The Twinks' Favorite Activities

It's true that at almost 26 months Bentley is more active and coordinated than Jackson and Genevieve who are only (almost) 9 months old, but that doesn't mean that the twins aren't as busy as he is. They have their own routines and favorite activities.

EXERCISING! Jackson and Genevieve get a good workout every day. 30? 40? 50? times a day they pull themselves upright using mostly their upper body strength. They use anything available to help get them upright. You better not leave a blanket draped over the edge of the couch or you can be sure that a baby will take a spill trying to use it for leverage. They are pretty good at getting upright and they have also mastered getting back down, too, although I don't think a day goes by without a new bruise being added to their heads. (Why do babies always damage their heads?)



EXPLORING! Every corner of their living room has been explored by the twins. Genevieve is the more intrepid adventurer at this point which means she gets herself into more tight spots from which she once in a while requires rescuing. We've had to put up a baby gate at our home to keep the twins away from the front staircase. The baby gate is not a big hit.


EATING! Jackson likes solid food more than Genevieve does. He will eagerly lean forward to get to the next bite. Genevieve makes funny faces and spits out lots of what you spoon into her mouth. Genevieve plays with finger foods. Jackson eats them.


THE LEARNING TABLE! When they come to visit me (and when I can drag them away from the train set), they enjoy playing on the Fisher Price learning table. They will spend ten to twenty minutes banging away on it. Jackson also likes to make music with the rain stick. He has a pretty good attention span when he finds something interesting.


THE PLAY WALL! Genevieve likes the Fisher Price play wall that is set up in the living room at home. It's perfect for standing up and hanging on to. I haven't noticed Jackson using it much yet.


CARS & BALLS! Jackson shows a greater interest in balls and cars than Genevieve does. Unfortunately although there are dozens of balls in many sizes in his home, Jackson's brother does not always like to share even one of them! He has better luck gaining access to the cars and trucks. He likes to push them and make them move; his twin uses them to climb up on. Kara thinks Genevieve needs a nice, soft doll. She might be right.




READING! Both Genevieve and Jackson love books, especially their parents' books. Forget those shelves of baby and toddler books at home and at the grandparents' house. They prefer cook books or dad's books or any magazines lying around. It's not that they won't chew on (um, read) a good board book, but they are usually drawn to slimmer pages. Or is it the nice dust jackets that attracts them? Kara has lost a number of dust jackets lately. I'm betting Jackson did the damage, but I could be underestimating Genevieve's skills.


CHEWING! The twinlets like to chew on anything they can fit into their mouths. The wooden trains are a particular favorite. I don't know if it's the bright colors of the trains, but every time they come to visit they spend a good half hour gnawing on the trains and/or the wooden track pieces.


STALKING MOM! Their new game is to chase down adults (using their advanced crawling skills) and beg to be held. I'm starting to clue in that when a baby hand grabs my leg, it's not by accident, but by quite purposeful intent. Kara says that sometimes she feels hunted as they stalk her through the kitchen and living room. Ah, to be so loved.


NAPPING! They are still young enough that more often than not they fall asleep in the car even on short trips. Sleeping babies are beautiful.


HANGING OUT TOGETHER! They enjoy spending time with each other and with their big brother.




RIDING THE ATV! The twinks might not walk yet, but they can ride the ATV most places they want to go.


(I'm joking about that last one--they don't really ride the ATV unassisted.)

POSING FOR OPA! The twins like attention, so they are usually willing to pose for a photo or two. But not three or four, they won't sit still that long!


CUDDLING! One of the best things about babies this age is that they still like to cuddle during the day. Jackson and Genevieve are happy, happy, happy to be picked up and cuddled anytime. And what could be nicer for us adults than cuddling with a sweet baby? (Cuddling with two sweet babies!)

Are you listening?!

Last night Bentley was frustrated with Kara, Mark and I because he wanted a bottle and we said no. It was early in the evening and we were making bottles for the twins and he clearly stated that he wanted a "bobby". I told him no, that he would have a bottle at bed time when he was at home with daddy. Mark and Kara didn't make any move to help him, either.

The poor tyke stood there in front of us with ramrod straight posture, shoulders thrown back, fists clenched--his entire little body quivering in frustration--as he emphatically (and very loudly!) restated his request. "BOBBY!" (Were we deaf?! He wanted a bottle--NOW!) He was so darn cute, we could hardly contain our mirth.

It turns out that it wasn't a bottle he wanted so much as a drink. No wonder the kidlet was so unhappy with us. What kind of parent/grandparent would deny a two year old a drink when he's thirsty?!

Bentley's Favorite Activities

I thought I'd share a few of Bentley's current favorite activities. There's the trains, of course, but we've already well-documented that fascination on this blog.

He likes puzzles. He's quite good at putting the pieces in all by himself (depending on the puzzle), but sometimes he insists that we do it for him. He hands us the pieces one by one. He likes to do the same puzzle five or even ten times in a row. If you try to short circuit the cycle (put the puzzle away after the third redo), he gets quite upset.


He likes to play with the remote control cars. Kara and I got a great deal on them at a garage sale last summer. We thought he'd love them. He was terrified of them. We had to hide them away. Periodically we'd bring them out and he'd shriek in fear. A few weeks ago he changed his mind about them. We've no idea why. He started out with the big yellow dump trump which moves fairly slow. He somehow trashed the right-left turn capabilities on it. (No biggie. We only paid $4 for three vehicles.) After a few days of practicing on the big truck, he moved on to the fast little sports car. It's amazing how quickly he learns new things!




The other day we had a session of Bentley Turns On/Grandma Turns Off the oven timer. The timer makes the most delightful (annoying!) buzz when it's turned on. Bentley turns it on and then waits for my reaction. I give him a big glare and then stomp over and turn it off. He turns it back on...and so the game goes.


While we watch tv downstairs, Bentley plays with his trains by running them down a sloped surface, usually the big ironing board. Well, it didn't take him long to figure out that he could run down the ironing board, too. Mark was concerned at first that he'd trash the ironing board because there is a side-to-side wobble when he races down the board. Actually the wobble is there because long ago the board broke and was put back together with a screw and a nut at the base--hence the fun wobble.


Bentley likes to watch Kara and I play with play dough. He prefers that we do the dirty work--rolling the dough into balls, pushing it through the different tools, making dough snakes, etc. He will touch it a little, but he doesn't like to squish it. He prefers to slice it with the plastic knife. He does art projects with his mom. (She's promised to post soon on this topic.)


For Bentley's birthday Kara purchased a toddler golf set. She then decided it wasn't a good gift because it can't be used outdoors in the dead of winter, so she stuck it out in the garage until warm weather returns. Last week Bentley spotted it. (That boy has a magnetic attraction for balls.) Nothing would do but that it be opened.


Bentley loves to play chase with his father. He runs shrieking through the kitchen and around the hall in a circle while Matt chases him. He enjoys this game so much he nearly gets hysterical. Watching them play is a smile-inducing experience. Who knew you could have so much fun without visiting Disney World?!

Another version of this game is where Matt pushes Bentley on his ride-on car making it go as fast as he can, then he releases it. The other day Bentley plowed right into Opa's camera. Opa was trying to get a photo of the event, so he was a little too close to the action. (Opa wouldn't mind it if someone trashed his camera forcing him to purchase a new one.)


One last activity I noticed while checking out Mark's latest photos of the grandchildren is the chair sliding. I did a post on this back in January. Bentley continues to turn the foam chairs on their back or their side and then he uses them as tumbling equipment. Usually he takes a running start before he tackles the chair. Sometimes he does minor damage to his body and has to stop for a kiss-it-better break, but he quickly returns for more self-inflicted abuse.


Bentley has many other activities he enjoys, too. He's a busy kid. He continues to love reading books with others. He zooms around on his ATV and ride-on car (without dad's help!). He loves to play with his large truck and car collection. He loves to dance to loud music. And, of course, he loves to hug, cuddle, and bop with Jackson and Genevieve. Bentley is a very happy toddler. I love spending time with him.

Role Reversal

When Kara took the pacifiers away from the twins we adults all thought that Jackson would have the hardest time adjusting. We were so wrong. Jackson now shrieks once when laid down in his crib and then rolls over and goes promptly to sleep. Genevieve, on the other hand, is a real trial. She grouses very loudly for a quarter hour or even a half hour. She roams from one end of the crib (or playpen) to the other and back again. If Jackson is unfortunate enough to be sharing the sleep area with her, too bad for him. Genevieve plows right over him shrieking about the extra effort required. I've caught her more than once draped over Jackson crying loudly while he sleeps on. (Isn't that so typical of a guy?)

Jackson has long held the title of The Fussy Twin. I think he claimed the title while in the NICU at the hospital and he hasn't relaxed his hold since. Today, for the first time that I can recall, Genevieve made a valiant stab at proving her worthiness for the title. She was cranky, cranky, cranky. Nothing I did seemed to please that girl.

I had the twins out at my mom's house, so they had to share a playpen at nap time. I put Genevieve down first, hoping that she'd be deep asleep before I put Jackson in with her. She complained long and loud about taking a nap. Finally she was quiet, so I slipped Jackson in. He let out his one loud shriek and then dropped right off to sleep.

The shriek woke up Cranky Genevieve and started her crying again. I gave her a couple of minutes to get back to sleep, but she didn't. I took her out of the playpen and tried walking her to sleep. She wasn't going for that. After extended effort on my part, I finally got her to sleep. I put her back in the playpen with Jackson.

Maybe a half hour later she woke up screaming! (This is the girl who regularly takes two hour naps.) She woke Jackson up. Jackson was in a good mood. Genevieve was not. She was so cranky that after listening to her for ten minutes, I put her back in the playpen. She did not go back to sleep. And so the day went on... I couldn't see any new teeth coming in, but something is up with her.


Jackson meanwhile was in a very good mood most all day long. He caused a few problems in the evening, but it was from his exuberance, not from being fussy. First he latched onto Bentley's water and soaked himself and the carpet. Then he grabbed three of Bentley's crackers and shoved them into his mouth simultaneously. (Bentley does not like it when the twins touch his stuff.) After we cleaned the mess up and monitored Jackson's eating (one cracker at a time!), he then scooted his way along the couch and pulled the box of trains off. Bentley was on the verge of tears over that last stunt. He rushed over and rescued all HIS trains. Jackson was oblivious to the chaos he created. (Isn't that, too, typical of a guy?)

Spike

This afternoon Kara put some hair gel on her hands and then applied it to Bentley's hair as he ran by. He did not like it. First he tried rubbing his head along the carpet to get rid of it. It was quite a ridiculous sight. Then he ran screaming into his parents' bathroom hunting for a comb. (I was impressed that he knew exactly where to look.) After a minute or two he forgot all about his hair and went back to playing.

He was tres cute in his orange overalls and orange shirt with his spiked hair.

P.S. With the resiliency of the very young, none of the kidlets have purple bruises today from yesterday's mishaps. I was positive that Jackson and Genevieve would. Amazing!

A Bruiser of a Day!

Some days are just rougher than others. The kidlets all took their turn at getting banged up today. (I hope it's not the start of an annual St. Patrick's Day tradition.) First Jackson slipped while leaning against his mom's desk chair and really roughed up his eye. I think he's going to have a lovely shiner in the coming days. This is the same chair that he pulled down on himself yesterday and acquired a fine bruise on his forehead.

Then Bentley got beaned on the head by a matchbox car. It's a very minor bruise. He had a playdate today, and both boys were behaving like typical male toddlers - throwing things to see what would happen! The matchbox car bounced off the train table and caught Bentley between the eyes. A good object lesson for Bentley on why he should desist in throwing trains at his siblings - it hurts!

Kara said she was glad that Bentley was on the receiving end and not the giving end of this accident. Now if (or should I say when?) Bentley returns the favor, she doesn't have to worry that the other mom will think Bentley is violent. Since she has her own little boy who likes to throw, she understands that no matter how well you monitor this type of boy, accidents will happen. How much impulse control can you realistically expect from a two year old?

Now on to Genevieve's tale of woe--she out did her brothers. She was holding onto the back corner of the couch when she slipped and banged the side of her head against the corner. The corner was covered in upholstery, but you would never guess it from the indent left on the side of her head. OUCH! It took a while to calm her down and the bruise was already sporting a blue line.

The photo below was supposed to show off their new owies, but I'm not sure you can see Bentley's or Jackson's without enlarging the photo.

Choog-a-Choog

Bentley has really become a train fan. He has his own term for trains: chug-a-chug choog-a-choog. When he comes to visit he will usually ask for his battery powered Brio and Thomas engines (two of them as shown here). He asked to take them to bed with him last night and we usually throw them in the Church bag to keep him occupied.

Lately when he comes to visit, he wants to look at choog-a-choogs on the computer! What he means is that he wants to visit the railpictures.net website and view photos and videos taken by railfans. Yesterday I hooked the macbook up to 42" plasma screen and showed him BIG screen photos and videos from the web. He thoroughly enjoyed it and was content to skip other activities just to direct me to find more pictures and videos to enjoy.

He also has picked up the word "by" -- as in the train goes by. When he watches the train videos he frequently says "by" as the trains are going by. Then he'll say "go" meaning get another picture or video on the screen Opa.

Maybe we'll plan a trip to the train depot and get some up close visits with the big trains.

Comedy Duo

Genevieve has been getting a real kick out of her twin lately. Whenever they pass in the hallway she stops, sits up, and takes a few minutes to laugh. She just looks at him and gives us some big belly giggles. I'm not sure if she thinks he's funny looking, or if she's simply delighted every time she sees him again... Whatever the reason is, it's a joy to hear!

Jackson perfects *real* crawling

This weekend Jackson has (finally) mastered the art of crawling. In his defense, his prior (and still preferred, perhaps?) method of the butterfly stroke on land was pretty darn fast. It wasn't, however, very energy efficient - and it looked pretty funny! After watching his sister for a while I guess something finally clicked - because now Jackson is becoming even faster, and zooming around in a traditional crawling fashion.

Darn Cute

This is a "just because" post of pictures... it's just because they're so cute! You can also consider this a plug for the Photographer's Delight link on the right hand side of the page. :-)

Some black and whites:




Some mostly bare skined babies:

Happy Trio

The train wreckers played nicely with their brother this evening--and in return he was nice to them. What a happy trio!

Yeah Way

Our delightful toddler is starting to move past "no way". The newest favorite expression around here is "yeah way", and it's always spoken with positive emphasis. If the food offered is the right one - yeah way! If I ask if it's story time - yeah way! If I ask if we should feed the twins - yeah way! The expression is growing on me, and I'll have to watch it or I might start throwing a few yeah ways out there. It sure beats no way!

The Train Wreckers

Or, as Opa puts it: "terrors of the track":

Baby-zilla 1 and Baby-zilla 2 are starting to turn into quite the menacing team! Genevieve is a pro at pulling up and grabbing at things, and after watching her for about a week Jackson has started getting in on the action and pulling up. They were quite fixated with the train setup a couple days ago, and delighted in creating natural diasters along the track. Bentley showed admirable restraint (for the most part).

Busy busy Bentley

Saturday was quite the adventure filled day for Mr. Bentley! We started off the day by heading out to the see the ceremonial start to the Iditarod with Grandma. Bentley was NOT thrilled about putting on his snow clothes to stay warm (it was cold out), but because Grandma and I are both bigger than he is we won that battle. ;-)

Here's Bentley watching King, who's currently 2nd in the race:

Here's Bentley & Buser (has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?!) who is currently a bit of a dissapointment and in 17th place I believe:

We missed Mackey, who's in 1st place right now, as he was just coming down the trail as we walked up to it. So I guess that means we're rootin' for King!!

Bentley was having fun watching the dogs, despite the weather, and put up a fuss when it was time to leave. We headed home to warm up for a bit and then headed back out to meet up for a playdate at "Beyond Playdough" - a crafts day that was part of the Iditarod festivities.

Our playdate fell through as the playmate fell asleep on the way to the event (tuckered out by watching the Iditarod start as well!). That was okay with Bentley though, who discovered this at the Beyond Playdough event:

Needless to say, I couldn't convince him to try any crafts.

On the way home from the Playdough event we stopped in to visit Opa who was helping out with the Young Men's church basketball event. Bentley was entranced:

And, wait wait, there's more! Bentley took a brief nap (it was a busy morning, after all!) and headed out to look at model trains with his Dad (another Iditarod event). Matt says it's a good thing they went at the end of the day, as he might not have been able to convince Bentley to leave if the place hadn't been closing. When they arrived home Bentley wandered around chanting "chugga chugga chugga" for an hour. Unfortunately I forgot to send the camera along for the train show.

And - that was it! A full day of fun, finished off with a trip to the video store to rent Ratatouille. We'd heard the reviews and thought we should check it out for ourselves. Dogs, trains, basketball, more trains, and a movie. What fun!

(As the parent I can only imagine how much more *fun* the coordination of all this fun will be when the twins are a bit older. Yikes!)

Ms Quirk

Genevieve quirks both her lips and her eyebrows. She does so quite frequently. I'm never sure what message she's sending when she quirks, but it is irresistibly cute. Who needs a big smile, when you've mastered The Quirk?

mine! miNE! MINE!

Bentley had a rough time of it last week. He had the flu. He had a high fever and several bouts of vomiting. Per doctor's instructions he was kept on a very limited food and drink regimen. Even though he begged and begged for milk, no one would give him any. He was miserable. If that wasn't enough of a trial for him, the twins were on a rampage exploring every corner of the upstairs and making free with his toys.

Bentley has a hard time sharing certain toys even when he's in good health, being in poor health made the situation much worse. Both Genevieve and Jackson took a good deal of gentle abuse from their sibling. Bentley took a good deal of gentle correction from his parents and grandparents. It was a difficult time for everyone.

This past weekend I went online and researched topics such as sharing and disciplining and toddler hitting. Here is what I learned.

Sharing is not something that most two year olds are good at. It's not until after their third birthday that most children learn to share gracefully. (It's going to be a looooooong year.)

Hitting is a very common problem for two year olds. They lack impulse control. The suggested remedies include putting away favorite toys when friends come over to play. (Does this mean we store away all favored toys for the next eleven months?) Monitoring your child closely. (Every minute he's with the twins?!) Or my favorite piece of advice--give up the play group. (Yup, give the twins away. This play group thing isn't working out.)

Another site I visited recommended time outs. You firmly tell your toddler hitting is wrong and then put them in time out (one minute for each year of age). This is the method we'd been using. So far it doesn't appear to have much effect on Bentley's behavior. The article said that consistency and patience are the keys to success.

Although the thesaurus doesn't back me up on this, I think stubbornness is a valid synonym for patience. So it really comes down to who is more stubborn--the two year old or the parents?

****** ****** ******


The above photo was taken during a lull in the hostilities last week. (Should you accept food from the fingertips of someone who was puking just a few hours ago? We tell the toddler to share and then we get upset with him when he does.)

Good bye, sweet plugs!

Baby plugs, pacifiers, soothies, nuks... whatever you call them, it's time for them to go!

Bentley used a pacifier for the first 3 months of his life at which point we took away the "0-3 month infant pacifier", and introduced a harder to suck "3-12 month infant pacifier" (I'm not kidding, they do sell these different types!). At that point in my parenting career I was still reading (and following) the baby owner manual's fine print. Bentley found the rock hard 3-12 month soothie variety to be too much work so he gave up the pacifier. That was the end of that and good riddance!

To be fair, I should point out that Bentley took up thumb sucking in place of the pacifier. I know there are 2 camps of thought on this issue, and many parents prefer the pacifier to the thumb. I'm in the camp that believes it's a hassle to always be looking for a pacifier, that perhaps pacifiers are shoved in babies mouths too often as an easy out, and that most pacifiers are ugly! To each his own though. :-)

The twins, to my dismay, are not competent thumb suckers. This is probably because there are two of them and we're a bit quick to provide pacifiers when they're getting restless - it's been easier to just keep the peace than to try and wean the pacifiers. We just wanted some sleep and quiet around here!

The twinlets are now 8 months old though - and still using their favorite 0-3 month pacifiers (oops! as I said, we just want quiet time around here!). Jackson is becoming more obsessed, it seems on a daily basis, with his favorite companion. He'll crawl from one end of the house to the other if he catches a glimpse of a green soothie! It's not uncommon to find him in the morning with 1 in his mouth and 1 in each hand (he takes his sister's pacifier out of her mouth, and he crawls around until he finds the spare in the crib). Genevieve isn't nearly as bad, but she does like the plug at nap time and bed time.

As a loving parent (and one who thinks Jackson looks ridiculous with a round green pacifier in his mouth half the day!) I've decided it's time to go cold turkey and ditch the "non-nutritive sucking" (as the books calls it). There's a definite possibility Matt and I won't be able to handle a plug free existence, but we're going to give it our best shot so we don't end up with 3 year olds who still carry around their own plugs. :-) Hopefully after a few restless days of naps and night times we will emerge unscathed?

It was good while it lasted... good bye little baby plugs!