Year-end tales

The holiday festivities are dying down and family has gone after a great visit of spoiling the boys rotten. The boys are trying to process the fact that all those weeks and even months of build-up for Christmas is over. Ethan, Mr. Sensitive, is busy "missing" everyone, including Santa. He even "misses" me when I am right there with him. They are both concerned about Bear missing Jonathan's dog Geffi. Ethan yesterday gave him a hug and said, "Bear miss Geffi?" Bear didn't care for the hug but I'm sure he appreciated the sentiment. The vet and all the staff yesterday at Bear's check-up were very impressed with how much he tolerates from the boys. I didn't tell them he doesn't always, nor do they!

Isaac for his part is going through withdrawal from sleeping right next to us. He would say "I want sleep mama. I miss you". He was crying for me at bed time and waking up in the middle of the night, screaming "I don't like my bed". When I told him if he stayed in his own bed all night for seven days he would get a new present, that seemed to help a bit. He has been settling in and sometimes it's just Ethan who wakes up and comes to our bed and then makes me carry him back if I tell him he needs to sleep in his own bed or just cries because he needs to pee pee and wants help.

It is still so entertaining and I know the family enjoyed seeing too, how they interact with each other. Even though Isaac is usually the bossy one, Ethan, when he is grumpy orders Isaac around and throws a tantrum if Isaac isn't interested. We were at a Christmas party one night on a day when Ethan hadn't napped. Ethan wanted to put train tracks together but couldn't quite get it himself. He kept yelling "Isaac, do it", "Isaac help" until he was practically shrieking and Isaac went to help him. Every time it broke he yelled at Isaac to help.

Tonight they discovered that Bear had started chewing on Ethan's new bear from Grandma while they were in the bath. Ethan was emotional about it though he never wants the bear usually. Isaac proceeded to berate Bear and then went over and told Ethan he had told Bear off. Ethan wasn't that interested but when I told him that was very nice, he beamed with pride.

This has been a great year and we're looking forward to more funnies and sweetness in the new year, complete with new baby. Ethan is noncommital and will probably be more jealous but Isaac is keen to hold the baby on his lap while he watches tv and is always telling Ethan to be careful of squishing the baby in mama's tummy.

Identity theft

I can smell trouble already in the school years ahead. The boys already try to play tricks on their teachers and classmates. I went to help at their Christmas party and another mom asked Ethan his name. "Isaac", he said, quite seriously. Their teachers were laughing and said how they'd often tried to do that to them but now they knew the ear trick (Ethan has a dimple). I am so grateful for that so they won't be able to pull one over on me later. Though their personalities seem vastly different to me at this point, even family like Uncle Milo still can't tell them apart.

Besides that, in discussing placental matters with other multiples mamas, I was thinking lately about the chances that they are probably identical. This was further reinforced by my ultrasound that revealed just ONE baby. Probably a loose connection but nevertheless I am thrilled to have only hit the jackpot one time on that one.

The boys have been getting along much better these days. It's a lot of fun to see them organizing things to do together or just showing concern. The other day we went up to nap and Bear had chewed up one of Ethan's teddy bears. Ethan was quite distraught but Isaac kept trying to comfort him, saying "sorry, Ethan". He then helped me clean it all up and put it in the trash. Fortunately it wasn't Ethan's favorite and after Bear tore up a little robot dinosaur he was banished for a while to his cage during sleeping.

Last week when I was exhausted and nauseated and the boys were climbing all over me while I was working, Ethan seemed to sense I was on the verge of losing my temper and said, "Isaac, go upstairs, play train?" Isaac thought about it and agreed and off they went. Ethan is fond of playing with his train upstairs but Isaac won't go up even to get clean clothes because he is scared. The other day I didn't want to go all the way up to help Isaac get new pants. I told him to just turn on the lights but he kept screaming "I scared!". So I asked Ethan if he could help, to go with him and turn on the lights. "Oh, okay, I do it," he said and off they both went.

Isaac was really cute too when I was laying on the couch half asleep one evening. He sat next to me telling me stories for a good 10 minutes or so. I'm not really sure what they were about except fire trucks and smoke. He loves to "read" by himself now. He probably gets about a few words right on each page but that's a start. He will still ramble telling whatever story he wants to go with it.

I think they will be good big brothers, though possibly annoying too! We were out with Keira the other morning at the Burger King with a small playland. They kept telling her she was too small to do anything and were very bossy to her. Charlotte said it's good for her since she thinks she is the boss, but I can imagine with a baby they will be worried about and reporting every small little thing he/she does. That might be helpful sometimes but could get old too I'm sure! On the other hand they were funny tonight putting their heads to my belly (though it's just mostly fat being pushed around, I have popped a bit this week) and trying to hear and feel the baby. We may have to get a doppler so they can hear it well as the baby gets bigger!

Real Brothers

We've reached the love/hate phase in full force. Though it feels like a lot more fighting than love at this point. I suppose with three years of togetherness, that's inevitable. They can barely stand to be around each other much of the time but don't somehow understand they can remove themselves from the situation even when we tell them.

Ethan is at least more verbally expressive than Isaac, who goes from zero to full tantrum in no time. Dozens of times every day he will come whining, "Isaac hit me", when in reality most of the time, Isaac merely had the gall to talk in his general direction or use a bossy tone of voice. He's often screaming "No talk, Isaac!" Isaac, for his part, remains probably intentionally oblivious until Ethan gets physical. What I find the funniest though is when Ethan just gets his lower-lip-Leal pout going, crosses his arms and says "I not happy". He is always most likely to let me know when he is happy, or sad or mad.

Soooo, we are trying to figure out how to encourage the love without trying to force it. Still, some of the time they are best friends too. I love to hear their conversations. Usually they are pretty simple, like "Try this one, Ethan?" "No, try this one." "Um, okay." And even occasionally when I tell the one who's screaching because his brother didn't share when he asked nicely that he will just have to wait until he's ready to share - occasionally he will actually wait and the other will decide to share, giving me hope that they will learn to work some things out themselves!

Isaac and the Very Hard Day (and the new baby)

We were sitting at lunch Friday when Ethan announced that Isaac had been naughty at school. Isaac confessed without much attrition or embarrassment. It took some time to work out the real story, as much as I could, but apparently he was throwing things in the kitchen with "More Isaac". First they both told me he got a time out, but later Isaac said "no". I still have to get the real story from the teachers. I have to confess, while I didn't show it to him, I was a little pleased because it means he interacting socially and doing normal things with his peers.

But for some reason he was having a very hard time all that day, at home as well - many big tantrums over small things. Of course mama being pregnant and exhausted from work didn't have all the tolerance she might otherwise have had. Still, we are trying to work on getting him to pay attention when given instruction. He will be playing around like he didn't hear anything. I will warn him, then enforce the consequences which will send him into a hysterical fit. Sometimes the warning itself sends him into a tantrum, rather than just motivating him to behave. Ethan has his days too of course, though he seems to be much more eager to please and loves to lord it over Isaac when he has been good and Isaac hasn't.

Isaac does have his good and sweet moments too of course. This morning he woke up happy, we came downstairs and he put on his slippers when I told him too, then I heard Bear barking outside and being 7am I asked Isaac to let him back inside. He just said "Ok, mama" and next thing I hear him shouting outside - "Quiet, Bear," several times, with some other instructions thrown in such as "no wake the people".

They will both enjoy being bosses when the new little one comes along. I can tell already the jealousy will be hard to deal with but hopefully we can direct it into making them feel more grown up. They are still grasping the concept of course. At first Isaac kept telling me he had two babies in his tummy. Now they have some understanding that there really is a baby growing inside mama's tummy (I think their dinosaur growing out of its shell gave them some basis). We just a kick over asking them how many babies mama has. They kept saying "two" then Jack trained them to say "one". The other morning, Ethan said "no two babies. One!", holding up one finger. Yes! I agreed with him hopefully. This morning though Jack asked Isaac, "Does mama have one or two babies?" and he declared "Five!", holding up all five fingers on his hand. Good counting, Isaac, but no, no, no. Though I also think the upside of having twins again would be they wouldn't have to fight over who gets to hold the baby :)

Birthdays and boys

My birthday on Saturday started with typical 3-year-old-isms. The conversation when they woke me up went something like this:

Me: It's my birthday. What did you get me?
Them: Present!
Me: What present?
Them: Poo Poo!

And that was about right too. Nevertheless they were quite happy with the pumpkin cake I made myself (baking lessons come next for Jack!) and Jack had them trained to wish me happy birthday when I returned from work at 8 that night. Isaac still wants every day to be someone's birthday and thinks that by saying it's his we can keep blowing out candles.

Isaac is also fond of the other boy in his class named Isaac (who would have thought that with so many Ethans, Isaac would end up as the one with two!). He refers to him as "more Isaac". This morning when I dropped them off, I asked them what they wanted to play with (the teachers leave various puzzles and games scattered around for kids to settle themselves into). They plopped right down next to Isaac who himself said a loud "Hi Isaac!" (while looking at Ethan).

I do wonder if the other kids are able to tell them apart. I presume the teachers can now since we've stopped putting name tags on them and they can still recognize them from a distance, usually. We are supposed to have parent-teacher meetings next week and I am looking forward to that. They seem to be settling in well and interacting, but I'm still curious whether the teachers see them as behaving age-appropriately in a social setting.

Out of all the treats they got for Halloween, I'm pleased that the one they are liking the best is the dinosaur egg the library was giving out. They loved putting them in the water and checking later to see the heads popped out. Now they'll wake up in the morning (if they're in our bed, which they usually end up in by morning), pop up and say "go see baby egg!"

Okay, am fresh out of cutisms for today (I need an outside observer to help me notice and remember!).

All About Two

I just realized the boys seem to have a thing for the number two. If you ask how much something costs, Ethan will say "two dollars". If you ask him the time, he'll say "two o'clock". And for some reason they both say "the two bears" instead of three, even though it's their favorite book du jour, along with the "two little pigs". their favorite part is "chinny chin chin" and "huff and puff". Isaac is also obsessed with porridge, thanks to Goldilocks. He'll ask to make some but then he gets upset if I suggest Goldilocks might come eat it.

The time thing came up because Ethan is nearly impossible to get to nap these days. It's an hour or more process of him first lying quietly, then running around his room playing with trains or whatever, then going pee pee three or four times, and on and on. Today, he got in our bed, kept looking at the clock and saying "two o'clock", then "time to sleep". Then he would be talking to me, then stop and order me to close my eyes and sing "lullaby" to me. Yeah, THAT'S what would help me sleep :)

Ethan also made me laugh tonight when we were at the park and Jack was teaching them to do long jumps into the sand. Isaac was very serious and jumped as far as he could. Jack was drawing a line to see if he could beat it. So Ethan drew a line for himself very close to the jumping point, then jumped over, applauding himself. I guess he's figured out it's easy to be successful when you lower the line :)

Isaac on the other hand has a thing about his nose now. He likes to smell everything. Occasionally he pronounces his daddy stinky, or something in the kitchen. He also pronounces food as good based on its smell. I'm not sure what kind of career there will be for a professional smeller (a chef like his uncle?)....

Safety Patrol

Last week was safety week at preschool. The policeman couldn't make it, but they enjoyed the fireman's visit. They still talk about fire and what to do. Isaac drew a picture of fire today. Let's hope though they really understand it's really dangerous. They practiced shouting "fire" and they know if their clothes catch on fire, they do the "stop, drop, and roll." They just noticed the smoke detector upstairs so I've been telling them if they hear that noise to go outside. On Friday, they came home telling me all about how they have to hold mama and daddy's hand to cross the street (of course t hey believe it if the teacher says so). They learned the word "stranger" and that they don't talk to them. They had also made books in school with green, yellow and red light which they practiced at home with their "train". Isaac would hold the book and tell Ethan red or green and vice versa.

They have been extremely polite lately too. I'm amazed at the number of times they say "thank you, mama" spontaneously. Tonight I was getting them each a juice popsicle since we were out of fruit (our usual bedtime snack) and Isaac said "thank you", then added "xie xie." They told me too that daddy is Chinese. Though I'm still not sure they really know what that means!

I'm sure there are more funnier stories I'll remember when I'm more awake. Tomorrow morning it's flu shots hopefully for all of us but at least for them before school and we have to take our car to the shop so it will be a very early morning. But we're used to that...

Vocabulary humor

It seems Ethan likes to try out new words every day. Yesterday, the word of the day was "forgot", which comes out as "got". It's fun to see them learn how different words work in different situations, rather than the one-word-fits-all approach. He used to say "missed it" to mean forgot. Of course yesterday he was saying "forgot" when I hadn't really (i.e. I hadn't got a chance to finish sorting their summer/winter clothes so there was a pile on the floor, which he thought I "forgot" rather than just didn't have time for!), but still. Today his words are "handsome" and "pretty".

He is also practicing the days of the week, though he is stuck on Monday and Saturday. Yesterday, Sunday, he kept insisting it was Monday. He finally by the end of the day got Sunday and this morning when he woke up, Jack asked him what day it was and he pointed his finger up and said "Saturday", then paused, said "No, Monday". Jack asked what day will it be tomorrow and he said "Tuesday." I think they are actually learning something at school :) His other favorite expression is "not today". I asked him if he needed to go pee pee and he said "no, not today". Of course he will use this to try to get out of anything too.!

Isaac of course has some funnies too. We started using a booster seat grandma gave us. Isaac especially is fond of it, but he calls it his "rooster". The other day when Ethan sat it in, he started screaming "Ethan, that's my cock-a-doodle-doo!". He also drew a pretty amazing dinosaur that is being used by my mom's art teacher colleague as an example of preschematic drawing (yeah, I had to look it up too).

Meantime, they do seem to like school, even if it seems they are perpetually sick with something. They like the big running around mat they have in their classroom (more like a gym set-up). It can be hard to actually find out what they did in school. They often have different stories about it like Isaac will tell me they played basketball, while Ethan will say "no, not today." But they talk more and more about their friends, learning their names. I wasn't sure what to do on Friday when I went to pick them up. They were still sitting in circle time and Ethan was sitting next to a girl and he was looking at me then would lean over and kind of kiss her on the back of the head a couple times. Neither the girl nor the teacher seemed to notice so I didn't make a big deal of it, but I certainly hope that's not a sign of things to come!

Blue-light moon

The boys are getting to the embarrassing stage. You know, the one where they ask why someone's fat or moon store clerks. Yes, that's right. Two days ago I was checking my K-Mart receipt when I heard the teller, a young lady clearly new, gasp and exclaim "Oh my." I looked, expecting to see someone getting into something they shouldn't but instead getting an eyeful of Ethan with his pants down. She was so shocked and horrified I had to try hard not to laugh. I just scolded him and shooed them out. I know it's not appropriate public behavior but I didn't know someone would be quite so shocked by it either, perhaps I'm just too used to kid behavior. It has happened on other occasions too, such as at Lowe's, where the sales girl just said "Um, they've got their pants down." She at least had good humor about it.

Despite all appearances, we do drill into them not to do that. For one thing, working with sex offenders, I know you never know what kind of creeps might be around. Sometimes they do actually get it and will get very upset about not having pants on. Isaac will say "big people no see pee pee".

Meantime, I find their personality differences quite educational. Ethan is more happy-go-lucky, as we've always known, but apparently that is more conducive to education. He often masters things before Isaac, I think because he doesn't have the same level of frustration. Isaac has always been more engaged and trying to understand how things work but gives up more easily. Ethan mastered making this toothbrush flash a long time ago while Isaac still hasn't and insists on getting help. Food for thought anyway.