Puppy Love

Tonight Isaac was playing "mom" to his sisters' two little stuffed animal puppies. He told me that they would cry if he put them down, so he was holding them and cuddling them. They were hungry so we fed them some imaginary milk. We decided that Grace and Sadie wouldn't mind if he took them upstairs to sleep with him tonight. He tried out several "beds" for them, such as a plastic tub he uses for toys, and a woven basket with a blanket. Finally, he picked them up and hugged them as he snuggled down under the quilt.

After our bedtime story and prayers, I had three little upturned faces to kiss: one sweet little boy and two pink and white polka-doted puppies. My heart is full.

Broad Tailed Hawk

We have been really fortunate to observe a broad tailed hawk who has taken up residence in our backyard. He/She uses our yard for a hunting ground, perching on the top of the swing set or along the top of the fence. Today Isaac and I watched him preen himself, cleaning the plumage of his tail and wings. He will dive off suddenly to the ground to grab a worm, or take off to somewhere in the forest across the creek. I saw two hawks the other day, so maybe it's the mate of this one? I need to read up on the mating habits of this type of hawk.

What a great priviledge to be able to observe this animal!

End of an Era

The Bob Revolution is sold! We loved, loved, loved this stroller. Countless hours were spent walking Isaac in it. Thank goodness this best most amazing stroller is going to a good home - a UGA graduate who played on the tennis team who is expecting her first child. I'm sure she will love it as much as we did!

Stroller count at peak: 7 (3 doubles, 4 singles)

Stroller count now: 3 (2 doubles, 1 single)

You Had Me At Hello

We met a house last week and fell in love...hard. As the girl said in the movie Jerry Maguire, "You had me at 'Hello'."

We made an offer on "our" house but were beaten to the punch by another buyer. Oh, that hurts. It's been a hard break-up for us. However, we will keep a stiff upper lip and carry on our search. Perhaps next weekend.

Mayor of Bubbleville

The kids all love taking a bath. Sometimes they all bathe together. Other times they just mosh into the bathroom vying for a ringside seat for whomever is in the tub. It is always a wild FUN time! Isaac named himself the Mayor of Bubbleville last night in his bath. :)

Snow!

We had about 4 inches of snow over the weekend and we had a blast playing in the snow Saturday morning. Our neighbors Shea and her son Luke came over to play too. The sun came out and the temperature rose, by the afternoon most of the snow was gone.

Playtime

The weather, like most of the country, has just been crazy this winter. A few days of springtime temperatures then snow, then rain, then whatever. A few days we have escaped the confines of the house and played outside and on the back deck when it was warm enough. The girls love to be out there and Isaac loves to entertain and play as well. Mama loves the change of scenery, plus it really is a peaceful, pretty back yard.

Our First Gold Medal

In honor of the Winter Olympics beginning today, I'd like to report on our first gold medal recieved for outstanding athleticism. And the winner is.....




Isaac -- Gold Medal!

For amazing feats on the basketball court at YMCA Basketball Buddies!



He has really enjoyed going to basketball practice this winter at the Y. They do lots fun games that involved bowling pins, hula hoops, and red-light/green-light type of stuff. Occasionally they dribble and shot some baskets too. It's a perfect entree to the actual sport.



We plan on signing him up for the preschool soccer class for May; I predict that will be a real hit too.

School friends

When I dropped Isaac off at preschool the other morning I was chatting with his teacher Ms. Kristen. She mentioned in passing that Isaac was very popular with some of the other kids. So much so that apparently two of the children would "fight" to see who got to sit next to Isaac at the table during snack time. That struck me as funny!

One of the children is his friend LillyAnn who Isaac has been close to for several years and the other is a little boy named Nicholas. Nicolas's mom mentioned that her son just "LOVES" Isaac and talks about him all the time! I am so glad that Isaac is making friends and I'm hoping that he must be a good friend to others if kids like him so much. Especially since Isaac has historically been difficult to leave at school, we are so pleased and excited that he has a comfortable little group now.

They go to chapel once a week on Wednesdays; the teachers and the pastor of the church Mr. Thom share bible stories and sing bible songs. Isaac really loves it, although he always tells me that HE didn't sing. HE just likes to listen. But I know that he is internalizing the songs. I hear him sing all the time around the house and up in his room for quiet time.

We had talked about moving him to another preschool closer to the location of our new house, but stories like these reinforce my initial thoughts to keep him where he is. We should appreciate a good thing when we have it!

Hi Y'all!

Grace likes to wave "hello" now. She puts her left arm up in the air and waves it around. She talks until you look her way, and if you smile or laugh she just waaaaaves that arm around giggling and laughing. She gets the biggest kick out of it; we do too!

Sadie is starting to say "mamamama."Both girls are talking more and more everyday, whether we fully understand them or not. But usually they can communicate pretty well.

A plug

The girls kicked the pacifier habit around 3 months. Somehow we just got out of the habit and forgot to use them over time. I guess we've always been fearful of the scenario of a baby who is dependent on a pacifier but loses it in the crib in the middle of the night and then you have to get up and put it back in their mouth. No thank you--we have enough wakeups without that kind of thing.

However, since the girls have been teething we occasionally give them a paci to chew on. Literally they just chew on it, and not necessarily the plug part. It can keep them busy and help their gums feel better. But over the last several days Sadie has decided that she likes to suck on the pacifier as intended. I got them up from their afternoon nap yesterday and Sadie was standing there mute, pacifier in her mouth. It made me so sad. I like it when she is squealing and talking and even crying in impatience. Anything but a plugged baby (I mean, I'm sure it has its place in church). And then this afternoon she found a pacifier in her room again and crawled around for about an hour plugged and silent.

You can tell that she's really a newby with the pacifier. For instance, I put her in the highchair for dinner and she tried to eat her cheerios....with the pacifier still in. I think this is a lesson that she'll have to learn for herself.

(I'm trying to post a video of the pacifier/cheerio incident, but there's some sort of glitch. Stay tuned).

happenstance or design?

This morning Isaac was working on the alphabet. I would like to say that I have all of these organized "lesson plans" for teaching (codeword for keeping him busy and engaged, often independently), but in fact most of our learning fun is very organic and either comes through play or brainstorming with craft materials.

So, we have this big tub of foam letters that are sticky-backed. What do you do with a couple hundred foam letters? Hmmm...first of all, dump about 1/3 of them onto a cookie tray (to contain the mess). Second, let Isaac randomly rummage through the letters and stick them on a big sheet of paper. Finally, brainstorm! I copied numbers and letters onto a sheet of paper and he searched through the pile of letters for the corresponding figure to stick on top of the tracings.

This kept him interested for about an hour; complete with "happy dance" on the chair whenever he was able to find a letter and stick it on himself.

I love seeing Isaac really dig into fun activities like this. Another favorite of his is playing with little beads--stringing them onto yarn or pipe cleaners, counting them, sorting into different containers, etc.

He also likes pretend play; today we played "post office" with him bringing his wallet (my cast-off) and play money from a Life board game. I guess he's been to the Post Office with me quite a few times to mail packages for Bookmooch.com.

Won't you join us?

I gained a crazy amount of weight during my pregnancy with the girls. Part of it was having twins, but the other part was me feeling like the more food (healthy, nutrient-dense of course!) I ate, the heavier and healthier the girls would be. With twins there are many many inqueries by doctor, patient & family as to the weights of each baby and what that might indicate for their future. It can make you quite nervous. And as you may know, the girls survived neonatal surgery for their Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) at 16 weeks old, so I was also anxious that any moderate or strenous exercise while pregnant might potentially harm the girls in some way. Of course, at some point I was so huge and bloated with babies that walking up and down stairs was my workout of the day....it's true!

Well, words cannot describe how thankful I am that the girls are healthy and happy and I am grateful for every single pound I gained if it helped them in any way. (I think God is to be thanked for his overflowing blessings, not my diving into the Ben&Jerrys, but just in case). However, it's now time for the extra pounds to go.

So, I'm trying to lose the last 25-ish remaining pounds, mostly by exercising at least 4 times a week and trying to eat reasonably. I'm still nursing, so that makes it a little challenging because my body wants to hang onto every calorie I put in it. But it's been so much fun exercising at the Y, walking in the neighborhood, and doing yoga once a week.

And supportive husband that he is, Dave is currently training for a 1/2 marathon, which is a bewilderingly huge amount of miles to be run. To me anyway. But with both of us trying to fit in a healthy amount of exercise, it has been a great encouragement I think to us both. I love our new commitment to being healthier.

Rainy Saturday

Today my college friend Susan and her husband Chett came to visit us. Dave and Chett graciously took kid duty at the house while Susan and I had a great lunch downtown enjoying our catch up. We brought back yummy cheesecake to eat, I mean to share. It's a real treat to see our friends.

Isaac has been feeling "tough" as we call it when we're kind of sick. He's had a low-grade fever for about 24 hours and has been really tired. But he took a three hour nap today and woke up refreshed and ready to go. Soooo....we went to the mall. Yes, totally unlike us to be mall shoppers, but we are looking for a cell phone plus it was rainy and cold outside. Can't say I've been to the mall on Saturday night in a looooong time. Ahem, I'd like to keep it that way. But the kids loved it so it was fun.

"Mama, can I have a favorite?"

I love the way Isaac asks for "a favor." He doesn't know it, but his misuse of the phrase makes me all mushy inside. Kind of like when he was around two years old and he would say "yelly" for the color yellow. That was so cute; I wish he still said it that way. Anyway, whatever he's asking "a favor" about, I'm almost definitely going to give it to him. Love that little man.

We were preparing to wash the glass doors on the back of the house and I was looking for a spray bottle and rag. Isaac wanted to have his own spray bottle so he could help. And help he did. After about 20 minutes of hard labor spritzing and wiping water, he declared "Mama, I like washing windows!"



There was a knock-down-drag-out fight 9-month old-style the other day between the girls over a green striped hat. Both wanted to clutch it in their little hands so they could suck on it until it was a sodden rag. Sadie won this time. Here's a shot of Sadie the Victorious a little later (on the right), with the green striped hat in her right hand. Grace (on the left) doesn't bear grudges though.



However, I give Grace the "rythym award." She is always bouncing and rocking and having a good time, whether standing up or perched on her knees or sitting down. She does little crunches with her midsection and is just so enthusiastic about it. And if you are dancing too, she gets soooooooooooo excited. She single handidly commandeers any shakers and rattles she can find, just shaking them up in the air and bouncing up and down. It's such a joyous experience!

Grace also loves to chew cardboard. I took away some sopping wet piece of cardboard from her the other day and she was so mad she threw herself backward onto the wood floor. OUCH!

Sadie likes the high vocalizations; the "squeal" as we call it. She especially breaks into squeal whenever she sees Isaac. Those two are cosmicly joined. Sadie loves to give kisses. Big open mouthed loving kisses. Actually, Grace is a big kisser as well. And Isaac. We have the best kids...and lots of slobber around here!