting his 2 year molars in now...all four of them. Nick does not seem to be getting his yet, although I am sure we will start to see signs of them soon.

We took a short drive yesterday, late afternoon, with the intention of going out for some groceries. There were so many traffic lights out, causing the traffic to back up considerably, that we changed our destination and headed to a closer grocery store. It was closed due to lack of power so we headed home but then ended up going to one that is even closer. It was open but was running on generators. They had put all of their meat away, probably in a cooler that ran on the generator. There was hardly any milk left and it was not very cold, so we did not buy it. We ended up buying a few things and then heading back home.

On our drive, we saw many tree limbs down and some trees split in half or completely fallen over due to the ice, even though we live further south of the really bad icing. We also noticed many neighborhoods very close to us where people are without power. We heard on the news last night that the power company spent yesterday trying to get power back up to the water treatment plant and the hospitals. We had been asked to conserve on water but I did not find this out until last night and had already done several loads of laundry and ran the dishwasher yesterday. Fortunately, we also heard this morning that they had the water treatment plant and hospitals back up and were going to start working on neighborhoods today. My husband's place of employment is still without power so he is home again today.

My mom, dad and two brothers' homes are still without power, although my dad and one of my brothers heat with propane so they still have heat. My mom's house does not have heat but she and my other brother, who lives with her, are staying there under lots of covers for now. My sister lives close to them so they can go to her house if they want but they have chosen to stay for now.

The temperature has warmed up a bit and it is raining today. I think the majority of the ice is suppose to melt pretty fast today so hopefully things will improve rapidly, although we have heard on the news that some people may be without power for at week. My dad's house was without power for two weeks during the bad ice storm last year. I think we were in Russia during that one but our house still had power. Those underground power lines are a good thing.

We took the boys outside for a short walk around yesterday morning. They enjoyed it and probably would have stayed out much longer, had we let them. Unfortunately, we don't have mittens that fit them and their little hands were wet and turning red quickly so we didn't stay out for very long, much to their dismay. They cried when we made them come inside. We are all getting a bit tired of being housebound for so long....but we are very very thankful that we have a warm house to be bound into:).

Gotta go, the munchkins are awake and chatting with each other:).