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!).