Thursday, February 21, 2008

Cute things my kids do

or, Let's talk about something other than vomit

I haven't posted about the girls in a while, but they're continuing to grow and develop and be twice as adorable as any other babies on the planet.

Katherine's big advance for January was full-time walking, to the great relief of everyone. It's so nice that I can hold their hands and walk with them, rather than holding Claire and carrying Katherine. Of course, they still aren't reliable about staying with me if I have to drop someone's hand to open a car door or something, so I think we'll be acquiring safety harnesses. I remember being a kid and seeing other kids on leashes, and thinking it was just so mean, but now I understand, at least if you have multiples -- it's either that or stroller them everywhere.

February seems to be the month of language. My girls have been much slower to talk than, say, Eva's kids, who are one day older than C&K and to whom I occasionally compare them. We have had a couple of basic words, mama/dada/uh-oh/bye-bye and the like, for months, but they didn't show much interest in acquiring any more. In the last week or two, though, Katherine has learned "baby", "puppy", "oopsie", "water (wawa)", and begun to reliably mimic things you ask her to say.

Claire has "water" as well, and "night-night (ni-ni)", and in the last couple days she has learned both "no!", complete with head-shake, and "mine!" Yesterday one of the dogs was licking her in the face, and she shook her head and said "nononono!" I suppose it's not surprising, because "no" is a word she seems to hear an awful lot. "No, Claire! We don't climb the outside of the stairs!" "No! We don't hit Mama with the book!" "No! We don't stand on the back of the sofa!" "No! We don't steal sister's toy!"

Claire has also started, in the last several days, to sing. When the girls go down for naps together, or wake up from naps or sleep, they love to stand in their cribs and chatter. However, Claire now sometimes does what even Daddy the skeptic recognizes as singing -- she makes little tunes of nonsense syllables and repeats them over and over. She has always been more interested in music than her sister, and I'm now thinking that she is going to be musically inclined, and foresee a future of piano and voice lessons.

I am contemplating potty-training for them, once the HG eases up (right now, I can't face dirty diapers at all, and even wet diapers aren't so great). I would really like to get them day-trained before the new baby arrives, but I can't help thinking that they are awfully young. Still, I suppose eighteen months is an appropriate age to take the first steps, and anything that cuts down on the post-CS diaper changes will be welcome.

The nanny situation is working out beautifully, which needless to say is a real lifesaver with the HG situation. Her son is the girls' age, and they are playing nicely together for the most part. There were a few bumps and bruises in the beginning, as A. learned how to play well with other children, something I take for granted because C&K do it so well, but they've got their dynamic figured out now. Unfortunately, I am not getting much work done, because I still feel icky enough sometimes that it's hard for me to focus on code. Plus, I'm sleeping a lot because I'm still way undereating and continuing to lose weight (4-6 lbs in 10 days of hardcore HG, depending on hydration status, and I'm noticeably thinner). I'm hoping that will even out in time, though.

2 comments:

Eva said...

They sound like so much fun! I love the image of the singing.

It's so hard not to compare to other people's kids, especially when they're close in age. I'm always reading about kids who are running and jumping at 18 months and Sarah isn't even walking on her own at 17 1/2. But it sounds like yours (and mine) are clearly normally developing, and I know Sarah will walk when she can be bothered to do so. Looks like your girls are starting to really care about talking, and I am sure their language will just explode.

Nico said...

I agree with Eva, they'll start adding words at an exponential rate over the next few months. It sounds like they're right on the cusp.

I would also like to have Ant potty trained before the new baby comes - I read a book about it that sounds like a good approach to me, called potty training in less than a day (or something like that), by Azrin and Fox. It's an older book, so I'd probably change a few things in their approach. But that say that every child they tried it with at 20 months + was potty trained.

It sounds like the pump is helping, I really hope that the HG ends sooner rather than later.