23 Months Old

Dear Tiny and Buba,

It’s hard to believe that it’s been two months since my last toddler update. The past couple of months have been filled with lots of learning, growing, and experiencing new things.

The thing that amazes me the most these days is listening to you sing. You both have learned to sing quite a collection of songs (including The Wheels on the Bus, If You’re Happy and You Know It, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and more!). Although it’s not uncommon for either of you to burst into song while playing or riding in the minivan, I still find myself pausing to pay extra attention to your sweet, little voices. I especially love listening to you sing our version of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. I’ve been singing it to you guys since you were infants, singing your own names instead of Bonnie, and now you are singing it yourselves. You insert each other’s names, Mommy, Daddy, Grammy, and Paw Paw and laugh and laugh as you sing. You also love to sing the songs you’ve learned through Early Intervention (Hiding Hiding and All the Little Ducks), as well as a song we made up at home (Bye-Bye Mr. Cry).

You’ve both discovered the fun of pretend play. You like to use the Laugh & Learn Learning Home as you pretend to go off to work in the white car (our Corolla).You come to me and give me kisses as you announce that you are going to work. Then you wave bye-bye as you crawl through the door of the house and close it behind you. But only moments later, you burst through the door announcing that you are home and then the fun begins all over again.

The play kitchen you received as a Christmas present has also provided hours of fun. You both love to prepare meals with the plastic food and bring them to me for a tasting. The smiles on your faces when I say, “Yum! Yum!” are just priceless. And you love to use the phone from the play kitchen to call relatives and friends to chat about your day. You say, “Hello? Mmmhmmm, Mmmhmmm. Sit down and read books. Love you! B-bye!”

We’ve had several fun adventures at new places these last couple of months. We bought a multi-pass at a toddler gym, and you both enjoy climbing, running, and jumping in this playspace just for toddlers.

You also had a ton of fun at the gymnastics birthday party for your friends, and you especially enjoyed running and bouncing on the long trampoline and jumping into the pool of foam blocks.

Tiny, you are all about asserting your independence these days. You want to dress yourself, put on your own socks and shoes, and put away the toys you’ve claimed as yours. This can sometimes be a problem if we need any of these tasks to be done quickly, but your determination served us very well during our potty training weekend. At 22.5 months old, you decided, “No more diapers.” We devoted an entire weekend to helping you learn to use the potty, but you pretty much had it down in 5.5 hours. And it’s been smooth sailing ever since. What can I say? When you’re ready, you’re ready.

And finally, it is probably your language development that has continued to wow me the most. You’re constantly rehearsing and repeating the new words and phrases that you hear, and it’s usually not until I hear you say them that I realize you were listening when I thought you were ignoring me. And although we don’t have 100% accuracy, you’re getting pretty good at remembering events from our days and telling Daddy about the things we’ve done when we sit down for dinner. I know he enjoys this part of the evening very much.

Buba, you continue to make tons and tons of progress with both gross and fine motor skills. Although I don’t like to see it, you are building lots of strength as you practice climbing up and down our couches. You love to climb so much now, that we decided to move our Kangaroo Climber into the living room so you and Tiny would have something inside that is appropriate to climb. This climber keeps you busy for hours each day. You love to climb the steps on the outside of one side, and you climb through the big, round opening on the opposite side while hoisting yourself up to the platform at the top of the slide.

And your fine motor skill have improved dramatically. Just a few months ago, the Busy Poppin’ Pals toy was a major source of frustration. You wanted to make all those animals pop up, but you were only able to get the panda by pushing the big button in. Now you can slide, flip, turn, or push to make all the animals come up. It is so nice to watch you enjoy playing with that toy. And I love, love, love to hear you sing. You pick up new songs after hearing them just once, and I know if we could find a sing-along that lasted all day, you’d be in heaven.

It’s hard to believe that you’ll be turning two in just two more weeks (March 7th). The old expression is definitely true: The days are long, but the years are short.

Love you!

Mommy

No Climbing

Maybe it’s because it wasn’t allowed, or perhaps it’s because my guys are such peanuts, but Tiny and Buba weren’t into climbing when all their friends started doing it. Sometime in the fall, they both attempted to climb up on the couch, but I pulled them off and told them, “No climbing.” When they tried again, I put them in time out, and that was pretty much the end of the climbing attempts…

until the holiday break.

T was home for a little over a week, and even though he knew that I didn’t allow climbing, he let Tiny and Buba climb up on the chair and couches. I explained to him that my biggest fear wasn’t the climbing up, it was the falling off. Although he was with them when they were climbing, I can’t always be there when I’m solo parenting to make sure they’re being safe. And I’d rather forbid the climbing than have to deal with nasty spills off the couch.

But it was too late. The damage was done, and there was no longer anything I could do to keep Tiny and Buba from climbing on (and falling off) the furniture. A few times I removed the chair and put in in a room that was gated off, and after I caught them jumping on the couch, I penned them in the kitchen. But those were not great solutions. So, we came up with a better one…

No, you’re not seeing things. That is, in fact a Kangaroo Climber in our living room. It used to be in our front yard,

but T and I agreed that Tiny and Buba really needed to be allowed to climb something in the house. So Tuesday night, T brought it inside and cleaned it off. Buba and Tiny were instantly into it. And they’ve spent the better part of the last three days playing with the climber.

Over the summer,  it took a lot for Buba and Tiny to hoist themselves up the the platform at the top of the slide. But now they can do it with seemingly little effort. And while there is obviously still a risk of falling, I’m just not as worried about it when they’re on the climber. They’re holding on with their hands and gripping with their feet, rather than just bopping around on squishy cushions. They’ve had a couple of minor spills, but they’re falling with more control.

And since we brought the climber inside, there has been significantly less climbing on the furniture- maybe 5% of what there used to be. I’m not thrilled to have the climber in the living room, but spring will be here soon enough, and then the climber will go back out into the yard. Until then, they’re happy, so I’m happy.