April showers bring May flowers, right? Well at least they brought some nice weather that lets us finally get outside. We’ve finally been able get out of the house, clean up the yard, and give the boys something new to do. They love to play in the sand, walk around the yard, and visit the neighbors. One of their favorite past times lately is to shovel dirt into their cars and then spray it with their pump fire hose until it becomes mud and they ask us to wash it out with the hose and then repeating the cycle. It is really fun to watch them each focused on their task and then working together.
Speaking of working together, the boys are spending more time playing with each other instead of playing around each other. They help each other, they bring things to each other, and sometimes they work together. It’s not without its share of fighting, of course. Zach is extremely fond of yelling “stop it” at Adam for any number of reasons and there is always a chance that one of them pokes the other one in some way or another. They like to have word fights where they yell “no” at each other at escalating volumes and then laugh about it. At bed time Zachary likes to pretend that he can’t pull his blanket out of his crib so Adam will do it for him, and he does, and proudly delivers it to Zach’s enjoyment. They are definitely brothers and definitely friends.
Both of the boys are becoming more and more observant and talkative about the things around them. They like to look out the window at the delivery trucks and say “Bye fire truck” as they drive away. Apparently anything larger than an SUV is a fire truck now… They are starting to associate certain sentences with situations now too. When I told Adam that I had to take a shower this morning he said “Daddy stink, Daddy stink. Daddy take a shower”. It was the most adorable insult I’d ever heard.
Zach is just as talkative as ever, chatting about the things that people are doing (“Mumma open it; Daddy get the mail”, etc), and even babbling unintelligible sentences to himself. Needless to say the car rides are filling with more and more chit-chat. The boys are also really good at being polite with other people, saying “Hi”, “Thank You”, “Bye Bye”, and even “Have a good weekend” without being asked. Even some of the whining has been replaced with sentences like “I need more [item]”. They are also getting better at expressing their opinions. Phrases such as “I like [item]” and “I no like [item]” are getting more and more common.
Our little boys are growing up as they say. Adam is able to undress himself for a bath or pajamas and both of them can put on their shoes (not perfectly but enough). They will finally wipe their noses on a cloth if you ask them (sometimes) and really enjoy “making” things for Mommy and Daddy in their kitchen such as coffee and cupcakes. They still love music and dancing. Lately Adam has been telling us which songs he does not like in the car by saying “No! No!” and “Turn it up”.
Adam’s poop saga continues. We took him to a play therapist who observed him playing while talking to us about things that we could try. She initially thought that he had ADD because we said that he is very busy and generally has a short attention span. His behavior in her office combined with our stories of how he generally takes instructions well and puts himself into time out shifted her away from that diagnosis.
Her thought is that he had a bad experience with a hard poop at some point and never wants to experience it again. Our assignment: be more empathetic. Tell him that we understand and that we’d be scared too and then provide him with an option to make him feel better such as picking him up or rubbing his back. We love our children but we tend to be “get over it” sort of people, so this is a bit of a challenge, but we are giving it a try.
Adam had a really terrible incident late last week that had both of us in tears while he was on the toilet at 10 o’clock at night. We returned to about an 80% dose of Miralax this week and he has done much better, pooping almost every day, sometimes without as much as a grunt. We still want to get rid of it so we are going to drop it down to about a 60% dose and see how that goes. If the poop is still soft hopefully the empathy will help him feel comfortable about it again.
One of our favorite things about the warm weather is that we can take the boys outside after work but the downside is that it gets them pretty riled up. The witching hour starts at about 7:15 and the boys begin bouncing off of the walls regardless of whether they’ve been out or not. There is lots of running, jumping, and not a lot of listening. That’s when time out generally happens. In short, it’s as crazy as ever but the boys are continuing to become more independent. Someday we’ll start to formally potty train them and someday (ugh) we’ll transition them to toddler beds. We’ll see what the summer brings.
Relatively Ambitious 