Tessie 4, Caden 21 months

Can you believe that we just celebrated Tessie's FOURTH Birthday?!
It was a bit of a whirlwind weekend with parties. We have been busy with friends and playdates and school. The kids have visited the zoo (the highlight Tessie keeps recalling is the Gorilla ate his own poo...) and we have our garden started. We have some new additions to the plantings in our yard. In addition to last years crop of tomatoes and cucumbers we will now have lettuce, strawberries, and blueberries! Yum. Hooray for summer harvest!
Easter was fun. The weather was beautiful enough to hunt for eggs outside. Shortly after Easter, we enjoyed a visit from Nana Sally. Although the visit was short, we were all recharged by her coming and had fun.

Tessie
For Tessie's 4th Birthday, she hosted a Fancy Nancy Dressy Tessie Birthday Party at the YMCA. Last year we had way too many kids there, so this year we only invited 8 of her friends. SOOO much better. She had a couple of friends from her storytime crew (from 6mos old), former daycare, and current daycare. They all got along wonderfully. At the end of the day I had to reflect on what a wonderful group of friends Tessie has and how lucky I am to have befriended their mothers. I can only hope that she continues to choose to be around such kind, outgoing individuals for the rest of her life.
Although the Birthday has trumped all other excitement right now, Tessie has been busy with other things. She has been going to swimming classes and is getting much better at taking chances jumping from the starting blocks. We will turn her into a swimmer yet!
She cracks me up with her thoughts. I really wish I could tape record every conversation I have with her. She has such a fun perspective on life. We have a "bird restaurant" (bird feeder) as opposed to a bird house where birds would sleep. She wants to learn everything we know...like how to get to Fenway Park. She said she wants the map in her head, too.
Tessie is a wonderful big sister. She tries very hard to deal with an inflexible little brother as he slaps her. Most times just quietly complaining when Caden "slimes" (drools on) her or tackles her, but also quietly enjoying it when Caden is tortured by diaper changes and medicine dosages.

Caden
Just when I thought Tessie was a genius, Caden came into my life. He has grown so much more since the last blog. He is a little talker! He has over 200 words in his vocabulary. He is able to clearly articulate what he wants most of the time. Understanding speech development as a teacher I am impressed with conversational milestones he has met so young. He is speaking in two and three word phrases ("daddy truck"), initiating conversation ("wha-you-doin'?"), and turn-taking in conversation (C:Momma?...*waits for me to answer* ME: Yes, Caden? C: Umm...tree! ME: You see a tree, Caden? C: yeah.) If he does not get an answer, he gets mad. If I do not respond with the exact thing he saw like a tree, car, fire truck, etc. he gets mad because he thinks I wasn't listening so he will repeat the word over and over again until I tell him that I saw it, too. Such a funny kid.
He is into all sorts of manly things like trucks, balls, dirt, and destruction. He is also swimming when Tessie has class at the YMCA. He LOVES the water. He already floats horizontally on the water, uses alternating arm strokes, kicks, and blows bubbles. Just not at the same time, so for now I hold him (or my friend Pamela does) while he is in the pool. It will be a fun summer!

Tessie 3.9, Caden 18 months

The holidays have come and gone and a new year/decade has started. The kids have been doing well. Tessie was very excited for Santa's visit. We made cookies and left them by the tree to bribe the big man for some fun toys. Tessie was rewarded with a set of Disney Princess (Barbie-like) dolls and Polly Pockets. An hour later, she was playing in the laundry basket. Santa brought Caden some blocks and trains. He was thrilled, but now he is learning Tessie's rule of, "What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine." He is pretty good about sharing. Santa left a couple of lumps of coal for Tessie as an I'm-watching-you warning.

Tessie also got her first pairs of ballet and tap shoes to prepare for her first class on Saturday. She loves to show us how acrobatic she is by showing off her "moves". Maybe a little guidance will give her some grace. She still loves anything girlie: dresses, princess, chapstick, shoes, etc. She was in her glory when Auntie Kris took us to see "Disney on Ice". Her face during the whole show was just precious. She is doing very well at Preschool. She can write her first and last name, Caden, mommy, daddy, Ava & Nora (her friends). She loves to play rhyming games, count (up to twenty-ten), read books with us, and do puzzles. She also loves to watch movies. She looks forward to Caden's naptimes on the weekends when she can watch them. She's on a Snow White kick right now. When she starts to act up, I tell her that she's being "Grumpy" and to pick a different dwarf to act like. When I told her to be "Dopey" once, she said "But Dopey doesn't talk". My reply: "PERFECT!" She is generally a very good girl, but she will tell you that, "Santa brought me coal 'cause I was a little bit bad."

Caden is growing so fast. He is officially a toddler. He walks/runs all over the place, tortures his sister, and is a wonderful huggable creature. He is quickly becoming a little boy. He, again, has changed so much since the last post. He is showing us every day how much he understands. I have been signing with him like I did with Tessie. I really think this has helped his language and vocabulary tremendously. When he recently switched from the infant to the toddler space at daycare, I wrote out all the words he knows and I was amazed. He has about 70 words that he communicates to us! They are: all done, apple, baby, ball, banana, bath, bear, bike, bird, book, bubble, bus, bye, car, cat, cheese, coat, cookie, cow, cracker, cup, dadda, diaper, dog, doll, duck, eat, eye, fish, flower, frog, grampa, grapes, hat, helicopter, hi, horse, Mickey (mouse), Minnie (mouse),momma, monkey, more, motorcycle, no, nose, orange, penguin, phone, plane, please, plug (pacifier), poo-poo, Santa, sit, snack, snow, snowman, sock, spoon, strawberry, stuck, Tessie, train, tree, truck, uh-oh, uncle,up, waffle, wash (hands), water. He understands much more, but that's just what he either says or signs. He also tries to parrot words when we label them- overall he's just great with language. Caden is learning to feed himself with a spoon given the food is sticky, like cottage cheese. He is a climber, too. I'm amazed that he hasn't had as many black & blues as Tessie had as this age.

Stay tuned as the winter bears down on us. Hopefully the thaw will come sooner rather than later. These kids need to get outside more!