Well, it has been a wild and crazy three years! The
individual days are often stressful and long, but the years have flown by! The Timehop app is a blessing a curse all at
the same time – I love looking back at the baby pictures, but it reminds me how
fast they are growing up. The baby
pictures also bring on the guilt at times because I don’t remember much about
them being babies. I have a few memories
of individual moments, but there is a lot of survival mode involved with two
newborns that causes you to miss out.
(To be brutally honest, I was also dealing with a rarely discussed
“illness” called Postpartum Anxiety – this is a story for it’s own blog – but I
am much more in control know and able to find the peace and enjoy the little
moments.) This is my favorite age though as I love the conversations and
interactions. I love being able to
imagine things with them and play games.
They are consistently making me laugh, sometimes making me yell, and
always making me smile.
There has been a little bit of a role reversal in the
personality in the last month. Riley has become more shy and Landon is now the
one that will seek out people to tell them “Hi, I Landon.” I think Riley is starting to get embarrassed
when you catch her singing to herself or dancing – so I don’t point it out
because I don’t want her to stop. Riley
continues to be protective of Landon and seems to understand that Landon has a
desire to be with mommy more. She will
“allow” me to carry him instead of her by saying “Okay mommy, you can hold
buddy.” They have developed a definite
bond that I don’t think I will ever completely understand. They are constantly asking about the other if
they are separated – even if it is just different rooms. They wait for each other when we are on walks. Most of the time they play well together, but
they also know how to “get” each other by taking toys. You can see the genuine love they have for
each other. We celebrated their birthday
by taking them to the Mr. Potatohead exhibit at Imaginon and did some birthday
money spending with mommy. Throughout
the day they kept reminding me that it was their birthday and they kept singing
Happy Birthday to each other. I am sure
that they aren’t always going to enjoy sharing their day, but for now they
thought it was fun.
“I am Landon, here I am.”
He likes to talk on the phone and this is his opening line. He loved that my grandmother called to sing
Happy Birthday to him and he smiled the whole time and then gave his line and
proceeded to tell her about his day. He
was so excited for his party at Bounce U and being able to play with his
friends. He was excited to open his
presents and would say “for me?” pulling a hand to his chest. Landon spent his birthday money adding to his
Rescue Bots collection and he has not put them down yet. Rescue Bots is his current favorite show (it
isn’t too bad and even keeps mommy entertained), but he still likes to watch
Curious George and Paw Patrol. His
Rescue Bots are his favorite toys also and he can be found using them to rescue
various toys around the house – often in joint rescue ventures with the Paw
Patrol cast. He will randomly tell me
that he needs to “Power up and energize” while surging a hand into the air. He has become a bit of a jokester and likes
to make me laugh. He has this new habit
of not only telling me that he is hungry, but telling me where he is at when he
is hungry – for example, “I am hungry in the car” or “I am hungry downstairs.” He is a pretty good eater overall, but his
favorite food at the moment is oatmeal and he would eat it for all three meals
of the day. He prefers to snack and isn’t
one to sit down for a meal. We has
finally got all 20 of his teeth – the two year molars came in right before his
third birthday. He loves to play with
cars and trains. Most recently he has
not stopped playing with the Imaginext fire station or the Paw Patrol lookout
that I made out of a box. He plays well
with Riley most of the time, but he is pretty defensive of his toys and Riley
likes to instigate him by taking the toys from him at times. Pretty sure this is a typical behavior though
– so I just remind them both that they can’t steal the toys and if it continues
we use a timeout to calm down.
It seems as if Riley has given up on the nap – and I really
miss it! As I attempt to write this she is hanging on my arm making sounds like
a monkey. On the plus side, she has
become very helpful. On the negative, it
means that she is always about 6 inches from me so that she can “help” me at
any given moment. She continues to carry
around her white puppy (aka artic fox) at all times and if it isn’t that puppy
it is another one. She loves to care for
her animals. We also now have 4 fish in
the house and Riley is typically the one that will tell me it is time to feed
the fish in the morning, she seems to like the responsibility and it is her
first “chore.” (She is bouncing her
stuffed puppy on my keyboard as I type this right now) This little girl has no fear. We had their birthday party at Bounce U and
she wasted no time climbing to the top of the steepest slides and dropping
down. In contradiction though, she is
the first one to give up on smaller tasks around the house – like opening a
door. She will say “I can’t do it!” and
flop down on the floor. She continues to
perfect her flopping skills on a daily basis and I am feel confident that she
will be an excellent soccer player in the future. She loves to sing and dance and spin
around. If she is upset and I am finding
it difficult to calm her down, I will sing “5 speckled frogs” to her and she
starts singing along. She loves story time
at the library and has recently developed a love for “shopping” especially if
it is a place that hands out free cookies.
Her favorite food continues to be cheese and she asks for it about 100
times per day. She also now has all 20
of her teeth with only some minimal discomfort noted. She also likes to watch the Rescue Bots and
Curious George and has also unfortunately developed an affinity for those
Surprise Eggs videos on YouTube. She
loves to paint and is persistent about painting once she has decided that it is
what she wants to do. She loves to play
with her puppies and the Little People farm.
She pushes her baby dolls around in strollers. She brings me books to read about 20 times
per day and she wants to snuggle up in my lap while I read – so I don’t
resist.
As typical, we have been busy this month. We kept them up for the 4th of
July fireworks this year and they did pretty good overall. We went to the parade and events that
morning, played in the pool all afternoon, and watched the fireworks until
Landon informed us he was ready for bed.
We had their birthday party at Bounce U.
We have gone to Discovery Place Kids.
We have taken them on a few different bike rides and they love to ride
behind Daddy. There are a lot of
pictures this month so enjoy!
