When the boys are in the heat of battle, we interrupt and ask them "Caleb, do you love Joshua? Joshua, do you love Caleb?" and about half the time they will stop fighting and hug each other. Then we will tell them they are so sweet, and then they forget about the fight.
The boys have been making each other crack up a lot lately. Usually what happens is one boy will say something nonsensical (something from their twin language, perhaps?) that will prompt the other boy to laugh hysterically, and they will go on and on, back and forth, for 5-10 minutes. I witness such exchanges about twice a day, usually when the boys are off playing on their own in another room. It always warms my heart to hear their deep belly laughs floating into the kitchen or wherever I happen to be. Having a twin to share your childhood with is surely a great blessing.
The boys are learning their shapes now. They can correctly identify squares, circles, triangles, diamonds, stars, and hearts. Caleb has shown a particular interest in learning the letters of the alphabet, as well. He likes to point to the different letters in a printed word and ask what each one is. He still has a ways to go, though... right now whenever he sees the letter "C" he says "moon!" (you know, like a crescent moon...) :) Both Caleb and Joshua will point to the words in a book and ask "da?" which means, "What is it?" and we will say "words!" and then they will tilt their heads fondly towards the words and smile, which means they love them.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Monday, September 3, 2007
Who's that? Mommy!
You'd think that when words such as flower, Elmo, and turtle effortlessly roll off a young child's tongue, Mommy would also be a long-standing member of that child's spoken vocabulary. Well, this was not the case until today. While looking at our family photos on the computer screensaver, I was pointing to various family members and telling the boys who was who. When I pointed to a picture of myself, Joshua piped up and said "Mommy!" I was in shock. Did he really just say "Mommy"? So I tried again with another photo, and he correctly identified me as "Mommy" again! He has yet to address me as "Mommy" in person, but at least he can say who I am, and I feel honored to have finally earned the prestige that his beloved Elmo has been enjoying for the past couple months :)
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Taking it all in
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!
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!
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!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
No!
The inevitable has come to pass- quite some time after learning to say "yes", the boys have finally learned to say "no!" I think it sunk in a few days ago when I got passionately upset with them for making an unusally huge mess. I must have been gesticulating somewhat wildly while exclaiming "no! no! nooo!", because now whenever the boys say "no!" they wave their forearms in the air, just as someone would who is saying "enough is enough!" They will walk around the house and point to all the crayon scribbles that have cropped up on our walls and furniture recently, and sternly say "no! no!" They have also started saying "no!" to each other when they irritate each other. They have not been so brazen as to use it against their parents, though!
Caleb has memorized the rhythm of Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear? books. Throughout the day I will hear him singing to himself "Brow-bear, brow-bear, wha da daa da?" or "Lion, lion, wha da daa da?" etc. He can also identify all the different animals at the end of the book, even in the Polar Bear book, which has children dressed up in animal costumes and is therefore a little trickier. If you ask him "where is the walrus?" or "where is the zebra?" he will point to the correct animal costume. He is one smart little animal-lover.
One funny thing that the boys have been doing for a while now, but I keep forgetting to mention, is that if you tell them "Joshua and Caleb, you look sooooo cute!" they will look down and examine their outfits to see what they are wearing. I don't know how they learned to do this, but it's really funny (and sooooo cute)!
Caleb has memorized the rhythm of Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear? books. Throughout the day I will hear him singing to himself "Brow-bear, brow-bear, wha da daa da?" or "Lion, lion, wha da daa da?" etc. He can also identify all the different animals at the end of the book, even in the Polar Bear book, which has children dressed up in animal costumes and is therefore a little trickier. If you ask him "where is the walrus?" or "where is the zebra?" he will point to the correct animal costume. He is one smart little animal-lover.
One funny thing that the boys have been doing for a while now, but I keep forgetting to mention, is that if you tell them "Joshua and Caleb, you look sooooo cute!" they will look down and examine their outfits to see what they are wearing. I don't know how they learned to do this, but it's really funny (and sooooo cute)!
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