While the boys may not be speaking much English yet, we've come to realize that they understand many things. Lately we have been playing "Where is the...?" a lot. The boys can correctly identify so many things, including things that I'm certain we never specifically taught them. They know: house, tree, butterfly, squirrel, rabbit, mouse, eagle, bat, girl, boy, Jesus, sun, fire, zebra, monkey, giraffe, cow, frog, hippopotamus, peacock, leopard, tiger, boa consrictor, lamb, sheep, fish, polar bear, flamingo, window, car, pillow, corn, table, chair, couch, floor, ceiling, diaper, balloon, bird, rooster, boat, snowman, and horse, just to name a few. They also know their tummy, chest, bellybutton, elbows, shoulders, fingers, toes, and hair. They're so proud of themselves when they can point to the correct thing, and will sometimes clap and say "Yaaaay!". They clap and cheer for each other's acheivements, too.
The other day Halmoni was asking them where the different animals in the "Brown Bear" book were, and Caleb (who is especially quick to identify which animals are which) was sweet enough to defer to Joshua and let him have a turn at pointing to the correct animals, which he did. We thought that was really sweet.
One time a couple weeks ago we asked Joshua, "Where is the elephant?" thinking he'd go retrieve his elephant stuffed animal. But instead he hurriedly sorted through his alphabet books, found the "E" book, and turned to the page with the elephants on it! He was bursting with excitement and beaming with pride, it was so cute!
Words they do know how to say include: dog, puppy, turtle, apple, eye, owl, star, moon, baby, knee, duck, and book. They are also learning to count when they walk up and down the stairs, and even though they don't know all the numbers, it sounds like they're actually counting.
They've also started hugging each other. We ask them, "Caleb, do you love Joshua? Joshua, do you love Caleb?" and they will run towards each other and hug and gently pat each other on the back while embracing. I really need to get that on video!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Perfectionist
A few months ago I mentioned that Joshua would segregate broken crackers from whole ones and would only eat the broken ones as a last resort. Now he refuses to eat broken crackers altogether. He really enjoys Golden Rounds from Whole Foods, and will frequently ask for them. Unfortunately for Joshua, Golden Rounds don't hold up very well and about 90% of the crackers will have lost their roundness by the time they arrive on the shelf. If we offer him a broken cracker, Joshua will shake his head and protest, insisting that we produce for him a whole cracker. If there are no whole crackers left, stubborn Joshua absolutely refuses to eat the broken ones, no matter how hungry he might be (needless to say this works to Caleb's advantage, since he is not nearly as particular as his brother). It seems that we've got a little perfectionist on our hands!
Friday, August 10, 2007
21 Months Old
There's so much to catch up on, I don't know where to start!
Caleb is our little portrait artist. When he draws with his crayons, he will try to draw faces. He will say "eye" and carefully scribble a big sprawling dot. Then he will say "eye" again and draw another eye. Then he will say "nose" and draw his rendition of a nose. Then he will finish up by saying "mouth" and drawing a mouth. Of course the finished product doesn't really resemble a face at all, but it's a start, and as an artist who has always had much more respect for art that actually resembles something, I'm quite impressed.
The boys both love Elmo. They've never even watched Sesame Street on TV, but they have a couple books where Elmo appears on a few pages. We are slightly bewildered that they've learned to say "Elmo" but not other useful words such as "Mommy". When we were moving into our new house last week, we were pleasantly surprised by a potted plant, bottle of wine, and two gigantic helium Elmo balloons that our nice new landlords thoughtfully left for us as a housewarming gift. The boys were absolutely ecstatic at the sight of these life-sized Elmo balloons, and embraced them repeatedly while gleefully chirping "Elmo! Elmo!"
Joshua loves to rock out to a good beat. Whenever he hears music he likes, he will bop his head like he's headbanging. He has also composed his own little song that he likes to sing to himself. It goes like this: "Dooo ba doo ba doo..."
The boys are also learning to control their emotions. If I leave them for a little while, or if a little friend plays rough with them, or if they fall and scrape their knees, instead of bursting out in tears, they will stick out their lower lip and their faces will turn red and they'll try reallllly hard not to cry. They are getting to be tough little muffins.
Our little narcissists love to watch videos of themselves. Sometimes if they are throwing a tantrum or are otherwise inconsolable, browsing the "Movies" section of this website is the only way to calm them down. They will laugh uproariously while watching their own silly antics. Maybe we should market a compilation of "The Wolf Twins' Greatest Hits" and offer Baby Einstein a little competition!
Caleb is our little portrait artist. When he draws with his crayons, he will try to draw faces. He will say "eye" and carefully scribble a big sprawling dot. Then he will say "eye" again and draw another eye. Then he will say "nose" and draw his rendition of a nose. Then he will finish up by saying "mouth" and drawing a mouth. Of course the finished product doesn't really resemble a face at all, but it's a start, and as an artist who has always had much more respect for art that actually resembles something, I'm quite impressed.
The boys both love Elmo. They've never even watched Sesame Street on TV, but they have a couple books where Elmo appears on a few pages. We are slightly bewildered that they've learned to say "Elmo" but not other useful words such as "Mommy". When we were moving into our new house last week, we were pleasantly surprised by a potted plant, bottle of wine, and two gigantic helium Elmo balloons that our nice new landlords thoughtfully left for us as a housewarming gift. The boys were absolutely ecstatic at the sight of these life-sized Elmo balloons, and embraced them repeatedly while gleefully chirping "Elmo! Elmo!"
Joshua loves to rock out to a good beat. Whenever he hears music he likes, he will bop his head like he's headbanging. He has also composed his own little song that he likes to sing to himself. It goes like this: "Dooo ba doo ba doo..."
The boys are also learning to control their emotions. If I leave them for a little while, or if a little friend plays rough with them, or if they fall and scrape their knees, instead of bursting out in tears, they will stick out their lower lip and their faces will turn red and they'll try reallllly hard not to cry. They are getting to be tough little muffins.
Our little narcissists love to watch videos of themselves. Sometimes if they are throwing a tantrum or are otherwise inconsolable, browsing the "Movies" section of this website is the only way to calm them down. They will laugh uproariously while watching their own silly antics. Maybe we should market a compilation of "The Wolf Twins' Greatest Hits" and offer Baby Einstein a little competition!
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Movin' On Up
The lack of activity on this site (other than our guestbook spammers... grrr!) is due to the fact that we have been busy packing, moving, and unpacking. That's right, we are finally settled into our new home! The boys handled the transition really well- they didn't skip a beat. That just goes to show that while we adults tend to grow attached to material things, such as buildings, what really makes a place home is the people you share the house with. As far as the boys are concerned, as long as Mommy, Daddy, and brother are with them, they'll call it home!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)