Conference

Last week Arya was pounding food. She would eat more at every meal than Eiley and was snacking in between. This week the two of them have been staying up late every night instead of sleeping and she is exhausted. I'm guessing she is growing because Eiley is now pounding the food and doesn't need the sleep yet that Arya needs. I was picking out pajamas for Zia tonight while Cork put clean sheets on the twins' beds. Arya was in the room with him and I heard them talking about Arya needing to take her shoes off and get ready for bed. Cork told him that maybe Zia could help her. Arya said "Zia don't know how to do anything yet." By 6:20 Arya was asleep in my lap and nothing was waking her up.

While Arya is sort of right that Zia doesn't do anything yet, Zia is trying to do a lot of stuff. Today she ate some pear at the gym, some of our smoothie at snack time, and she ate banana at dinner. Before today, she only took a tiny bite of everything and really just for taste. Today she wanted bites and swallowed everything she opened her little mouth for. She's also trying to hard to stand on her own and be mobile.

I had a conference with the twins' teachers today. Both had an evaluation last week. Both are right on track where they should be. They can say their alphabet, trace their name, name their shapes, colors, etc. The teachers said that while they are right where they should be on those type of skills, they are worldly. That both Arya and Eiley can name uncommon animals and talk about a bunch of stuff in class that the other students don't know about. We're always checking books out of the library and we often look for things that cover different items or cultures. I was glad to hear that the time we spend at the library and reading books at home is paying off.

This is how I shovel the drive way when it isn't too cold outside.

This is relaxed Zia is when we come back inside.

Dress Up

I was moving clothes from the washer to the dryer today when I heard the twins starting to fight. I yelled "Hey" from the laundry room to try to get them to stop.
A: Eiley we not being nice right now.
E: Yeah, we fighting, biting and hitting.

Later I was changing Zia's diaper. I could hear the two of them around the corner, opening a cabinet, pulling out a bag of pretzels, and very loudly digging into the bad. Arya then announced, also very loudly, "We being sneaky!" No kid, you're really not.

While I was cooking dinner, Arya told me "I was keeping an eye on that." I asked her on what. She said "I don't know what I was saying." She loves to repeat things she's heard, even if she isn't quite sure what they mean.

I've found a use for all my old bridesmaid dresses. The girls and I have been dressing up together and they LOVE it. These pictures crack me up. I am obviously not good at self pictures. The second one has so many things wrong with it. Besides the fact that it's out of focus and my head is cut out, we are all wearing our regular clothes under the dress up stuff and I'm wearing Simple clogs from about 15 years ago. The girls looks so happy though, so I had to include it here.

Look who has been bathing together lately. They love it.

Napping

Cork and I went to talk to a few couples tonight who are pregnant with twins. The kids went with us, so I knew we would get to bed late. Both of the twins were having a very rough day today. It took me 2.5 hours, but I finally got Arya down for a nap. I tried everything to get her to sleep and she just refused. Eventually she fell asleep in the blue chair while I was changing a diaper.

Green Z

The twins love to color on a piece of paper, roll it up into a tube, twist it into a wand, and then dump it on the floor. They have a green one right now that I've thrown in the recycle bag over and over and of course they've pulled it back out each time. I found Zia sucking on it today, so she was covered in green marker.

Zuzu's Knees

Arya and Eiley were looking for things to bring to show and tell for school today. Eiley wanted to bring her elephant and I heard Arya and her talking on the steps.
E: What my elephant name again?
A: Boombo!
E: Yeah, Boombo.
Me: laughing Do you mean Dumbo?

I saw Arya messing around with Sikozu today. I wasn't sure what she was doing until she turned to me and said "I'm trying to bend Zuzu's knees."

Shake It Off

Arya was on a roll today. She wanted me to spray her in the face with the water bottle we leave out for Zia's wipes. I resisted at first and finally gave it. When I sprayed her, she shook her head back and forth like a dog saying "Cinderella, shake it off. Just shake it off."

She then came and told me that Eiley was on Facebook.

Eiley then had my phone, so Arya told me "Mommy check out what Eiley up to."

Hanitizer

The twins have a bunch of funny words lately. One of them is "hanitizer". You and I might know that as Hand Sanitizer. So now we all call it hanitizer and I think it will forever be called that around here.

You All Wet Spot

Eiley was looking at a Spot book today and sneezed into it. "You all wet Spot".

I was trying to read to the twins today. They were so mad at me because it was not story time. They were singing the clean up song as I read and got told it was clean up time and not story time.

Arya and Eiley were playing in the basement today at their play kitchen. I heard them talking to each other and Eiley told Arya she was making breast milk for her in the kitchen.

Names

I'm not sure what clicked today, but all of the sudden Arya can spell her name, Eiley's name and their last name.

Zia is now interested in standing. She's really not good at it though. She's banged her head a few times falling down. She did not pull herself to standing. I helped her, but she is really trying to do it on her own.

Dishwasher Thief

Zia can no longer be in her exersaucer next to the dishwasher because she has discovered it and wants to take everything out of it.

Challenge Accepted

When I made butter the other day, Cork asked if it was made from breast milk. He wasn't really challenging me, but I know a challenge when I hear one. No one has eaten it. It's just sitting in a dish in the fridge. The picture is deceiving because the glass bowl it's in is really tiny. There's not much there. Maybe I'll feed it to Zia.

I love these two so much. After staying up way too late, they finally crashed.

Stroller Zia

She's on the move...sort of. She not only pushes herself backwards if she's on her tummy on the wood floor, she also turns herself around if she's sitting. When I left her, her back was toward the boppy pillow so it would catch her if she fell. It's hard to resist legos and a music table.

I have a picture of the one of the twins in a stroller like this with her cousin pushing her around this age. Of course that means I had to put Zia in the stroller and let the twins play with her a little bit. She was so happy to be playing with them.

The twins were looking at pictures today from when they were infants. Eiley wanted to know what was in her belly button. I love how observant they are.

Butter

Eiley told me today "Spiderman don't do good things to people." There is one boy in her preschool who loves super heros, so I assume she learned about spiderman from him.

The girls and I had a "shaking party" today. I bought some cream and we sang songs while we shook the cream into butter. We then had the butter on bread for dinner. I know that it can be made in a blender, but I have a memory of making butter at preschool, so wanted to do this with them the way I did it in school.

A Few Issues

On Wednesdays, we usually stay at the gym after preschool for open gym. The girls get to eat a snack before we go in. Every week Arya wants to leave to go eat lunch and every week Eiley doesn't and throws a fit before we go. This week was no different. Arya was ready to go, Zia wasn't feeling well, and Eiley was ignoring me. When I told her that we were leaving she dramatically threw herself on the ground and started to scream "I don't wanna go yet". I told her she had two choices. She could either stop throwing a fit and I would help put on her shoes and coat or she could continue throwing a fit and have to do both herself. She kept throwing her fit. I ignored her as I put on Arya's stuff, put Zia in her seat, and got myself ready. Then I told Arya and Eiley we were leaving. Eiley started screaming harder because she then wanted me to put her shoes on and Arya started crying because "we can't leave Eiley." It quickly went downhill. Somehow I managed to convince Eiley to leave with me. Arya stopped crying and carried Eiley's shoes down the stairs while I carried her coat. Eiley calmed down enough to listen to me tell her that she now had 2 more choices. She could put her stuff on at the bottom of the stairs or she could go outside without and be cold and ruin her tights. She finally decided to stop fighting me and put everything on.  When we got home, I got chicken salad out of the fridge for sandwiches. I had told the kids earlier that they weren't eating peanut butter and jelly since they'd had a banana with peanut butter on it before school. Of course neither wanted chicken salad, both wanted tuna. I talked to them about tuna being the chicken of the sea. Then they were confused and wanted to know if the chicken salad was tuna. I tried to avoid more fits by telling them it was tuna if they wanted it to be. Maybe not the best strategy, but it worked. Both happily ate the chicken salad they thought was tuna. After, Eiley told me "I was having a few issues this morning." That was a gross understatement.

Later the kids were having a snack. Both wanted a green bowl, but we only had one clean. Eiley had asked first, so I told her she could have the green bowl. When I handed it to her, she looked at Arya and said "I get the green bowl, so too bad." While I tried not to laugh, I explained to her why it's not okay to talk to people like that. I have no idea where she heard something like that, but it was definitely said with lots of attitude.

The girls and I made cookies today. They wanted chocolate chips, white chips, butterscotch chips, golden raisins, dried cranberries, and marshmallows in them. An interesting combination. It wasn't too bad. I personally think they'd be good with just the dried fruit and chocolate chips. While we were making them, I looked over to see Eiley sticking her foot in her mouth. She was trying to bite one of her toenails. I just cut her nails yesterday, so they weren't long. She did have a snag though that I trimmed with nail clippers instead of having her bite them.

Poor Zia was sick today. She didn't have a fever, but obviously wasn't feeling well. I took her to the gym with us, but didn't put her in child care. I put her in an Ergo and walked around the track with her on my back. So many people on the track had comments for me. Many were concerned about me walking with her. She was awake for awhile and once she fell asleep I put up the Ergo hood to make sure her head didn't flop around. People had to check and make sure she could breath. It made me wonder if some of them had never seen a soft carrier before. Zia was much happier on my back than she would have been sitting at a table on my lap or in a stroller or car seat. She loves to ride around in the Ergo and watch what's going on around her.

Excellent

I haven't been doing a good job lately at documenting the funny things the kids are doing. So I made sure to make note of some of the things today. Like the following conversation.
A: Momma, take a picture of my butt.
V: No, I'm not taking a picture of your butt.
A: My va.gina I mean.

No, kid. I'm not taking a picture of that either.

I took the older 2 swimming today. Afer, they were pretending to swim around the house.

Eiley went potty this afternoon and I asked her to wipe herself. Zia is not feeling well and I was taking care of her. Eiley sat there for a few minutes refusing to wipe. Every 10 seconds or so she'd say "I don't wanna". I finally went in there to find her doing this.

I got a new toy out for Zia today. She tried to pull up on it right away. She loved it. By dinner time, I wondered why I thought it was a good idea to put batteries back in it. The twins kept changing it to Spanish mode and hitting the buttons. All afternoon I was serenaded by "Ama, Ama, Ama, Ver, Ver, Amarill, Azu, Azu, Ver, Ro" etc. They never let it finish any of the colors it was trying to say.

Cork came home from work tonight and asked how our day was. Arya answered "excellent".

Siblings

I love watching the three of them play together. The older two are amazing with Zia. They watch if she grabs small things and take them away. I'm always right there, so she wouldn't grab anything she shouldn't have, but it's still cute to watch them watching out for her.

While they look out for her, they also treat her like a little sister. When we put away the Christmas decorations, I couldn't find all the rubber cling things that had been in the front window. Today Arya found them. She and Eiley had piled them all into a little plastic picnic basket. And then they piled them onto Zia's head.

Goof Goof is 7 Months

Where have the last 7 months gone? Every month I look back and am surprised that another one has gone by. Our littlest is a joy to have around. Everyone loves her. The women in the day care at the gym never want to hand her over when I go to pick her up. She is as good for them as she is for us. I've been told by multiple people that she looks like a doll. A few have even said she looks like a cabbage patch doll. She's just so adorable and so good.

She's really into the cat right now. She'll grab handfuls of skin and fur if he gets too close. Thankfully he's good with her and he patiently waits for me to dislodge her hands instead of hissing, scratching, or biting. She wants to be on the move so bad. If she's on her stomach on the wood floor she will scoot herself backwards while she's trying to go forward. She runs herself into objects, like the couch legs, while doing this and then is stuck. She never yells once she's stuck, she just waits for us to get her.

The twins were playing with Barbies today. They left Ken like this and I couldn't not take a picture of him.

Not Quite yet

Zia wants to get moving so bad. She just hasn't figured it out quite yet.

Terrifying Threes

We spent a good portion of our day out of the house. First the older two had school and then we went straight to the zoo to enjoy the 45 degree weather. The girls were exhausted by 4:00. Arya was screaming at me. I tried everything to calm her down. I offered to hold her, to read to her, to give her a snack, etc. but nothing worked. Finally I offered a bath. I figured if they were tired this early that they could use it so we could get them to bed early. Bad idea. She screamed the entire time I bathed Zia. The entire time I undressed her. The entire time I bathed her. I lost it and yelled at her to "STOOOOOOOOP." Which of course was not effective. Zia laughed and Eiley stared, but Arya didn't do anything but continue to cry and throw a fit. I pulled her out of the bath and she screamed even harder because she wasn't done yet. I'd had enough by this point and told her she could get herself ready. I did eventually get her dressed, with her crying at me the entire time. As soon as we went downstairs again she just stopped. I have no idea why she started or what got her to stop. One minute she was a crying and spitting mess and the next she was acting like nothing was ever wrong. She was perfectly happy until we put her to bed at the regular time and then I sat downstairs listening to them playing for 45 minutes after bedtime. My only explanation is that she's three. Things don't have to make sense. She could have been throwing a fit about an uncomfortable sock or the fact the sky is blue.

Wine?

I was dusting our front window seat today and saw that Arya was going to jump from the couch to the window. When I told her not to she told me "When you not in here, EileyArya do dat all da time." Wonderful child.

Zia willingly at her first food today. She barely ate anything, but she really wanted it. She keeps gagging when I try to give her purees, so I think baby led weaning is the route we'll go. I gave her some cut up grapes and goat milk gouda. She loved both and happily chewed away. As I said though, she barely ate any. She's just interested in tasting things, but not actually getting calories from them yet. Which is fine with me. I know that she really only needs milk the first year, so as long as she's gaining weight, I won't push the solids. Maybe I should have given her a little cup of wine to make her meal complete.

Brawling Twins

After school today, one of the girls' teachers came up to me to talk to me about their behavior in class today. She was very light hearted about it and was trying not to laugh. Apparently they were picking on each other and she kept separating them. They have been working on making calendars during art time. Each kid gets her hands painted a certain way and stamps them to make a different picture for each month. The girls were separated over and over, but every time the teacher looked up, one or the other hand moved so they were next to each other again. One time when she looked up, they were wrestling, which quickly turned into a hair pulling, biting, kicking mess. She has two girls of her own, who are close in age, and she said she knows how sisters can be. While it is funny, it's also somewhat embarrassing as a parent to have a teacher tell you that your kids were brawling during class. To make the story even better, I found out that the kids had also lied about who was who. Now each of their calendars have hand prints from both kids.

The twins were talking at dinner tonight about how their cousins were getting older. Eiley told me "every every day kids get older."

Faker

We spent hours at the children's museum today. The twins were super exhausted tonight. Zia was tired too. I took this picture of her, but she was totally faking sleep, which I thought was funny. As soon as I snapped the picture she opened her eyes and smiled at me. She kept laying back like this and then laughing.

I have to remember that I can't leave anything within reach anymore.

Got milk?

Some days I wonder why we even both closing the baby gates.

My Half

I asked Eiley today if she was excited to go to the library with Arya, Zia and me. She told me "Yeah, because we can't drive." I'm glad that at three years old she already recognizes I'm her chauffeur.

While we were driving around today, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that the twins both had their eyes closed. I knew they weren't asleep, so asked what they were doing. Arya told me her eyes were closed because the sun was in her eyes. Eiley then told me she also had her eyes closed because of the sun. Arya then told her that the sun was "only on my half." Smart kid.

Blessing

The twins now go to Sunday school at church. The teachers bring them upstairs into the service during communion so they can all be blessed by the pastor. Instead of doing intinction today, we knelt on a pew and had bread and then wine in cups. The kids are more used to the intinction method where they simply walk up to the pastor and he blesses them. Today they knelt and waited for him to walk by them. When the pastor reached out to Arya, she ducted down so he couldn't touch her. He has two young kids of his own, so he just went with it and bent down lower to give her a blessing.

Bathroom Break

We all drove home today. Even though the twins can some days only use the bathroom 3 or 4 times, today Eiley couldn't make the drive back home without needing to stop. Thankfully she told me she needed to use the potty right before we got to a rest area. I was able to get all three kids out of the car, have everyone (but Zia) use the bathroom, get back in the car and back on the highway in less than 10 minutes. It was a record for us.

Over Night

Zia and I went to pick up Arya and Eiley today. Neither was ready to leave Nana and Papas house. They were so cute about it, so I decided to stay until tomorrow. Thankfully I'd grabbed some pajamas for Zia as I ran out the door. It was supposed to be an extra outfit in case she got her day outfit dirty. Thankfully I grabbed jammies instead of jeans or something like that. It was nice to have a relaxing day and continue to enjoy the time the kids have off from school.

Nothing is Safe

It was just Zia and me again today. We were out the door this morning before 8:00. It's so easy to get one child, who doesn't eat solids, out early. We didn't get home until about noon. Once we got home, she took a short nap and I got some things done. When she woke up, I put her down while I sorted mail. I walked away for a minute, came back, and found that she'd helped herself to the mail. I think the twins are going to quickly discover that anything they leave out is going to be Zia's too. Thankfully we don't have too many toys with small parts since the twins are only three.