Wrapping Up 2012: The Kid Post

Maggie - 19 months old

• Still super snuggly, cuddly. Walks up to people she knows and hugs both legs. Still crashes into your chest for some snuggle time before naps and bed.
• 19 months is sweet...but it's also a tricky age. She had her first full-on temper tantrum a few weeks ago. My memory on how it began is fuzzy - I think I wouldn't give her a sharpie I was using. I know, cruel. Crying -> throwing herself on the floor -> kicking -> eventually tiring out almost to the point where she was asleep. She was so chilled out and weepy afterwards (I had been a safe distance away where I could watch, but not interrupt the show) she took her first morning nap in months. A fit like that will tire you out!
• LOVES to wave bye bye and tell people and any passing car bye bye. In parking lots, she waves at everything moving. And although she can clearly say bye bye, she usually doesn't. It's just this long, loud, ahh-ahhhhhhh - that kind of has the intonation of a bye bye. Lots and lots of waving. She's totally figured out parent/grandparent/babysitter hand-offs too. When she sees someone knew show up (like Bee coming over), she immediately starts waving bye bye to me (even if I'm not going anywhere).
• Just got over a little upper-respiratory infection (and ear infection) that produced a really nasty weeze and cough. She settled into the twice-daily nebulizer treatment and we learned she loooooves amoxicillan. Sucked it down like candy - and it wasn't even the flavored kind! 
• She loves iphones. She likes to push the buttom to make my cover photo (of the three kids) show up. It's one of the first things she goes for when its out - and she'll walk around w/ it up to her ear says "ah - ahhh" which sort of sounds like hello the way she says it. On a less cute note, she through my phone in the trash the other day. Kyle spotted it before I even knew it was missing and thankfully before the trash was taken out. Yikes. 
• She can open doors now and let me tell you this is a game changer. We have borrowed my dad's baby gate and are using two of those door-knob things but before we implemented that (this week) we never knew where she was. I'd be cooking dinner and she'd wander down the hallway (me thinking that's okay because all the doors are closed) and then I'd hear water running and she's in the master bathtub fully clothed. Drawers emptied. Potties played in. Books torn. Awesomeness. 
• She loves her belly. She rubs it. Pats it. Knows it by name. And she loves other people's belly's to. If you let her (or even if you don't) she'll try to pull your shirt up to rub your belly. It's her thing

Rebecca - 3.5 years old (almost)

•  Picture below - her eye injury after face planting on our parquet floor off of her "bee" (riding toy) - we've had lots of eye injuries lately. She's a bruiser, in more than one sense.
• Her made up name for everyone - Silly Bookers. There are worse names to be called. 
• She continues to be sneaky...candy from her stocking hidden in her cowboy boots. 
• Wants to turn the lights on in the car because "the darkness hurts my feelings". 
• Starting to really really care what she wears. Enter, the blinking shoes. I caved in. It's a challenge to get dressed every morning. Mostly we struggle with weather-appropriateness. Majorly into the same couple of dresses and skirts. Hates pants. I actually understand...
• Made me a page covered in princess stickers and told me not to throw it away because that would be so sad and horrid. Horrid.
• When told she needed to go back in her room for quiet play time she told me that being alone is not good. So, sayeth the extrovert. 
• More sneakiness - hiding under a very thin sarong (instead of a blanket) - with a light-up tinkerbell well after bedtime. Seemed shocked when Kyle pulled the sarong back and found her. How did he do it? She was hiding so well!
• Not only likes to give kisses with an animal theme (pink kiss - oink!), but invented a dangerous little number called the jump kiss. She tries to jump up to your face to give you a kiss but noses or chins invariably get bonked. Sweet intentions, bad outcomes.

 Owen - 5.25 years

•  Evolving interests - we had outerspace for a while, then snakes. Now it's bacteria. (Snakes are still pretty in.) He seriously all by himself decided he wanted a microscope for Christmas. And Bee came through. It came with slides so he and Kyle (mostly) have been enjoying checking its bitsy things out - favorites include: flea, Owen's hair, white blood cells and red blood cells. Cheese mold is coming soon (thanks to our fridge). The other day in the car they were talking about bacteria and then something interrupted them to which Owen replied a few minutes later - Dad, let's get back to bacteria. Yes, let's. He even started telling me the other day about coksi something or other. I think that's a kind of bacteria or something. These two together and dangerously nerdy. It's a good thing Kyle has recently rekindled his love for college football (Gig'em Aggies!) to add a little balance...
• Has been playing the game "memory" a lot and thinks he's pretty good. Told our babysitter Amy last week that she should probably prepare herself to loose. (He actually wanted her to be prepared. It's like genuine caring masquerading as smack-talk.)
• Says "What in the world" all the time.
• Hums, ALL THE TIME.
• To Rebecca's whining in the car the other day, said (sort of under his breath) - I can't little to this. (Perhaps he's been listening to me - sorry!)
• Has been trying to teach Rebecca about why there is a dark side of the moon. She just starts singing the moon song at him to drown out the lesson.
• Everything is "snudge" - it's his word. Momma, look, I made a "snudge-mobile" out of legos! 
• Owen started the blinking shoes debacle. He was obsessed and since he's worn the same merrill shoes (different sizes of the exact same shoe) since he started walking - I caved in - hoping we'll get it out of his system before kindergarten where I think they'd be too distracting. He had the choice between Spiderman and StarWars. He chose StarWars because he doesn't like either but thought the StarWars ones looked less StarWars-y than the Spiderman ones looked Spiderman-y. He was right. And now he kicks everything all the time to make them blink. I consider this a parenting failure on my part. 
• He's always got a project he wants to work on. Remember the Sail Fish costume from a few weeks ago? Did I tell you about building the Gup? (We never finished it...shhhhhh! I'm hoping he forgets!) Well, this time it was rhino horns for him to wear. Why rhino horns? Because "I thought about a rhino and how they have cool horns and so I thought it would be cool if I could make some to pretend to be a rhino."

And those are how are sweet babies are wrapping up 2012.