Our Crazy Life: My Twinkies are 23 Months!

One more month until the big 0-2! The kids have gone forever without getting sick, but at the moment, all three are sick. Ethan and Mia both have had a fever within the past couple of days and feel miserable. Riley has a boogery stuffed up nose. Three whiny clingy kids = one frazzled mama! I hope this passes quickly!

We haven't started potty training them yet. I don't think they are ready. They will sit on the potty chair on occasion but have never peed in it. I guess the time will come soon enough! It's going to be a challenge!

Both Ethan and Mia are picky eaters. I've noticed they eat more now that they are in their booster seats. Mia out eats Ethan at almost every meal. They both love peanut butter sandwiches. Ethan eats the peanut butter off the top of the bread. Mia will eat the entire thing, but she is a very slow eater. Ethan chows his food down. They also like crackers, chocolate, donuts, sweets, milk, juice. Mia continues to be a huge fruit eater. Ethan is getting a little strange about his food. He will no longer eat small chunks of things. For example, he wants an entire banana. If I break a chunk off, he will not eat it. That goes for other food items too. Mia isn't picky like that yet.

Ethan is learning to get into new things each day. His newest accomplishments are being able to open the refrigerator door (which is LOADS of fun for me) and pushing his chair up to the sunroom door, unlocking the dead bolt and running outside. He figured this out while I was in the bathroom. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't find him. I quickly found a door lock at Target, which was almost $15 (expensive if you ask me) but it works. He gets super mad when he tries to open the door and can't. We also bought locks for our bi-fold doors, which are AWESOME! Before, he would mess with my Dyson vacuum cleaner and drag out all of the brooms, mops, and dust pans, among other things. He still can't figure out why the doors don't open. Hahahahaha

He's starting to say a few more words. He can say "ra" for rock, "pretty", "woa". Ethan still says a lot of jibberish type words. It's cute, though, because he says it in a really quiet voice which is pretty atypical for him. He is starting to give us "looks". If something confuses him, he gives us the funniest look. It makes me laugh all the time. I can give him "the look" if he does something naughty and it totally works on him. Not so for Mia. She's a toughie.

Ethan still carries his blankie and puppy everywhere. I think this bothers Mike, but I keep telling him it's normal! Mia will occasionally carry hers around but not like Ethan. In fact, I'd say Ethan is more obsessed with Mia having her blankie and bunny than she is. He is always tracking her down to hand her her blankie. If she doesn't want it, he gets kind of upset. It's so cute! Mike took the kids to Chamberlain last weekend and Mia was crying. Ethan went and found her blankie and bunny and brought it to her. He also brought her a fiber one granola bar! What a nice brother!

Mia is still the follower of the two, but by no means innocent! Ethan usually starts something and she jumps right in. She is still my little sweetie and loves to sit on my lap. She's very affectionate and gives lots of kisses and hugs. She loves my sister, Sarah, and sits on her lap whenever she's around. Sarah taught her to dance and probably other things I don't want to know!

Mia has also picked up a few new words. She can say, "cute", "woa", "pretty", "cool". I've also started working on numbers with them. Mia will occasionally repeat them to me. It's a work in progress! She talks more than Ethan but still isn't saying many two word phrases. They have their 2-year baby check in December, so I'll be interested to see what the doctor says about their speech. I hope they don't need speech therapy!

We can tell the kids to go get their coats and shoes, and they do it! This is so cool! I told Uncle Mark the other day that, "the kids are kind of starting to listen to us a little bit." Mike and Mark busted out laughing and I guess it was kind of funny when I thought about what I had said, but it's true. It doesn't always work. When Ethan knows we're going outside, he'll grab his coat, his shoes, Mia's coat, Mia's shoes, Riley's coat, and Riley's shoes. He absolutely loves it out there. He'll do anything to go outside. I'll ask Mia to grab Riley a toy, and she almost does it every time. It's interesting to see what she brings her. A lot of the time, it's random objects.