... and babies make four: Our life with twins. : Winter fun

The “trick” to having two 2.5 year olds? I have no idea, I was hoping someone could help me. We have our easy days and then we have our downright awful (mommy wants a drink before noon and is doing everything she can to hold it together until 4:30) days. Even in the awful days, I try and find the positive… like my very stubborn daughter is creating her independence and she is going to be a strong willed adult and my emotionally overwhelmed son will be a kind hearted and loving young man. Admittedly, some days are much harder to find the positive in their behaviors and I break down out of frustration. I am positive though that I am not the only mommy on the face of the Earth that has resorted to tears as a coping mechanism for dealing with the “terrible twos.” It has taken me these 2.5 years though to admit that it is okay to need a break sometimes. It does not make me a bad person or a bad mother to leave the kids with a sitter for a few hours while I wander aimlessly around Target with a coffee. Taking care of children is hard work and if you don’t have that time to “reboot” yourself you will eventually just “crash” and that is not good for you or for the children.

Landon keeps me laughing. He has entered the “what’s that?” phase of life and I am constantly answering questions. Often he already knows the answer before he asks the question, but I think he likes to try and “catch” us or prove that he knows something. The other night the Hubby was talking to him as he was holding a stuffed animal… the Hubby: “Landon, is that your alligator?” Landon: “No, it’s my crocodile.” I mean, who says that!?! My friend Trey came to visit last month and we took Landon with us as we went through a drive thru and she was able to experience the joy that is Landon at a drive thru…. Employee: “What can I get for you?” Me: “A chicken strip tray.” Landon yelling from the back seat: “Chicken strip tray” Me: “Fries” Landon: “Fries” Me: “Chocolate banana shake” Landon: “Chocwat banana shake.” Pretty sure you get the idea and by this time - I was laughing so hard I had difficulty completing the rest of my order. If you hand him something he will say, “For me?” and emphasize this by bringing his hands to his chest and batting his little eyes. He has started speaking about himself in the third person… “this is Landon’s toy.” He is finally exploring outside of his comfort zone for food, but the catch is that it has to come from my plate before he will eat it. He will ask me to “make it small” (ie cut him a bite) and then he will eat and eat and eat. This is the only way he will eat meat- the Hubby hates that I am feeding him, but if it means that he will eat then I will keep doing it! We have had to start watching what he eats. We met with a specialist about his chronic croup and he was officially diagnosed with silent reflux. Basically, reflux in a child is harder to diagnose as they don’t get the typical heartburn type symptoms of an adult. After a scope up his nose and down his throat, the inflammation was noted. He has been on a daily treatment since then and he hasn’t had a cough since, but there have been some “flare ups” from the reflux. You can just tell when looking at him that he isn’t feeling well when he wakes up, he will be more cuddly, and he will ask for milk- lots of milk. We have a follow up next week, but I am pretty sure we will just stick with the current course of treatment and I will continue to research diet needs.

The biggest accomplishment with Riley is no more “boppy”! I owe the credit to Trey for that one as we had tried to take it away and broke down at certain points and gave it back. She ended up losing what we thought was the last one so we had no choice but to get rid of it. She had a few moments of asking for it, especially at bedtime, but now she rarely brings it up. She does ask for it about once a week and then laughs right after. (PS once we thought we lost the last one, they popped up all over the house! I was rushing ahead of her to throw them away) I will admit that it may have not been the greatest time to take it from her as she turned out to be sick. We had some on and off again fever and vomit and a terrible long lasting cough. The Hubby ended up taking a day off work to assist at home as I had two sick kids and we end up at Minute Clinic that afternoon. :/ She seems to be healthy now (knock on wood) and hopefully it stays that way. Riley loves to sing and dance and I find her singing to herself all the time – she is still singing Jingle Bells so that appears to be a favorite. Her catch phrase is “I love it!” and she says that all time about anything – even yogurt. Riley has started calling Landon “buddy” as that is what both the Hubby and I call him and frankly it is pretty cute. (He has on occasion called her “squishy” as that is her nickname, so I guess they are even.) As I mentioned above, Riley is my stubborn one and she causes me to partake in some creative thinking when she gets upset. One particular night, she “lost her mind” over the fact that we could not see the moon due to the clouds. I will admit, I eventually convinced her that a streetlight in the distance was the moon so we could go inside. ;)

Overall, the continue to love to watch Curious George and we are still watching “Christmas George” in our house and I don’t see that one going away anytime soon. They also love Paw Patrol and watching their own “little TV” (portable DVD player) that comes out when Mommy and Daddy need a cartoon break. We just bought them each their own Leap Frog Epic tablets. As with most parents, I don’t like them to have a lot of TV or screen time, but we also had to admit that we are in an age of technology. We did some research and decided the Epic was going to be a good fit for them and so far they enjoy playing the games and I love watching them get excited when they figure something out. They love to play board games and puzzles and we are working with them on taking turns when playing together. They have recently started to act like dogs and when they play this game it is serious business. They get out water bowls for each other and throw the dog bones around the house. ;) We were pretty busy this last month with activities and visitors with my friend Trey and my parents coming to visit. We took them to the aquarium, story time at the library, Bounce U, Discovery Place Kids, Discovery Place downtown, the Aviation Museum, Defy Gravity, shopping at the mall, breweries (typical toddler activity), and the park. We did some projects at home for our “school” to learn about the color red and the heart shape. We were able to play in the snow - more than once, but once clearly had more snow!