Twins -- 19 Months

Our twins are doing SO much these days and it is so much fun to watch them each grow and develop in their own ways at their own paces.

HOWARD

• Howard wants to do everything Tracey does.  He watches her like a hawk and is right behind her to try it himself.  Whether its climbing up something, or running after someone, or jumping on a bed, or learning how the baby gates open and close, he wants to know how everything works and wants to do everything Tracey does.
• Howard is our little talker.  He has more actual words than Caroline and will try to repeat things we say, while Caroline is not to that point yet.  His most consistent words are: Hi (Hi-ee), Bye (Bi-ee), Daddy, Please (Eees), Ball (Ba), All done (Ah-da), No, Mama (Ma), Papa, More (Ma), Passie (bahbee), Doctor (daco), Puppy (papee), Balloon (baoo), Yucky (ucky)
• Howard weights 25.2 pounds and measures 2' 8 3/4"
• Howard loves daddy, like all the kids do, but he cuddles with Mama more than any of the other kiddos.  When daddy gets home from work, he is excited to see Daddy, but he gets over the excitement much more quickly than the girls do and wonders back to Mama before anyone else.
• He is very quick to notice when something is wrong.  When Howard comes to get me and is pointing at something, it might take me a minute to figure it out, but more often than not, something is out of place or something is wrong and he's the one to come get me.  Sometimes it means Caroline is playing in the bathroom, sometimes it means his fork fell on the ground, sometimes it means someone took a toy away from him, but there is almost always a pretty legitimate reason he came to get me.
• He loves to dance on his own, or with his sisters to music.
• He follows directions pretty well (when he wants to) and has a great receptive vocabulary.
• Both he and Caroline clear their dishes after meals and get really excited about that job.
• Howard can point to his belly button, head, nose, ears, and sometimes eyes when he is asked.  He also blows kisses.

 

CAROLINE

• Our sweet Caroline loves playing with her siblings and is more tolerant of being told what to do or what to play with than either Tracey or Howard because she loves playing with that so much.
• That being said, she is not afraid to become involved in her own task while Howard and Tracey are rough-housing.
• When she methodically begins a task, she can do the same task over and over and over again, with extreme precision.  Sometimes it is something like filling a basket full of items, and then moving the items one by one into a bucket, and then moving the items one by one back to the basket... and over and over.  Sometimes it is emptying the books off the bookshelf into a stroller until the stroller is full and then pushing the stroller around the main floor.  Sometimes it is picking up candy during a parade, and if she see ANY unattended candy, she will run out to pick it up -- no matter how far away from where we are sitting, or if its in the middle of the street while the parade is marching by.
• Caroline has less words than Howard, but she babbles A LOT.  She loves to hear herself talk and sing, especially when we are in the car.
• The words she does say most often are: Hi (Ha), Bye (Ba), Daddy, Please (Eees), Mama, Papa, More (Ma),  Puppy (papee), Birdie (Bee-ee), Lexie (Lala), Teeth (tee)
• She loves brushing her teeth and will frequently walk to the counter where we keep the toothbrushes and say "Tee!  Tee!" until I give her a toothbrush.
• She loves electrical cords and outlets and remote controls.  Almost any time she is left alone for a second, she will either find a cord to pull, or a remote control to steal.
• She adores her Daddy and will happily sit in his lap or lay on his chest for as long as he will let her.
• Caroline loves to wash her hands, and is very methodical about how I've shown her to do it -- both hands wet, get soap, rub hands, and rinse.  Howard is now getting the hang of it, but Caroline would wash her hands 25 times a day if I let her.
• Caroline is 25 pounds, and is measures 2' 8" in height. 
• Caroline cut her first tooth before Howard, but then at twelve months, Howard had more teeth than she did.  Well that all changed this past spring because she popped teeth all spring and summer like it was her job and she now has, I think 13 teeth, including several molars (more than Howard has).

BOTH TWINS

• Eat really well and will try most foods we give them
• Share their food really well and often will finish a meal between them even if only one is eating the whole banana and the other ends up with twice the oatmeal, they work together to finish the meal
• Know how to give one another a hug when we tell them to say their sorry.  When someone gets hit or hurt, we tell the one to say their sorry to their brother or sister, and he or she will put their arms around the other and lean their head in.  The one who is hurt leans their head back to the other.  And, if Tracey is anywhere nearby, she always says, "True love!"
• Take a two-plus hour nap during the day, in the afternoon, and sleep through the night from about 7:30pm-8:30am.  It is wonderful.
• Both sleep with blankets and passies, but the blankets and passies have to stay in their cribs so they cannot have them throughout the day.
• They both love running around and rarely sit still during the day except for when they're napping.
• They do like books, but they cannot be too long or the twins will start running around again.

 

 

I'm sure there is so much more they are doing that I could relay to you, but that at least says a little of what they're up to these days.