O.M.G. - Thursday Theater

Playing along again with Goddess's Thursday Theater theme. This video was taken around Christmas, which seems like light years ago. How do kids change so fast in just a matter of a few months?! Anyways, one thing that doesn't change is how much of a gigglepuss Abel is. I've documented it before, but this one truly takes the cake. He is possibly the most easily amused kid that ever lived.

Here, Abel is watching my dad play chess on the computer. I wasn't witness to this, as my mom recorded it while Jordan and I were enjoying an afternoon and evening off. When I saw the video, I originally thought it was one of those chess games where the characters do all sorts of crazy, grotesque things when one takes the other. But I learned this wasn't the case. This was a plain, old, boring chess game.

Not to Abel, apparently. Oh. My. God.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5...6, 7, 8, 9, 10...11, twe-eh-el-el-twel-el-elve!

today oz really busted out his number prowess. he's been able to recite numbers in sequence for a while, but i've never known if it's just recitation or if he actually conceptualized the idea of counting. for the past few months, he's easily identified two or three objects when asked, "how many are there?" but today, he legitimately started counting! we were drawing with crayons and he took crayons out one by one and as he did each one he counted, "one, two, tree, fou, fi." the dude counted to five! then we were stacking blocks and he counted to thirteen! THIRTEEN!

the boys' teacher said last week that abel and ozzy are uber-attentive during lessons and circle time, their eyes are wide open and they focus intently. she said, in a very wise and knowing way, that when they are ready to share with us all that they are learning, we will be blown away. well, i'm definitely blown away! and i can't wait for them to share more with us!

synchronized cribs antics

i've jumped on the bandwagon of fellow blogger goddess and am posting a video in honor of her thursday theater! we took this video of the boys maybe a month ago and it cracks me up every time i see it. when we're in the moment, it's hard to see how synchronized they actually are, and it wasn't until i watched the video that it hit me over the head! they LOVE to play in their cribs and they especially love to do "ring around the rosey" in fast-mode. they sing it, too, but most of the time it comes out sounding like, "ring, rah, ray! ping pah, pay! ashes! ashes! fall dooooooowwwwnnnnn!" i guess that's to be expected when you're running in circles at full speed. and note, the boys NEVER play ring around the rosey in the traditional sense. they think that's crazy business when we try and do that.

i should also note that every day they develop some new move in their crib repertoire. ozzy's new move is to post one foot on the crib slat and balance on the other foot, hands free. it kind of looks like the karate kid balance move! he also likes to stand or sit and have you throw him a kiss, by which he acts like he's been "hit" or "shot" and falls backwards onto his back or side. abel continues to perfect his jump to pike and his forward roll. maybe next weeks thursday theater will be "sport" and i can get some footage of these new crib feats!

tids and bits and a little video

the boys new obsession, abel in particular, is to "wash hands?!?!" i set up both stools in our bathroom where there are two sinks and the boys climb up there and proceed to turn on faucet (cold only!), wash, turn off, dry on towel...repeat...like 50 times...until i say it's time to move on to something else. abel would wash his hands all day if he could.

jordan greeted the boys this morning decked out in a suit (he had a meeting). ozzy looked at him and said, "daddy tie suit!" jordan said, "yah, oz, daddy's wearing a suit today." whereby oz looked down, patted his chest and proclaimed, "ozzy choochoo suit!" (oz was wearing his train pjs). we just can't get enough of this stuff!

the boys are now wielding knives. they put cream cheese on their bagels and like to practice cutting them up.

the boys have made the transition to regular cups. no more sippies for these big boys! they exclusively drink from dixie cups at school, so we figured it was time to do this at home, too. last night they both got to drink water from our beautiful hand-blown turquoise juice glasses. they were PSYCHED!

we found a brilliant way to manage abel's recent binky obsession (thanks to ms. surangi, they're montessori director). abel can have his binky whenever he wants it, however he must not suck on it. if he chooses to put it in his mouth, then the binky goes back in the drawer. since implementing this on saturday, abel has not put the binky in his mouth ONCE! and he gets it and holds it for like 3 minutes and then puts it down to do more important things. AMAZING!

oz is showing awesome potty-readiness. he now tells us he needs to go poo-poo BEFORE it happens (like 10 minutes before). as soon as he makes a poo, he IMMEDIATELY wants to be changed. we're not rushing into anything, but it's nice to see these signs.

the guys continue to amaze me at how they are not scared of anything. we are now reading "where the wild things are" and they think it is the most amazing book ever. they personalize every monster. "ozzy monta! abie monta! mommy monta! daddy monta!" and after a 4 month long thomas stint, they are now requesting to watch, "back-ga-gan teedee!" their favorite backyardigans is the halloween episode with the mummy, werewolf and dracula!

"running hugs" is perhaps my favorite thing in the world to do with my boys. it's a pre-bath ritual. sometimes it's just me, most of the time ozzy runs to daddy for hugs and abie runs to mommy. there's nothing like a toddler, let alone two, running at you full speed with arms outstretched!

color therapy

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Lost (and then found) in Translation

I've been meaning to write of the boys' vocal expression for a while now. I remember when I was really worried that they might have a speech delay. 6 months ago, I counted their words to make sure all was normal. All was normal. Then the concern over them stringing words together. And like clockwork, they have delivered.

Ozzy is now speaking in sentences. Lots of two word combos over the past few months, but now 3,4 even 5 word thoughts. "Abel bedroom with binky!" "Ozzy hug Maddie school!" It's beyond adorable and every day I wake up looking forward to hearing what he's going to say. And with this development, his pronunciation of words has improved crazy rapidly. We can pretty much understand most of what he says. He's even saying his teacher's name, Ms. Corazon, which I can hardly even say. And with that the transition of his brother's name has officially taken place. At 18 months, Oz called Abel, "baby!" at 20 months that became, "Abie!" and then a few months ago we started hearing, "Abel!" It's strange to hear him only refer to his brother by his proper name, given that we pretty exclusively call him "Abie." But for his own name, he firmly refers to himself as "Ozzy!"

Abel is still in the realm of two word combos but he has recently made huge strides and is in earnest trying to communicate thoughts as sentences. His favorites are, "I know!" (as in I say, "Abie, mommy is right behind you," and he replies, "I know!") and "No way!" Apparently no is just not a strong enough sentiment. Abel refers to himself in nickname (Abie). I don't think I've ever heard him use his full name. And Oskar has been, "Ahya" up until yesterday. We woke up to Abel yelling, "Ozzy! Ozzy!" to wake up his brother. I'm totally bummed that Ah-ya is no longer...so sad!

With all of this happening, I thought I should document some of their idiosyncratic words for posterity sake, before they're gone for good.

"Bee!" - James the Train
"Go-goh" - Gordon the Train
"Mah-tas" - Thomas the Train
"Mannie" - Matilda the dog, or their friend Maddie at school
"Caukey" - Coffee
"Teedee" - TV
"Pay doh" - play dough
"Wellow!" - yellow, Abel's absolute favorite color
"Oh-joo" - orange, Ozzy's favorite color
"Blah-Blah" - moon (Abel said this for a while and we could never figure out where the heck it came from)
"Zhou-shi!" - sushi
"Joo-joo" - jiu jitsu
"Wee-Wee" - lee-lee (their grandma)
"Our car" - they said this before they started stringing words. They clearly know car is just car, but I think they heard us using the possessive so much that they exclusively call mommy's car, "our car!"
"Ree er Ree er!" (as in the sound) - fire truck
In fact, they still ID lots of animals by their sound, instead of their proper names (even though they can say the animals' names!), including dog, cat, elephant, horse, snake, etc.

It's truly amazing to have reciprocal conversations with the boys now. They've understood everything for so darn long, and it's just a joy to now hear their thoughts and observations. And I can only imagine how fantastic it feels for them!

the tortured soul virus

the boys have been sick...again. i knew this would happen, starting school and all. and i don't want to complain, because as far as them being sick, it could be much much worse. up until now, it's been minor colds that haven't slowed them down a bit. friday night abel came down with a fever. he was fussy, understandably so. the weekend went from bad to worse as abel demonstrated a new strain of virus i call, "tortured soul." nothing could satisfy him. he said "no" to EVERY THING. at one point he thrashed around my lap for a solid 15 minutes. it was, quite honestly, pathetic. i just had to keep reminding myself that he was clearly uncomfortable and couldn't cope. i couldn't put him down for a second without top of the lungs screaming/crying. all the while, ozzy and daddy joyfully watched elmo in the living room (but if i dared bring him into the living room, "NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"). the whining, oh the whining!

ozzy got the fever exactly 48 hours after abel. but he's fairing a lot better. a lot less drama, indecision and general torment. thank god abel was feeling significantly better today. i honestly don't think i could take another day of it. he could function once again, and my faith that he is a mentally stable toddler (whatever that means) has been restored. the virus has now evolved from tortured soul to evil twin. i've never seen a day where abel was so mean to his brother. mean like grabbing his blanket at nap-time and chucking it in the hallway and slamming the door. mean like pushing him down and then whacking him on the head with a foogo cup. jordan and i were appalled and no amount of reasoning (ha!), time-outs or "you do that again and i take away the crayons/blanket/binkie," would stop him. it was a total discipline conundrum. and one that i continue to worry about as the boys' physical aggression towards each other escalates. i'm torn between holding a firm line and trying to understand the frustrations of two-year old twins who are in eachother's face constantly and trying to navigate through jealousy, territory and general frustrations. fun stuff!

i'm hoping for better days, and i know they are around the corner as they always are. this is just a particularly unpleasant period. on the flip side, abel mastered a forward roll today which, in my book as a former gymnast, is perhaps the most impressive milestone! a silver lining, indeed. as was this, an early morning finger painting session:

kite delight

we took full advantage of the beautiful 65 degree day today and went to the kite festival at zilker park. amazing! despite both fighting fevers, both guys absolutely loved it. and even though it was a cool day for austin, we didn't forget our sunscreen or sunglasses!

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hello kitchen!

we did it! we are at the tail-end of remodeling our kitchen and it's only been three weeks (from tomorrow). all in all, a crazy success. but living through a remodeling project is never fun. our kitchen was straight out of 1982, popcorn ceilings, florescent light and all. oh, i forgot, the previous owners upgraded the hardware with some nice bathroom knobs and handles from target. here's the before:





we decided to go IKEA, mainly because it's so darn affordable and we could do a lot of it ourselves. we also like the modern look. we bought everything way back in november because IKEA was running a nice promotion and our doors were on mega discount because of discontinuation. score! i started building the frames a few weeks after the boys started school, and had everything finished in less than a week. we were ready for our contractor to start! here's some pics of the kitchen gutted, walls and ceilings floated and cabs layed out:



we really didn't change the layout. the only addition is a row of bench cabinets along the wall for extra storage and seating. the main components of the remodel were new cabs and counters, new recessed lighting, smooth walls and ceiling, new micro/hood and a wine fridge, new sink, faucet and backsplash. jordan's good friend is a contractor and he loaned us his two guys for the job. ramone and mauro are brothers and they were fantastic. i wish i had a picture of them! the boys were totally in awe of them and talked about them every. single. day. and every day they came home from school and marveled at what the brothers accomplished. i also have to give a huge shout out to jordan's mom, nana, who hosted us at her house every day for the past few weeks for after school snacks, play and dinner. we could not have done this with out her. period. so here's the unveiling (but remember, it's still not finished, organized or very clean!):







i still have to seal the backsplash, put handles on the bench cabinets, paint and then organize, organize, organize. and clean, clean, clean! and look for a table that works with the new bench seating. but it's a far cry from what it used to be. oh, and we are eventually going to get to the floor and we're leaning towards cork. but that's for another time. for now, we're just going to enjoy our new cooking and dining digs!