A story by Brigid (in two parts), dictation taken by Jessica

Be Far From Volcanoes (6/7/10)

A shield volcano erupted and all of the lava that came out the top was beautiful; it burst into diamonds.  And then when the wind blew it dry the diamonds were so pretty. Some were green and some were pink and some were purple.

Then another thing happened: a cindercone erupted and it burned down houses. And then all the houses, even the food started to burn up. There was a city built on the volcano.

Next installment in “be far from volcanoes” (6/14/10):

One time a volcano erupted. It was a shield volcano and an island of Hawaii. And then a ship landed on it at last! And one time when the ship guy was trying to push the boat back into the water, he forgot to push it quick enough before the volcano went BOOM! He forgot to leave the volcano!

Then, SPLASH! A river of lava flowed down the volcano of Hawaii! And suddenly, he burst into the river! Then the Hawaiian-guy-ship-guy fell into the sea with the lava and was gone forever. The End.

A story by Sam, dictation taken by Jessica

A volcano erupted on Sam. And then his foot pooped. Then he went for a long, long walk until he came to a great big tractor! It was really big and really huge! It was a big red trash truck. He pulled into his magic car and it was a rocket ship and he was an astronaut and he floated above the red hot gas giant. Then he hopped into his magic car that was a rocket ship! Then he got the big red huge gas giant and he put it in his house. He named it “Bam”.

Then he went swimming but where was his floaties? But a cat was using them. He sunk. Then he got on a surfboard and he surfed on it. Then he surfed on it. Then, KERSPLASH! he fell in. But then he got his floaties. But then he went into the supermarket. And food was crashing on him! and paint too! And then he went home and had a bath. And then, KERSPLOOSH! And then KERSPLASH! And then the water overflowed.  He turned the water off. The End.

Um . . .

Ekaterine just pooped in the potty.

Yesterday, both she and Jane peed in the potty.

I don't know quite what to do with myself. I've never had two year olds who were ready to train. Gracious.

How cool.

two years!

Our two youngest turned two last week!  Wow.

They are delightful.  They're both cheerful almost all day long, and they love playing with Brie, and with Sam, but also love playing with one another.  Favorite things right now include running in circles around the living room while yelling, dancing whenever music comes on, being read to, watching Baby Einstein, playing in the dirt, and drawing (on everything).

Jane especially loves parking herself in the kids' little under-the-stairs play space, right next to the bookshelf, and paging through books for long periods of time. 

Jane always wants to explain things to me, and speaks a lot with her hands, holding them out in a petitioning gesture, while repeating the same one or two words she has to explain the situation. "Bear? Dolly?" -gesture, gesture, tilt the head - "Bear?"

Kate gets excited easily, and at the least provocation will bounce around on tip-toe and spin in sheer delight.  Kate also has a habit of coming over and patting me. Oh, melt-my-heart, it is so sweet. "Mommy?" Pat, pat. "Mommy." Pat, pat, pat.

They are our only two children who have really attached to a stuffed animal. Well, two. Each. They were each given a white bear a couple of years ago. And they were each given a Pooh character stuffed animal this year. But Kate has claimed BOTH white bears as her very own (and heaven help you if you try to put her to bed with just one!), while Kate is convinced that both Pooh AND Tigger belong to her.

They are speaking in one and two word sentences, and their comprehension is AMAZING. An example: Jane was trying to honk the horn on Adam's unicycle, and I told her, "Jane, you can't just push it, you have to squeeze it," and she did exactly that. Kate had a bear in each hand, and was trying to pick up a lunch box, and Adam told her, "Honey, you don't have enough hands," and she looked at him, and then put down one of the bears, to free up a hand! Seriously, for two years old, that's some great understanding!

They love naming people. They will sit at our dinner table, and point and say, "Kate. Jane. Daddy. Mommy. Sam. Brie."  Over and over.

And they're starting to remember past events. We visited some friends who live in the country at Christmas, and afterwards, Jane would catalogue the trip to me: "Bunny. Food. Doggie. Chickens. Cluck, cluck!"  Or, after their birthday, Kate has been telling me. "Birthday. Candles. Little guys. Fffffffwww!" ("little guys" are the little characters on their birthday ring and "fffffww!" is blowing out the candles.)

Jane was more high-strung when she was a baby, but as a toddler, that high-strungness has turned into a sort of independence. She's very self-aware, likely to disappear (like Sam) - not because she's hiding, but because she knows what she wants to do and just goes and does it. But then she comes back and tells you all about it. She's happy and very observant. She seems to resonate at a high frequency, if that makes sense.

Ekaterine is calm when her environment is what she expects it to be, but gets worried easily when she's in an unusual situation (oh, honey, do I ever understand!). She also has, I think, one of the biggest capacities for joy that I've ever encountered. She's loving and open and ready to be delighted.  She always wants to be part of things and to touch things (I've never had such trouble with a child in the kitchen while I'm making dinner - those little fingers just can't resist!).

Both of them come and plop themselves down on top of me on a regular basis. If I ever worried that sharing their infancy with another would keep them from feeling attached, well . . . I shouldn't have. They're both absolutely sure they have a right to be in Mom or Dad's lap whenever it suits them. But (and I think this is the gift of being a twin), they're willing to share.

I love you, Jane Alleluia!

I love you, Ekaterine Anastasia!  

Happy birthday, my darlings. 

young Master Malaprop

scene: Sam, sitting on Adam's lap, and examining his neck.

Adam: Sam, what are you looking for?

Sam: I want to see if you have a bookmark.

overheard

At Target, Adam and I briefly split up; I had Jane and Brie with me, and he had Sam and Kate.

Once I'd found what I was looking for, I went searching for the other half of our family, and this was how it went:

Brigid: DaaaaaaaaDEEE!

Jane (in imitation): Daddy!

Brigid (her attention caught by the flattery): Good, Jane, good. Say, "DaaaaaaaDEEEE!"

Jane: Daddy!

Brigid: Louder!

Jane (obligingly): Louder!

:) Love my girls.

-Jessica

new pics!

Check out our picture blog (link in the sidebar). There are three new posts full of pictures of the kids at home, at the Huntington and at the park. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends: check out the cuteness!

kid update

I don't know when the twins got so huge, but oh-my-goodness. They don't look like babies anymore. Kate is taller than Jane still, but not by much. They're wearing 2T stuff now.

Swinging is very popular with all the kids right now. Even Jane and Kate have figured out how to use our below-the-stairs trapeze. Hard to believe, but these one-and-a-half year olds can grab the rings and swing back and forth with their feet off of the ground.

Brigid's started kindergarten (we're homeschooling) and is beginning to read. Along with reading, writing and math, we're doing Bible and poetry memorization and art and Spanish. I've started Sam on some basic becoming-comfortable-holding-a-pencil exercises and even the twins sometimes chime in on phonics practice. (You should hear Jane echo "/h/, /h/, /h/," so cute!)

Brie's also doing a P.E. class outside the house, which she LOVES.

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The twins' word for stuffed animals is "wubbie".  If they get hurt, usually Brie or Sam will bring them a "wubbie" to snuggle and make them feel better. They're also both the sorts to grab a stuffed animal and hug it and sigh and saying "wubbie, wubbie". Very tactile little girls.  Anyway . . . just now, Adam and Katie were snuggling and Kate patted him and said, "Daddy wubbie."  Sooooo sweet.

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Jane just had her most well-inflected sentence to date. She was standing on the stairs, right before bedtime, playing with a balloon from her Uncle Josh's birthday party. I asked her if she was ready to go upstairs to bed, and she said, disdainfully, "NO: boom!"  As in, "No, I DON'T want to go upstairs, I am PLAYING with the BALLOON."

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I love Sam's everyday, laconic answer of choice: "Yup."

"Sam, should we go in and have some popcorn?" "Yup."

"Sam, did you know we're headed to church now?" "Yup."

"Sam, did you know how cool you are?" "Yup."

He says it so simply, with such assurance.  Very Sam.

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One of Brigid's best traits is her kind heart. Last week, she ran full-tilt into the stair rail; she was just in a hurry and not watching where she was going. She got a pretty good goose-egg, and so I give her some ice wrapped up in a cloth to hold on her head, which helped a lot - both physically and psychologically, I think. Anyway, she was still in a fair amount of pain when Jane bumped her head very minorly. And Brie - still hurting from her more serious accident - immediately took the ice off of her head and offered it to her sister.

We explained that Jane (who had already happily bopped off and started playing with something else) was okay, and that she should keep the ice on her head, but oh my, it was so sweet of her to take something she really needed and wanted and offer it to her little sister out of compassion . . . oh, I love Brie's tender heart!

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Katie and Jane have figured out how to hold each other's hand while they walk, and you should SEE the "awwwww!" looks when they walk around in public that way. Totally deserved: they are adorable.

In other twin news (often there is just Jane news, or just Kate news, but sometimes there is twin news), the other day they were being much too quiet, so I went to investigate, and found the two of them sitting on the bottom step of our stairs (the top of the stairs is gated off, but they can climb on the bottom few), with a box full of markers, quietly coloring the tops of their bare feet.  Very colorful feet those two have. (And then they pointed to their art work and asked, "shoes? shoes?")

They also like to run from one end of the house to the other, in tandem. They get to one end, ask, "do?" then run to the other.

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Sam has learned to write "S-A-M", which, given the fact that he wasn't that comfortable even holding a pencil a month ago, is pretty cool. 

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Brie is always doing something. Or talking. She is full of ideas: ideas for stories, for games, for something to cook, for someone to go see, for something to read . . . there are always letters to write and pictures to draw and people to grant wishes to with her magic pencil (which stands in for a wand). Oh, and the accents! She's picked up a British-ish accent somewhere (I think from a claymation video we watched that was produced in Wales) and uses it whenever she's pretending to be a fairy or a mermaid. I always have to work very hard at not cracking up when she asks me, "Cahn aye graaaant yew A weeesh?" 

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Sam is still very snuggly (he and Kate remind me of each other a lot in that regard). He doesn't come over and hug us of his own accord as much as he used to, but when we go hug him, he just melts into the embrace. It reminds me that he's still a very little guy, for all that he's a big brother. And he's still very sweet.

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Jane's become very attached to her dolly, which she got on her first birthday, but only now discovered that she can't live without. She's also decorated it with markers. It's very easy to tell which dolly is hers.

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Okay, I'm posting this, because I've been adding to it for awhile, and I think it's long enough!

overheard

While Sam and Brie were playing pretend. Said by Sam, with his arms wrapped around his chest and a beautifully-portrayed downcast expression on his face.

"She hurt my feelings.
"With a sword."

-Jess