another milestone gone

This one may be the most exhausting one since sleep training at 2 1/2 months.  William figured out how to climb out of his crib a few nights ago.  In the morning, we heard some excessive giggling coming from his peanut gallery (Michael) and when Dada went to investigate, W was hanging out on the floor between the beds.  Later that day, Nanny discovered his method was simple - boost self up onto crib rail, and then haul leg over side.  Lower or drop self to ground.  Suddenly those crib rails look too low, yet really high all at the same time.

Solution was provided by retired Nanny - turn the crib around so the short side is up against the wall.  Brilliant.  Not as brilliant as William.  Today, while Mama was changing diapers for the peanut gallery, William just launched himself over the side rail on the crib.  Landing not so graceful, but objective achieved.

Solution - remove the front panel of the crib and now we have a toddler bed. 

Here's the thing - you never anticipate this happening.  You spend 8-9 months preparing for the baby to arrive - you wash all the sheets and blankets, you fold everything neatly (one friend even ironed all her daughter's clothes), you have all the cute little baskets around the room all well organized.  When that baby is born, you're ready.  Fast-forward 20 or so months, and it's all you can do to get the kids' clothes washed, let alone ironed and organized.  And by this time, the kids know how to get into the dresser drawers, so why bother folding.  The clothes are toys and the toys get shoved back into the drawer when the kids are safely into their cribs.  Uh Oh.

Yep, you've got it.  If you want the room to stay at all tidy, the only solution now is to remove everything (and I really mean everything) from the room.  Or this will happen:  15 minutes after the nanny left leaving Mama on 'get the kid to take his first nap in a bed duty', I went in to check on the boys and put W back to bed.  W was having a ball running all around the room. M really wanted to sleep, but couldn't (and greeted me with the look that says "Seriously, mom.  Can't you do something about this kid").  William had taken every single stuffed animal (remember they are twins, so we have a veritable Noah's ark here) AND every single piece of clothing, sheets, blankets and one lone burp towel and tossed them into Michael's crib.  So now Michael's got to sleep in the ball pit, William's running all around and Mommy really needs some quiet time. 

Solution - housekeeper running vacuum right outside kids' door.  I swear this has never worked for my kids.  But today it did.  Not 5 minutes after the noise started, the boys snoozed.  For a good 2 hours before W rolled over in his sleep and rolled right onto the floor.

Solution - none.  We'll figure that out tomorrow. 

The legos are having babies

Christmas is now in the past and I'm left to deal with the detritus of this giving holiday. Despite the lack of tree, we still had many gifts to open at our home and at Nana & Grandpa's. Now, our playroom (family room) has a new look:

White gift bags scattered all over the floor - I hesitate to dump them in the recycle bin, as sometime they morph into 'clean up bags'. And there really is something super cute about Michael walking around the kitchen (yes, walking!) carrying a shopping bag just like mommy's.

Puzzle pieces - the alligator piece is eating the dump truck piece which is running over the simple square. the bases of the puzzles are stuffed under couches, riding around in the back of the 'real' dump truck, buried under piles of Legos.

Legos - and these other fun (fun!?) blocks that are part of the new Little People set. Everywhere. Sometimes stacked into super high towers by William. Sometimes thrown around the room. Sometimes dumped out of the box onto someone's head. And Mommy hasn't even opened the box of the Little People Farm. Or the mega-bag of Mega Blocks. Why would I - in the past 2 days, the 33 block Lego Duplo set has certainly multiplied into 379 blocks. I'm sure of it.

And yet, even though Mommy spent part of nap-time cleaning up all these little bitty things, and even though we were 10 minutes before leaving to pick Dada up at work, and even though it was n't entirely necessary, Mommy still took the neat, tidy box of Legos and dumped it over her head. Why? Because for the remainder of the 10 minutes before leaving to pick Dada up at work, two little boys giggled and giggled because Mommy dumped the legos over her head.

celebrating similarities

We have twins (big surprise since that's the name of my blog) and these boys are as different as red and a water tower. I could go on for days over their differences. Their similarities are even more fun to reflect upon - They both love to giggle. They both are snuggly when it is what they want to be doing (Ok, one likes to snuggle more often than the other). They both love playing super-peek-a-boo with my old cottage quilt. They both love splashing in the bath tub.

And today, after 7 months of disparity, they both can walk!

William started stumbling around the room in an independent, upright manner about 7 months ago. He's now proficient enough that he will even take Mamma for a walk and is quite demanding if the route veers from his intended direction. Around that same time, Michael decided he'd do some army crawling, but that if something in the world was really important, it'd come to him.

So we've worked and worked and worked with him. He visits Miss Karla each week for some playtime PT where he has been learning that there is a pretty fun world up high. And Miss Allison comes over weekly for more playtime and Michael has learned (among other things) what "up up up" really means, besides just a means for getting out of the crib after nap time.

This week, our visits came with mixed results, and I have to admit I was beginning to get a little discouraged (like the discouraged that says "if this is part of the programming being cut in the state budget, will I continue it out of pocket? well probably yes, but reluctantly, maybe yes"). At PT, Michael was kind of uninterested. William was really the star of the show as he figured out how to take a suction-cup ball and a plain ball and attach both to the mirror. That kid's crazy ;) But today with Miss Allison, Michael had tons of fun putting together puzzles, dumping (and eating) cheerios, and stacking cubes. With high spirits came solid balance, so he was 'almost' standing, and enthusiastically walked around the room while holding onto Jessica's (nanny) hand.

Tonight, we were lucky because Dada made it home early from work and was here for post-dinner playtime. As I tried to demonstrate Michael's one-handed balance, he decided it'd be ok to let go and just walk over to Dada. Just like that.

And after a lot of cheering (which of course startled him, distracted him and caused him to crash), we tried a few more times with similar success.

And then William realized what was happening, raced across the room and knocked Michael right back onto the floor for a reprise of the army crawl. Which is much slower than William racing.

my life as a Facebook status

I'm spending the evening home alone with the kids, so I've had some time for some interesting reflection. The most strange, or perhaps disturbing, realization is that I find myself thinking in Facebook status updates. Something (ordinary or unusual) happens to me and I start composing my memory as if I am writing my status. Complete with the "Tina Campbell is..." beginning. Perhaps this is how ordinary people are able to "Tweet" all day long. So here was my day:

7:30am - Tina Campbell is so happy that the boys were quiet til 7:30am since she had a kinda late (but fun) night out w/ the girls last night.

8:30am - Tina Campbell wonders how she is going to teach the boys that it's not ok to move the kitchen chairs all around.

9:00am - Tina Campbell is looking forward to talking to the 100 new Junior League provisionals very soon.

9:30am - Tina Campbell is frustrated that there's never open parking around the Junior League headquarters, and can't believe she left the bag full of parking meter quarters on the kitchen counter. ugh.

1:00pm - Tina Campbell has decided that although the splash park is fun, it is WAY too hot (90deg) to go all the way over to the park, so will do poop patrol and let the boys play in their little pool.

3:15pm - Tina Campbell wonders why the lady in the minivan waiting for her parking spot is throwing dirty looks her way as she walks the shopping cart back up to the front of the store. There are tons of close parking spots. Find a different one.

5:15pm - Tina Campbell is so proud of the boys at dinner tonight. William made some good progress holding a fork and Michael ate hamburger, pears, strawberries and cheese without getting any stains on his clothes!

6:30pm - Tina Campbell's poor little william must be getting more molars. cried so hard that he needed 15 minutes of mommy-snuggling to calm down before bed. good thing my arms are long enough that michael could get sympathy snuggling at the same time.

8:30pm - Tina Campbell thinks it's kinda weird that she has begun to think in the format of Facebook status updates. And at the same time is irritated with her husband for letting his phone break while he is on his fantasy football draft weekend away.

9:00pm - Tina Campbell has just realized that in 10 hours, the whole thing will begin again. So instead of writing about all the mundane things that happened, she is going to bed so she can dream about a day where the boys play nicely together without moving the furniture, the poop patrol is done by someone else and the dishes are washed by the elves. She is also hoping that whatever tooth prompted the meltdown has cut through by morning.

Terrible almost twos

Sixteen months and 5 days. That is how long I lasted with the two most perfect babies on the planet. On the 16th month +6 days, the perfectness came crashing down. At least 1/2 of it.

From the moment of their birth, I've known that William would be the one to push the boundaries. He's been chewing furniture since 6 months old, pulling on computer cords since he could make a fist (always), climbing on the couch for months now.

With climbing came standing up on the furniture and diving off of it. So the 1st two rules we've taught are "stay on your bottom" and "get off feet first". He's got both down like a champ. And he's really good at following the feet first (after a few head-first dives resulting in scrapes, bumps and bruises). But it is with great delight that he chooses to disobey on the sitting. Beyond just the fact that I don't want kids who stand on furniture, when he stands up on the loveseat, he's apt to stumble over the back onto the kitchen tile. When he stands on the couch, he pulls on and bangs the wood blinds. Not OK. So in the past week, he's had no less than 14 timeouts. All for giggling at me when he pops up and won't go back onto his bottom.

But even with his timeouts, although he fusses a little, he's still been a pretty sweet, fun little boy. Today, however, all has changed (either that or someone came in the middle of the night and traded babies on me).

For lunch, I made a yummy plate of cheese, chicken, avocado and corn, with strawberries and bananas for dessert. All their favorites. William (I call him that even though I'm still thinking maybe someone had replaced my kid last night) ate a few pieces of his lunch before very deliberately throwing pieces, one at a time, onto the floor. And by "deliberately" I mean - picked up a piece, held it up to me as if trying to feed me, snatching it and putting it toward his mouth, and then moving his arm out to the side and throwing it down onto the floor. With each piece of food. So I said all the things you're supposed to say to your kid when he's throwing food on the ground. And I gave him 3 tries. After the 3rd piece of chicken was tossed to the floor with one hand and a piece of cheese simultaneously tossed with the other hand, lunch ended for William. Imagine how jealous he was when Michael got to eat the rest of the avocado AND the strawberries and banana.

By dinner time, it was looking like Sweet William had returned. He sat on my lap to quietly drink his milk and then played in the kitchen while I finished up the mac & cheese. But when it came to getting into their high chairs...I am not sure who the child is who showed up. We got the full back arch, stiff legs (think light as a feather stiff as a board, but not light as a feather). There was no way I was getting him into this chair.

And tears - the great big alligator kind. And some of that hysterical crying I haven't seen since he was about 4 months old - the crying where he forgets to breathe and turns purple. So I put him on the floor and continued to quietly feed Michael (and I will say - I am pretty sure Michael gave me a "ha. I'm the good kid" smirk a couple times). While William clung to my leg like a squid. And cried. And screamed. Well, just like I don't want kids standing on furniture, I also don't want kids who eat while running all around the house. We eat at the table. Well, "we" don't, but we will. The boys do.

I'm not quite prepared to let my still pretty small kids go to bed without any supper. So I did bend him out of his stiff as a board pose enough to strap him into the seat for a few bites of mac & cheese and fruit. But I got no thanks for it. As soon as Dada got home, William was wrenching himself out of the chair into Dada's arms.

So I've now got this testing and pushing to look forward to. And as it seems to go in this house, I'm sure I wouldn't be too far off in guessing that as soon as William starts to behave, Michael will launch into his testing and pushing and trying of my patience phase.

I will still try to be fun mommy (with the boundaries), and when I have more days like today, I'll stick to my survival rules - deep breathing in the driveway, blaring Bon Jovi when I'm alone in the car, venting to my mother and, when all else fails, remembering I could be the Octomom.

some generally cute stuff from the boys

My camera is too slow to really capture these new actions on film, although I will keep trying. However, I don't want this phase to go by without recording this in some way, so words will have to suffice for now.

The boys are entering into the Months of the Mimic (which means I may end up having to wash my own mouth out w/ soap soon), in both words and actions. Other than the requisite 'Dada' and "Mama", neither of which is entirely tied to the person (although Dada is typically used when happy and Mama when sad), the first 'real' words to come from either of the boys was William's attempt at Uh Oh.

And I tell you, he uses it correctly and often. He says it when he throws toys out of the play area, throws his bottle on the ground, steals Michael's bottle/toy, and very carefully pitches his blanket over the side of his crib. But according to William, there is no "O" in Uh Oh. It sounds more like Uh oehhhh (where the oe is really one of those funny sound-letters) or Uh uuhhhh with the dot dot over the 2nd two U's.

Their newest action mimic is to "Oh My". Michael either squeezes his cheeks or covers his eyes. William covers his ears or his head. Sometimes Michael will do the action un-prompted, but more often than not, in perfect context (like when William smears food all over his face).

William's also clapping - he claps when we say clap, when we say Yay, when we say "good job Michael/William" or when we clap. He also claps for himself when he's decided he did a good job. Michael's learning to clap too, but he is a little more judicious. We've only seen him thrilled enough to break out the applause twice so far.

Now if I could only get them to mimic laundry folding...

My little monkeys

Several years ago, I was in a Mission Valley parking lot on a Saturday afternoon when I got a call from my brother, Chris. I'm fairly certain Chris had been watching football at Wills that day. Chris said "Tina, I think you should have a kid. And I will call your kid monkey. Then I can tell people 'I'm a monkey's uncle'."

So we had kids. And to support Chris, we decorated their rooms with monkeys. They have monkey toys, and for the first 6 months, nearly all their onesies had monkeys on them. Well, the evolution is complete. As of this week, I am certain they have evolved into monkeys!

Gone are the days where I was wishing that Michael would be just a little more engaged in playtime, maybe at least trying to crawl or pull himself up on my lap. Gone are the days when I would think "won't it be cute when the boys start really playing together." Oh no, now I wish "Couldn't they just sit quietly and read books." For yes, my children are now monkeys.

Last week, they DID start playing together. Michael crawled (yes crawled! on his hands and knees...not army style!) over to the fireplace, pulled down the basket of bibs that sort of 'hides' the allure of the fireplace, and I swear turned and winked at William. William promptly ran (yes ran!) over, climbed right up and started banging on the fireplace wall.

I am fairly certain that this is the conversation that Michael then had inside his head over the course of the week:

"Hmmm...that looked fun. I really want to do that. I mean REALLY. I have never REALLY wanted to do anything, but I REALLY want to do that. How can I? I mean, I don't even REALLY know how to crawl except a little bit. And I can't REALLY even stand up, unless I try hard. But Wow, I REALLY want to get up there. And bang. Oh, and there's glass that looks like a mirror. Oh fun. Oh I need to do that. How?" And then some crying ensues and Michael gets taken up for a nap.

Next Day: "Ok, I can't climb up there, but I think I can climb in other places. Like mommy's leg. And maybe on the toybox. And a little bit on my little chair but not really. Oh well, I will just suck my thumb instead."

And for about a week, these conversations rotate in Michael's head until one day...

"Ok, today when Mommy comes and gets me from my nap, I'm going to be standing up. I'll try and I'll try." And he did. In fact, he and William were both standing in their cribs on the near ends, reaching across the gap, holding hands and giggling when I walked in.

And when it got to playtime, he very decisively crawled (on all fours) over to the fireplace (where William had already removed the basket of bibs), and just climbed up. Like there was no struggle at all. And then proceeded to bang on the doors, gaze at himself in the mirror and 'invite' William up to join him.

Now I wish I could tell you that was the end of that story, but something this exciting and 'off limits' doesn't get boring too quickly. Neither does climbing on the couch and throwing toys into the kitchen (William) or diving off the furniture and fireplace (both). Or climbing into the back of the dump truck (William).

So Uncle Chris, you got your wish. You really are a Monkeys' Uncle.