Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Gwen Shows Empathy

This morning we were Jacob and Lilah's house for a playdate. Gwen was happily playing with a doll when all of a sudden she came running over to me and said: "What happened to baby's hand, Mommy?". I immediately noticed that the dog must have eaten the doll's one fist. As i was trying to come up with a reply, Gwen started looking like she was going to cry as she moved her eyes back and forth between the doll's one arm/hand and the amputated side. She was genuinely concerned and all I could do was laugh because she was SO DARN CUTE.

Monday, August 29, 2011

More Toddler Quotes

Gwen: "Mommy are you pooped?"
Me: "Yes, Gwen. I'm very tired.
Gwen: "Mommy, you pooped?"
Me: "Yes. What does it mean when mommy is pooped?"
Gwen: "Mommy is stinky"

"My Gwennie"

Cole has been consistantly calling Gwen "My Gwennie". He is so cute when he runs around saying: "I want my Gwennie to build towers with me". Most of the time Gwen happily plays with him but unfortunately there are times when she decides she would rather play with her dolls or relax. Now f you know our Cole, you know that he does not take no for an answer. Therefore, he often ends up yelling: "But i NEED MY GWENNIE to play with me!"

An Earthquake and a Tropical storm in the same week?!?




Yup. Somehow we managed to get an earthquake (ie. a small rattle of the house) and a tropical storm this past week. One may wonder what you do with two 2.5 year olds when the weather isn't ideal. Well...on Saturday (8/27/11) we went to the Science Center in the morning and then when the kids refused to nap we took them to a celebration at the East Penn Fitness Center. As soon as we walked through the doors, Cole spotted someone dressed up as Smurfette and freaked out. Andy took him outside and a staff member informed him that Smurfette was going on break so Cole reluctantly came in but refused to play in the gym. Instead, he requested to play with "the beads", which he remembered were in the waiting area the last time we were there. He played by himself the entire time while Sissy bounced, twirled etc. with Daddy. We got home before the start of the storm and enjoyed many hours of playing inside. We dressed up in silly outfit; put together a new career puzzle; read; and put post its on mommy's baby belly!

Friday, August 19, 2011

It's a Twin Thing



Not only do the kids sleep nicely together in their nest (see pic), but they have also been playing well together in the past few weeks. Don't get me wrong, we definitely have several sharing disagreements each day but in general they share SO well compared to singletons their age. They have been having fun building "dinosaurs, trains, cars, towers" together with their large blocks. Cole often gets offended and upset if Gwen does not want to play by his side. He'll say: "My Gwennie play with me". The one argument we have every day has to do with their name stools. Since they both have an "E" in their names, they fight over the "blue E" on their name stools. It belongs in Gwen's stool but Cole tries to take it every night as the kids brush their teeth.

Another funny toddler moment: When cole scraped his knees at the park the other day, we told him that we would get him cleaned off and get him a bandaid when we got home. As soon as we walked in the door, he immediately dropped everything, walked over to Gwen's hairbow basket and put a headBAND on his head. Yup, he must have thought a BANDaid was a headBAND :)

Covered Bridge Park




On Saturday, August 13, 2011. We explored a new-to-us park, Covered Bridge Park. Cole and Gwen were extremely excited to see "bucket swings" and loved having Daddy push them "very high'. We walked down by the water and ate snack on a bench while watching some bikers. It was a very laid back morning but a fun family outing.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Crayola Factory








Today the four of us went on our last big family of 4 outing to The Crayola Factory. The kids LOVED it!! We watched a presentation on how crayons are made and then walked around and explored. The hands on stuff was perfect for Gwen and Cole. They played with and colored model magic; put colored balls into a contraption that made them go up a shoot around by the ceiling and then back down; pushed the button to start a train moving around the track; moved their boats around the canal and played with large legos/beads etc. I have to say that my favorite part was on the ride home when Gwen said: "Mommy, I had fun". I was so happy that we took the kids even though we felt like we had 1,001 other things to do and I was 36.5 weeks pregnant.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

More Day to Day....

Last night Andy was helping Gwen wash her hands at the sink while she was singing a newly made up song about soapy bubbles and hand washing. He looked at me and said: "Sometimes I feel like i'm living in a musical". I just had to laugh because that statement really summed things up. Between Cole and Gwen, we are constantly listening to singing. Cole randomly busts out his ABC's and other songs. He also likes to combine tunes. His newest is Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers to the tune of Where is Thumbkin? Gwen, on the otherhand, prefers to make up tunes and songs to describe what she is currently doing. Also, she likes to combine nursery rhymes. Yesterday she was going around saying: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a tuffet" followed by "Mommy, i want a tuffett". Silly 2 year olds!!!!

Recently Gwen has been calling Cole "Bob". She goes around saying: "Come here, Bob", "It's time to go, Bob" etc. Today I finally figured out that she has heard me call him "Bub" and has put a new spin on this nickname. heh.

Gwen has been a little mommy recently. Whenever I say "ouch" or make a groaning noise, she jumps in with: "You ok, mommy?".

For months, we sang "The Chicken Dance" to the kids before they went to sleep. A few weeks ago, Gwen decided to start telling us: "No, no singing Chicken Dance". Since Cole still wanted us to sing and i was tired of Gwen yelling during the entire song, one night i told her: "Just cover your ears". Ever since she has been covering her ears and grinning ear to ear when we sing to Cole :)


Cole LOVES to use the word OK but he says it very energetically and it sounds more like: "O-tay, O-tay, O-tay!". He inserts it into practically every conversation he has! He also says "Yeah" often and draws it out in a southern accent: "Yeeeaaahhh".

Yesterday was the 3rd day in a row that Cole refused to nap. Mommy was very happy that he did decide to relax in his room and read his books for all of 1 hour, 15 minutes. I watched him on the video camera and noticed that he was off camera for a few minutes. I decided that it was time to go upstairs to praise him for such a good Quiet Time, only to discover him at the gate saying: "dirty, mommy". Yes, Cole when you take your diaper off and play with your poop, you end up VERY DIRTY. Thankfully mommy had had a good rest beforehand and was able to deal with bathing a poopy kid as well as cleaning up the poop smears on the carpet...

Today we told the kids that we were planning to go to The Crayola Factory tomorrow. We tried to explain to them that we would see crayons being made and get to do a bunch of fun activities. Cole kept insisting that we were going to "see letters". I told him that there would be plenty of letters to see but thought it was a strange connection. Finally this evening i realized that he thought we were going to The Letter Factory (a DVD that the kids watched a lot between 18 and 24 months) where the characters visit a factory that makes letters.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Driving Daddy's Car

Yesterday, Andy needed the van for work so he loaded the carseats back into the Accord. I know it has only been a few months since we got the minivan but already i had forgotten how cramped we were in the Accord. When the kids climbed in, I actually had to bend over to get them strapped in (not fun being 36 weeks pregnant!). Then as we were pulling out of the driveway, they started announcing: "Look, mommy. We give high fives". Yes, they could actually touch while being strapped into their carseats. A few minutes later, Gwen had the cutest question ever: "Mama, where baby Reid gonna sit?". I thought it was so sweet of her to think about how little room there was and be concerned about her baby brother riding with us :)