5
June
2007
The boys turned 2, two weeks ago. I was hoping to put up a post that day…but…well, honestly, I’m just tired. By the end of the day it’s all I can do to clean up the kitchen and the yard and help Mike put them to bed. Lately I’ve been veging out in front of the computer watching TV shows like Veronica Mars, House, Heroes, and Criminal Minds. But now the season is over, so I read all my friends Facebook pages instead. 
Several of my friends with twins say 3 is the magic age, which in some ways is depressing since the boys just turned 2, but at the same time I don’t want to rush them through because this is also a really exciting time for all of us. The boys are learning so much, their language is developing, they are testing their limits (both those imposed by us and their own physical limitations), they’re super curious, and it’s so fun to watch these things developing. I only wish I had more patience and that they could figure out how to listen. I feel like a broken record some days, “Come here please”, “I said, come here “, “Come here now!” “1…2…at three it’s a time out…”, “Do not pull things off of the counter”, “Are you listening to me?”,. “No climbing up the drawers”, “No biting!”, “Are you allowed to throw your toys?”, “Stop screaming, are you allowed to scream?”, “Use your inside voice please” …on and on and on all day long. So, yes I’m exhausted, mentally and physically. But there are also lots of good things that happen in our day and the boys are really adorable, so I thought I’d give a rundown of what we’ve been up to lately, and what’s happened in the past year. Even in my exhaustion, I feel super blessed to have these two little guys in my life. It’s so amazing to me that two years ago this time, they were still in the hospital and we were fighting to bring them home. That in those two short years they have learned to roll over, crawl, walk, run, talk, climb, do somersaults, make music, color and fingerpaint, hit a ball with a bat, kick a ball, swing on big kids swings, count to 10, help make daddy’s coffee, pretend…and so much more!
Highlights from the past year
Bran was in the ER twice, once for losing the tip of his fingernail when Drew closed a door on it (thankfullly it’s healed nicely) and with a bout of pneumonia.
The boys went camping for the first time. We went to Banff with Jeffery and Holly.
They had their 7, 8, 9 ,10, 11, 12, 13, and 14th plane rides.
Went to Washington DC, SanFrancisco, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Ontario.
Spent a week with their Nana and Papa Bowling and Grandma Scott while we had a vacation.
What they’re doing now
The boys like to turn their food into things. Bread, cheese, and fruit, become cars, boats, diggers, trains, and firetrucks. Today Drew’s bread was a digger and then he put some rice on it so it would be “digging” something.
They help me make Mike’s coffee in the morning. You’ll have to ask him how it is. And yes, we’ve had our share of messes in the process.
If the boys burp, they are learning to say “excuse me.” But whenever they do have a burp they’ll start making fake burps so they can keep saying “excuse me.”
They love to say our neighbor, Connie’s, name. They call everyone Connie and every time they see someone next door, they point and say “Connie.”
We just built the boys a swing set. It has been so nice for them. It has 2 swings and a sliding board with a climbing wall. I’ve been building up my arm muscles pushing. The boys love to swing, but when I push I always have to sing either The Wheels on the Bus song, or a version I made up that has the same tune. I think the neighbors are probably getting tired of hearing it. Lately they’ve been sliding down the slide into their little pool. It has been ridiculously hot here. But, really I’m not complaining.
Andrew
Drew really likes to help feed the dog in the morning and at suppertime.
Drew likes to say the word, “careful.” Often as he’s going up or down stairs he will say “carefull” or if he has had a wobbly moment climbing, sliding, or whatever, he’ll say “whoa, carefull.”
His favorite thing right now is trains. I will often find him in the playroom, in the dark, playing with his trains. He also likes to store them in the refridgerator of his kitchen. No idea why. He has a Thomas the Train birthday card that he keeps around and sometimes if he’s sad he’ll carry the card around with him.
Andrew often skirts the line of misbehaving and you can see him plotting out how far he’s willing to go. He’s definitely the tester.
Drew says “Upa Me” when we wants me to pick him up.
The other day Drew came to me whining with a bulging pant leg in his overalls. I pulled out one car, then another, then another, until I had 8 cars! Five minutes later he came back again with 10!
Brandon
Brandon really likes to help me put away groceries. He says “helping” over and over as we’re putting things away. He also does this with emptying the dishwasher.
Brandon loves cars. He especially loves his toy cars from the movie Cars. He has Luigi, Lightning McQueen, and The Sherrif. His favorite is Luigi or Weedgie, as he calls him. Sometimes Weedgie has to go away for awhile. I’m not sure what it is about Luigie that makes Bran like him so much but whenever we watch the movie, he’s always asking where Weedgie is, or pointing Weedgie out. And he always carries Weedgie around the house with him. We have a special place we put him at night because he’s not allowed to take him to bed.
The other day Lisa took the boys to the playground and they picked some lilacs. On the way, there was a little girl crying in one of the yards they passed. Bran wanted to go and take her the flowers. He kept saying, “crying”, “lilac,” or something to that effect.
Bran runs right across the line of misbehavior and often finds himself in time out. It doesn’t help that he becomes obsorbed in whatever he’s doing and can’t hear you to obey. Sometimes I have to get right in his face for him to pay attention.
Bran is always wanting me to “pay cars” with him. He’s constantly coming up to me, holding out his hand and saying “walk” which means walk with me to my toys and play. He only wants to play cars. Playing cars consists of getting all of their cars out and their road and doing something with them. I’m realizing I’m not so creative in this kind of play. How many things can a car do? We get gas, have the car washed, drive up and down the road…the firetruck puts out fires, the cement truck fixes the road. It’s all real life stuff. When Mike plays cars, they build ramps and other fun stuff that I never think of. When Drew plays cars, he lines them all up like a train and then moves cars in and out until he gets them the right way. But usually Bran steals one or two from the middle and fighting ensues…
Bedtime
Bedtime is still a challenge, but naptimes have been mostly a breeze. Often Andrew will ask to go up for his nap before I’m even thinking about it. He usually goes up 20 minutes or so before Brandon because Bran doesn’t seem to need as much sleep. They both usually go down well. Bedtime is more difficult. We’ve gotten to the point where we do our bedtime routine, then we close the door and let them go. At first it was okay, they stayed up too late, but eventually it got shorter so that they were asleep between 8:30-9:30 (we put them down around 8:00). But lately they’ve really been tearing the room up. Already all their clothes are in baskets in our room. But now they’ve taken to pulling out drawers and jumping in them until the bottoms fall out. Once we went up and Brandon had staples from the bottom of the drawer. They climb both dressers (yes they are bolted) and have gotten things off of the top that we didn’t think they could get to. Tonight they ripped some of the wallpaper border off of the wall. I’m pretty certain they don’t get this from me. But they are learning to go to sleep on their own and there is less fighting at bedtime (as in us fighting with them). I guess we’ll just keep trying until we find what works best. I really do wish they were still in their cribs though. Tonight Bran managed to throw Drew’s soother out of their room (there’s a gate across the door), down the stairs and into the living room, the other times he got them half way down the stairs or into our room. If only there was a soother throwing competition we could sign him up for…
So now begins the Terrible Two’s?…gulp.
Posted: Drew & Bran
11
May
2007
The other day, Drew put a hat on his head and said, “cool.”
Today, Bran put his sunglasses on and said, “cute.”
Where do they get this stuff!?
Posted: Drew & Bran
10
May
2007
Bedtime
Not any better. Which is frustrating since they were such textbook sleepers as babies. In fact they still sleep fine, once they’re asleep. It’s not that they want us with them, or anything, they just don’t want to go to sleep and so they fight and fight and fight it. If one is super tired he might just go to sleep anyway, but if they’re both not wanting to go to sleep, then we’re in trouble. If I take away the afternoon nap we all go crazy and then they end up falling asleep really late in the afternoon on the couch and then bedtime is ruined again. I think it’s mostly a discipline issue and we just have to figure out the best way to help our boys realize that they have to go to bed at 8:00 and they have to stay in bed whether they like it or not. Stay tuned…
Eating
Drew is now in love with lettuce. Although the only dressings we can use are ranch, ceasar, or poppyseed. Bran is also starting to eat a little bit of lettuce too.
The new food of choice is kiwi, strawberries and grapes. Brandon still won’t eat french fries. Not that I’m upset, I just think it’s interesting, especially because we have to limit how many Drew can have.
The boys love noodles, doesn’t really matter what kind although spaghetti noodles are the best. With or without sauce.
Playing
Whenever Drew wants something that someone else has, he either says “share” or Anhew (which is his name for himself).
The boys got a toy kitchen that has been keeping them busy for hours. It has a coffee pot and Bran runs around the house saying “coffee” and trying to pour me some. The other day Mike was telling them that their oven is hot and when they take something out of it they should use a towel. Yesterday I walked in and saw Brandon pulling a pot out of the oven using the towel! I guess they are listening…to some things anyway.
Brandon and I spent some time in the yard the other day digging in the dirt and looking at bugs. He was really excited and at one point laid flat down on the grass to try and get a better look at the “bugs”. I tried to tell him their different names like this one is an ant and that’s a worm, and this one is…But he just kept looking for “bugs” and he would call out to them as if they would come when he yelled “bug, bug, bug” to them. It was really cute! He was also really good about holding the earth worms. He got a little aggressive and tried to squish it at one point though, so we put it back where we found it after that.
Talking
Bran calls Drew either Anhew or Dew. Today he was calling a puzzle piece of a zebra, Dew. We’re not really sure why…
Drew LOVES construction vehicles and calls them all “diggers”. Every time we get into the van he starts saying digger. He’s actually very good at spotting them and will call out when he sees one. There are lots of “diggers” in Edmonton.
Both boys love the movie Cars and it’s probably the video we’re watching the most right now. They say “queen” for Lightning McQueen and call out all the airplanes (or blimps or helicopters-they’re all airplanes) every time they see one. They’re now learning the name for Mater.
They both pluralize the word car so it’s always cars even if he’s only talking about one car. The other day Drew was riding his toy car and kept saying “cars, cars”
The boys have recently started saying “pop” randomly around the house and I couldn’t figure out why until I was reading Mr. Bown Can Moo. Mike had been reading that to them and they must have caught on to the word pop. The other day I was separating their yogurt containers and it made a popping sound. They yelled out pop. So now sometimes when they want yogurt, they say “pop.” and point to the fridge. They also yell out “pop!” when I put their toast in.
Speaking of toast. All bread regardless of wether it’s toasted or not, is called toast.
The other night Drew had been sick and went down without a bottle. Bran woke him up (long story) and then he seemed better and was wide awake. I was downstairs giving him some milk and a snack and he just started talking up a storm. He was rattling off all the words he knows, except that he was adding “a” in front of everything. A car, a bus, a train, a bottle, a snack…He just talked and talked and talked. It was really funny.
The boys’ favorite song is The Wheels on the Bus. They won’t let me sing anything else and if I try they keep saying “wheels, wheels, wheels on bus.” Drewie now sings “all through the town” with me.
Well…hopefully I’ll try and write more often so you don’t get so much at once. I tried putting it into the calendar, but the calendar…well…you know. 
Cheers!
Posted: Drew & Bran
20
April
2007
The boys spent a week with their nana’s and papa while we were in Barbados. They shuffled between Mike’s parents and my mom. They had a very busy week and from what I hear were both a delight and a workout. The grandmas got the boys haircuts and had their pictures taken. They visited where their grandmas work, went shopping, went to church, and had an overall active week. Brandon fell in love with his papa. Whenever Mike’s dad got home, all Brandon wanted was his papa. He’s still asking for papa. It’s really neat that the boys are now remembering so much. On our last day back home I asked Drew if he wanted to go see his Nana S. and he got all excited and said “yes”. I’m glad the boys got to spend so much time getting to know their grandparents and one auntie and uncle (Bren and Matt). They get to spend time with their other auntie and uncle (Holly and Jeffery) at other times. I’m also glad that they enjoy them so much. It’s hard when we’re so far away, but spending a week together gives them all time to get to know each other better. And it gives us time to get away too! It’s a win-win situation. Yay for the grandparents.
The boys have come back with a blossoming vocabulary as well. Yesterday they were watching the dog eat his dinner and they kept pointing at him and saying, “eating!” over and over. Today, Brandon was sitting on my lap and pointed to my cup of tea and said “hot coffee”, he was close . Their favorite words are car, truck, train and airplane, with a smattering of juice and doggie. You’d never guess they were boys… They’ve started putting two words together and every now and then I think I hear a sentence of three or more words.
Posted: Drew & Bran
6
April
2007
The boys had their first “violin” lesson on Tuesday. Our friend Dan graciously brought his violin over for the boys to have a little lesson. Drew especially is into music and he loves CBC radio. Lately we’ve been talking about what the different instruments are so I thought it would be fun for them to see a violin. Both boys stood fascinated for quite a while as Dan played some music for them. Then they got to try it themselves! Drew was a quick learner and even moved the bow back on forth with Dan guiding his hand. 
Brandon quickly learned how to pluck the strings, but got a little too agressive in his plucking so we had to find something else for him to do. I think we’ll try him out on the guitar next! I don’t plan on giving them any real lessons any time soon, but based on Drewie’s reaction we may have to let him try it out again in the near future. Anyone up for giving Brandon a guitar lesson?
Mike: If you don’t get the post title then I guess you’re not up on the hip two-year-old music scene.
Posted: Drew & Bran
28
March
2007
It’s 10:15 pm. Bran is still running wildly around the house, even though we put him to bed at 8pm. This has been the norm ever since last Friday when Bran decided to go on a sleepstrike at bedtime. Needless to say, all the work I plan to get done when the boys are in bed…*sigh*.
Posted: Drew & Bran
26
March
2007
Playing Games
A few weeks ago Drew would say “Ahm” (his word for Amen) at the end of our prayers before dinner. He doesn’t do it anymore, but now he and Brandon hold hands. We never encouraged this, but Mike and I hold hands, so I guess they decided they should too! This led to a bright idea…I was looking for something to do with them the other day, so since they’ve been holding hands I decided to see if they would play “Ring Around the Rosy…” And they did it great! We all held hands and at the end fell to the floor. Drew kept asking to play more and more. After awhile I had them play by themselves while I sang the song for them. They kept it up and were having lots of fun! It’s always a good day when I find something new to do that doesn’t lead to fighting over something!
The boys have been learning the game “duck duck goose.” Only their version goes something like this…Drew walks around tapping (read: hitting) everyone on the head saying duck, duck, duck… In the mean time, Bran is tapping his own head saying duck, duck, duck. And then Drew yells Duck! and runs away, Brandon follows after and we have to chase them both. When it’s our turn, when we get to goose, instead of chasing us, they both run away so we can chase them again!
It’s apparent, though, that I spend too much time on my knees, playing, and mostly cleaning up, because our rousing games of “Ring around the Rosy” ripped the knee right out of my jeans. I’m terribly annoyed because I only have two pair of jeans and I spent extra money on these ones because I was hoping they would last longer. 
Words
My friend Theresa was writing about her girls learning to read and asking lots of questions about how you pronounce words and what they mean. We’ve recently hit the stage of “what’s this?” I actually don’t mind it and enjoy helping them learn. (It’s a whole lot better than yelling at them for getting into trouble, again). But I’ve discovered that my vocabulary has dwindled over the past two years and I forget what some of the words are for the things they are asking. And it’s stupid things like a traffic light verses a street light, or what’s that thing that water comes out of in the bath tub, oh yeah, a faucet. When was the last time I had to use the word faucet! The worst thing is trying to remember what I called that thing earlier in the day so I say the same thing again!
Drew says “bless you” when he sneezes!
Bran has started saying “mine” when he’s playing with his toys.
Getting In Trouble
I’ve been starting to introduce a few things back into the living room at their height. The most recent was a vase of flowers. The first time they did great. The second time they seemed to be doing good so I went on with my vacuuming. When I turned around I saw them splashing in water on the end table. The table was covered in water as was the floor. The vase, which was completely empty of water, and the flowers were exactly where I had left them…I really wish I could have seen what had happened and the looks on their faces as they tried to put everything back.
Yesterday, Bran tackled Drew and stole a pretzel out of his mouth.
The Zoo
We took the boys to the zoo yesterday and they really enjoyed it. We took the stroller, but they walked most of it. They were so excited to finally see a real elephant (their favorite animal). We also got a good close up of a tiger which was both awesome and frightening even to Mike and I (the fear was mostly caused by the fact that the tiger liked to swipe the glass with his paws!). They even hooted with the owls. The funniest part of the day was the little indoor petting zoo they had set up (it is still cold here). They had rabbits, a ferret, a rat, some chickens, a tiny armadillo that was super cool and super fast, and some baby chickens in a cage. They boys squeeled with delight chasing the armadillo and Drew thought it was really fun to put his fingers in the chick cage and get a little peck from them!
Posted: Drew & Bran
19
March
2007
Reading
The boys have some new favorite books. The first is a Boynton board book, called “Doggies”. Mike has been reading it to them in their room each night. It’s a counting book (counting the dogs) and each dog makes a different dog sound, like “Woof”, “Yap Yap”, etc. Drew has the book almost memorized so that when Mike says “one dog…” Drew follows up with the corresponding “woof.” At 6, it’s “six quiet dogs” and both boys put their finger to their mouth and say “shhh.”
The other morning when I went in to get them they were both sitting between their beds reading books. Drew had the doggie book and was saying “Woof” and “Yap Yap” and Bran was reading the Brown Bear book looking at the yellow duck saying “quack quack.”
Two other favorite books are picture books on colors and first words. Every day the boys want you to sit down with them and look at the pictures. Very quickly we stopped them from pointing to all of the pictures and asking “what’s this?” by asking the boys, “where’s the… boots? firetruck? balloon?” Now we’re also asking them, “what’s this?” Sometimes they can answer. Over the weekend Mike was asking them where something was that wasn’t on that exact page and they would look through the book to find it. They know what it is if you tell them to look for it, but getting the actual word out is still a bit difficult at times. They’re pretty good with truck, car, tree, banana, apple…for animals, they like to give the sound instead of the name. It’s amazing how much they love these books! Just wait Grandmas, they’ll be coming home with us!
Counting
The boys like to count. They will count to three and then run from one end of the house to the other or one side of the yard to the other. It usually sounds like, blah, two, two! They’re starting to say three now sometimes but they never say one.
Mike has been playing hide and seek with them. We’ve set up a huge process for their counting or there would be no time to hide. They have to sit on the floor in the hallway with their feet touching the spare bedroom door. They have to count to five which sounds something like this, “one, two, blah, blah, BLAH!” and then they come running out. Usually unless someone is helping them to count, they’re walking down the hallway as they count, which makes it hard to hide in time. But they’re getting better. Bran is really good at finding. Mike has played this game with Noah (without the counting)… and they boys are already much better seekers.
Bath Time
Bran has started floating in the bathtub, with his ears all the way under. He loves it! The only problem is that he gets so excited that he starts kicking, and Drewie being on the other end of the kicks isn’t too happy. It’s made washing his hair a breeze. Drew doesn’t want any part of floating though. He just wants to stay in the tub as long as possible. When Bran’s done, he’s done and will ask to get out. Drew on the hand could probably stay in the tub all night. So now we’ve been pulling the plug and he can stay in until the water empties out of the tub. He seems content with that.
Sharing
I’ve been emptying out the spare bedroom for the boys to use as a play room. One of the first things I did was bring down two chairs for them, one is a stuffed tiger and one is a bouncer seat turned toddler rocker. I thought they would fight over sitting in the tiger chair. Nope, it’s the rocker they both want. Yesterday I heard them screaming so I went in and found Bran climbing up the back of the rocker with his pants halfway down his legs. Drew was on the other end trying to pull him and his pants off of the rocker. It was really hard not to laugh at them. It’s just another opportunity to learn about sharing, right?!
Posted: Drew & Bran
28
February
2007
I took the boys to the mall today, to get out of the house and to look for a book for the book club I’m in. It went reasonably smoothly. The boys got to look at fish in the aquariums next to Tim Hortons. They got a kick out of the lionfish. Then we saw flamingoes and sealions. After stopping at the bookstore and getting a Caramel Apple Cider the boys got to steer some ships wheels, the kind you pay money to steer a boat around the water. We didn’t pay any money, they couldn’t see over the glass into the water anyway! So, we were having a good morning. Then we stopped for lunch. Drew LOVES cucumber rolls (a type of sushi made with cucumbers wrapped in rice with seaweed on the outside), so I got those and a teriyaki chicken bowl with rice and carrots and cucumber. Drew sat in his high chair and ate really well. Unfortunately Bran didn’t do so well. He refused to sit in the high chair so I put him back in the stroller. I tried twice more and eventually gave in and held him on my lap which is what he wanted, I didn’t want to give in but didn’t think everyone else appreciated eating next to a crying child! The whole time he was sitting on my lap he kept flailiing around and acting like there was something wrong with him (to another’s person’s eyes, to mine he was just being bad). Toward the end of this exciting meal, Drew decided to keep climbing out of his seat (the belt didn’t fit) and then dump the rest of his food all over the table and then push it onto the floor. I got Bran back into his stroller seat with a great deal of trouble and crying and then went for Drew. While I was cleaning our mess off of the table and putting it back onto the tray and packing away bibs, Drew decided to start screaming (a very bad habit of his that I’m at a loss as to how to correct–any ideas? Please let me know). I finally got us all out of the eating area, whew! (usually we make it through a meal pretty well so this was unusual). Then as I’m pushing them back toward our entrance they start yelling “go” over and over “go” “go” “go”. Which I can actually deal with, that is until we stroll up behind a more elderly woman who, rather than noticing the frazzled mamma behind the wheel, takes this as an affront that she is walking too slowly! As she huffs away to the side, I just want to melt into the stroller. I quickly duck into Please Mum where it’s okay for kids to be a little bit loud, it is a clothing store for kids after all. An outfit each for the boys and I’m feeling much better. There’s just something about spending money…
I bribe the boys with a video (one of those times I thank God for a van with a DVD player) to get their coats on and we’re out the door. We get home, quick diaper change, and they’re happily sleeping upstairs. If I only had another Caramel Apple Cider…
Posted: Drew & Bran
8
February
2007
Andrew is getting really good at communicating and sometimes he even helps Bran. Today I was trying to get Bran to tell me what he wanted. I knew that he wanted more of his cheerios, but wanted him to say more or cheerios or something other than nah, nah. Drew looked at Bran and made the sign for more to him. Bran made a sound of acknowledgement and signed more. Later that day I was asking the boys to touch their heads, Drew touched his and when I asked Bran to do it he wouldn’t, so Drew touched his head for him!
Drew really likes to recite the letters of the alphabet with me. But the past 2 days he’s been getting stuck on what appears to be his favorite letter, “F”. I say “A”, he says “F”, I say “B”, she says “F”, until we get to “G”, then he repeats the correct letters until about “S” and then he’s bored and won’t do it anymore.
Bran has only jumped in once or twice when I do the alphabet with Drew and then only with 3-4 letters, he doesn’t seem interested. Today he was off playing by the back door by himself and I heard him start the alphabet. He got to “C”, then went back to “B”, then “A”, then said them all in order all the way to “H”! I guess maybe he was paying more attention than I thought!
Bran’s favorite book right now is a counting book. Each page has pictures of a different number of animals related to the sea all the way to 12. He can find the animals I ask him to find and then actually does a good job of counting them, if it’s not higher than 3. After 3 he just keeps tapping the page, until I stop counting. We have to read the book several times a day. It’s also becoming Drew’s favorite so we have some disputes over who gets to turn the page! Bran always seems to be the one to have a favorite book, then Drew starts to like it too. First it was Snuggle Puppy, then I Love You Through and Through, then Brown Bear or Polar Bear, then The Christmas Tree book, and now the counting book. I think Goodnight Moon fits in there somewhere too. The last 5 are still on the best reads list. As much as we read to the boys from the very beginning, they’re not big readers.
Yesterday we heard Bran counting. He was looking at a book with numbers in it and said one, two, three, while he pointed to the one and the seven! The book was upside down, so you could argue as Mike did that that seven upside down looked similar to a two! We’re reaching but what to do you expect, we’re parents!
The boys are starting to say lots of words. Drew almost always says thank you when you give him something and is getting better at using his words to say please rather than his sign. They’re also starting to repeat our words more. The biggest thing is that while they know the words, can say them, and I think even know when to use them, they don’t. They have to be prodded, or you have to say it first and they’ll repeat. For example if they want Milk, they can repeat Milk if you ask them “Do you want milk?”. But they won’t actually ask for it, instead they put their hands up to the counter and say “nah, nah, nah.” Which I confess drives me absolutely crazy, especially by the end of the day.
Once when we were going over what certain animals say I asked them, “what does mama say?” the first time the response was “no”. Jen do you remember telling me that Kylie also said that? Well they only said that once, now their response is often “grrrrrr”. Apparently I growl too much, maybe I should go back to saying no more often.
Posted: Drew & Bran
