Exploration

We took the girls to Exploration Place today; Jenn's work had a "bring your families and enjoy" type day. A quick recap of our adventure.

Our journey begins around 10:00 this morning. Girls got up nice and early today (7:00), and were showing signs of being tired. Lunch at Exploration Place was scheduled to begin at 12:30. We hadn't really formulated a battle plan regarding nap time, mostly because it's sort of a dicey proposition as of late. The girls are getting to the point where they don't think they need an afternoon nap, which honestly has been their creed since about 9 months, but now have the fortitude and will to see their plans through, typically to the dismay of whomever is around. Most of the time the nap happens eventually, but gone are the days when you could bank on that 11-1 break.

On an ordinary day, lolling heads at 10:00 would have garnered some interest from Mommy and Daddy, but we would have waited for the rally. Today, however, we were on the clock, and when the window of opportunity, however slight, presented itself, we went for it. In retrospect a novice mistake, as play had been relatively subdued all morning; we hadn't even ventured downstairs. The girls spent an hour laughing at our folly in their cribs, and then it was time to "wake up" and get ready.

We arrived at our destination without incident, took a quick lunch, and went about our adventure. I'm not quite sure what I was worried about, what scenario I envisioned, that would lead me to believe a 2 year old child could ever be bored/fussy/angry in such a place. "Here, being who is evolutionarily designed to drink in information, go be bored in this giant room filled with sights and sounds you've never experienced before". We could have spent 10 hours there and they probably still would have been going strong. Some favorites:

- Sharks in the Megalodon exhibit. Sharks being a familiar nemesis of Dora, of course.
- The K'Nex exhibit. I'm not sure how much K'Nex pays for that exhibit, but I know they make it back 10 fold in product sales.
- A castle, built into several rooms, which, with the number of kids running around, actually gives a pretty accurate re-creation of siege warfare, I imagine.

And we didn't even get much into the second wing of the place, though it did seem like that was more "older kid" stuff. A lot of people I know have had a "Meh, whatever" opinion of Exploration Place, and I can see where some of it would get a been there, done that reaction after a couple visits (especially with older kids), but the Vogts Clan had a blast.

Aside from that adventure, things are finally getting back to normal, though both Mommy and Daddy are dealing the the last remnants of colds. The girls are better though, back on schedule for the most part, and continuing to amaze. Full sentences are commonplace, and some of the conversations they have between themselves are starting to make sense to foreign ears as well. Just tonight, Megan warned Kayla not to take her chair while she went to fetch something from her room. Which of course Kayla immediately did, but still. As always, I try not to underestimate what they're capable of, something days like today help with considerably.

Sickness and Schedules

After the girls were first born, Jenn obviously was home with them for a while, and I actually took over after that for about 3 weeks, give or take, mostly because I get more vacation than I can use, and I could. This took us to around Jan '09 without needing any kind of daycare. Jenn's mom Ruth took over for us at that point; she'd walk over in the morning, and take care of them until I got home at around 5 or so. Which was awesome of course - daycare showing up at your house - but couldn't last forever, as we knew. Seems like I'm remembering she took care of them until about 9 or 10 months old, until they eventually became too heavy and too active for her to keep up with 5 days a week, and still keep her sanity. So, we started looking for daycare options.

While we looked, we briefly toyed with the idea of me becoming a stay-at-home dad. We weren't sure what our daycare costs were going to be, and whether they might threaten to make my take home pay redundant. As it turned out, the answer to that question was "No", but for several days I was seriously considering the possibility, what it would mean for my life, whether I'd have been able to handle it, etc. I'm sure that overall it would have been great, but honesty compels me to admit that there are times when I could not imagine having to take care of the girls by myself 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Times like this weekend, for example.

Kayla and Megan are sick. A cold ravaged the house a few weeks back that the girls mostly recovered from, save for an occasional cough. It was never serious enough for us to worry, we know by now that the answer from the doctor would have been "Push fluids, watch her appetite, let us know if there's a fever or it gets worse". Late Friday and this weekend, however, the cough started getting worse, and we started seeing all the classic "I don't feel good" symptoms. We had Megan in on Saturday as she was the first to start a fever, and had the worse bark. They told us it was probably viral, but gave us an antibiotic just in case it was "clinical bronchitis", which seems to be one of those medical terms that translates into "Eh, we're not really sure". Kayla we had in yesterday, same diagnosis/result (although the over-eager PA did try a breathing treatment as well).

You come to appreciate how much kids depend on their routines. This is something every parenting source in the world will mention, but doesn't really sink in until you've experienced the consequences first hand. Even at 2+, it seems to snowball. A little stuffiness leads to a missed nap. A missed nap leads to a cranky afternoon. A cranky afternoon leads to an even crankier evening, at which point they become overtired and fight sleep more than usual. Rinse and repeat for 3 days, and your result is Megan still awake at 9pm tonight, sitting on Mommy's lap watching House in the living room.

Jenn stayed home with both girls today. It was up and down most of the day it sounds like, but when I got home, it's like a balloon popped. Within about 10 minutes Megan was in an inconsolable mood. She wanted Daddy to hold, then Mommy. She wanted juice, then sent it away when offered. She wanted to sit and snuggle to watch Dora, but why would I expect her to want to sit in that chair? Megan's ability to keep herself awake is legendary, but she really took it to another level tonight. At one point she crawled down from Jenn and wanted to go play with some blocks. She got as far as the block bucket, put her hands in to fetch some....and that's where the effort stalled. In retrospect we maybe should have just let her stay there, she probably would have fallen asleep right there, hands still half-clutching the blocks.

We finally got her down around 9:30, which of course means she'll be 2 hours in the hole to start out with today. There's some concern of ear infection, but they tend to wake up feeling OK, I think we'll probably have to try daycare today. Schedule, how we have missed you.

Second Moms

We take a break from Twin Shenanigans to remember our dear friend Julie Hoyer, who suddenly and tragically passed this Saturday. Most of us during our formative years have the opportunity to be "adopted" by so-called Second Moms, whether they are aunts, grandmothers, big sisters, or in this case, a mother of a close friend. From the moment I started spending significant time at the Hoyer house, it was clear that Julie would be one of the many women in my life to fill that role for me.

Probably the first time I spent a lot of time out there was the summer James broke his leg, which I'm guessing must have been either '88 or '89. He wasn't going anywhere for a while that summer, so good friends that we were, we spent a good portion of our summer out there. The fact that James had Super Mario Brothers 3 to keep busy was pure coincidence, I assure you. I believe I made a good first impression that summer by consistently eating all of Julie's gummi bears or Gardetto's, a trend that would continue for many years.

We spent many a night out there through high school and college, playing cards, sitting in the breezeway playing Nintendo until God knows what time, cooking up something on the grill over a weekend, and just generally being noisy, obnoxious teenagers who thought they ran the place. But there always seemed to be some leftover Casey's pizza in the fridge, or another pile of gummi bears at her desk.

Julie used to take great fun in teasing me about being quiet most of the time, except when I had a couple of beers in me. When I was still living with James and first dating Jenn, Julie and Charlie would come down once in a while for an evening, and tell Jenn all kinds of embarrassing stories that were not true in any way, complete lies and slander. I can never remember a time when she didn't have her smile at the ready, or a cup of ice within reach.

The weather forecast tells me it will be bitter cold Wednesday, when we have Julie's memorial. It seems appropriate, since the world has lost some of it's warmth with her passing. She will be missed dearly, by many.

How to Make a Child

2011. We turn over the calendar yet again, 26 months into our Great Vogts Girl Experiment. It's cliche and somewhat arbitrary to take stock in one's life at a random day in winter, significant only because of the whims of long dead Popes. Indeed, how would I even measure success or failure? In theory I'm the co-captain of this ship, in charge and determining our heading, but the Secret of Parenting that no one ever tells you (but you figure out about 18 hours in) is that really you're mostly just along for the ride. It's more like a bobsled run; there's a measure of control, but that control is not always evident, outshone by the speed and chaos of the moment.

We face several major challenges this year:

- Potty Training. A difficult negotiation, to say the least. Overtures have been made, bargains struck, treaties spoken of, but our adversaries have been fickle in holding up their agreements. And let's be blunt: The will to achieve victory on our side has been lacking at times as well. Lately, however, we've been hearing more and more mentions of the P word from the other camp, so it's probably time to redouble our efforts.

- Big Girl Beds. I'm not going to lie, this one scares us to death. We've spoken of the difference between girls before, notably their sleeping habits. Kayla would probably put in 16 hours a day were she an only child, whereas Megan will, quite literally, throw her entire body around in a desperate attempt to stall sleep for a precious few additional minutes. Bedtimes usually are not a traumatic event, but we generally do hear the girls talking to each other for a while, and then hear Megan talk a little louder when Kayla falls asleep. Lately we've learned a game where we insist on being tucked in, only to immediately throw off the covers as soon as Mommy or Daddy's back is turned and need tucking again. One can only imagine what will transpire when they have free roam of the room, and access to toys/clothes/etc. We've toyed with various ideas on how to approach this, but the only one that makes any kind of sense logistically is to just swap cribs for beds one day, and be done with it. Our nightmare scenario is basically reliving our first month all over again. Again, we have stalled this one in deference to our convenience and comfort, but the day is fast approaching.

- Generally not being evil. Overall the girls are happy and well behaved. But they are 2 years old, hence the modifier. We tend to test our boundaries a lot, especially when we're tired. Supper can sometimes be an interesting experience.

Of course, it's not all doom and gloom, as we're on the precipice of other very exciting and wonderful things:

- Real learning. In the past few weeks, we seem to have figured out the color thing, achieving probably a ~90% success rate, with only minor corrections still necessary.

- Counting skills progress as well, with several "successful" counts of three items coming from Kayla in particular.

- Big Girls Helpers. Both girls have had great fun recently helping Mommy make muffins in the kitchen. This has translated to imaginative play as well, as Megan in particular will find a toy muffin pan and muffin/cupcakes and bake us up some treats.

We love using the iPad as well, to the point it must remain hidden most of the time. Anyone who follows me on Facebook has perhaps seen the fruits of coloring sessions, using a Drawing Tablet app. We also love looking at "pictures of babies" (though they do recognize themselves if the pictures are from the past year or so) and videos. I told someone the other day that in about two years, they'll probably be the primary users of the iPad, and not just because it'll be out of date.

It seems like we may be turning a corner here, in general. This could arguably be said about any random point in a child's development, but now, especially, we're very nearly ready to become fully functional human beings. We'll see how it goes.

2010

*Editors Note*: The following writings were found scribbled in crayon, on various scraps of paper, tucked underneath a pile of stuffed animals in the bedroom of Kayla and Megan Vogts. They are presented here, unedited, for posterity.

Jan 2010 (Megan): Still reeling from the implications of late last month. Many grown ups brought us things, which of course isn't unusual, but for some reason they chose to trap them in brightly colored paper. Kayla insists this happened a few months back as well. We played along, but a troubling development.

Kayla stricken with some kind of mysterious disease, resulting in spots all over her face and body. My attempts to find a cure frustrated by constant interference from the parents. Kayla however seems in relatively good spirits, and my research indicated the threat is minor.

Our attempts at communication proving fruitful, yet slow. Talk of certain toys or food are sometimes recognized, but a request for a periodic table of elements has so far been met with only blank stares.

February (Kayla): We continue to explore our surroundings, determining if this domicile is adequate for our needs. So far the facilities seem sufficient; however the laboratory, on first inspection, seems woefully understocked.

We're hopeful the basement may provide a more suitable research environment. Our daily excursions to this "Miss Kelli's" is providing an incredible intelligence opportunity, though, even if the required attire is somewhat confining.

March (Megan): A breakthrough. It turns out the noisy person in the corner of the living room is, in fact, some sort of communication or entertainment device. We have bore witness to the exploits of a girl named "Dora" who seems to be some kind of philanthropist/globe trotter (funding for our research?), and a group of four men known as the "Wiggles", who seem overly concerned with fruit salad for some reason. I have attempted to speak with their leader, Greg, about procuring some computer time in their "Wiggle House", but he so far has not acknowledged my requests. Perhaps his communications are being monitored.

We received some grooming recently, and continue to do what we can to assist the parents in making our surroundings acceptable for our purposes.

May (Kayla): Megan's theory that procuring the parents shoes would allow us to "grow big" proved to be false. Disappointing, but this is part of the scientific process of course. Tomorrow, we will attempt again with their t-shirts.

We continue with our designs. By my calculations, we can have the wind tunnel installed by next month, which will allow us to begin work on our prototypes. Megan believes she can have the reactor online by the end of the year.

June (Megan): Summer has brought an unexpected windfall: a cooling pool! Revising my estimates on the go live date for the reactor by at least a month.

Our anti-gravity experiments, however, have met with mixed results.

Communication with the parents has continued to improve. We can finally make them understand simple sentences, such as "More fruit". Again, however, their understanding proves limited, as a request for an industrial strength diamond drill resulted in a graham cracker. Must remind ourselves that science can afford to be patient.

July (Kayla): A rare recreational opportunity.








The respite was brief, of course, as that fractal generation software wasn't going to program itself. Not yet, anyway.

Daddy and Mommy left us in the care of Granny and Grandpa for a couple of days. We had high hopes going in, but sadly there was not a copy of the Journal of Applied Physics to be found in the house.

September (Megan): The parents mean well, but honestly...

THEY HUNG IT ON THE FRIDGE! That paper proved P = NP, presents a unified field theory that will one day be the theoretical basis for observing and manipulating the graviton, and identifies several promising theories for describing the effect quantum entanglement might have on current black hole theoretical models, and did they call the Nobel committee? Did they even submit it to a single scientific journal? No, up it goes with a 6 month old shopping list. Nice.

Diego, how do you deal with stuff like this?

October (Kayla): Once again, we celebrate the anniversary of our birth. It's somewhat depressing to think that we're already 2 years old, and have yet to have a single mathematical theorem named after us, but Megan reminds me that Einstein worked as a patent clerk for several years as well. I suppose we can afford ourselves a little bit of leeway.

We have decided to take on some interns to train, and to help us around the lab, perform routine experiments, etc. So far they seem to be a bit overwhelmed with the workload, but we're confident we can whip them into shape.

December (Megan): At last my reactor is ready to be brought online. The cold fusion reaction is providing nearly a 500% energy return, and that's even before we introduce the quantum superposition field.

Once again our parents have unwittingly provided us with some key components, including scientific instruments, and a simple yet effective housing structure.

We're confident that if we can achieve a stable petawatt output, the Nobel committee will have no choice but recognize our accomplishments.

Complications

As Santa pictures go, a pretty good one, no? You'd like to see a smile, but with kids you take what you can get. In fact it might almost be considered perfect, if not for the obvious exclusion in our case.

The story: We procrastinated our Santa visit this year. It was going to happen last weekend, until Jenn got sick and we didn't get organized enough and in time on Sunday to make it happen. This left M-Th of this week to get it done. I got a call from Jenn right before quitting time on Tuesday, and the plan was set. Round up the girls from daycare, meet at home, quick change of clothes, and off to the mall we fly. Knocking on wood panel the whole way, hoping it wasn't too blown out.

"Quick clothes changes" never are quite as quick as you'd like these days, as the girls would either prefer to run around naked, or "do it themselves": their dressing skills documented by Jenn in the previous post, of course. But we still managed to get out the door in respectable time, and headed to Town East. We actually got a parking spot without having to resort to any demolition derby tactics, entered cautiously optimistic, and were buoyed even further when the Santa line did not stretch longer than 3 stores. "We might actually pull this off", my wife and I communicated to each other telepathically.

And then, The Wait. In science you sometimes hear talk of "deep time", the concept of time on a geological/universal scale, millions and even billions of years. As humans with ~100 year lifespans, it takes concerted effort to imagine the vast, ocean-like size of the time periods required to build mountains and stars. One trick that helps in this effort, is to stand in a Santa line with two 2-year old girls at 6:30pm after a full day of daycare. To their credit, they did pretty well for about 3/4 of The Wait, even if they were not too fond of the stroller. And then, right as we got to within view of Santa, in goes the thumb into Kayla's mouth, and down went the head on my shoulder.

On some level I knew what was coming right then, but we were scant moments away, I figured we could still pull it off. But as we arrived at the "You'll be next" entryway, and Kayla was asked if she was ready to sit on Santa's lap, the answer was a definite "No". Even Mommy could not convince her, trying to simply stand her by Santa, or to give her one of the stuffed bears sitting in Santa's makeshift workshop. Tears were flowing, arms outstretched to whatever parent was closest.

Megan, meanwhile, sat right down on Santa's lap like we had given her to Grandpa.

Disappointing, but in retrospect perhaps not that surprising. Bedtime is traditionally between 7 and 7:30, and we had pushed the limits of their endurance not only mentally, but physically by cobbling together a quick "supper" of crackers and breakfast bars. At least it's been good for a blog post.

Off to Canton here in a couple hours, for Christmas with Mom and Dad, and Linda/Shane/Jalen/Jordan, assuming the weather out there is cooperating. Then back tonight for Eve with Ruth, and Day tomorrow with the additions of Karen/Carl/Nathan. Spoiler Alert: I hear tell Santa is going to bring us a toy piano and guitar, some new puzzles, and new crayons/coloring books.

Wordless Wednesday - 12/22/10 - I Can Dress Myself!

Twins: A Study in Crayola

First up, we have Megan, the Scientist

Megan is generally the one to ask to color, will color longer, and with greater care and precision, than Kayla. She is more practiced at holding her crayons, and does so "normally" much better than Kayla. She'll take to suggestions (color the shoes) much easier as well, and will see it through. She'll switch colors more often as well, and will color multiple pages.

Then we have Kayla, the Artist:

Kayla is all about coloring with enthusiasm. She will not keep at it as long as Megan does, but obviously gets her money's worth. Big, looping circles and arcs in rapid succession is typical, as is only a couple of color changes. She's done with this activity in about half the time Megan is typically, usually choosing not to do more than one page.

It's interesting, because their coloring methods are in contrast with what we observe as their normal personalities. Usually Kayla is the "thinker"; generally more even tempered than Megan, generally more relaxed physically, and easier to reason with logically. She's always the first to tire, and almost always goes to bed easier, with minimal fuss. Megan meanwhile is the one more likely to run headlong into your arms...or the corner of the coffee table, the wall, or the sidewalk. She's also much more likely to transform from Good Megan to Evil Megan at the drop of a hat. Megan has, to my knowledge, never willingly slept, and fights any hint of sleep with every fiber of her being.

Flashback

A flashback, to the day our daughters were born, and the days that followed.

Adventure

The big news this week, at least the past two days, has been sickness, unfortunately. If you follow Jenn on Facebook you already know the story, bear with me.

Thursday night Jenn went to bed early, and I stayed up late playing the new Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft reading a very dense and complicated tome of classic literature while weather-stripping all the windows. Girls had gone down at their customary ~7:30pm time, and at one point I heard an aborted cough out of one of them. I needed to sneak in and steal a laundry basket anyway, so went in and checked. I could see Kayla kind of squirming but all seemed well, and I didn't investigate further, for fear of waking them.

Fast forward to 6:20 yesterday next morning, our equally customary weekday wake up time. As soon as I walked into the room I could smell it, and turning on the light confirmed it: Both girls had thrown up in their beds. All over the sheets/blankets/dolls/etc. Aside from the coughing the night before which, in retrospect, was probably the first throw up, we didn't hear a peep out of them all night. Jenn was in the shower, I grabbed them both, stripped off the sleepers, and headed to the bathroom. About 5 minutes into the sponge bath it was clear this wasn't going to cut the mustard, so I started a full bath and tossed them in. Right about that time Jenn came out, she took over the bath while I stripped beds and wiped sick off of various cloth items.

Complicating this medical crisis is the fact that I'm involved with a major software move/upgrade at work this weekend, involving our clinics' EMR systems. It's one of those things that doesn't directly require my involvement (clearly, as I'm writing this on Saturday sitting here in the office), as our vendor is handling all the heavy lifting, but does require my attention should the vendor run into problems. It's a task that HAS to be done by 8am on Monday, and really they'd prefer to have it by 4 or 5 am, because nurses keep odd hours (says the guy who's alarm is set for 4:30am). In short, I wasn't going to be taking off work Friday, so the task fell upon Jenn.

As it turned out, both girls were fine all day, if a little manic, wavering between crabby and hyperactive. They had a short fuse from what I hear. I managed to get home about 6:30 or so, just in time for another bath and bedtime. I haven't called yet to check on things, but I imagine everyone is up by now and well into some breakfast and Nick Jr.

Keeping both girls at home by yourself all day is certainly an experience. It's by no means an impossible task, and both Jenn and I love doing so, but nevertheless it can get pretty hectic. The girls tend to feed off each other, either in their moods or level of activity. They can be sitting quietly, playing with toys or watching TV, then all of the sudden one will jump up and run into the kitchen, and then it's on. Or they'll be in a good mood, then one girl will get mildly scolded for grabbing something off a counter, and all of the sudden both are crabby, and you find yourself looking at the clock, wondering if it's nap time yet.

It ties into something I wonder about a lot: Are we "normal" parents? A day at home with twin 2 year old girls leaves you frazzled...Imagine that. But the doubt creeps into your mind: Am I this frazzled because I'm not as up to the task as I ought to be? Or is it just a natural consequence of having twins? People used to express amazement at "how we did it" when Kayla and Megan were infants, but the truth, as I expressed here I believe, is that having two at that age wasn't really that different than one. Make two bottles instead of one, change two diapers instead of one, get used to a little more crying...it wasn't that big of a difference. But now that our living balls of hunger/poop/screams have gained mobility, independent thought, and indeed, even deviousness, the game has changed from checkers to chess. And not just regular chess: the freaky 3-D kind they had on Star Trek. I knew this would be the way of things of course, but I also wonder if I'm adapting at the necessary rate as well.

It's a problem Jenn and I have struggled with, related to taking the girls to do things as well. It's beyond clear that both girls are Turbo-Powered Knowledge Vaccuums, and like Johnny 5, they need input. Yo Gabba Gabba has a live show that tours the country, and was due to swing through KC sometime in November I believe. When we learned of this some months before hand, we toyed with the idea of taking them up for the show, maybe staying a night, and doing some other kid-friendly activity on the way out of town the next day. Then we began cataloging the realities of such a trip. How long into the 3 hour drive up would the girls reach the "OK I'm done with this car seat" mark? Would we need to budget time for a nap before the show? How are we going to get them down for a nap in an unfamiliar hotel room? When/how are we going to squeeze meals into the schedule? What about the return trip home?

The logistics scared us off that particular trip/idea; perhaps it shouldn't have, but Mommy and Daddy are kind of learning as they go as well. I suppose a lot of the problem is just the age. Did Kayla really understand when I told her to not run off across the street, and she said OK? Or was that the same "OK" she uses when I ask her if she would like to fly to the moon? All part of the process I guess.

Wordless Wednesday - 12/08/10 -Jayhawk Girls

Sunday Sunday Sunday

So, you might ask yourself: What is a lazy December Sunday like with twin 2 year old girls?

Oh, you know, nothing special.

Little Girls Being Girls

The girls have really taken to the girly things, like dressing in tutu's, playing with their kitchen, cradles and dolls.  They've purloined bags and purses, carrying them on their shoulders and arms like purses (which is comical when the bags are nearly as big as they are....)

The latest is to raid the clean laundry basket before the laundry is folded...or raid the dish towel drawer -- and use a bath towel or dish towel as a baby blanket.

This evening, they were playing with strollers.  Daddy suggested to Megan, as she was pushing an empty stroller, that she find a baby to put in it.  "No!" she insisted, and trotted off to her bedroom, pushing the stroller quickly along the hall and out of sight into the bedroom.

She came back, moments later, her stroller no longer empty.  It was now full of socks!

She pushed it all the way out to the kitchen, then removed some of the socks.  Kayla and Megan sat down together and put on socks.

Anything to keep them entertained safely!

Understanding

The theme this week (month?, yes I know) has been understanding. Consider the following conversation which might have taken place scant weeks ago:

Mommy: What did you have for supper, Kayla?
Kayla: Abaga sten raga, Dowa Boots cleck bagara expactera.

Which roughly translates into, "I have no idea what you're talking about, Mommy, so I'm going to tell you how Dora and Boots saved the tree sloth". Compare and contrast this to the following. It must be an amazing thing to all of the sudden be capable of verbal communication with those around you, after lacking the ability for so long. The obvious comparison would be myself suddenly moving to a foreign country, but even that falls short, as I already have a basic grasp of one language. Perhaps the more accurate comparison would be waking up and finding yourself on an alien world where they communicated by smells.

Astute viewers might notice that Kayla almost-sorta-maybe counts the number of mash totatos she consumed, another skill we seem to be developing. Demonstration of said skill can be frustratingly rare, however, and subject to the whims of a two year old, but we have heard the number thirteen uttered. They still have trouble with the number one, it seems mostly because they're so used to Mommy or Daddy beginning the counting process. Previous to the above video I had assumed that counting was still just rote memorization/recital, but Kayla does seem to work out the number in her head....well like I say, almost-sorta-maybe.

Developments come at such a furious pace that I find myself having to reign in my expectations. The other day I was briefly searching for child color blind tests, because the girls can't yet reliably identify the blue and green crayons, before finally telling myself, "Calm down, they're two".

Aside from major developmental milestones that will fundamentally shape who they are as people, things continue to chug along normally. We made it past the big 2-0 (minus 18) and Halloween, and now have our sights set on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sounds like we're going to use the Thanksgiving weekend to try and formally introduce potty training, as both girls have taken to telling us about wet diapers most of the time. I'm telling myself this will be the last major hurdle to overcome; that once this is done, it's smooth sailing from here on out. I'd appreciate it if you would allow me this delusion until at least the end of January.

That's all for now, bye bye!

Wordless Wednesday - 11/03/10 - If Only They Would Have Put Them On....