reanbean

It’s All Gone

This morning, as I was in the kitchen making breakfast, Tiny and Buba were playing with Hot Wheels in the living room. Tiny had taken the plastic Ziploc bag of cars out of the toy drawer, and was rolling them one by one across the hardwood floor to Buba, who sat a few feet away. They both thought that this was great fun. When Tiny ran out of cars, this is what I heard:

Tiny: It’s all gone.

Buba: I lika mo (more) cars peese (please)!

Tiny: No, it’s all gone. See? (showing Buba the empty bag)

Buba: It’s empee (empty). No mo.

Buba sings: It’s all gone. No mo. It’s all gone. No mo…

It was such a simple conversation, but so nice to hear them using their words with each other- something I  feel like I often have to remind them to do, as there is often a lot of pushing, grabbing, grunting, and screaming involved in their playing these days. It’s just nice to know that they have it in them to play together nicely. And I’m quite proud of how their language is developing. Just this past fall, they were speaking mostly one word (Buba) and  two word (Tiny) phrases. And a lot of what they were saying was just repeating what T and I were saying. But now they can express complete thoughts and even hold conversations entirely on their own. I know this is the normal way things progress, but it’s still amazing to me.

Seconds

It’s starting to happen. Those mommy friends of mine, whose first borns are roughly the same age as Buba and Tiny, are starting to have seconds. And so it was, at breakfast this morning, that I had the following conversation with Tiny…

Me: Guess what! Ona’s mommy has a new baby!

(No reaction whatsoever from Buba.)

Tiny: Ona’s mommy have new baby. (thinking… processing…)

Me: That’s right. A little, tiny baby.

Tiny: It go rock-a-bye baby. (Tiny says, doing the sign for baby.)

Me: Yes. Now Ona has a little sister.

Tiny pauses for a minute and then looks at me with eyebrows low and  a little crinkle in the middle of her forehead.

Tiny: Tiny, no have little sister. (She says shaking her head from side to side.)

Me: (I’m smiling, but my eyes are getting all teary.) That’s right. Tiny doesn’t have a little sister. But you have a brother, and that’s lots of fun. Right?

Tiny: (looking over at Buba) Dats lota fun.

I know that Tiny’s comment about not having a little sister was not so much a request or a longing on her part, but just her way of a making sense of things. (She processes like this all the time, but that’s for another post.) But I couldn’t help feeling a little sad, knowing that my baby days are over for good and Buba and Tiny will not have another sibling.

T started saying “one and done” the moment we found out we were having twins. But I held out hope for a long time that we would have just one more. Every time the topic was up for discussion, it wasn’t fun. We both held firm on our positions, and finally, just last spring, I gave in. Tiny and Buba were just over a year old and I was working on making our travel plans back to my hometown in Iowa. After almost having a heart attack over what the airfare was going to cost us (we bought the kids seats, at the recommendation of another MOT) I began to imagine how much more it would be if we had a third child (or, gasp!, another set of twins). Suddenly T’s argument regarding the costs of having a larger family began to make sense, and I told him that I could be perfectly happy with our family of four.

And I am perfectly happy. But I still think sometimes about what it would be like to have just one more.

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If you haven’t already done so, be sure to check out yesterday’s post to enter my Humpty Who? giveaway.

Time to Clean Up, Uh-huh, Uh-huh

Tiny is usually great at cleaning up the toys in the kids’ room when it’s time for breakfast. But yesterday morning, it was Buba who cleaned up all the toys while Tiny talked on her purple, plastic phone…

All Tiny:

“Hello, Nammy? It time clean up.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Mess, mess, mess!”

“Time clean up.”

“No, no Daddy. No work day. No work.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

“No Nammy bacation. Nammy home.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Clean up.”

“Ok. Yep. Ludoo. Bye-bye!”

I love that her pretend phone calls give me some insights as to what she’s understanding. She clearly knew it was time to clean up the big mess in her room, even though she chose not to help. And she understood that T wasn’t going to work that day and maybe that we’d be going to Grammy’s house now that she’s home from her vacation.

Her “Ludoo” at the end is her pronunciation for Love you.

Happy Mommy!

Just here to report that today is already much, much better than yesterday. It is my birthday, and apparently T had been teaching Buba and Tiny to say, “Happy Birthday, Mommy!” They’re not quite there yet, but keep telling me, “Happy Mommy! Happy Mommy!” at random points throughout the day.

Although it’s probably just a coincidence, they’ve been pretty well behaved, and we’ve had a nice day just doing what we do. Tiny and Buba are still too young to produce a homemade card, but their laughter, smiles, hugs, and kisses have totally made my day.

Who Loves You?

I tell Tiny and Buba that I love them many times throughout each day- in the morning when I’m getting them up and ready for the day, at naptime, at bedtime, when I leave to go to my part-time job, and whenever they run in for a quick hug or tickle while we’re playing. It’s not something I think consciously about. It just comes naturally. In fact, I wasn’t even aware of how often I say, “Mama loves you.” or “Love you!” until I heard Tiny saying these phrases to her stuffed animals.

Anyway, this morning after changing Tiny’s diaper, I picked her up and gave her a little tickle. She smiled, and I asked, “Who loves you?” I expected her to say Mommy, or Daddy, or even Grammy, Buba, or Pokey (our cat), so her answer really threw me off…

“Santa Claus,” Tiny said very sweetly.

Santa Claus? I thought. Santa Claus? It didn’t make any sense. Why would she answer Santa Claus.

And then I remembered our car ride home from the mall the day we saw Santa. Tiny kept saying, “Santa Claus. Santa Claus. I cry.” At first she sounded almost proud, but the more she said it, the more I thought I detected some sadness in her words. So I told her, “It’s okay that you cried. Lots of kids cry (and we’d seen some that very day). But Santa still loves you. He loves all the boys and girls.”

Perhaps Tiny’s memory is in fact that good, or maybe she just had something else on her mind this morning. I’ll never know. But instead of correcting her or trying to get her to elaborate, I simply said, “Yes, he does. And Mama loves you too.”

My Tiny Talking Parrot

My conversation with Tiny this morning…

T: Mommy! Read book? Read book?

r: Wait, Tiny. You need to put on clothes first (she’s standing before me in just her diaper and a onesie).

T: Put clothes. Put clothes.

r: Take this shirt and these pants. They’re so pretty!

T: Peedy! Peedy!

r: Let Mama help (as I see her attempting to put her shirt on upside down).

T: Help! Help!

r: It’s a little big, so let’s roll up the sleeves.

T: Too big? Too big?

r: Yes, Tiny. Just a little too big.

T: Too big! Too big!

r: (once Tiny is all dressed) There you go!

T: Darwego! All done!

r: Yes, all done.

T: Peedy! Peedy!

r: Yes, you’re very pretty.

T: Mommy! Read book? Read book?

r: Okay, Tiny. Go get your book…