They boys love to play outside with the neighborhood kids. We can’t even drive down our street without Alex going, “Landon home?” in hopes that he can play outside with our little neighbor boy. I’m going to be extremely disappointed with the arrival of winter temperatures. Our neighborhood is full of kids and several of the kids are under the age 5 and they are mostly all boys. My neighbor is pregnant with baby #3 and I keep insisting that “our neighborhood really needs a girl”. The kids typically play outside from about 4:30pm – 6pm every night. They love to chase each other with their swords. They wrestle each other to the ground. They dig in the dirt. They play in the rock pile under our swing set. The play in the neighbors sand box. They would play with the hose and the water table when it was really hot outside. They swing on our swing set. They love to race each other in their “cars” down our driveway that has a fairly decent incline. They will race each other in their “cars” down our street (we live on a court and I am always supervising when they are in the street). My favorite is when they count off to start the race it usually goes something like, “1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, GO!” They love to run to the neighbors house and explore the toys in their garage. It’s just a great time all around. And I just love to see kids playing outside too.
The boys are also starting to get really good at independent play. Of course it is hit or miss on some occasions but there are long stretches of time where the boys will just occupy themselves in the play room. This is definitely something new for us. And it is quite enjoyable. They are also playing more and more with each other. They definitely act like brothers in the aspect that they either love to spend time together or they hate to spend time together. And to be honest it is mostly Alex that reaches a limit on certain days. And on those days you will hear “No Jake. No Jake. No Jake.” over a bazillion times. Jakob has such a sweet heart that he usually obliges to Alex’s demands and will go elsewhere to play but on certain occasions Jake will have reached his limit and will give Alex a nice bite (typically on the butt). Oh boys.
Both boys love to color. They don’t quite grasp the concept of finishing a picture but they love to flip to a page scribble a bit and then flip to another page and scribble some more. They also love to have Momma and Mommy color alongside them. I also love it because Alex can’t quite grasp the difference between “draw” and “color” so Alex is always “drawing a picture”. There are occasions where the crayons end up on items other than their coloring books. I think because the window, the wall, the table, the trashcan, the play set, and the blocks all appeared to be missing something according to the boys. But I guess that’s why they invented magic erasers!
I was trying to teach Alex the difference between “I” and “my” last weekend. He was outside dropping his toy cars into the bushes. I outlined the conversation. But let’s just say I’m going to embrace the fact that Alex is talking these days and leave pronoun conversations to the experts!
A: “My drop car.”
Me: “Good job. But you actually mean ‘I drop the car’”
A: “No. My drop car.”
Me: “I drop the car.”
A: “No Momma. Alex drop car.”
Me: “Yes I know. That’s why you should say ‘I drop the car’ instead of ‘My drop the car’”
A: (looks at me like I’m a crazy lady) “NO! NO! NO! My done.”
Me: “You mean ‘I’m done’”
A: (walks off)
The boys are doing great in school. We have had some bumps with the drop off process but Kara has now mastered the drop and run tactic. And the teachers have done a good job in making sure there is a special toy or project for Alex each day during drop off time. This captures his attention and then he doesn’t notice Kara leaving the room. Kara then spends pick-up time visiting with the teachers. This seems to work out better. We still cannot say enough about the services being provided to the boys at school. We are simply blown away by their development over the past several weeks. Alex has had a language explosion and he can now repeat just about any word thrown in his direction. We are still working on Alex initiating conversation himself but even this is getting much better. I love to sit and listen to the boys talk to each other. We ask the boys who their best friends are at school and Jakob always repeats “Mason” and Alex always repeats “Grace” and it absolutely melts my heart. We have been told by their teachers that Alex, Jakob and Mason are the instigators at school. I don’t think this is a good thing. Haha. They teachers have already had to have a conversation with the boys about when it is the “appropriate time to rough house”. Sigh. I foresee many trips to the principal’s office over the years.
The boys also love electronics. We are doing our best to keep it at a minimum but they are obsessed with anything that turns on and off. We will admit to using our iPhones while we are in a public place. It is seriously the only thing that keeps Alex calm and rational during a shopping trip. That boy is simply amazing with our phones. It’s like he came out of the womb knowing how to operate an iPhone. The boys also get to watch one video before story time each night. I let them each pick a video of their choice but right now the only videos in rotation are “The Wheels on the Bus” (Jakob) and “Bob the Train – Transportation” (Alex). I’m still waiting for them to change it up one night. They do get to watch television during the day. We watch it for about 30 minutes in the morning while the boys eat breakfast. It is the only way they will eat breakfast and allow Kara and I to get ready for the day. They have a rule that they must finish their breakfast before they can drink their milk. And that seems to be working. The boys always eat breakfast now. I wish I could say we fix them super healthy breakfast foods but we do not. Our rotations are between pancakes, waffles, and pop tarts (rare). They also get to watch television when we come in from outside each night. This allows me time to make dinner in peace. They have a lot of favorite shows at the moment but they tend to rotate between Bob the Builder, Caillou, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Thomas the Train, Mater’s Tall Tales, Curious George, Mighty Machines, and Handy Manny. The boys also eat lunch most days at preschool but according to their teacher our boys don’t actually eat all that much but they instead drink their milk. That sounds familiar. I have never met two kids so obsessed with milk. The teacher at school even commented on how excited they get at lunch all because they get to drink milk. So on most days Kara tends to do a mini lunch before nap time or a snack in the car if they get out of school super grumpy.
They boys are definitely in the midst of the “terrible twos” and can switch between a “world is ending” meltdown and “angel” toddler in a matter of minutes. I often find myself just shaking my head at the end of a temper tantrum. We have been those parents dragging their screaming children from our local grocery establishment. That would be us. It’s actually nice that Kara has preschool time to run errands now so that keeps things we need to do at a minimum during the weekend. We instead just try to have fun as a family (which can also be rather hit or miss). The boys tend to get a bit crazy when both Momma and Mommy are home. They know there are two of us around and so someone is always able to be paying attention. There are also certain things the boys do just to drive us crazy. Jakob loves to tear up books. We can put him in timeout a bazillion times. I can yell at him until I’m red in the face. But the little man will just look me straight in the eye and tear up a book. The brain of a two-year-old!
Mary
