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."

---

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.

-----

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

new pictures up!

There are some new pictures of the kids up on our picture blog (link in the sidebar). Email me if you need an invite.

-Jess

Here is a very delayed update on the kids, mostly for the baby book, but also for any interested grandparents and friends. :)

Brigid: Brigid and I have started reading chapter books together; we're going back and forth between the Little House books and the Betsy-Tacy books. We both really enjoy it. She's also beginning to really enjoy kids' science books - books that tell you all about penguins maybe, their habitat and life cycle. Or about the inside of the human body - about bones and tendons and muscles. I love watching her learn.
-When we went camping, Brigid had a BLAST with the other kids, especially Becca. They sat in the hammock together for hours, talking, or having Becca read to them both.
-When I watch Brie playing (and she and Sam and Jane and Kate play together for hours every day), it's easy to remember what a cheeful, excitable baby she was. Now, at five, she'll sit still to color or read - but when she's playing, she still bounces. :) She runs from here to there, making up stories, coming up with ideas, acting them out, climbing and jumping, and drawing all of her siblings into her imaginary worlds. Love watching that.
-Brie's always loved climbing, but she's getting better and better at it. The grandparents B. got her a trapeze and rings for her birthday, and you should see that girl turn flips!
-Brie's also learning to communicate her ideas better and better - I love hearing the analogies she comes up with!
-It is a great gift to have Brigid as the oldest, because she is so good with her siblings. She's kind to them, and (usually) when they imitate her, it's good habits that they're imitating. Also, she just sparkles with imagination, and leads the troops merrily through many fantastic games and adventures.
-Brie's starting kindergarten next month, and we'll be homeschooling her. I don't remember if I blogged about this before, but there's no half-day kindergarten in our area, and neither Adam nor I liked the public school option here. (In addition, California has crazy truancy laws. I remember looking into them and thinking, "so if, say, Brie's grandpa came out from Nebraska for the week, I wouldn't be allowed to keep her home to hang out with him? That's crazy!" But true. In CA, you're not allowed to have kids out of school for anything other than medical reasons. Good grief.) There are other reasons we're going this route, but they're too long to get into here. I'm still a little surprised that we're homeschooling, but the more I look into it, the more excited I'm becoming. I think it's going to be a really good thing for our family. And Brigid's very excited about it. I can't help thinking she's going to LOVE reading.

Samuel: Sam gave up his nap a few months ago, when we moved him to the bottom bunk of the smaller bunkbed. But since then, he's taken to sleeping in. Today he slept till 11 a.m.! But it's a good thing, I think. From what I can tell, he does better on the days he gets an hour or two more of sleep. I think he still really needs the extra sleep his afternoon nap gave him, and sleeping in fills that need for him. Sleeping in = cheerful Sam. Very fair trade.
-When we went camping, Sam seemed to really enjoy making sand castles down by the river. And sitting with Cyndi and throwing big rocks into the water.
-Poor kiddo got carsick going both into and out of Kings Canyon. But oh, I wish you could have seen what a trooper he was. As soon as he was done being sick, he was cheerful. And he was helpful in catching it in a bucket (once we learned that he needed one) and keeping a towel on himself so that it would be easier to clean up if it happened again (which it did) and all sorts of things like that. We told him (from a kids' book we're reading these days) "Sam es valiente!" Because he was: so brave. This kiddo may throw fits about little things, but when (kid-sized) emergencies hit, he keeps his head. I hate that he got motion-sick (oh, I remember doing that as a kid!), but it was amazing to see how well he handled it.
-Samuel loves rhymes, and makes up many poems. He seems to have his dad's gift for wordplay.
-Sam's finally potty-training, and though it's slow-going, it's actually going. My new favorite potty-training tip is: wait till they're ready. The difference between how he's responding now, and how he responded five months ago is vast.
-Sam concentrates very hard on what he's doing. (This, btw, is part of why potty-training is slow for him: if he's intent on his play, he doesn't notice that he has to pee.) Sometimes I think he'll make a good academic someday, because he has that combination of intensity and stubbornness and imagination that a good academic needs.
-Sam's also still super-snuggly, and asks frequently to be carried - not so much because he doesn't want to walk, I think, but because he wants the hug. He is such a boy (oh boy) but he is so very sweet.
-Pray for Samuel, when you think of it, that he will come to know and love the Lord Jesus. Sam is full of many very strong parts, and it feels right now like he is trying to grow them all into a whole person. I think he got a bit derailed in that hard year when the twins were born, and he's doing a lot of growing right now to make up for it. Please pray that the Lord blesses him with grace in his growing, and peace in his heart, and that he grows in the knowledge and love of the Lord.

Jane: When Katie fell down yesterday, Jane went and got a stuffed animal, and brought it to her to make her feel better.
-Jane is, I think, a bit of an introvert. I'll often find her sitting by the bookshelf, happily paging through books by herself. She's slightly hyper when around our family, but when she's around strangers, she clams up. I can tell already that she's got her own quirky view of the world, and she'd rather interact with it on her own terms, thank you. And those terms are a funny mix of wildness and reserve. She's very wired and she very much needs her space - except she very much needs her people too. Jane seems always to be dancing on the inside, looking from one thing to another, and sometimes, it seems, just needs a bit of space to take it all in, because she pays attention to EVERYTHING.
-Jane has taken to walking around the house wearing a backpack and boots. It's hilarious. She's this little tiny pixey of a girl, and she's wearing her sibling's Bob backpack, and Brigid's hot pink Crock boots, which are huge on her. She comes to me with the backpack asking, "on? on?", but she puts the boots on herself.
-Jane also puts on every other shoe she can find - but she insists that I remove them for her before she sits down to eat.
-Jane has started - in addition to her comprehensible words - babbling "gollygollygolly" all day long. It's clearly a stand-in for the words she doesn't know, because she'll do things like grab a book and come over and say, "gollygollygollyBOOKgollygolly."
-Jane's first sentence, "Bye-bye, doggie!"
-Jane REALLY does not like loud noises.

Ekaterine: First sentence! "There's Dad!" She and Jane have been saying "there he is" and "there she is" for quite awhile yet, but the sentence has been said as one word, if that makes sense. This was the frist time she purposefully put a couple of words together on her own.
-Kate loves to sing and dance. She's always the first kid to sing along with me if I'm singing and to dance if I put music on. She puts both hands above her head and quick-steps with her feet.
-Kate loves to find circuits to run. Around the pew in church or up the sidewalk steps and down the grass hill and 'round again just outside our condo.
-Kate is grounded. I don't think her world rocks very much, except maybe a bit when she gets hurt. She likes to mimic and make funny frowny-faces, but she always thinks that it's a great joke. Katie is peaceable inside. That might sound dull, but it isn't. She's funny, she's a crazy runner and dancer, but she is also at home with herself, I think.
-another sentence from Kate, after I gave Jane a turn with their water bottle: "No, no, no, no, no! ME bottle! No!"
-Katie bounces when she's happy - she walks with this extra spring every other step. It's so cute.

Twin stuff:
-It's been interesting, as the girls learn to talk, to hear how they learn mostly the same words, but sometimes say them differently. For instance, for "peek-a-boo", Jane says "bee-bo" and Ekaterine says "ba-bay".
-I can tell we're about to hit the "word explosion". They're picking up new words by the day, and it's exciting. Love hearing their thoughts come to life!
-they're learning to run, and to climb stairs holding onto the rails
-They're getting easier to tell apart (I think). It's funny: every once in awhile they'll have what I call "identical days" when for some reason they look even more alike that usual. But it really seems true to me that the older they get, the more their personalities show in their faces.
It's also true that I never realized how much I relied on easy exterior clues (gender, height, hair color) to tell my kids apart until I had Jane and Kate, and had to find other ways to do it. I never would have known what a crutch those outside clues were unless I'd had MZ twins. In some ways, it feels like I'm getting to know Ekaterine and Jane better, sooner, because I can't just know what they look like. I have to know what they feel like inside, how they act, what their hearts are like. In some ways, it's a very cool experience.

Below is a list of the words Kate and Jane know; though I'm pretty sure it's incomplete.

Twin word list:
-Daddy
-Mommy
-Brie
-Sam (this one is tricky for them)
-there he is!
-peek-a-boo
-yummy
-more
-down
-on/off (same word, associated with the light switch)
-water
-smoothie
-no (or, more accurately, nonononono! for Jane)
-"vroom"
-"roar"
-"bark"
-"meow"
-baby
-grandma
-grandpa
-ball
-dolly
-bucket
-Me! (Kate)
-click
-diaper
-hi
-bye
-banana
-night-night
-nice
-shoes
-belly-button
-uh-oh
-down
-Jane ("jay-jay") (Jane)
-Katie ("day-dee")
-all done
-watermelon ("waa-meh") (Kate)
-hat
-balloon (Jane)
-doggie
-kitty
-bottle
-"the end"
-read
-dip
-up
-down
-water ("walawalawala")
-cracker
-cookie
-eyes
-nose
-teeth
-look!

los squiddos

Sam and Brie are playing a game - I don't know what it's called, but the game before this was called, I am informed, "Piggers and Sleepers" - that involves one of them dancing around singing, "Goo-goo-ga-ga-goo" while the other yells, "BABY, GO BACK TO BED!"

Katie, of course, has climbed up on a chair and is yelling because she doesn't know what to do next.

Jane is wandering about, smiling at everyone.


These days Jane seems to be the one with all the words - like "thank you" - and Kate the one who wants to see how high she can get. Sometimes I find that she's climbed up on the table and into her clip-on chair as soon as she sees me start to make her lunch. Kate makes funny faces - she'll squinch her eyes up and look at you suspiciously, and then burst into laughter when you make the face back at her. Jane likes to shake up all the food on her tray, as if she were head-banging at a rock concert, and then grin at you when you scold her.

Now all four kids are reading a book together.

Now it's over, and Brie has told "John" to go to bed and not sing his "tootle-oo" song again. And Sam is up, singing "tootle-oo." And the babies are still looking at the book.

The living room floor is covered with toys.

Last night, when I was nursing the babies to sleep (have I mentioned they sleep through the night now?), Kate reached up and pulled off my earring. In the dark, I found the back, but not the earring itself. I figured it'd fallen in between the couch cushions. This morning, when I came upstairs to get her out of her crib, she was standing up and holding my earring out to me. I'm not sure but what she kept a hold on it all night long. A little scary but . . . what a smart baby.

This week Brigid made herself a laptop. She glued several pieces of paper together, with a cover (with an apple drawn on it) and a screen and a frame around the screen and a keyboard complete with mousepad. She brings me "long books" to read when her siblings are napping.

Jane and Kate both wave "bye" and "hi" now and are growing out of their 12 mo. clothes.

Sam is potty-training with the old trick of Cheerios in the toliet (he puts out the fires on the "Cheerio boats") but it's still a far-from-done thing.

Brie and Sam have, since Easter, been playing "Jesus rising from the dead" in our bedroom closet, with its helpful sliding doors. Apparently that makes for a great tomb. But I love how awed Sam is by the Resurrection. It's very clear in his mind that Jesus rose from the dead because He was "so strong". I think the resurrection should be that amazing in our minds - it reminds me of "The Dream of the Rood"'s description of Christ as the "young hero" who climbed onto the cross of his own accord.

I am trying very hard to find a way to keep the twins' hair back from their faces while we grow out their bangs - find a way, that is, that doesn't include them pulling the barrettes and pony-tail holders from each other's heads and eating them.

"Goo-goo-ga-ga-ga-loo" is still going strong.

Jane now gives kisses. It's very sweet. My little blue-eyed girl. She will also enthusiastically point out her belly button if you ask her, and is working on eyes and teeth and nose. Kate knows most of those too, I think, but would rather be climbing. Yet Kate is, I think, more confident with strangers, whereas Jane gets quiet in public.

Okay, just confirmed: Kate indeed knows what a nose is, and even can say "nooo--sss."

I am losing track of how many words they know, because they keep learning more. I love hearing them call Adam "Daddy".

They love shoes. The other day, Adam told Jane he was going to get her shoes on, and she went and sat down next to the shoe basket and stuck out both of her feet.

More later, must go save the babies.

love,
Jess

Jane things and Kate things . . . and a Sam thing

First, words they've learned:
-"Mommy" - finally!
-"vroom, vroom!"
-"bye-bye"
-"tickle, tickle!" ("teek, teek!")
-"shoe"
-"grandpa"
-"kitty"
-"belly"

And then things I want to remember about each of them - for the baby book, folks:

Jane stuff:
-"Jane in a box" - Jane has a prediliction for finding small spaces and crawling in them. I find her on top of Brie's picture box, caving in the top and making it a little nest; I find her sitting in the bottom of bookshelf, in a small space between the side of it and the box of earthquake-supply water bottles; I find her in the giant box the toliet paper rolls from the club store came in. Jane and her nests.
-Bear hugs: Jane coming over to me and wrapping her arms around my leg and pressing her cheek against my knee - the closest a very little person can get to a bear hug! And then holding on and walking with me as I walk. So sweet!
-the GROWLING. No, really. Jane is convinced that every animal in creation GROWLS. Dogs? they growl. Cats? They growl. Ladybugs? They growl. And it's this amazing, low, DEEP little growl she has. It makes everyone who hears it crack up, because it's just such an unlikely noise from a tiny little girl.

Ekaterine stuff:
-Kate has had fun learning to spin. It's more running around in circles, turning and turning and making little sing-song noises. Such a happy, cute little habit.
-Kate tickling Adam and saying "teek, teek!"
-Kate the clothing gnome. When we bring down clothes for the kids to change into, Ekaterine delights to pick them up and steal them. She and Brie have fun with this, because Kate will take Brie's clothes, and Brie will snatch them back, and there is much giggling.
-The climbing. Ekaterine is climbing on EVERYTHING. Yes, she's made it on top of the dining room table. Eeek!
-Kate likes to hold out her hand with one finger pointing towards you, and wants you to touch her finger with yours. It makes her laugh and shake her head.
-The frowns. Kate has learned how to glower, brows drawn down. If you glower back, she'll crack up.


And a Sam story:
Adam was helping the kids clean up. He was being very specific, you know, "Sam, pick up that book and put it on the shelf. Okay, I have another special job for you: pick up the balls and put them in the ball tub. Okay. Now I have another job for you . . ."

And after it was all over, Sam ran into the living room, grabbed a favorite picture book and yelled, "Daddy, I have a special job for YOU!" He wanted Adam to read to him. :) (Adam did, of course.)

new pictures up

Just a few, on the other blog. But they're cute! :)

twinness and nodding off

Jane, as I think I've mentioned before, is much enamored of small spaces, especially various sorts of boxes. Yesterday, she was sitting in a dish tub (not the one we use to wash dishes in), happy as a small, plastic-encased clam, on the kitchen floor. And in trying to get out, she fell, giving herself a fat lip.

We, of course, picked her up, made sure she was okay, and comforted her. She stopped crying, but still wanted to be held, so I sat on the couch with her in my lap, just hanging out and letting her continue to sniff and calm down. I noticed that she had a little bit of blood coming from her nose from the fall too, but not much, and could tell that she was fine. (And she was, btw. You wouldn't even know today that yesterday she fell down.)

The funny part was when Kate decided to come sit on the couch by me and Jane. Kate noticed that Jane had a bloody nose. "Ooh!" she said, pointing at her sister's nose. I tried to convince Kate that the last thing her poor twin needed was to have a finger stuck in her bunged-up nose by another one-year-old. To no avail. "Da!" Kate insists, still pointing at her sister's nose.

And then it got even funnier. "Da!" says Kate, pointing. "Da!" Jane agrees, perking up. "Da!" "Da!" one to another. You could tell, if the conversation had been conducted in English rather than in in Toddler, that it would have gone: "Dude! you have a bloody nose!" "Yeah!" "So cool!" "I know, right?"


It was really, really cute, and especially fun because it was the first time I've really heard them have a conversation with each other. They talk to the older folk in the house all the time, but not to each other. I'd never really believed all that stuff about parallel play in babies till I had twins; but now I know that if you have two kids of the same age together, they really will play NEXT to each other rather than WITH each other. When you have two kids of different ages, it does look like real play because the older one really is playing, and the little one is imitating. Jane and Kate follow each other around the house and play with the same things, but they don't interact with each other like they interact with Brie and sam. So watching this interchange where Kate noticed Jane and talked to her, and Jane talked back, was really fun. Despite poor Jane and her owies. (Again, she really is fine, and was obviously going to be okay even then, or I'm sure I wouldn't have found it quite so cute! And it seemed like Kate's compliments on her wounds cheered her up!)

It's fun to watch them begin to be consciously aware of each other, especially since they have been so clearly unconsciously aware of each other for so very, very long. I think I'm going to enjoy watching them learn to play together.


the other funny thing that happened yesterday is that Samuel fell asleep AT THE TABLE. It was so weird; at first I thought he was pretending, and then I thought something was wrong with him. But no, he was just really tired. I know we've all seen people "nodding off" on film, but seeing it in real life is a little freaky. The drooping head that keeps jerking back up, and then drooping down again. Poor buddy. I carried him over to the couch and he snuggled right up and didn't wake up for an hour and a half. (I admit, I was so weirded out by having him fall asleep at the table that I wanted to have him somewhere where I could keep an eye on him, to make sure he was okay!) It was naptime though, so I guess it makes sense!

All four kids have gone to the dentist this week and, praise God, NO CAVITIES! I am especially grateful for this because Jane and Katie both have brown spots on their teeth and I was so sure that they had tooth decay. But no. They have weak enamel - which apparently could have been caused by some of the medications they had in the NICU - and that weak enamel got stained by the iron vitamin drops they took when they were little. I am so, so, so grateful to God that we don't have to go through dental work at such a young age.

-Jess

new pictures on the other blog

There are new pictures of the kids on the photo blog, including Easter pictures. The link is on the sidebar ("All Our Children"), and if you need an invitation (it's invitation-only), just shoot me an email.

-Jess

I'm sure most people who read this blog already know, but Adam's paternal grandfather passed away on Good Friday. Adam just got back from the funeral in Texas this afternoon. I'm so glad he got to go, to be with family, to say goodbye, and to hear all the amazing things that were shared about his granddad. Please keep Adam's family, especially his grandmother, in your prayers.

love,
Jessica

a baby update

Jane and Kate are walking everywhere now, and only very rarely go back to crawling. They're even starting to do some walking when we go on our mail walks - it's slow, but they get there! And they're especially motivated when Brie and Sam run ahead of them; they want to catch up!

I thought I should make a list of words they have at this age, so I'd remember:
-Brie (ba)
-Sam (ess-ess)
-Daddy (da-da)
-all done (nn-da)
-milkies (en-na)
-yummy (num)
-cracker (ga-ga)
-hi (hi)
-more (mmm)
-ball (ba)

Jane also has an animal noise - but it's the same noise for every animal. And it's a growl. Seriously. "What does a duck say, Jane?" "Grrrr-RAAAAAAAR!" It's adorable. She's such a sweet little pixie-looking thing, but she has this deep, fearsome growl that she delights in making. Especially because every time she does it, it makes us laugh, so then she does it again.

I'm sure I'm probably missing some words up there, but it's a start!

Jane and Kate track really closely together developmentally, but Jane tends to get new words or sounds about 4-5 days ahead of Kate, and Kate tends to get new physical abilities about 4-5 days before Jane. For example, Kate learned to climb up on the couches and then about a week later, Jane learned to do the same thing.

These also, I think, are going to be very patient girls. They get a bit upset about it, but they're really very good at waiting their turn when we're helping them with things that can only be done one at a time, like getting them down from their seat, or feeding them. I think it's going to end up being a strength for them. They have the patience to wait, and the faith to know that they're going to be taken care of, even if it takes a moment. I think some adults don't have that! But these little one year olds do.

These two are also more musical than their older siblings. They respond instantly to music - recorded or sung, and start bouncing up and down (Kate does deep knee bends, which is pretty hilarious) and singing along. They love the songs from "Enchanted" that we play during our clean-up times, and as soon as they hear the opening chords, they start singing, "Aaaaa-aaaa-aaa!" in anticipation of Giselle's voice. So cute!

They also try to help with clean-up. Katie especially likes tossing blocks in the tub and trying to wash the mirrored closet doors along with Sam and Brie (Sam and Brie love washing mirrors - and I made a vinegar-and-water cleaning solution so that they could do it non-toxically).

Jane, I think, is a little bit of a nut. She's very into fishing for reactions, trying new things - like the growling, or like tilting her head to one side - to try to see if she can get you to play along.

Katie, I think, is a bit more studious, more likely to watch what's being done, and then see if she can do it herself.

It's hard to make contrasts though, because they do the same things. It's not so much what they do that makes them different, it's how they do it, and how often, and with what expression on their face. Hard to describe, very easy to see, if that makes sense.

So that's where our littlest ones are at!

(And, at about 24 lbs. each, they're not so little anymore!)

Happy Birthday, Samuel!

A week ago, our Samuel Wisdom turned 3 years old! The next day we had his birthday party, and it was awesome.

I asked Sam beforehand who was coming and he said, "Everyone!" And, in his little world, it was. And even the out-of-state relatives made it by phone - he was tickled to get the phone, and then hear Happy Birthday sung on the answering machine, because the phone calls and messages usually aren't for him. And at his party, he crawled from one person's lap to another, just basking in being loved and having all the attention, I think. It was very sweet.

Our Sam is so sweet. He spends lots of time playing with trucks, both up on the landing (where his matchbox cars are safe from his little sisters) and out on the patio in the sand. And in the dirt of the landscaping when he can do it without getting caught!

He plays pretend with Brigid a lot (a favorite is chasing after her with a sandal yelling, "hey, wait, come back! I don't even know your name!" - pretending to be the Prince from Cinderella, of course) and laughs at Jane and Kate, calling them "little jumpadees" (his own nickname - don't know where it's from). He's learning memory verses easily and can sit down and "read" whole books - he has his favorites memorized.

He's getting tall and has lost his baby pudge in every place except his cheeks, which still bounce when he runs. But other than that he's all legs and arms and (still) square shoulders.

Sam is also snuggley, and is most likely of all our kids to want to just be held - not because he's upset, but just because he likes being physically close to us. It's pretty sweet.

Happy Birthday, dear boy, we love you!

winter's almost over

And according to our doctor, RSV season is over in our area at the end of March! That means we're just three weeks away from the end of our quarantine! I'm looking forward so much to getting out more with the kids and to going back to our regular service at church and to seeing our friends again!

In other news, Jane and Ekaterine are doing beautifully; they're in the 50th percentile for weight and height and on track developmentally. Yay! Praise God!

-Jess