classic

Just take a moment each day to enjoy the sun!

Mary

take your child to work day

Today was "Take Your Child to Work" day for my company.  Our "Take Your Child to Work" day doesn't actually coincide with the official day because my company always aligns the day with our annual "Community Days" volunteer event that my company organizes each year.  This was the first time that I had children to bring to this event. Our 2012 event, which I was actually in charge of coordinating, took place early in 2012 right after I was put on early maternity leave.  But today I got to walk into my office with my little boys.  A day that I have been looking forward to for several years!

The boys did great!

We spent most of the day just following the boys around the office and watching them interact with my coworkers.  And of course I spent a lot of that time just making sure the boys didn't break something that I couldn't afford to replace (like a computer or copy machine).  Our office is sort of an oddity in that while we only have about 40 employees at our location we had three sets of twins (15 months, 17 months, and 24 months) in attendance today!  The sets of twins accounted for 6 of the 11 kids in the office today.  Crazy!  We tried our best to get a picture but you can imagine how well that went over with the kids.  Our office spent the day making care packages for newly diagnosed cancer patients.  And the kits included assembling fleece blankets.  So we had the boys help us with the blankets.  And by "help" I mean that some adorable little boy is going to be given our care package on his first day of chemotherapy treatment and the little boy is going to be forced to ask his mother, "Why does my blanket smell like apple juice?  And who ate cookies without me?"  The boys were great helpers!!  The boys were up past nap time but only really started to meltdown after lunch.  And can I mention again how much Jakob can eat on any given day?  He went through 3 large cups of fruit in just over two hours.  And that was after a large breakfast of french toast and potatoes.  My son can eat!  I was also told that they were asleep in the car before Kara even got out of the parking lot.

My coworker took this picture.  

  
"What do you mean we ran out of coffee in the breakroom?  How am I ever going to get through this day?"

Mary

almost 17 months

The boys will be 17 months old this weekend!

Our days are full of chaos and full of love.  I think my favorite part of each day is when Kara gets home from work each night and we lay in bed and swap stories about the boys!  It's great.

So what's new?

We love to take the boys to the park.  They have absolutely zero fear.  Most of the parks have a jungle gym that is small enough for the boys to climb up on without any assistance.  We will make sure they don't leap to their death.  But otherwise they can spend an hour just climbing the stairs and going down the slide.  There is a very small playground by our house that has a huge slide.  Kara and I will carry the boys to the top of the slide and then slide down with the boys in our laps.  They will laugh the entire time. I don't have any good pictures of our playground adventures because it is tough enough to keep an eye on two toddlers.  We actually took the boys the other day and Jakob managed to get whacked in the face with a wayward swing.  These older boys were swinging on the swing and proceeded to jump off.  This enticed Jakob to run over to the empty swing and just as the older boy turned around to say, "You are too little for those," Jakob got hit in the head with the swing.  It was cute (after I made sure he didn't have a concussion of course).

The boys babble a lot these days but we still don't have a lot of words.  Both boys only say "Mom and Momma" and "Bye" with any sort of regularity.  But at the same time I think their comprehension is growing by leaps and bounds.  They are obsessed with reading books.  The boys will carry books around the house and just plop down and start thumbing through them with an intensity this is typically reserved only for the professional card counter at a Las Vegas Casino.  And thanks to Grandma Heitzman the boys are currently obsessed with Little Blue Truck and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  To be honest the boys love all books.  The books with missing pages and teeth marks and dried up graham crackers get just as much attention as a shiny new book from a big box store.  I have been told that it can help a toddlers speech development if instead of reading a book cover to cover you just turn the page and point out objects with a single word.  I have been trying to do that more and more.  And I think they are getting better at pointing objects out in books.  You know like ... Where is the dog?  Where is the spoon?  Where is the baby?  I still know that cognitively they are a bit behind others of a same age but I don't think there is any reason to be super concerned yet.  Perhaps I am still naive.

There is a bit of a food obsession in our house.  And an obsession with utensils.  The boys are hit and miss on any given day with food consumption.  There are some days that Jakob consumes the same amount of calories as our local high school heavyweight wrestler!  And other days where he is appearantly preparing for swimsuit season.  The only guarantee is that there will be a complete and total meltdown if you stick food on a plate without giving the boys a spoon and fork.  Only babies eat with their fingers.  The boys do love meat and potatoes.  Such cavemen we have on our hands.  And breakfast seems to be a favorite meal.  The boys have been known to consume 6 - 8 sausage links between the both of them at a single meal.  And pancakes and french toast often don't stand a chance.  And today we took the boys to Bob Evans for lunch and Jakob managed to eat a fruit pouch, a Mum-Mum, and entire bowl of fruit, french fries and half a grilled cheese sandwich.  And even as we went to put Jakob in his car seat he shoved a wayward french fry in his mouth.  We can no longer go out and just let the boys nibble from our plates.  Kara and I would leave a restaurant starving if we did that.  Alex is more hit or miss on the food front.  And that can explain why there is a noticeable size difference between the boys.  We still have 6 - 12 month pants that fall off Alex at the waist and that is even after we had a friend add elastic bands to the pants!  But Alex does love to snack and will eagerly consume any snack that you put into a cup.  And Alex's favorite food is any type of potato.  And Kara makes these home-made oyster crackers with all sorts of seasoning on them.  And Alex treats them like they are a delicacy.  The boys still get a sippy cup with milk 3x per day for a total of 12 oz - 14 oz of milk and we offer a juice / water combination all through the day.

I still take Alex to gymnastics class.  He loves it!  I know I have mentioned my concerns in the area of cognitive development but let's just say the opposite is true in the area of physical development.  There is absolutely nothing these boys won't try at least one time.  And the same applies to gymnastics.  Alex is getting better and better at walking across the different size balance beams.  And he loves to hang from the bars and kick his feet up.  We have even done somersaults and he climbs up on mats that are 4x his size.  He will let me through him into the foam pit at gymnastics too.  The gymnastics class just gives him an opportunity to run around like a crazy man and I can pretend that I am training him for a future Olympics.  I mean ever future Olympian started off by chewing on the high bars to soothe their aching gums and jumping with their stuffed animal on the trampoline all while making sure their diaper stays on.  Right?

There is always so much to write about and then I sit down to write and I forget so much!  But I guess even remembering a few things is good.

My favorite things about Jakob at the moment are ...

* His crazy blond hair.
* His passion for books.
* His ability to play by himself for long periods of time.
* His love for blocks and legos.
* His sensitive side and his ability to share with his brother.
* His laugh.
* His endless pit of a stomach.

My favority things about Alex at the moment are ...

* His lack of fear.
* His newest obsession with his stuffed monkey.
* His walk.
* His laugh.
* His love for airplanes.
* His passion for animals.
* The way he still opens and closes his fists when he gets excited about something.

Mary

      

wonder where we've been?

Have you wondered where we have been over the last several weeks?

Here are some pictures to help explain the chaos that we face each day.

"Why do I have to clean up this mess?  It's not like I made the mess.  My clothes?  I'm not sure where I put my clothes?"

"Fine!  I don't care if you took away my sippy cup.  I'm just going to go get it!"

"No worries.  This is totally normal Mom.  I am one with the dog toys. Woof! Woof!"

"I hear that yogurt is great for the skin."

"I'm hot!  Just don't tell the ladies about my purple toothbrush."

"Please don't send me back."

The boys are keeping us on our toes.  I will be back with a real update soon.

Mary