jeff and megan's babies

Teaching the boys to sign “more” has worked splendidly.  At first they used it to ask for more goodies like Nilla Wafers or Animal Crackers.  Very soon, though, signing “more” generalized to other areas of need.  The boys quickly learned to use the sign if they wanted something, even if it wasn’t food, and even if it wasn’t necessarily “more” of something.  Such as when Link signs “more” so that we’ll read a book to him or the time JJ tried to turn on the TV with the remote and when it didn’t work, he came over to me and signed “more.”

It’s been fun to watch the boys’ communication change over time as well.  Over the past month or two, the boys have become beggars whenever there is food around.  I no longer eat meals at the dining room table, because doing so means I am swarmed by JJ and Link who desperately want to sample whatever I am eating.  Instead, I eat in the gated safety of the kitchen.  Let me tell you that standing up while eating is weak.

Anyways, with this begging comes their new way of asking for food.  They probably picked this up from feedings where they get the usual “Open up your mouths, say ahhhhh!”  Begging for food now comes with the ever-so-cute “Ahhhh!”  In JJ’s case, it sounds more like “ahhhhm!”

Watching TV and Begging for Food.

The boys are also picking up new words and last week JJ started using “nana” when he wanted to get some banana. Of course, he couldn’t just say “nana” — he had to do it in a cute sing-songy kind of way.

Nana Nana Nana.

Link has developed the very unfortunate habit of being a difficult eater.  Primarily, his misbehavior during meal times consists of pulling out partially-chewed pieces of food from his mouth.  Once it’s out, it usually ends up being smashed on his tray, and, in many instances, smeared on his face or in his hair.  Every once in awhile, when Link doesn’t feel like eating for one reason or another, he’ll take whatever food is on his tray and swipe both of his hands back and forth so that all of the food flies onto the floor.  One of the reasons he does this is to obviously amuse himself, but another reason is to leave little presents for himself for later when he wants a snack — all he has to do is pick the goodies up off the floor.

So today, the boys were having lunch, which consisted of little cut-up pieces of hot dogs and string cheese.  JJ neatly and carefully ate as he watched TV from his high chair.  Megan cut up some grapes and JJ really, really loved them.  Megan gave him a few, he gobbled them up, and he signed for more.  Megan told him that he had to eat more of his hot dog before he could get more grapes.  She went over to the couch for a bit and when she came back to check on JJ, he had quietly eaten his hot dog so she gave him the grapes she’d promised.

Link, though, was having none of this thing called “lunch.”  The boy refused to eat, laughed at our attempts to coax him into dining, and did his swiping thing so that hot dog and cheese and fruit ended up all over the floor.  Megan wondered aloud why Link had to be such a pain in the butt about eating, while his sweet twin brother was such a good eater.

A few minutes later, JJ had finished up his food and it was time to pull the boys out of their chairs so they could go down for a nap.  I picked up Link’s mess and got him out of his chair.  Megan got JJ out of his chair and when she removed his bib she discovered his dirty little secret.  She showed me the contents of the large pocket at the bottom of his bib.

It was full of teeny pieces of hot dog.

A few months ago Jeff and I flanked the TV console with a couple of dining room chairs to keep the boys from squeezing in behind the TV to play with the wires and components and climbing the subwoofer to get to the shelf behind the TV that holds the phone and the wireless router. It worked beautifully for quite a while. Until recently.

While the boys are still too little to climb directly onto the chairs, they have proven themselves resourceful little buggers.  First they figured out that they could pull out the container holding the Nintendo controllers (stored in the console) and use it as a step to climb the front of the console and then onto a chair to get at the shelf behind the TV.  Then, after I sequestered the Nintendo box to the top of the bookshelf, they discovered that they didn’t need it, anyway, because they were big enough to just climb directly onto the console (and from there to a chair and from there to the shelf, of course).  I can’t move the chairs because then we still have the crawling-behind-the-TV issue. Frequent, prompt removal of resourceful babies from the chairs has resulted in a decrease (sadly not a cessation) of this behavior, but it is wearing on my nerves, people.

They have also found many other things to climb.  During the course of the day, I confiscated the Lego container, and their activity table, and I have repositioned their Spiderman couch and the stuffed animal bin.  They used to just occasionally get one of these objects into an opportune climbing spot by accident, but they have now begun purposefully positioning their makeshift steps to get into places they shouldn’t.  They get pretty mad every time I take another one of their climbing tools, and I almost felt bad about taking away the activity table until I asked myself, Self, are they actually using this as an activity table or just as a stool?

Pretty much just as a stool.  Okay, I see your point. And then I didn’t feel bad about it anymore.

Ironically, there is an actual stool in the room that Jeff brought in so they could look out the window, and they haven’t attempted to use it for ill at all.

P.S. – Between naptime (when I started writing this) and bedtime, JJ climbed onto both one of the dining room chairs and the coffee table without any auxiliary devices for the first time.  Ugh.

My favorite parts of the day is coming home and seeing the boys (obviously).  One of my other favorite parts of the day is finding out from Megan all the cute things that they do while I’m away at work.  Today’s story: Both of the guys, for some reason or another, laid face-down on the living room floor. With their noses right to the ground. And both of them just went “Blaaaaaaahhhhh.”

But that’s not the main point of this post.  A few days ago, I decided to start teaching the boys some basic sign language.  Being an early interventionist by trade, I figure I should put my money where my mouth is and teach my children to communicate in more ways than the currently-popular “tantrum method.”  Okay, they are also good at getting us to pick them up by walking over and lifting both arms in the air.  And if they ever want pretty much anything in the world, all JJ and Link have to do is  just smile at Megan or I and we give them what they want.

Having grown tired of Link’s main form of telling me when he wants more food (reaching out and whining “Eee! Eee!”), I decided to teach them the sign for “more.”  At the end of one of their meals, I practiced signing by asking what they wanted and signing “more” while saying it.  I tried prompting Link a few times and he was quickly able to do it on his own, and adorably.  Instead of moving all of his fingers together, though, he connected the tips of his index fingers, ET style.  JJ, too, required a few prompts but easily approximated the sign by bumping his fists together.  Having successfully completed a few rounds of signing, the boys were happy and content with their post-meal snack of a few goldfish and mini Nilla Wafers.

I tried practicing with them a couple of more times over the next day or two, although I encountered more resistance.  My questions of “What do you want?” were often met with mini-tantrums meant to evoke the message “Just give me the cookie already, you jerk!!” and physical prompts were met with stubborn resistance (those arms may be small, but they won’t budge when they don’t want to).  Regardless, I was able to get the boys to complete the sign a couple of times with some help, and I am happy to think those Nilla Wafers were all worth it to them.

Which brings us to this morning.  Beautiful Illinois morning — clear blue skies, bright sun shining through the windows, 3°F — ah, January.  The boys woke up around 8, we got them out of bed and gave them each a bottle, and they milled around the living room once they finished, getting their energy up for a glorious day of non-stop cuteness.  While we were all there doing nothing, Link pointed over to the dining room table, where the box of Nilla Wafers was standing.  It was pretty obvious what he wanted.  He pointed, looked at his hands as if he were confused or planning or something, and then proceeded to put his two index fingers together!  Overjoyed, I went right over to the table and (of course) made Link walk over to claim his Nilla Wafer.

Megan and I both knew what was up: Link had just showed us what he thinks is the sign for “cookie.”

We’ll happily take what we can get.

Needless to say, JJ saw what was going on and you could see in his eyes that he wanted a cookie.  And he wasn’t going to settle for none of this “sign language” nonsense.  He made a bee line to me, put his arms on my legs, looked up at me, and said for the first time: “Coo coo!”

So Lincoln was walking away from us and he had a small piece of shiny golden tinsel on his butt.

“Hey Link, what’s on your butt?” asked Megan.

Link stopped.  He turned his head, looked at us, farted a couple of times, and laughed heartily.

And then he kept on walking.

Another thing that the boys somehow learned without us teaching it to them was saying “uh-oh.” Well, more like one of the boys started saying it and the other started imitating, and then it caught on like wildfire from there.

A week or two ago we were all at Target. The boys are too big for their Baby Bjorns, and they tend to get restless when they’re in the stroller for more than 5 minutes, and the 2-seater shopping cart requires that they be strapped in like jet pilots (which is not fun for them because these guys really like to wiggle and look around in every direction), so each guy got their own cart, with Megan and I each pushing one. Megan had given JJ something to play with. At one point we were stopped and browsing and JJ dropped whatever he had.

“Uh-oh!” exclaims my son, while leaning over the edge to look at what had fallen.

Megan and I looked at each other — first to acknowledge how cute it was, and second to ask each other “Where did he learn that??” Neither of us recall ever saying “uh-oh” around either boy, least of all when something falls or drops. So it will remain a mystery where he learned it.

Of course, once it started, nothing could stop it. It’s an endless cycle of imitation and acquisition with JJ and Link, so whenever one guy says or does something, the other quickly echoes and soon enough, they start doing or saying things independently and that’s how they pick things up.  So Link was soon saying “uh-oh” whenever he dropped something (which he does, from his high chair, on purpose, all the time). The funny thing about our guys is that along the way, JJ’s “uh-oh” came to sound more like “uh-oo” and Link mostly says “uh-mm.”  For the most part, they say it when something falls or when something goes awry.  This past week they’ve started saying it more frequently, and it’s just become kind of a catch-all phrase that they like to toss out there.

Like today, I was in the kitchen making dinner. First, JJ walked over to check things out. He lingered by the gate, looked at me, and just said “uh-oh!” for no apparent reason.  A minute later, Link walked over, holding a block. He stuck his arm through the gate, dropped the block into the kitchen on purpose, and said, “uh-mm.”  Then he looked at me expectantly, hoping I would let him in to the kitchen to “retrieve the block” (i.e., hang out with Daddy).  That’s life in our house.

This morning, Megan was listening to the boys on the monitor before going in to get them (once babies start to babble, this is one of the funnest things to do).  I was still asleep and didn’t get to experience it, but she overheard this conversation:

“Uh-ooo. Uh-ooo.”
“Uh-mm.”

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Blasts from the past:

JJ’s first shopping cart ride, at Target. May 2009.

Link’s first shopping cart ride, at Home Depot. June 2009.

Megan at Target while pregnant with the boys. She was officially on bed rest at this point so I made her ride the scooter. She had been released from the hospital earlier that day. We got a lot of shopping done in the next few days, before she went back in. July 2008.

2/22/09 – 1/3/10

Happy New Year, gang!  A few minutes ago I made a New Year’s Resolution to blog more, so here it is.  (I originally considered embarking on a 365 Project but figured there was no way I would be able pull it off.)  And besides, we have so many great stories to tell about JJ & Link that it’s probably a good idea to get it all down on virtual paper before the memories are lost in the ether.

The boys have become very adept at imitating in the past couple of months.  I’m not quite sure when it started, but the earliest, most noticeable thing that the boys did was copy Megan and I when we coughed, sneezed, and burped.  Link was the first to regularly imitate us when these bodily functions happened.  One of us would sneeze, and after a moment or two, Link would make a little sneezing sound that sounded like “Choo!”.  Coughs and burps came out more like grunts.  Regardless, it was really cute.

Link’s elaborate fake sneezes.

We thought it was so cute, in fact, that we would pretend to sneeze all the time just to watch Link copy us.  He eventually got sick of the game and now he doesn’t ever really make sneezing sounds.  However, for the past couple of weeks he has been copying us when we blow our nose.  You’d be surprised how accurately he can mimic the sound just by vibrating his lips.  And when he gets ahold of errant Kleenexes, he holds them up to his nose and pretends to blow.

About a week ago I talked on the phone with my mom while the boys played nearby.  After I finished the conversation, Link grabbed Megan’s cell phone, held it to his ear, and pretended to talk on it.  The cutest thing is that we never taught him to do that.  He just learned it by watching us.  The next day, he picked up a remote control and did the same thing.  When he was done, he handed it to JJ and, of course, JJ pretended it was a phone as well.  From there, everything soon became a play phone.  Hairbrushes.  Duplo blocks.  Spoons.  When there’s nothing to grab, the boys hold their hand to their ear.  They even have a “phone babble” they use when they are pretending to talk on the phone.  When a phone rings, the boys immediately grab the nearest object “pick up.”

My mom really loves having the boys talk to her on speakerphone.  They’re usually pretty good about babbling when I hold the phone up to them, but the problem we’ve run into is that the boys are more interested in the glowing screen of the cell phone than actually talking.  With their newfound interest in talking on phones, though, I tried to get them to hold it when my mom called this afternoon.  Link made a valiant attempt to hold it up to his ear while saying something that came close to sounding like “Hello? Hello?”, but the lure of the screen proved too much.  Same for JJ.  To have unfettered, albeit brief, access to the glowing gadget of their dreams was unbelievable to them.  So when it came time for dear ol’ Dad to take the phone back, things did not go well.  Needless to say, the phone call was cut short when the chorus of crying boys drowned out all other noise.

Link picks up Megan’s phone for the first time.

JJ pretends to talk on the remote.

Our latest adventures, bullet point style!

• Lincoln hates things that sting his mouth. Recent discoveries in this realm:
  • I was having my breakfast one morning when I heard a little smack followed by Lincoln shrieking in pain. I looked over to see him sitting in the middle of the floor with absolutely nothing around him anywhere. My mind started flipping through the catalog of possible reasons for his wailing as I hurried over to him, and the best I could come up with was that perhaps he had smacked himself, but seriously, there was no way that screaming of that intensity came from him hitting himself. When I got to him I saw the red mark forming on his lip and the little, yellow rubber band clutched in his fist. I scooped him up and kissed his rubber-band-snapped lip and comforted him and, à la bad parent, laughed at him.
  • We got the boys sippy cups with straws on them which they figured out speedily, so when we we were at a restaurant the other day, I wanted to see if they could figure out a regular straw. They both did, but when Link got a mouthful of the Sprite he sucked through the straw (and its accompanying tingly carbonation), he jerked backwards away from the cup with a look on his face that said, “That thing BIT me! P.S. – You guys are horrible parents,” and after that he winced any time the cup came near him.

• A couple weeks ago, we needed just a couple of things from the store to make dinner. Link stayed at home with Jeff, and JJ and I went to the grocery store. I grabbed the stuff we needed and started checking out in the self-check lane. When I went to pay, I couldn’t find my debit card, so I set JJ down so I could have both hands to dig around for it in the deep, deep, dark, dark, deep, dark pit that is my purse. When I continued to not be able to find it, I remembered that I had bought something online earlier that day and had removed the card from my purse to do so. Luckily I had enough cash on me, so I canceled the debit payment and selected to pay with cash instead. This reset the whole register situation and started the conveyor belt going again which just happened to be the surface on which I had set JJ. His eyes flashed wide as saucers as the belt jerked him backwards away from me, and as I swept him up, the gentle-voiced computer lady informed us that there was an “unexpected item in the bagging area.”

• JJ has continued asking for a taco (the request usually comes in the form of, “Heeeeeeeey taco!”), and we have continued not giving him one even though we had tacos for dinner a couple times recently.

• Jeff shows a blatant disregard for the correct lyrics of the songs and nursery rhymes he performs for the guys. Sometimes it is as harmless as throwing the cake up in the air rather than into the oven at the end of “Pat-a-Cake” (Although time will tell if this actually is harmless. Who knows, someday the boys may decide to start chucking cake at the ceiling.), and sometimes things take a turn for the utterly offensive as in “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree” where, rather than looking out the window at a beautiful spring surprise, Jeff poops out the window on unsuspecting passersby. His argument for this version is that the boys don’t know what he is saying, but I am quite fearful that they are going to start understanding before he realizes it.

I have to say, though, that we’re not ALL bad. Here are some of our accomplishments:

• We are on the verge of walking, people! Well, JJ is, anyway. (Jeff and I have had it figured out for quite some time, and Lincoln would rather roll around on the floor with his hands clasping his feet to his fat cheeks than attempt upright locomotion.) Really all that is holding him back is a mental block. I’ve seen him take a couple of steps here and there, but it’s always while he isn’t thinking about it.

• Lincoln has been pulling up for a couple months now (as opposed to JJ who has been doing it since, like, May). When he first figured it out, trying to watch Link pull up was like trying to watch a pot boil. I would often see him already standing up next to things, but if I ever tried to watch him go through the process of standing up he just didn’t seem to be able to do it. He is a master now and can even do it with toys in his hands. He likes to throw things across the coffee table.

• JJ kind of has a biting problem. He doesn’t do it in anger or anything. On the contrary, it usually happens when he’s snuggling up to you all cute-like. He buries his face in you and wags it side to side trying to find the shortest path to a mouthful of flesh, and then once he’s got it, he chomps down. Hard. And it really hurts a lot. A few weeks ago he bit Jeff’s shoulder in church (luckily Jeff managed to control himself and not yell out) and broke skin through two layers of clothes. But with a bit of diligence, we have managed to train him to stop himself. Now when he puts face to flesh we just say, “Don’t bite me,” and his head pops up like a little prairie dog. It’s very satisfying.

• Linky sings! If you sing a few “ah”s to him, he joins in (and will then continue singing on his own). He opens his little mouth so wide and makes the softest, sweetest baby notes. It’s the most adorable thing I have ever witnessed, and I make him do it all day long. (He has, however, realized how cute I think it is and does it while in the process of doing naughty things he knows he shouldn’t in order to distract me.) Tomorrow I plan to try to capture it on video, and if I succeed, I’ll share. (Although who knows what will happen. When faced with a video camera, my babies have a hard time doing anything but everything they can to get a hold of that camera. The camera is just. so. awesome.)

Hopefully Link will start to participate in these at some point, but in the meantime, here’s another JJ one.

I was sitting on the floor playing with the boys when JJ climbed up on the toy box to look out the window and said, pointing at the pond, “A duck there.”

“Those aren’t ducks, buddy.  Those are geese,” I said, knowing that he saw the rotating crowd of geese that have been settling on our pond for the day (and pooping all over our backyard) for the last couple of weeks.

I got up to look out the window with him when what to my wondering eyes should appear?  In the midst of a gaggle of about a hundred Canada Geese was a lonely Mallard duck couple (and a Great Blue Heron, but that’s beside the point).  “Whadaya know, dude, there is a duck there!  There are two ducks!”

Then JJ, in the best I-told-you-so tone a baby can muster, replied, “A duck, a duck.”

Here’s the latest convo from tonight.

JJ is squealing because I am clipping his nails.

Mama: Oh, stop it.  It doesn’t hurt.

JJ: Does.

Mama: Doesn’t.

JJ: Does!

Megan: Doesn’t!

JJ resumes squealing.

He won.  He’s crawling around now with one hand of trimmed nails and one hand of blood-thirsty claws.