The story of now
Right now in our little family world the same story is playing out day after day, often several times in a single day.
A seemingly purposeless object catches Jordan’s eye. She takes it in her hand, turns it, inspects it. Within moments Talia notices the object. She tries to take it by reaching, Jordan knows this is coming and turns her body away from Talia in an effort not to have to let it go. The situation becomes a screaming match, then, depending on weather or not Talia took the object someone lays down on the floor to kick and cry in protest.
Luckily these tantrums are easily diffused by diverting their attention to a new toy or activity, bubbles is a quick and always popular one.
It pretty hilarious that they show such conviction for something, anything, one second and couldn’t care less about it the next. From what I’ve heard this is very common in both toddlers and teenage girls, awesome. Can’t wait for that when they actually have words to go with the tantrums.
Toddlers Are Scary
It’s like they are on a mission to hurt themselves and it scares the day lights out of me, like heart skip a beat, I suddenly learn how to fly, scared. The first time one of my children fell down the steps it was my fault. I left the gate from the deck to the yard open – first mistake, and next thing I knew Talia was standing on the second of seven steps. 
I screamed her name – Second mistake, it startled her, made her loose her balance and I watched and screamed in horror as she rolled down the remaining steps and landed face first on the stone pavers at the bottom. She rolled like a log rather than head over heel, but still, scary. I picked her up as she was screaming, barley a scratch on her and cried myself, for a while, longer than she did. Since then both Talia and Jordan have fallen more times than I can count, on their hands, heads, ears, mouth, face, knees and arms. They walk into things with out watching where they are going, they hit their hands on door frames, they trip and fall, they roll off the couch, stand up under the table, try to squeeze their hands into drawers that are child proofed and get them stuck, slip on wet floors (because they dumped their water out), and get scared when they climb up too high to get down themselves.
While I still get mini heart attacks every time they play on the couch and try to prevent falls and bumps as much as possible, I have learned not to react. Usually they cry out in pain, and quickly get up, shake it off and move on. Every once in a while they come to me and need a hug. Recently I saw Talia fall while out on the deck, not down the stairs, just on the deck. I was inside watching from the window so I went to the door when I saw her coming and got down on the floor to give her a hug. She sat in my lap for a minute. I said “you ok?” she said “kay” and nodded and was off to play. Jordan got the first real scrape of the two, on her knee. 
It was the first time in shorts for the season, she was running on the driveway, tripped and scraped it. For scrapes or cuts we just clean it with water if necessary and put Neosporine on a few times until it starts to heel, then we switch to vitamin E, I learned that from my big sister, it helps to reduce scaring. Vitamin E is good for pregnant bellies too, it helps reduce getting stretch marks. Her knee is almost healed now. And just yesterday while I was changing Talia’s diaper on our family room station Jordan close by stepped on a toy and hurt her foot. I told her to come here I’ll kiss it, so she hobbled over and did a standing split so I could bend down to kiss her foot while changing Talia’s diaper. While I know it’s unlikely, hopefully scrapes and bumps will be the worst we ever have to deal with.
Tiny baby parts
I love baby arms, some people go crazy over baby feet or cute little tushies. I’m a sucker for my girls squishy little tiny arms. Despite it being winter and pretty cold outside we keep our house toasty warm so that I can let the girls run around in just their diapers as much as possible. Any less than that is asking for trouble.
Hope you are having a nice weekend.
The itsy bitsy spider
I love all these new experiences with the girls when they show us that they understand what we are saying to them. Like when i ask one of them to go get something, and they do it!, its amazing and becoming incredibly helpful. I love seeing how they remember what we have taught them. Like how to put their arms through the sleeves of their shirt or getting the food on the fork and into their mouths all by themselves. In the past few weeks the girls have memorized the hand motions to a couple of songs, The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the bed. Sometimes they do the hand motions with so much excitement I think they are going to knock themselves out, other times they look at me as if I am a complete nutcase, usually when I am trying to get them to show an audience.
Here they are performing The Itsy Bitsy Spider. I should mark this as a first, it’s their first recital.
Please excuse my not so great singing, or just turn the volume down.
Almost 14 Months
Since I’m not doing the monthly chalkboard photos anymore I haven’t done an update on how much the girls have changed in the past six weeks. So I wanted to do that here and share some of my favorite photos I’ve taken of them recently.
Talia,
she is a tiny little drama queen. She amazes us everyday that so much personality can fit into such a tiny little person. She loves to laugh and squeal with delight. She will belt out the loudest squeal just to get the rest of us going. We chase them around, catch them, and tickle away. All the while they are laughing uncontrollably. Talia still loves the doggy hand puppet. She will bring it to me to play with every chance she gets. Apparently she said “doggy” this past weekend but I wasn’t there to hear it. She does say baby, ball, milk and aba very well. According to our nanny she has quite a few words in Hebrew too, like mahear = quickly and doda = nanny/aunt. She loves the bath, almost always waits until the last drop is down the drain before she will get out. Talia has figured out how to stack the wooden rings on the peg and climb up onto toddler chairs. And her brand new trick is to stand on chairs. She does it very carefully. She also has started playing with toys while lying on the floor, its pretty cute. Talia loves to dance, she plays music on one of her toys and comes to me to hold her hands as we rock back an forth to the beat, she’ll play the song again and again. And if I’m not available to be her dance partner she throws one hand up in the air and taps her foot while turning in a circle. I wish I knew where she learned this one from and I promise as soon as I get it on film I will share it.
Jordan,
she is a gentle baby, she loves to snuggle, with me, with her giant teddy, just a great snuggler. She has the sweetest little voice her coos and ahhs make me smile every time. She lets Talia test the waters on pretty much everything before she tries something new. She’s a really good eater, she loves chicken and sweet potatoes and zucchini. Jordan loves to look at books, she’ll sit and play on her own looking through the pages of a book or figuring out a toy that she has held a hundred times. Jordan also loves bath time, she even says bath, sort of, it’s more like, baaa, with a high pitch at the end. In the bath she loves to put the foam bath stickers on her head and she doesn’t cry when water gets in her eyes. Jordan loves to turn the light in their room on and off. Every night after bath while I am trying to get a diaper on her she is popping up on her feet and holding the wall with one hand while she pounds away at the light switch until it goes off, then turns to me with a proud smile for my approval, good job Jordan, now turn it back on, and she does. Jordan also loves to dance, she is more of a shoulder worm groover than a foot tapping spinner.
I love these little ladies with all my heart, they amaze us everyday with their love for each other and for us. They learn so fast now, I have no words to describe how it makes us feel when they show us something new that they have learned. Everyone said it gets better, and I’d heard that they are more fun the older they get but I didn’t believe anyone. I wanted my tiny 5 and 6 pounds babies to stay that way, then I wanted my little immobile wrigglers to stay that way, now I want my little babbling toddlers to stay just like they are. At least one of them. Is that so much to ask? But I know that in time I will see that as good as it was and good as it is the good is only going to multiply over and over in the months and years to come and I am excited to be there for every minute of it.
Love you baby girls.
A little girls dream
I was walking by a coworkers desk in the office the other day and noticed a picture that is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Her two year old daughter Maddie riding her 14 hand horse. Lauren, my friend and coworker brought Maddie to our office just after she was born and a time or two since then, including when she brought her new baby girl savannah. But Maddie was still practically a baby then too, just under a year ago. So when I saw these pictures I couldn’t believe it was Maddie on that horse. Lauren and her husband have been riding horses together forever. She use to ride every day after work before the kids came along. Even while she was pregnant she rode several times a week until the last few months. I think she’s pretty amazing. I asked her how the horse acts when Maddie is riding since animals tend to sense their riders needs. She said the horse doesn’t move a muscle unless she says to and even then moves slowly and carefully. How cute is this little girl on that giant horse. I use to love riding horses and would love to go again one day with our girls, I hope they are this fearless as they grow up.
You can’t see her in the pictures but Maddie’s horse is being led by Lauren the whole time.
