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Bond, the Sequel: The Twin Who Loved Me

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Last week I wrote a post for Tara’s Gallery on her terrific ‘Sticky Fingers’ blog about the special twin-bond between Jake & Ellie. It seemed at the time that Ellie, as they get older & more independent, had become a little distant from Jake as she was making new friends.

Well…

They go through phases, don’t they? Or maybe she had the lurgi & we didn’t notice so much. Or quite possibly Ellie just likes to prove me wrong!

Whatever the reason this week she’s been really loving & affectionate, not only with Jake but also with me.

I’ve been picking them up from their little playgroup this week. Usually when I do Jake gets really excited & runs towards me shouting “Daddy! Daddy! You’re back!” before jumping into my arms. Ellie is usually more reserved, but this week she’s been beating Jake to it, welcoming me with a big hug.

As usual this morning she woke up first & went downstairs ‘on her bum-bum’, then Jake followed a little later, in the same way. As soon as she saw him she ran up to him, saying happily: “Hello Jake! Are you alright?” then giving him a massive hug. Twice in the morning she hugged him again, saying “I love you, Jake”.

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It’s moments like that that make all this Daddying stuff worthwhile…

The “best friend” thing is still there, although I found out just after that post that only girls can be Ellie’s friends – I’m not even her friend now! – so I guess Jake & I shouldn’t take it too personally. At the moment Jake’s best friend seems to alternate between a boy at playgroup – who, by sheer coincidence, has an iPad that he lets Jake use* – and Wibley Pig. Who, as far as I know, doesn’t have an iPad.

Actually they’ve both been in unusually good spirits all week. Often there’s grumpiness & tantrums in the mornings & evenings but in the last few days there’s been very little. I’m not really sure what it is: recovering from illness, our having had a nice 3-day family weekend where we spent a lot of time & did a lot of fun things together.

In the light of the terrible tragedy of a fellow parent blogger who I’ve come to know over the years I’ve felt moved to give them extra care & attention, so that could well be a part of it.

Whatever the reason, long may it continue

* For short periods of time & under supervision

The Two Terrible Twos

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OK: they’re 2. Plus 2 weeks.  And I think they know it.

Really, I haven’t explained the semi-mythical, mystical, iconic cultural significance of being 2: the Terrible Twos. But they seem to know about it.

It’s possibly that I’m just noticing more, but I could swear that they’re getting (more) rebellious. They seem to be deliberately doing things that they’re told /asked not to do just to see what happens. And enjoying it far too much. Dropping food or drinks on the floor, being rough with each other or us, grabbing each others’ toys, for instance. And with that look on their faces. Yes, I think most parents will know the one: mostly gleeful defiance.

And they’re smarter. They enjoy doing ‘circuit training’: running at high speed & with great excitement around something, a cot for instance. It used to be that if I wanted to catch one for dressing etc. I’d just have to ‘wait ’til they came around again’. Recently though while I was employing this hitherto successful tactic Jake stopped, saw that I was wanting to grab him for a very wet Jake-bath interface situation, & seemed to decide that running around some more was a far more productive use of his time.

He looked at me, turned around & ran in the opposite direction! I moved over to intercept. He did it again! And again! I think I only got him in the end because he took pity on me. He’s surprisingly quick.

Live & learn though. I now turn it into a game, by joining in the chase, pretending to be a monster, holding my hands in front of me & saying “Rarr” a lot. Not the ideal activity for the end of the day when you’re already tired, but hey-ho, it works. They find it so funny that they seem to want to be caught. At which point they get tickled or I pretend to lunge & miss, falling on the bed. Much hilarity ensues. Next time around I grab one & plop them, protesting wildly, into the bath. Rinse & repeat. And they most times have a great time in there anyway.

Except: pouring water on the floor, on each other’s heads – those are 2 more of their little rebellions, come to think of it.

Yep – they’re 2!


For The Crumby Mummy’s ‘Terrible Twosday’ blog hop. Click the pic for more!

Fancy Words, Insects & Magic

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I’ve been a bit lax in noting notable sayings & doings this week. And I have a bad, although selective, memory  - which is half the reason for my doing this blog-hop, & actually my blog in general.

Ellie I think has produced her most comprehensive sentence yet: “Jake & Ellie like jumping in puddles”. Makes me proud!

And she also excelled herself in sophisticated use of language. Pointing to the Mummy’s juice she said: “Yours”. A possessive personal pronoun! See above for my reaction…

It’s fantastic that their language is coming on so well. Ellie is getting to be a little chatterbox, & Jake is a great talker too. His pronunciation & vocabulary aren’t as good but what he lacks there he easily compensates for with his sociability & use of signs & gestures. We feel like we have two little adults here with us now, not just cute but insensible little babies. We can actually have proper little conversations with them, it’s great!

Ellie often grabs my hand so I can join her in a “Tea Party” she’s having; Jake does too. He does so though often to show me something that he’s been trying to tell me about: for instance when in the garden he spotted a tiny caterpillar hanging on a thread from a leaf, which I think was cocooning itself, & a bumble bee he saw flying around.

I also get dragged off the sofa to do “Tree Fu”magic with him. Recently he seems to have decided that the moves are too fiddly, sits down & leaves me prancing about by myself, saying “Ouch” a lot… Kids, eh!

This is for Chris’ ’Things They Say & Do’ blog hop at her ‘Thinly Spread’ blog. Why not have a look at the other posts there, it’s a great read!

The Things They Say & Do: Bum!, stairs & a stroller

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One afternoon this week the twins kept yelling at me repeatedly & excitedly what sounded like “Bum! Bum!”. This is odd even by their standards. I couldn’t work it out. I kept suggesting possible words that they might be saying, to which they responded “No!”,  then more “Bum! Bum!”, getting increasingly agitated. Eventually I figured out that it was a new cbeebies programme, ‘Tree Fu Tom‘. We’d watched the first one the day before & they absolutely loved it, jump-up-&-down-&-yell-with-excitement loved it. I’d kept it, in case of emergencies (as you do), but when I went to find it on the Box it wasn’t there! Apparently they’d asked the Mummy to put it on earlier, she’d watched it with them, didn’t like it & deleted it! Thanks! (I’ve kept all the episodes since; I quite like it too, but don’t tell anyone…)

We live in an odd house. Whaddya mean you’re not surprised?! It’s tall & thin – unlike me! – & has 3 storeys. The bedroom & nursery are on the top floor, the lounge & kitchen on the ground floor. We carry the twins all the way downstairs for their morning milk & breakfast, then usually back up again for a morning play & to dress them, then back down again ’til their bedtime. It’s OK when we’re both at home & we can take 1 each, but when I’m looking after them by myself it can be tricky. I have to carry 1 up or down then come back for the other. Almost always there’s grizzling & upset by whoever’s been left behind, although by the time I’ve come back they’ve usually calmed down. Thursday however I was getting ready to take them back downstairs. As usual I’d decided to take first the one who was most keen to go, this time Ellie. I explained to Jake, as I always do, that I was taking Ellie down then coming straight back for him. Instead of making a fuss he just sat there quietly, saying “Ellie then Jake. Ellie then Jake”. He was still sitting still, quiet & calm, when I came back up for him: what a little star!

On Friday they played together in the most independent & cooperative way we’ve yet seen. They were taking turns – that’s right, you read that correctly; I’ll write it again: taking turns - without any prompting at all from us, in getting into a stroller & pushing each other around. There also appeared to be a ritual involving a pretend onion on a plate which had to be carried by the occupier of the stroller & transferred with great solemnity as they swapped over. The Mummy & I had our flabbers truly ghasted & were very tempted to leave them to it, get a brew & go watch telly. But it was nearing their bedtime so we didn’t. I did take a stroller upstairs though so they could carry on!

Another eventful week! I’m looking forward now to reading about others’ in Chris’ ’Things They Say & Do’ blog hop at her ‘Thinly Spread’ blog. Have a look, it’s a great read!

And I’ve just realised, as now it’s past midnight, that’s it’s now their 2nd birthday! :)

I Hear You Knocking…

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OK, picture the scene (trans.: “I don’t have a photo”):

The Mummy is standing by an open door. Ellie is on the floor directly beneath her, Jake is on the floor next to Ellie.

They’ve become pretty good at copying things they see us do, so Mummy knocks on the door to see if Ellie will do so too.

She does! Mummy is delighted, & Ellie seems pretty pleased with herself as well.

Jake, not wanting to be left out, then leans over & carefully also knocks 4 times!

- on Ellie’s head!

Well, he sort of got it right. Not sure Ellie was terribly impressed though.

They never cease to amaze & delight us, these little twins of ours :)

Did My Baby Boy Just Say “Bugger”?!

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I’ve been posting for a while now about how quickly Jallie are growing up & developing.

Part of that has been developing an independent will. I still remember being a bit shocked when I initiated a game with Jake, he looked at me, then turned around & crawled off as he wanted to do something else. That’s not supposed to happen: he’s my little baby boy!

It’s also meant that they can & do throw tantrums. Tantrums at 10/11 months? Oh yes! If I do something they’re not happy with, or stop them doing something they want to do, they sure let me know about it!

I sometimes think that this blog appears to paint too rosy a picture of life with our little darlings. This is mostly because I do love them to bits, & I’m delighted with how they’re growing & developing: mostly, everything’s good. Also, although I can do my fair share of whingeing – as anyone who’s followed me on twitter will know – I think of myself as a positive sort of bloke.* If I’m having problems I’m more likely to not talk about them, & just get on with trying to sort them out. And yes, I am aware that this is probably not a healthy, balanced approach. It is quite a male one, though.

When I’m ‘on’ the part of my day I most dislike comes after their morning nap: changing their nappies then dressing them. For reasons I can’t fathom, they hate it. It’s almost always a fight, a struggle, a wrestling match. They do everything in their power, twisting, turning, levering themselves up to stop it. You know when a protestor is dragged away by Police & plays dead, going as limp as possible? Yep: they can do that. They cry, they scream. Not always, but often.  It’s the same too when we dress them for bed. They seem to particularly hate being on their backs. And they’re surprisingly strong!

Trying to put trousers / tights onto a squirming, twisting, crawling baby can be a nightmare, made even worse with my dodgy fingers. We’re still trying to work it out. It may be the time of day; I had to dress them again this afternoon & they put up no fight at all!

So, this morning I eventually managed to get them changed & dressed, after the usual fight. Then I noticed that Jake’s trousers were on backwards!** “Bugger!”, I said in frustration.

Then I heard a little voice. What it said sounded suspiciously like “bugger”.

So,  my baby boy’s first words:

1) Daddy
2) ball
3) bugger?

Bugger.

Still: 2 out of 3 ain’t bad! Gotta be positive, right?

* 1 of the reasons for my new Posterous blog ’3 Brilliant Things’, where every day I post 3 things that have been good about my day.

** As it happened I had Jake’s & Ellie’s trousers mixed up anyway. They’re twins but they’re quite different sizes..

To be honest, I’m a little worried about the babies…

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For a start, Ellie seems to have developed laser vision. I’ve suspected it for a while, actually: she has Super-Powers! Now, where did I put that Kryptonite?

DUCK!!

And where did she learn to do Shakespearian acting?!

“Alas, poor Yoghurt; I knew him…”

“What a piece of work is a biscuit…”

And as for Jake: apparently he’s a Zombie! The world’s cutest Zombie, maybe, but a Zombie nonetheless!

“Brains…”

That would at least explain his voraciously wolfing down the liver* I fed him last night; he always has had a very good appetite…

And now he seems to fancy that he’s some sort of King on a Throne!

“Bring me more liver!”

And if that wasn’t bad enough they’re clearly conspiring against us:

“Psst! You know that Daddy bloke, right? Well…”

So we’ve got a super-powered classically-trained actor with laser vision & the King of the Baby Zombies plotting against us?

Now I really am worried!

* I cooked Lamb’s Fry (fried New Zealand lamb’s liver, a delicacy from my youth) last night, & offered some to Jallie.  Jake gobbled it up, but Ellie wasn’t so keen.

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So We’re All ‘Middle-Aged’ Now?

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We went to our first local Twins Club of the year this morning. Unusually there were only a handful of parents & twins there; usually the place is heaving. Jallie seemed to enjoy themselves anyway

I don’t know why there weren’t as many there as usual. It seemed to result in there being a lot  fewer toys out for the little darlings to play with. The room is always divided between a baby area & a toddlers area: mostly so the little ones don’t get squished by over-excited kids running around. The baby area’s toys are usually the soft colourful mat with cute dangly things hanging off arches kind, designed for babies to lie underneath on their backs. There are also things like spinning tops for the more mobile baby. Probably due to fewer babies there were a lot fewer toys too. Ellie seemed quite happy just socialising, but Jake was different. He’d decided that he was bored with little baby stuff: he wanted to play with the Big Boys.

So off he sped, crawling at top speed into the toddlers’ area. There were identical twin boys, aged 2 1/2, playing on a mini slide, throwing themselves  / cars / bricks / anything they could find down it. Jake wanted a piece of this action! I gently slid him down the slide & he enjoyed it. There was a big plastic rocking horse there, which he enjoyed even more.

Trouble is, we didn’t realise we’d crossed some sort of child picket line. The toddler equivalent of “scab!” began ringing out (the odd muttered “Shoo”, & “our toys!”) , & a fair bit of stick waving took place.  A baby with the big boys?! There are rules about this sort of thing!

It looked like the demo was about to turn ugly; the “Out Babies Out!” signs were up & there were rumours of a group of hardcore bike-riding kids heading here fast, complete with an arsenal of very sticky puddings. Postman Pat in his van was looking nervous.

So for the sake of Peace I removed Jake back over the Line of Demarcation. I’d smuggled some Big Boys’ Bricks back though!” Which, to be honest, Jake didn’t really know what to do with.

Well, it was too late; we’d caused Anarchy. The lines between the realities had become blurred! The kiddie cosmos was crumbling! I can see now why these rules exist. The Big Boys followed us over!

They’d decided that I was some sort of brick expert, & that we had to build towers & constructions, shapes so unconventional that they’d be worthy of Gaudi. I found myself backed into a corner. There was at least 1 muttering (I think) of “Dad”, which always makes me nervous, & often results in a quick & heartfelt explanation to my wife.

Fortunately they quickly concluded that I’m actually very dull -  & not ‘Dad’ – & went back to their Zone.  Not before I’d built a mean tower though!

As it did at Baby Sensory, it’s further dawning on me that in many ways our babies aren’t really babies any more. Too old & mobile for the little ones’ toys, too young & immobile for toddlers’ toys. As someone said of them there: they’re Middle-Aged Babies!

And they’re growing up – fast.

 

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