Not to be Outdone: Audrey August 2012

There is no name for the emotion shown in the top two.
The others are either very nice of her, or pathetic.  The last is actually from this summer at Uncle Eric and Aunt Jodie's house, but who is counting when the shot is that flattering.

The Faces of Henry August 2012

For added future embarrassment:  topless!
2026:  Rubberfaced Boy Lands Lead in Bill Clinton Musical!

Classic Photo Scheme

Ha ha ha ha ha!  Little kids....big shoes....Ha ha ha!  Oh, it never gets old!  Har har ho ho heee hehe.  OK, maybe it does.  Still.

Big Sister

Olivia is a great influence on her brother and sister.  They imitate her constantly, maybe involuntarily.  In return, she threatens to put them in jail for taking her toys and not sharing/giving their own to her.  But since they are up in a bigger kid room at school now, and maybe because she will be leaving their school soon, she is more protective of them too.   In the picture at top, she models good behavior at the dentist, getting xrays.  She was as nervous as they were, and had never had them before, but had to maintain the big sister role and be brave and knowledgeable.  Pretty typical stuff.  In truth, I think she is starting to appreciate them more because they can play with her in a more active and mature way.  At times I think Henry is more like Olivia than Audrey, in his sensitivity, performance ability, extremely loud voice, desire for attention, but the lower picture would seem to show Audrey as the more...theatrical?  Maybe they all give as good as they get?  I look forward to collecting more data.

Nice Pictures from April and May, Henry

The shirt-and-tie were from Business Dress Day at school.  I dressed like him too.  But he looks more like Angus Young.

Just some pictures from April and May, Audrey

Then On Up Into Beds...

Didn't wait but a couple months and we're trying out toddler beds. 
They got to choose their own colors.

Get Out of Those Cribs

Just about a month ago now, we took the mattresses out of the cribs and put them on the floor.
Instant big kid beds. Safe for trialing such vital progress as Staying In Bed All Night Without Mechanical Prevention.
So far, so good. About every 3rd night, Audrey sneaks in to our room between 4 and 6:00. But that isn't unappreciated by Mom and Dad. It's just when Olivia has done the same, it gets a bit crowded, but Dad is usually out by 5:30 at the latest.
Henry sleeps well, once he gets asleep. He has Mommy's circadian rhythm of being alert later and sleeping in. He is also most likely to be found having rolled out of the bed, or to be sleeping feet up on wall, head at foot, on stomach with arm behind back, and other sleep pilates positions.
The three kids all verbalize a desire for bunk beds. We go to furniture stores and "try" each of them on the top bunk. Then they don't want bunk beds. Until the next day, when they say they want bunk beds again. Are they simply misunderstanding what the bunk bed configuration is?
We continue to oscillate between trying all 3 in the same room, girls together, current state, or all three in separate rooms. Will likely continue this debate for the next 15 years.

No More Pleases

This is what Henry and Audrey called their pacifiers, which were sent to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve, for redistribution to the other babies of the world. As Henry and Audrey didn't need them anymore. Maybe one night with a few tears, I think it was the 26th, but they've been great without them since. Great, meaning it takes a lot longer for them to wind themselves down for sleep. More dancing, talking, singing in their cribs. I think the cribs are the next to go, with Audrey becoming toilet-capable soon. Still, lots of change in a month for Audrey especially, though H may have been a bit more pacifier-dependent?
We're very proud of both of them for their maturity and sacrifice.
In their honor, some pictures of Silly Face At The Dinner Table Night.

Audrey in Training!

The biggest news this week is that Audrey has gotten pretty consistent with using the potty at home and at school! She may have accidents, and her diaper is still wet in the morning, but she has had a few days at school with no accidents and multiple #2's on the toilet. We are extremely proud. Last child in diapers, fading fast. Hallelujah. There, I just jinxed her.
Much of this came after a few weekends of letting her walk around the house without pants and with a potty chair always nearby, like this one in the living room. I'll spare her more of those pictures online.
We're very proud of her, as she is of herself.

Playing, Together

Sometimes they play together.

Nicely.


























Sometimes, they have help.

Walden...this is not

We went for a walk in the woods on a nice day.
This was before the injury.
Henry seems to have a premonition in some of these.

Minor Surgery, on a Minor, by a Minor

So last weekend, Audrey helped Henry to trim his fingernails, and got more than either bargained for.

I was cooking and Melissa was changing laundry when I heard a scream from upstairs. When I arrived in their bedroom, Henry was bleeding all over from his right index finger and, as mentioned, screaming in pain. A quick assessment showed a stool pulled up to the basket in their closet where we still had the pediatric nail-trimming scissors available for just such surgery. Audrey was nowhere in the vicinity and Olivia was in her room. We scrambled to try to staunch the bleeding and get Olivia and Audrey someone to watch them while we took Henry to the ER. Our kind neighbors Kasha, Kelly and Keegan could come over quickly on a Labor Day Weekend Sunday, and we ran Henry in. A few hours, 3 xrays and a lidocaine-numbed lavage later, Hank's dominant hand index finger was missing most of the nail and a good hunk of meat but was well dressed and had stopped bleeding. Our clever nurse had placed tube gauze with a disposable speculum! So with no bone involved, topical abx all over it and oral abx in hand, we went home to sort things out. Our friend Shirley had come over to relieve K.,K.and K while we were out, and she had gotten the girls a nap. We returned home with Henry when the "3rd string" of NaNa and Aunt Margo had arrived to help too.
When the girls woke up, we grilled Audrey on the most likely turn of events: "Audrey, did you cut Henry's finger?" Nod yes. Henry confirmed: "Audrey CUT my FINGER!" We didn't remind him that there was no way she could possibly have cut his finger if he had not cooperated by holding still, but why bring that up during his grief. One week later, he's healing nicely, no pain meds at all, and nearly finished with the p.o. abx. Even lets us dress it with bandaids without too much whimpering.

So I mentioned to the ER Attending MD that we had Henry in a couple months prior with Nursemaid's Elbow. Same kid, ER injuries within months, and that I would completely understand and comply if he thought DHS needed to pay us a visit. I was frankly embarrassed that we had allowed this to happen, though less guilty about the elbow. He just looked at me and said: "You've got 3 kids at home. It's a contact sport. Get out of here." I really appreciated that.

I'll include more photos of the gore soon. But here he is, reliving the pain and rocking the aluminum finger splint over a picnic in the backyard AND in the swell voetbal jersey from Cousin Owen and Uncle Joel. Holland Hup Hup!

Henry Speaks Oddly

I wanted to make note of an interesting habit of Henry for future reference.
There are some words that he says by scrambling the rest of the sounds of the word after the initial consonant.
The best example I have is Music.
He says, "Micus", pronouncing it MEE-kooz, so that the phonetic sounds are all there, just mixed.
He does it repeatedly, consistently, and can obviously hear well enough to copy almost every other word he hears anyone say, including their inflection. So it isn't his hearing. And he doesn't seem to grin or look at us when he does it, which might make me think he was intentionally joking or playing a game. I guess I still think he is playing a little game, but I'm not sure.
He does something similar with "butterfly", but I can't place or remember how he jumbles the sounds for that. He also does this sound combination consistently, though.
Interesting.

And tonight, on a walk to our neighborhood Nature Trail, he discovered his shadow. He spent quite a frustrating, if somewhat charming portion of the walk saying hello to his shadow and looking for it in the shade.
Adorable. Looking forward to him understanding Peter Pan.

He and Audrey love a Thomas the Train reader book we got at the library. Mostly for Olivia to sound out the words, but the twins love it so much they want it read every night. After a week, they can both give the last word to every rhyming line in the book. This isn't necessarily that precocious or original, but I was always so tickled when Olivia did this too, that I'm doubly charmed to hear these two bark out the words.

They like peaches, still won't give up their pacifiers at night, and have only used the poddy chairs a couple times each. Their favorite game right now is to tell me, "Go night-night, Daddy!" Then after my head drops onto my chest and I'm instantly snoring, they shout, "Wake up, Daddy!" Then laugh uproariously when I jerk alert. It will break them out of a full cry to join up the call and response. Nice tool to have in the drawer.

Interlude, to post character studies

Just look at their faces. This sort of rubberface goofballedness is commonplace for these imps. Still photography is the only way to capture the humor of it; motion allows no time for response and appreciation. This can be incredibly frustrating when all you want is one nice picture for...oh what are nice pictures generally for anyway?
That said, they are very polite at the beginning of dinner. Please and thank you for their food, big smiles, very pleasant. This lasts about 5 minutes before their fingers go into their cups and they start blowing raspberries in their milk. Literally.

More Images of Two

Birthday Cake, and other stuff.

Two are Two

Beneath and between the diapering and feeding and napping and playing and fighting and learning, Audrey and Henry survived and thrived another year.
They are extremely close siblings, including being able to outright snatch things from each other as well as casually share other things with each other, guided in this solely by whim. Noise and drama are disregarded, as well as thanks and hugs. They are each others best audience when they want to entertain, especially when they are supposed to be sleeping.
But they share another very influential sibling, and each must respond to Olivia as well. She seems to pick no favorite or scapegoat from between them, and loves or harasses them basically equally. She merely wants playmates and attention as much as the twins themselves do. So while they are all this small age, they orbit each other as they orbit us.
Maybe what I mean is that I see more commonalities among the twins and Olivia to any children, rather than detecting any secret language or sentience between The Twins. They grow into more of themselves each day to me and less of a twin unit.
Yet I realize that they share with each other more than any other kids. Last week, when Audrey seemed distraught and emotional at school, she would only share her toys with Henry and rejected all other kids. And at times when Henry can be his very dramatic self, it seems Audrey can make him laugh whenever she chooses. So they are clearly close to each other as well. I just don't know that they depend on each other as much or more than they depend on Mom and Dad and Olivia? Which isn't so bad either. Fortunately at two, family is still the largest influence on their lives and maybe not yet peers? In case this is true, I will admonish myself to again learn and practice patience. Because their snatching and crying and pushing and shoving and tantrums with, for and over each other remains the loudest and most frustrating part of my days. This is not limited to Henry and Audrey, obviously, but being their blog I'll restrict my prosecution to the defendants at hand. Remember Daddy: distraction, diversion, less sarcasm because it is wasted on them and bitter to you. And they love it when you imitate animals, no matter how mad they are.

Happy Birthday Twins, and many happy returns.

Love, Daddy.

Audrey

Just a really nice photo of little Audrey. She won the "grocery trip lottery" this morning by being up first and so quiet as to not wake her siblings. So she got to go with me to get donuts and juice and milk etc. She's NOT cutting her molars yet, as is therefore delightful.

Hanging Out

Literally.

And as I write that, let me add this little tidbit about Henry and Hanging.

While chucking my son onto the bed Thursday night, using legs and arms to swing him, he came out of the pile of pillows crying and holding his arm instead of laughing uproariously. Ten minutes after not letting his parents touch his right arm, he was actually in the ER.

Expecting the child abuse questions, I got the wonderful statement of "this is probably a really common injury" from the triage nurse. And it was: Nursemaid's Elbow.

Common etiology, comes from swinging under-age-5 children by arms, briefly dislocating the radial head from the anular ligament at the ulna. Corrected in one jiffy by supinating the hand and raising the hand to shoulder. He was reaching for stickers from the doctor one minute later with the effected hand, and talking up a storm again 2 minutes later. New to me, and about half the people I tell. The other half have either had this themselves, or a sibling did. No swinging Henry until he's 5.

I will probably still toss him into the pillows, but will grab him under the arms.

He's cutting his 2-year molars right now too, so is especially emotional anyway. Poor guy.

Personality Meristems

Henry and Audrey don't seem to be physically growing even half as quickly as their personalities are. They are both exerting themselves right out into their world like plant tendrils, uncoiling, reaching, grasping, sampling, rejecting, singing, dancing, testing. Philodendrons.

Audrey is more attached to things: Charlie Horse, blankets, has definite ideas about who is to carry things or where things go. She is not shy about communicating these directives, or simply repositioning, or helping you understand what you are supposed to do. More and more words trickle out daily, with more inflection than just sweet vs growl. She is generous with her hugs and stingey with her tap-taps.

Henry is similar to Olivia in his attention and sensitivity to people and their reactions to him and what he is doing. And what he is doing is usually dancing. His vocabulary comes in torrents, words mimicked and added by the minute, absorbed from any proximate source or conversation. He has very few item attachments - I can't think of even one.

Both children remember experiences well and clearly. When we set out in the morning for school, they immediately ask "Muffin Man? Cookie?", remembering trips taken on weekend morning walks to the neighborhood bakery. It is worth a shot. They consistently wave at a single neighbor or even her apparently empty house, remembering a walk from this past January when they said hello to her and blew kisses peering over snow drifts. I am astonished at their positive mental associations with events and locations.

And they love their sister, wanting her first thing in the morning and last hugs at night.

And both used the poddy for morning urination today. Progress.