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Life is settling down a bit since our touring has ended. The boys miss Nannie and Poppy very badly. This time, leaving has been harder on everyone I think. The boys seem to be much more aware when Matthew and I leave, and they are a bit more upset at nigh time too. It will be bad again when Auntie Peta leaves next week. They are going to wake up really sad when she is not here to entertain them.
On a brighter note, here are a few things that have just made me smile and driven me crazy lately. So, we have the new house, and with the new playroom we have instilled a timeout chair. When they bite each other or do something really awful they head to the chair. I know they understand not to bite each other and are at an age they can understand what they should and should not do most of the time. Of course, I realize trying to rationalize with two 20 month olds is a bit far fetched, even comical, but we needed to try to set an appropriate consequence for biting in particular. So, recently Augustus bit my tummy, not hard, just a nip. I struggle with punishing him because he is not a biter out of anger or to get what he wants most of the time like Raleigh tends to be. But, a bite is a bite, and is not something I want to see him to do someone else, so I put him in timeout. Raleigh in the meantime watched me and put his little finger up to signal "me next." Uh oh! Timeout is not something that should be wanted, right?!?!?! So I said "no, you don't need timeout, you're being a good boy." When Augustus was done with timeout, Raleigh came over and pretended to bite my arm and then put himself into timeout. Oye! How am I supposed to deal with that? I wanted to laugh, and cry at the same time. It gets even better though...the kicker is that we were retelling the story to Nannie and Poppy via Skpe and Raleigh came over and pretended to bite me again and went to timeout. What a little shit! Of course I am impressed at his intelligence, but I know I will have my hands full with him for a long time. He is too smart for his own good! Still love that little bugger, smart little bugger indeed! If any of you moms or dads out there have any experience with this and have any advice, we'd take it. Mostly we just ignore the crazy stuff that does not hurt them or anyone else. The junk behavior so to speak.
Back to the little finger gesture from Raleigh. Love it! He puts his finger up, or both fingers up if he is really excited to do or have something. It basically means 'me next." We also do the gesture back to the boys when we want them to take turns. They understand it and are usually so good at it. I am genuinely impressed with their ability to wait their turn. Raleigh is amazing at giving something to Augustus, but Augustus is still working on that skill at this time. They are definitely getting closer to the terrible twos though. They both can throw a fit when they don't want to do something or we end something too early for their liking. It almost makes you want to not do something you know they will throw a fit at when they have to move on, but what is the fun with that!?!
They are still taking everything in, as evidenced by the story about Raleigh pretend biting me when I told the story to Nannie and Poppy. I started calling Raleigh "parrot" as he will repeat almost anything he can. Their language continues to blossom. My favorite sayings right now are "dude" and "wow."
Here the boys are with the mall Santa. They had no tears, no fear, well, Gus was not overly fond of Mrs. Clause at first, but they only needed to take two shots. Of course both were great. This was my favorite shot. I was so excited the boys got to wear their footie sweaters from Gigi (aka by BFF Kristy's mom). She bought them last year and that they finally got to wear them for one day because it was cool enough, and of course the cutest pairs of Uggs ever!!!
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