Bye Bye Wubbie

Last Wednesday was Owen's last day with a "Wubbie" (pacifiers called WubbaNubs, sewn into the mouths of a soft toy animal).  For a long time up until this point, the twins only kept their Wubbies in their cribs and would run for them (and blankies of course) before nap and bedtime.  Both have been slowly biting holes in the pacifier part, and Owen's finally broke.  Unfortunately they don't make these with varying thicknesses of pacifier like the regular old Soothies; all are the super soft ones meant for 0-3 months and can quickly get holes with a few strong chomps (hence the 0-3 month thing).  Owen broke through another one a while back (an elephant), but lucky for us our kind and generous Wubbie supplier, Sissy, has given us an abundance of these essential baby items!!  So we gave him a new monkey, told him not to bite it, and a few months later here we are.  I wasn't really that concerned that he'd have a hard calling it quits on the pacifier - in fact I was the one most sad about the transition - I'm going to really miss seeing how cute Owen looks with that thing hanging from his mouth.  But now that the boys are 2, I knew it probably isn't a good idea to encourage the habit by handing over another new Wubbie!

So as we were getting them ready for bed, I showed Owen the broken Wubbie and told him I was going to fix it and left the room.  A few quick snips later, the sewn in pacifier was out.  You can see Owen's looks of confusion after I returned the monkey to him.  I don't think he and I had the same thing in mind when I said "fix it".  But confusion quickly turned to acceptance when we told him he can still snuggle the Wubbie like his blankie, and he was happy.  I've heard of kids having a hard time letting go of pacifiers...I wonder if the makers of WubbaNubs could further their business by marketing the animal sans pacifier as an effective way to ease kids off while still keeping a lovie they've been attached to all along!  It worked like a charm for us, and we'll see how it goes for Oliver in the coming weeks (his giraffe also has bite holes forming).  I've seen Owen looking longingly / enviously at Spencie's Wubbies (he still have several in rotation around the house, and is allowed to have his outside of sleeping), but have not seen him make any attempts on "borrowing" one.  I think he really gets that he's too big for them now and has moved on...now can Mommy?  Is it weird that I want to sneak into his room at night and put a new one in his mouth?  Just kidding, sort of.

Owen showing us how he's going to snuggle with the "fixed" Wubbie!

Watering Hole

A quick video of Spencie drinking water from a regular cup.  After nap we come downstairs each day and have some water and a little snack.  The twins have been crazy about getting their own water from the refrigerator dispenser lately - if I even try and help them a little bit they get very upset.  I sometimes just set a straw bottle out on the kid table for Spencie to drink from while I prepare the snack, but most of the time he insists on having his water from a regular cup too.  And from the start, he has been extremely good at controlling it.  I would have never imagined giving the twins a cup of water at 13 months!!  I only fill it about 1/2 to 1 inch at a time (so they don't get soaked in case of spills), but it really only took a few accidental spills for all of them to realize that's not something they want to happen while trying to drink.  Intentional spills on the floor, while not drinking, is another story... Did I mention water is one of the cheapest and most intriguing toys around?

Chibis Play Date

Today was our twins group half price day at Chibis Indoor Playground...and the first time I've taken the boys there by myself!  I'm happy to report that the morning could not have gone any smoother!  I talked to the boys the night before about listening to Mommy while we're at the playground and especially when it's time to leave (because that's always the hardest part, right!).  The video below was the final reminder in the car before going inside, where the twins promised to "listen to Mommy".  It was actually hard not to laugh because Owen wanted to say it without Oliver talking at the same time!  They've also been doing this the past week or two with singing songs - both demanding their own turn to sing solo.  But back to our beautiful play date - there were hardly any kids at Chibis today which made watching all 3 much easier compared to a busy morning where I find myself anxiously scanning for headcount (note the yellow, easy to find shirts!).  The big boys climbed up the big play structure and went down the tunnel slide by themselves (last time they wanted me to go up with them each time and send them off down the slide).  Not that I don't like climbing up with them, it's kinda cool up there, but I feel better about keeping Spencie closer in view and reach. He plays really well by himself, it's other kids knocking him down I worry about!  We all took a break halfway through to have a snack, and the boys followed me and sat like angels at the front tables while they ate.  Other moms were even commenting on how well behaved they were!  The boys spent most of the remaining time playing in the train room and with the gear magnets.  It only took a small amount of persuasion to get Owen ready to part with the choo choos, but for the most part they all followed me up front, put their shoes on, and walked out to the car!  That probably sounds like a pretty simple thing, but trust me, with two 2 year olds and a 1 year old it's not. at all.

Helicopter Hiccups

A couple nights ago I was getting the twins started in the bathtub, while Ryan was getting Spencie undressed and ready to join them in the boys' room.  He took this little video of Spencie "reading" his favorite page in a baby dictionary book all of the boys really like - the page with all types of vehicles on it - which is why you'll notice it's been torn out!  He was struggling through his hiccups to make helicopter noises.  Another cute thing is that he's playing with his elephant blankie (his recent favorite) and makes an elephant noise when Ryan asks, "where's the elephant".  He is so funny with that blanket...today he insisted on carrying it down to breakfast (and dragging it around the kitchen floor, over the cat, etc...ugh).  I think that is where his preference toward elephants came from!!  He's very good at making an elephant sound on command, even when the blankie isn't around.

Twilight Tricycle Ride

Sunday night playing in the driveway - Oliver loves riding all of Spencer's "baby" toys.  Owen happily took the evening in while swinging, amazed that the moon was out so early.  And Spencie tried to escape down the driveway a few times...good thing it's a far walk to the end!!

Make Way for Spencie

We spent the nice cool morning out at our favorite playground down the road (i.e. "secret playground").  It is amazing how the twins improve their climbing skills with each visit - today they mastered a shaky rope ladder.  What really surprised us was that Spencie decided to step up his usual toddling around and inspecting wood chips to climbing with the big boys!  Sometimes it's hard to remember that he's only 13 months... it seems like he's been walking for quite some time now and doing (if not trying) practically everything the big boys do.  Today he was making his way up the little inclined rock wall below as quickly as Oliver.  He certainly is fearless, and gets into way more trouble than the twins ever did at his age!

14 Bananas and a Tea Party

The boys love bananas, and so our banana supply looks something like the picture below each week.  Between the 3 boys, they eat 2 bananas every morning!!  That's a minimum of 14 per week (Ryan and I aren't really big on bananas), and they'd probably eat more if I let them eat bananas in between meals as well.  But I like to mix the fruit selection up throughout the day with avocados, blueberries, strawberries, kiwi, oranges, mangoes, and apples...those are their favorites.  I find myself eating healthier as I snack along with the boys, although there's usually not much left for Momma after my snack hounds have had their fill :)  Especially Spencie, who will finish off the last bit of anything left out on a plate.  Yesterday we had a tea party for our morning snack, and the twins served themselves from the pitcher of tea (water).  They obsess over doing things like this for themselves and are getting much better.  You'll see Owen miss the cup in the video, spilling water all over the table, but on the second try gets it just right.  Oliver was sweet and made sure Elmo and Pooh Bear got some strawberries before his brothers ate them all!

Honk Honk, Vrrm Vrrm Vrrm

I know not too long ago I posted on "car watching"... but today's wagon ride to see the cars was so darn cute that I had to do it again (mainly for the videos at the end)!  It was a sunny day, so I ran inside and grabbed the new baseball hats Nana bought the boys - they were great about keeping them on today after I explained that they helped keep the sun out of their eyes.  After that Oliver kept repeating, "Owen, Oliver, Spencie wear hat - no sun in eyes".  They were also wearing new Cat in the Hat shirts from Nana and were excited about that.  When we arrived at the entrance to the neighborhood, I sat down and watched cars with them - talking about what type and color they were, and counting them as they passed by in both English and Spanish (the boys have gotten very good at this!).  And when it was time to head back for lunch, just as I was turning the wagon around to leave, a big dump truck saw what we were doing and gave a couple loud honks...and the boys went crazy!  Oliver could not stop talking about how the truck saw them watching and went honk, honk, honk, vrrrm, vrrrm, vrrrm!!  I had to stop and get him talking about it on video because he was making me laugh so hard.  And lastly, we picked up the mail before going up the driveway, and as usual I let the boys each hold a piece (of junk mail).  I realized they were pretending to read the ABC's in the papers I handed them and had to video that too :)

Owen and his Swings

Owen loves his swings - its hard to convince him that it's time to go inside or switch activities once he's strapped in and going!  He's always the first to ask me to put him up in the swing and "blast off", and when the other 2 spot him having fun in a swing, they are instantly jockeying for position with the second one.  We have four of the Little Tikes blue swings (2 on the deck and 2 in the front yard), but not three all in one place, so there is a lot of turn taking and as Owen demands, "timer on!".  Stay tuned for our surprise solution...hopefully ready in the next week or two!!

Pretend Owie

Today was a little wet out from rain the night before, so we played inside in the morning and did some crafty things in the playroom.  I cut out some shapes with construction paper and let the boys glue them on a piece of white paper and then decorate them.  Let's face it, handling the bottle of glue is the most exciting part for them.  Probably because they can sense how anxious it makes me, watching them squeeze and fling it all around, all while the bottle continues to hover nearer to their mouths.  But in all fairness, while they do make a huge fuss over controlling the glue, they have gotten very good about understanding that it's for getting things to stick to the paper only.  Oliver did a great job of gluing googly eyes on a cutout fish and also a choo choo train today.  I had a bag of puffy balls to glue on for fun too, and that went well until Spencer got a hold of the bag, dumped it out, and got the big boys to join him in a game of kicking them everywhere and squealing wildly.  After that we found some stickers in the shape of colorful band-aids and they had a lot of fun putting them all over "pretend owies" on their hands and feet - especially Owen who has had quite a bit of real life experience with band-aids lately as he keeps scraping his knees on the front steps and porch.  In the past week, he's had some pretty big scrapes including re-scraping relatively new scabs.  He's been a really big boy and hardly cried.  I think he was more interested in seeing blood like that for the first time and watching me doctor it up with a nice, new band-aid....that's one addition I need to start carrying in my diaper bag and back packs!!