Winter Quiet

Apologies for the quiet here on the babies' blog.  There are times in life when keeping up with two blogs is, apparently, one blog too many.



To my credit, though-- it's been quiet in real life, too.  A soft, settled sort of quiet that comes from two weekends with no big events and the resuming of our full back-to-school routine in between.



The kind of quiet that comes from two kids who are suddenly, somehow, acting like brother and sister.


They play together.

They eat together.

Jack pulls Ivy down off of high places.

Ivy kisses Jack's boo-boos.


They love each other.

They are paragons of virtue these days, really.  Or maybe that's just the 2 good nights of sleep in a row talking.

Really though-- can you beat this for cute?
























They play by themselves!  They sit and look at books!  I am beginning to see glimmers of a time when they get up and get themselves breakfast on Saturday mornings....



I am really, really looking forward to those future Saturday mornings.



In the meantime, though-- Saturday mornings are for playing Go Fish.

Or Go Shark, or Go Squid, or Go Octopus as the case may be, thanks to Nat's introduction of "Word of the Day."  Jack's been on a sea-life kick and so this week we've been watching videos of reef-squid laying eggs, making flashcards, finding the letter S, drawing lots of tentacles, and chanting things like, "S-H-A-R-K, woooo! Go shark!"

Our house is fun.


Not to be outdone, Ivy can identify the letter "i" in multiple settings and can count to two, thank you very much.  She continues to add to her lexicon daily and we are astounded by the depth of her communication considering she still speaks primarily in single words.

For instance, "one"  (or one-nuh, as she pronounces it) can mean one as in I want one of those, or it can mean "I want to count now!" or it can mean "There's another one of those right there!"  She loves pointing out "another one".

"Go" can mean "I want to get going now" or it can be short for "There you go" when it is paired with one of our names and the insistent presentation of some object, very close to our faces.  " 'go, Mommy!" as she hands me a dishtowel.  " 'go, Dack!" as she brings him a cookie (which she grabbed for herself off the kitchen counter no less).

She's intensely independent and intensely loving and intensely cute.

 The above pictures were taken at a recent birthday party for lovely friend Sibel, at The Little Gym.  I have to say I am a fan of the place and would seriously think about enrolling both of my little monkeys in gymnastics there if I were, in fact, made of money.

Sadly, I am not, so the occasional birthday party will have to suffice.

Love to all!

Snow babies, take two

A stunning, powdery snow has settled over the Heights, along with a wintry chill to the air.  When the temperatures drop below 20 degrees, what do we do??

Take our children sledding, of course.

We met friends Greg and Scott at Coventry Park at 10am and we had the hill to ourselves for at least a half hour.  The kids we rock stars, flying down the hill, rosy cheeked and happy and not a complaint about the cold.  We kept warm dragging their little selves back up the hill; the snow was powdery and glittery and very, very slippery.

We celebrated the morning with a walk to Phoenix for hot cocoa, where the picturesque, nigh-Rockwellian perfection of our little group-- sipping warm drinks, clad in snow bibs, by the fire-- was marred only by the fact that our son (recuperating from his first ear infection, poor boy) suddenly hit the wall of exhaustion and became so droopy that Nat went and got the van to pick us up.

A lot of Max and Ruby has been watched today, and between that and an evening trip to Chic-Fil-A (complete with ice cream, of course), he has perked back up considerably.



In other news:

Soup Supper

I believe I waxed poetic on the glories of our January Second Sunday Soup over on my Thirty Days blog...  it was a lovely night, quite relaxed despite the fact that we had 7 littles dashing about the house.  Babies playing on the living room carpet, preschool set joyfully dumping bins of toys in the playrooms, lots of markers strewn on the floor.  Loveliness.

Here are a few pictures.

Sweet sibling moments.

They do happen. Interspersed between the screaming toddler and the boy yelling "No, Ivy!" and the grabbing of toys and kicking each other's chairs and....there are moments like this.

They are beautiful.  The children, and the moments.

Thanks for the kitchen, Grandpa and Vovo!  Jack said with joy, "It EVEN has a refrigerator!"

Card Games. 

The obsession with War continues, and yesterday Nat helped him add Go Fish to his arsenal. 

We played a game before breakfast today.  Jack asked about it upon snuggling into our bed this morning, and again when I tucked him in tonight:  "Mommy, do you think we should play Go Fish in the morning when we wake up?  We have to ask Daddy!!!  (sits up, I assure him I'LL ask daddy, he needs to lay down to sleep) OK, but you have to ask him in the morning or he'll probably forget.  Ask him like this -- "Wanna play Go Fish?"  Got it?  Put it in your BRAIN, mommy..."

I love our boy.

Yep and Nope

Ivy's two new favorite words.  The way she says these things-- its the cutest thing going.  That is, unless she's applying "Nope!" to bedtime.  Which she's been doing a lot lately, the little pill. But that's another story. 


She says "Yep" more like "Dep" with that little nod of her head or her self-satisfied smile.  And she says Nope clear as a bell and like she means it.  Which she does.  Girl knows what she wants down to what size of cookie she'll have, thank you very much.  She likes to exchange items she's taken a bite of, for a whole new one.  She loves her little tea set and putting tiny things into containers.  She prances on her tip-toes, loves her snow boots and enjoys picking out her own clothes AND taking them off.  She's a riot and I am pretty in love with her right now, too.

A little more in season....

From our trip to the zoo on Saturday.  Brilliant sun.  Colder than you might think.  Especially when one is waiting 20 minutes for the tram.

We never did get to see the sharks.  But the New Guinea Singing Dogs were wonderful, and there was stuff to climb on, so the kiddos were happy. 

Out of season

I don't think I ever shared these pictures with you all.

(blame Nat, he was hoarding them on his phone)

I think they are priceless, if a bit out of season right now.

Jack and Ivy, circa September.

Alternate title for this post:  Children of the Corn.  The cute version.

Pictures

I just thought I'd pop in tonight and share a few pictures I happened upon this evening, which I particularly enjoy.  Random pictures, hanging out in a folder labeled, interestingly enough, "Pictures".  While waiting for these two to upload I took a trip through the rest of that folder, and then about 10 more, from years ago, from parts of our lives I haven't thought of in years.  Tiny-Jack pictures, Bedford house pictures, wedding pictures, Winnipeg.

I am struck again by the abundance in our lives.

Our girl is on the mend, as evidenced by the sparkle that was back in her eye tonight.  So sparkly, in fact, that instead of heading to bed at 7:30, our little girl was dancing in circles around us, clad in a diaper and socks, yelling "Nakey!" and occasionally launching herself into our arms.  This was precipitated by one our timed lights clicking off, wherein Ivy sat up straight, looked around, declared "Nance!"  (aka "dance") and began to disrobe.

The girl is apparently conditioned to take her clothes off and dance when the lights go off.

Nat noted this is going to be a lot of fun when she is 16.

Regardless, its nice to have Miss Sparkle back.  Here's hoping she'll sleep tonight, too.


As Ivy was "nancing", all "Nakey", "roun'" us, Nat and I were engaged alternately in playing game after game of War with the boy.  He learned how to play War in preschool right before break and is now completely obsessed.  He's pretty proficient with knowing at a glance which card wins, only slight confusion with 6 and 9, and he's ready to flip that next card with enthusiasm-- '1,2, 3, FLIP!!!'-- which is instantly dampened the moment he loses more than 3 turns in a row.  Should he lose a "war", the sobs begin.  And yet, through the tears, he gamely plays on, tearfully says, "congratulations" to the winner. and begs and begs and begs to play another round as soon as we finish.  He is driven to win, this one, and doesn't quite know how to handle the disappointment when he doesn't-- nor can he hide his ebullience when he wins.  "Better luck next time!!!!" he chants sing-song as he bounces with joy.  He's too cute and though I shouldn't laugh when my son is crying-- I do, just a little.  He's so "4"-- and so "me", too-- but with enough edge and enough pluck that I am hoping he'll avoid the full extent of my crippling perfectionism.  Now, to help him understand that winning isn't everything and that its all about how you play the game....

(yeah, right.  how many adults really believe that one???)

Parenting is remarkable.  Who knew a little card game could uncover so many decisions and opportunities to say or do the right or wrong thing, to encourage or discourage, to teach and to question what we teach....   Every day, it seems, this remarkable boy unfolds a whole new set of questions for us.  Never simple, but so rich.  Snuggling in with him, talking about his day, sorting out his favorite and "un-favorite" parts of his day, listening and learning from him...Love that boy.

Snow babies

It's winter again in Cleveland Heights and we have happy kids.



Here they are enjoying gale-force winds at the top of the Coventry park hill.  Ivy took her first trip down the big hill, which she greeted with a "WHEEEEE!"  Jack was fearless and even handled a head-over-heels tumble when his sled careened into the tires at the edge of the playground.  He discovered the joy of going down the hill on his tummy on the spinny slide, which led to many cries of "one more time!" and to us leaving about 5 minutes later than we should have-- cold-fingered sad little beings on the way home.  Cold fingered  sad little beings who wanted to immediately play some more when we arrived at the house...

Here are a few more moments from the first few days of our  New Year.

Saturday was the first annual "New Toddler's Eve, wherein 8 little children played and danced and watched a disco ball slowly descend from a dining room light fixture at Greenwich Mean Time before we headed home to put them all to bed...






Our boy is very into games on the computer these days.




Both kiddos have a bit of winter crud right now.  Jack has the runny-nose-and-occasional-cough variety; Ivy the spike-a-fever-at-night variety.  But they aren't letting it get them down.



Happy New Year!