February 14, 2008

The latest popular thing to say around here is "very heavy!". I guess I have said it a lot to the boys when I am picking one of them up or carrying them around, so they have picked up this phrase. One of them was struggling to get up on the couch the other day, where I was already sitting. He looked up and said to me "vewy heavy mommy". It was so funny. I just cracked up laughing. One of them said something like that again the next day about a similar situation. They are just too funny. They are always coming up with something new. It is amazing how they just use new words here and there all the time, seemingly without even thinking about it. Sometimes I hear them repeating words that I have said, as if they are trying out the word and storing it away for later use. But many words they say, I have never heard them say before and then, boom, they just pop up in a sentence. So far, I am loving the two-year-old phase.

Yesterday, I asked the boys 'do you know what daddy does at work?', 'what does daddy do at work?'. They both looked at me, thought for half a second and said 'Home Depot?' (sounds more like 'old people' :). Now you know where their dad spends a lot of his free time. He takes the boys with him a lot, when he makes his multiple trips to Home Depot on the weekends and they enjoy going with him. Nick is always saying 'my daddy'. When I open the garage door and he hears the chime go off (we have our house alarm set to chime softly whenever one of the doors or window open) he comes running into the kitchen, saying 'my daddy home', 'my daddy home'. It is too cute. I have only heard him say 'my mommy' once but he says 'my daddy' all the time. He is really a daddy's boy these days and Ben is quite the mommy's boy right now.

The other day, when we were eating lunch, Nick put his elbow on the table, lean his head over so his ear was leaning on his hand and started pretending that he was talking on the phone to someone. He was saying 'yes' and 'pot pie' (that's what we were eating) and some other things that I didn't quite catch. It was so funny. He said 'yes' a couple of times. I have been working on this with them. I always hear about how, at this age, all they say is no to everything and I have seen this happen at times. So I started telling them, 'when I ask you such and such, if you want such and such, you should say yes'. When I ask them if they want more milk, I have told them to say 'yes, please' if they do want more. They really pick stuff like this up so fast, it is really incredible. I wish I could learn as fast as they learn. It is truly amazing how God made our brains to learn so quickly at this age.

Today, we sat on the floor, building mega blocks to make a long tunnel for their match box cars to drive through. Then we built some fences with the wooden blocks for the barns and they played with that for a while. We really need some Lincoln Logs around here and one of those cool magnetic rods and balls sets (can't remember the name of them but they look like fun). It's fun to be a kid again:).

I have thought to myself several times that it seems that if you don't have older children, you need to spend more time playing with little ones and teaching them how to play some things. Of course, they know how to play lots of things but they expand on that so much faster if you sit and play with them and teach them other things to play. Anyway, we had a fun time, although Nick was getting frustrated because he was trying to play a certain way with the tunnel and cars and trucks and Ben kept interfering. Nick is a bit further ahead when it comes to pretend play and attention span so sometimes Ben is like having a younger brother around. But then, yesterday evening, when I was fixing dinner, they played together for the longest time really well. The length of time they can do this without fighting has been extending, although it really just depends on the day and their moods. More and more they are finding things to play together, rather than just playing side by side. They will roll and throw balls back and forth to each other and they love to chase each other around the house, follow each other around on their 'big truck' and 'bike', pretend they are feeding the bears and Jo Jo at the table, pretend they are cracking eggs, spilling them (and coffee) on the floor and then cleaning them up, riding their stick horses, putting out fires, and dressing up like cowboys, fire men and police men and driving their little match box trucks around on the furniture.

As of today, Nick has another runny nose so I fear we are headed for another round of colds...most likely from the church nursery again.

So today I decided to try something a friend of mine told me about. Her son was a thumb sucker and they became worried because he sucked so hard that his thumb was starting to look deformed. I noticed that Nick's thumb was a bit dry and red today, due to his constant thumb sucking and the dry weather, in addition to his tendency to have dry, sensitive skin anyway. So I decided to try what my friend and her husband did to break their son of thumb sucking.

I put a bandaid on his thumb. He did not suck it at all the whole morning. He started to a couple of times and then he would tell me "mommy, yucky" and show me his thumb. Buuuttt, the big test came when nap time rolled around because that is when he relies on the thumb sucking the most.

Surprisingly, he went down for his nap with no issues. When he first got into his crib, he again showed me his thumb and told me "mommy, yucky". After he told me this earlier, he had asked me to take the bandaid off. When I started to take it off, he said no and he wanted to keep it on. We did this little dance a couple of times and we went through it again when he was in his crib. So, I left the room and he went to sleep with no problem....until about an hour later. He woke up crying and then the crying turned into screaming and crying. He has not done that in a long time so I ran up to check on him and he was sitting in his crib crying. I picked him up and rocked him for a few minutes and I took the bandaid off when he was half asleep and then tried to put him back into this crib. He cried a little but not for very long, especially after he had his Ya Ya and blankie back (they had been thrown on the floor).

He didn't say anything to me about the bandaid at this time but I knew that was the problem and I just didn't have the heart to see him 'suffer':). So I took it off. Hopefully he will break the habit on his own.