Anyhow, about a month ago, Buba was sitting on his potty, and he yelled out, “I’m making peeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Tiny immediately starts singing, “P says /t/*. P says /t/. Every letter makes a sound. P says /t/.” (*A letter written between two forward slashes is read as the sound that letter makes.) I was about to attempt to make a teachable moment out of this, when Buba piped in with, “No, no, Tiny. T says /t/.”

I was surprisingly shocked. Did my 2-year-old son just correctly identify a letter and its appropriate sound? I had to find out how far his letter knowledge went, so I took Buba to the fridge and asked him to identify each letter one by one. (i.e. Me: Where’s the letter R? Buba: Right here!) He knew all six of them. I couldn’t believe it! I wondered how long he had known all of these letters and whether or not Tiny knew them as well. I brought Tiny over to the fridge and asked the same questions. She did not answer any of them correctly, but we put each letter into the holding device and listened as it sang the sound for each song. She giggled and jumped and clearly did not care that she did not have the same letter knowledge as her brother. No biggie. That’s what kindergarten is for.

But tonight, I had to laugh as I listened to Tiny sing while I did dressed her in her pajamas: “Cow says moo. Cow says moo. Every letter makes a sound. Cow says mooooooooooo!”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m so proud of Buba and all that he accomplished while working with EI. But lately, it just feels like he’s talking all. the. time. Seriously, his chattering is endless and the volume is just way too loud. Even when he’s standing right next to me and has my full attention.

Most of his talking is commanding (Sit down and read the book! Watch me jump! Milk please!) or questioning (Are you going to work today? What are you making for me?). By far, we seem to hear “What’s that?” the most often, and most of the time, he already knows the answer to his question. For example, he’ll point to a picture of a monkey and say, “What’s that?” Are you kidding me?

Interestingly, Tiny has been a Miss Chatterbox for months, and is equally demanding and full of questions. But speaking at a volume that’s more appropriate for human ears, it just doesn’t seem as bad. If only there was a magical remote control that allowed parents to control the volume of their children’s voices. Oh, how wonderful that would be. I promise that I would never push the mute button. But I wouldn’t think twice about turning Buba’s voice down a few notches. Especially at 6:30am.

They appear to be enjoying themselves in the above photos, but I remember that it took a while for them to feel comfortable in the kiddie pool. Tiny was so, so scared the first time we tried to take her in and kept freaking out in the bath tub for a while after that experience. By the time they were both comfortable, summer was over and so was the option to spend time at the pool.

I’d hoped that this year would be different. They both love splashing in the bathtub and even love to put their faces in the water and blow bubbles. I kept telling them how they could do this at the kiddie pool, and they would talk about wanting to go. But during our first visit just a week or so ago, Tiny fell forward while trying to walk in the water. I picked her up within nanoseconds, but she was already completely terrified. She cried and cried, which made Buba cry, and both Tiny and Buba wanted out immediately. Interestingly, Tiny decided to go back in with me and was fine as long as I held her in some way (holding hands while walking, sitting on my lap), but Buba refused to go back in. We’ve been two more times since then, and both kids have become increasingly more comfortable in the kiddie pool. They’ve even allowed T and I to take them into the shallow end of the big pool.

Unfortunately, school will be starting in just over two weeks, and our pool days are numbered. I wonder if we’ll have to go through the whole warming up to the pool process again next summer or if by 3 years old they’ll have lost some of the fear that they had last summer and this summer.

What has been your experience with your own kids and pools? Does this all sound very normal? Or could T and I be doing a better job at teaching them to be comfortable in the water? Have your kids already begun to take swimming lessons? And if yes, what has that experience been like for them and for you?

Monday: Our week got off to a great start. Both kids were finally completely free of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease, and we headed back to our EI playgroup for the first time in two weeks. The last playgroup we had gone to was the first time both Tiny and Buba were able to handle me being gone for the entire 90 minutes. I was hopeful (but nervous) that they’d allow me to leave again this time. And they did (hooray!). No crying from either of them. I’m so glad that we’re able to keep both kids in, even now that Buba is no longer receiving any EI services. Now I just have to come up with things to do while they’re playing without me. Not a bad position to be in.

Tuesday: We all went to a kiddie craft event hosted by the family group of a neighboring town. (We live right on the boarder of this town, so we belong to this family group as well as our own town’s group.) The event was held in one of the member’s backyard. Both Buba and Tiny had a ton of fun making tissue paper butterflies and even more fun playing on the enormous and elaborate play structure in the yard.

Wednesday: T and I took Tiny and Buba to a free tryout gymnastics class at a gymnastics academy about 20 minutes from our house. Tiny loved, loved, LOVED it, and Buba seemed to enjoy it too. As I was buckling Tiny into her car seat, she said, “Can we go back to gymtastics? I want to do more gymtastics please. I love it! I love it!” (I’m not kidding. That is exactly what she said.) We’ll be joining a nine week class this September. Getting Tiny to understand just how many weeks it is until we go back to “gymtastics” has been difficult.

Thursday: Buba and Tiny went to their first playdate in over two weeks. They were so excited to go to their friend’s house to play. They played inside for a bit, and then we headed outside to play with the sand and water table and splash in the kiddie pool. Tiny got to show off her new swimsuit (a short sleeved one piece suit that Grammy got her- I returned the one I didn’t love), and they all seemed to have fun playing between the rain drops under cloudy skies.

Friday: We all headed back to Grandpa’s pool (his town’s pool and tennis club, where he is a lifetime member) for more swimming with Aunt Dee, who is in town from California for the next week or so. Both Buba and Tiny were much more comfortable in the little pool (which varies from roughly 6 to 24 inches of water), and they even went into the shallow end of the big pool for the first time. They loved climbing the steps in and out (and in and out…) of the water, and Aunt Dee began teaching them how to jump into the pool into her arms and how to float on their backs. They’re not pros yet, but it’s a beginning.

All in all, this week rocked! We’re definitely back into our summer groove.

But during the two weeks that we suffered through Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease, the kids continued to ask about going to Grandpa’s pool. We told them that they couldn’t go until everyone was healthy again. That day finally came on Friday, and so on Saturday, we finally took the kids to Grandpa’s pool for the first time this summer. And this was when I discovered that Tiny’s swimsuit doesn’t really fit.

I bought it back in March- online from The Children’s Place. It was a little big, but not much and I figured she’d grow a bit in the next few months. I liked it because it had short sleeves (better protection from the sun) and ruffles on the butt (just so cute!)

The suit fits okay as long as it’s dry, but as soon as it gets soaked, the bottom part sags. I had to constantly pull the bottom half up so we wouldn’t get kicked out of Grandpa’s pool for indecent exposure. With the California cousins coming into town on Wednesday, I knew we’d be back at the pool several more times this week, so this afternoon we headed off to the mall in search of a new swimsuit for Tiny,

But of course, there are no swimsuits for sale in August. August is for back to school shopping, and the stores have already put out their fall displays- racks of jeans and cords and long sleeved shirts and sweatshirts. I get that some may want a jump on putting together a killer fall wardrobe for those first weeks back in the classroom, but hey, it’s still summer isn’t it?

T and I dragged Tiny and Buba from store to store (The Children’s Place, Sears, Gymboree, Hanna Andersson, Baby Gap, and Macy’s). Only Gymboree and Sears had swimsuits in Tiny’s size (size 12 months!) and that amounted to three options. We ended up buying a pale pink one-piece  from Sears (which cost $5 more than the one I bought in March!) that I don’t love, but that work for the next month. After purchasing the suit, we also checked Kohl’s, Carter’s, and the Disney Store, but none of those stores had any suits left either. I was thinking of making a trip up to Target tomorrow morning, but then I had this conversation with Tiny:

r: What do you think of your new swimsuit?

T: It’s good.

r: Do you love it?

T: I love it (said very unenthusiastically). I piddy sure I don’t need anodur one (she said with a tired grin).

I got the message. She doesn’t want to shop anymore. She doesn’t want to try on any more swimsuits. This one will do. However, when we talked to Grammy about our shopping adventure on the phone after dinner tonight, she said she’d check two more places, and I didn’t tell her not too.

Tiny’s fever lasted for 3 days and then the mouth sores began to appear. Sadly, she has gotten way more mouth sores than Buba, and to say that she’s miserable is an understatement. Yesterday was so bad. Tiny didn’t want to eat anything, and had a very difficult time sleeping. She woke up in pain five times last night, and each time when I went in she would mumble through her tears, “It’s hurtin’. My tongue is hurtin’.” (She has sores all along the perimeter of her tongue.)

I have continued to give her the generic Children’s Motrin, which she takes very well, but she’s still in a great deal of pain. Today she went through several periods of intense crying where she was completely inconsolable. She screamed and cried so much that she nearly lost her voice. It broke my heart to see her so upset. I can only hope that today was the worst of it and we’ll soon be on the road to recovery.

Fortunately, Buba is feeling much, much better. He’s still eating mostly soft foods, but he is clearly not in much pain (no longer taking any Motrin) and is just so much happier than he was all last week. I’m hoping that HFMD will soon be a distant memory, and that my kids will be the lucky ones who never, ever get it again.

By midmorning, I was beginning to see the sleeping in as a symptom that something unpleasant was headed our way. Buba was pretty lethargic as we attempted to run a few errands after breakfast, and even began to cry and request going home while we picked up new books at the library (something he loves to do!). Not good. He barely ate any lunch and fell right asleep when I put him down for a nap, without his usual routine of bouncing and singing in his crib. He cried a bit in the middle of his nap, but managed to fall back to sleep and got in the full two hours. But he was a complete grump when he woke up. Also not good. By that time, he felt warm to me, so I took his temperature- 102.6! I gave him a does of generic Tylenol and within an hour he seemed like his normal, happy self. I decided to give him another dose before bedtime, to make sure he’d be comfortable for sleeping, and hoped we were dealing with some sort of 24 hour bug.

Saturday morning, Buba was screaming for me at 5:45am. Very unusual. I went right in and he was hot. I gave him another dose of the medicine and asked him if he still wanted to rest since the sun was not glowing yet. He agreed to rest quietly (and did!), and I went back to bed. But Saturday wasn’t a great day either. Buba was cranky and still not eating much. At bedtime, I took his temperature again (he was due for another does of medicine), and it was a whopping 103.1! Not good at all. After taking the medicine, he slept from about 7:30 until 11:00 when he woke up crying for me. He still felt warm and it had been four hours, so I gave him another dose of the sweet smelling, purple stuff and hoped he’d make it until the morning.

Buba woke up at 5:20 this morning, and I went in immediately. He didn’t feel as warm, so I asked him to just rest until he saw the sunshine. I wanted to take his temperature before giving him any generic Tylenol, but knew that Tiny would stir if I took him out of his crib. He rested quietly (maybe even went back to sleep) and was up calling for me the second the Good Nite Lite changed. Finally some typical behavior was back. And he seemed to be in good spirits. I hoped that we were through with whatever bug he had caught. I checked his temp and it was down to 100.1. Not great, but better.

I asked Buba what he would like for breakfast and he requested raisins and a strawberry breakfast bar. He was standing at his high chair saying, “Eat! Eat!” so I put him right in and threw some raisin on the tray. Buba stuffed several into his mouth and then started to cry. One by one, he pulled them out and threw them on the floor. Not good. Tiny joined him, and I handed them both a plate containing a cereal bar, some yogurt, and some cut up frozen strawberries. Buba ate most of the cereal bar, a few bites of yogurt and all of his strawberries. Things were looking good. Until I went to brush his teeth.

I know Buba is getting at least one of his second molars, so I brushed very, very lightly, but he screamed and started swatting at the toothbrush. Never before has this happened. I removed the toothbrush, and found it lightly covered with blood. I didn’t waste anytime getting myself and the kids ready and out the door to our pediatrician’s office. Fortunately it was still early enough for us to be seen as a walk-in. We waited forever, but once he was seen, it didn’t talk long for the nurse practitioner to conclude that Buba has Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (so far, with no rash). Very common for a kid his age, very painful, and no real treatment.

So now we just do what we can to help make him more comfortable. I’m alternating generic Tylenol and generic Motrin, but he’s still noticeably miserable at times and not sleeping well (which means I’m not sleeping well). He hates the Motrin and vomited the first dose I gave him, which is not good since that’s the one that will help with the pain. Thus far, Tiny is showing no symptoms, but it could be just a matter of time. And wouldn’t you know it- this is the one week of the summer that T is teaching an enrichment class for his school district.

I know we’ll get through this. We’re certainly not the first family to be hit with this nasty virus. Still if you’ve been through this already, any tips you have to offer or words of encouragement would be appreciated.

**********************************

I realize I’ve been quite wordy lately. Thanks for reading all the way to the end.

So we finally had the night wakings under control when Buba decided that it was time to explore getting out of his crib. (Yes, he still wears a sleep sack. That has not stopped him.) To be fair, Tiny was the one who climbed out first, but her experience terrified her, and she hasn’t even attempted to climb out since. Buba, our careful observer, picked up on her strategies and perfected them to the point where he could get out and land safely on the floor. However, he would then cry and want to be put back into his crib only to do it again and again. Then one night, I decided not to go in right away. I let him cry for a few minutes and then quickly peeked in and did a quick scan of the room. I didn’t see him in the room, so I assumed he was still in his crib, which I did not get a good look at, and was just protesting going to sleep. I waited… 5 minutes… 10 minutes… 15 minutes. Finally I figured I should go in and calm him down. To my complete surprise, he was standing on the floor at the far end of his crib, holding onto the bars and screaming his head off. Yes, he had climbed out of the crib, but he had chosen to stay in his bedroom (the door was wide open and there was no gate up) and not to pull out any books or toys. I said nothing to him. Just put him back in his crib (the crying stopped instantly) and walked out the door.

I believe we had at least a couple of nights of Buba staying in his crib until he figured out that he could climb out of his crib and directly into Tiny’s crib without ever touching the floor. Their cribs are side by side, maybe a foot or so apart on the only wall of their room that doesn’t have any windows. He seemed to think this was fantastic. Tiny, however, was not amused. More screaming. More crying. We considered a crib tent, but decided not to go that way if we didn’t have to. So instead, we introduced three sleep rules: 1) stay in bed, 2) lie down, 3) go to sleep. And if the rules were followed, Buba got to play with a set of toys (an odd bunch of small toys picked up at a yard sale) in the morning. This worked for about a week.

T and I talked about possible solutions- move Tiny’s crib to one of the walls with window and hope she won’t mess with the cordless blackout blinds, get a crib tent for Buba’s crib, do nothing and just keep dealing night by night. It might surprise you to know that we chose the last option. But here’s the thing- Buba only climbs into Tiny’s crib once. After we put him back in his crib, he’s done and will go to sleep.

It was all very puzzling to me until Thursday night. It wasn’t long after we’d said our good nights that I heard Buba scream as though his arm had just been cut off. I went back into the kids’ room to find him still in his crib, but screaming and reaching towards Tiny’s crib. I asked him what was wrong and he told me repeatedly, “My needa monkey.” I instantly knew what he meant. Tiny has a soother attached to her crib that has a monkey who swings back and forth while soft music plays. Buba has one too, but his is a fish, and he wants a monkey.

I turned the monkey on, and Buba’s crying stopped immediately. Really? That was it. I walked back to the kitchen and told T what had just happened, and we both had the same thought. Perhaps another monkey soother would keep Buba in his crib. As I thought back about all the nights I had gone in to put him back into his crib, I recalled that most of the time, he was caught either turning the soother on or standing right in front of it and watching the activity inside. Maybe the climbing out is all about getting to the monkey and turning it on, which is why he’s okay with being put back in his crib.

So on Friday, I set out in search of another monkey crib soother. I first checked multiple message boards to see if I could pick up a used one, but there weren’t any for sale in our area. Amazon.com sells one and I could get free shipping, but I decided to try Toys R Us first. They had exactly one left, but for $45, I decided to let them keep it. T said we’d place the Amazon order after the kids were in bed, but of course, last night was the first in many, many, many nights that Buba did not climb into Tiny’s crib. So who knows what’s going on? Does he need a monkey or not?

T and I decided again to go back to our do nothing plan. The monkey soother is in our Amazon.com shopping cart, but I’m no longer convinced that it would be money well spent. I suppose only time will tell.

Their first 4th

Their second 4th

The first year, they were just shy of 4 month old, and I cannot even begin to tell you how we spent that day. The second year, we were visiting my family in Iowa. I remember that there was a big cookout, but I don’t believe we took them to any parades or festivals.

So this year, it was quite a change. We started out by heading over to a small carnival in a neighboring town on the 3rd.

an attempt to get a shot of the two with their first carnival prizes

playing the “pick a ducky” game

having fun in the bouncy house

riding their first carousel ponies

When asked about their favorite part, Buba said his favorite part was all of it, while Tiny’s favorite part was “eatin da fried dough.” If I hadn’t been so busy chowing down on some fried dough myself, I’d have gotten a picture of that too.

The next day we headed over to Grammy and Grandpa’s house. We went down to the town center to see the kids’ bike parade and then had a picnic in the park. After a nap, Buba and Tiny wanted to brave the heat and play outside for a while.

sprinkler fun

riding around the cul-de-sac

nature hike

With a 7:15pm bedtime, there were no fireworks to be seen this year, but perhaps in another few years I’ll brave the traffic and crowds and take Buba and Tiny to see the display on the esplanade.

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.