more tidbits

- abie has added a new element to his bedtime routine. instead of reading a book, he'd rather spend his last few minutes of wakefulness playing with his cog puzzle from ikea.

- the boys are now drinking from cups with straws instead of the traditional sippy cup. they love it! abie loves it so much that he drinks for the fun of sipping it out of the straw, however instead of swallowing his milk/water/etc. he sips it into his mouth and then opens his mouth part way to let it run all over his shirt. lovely. i actually had to tuck a burp cloth into the top of his shirt today at the mall as we were strolling around. i just knew those things would have a second life before they turned into cleaning rags.

- with the advent of drinking from straws, i thought it would be so perfect to get the travel sized milk boxes for on-the-go. let's chalk the idea up to, "not ready for this one yet." we had two ecstatic boys running around kohl's squeezing the boxes and squirting milk everywhere.

- the boys have been going over to their best friend/neighbor kai's house for morning play time and have discovered the piano. they both wanted to sit on the bench so bad today, so i put them both up and they played duets of avant guard piano for a good 20 minutes. it was one of the cutest things i've seen in a long time. well, almost as cute as...

- ozzy feeding abie today. we had an impromptu string cheese snack this morning and oz was loving putting the cheese into abie's mouth. now this is what having twins is all about, people!

sign of the times

the guys are becoming hilarious with their sign language. they love communicating with their hands and gestures, which is a good thing, because their words just don't cut the mustard yet. besides mama and dada, abie says dog (duh) and truck (druh) and doi (oh, come on, y'all know what a doi is!). he also says bizabuzabizell a lot. abie is extremely conversational and will talk in complete sentences as we discuss the presidential primaries. complete sentences in baby chinese, that is. oz says dat when he points to everything, and ma-maaaaaaaa! or just maaaaaaa! when he wants something or more of something. he will also say nanana when he is really excited about eating a banana.

but the signing is where they really shine and it's so much fun to see them show me what they are thinking. they do both traditional and non-traditional (as in they/we made it up) signing. they've both mastered some basics - milk, eat, more, all done and clean up. oz will get to the page of the book where there is a monkey on the indigenous man's head, and he will pound his chest like tarzan and then put his hands on top of his head. "look ma, there's a monkey on the guy's head!" every time he wants me to sing itsy bitsy spider he pulls out the book and pinches his fingers over his head. abie raises his arm next to his face and blows a loud raspberry when he sees an elephant. and we actively make up our own signs for lots of things. a good example lately is truck, where i've taught them to "pull the horn" (remember doing this on road trips when you'd pass a truck?!). i've realized i should probably look up the actual signs for these things so that the boys don't have TWO secret languages, so i've bookmarked the ASL's video browser, which is super cool. i'm going to try and incorporate as much sign language as possible, including teaching them a new sign every week, starting with bird, since they love birds so much.

i'm sure as soon as we start to really get into signing, actual words will start pouring out of their mouths. they just love to shake things up like that.

abie luvs him some shoes

just in time for his 15 month birthday yesterday, abie j made the transition to big-boy soled shoes. he was psyched! honestly, i just haven't gotten him a pair because they are so darn expensive. but our good friend diane gave us a pair of kai's "see kai run" shoes (yes, i'm not joking) that never fit him. they are so darn cute and fit abie like a glove, which means he'll grow out of them in a month or less. but for now, abie is seriously digging his shoes. when i first put them on, he examined them for about 5 minutes, after which he promptly got up and stomped around the house with glee.

walkin' around

the guys love to walk every where we go, and have gotten pretty fearless when it comes to being outside and in public. oz walks from the car to the door of costco and just thinks it's the coolest thing, until i put him in the cart, that is. and abie just wouldn't stand for me carrying him to the car from a birthday party yesterday. the sidewalk just looked too darn good. so yesterday i broke down and finally bought them cute little teddy bear and monkey "back pack" leashes from target. before having twins, i swore i would never do this. now it's just a necessity, especially if i'm out with them by myself (since they REFUSE to hold my hand - how uncool is that?!).

their favorite game right now is "i'm gonna get you!" when daddy chases them down the sidewalk. here are all of my boys demonstrating:

three times NOT a charm

the blankie saga continues. abie had a fever yesterday so i (against my better judgment) let him have his blankie on our evening walk. low and behold, we come home, eat, play, get ready for our bath, and as i'm looking around their room i realize that his blankie is MIA. j goes to the stroller. nada. so as the tub is filling up, he high tails it in the car and retraces our route. thank god he found blankie! but of course abie went to bed with a filthy blanket. we got all the leaves and obvious pieces of dirt off it, but it had been laying in the street for a few hours. so abel snuggled up to some street last night. ugh!

then tonight, the drama continued. yet again, oz ran into the bathroom with the tub filling up and chucked his blanket in. i actually screamed "NO!" as it happened. it actually felt like the slow motion, drawn out kind you see in movies. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" needless to say, oz went to sleep with another wet blanket.

and if anyone is curious, i can tell you from personal experience from the past 5 minutes, that if a 15 month old child stirs in the middle of the night and his blankie is not there, because it is still in the dryer, he DOES notice and he is NOT happy.

wet blanket + dirty blanket + wet blanket = should have paid $10 for overnight shipping when ordering back up blankets last night

soggy comfort

the boys are seriously attached to their blankets. those little things are 15"x15" "cozychic" knit of pure comfort to them. lee-lee got these blankets for the boys upon their birth, we started putting them in their cribs when they were about 5 months old, and by 7 months they were hooked.

we've had some near disasters with them as the boys have become even more attached and wanting to take their blankets with them on stroller rides, outings, etc. and man, what a mother won't do to rescue her child's blanket! i remember a few months back taking the boys on a greenbelt hike (i.e. rocky, off-road, forested area), only to discover upon coming home that abel's blanket was MIA. it was nap time, but i knew that any chance of them sleeping would be nada without this missing item. so off we went on another 45 minute hike to find blankie. and there he was, laying in the middle of the trail, all alone.

so tonight it was rather surprising when oskar ran into the bathroom as the tub was filling up for their pre-bedtime bath and boldly threw his blanket in the water. doesn't he realize what this means?! pure masochism, i tell you! jordan told me what happened and i honestly didn't think it would be that big of a deal. i said, "well, we'll throw it in the dryer and give him a different blanket to snuggle." yah, right.

so we do our bedtime, and oz totally rejects the "other" blanket, whipping it to the floor each time without a second glance. he finally settles and j puts him down in his crib. not more than two steps out the door later, oz is freaking out. so i grab two of ozzy's favorite ugly dolls, pass them to jordan, and he tries to give oz these second-rate back ups. that appeased him for all of 5 minutes, probably because he was so amused with getting his toys in his crib, but then when the novelty wore off, oz was freakin' again. so i hot foot it to the dryer, and it would be generous to say his blanket was still damp. but as j had already left for class, what was i to do? i grabbed that damp cloth and brought it to my hysterical son, who immediately grabbed it, hugged it, and collapsed into a sleep stupor.

now that gives new meaning to a wet blanket! i just hope i can sneak in there in a few minutes and snatch that blanket away from a slumbering and (cross your fingers) oblivious oksar and dry in properly. oh, and in between writing this post and watching american idol, i just ordered two more blankets so this will NEVER happen again.

theme weekend

i hate to gloat about the weather here, but it really was a perfect weekend. we're talking 75 degrees, light breeze, 20 percent humidity and feathered clouds in the sky blue sky. we wanted to be outside as much as possible, and i'm in a spring gardening mood, so saturday we took the boys to an amazing garden center, the natural gardener. they LOVED the donkeys and running around the gardens and tropical house. they were totally into touching all the flowers!

springtime in texas is a fantastic season because of all the native wildflowers. fields of lavender bluebonnets, indian paintbrush, and buttercups blanket the highway frontages. last weekend we went on my favorite drives for wildflowers and there was zilch to be seen. i could just imagine the boys sitting amidst all the flowers and taking some incredible pictures. so this weekend we went straight to the source - the lady bird johnson wildflower center. it was awesome, but of course we forgot our camera. so here's our quintessential texas wildflower pics with j's camera phone!

oskar tidbits

- oz has a new component of his bedtime routine that consists of him kissing all of his stuffed animals. he points to each animal on the shelf, one by one, and we bring it to him to kiss. one is a blue ugly doll, which he promptly smooches his fanged teeth. the next is a very furry alpaca teddy bear, which he won't kiss because it's too fuzzy (but he needs to say good night to him, nonetheless). when we get to piglet, a homemade version from my youth, he yells "mama mama mama!" and gives him the biggest kiss you can imagine. he basically inhales his face. we have no idea where this whole routine came from. just one night last week he started pointing to the animals and wouldn't give up until j would given him each one. what i want to know is why piglet is emphatically identified as "mama!" what is he trying to tell me? and why the heck don't I get a kiss like that before bedtime?!?

- tonight during the boys' bath, oz grabbed the washcloth and started to clean abie's arm, and then face with it. if he drools on the floor, he'll grab a burp cloth or tissue and wipe it up. but god forbid you wipe his hands and/or face after a meal. that is just unacceptable.

- oz loves to go for walks around the neighborhood. he walks on the sidewalk and he just keeps on going and doesn't look back. he's also getting really good at throwing the ball for mati and loves to hang out in the yard throwing the ball for her over and over again. that is when he's not running laps around the yard.

conversationalists

the boys LOVE to talk to people on the phone. last week ozzy managed to call lee-lee all by himself. i was on the computer and all of a sudden i heard the phone ringing on speaker and lee-lee saying "hello" on the other end. oz proceeded to scream and babble into the phone, blowing kisses and kissing the phone every time lee-lee said, "i wish i were there to give you big kisses!" and then hugging the phone at least a half a dozen times. it was unbelievably cute.

but the best is when we talk to j throughout the day. the boys can't get enough of talking to daddy on the phone. they get so excited, doing a happy feet dance, screeching and screaming and saying dada over and over again. i know i need to get it on video, but for now, here's a little sequence of photos, mainly of abie talking to dad.

the look of things to come

it's heating up here in austin (85+ degrees!) so we're appropriately spending more and more time outside in less and less clothing. today i glimpsed my future. it's a fun, adventurous and slightly scary image. two little boys running around the backyard like mad men, spraying water at each other, flinging wet dirt everywhere, chasing the garder snake back into the rocks (for real - i think he's our friend though!), and falling backwards from the patio into the raised plant beds. oh, and i forgot the best part! the joy of smearing said wet dirt all over their bodies. let's just say we took our bedtime bath early tonight.