April’s Highlights

We’re in our dream house, our house for the boys to grow up in, our house (*maybe*) to grow old in, our house that is currently making us very house-poor but is VERY worth it. April 3rd was moving day and it’s been crazy ever since.

I’ve been too busy moving to blog, but my boys haven’t stopped with the noteworthy milestones and stories.

Here are the highlights:


GRAHAM

Since I last blogged, sweet little Graham has just had an explosion of development:

Little man is now talking… "Mama", "Dada"," bye-bye." He actually said "MAMA" before he said "Dada." This is rare for kids, but my boy is SPECIAL. He is definitely a little Mama’s boy.

Now he eats big boy food… ANY big boy food he can get his pudgy little hands on: Pizza! Chicken Nuggets! Mac & Cheese! His two favorites are strawberries and mandarin oranges.

He holds his own bottle and can drink from a tippy cup.

The biggest news is that he’s learning to walk. Now he walks with a walker... or with anything about his height that is not firmly fastened to the floor. He pushes around chairs / barstools / toys, with his little legs motoring away and this look on his face that's a blend of excited, determined and proud. May 24 is his first birthday and he may be REALLY walking by then. (He’s walking sooner that Cole, who was just walking with a walker at his first birthday and then first REALLY walked at 13 months).

He also got his first haircut this past weekend, and he’s looking VERY handsome.

All of this in a few short weeks. He’s come so far he’s like a different baby from this time last month!

He still idolizes big brother Cole. He follows Cole around and wants to get into whatever Cole is doing. Even when Cole doesn’t want to be bothered and is pushing him away, Graham thinks it’s a game and laughs hysterically. One of the things that I don’t think Dan or I will ever forget about Graham (because it happens EVERY night) is how he loves to steamroll over the books we read Cole at bedtime. Since we can’t exactly climb into the crib with Cole, we lay on the floor with him and put the book on the floor where everyone can see. Inevitably Graham crawls into the middle of the book and sits his little ass right in the middle of the page. Either that or he’ll start grabbing wildly at the pages, sometimes ripping them. It’s to the point where Graham usually has to be removed from Cole’s story-time for bad behavior! He’s very assertive and gets into whatever is going on.

Mostly he’s still happy and good-natured and seldom cries. He’s mama’s little ANGEL.


COLE

My big boy is personality PLUS.

He just got moved up to the next class at daycare because he was "bored" (I think that’s Goddard language for acting out.) He had been in that room so long that he was the oldest and biggest and smartest kid and wasn’t getting challenged enough. His teacher called him "The Ringleader." So he’s on to bigger and brighter things. He loves school and gets all excited when the car turns down the road to The Goddard. That makes putting him in daycare 5 days a week a hell of a lot easier.

Cole is a riot. He’s getting so much more sophisticated with his language that he can tell us what he wants and what he’s thinking now. Here are a few of the recent funny Cole stories:
__________________________
One of the "acting out" offenses that has been a problem at daycare has been "spitting." (Really spitting = making raspberry sounds, i.e., "pfffft," when he’s pissed off. I think it’s better than blurting out obscenities the way adults do, but if daycare doesn’t like it, we can’t tolerate it.) So we’ve been working on him about "no spitting." He gets time-out when he makes the raspberry sound. He’s doing much better, but every once in a while when he gets tired and has a melt-down, he’ll start doing it. He was doing it in the car the other day, which is the worst place, because I can’t exactly put him in time-out while I’m driving and he’s strapped in a car seat. He did it even after I had told him to stop, and he knew he was in trouble when we got home. So out of the blue, he said to me, "No tell dada. No spitting." Damn if he wasn’t already worrying about Dada finding out before I even mentioned Dada. Pretty smart for 2!
__________________________
Here’s another one that made me laugh: Cole accompanied me to the grocery store one morning and we were wheeling around the fruit section and I asked him, "Cole what’s you’re favorite fruit?"

"MAC AND CHEESE!" He shouted.

"No, Mac and Cheese is not a fruit. Strawberries, blueberries, watermelons. Those are fruits. What’s you’re favorite fruit?"

"MAC AND CHEESE!" He shouted excitedly.

"No," I laughed. "Mac and Cheese still is not a fruit. Look around. We’re in the fruit section. Do you see Mac and Cheese here?"

He looked and thought, thought and looked. "Mangoes" he said tentatively.

"Yes, sweeties. Mangoes are fruit."

So Cole’s favorite fruit, according to him, is Mac & Cheese. According to me it’s Mangoes. I’ve been buying a lot more mangoes since then.
___________________________
I get a big kick out of how Cole blames Graham for all of his shits. With everything else he’s very honest and will pretty much tell on himself. (For example, Just the other day I caught him pushing Graham down and went to address it and said, "Cole, did you push your brother down?" and he matter-of-factly answered "Yes." Or often he’ll come running to me and announce, "I made piggy mess.") He’s not manipulative enough yet to lie. But when you smell shit in the air and wonder whose diaper it’s coming from, Cole will always tell you it’s Graham:
"Ewww who has poopy?" we'll ask.

"Gi-gi made poopy."

At which point we’ll sniff both butts and determine that Cole is the offender. "No, Cole. You made poopy."

"No. Gi-gi poopy," as if we’ll take Graham and change his diaper instead.

It happens every time. Too funny.
___________________________
And for the final Cole story… the other night Dan was bathing him, and he had Cole do his usual routine of standing up to get his pee-pee washed and then turning around to get his butt washed. Cole did it and got cleaned then sat back down in the tub and looked at Dan and said "Thank you, Dada."

"Thank you for what, Cole?" asked Dan.

"Thank you wash my butt."

You gotta love our little Mr. Personality!
_________________________


Overall, as the boys grow and we discover their personalities, it seems like Cole looks like Mama and acts like Dada, while Graham looks like Dada and has more of Mama’s personality. They are so much fun!