Aaron

Aaron continually amazes me.  Yesterday at breakfast, Audrey was eating 3 kinds of cereal mixed together (Heart 2 Heart, a cereal we call hexagons, and Puffins).  Aaron told her "You have 2 squared minus 1 kinds!"

Today at breakfast, out of the blue, Aaron asked, "Are there 3 kinds of 2's?"  I thought he meant ways to draw 2 because we'd been learning about Roman numerals and looking at two ways to write an Arabic 2.  But when I asked what he meant, he said "There's the number two, T-O and T-O-O."  I was surprised he'd noticed, but also surpised he brought it up when he wasn't looking at books.

Math brain

I've mentioned before that Aaron likes math.  He loves numbers.  This extends to an obsession with time, including clocks, timers and calendars.  He's known the days of the week and the months of the year for awhile now.  He's been able to read an analog clock since he was 3 1/2.  He can even convert 24h time to 12h time.

For a long time, he's been pointing out when the digital clock on the cable box shows a pattern.  At 1:41 or 3:23 or 7:47 he'll shout the time followed by "It's a pattern!"  (And then wait for me to acknowledge this all important fact.)

More recently, he pointed out when it was 6:36 that it was a pattern and a square.  I thought he meant that 636 was a square number, but he meant that 36 is 6 squared.  A few days ago, he pointed out that 5:25 and 1:01 were similar.  I said, what about 4:16?  He said, it's not a pattern. 

So he decided that times that represent a number and that numbered squared, like 4:16, are called ki-NAY-zures.  (I'm not sure on the spelling, but that's how he pronounced it.)  But times that represent a number and the number squared that are also patterns, like 6:36 and 5:25, are called CUL-i-nay-zures.

He also pointed out that 8:64 would be a ki-NAY-zure, but that it is really 9:04. 

I love how his mind works.  Now I just wish he didn't melt down every time his sister touched the calculator.  He's been squentially squaring numbers starting with 1 and he's into the 1000s now.  He doesn't like her to mess it up (since it remembers where he left off).

Pumpkin Patch

Thom and Aaron planted heirloom pumpkin seeds this summer and put the seedlings down in the orchard.  In no time at all, we had a large pumpkin patch.  The kids loved to go see their pumpkins.  This weekend, some of the pumpkins were ready to harvest.



On the way to harvest pumpkins



These pumpkins are now sitting outside our front door

The pumpkin patch mid-September

Also mid-September

It was amazing how quickly the little pumpkin seedlings turned into what you see in the last two photos.  This was about 6 pumpkin plants.  Altogether we got 11 mature pumpkins.  We lost one big one and another small one to some kind of fungus, but the rest avoided it.  We'll save some seeds from this year's crop and do it again next year. 

Raise your hand

Kim has been working with Audrey on raising her hand.  It's something that the kids do at some of the preschool groups they go to.  So for example, when they are playing storytime at home, she'll say "Raise your hand if you want Aaron to read another story."  And Audrey will raise her hand.  This is something new just in the last couple of weeks.  Kim worked hard to get her to this point.

Today when they were out, Kim said "Raise your hand if you want a sandwich."  And Audrey raised two hands and said "I raised two hands.  I want two sandwiches!"

Later, when they came home, I was eating chips and 5 layer dip.  Audrey kept asking for a chip and I kept giving little chips to her.  But one time, she came over and said "Raise your hand if you want another chip." And then she raised her hand high and kept telling me that she wanted a chip.  It took me a minute to give her one because I was laughing so hard.

Audrey turns 2!

Here's Audrey at her 2 year checkup.  She loved her little gown.  At 23 lbs she has stayed at 8th percentile for weight.  She's around 15th percentile for height at 32.25".  She got her last Hep B shot that day and a flu shot.  She didn't cry for the first shot, but she did for the second one.  She quieted down pretty quick, though. 

Aaron came along to get his 4 year booster shots that we didn't get at his checkup because he'd had a fever close enough to the appointment that they wanted to wait.  And eventually I had waited so long, I just took him in with Audrey.  He also got his flu shot.  So those are out of the way.  This was the first time Aaron got shots in his arm.  The arm with the TDap swelled up and was sore, which is common on the 4th and 5th doses.  I remember getting one after Audrey was born since whooping cough is making a come back in California and my arm was sore for several days.  Aaron complained about it, but without as much drama as I might have expected.  He just didn't want me to touch his arm or to hug him because he said it was sore.  But he hugged me carefully instead.  Unfortunately, I'm reading that whooping cough immunity seems to wane after only 3 years, so unless they come out with a new vaccine, I'm wondering if boosters will become a regular event.  It is combined with the tetanus, which is supposed to be every 5-10 years anyway.

Audrey's birthday turned into birthday week.  She got a present from her nanny the Thursday before (bean bags and a board to throw then through).  Then a present from us on her birthday (a wooden tea set).  A present from her sitter on Sunday (a doll stroller), followed in a few days by a present from Aunt Janine (a bouncy horse) and finally a delayed present from us (a parking garage) which arrived late.  She loves all her gifts and she and Aaron fight over them.  Except the bouncy horse which Aaron is afraid he will pop.  Here is a video of Audrey the first time she got on her "bouncy".  I took it with my phone and can't figure out how to rotate it 90 degrees, but you can still get the idea.

The stroller is one of the most contentious toys.  We have two wagons which I always thought could be strollers with a bit of imagination.  But nothing compares to a real doll stroller and they both want to push it around.  Aaron usually crashes it or gets in the way when Audrey wants to push it.  It's a constant battle. 

At 2, Audrey is quite a character.  She is a very happy, mischievous little being and full of drama if she doesn't get what she wants.  She seems to have mastered making her eyes well up with tears with her lips pouting if she hears the word "no".  Or "not now", or "after you eat your breakfast".  But she is so happy and excited when she announces she wants Autumn Wheat for breakfast.  In a bowl.  With milk on it.  And a spoon!  Oh the joys of breakfast.  Unless she sees her blue kitty sitting around and wants her blue kitty and you tell her "after you eat your breakfast."  (And you have to say "after you eat your breakfast" rather than "when you are finished" because with the latter, she will immediately announce "All done!" with a bowl nearly full of breakfast.)

Speaking of which, her blue kitty is currently her favorite "buddy" (as we call the kids stuffed animals).  She gets it up with her every day and carries it around and puts it in the doll stroller with Pink Rosie.  Sometimes she loves Mouse more (which is really a bunny), but usually it is kitty these days.  She'll be playing Duplos one handed with her other arm wrapped firmly around blue kitty's neck.  It's interesting to see because Aaron never had that kind of attachment to a toy.  With Audrey, it's not that specific toy so much as it's the fact that she wants to be holding something close most of the time.  It's only been blue kitty for a couple of weeks, but before that it was something else.

She has quite a vocabulary. She is stringing words into longer and longer sentences and getting more specific about things.  Yesterday it was not just raining.  It was "The rain drops on the patio."  I don't remember the sentence, but the other day she said something at least 7 words long.  I wrote before that at 18 months she had about as many words as Aaron did at 2 years and she has continued to improve her vocabulary every day.

Like Aaron (and their mom), she loves books.  She likes to page through them.  Both at home and at the library.  Below, I had started to stack books we might take home on a table.  Audrey sat down and starting paging through them.  She pretends to read them.  If she knows the title of the book, she'll repeat that for each page.  It's adorable.

She is continuing to improve in the potty training department.  More and more often she poops on the potty, but 40% of the time it's still in her diaper.  Since she turned 2, I've been making more of an effort to put her on the potty periodically and soon plan to switch over to pull-ups more consistently since I think that will encourage her to go.  And because diapers are a hassle on someone who wants to use the potty more often.

And now she is awake from nap.  She usually naps from 1-3pm every day.  Sometimes longer, sometimes a little shorter.  But I'd better go get her.

Naptime

So I guess Aaron has hit that inevitable stage of not taking naps every day.  I'm determined that he has at least quiet time in his room at naptime until he starts Kindergarten.  But since he tends to melt down more on days he doesn't nap, I'm not ready to give up naps completely.  So I've been experimenting to see what works.

He had gotten to the point where he was only going to sleep at naptime 2-3 times a week.  On days he didn't sleep, he would be noisy enough I'd have to go in a few times.  I tried rewarding him when I didn't have to go in (with an unspecified "special treat" after naptime).  I tried punishing him if I did have to go in (taking away buddies and losing bedtime stories).  But it wasn't working.  He was also starting to have to go #2 during naptime, so he'd make noise until I came down to his room and then he'd tell me he had to go.  He used to go before naptime like clockwork, but before naptime, he'd say he didn't have to go and wouldn't go despite sitting on the potty before naptime.  Since I work while the kids nap, his interruptions were becoming a problem. 

First, we tried allowing him quiet time in his room until 1:30pm.  At 1:30, he needed to stop playing and get in bed.  This worked well for a couple of days.  But then he started getting too many toys out and couldn't relax in bed at 1:30 because he felt like he had to clean up.  After catching him out of bed on two occasions after 1:30, we cut out the quiet time privilege.  But we went back to the same problems as before.

So starting last week, I implemented a suggestion from our nanny.  If he takes a good nap one day, meaning even if he doesn't actually sleep, he is quiet and doesn't have to come out to go potty, then he earns quiet time the next day.  But quiet time now is from 1-3pm.  This way he doesn't have to worry about cleaning up and getting into bed.  If he's not quiet during quiet time and I have to come in, he's done with quiet time and has to get in bed.  Even if he has a good quiet time (and so far he always has), the next day is still a nap day.  So at most he can have quiet time every other day.  That hasn't happened yet.  In the 10 days since we've started this, he's had 2 bad nap days where he didn't earn quiet time the next day.  In fact, one day he even woke Audrey up an hour early.  But the days after a bad nap day, he had good naps, even if he didn't sleep.  So I know he can be quiet. 

On quiet time days, he can take books into his room and I leave his closet doors unlocked and open.  He usually takes beginner reader books with him and I'll hear him reading them at the start of nap time (talking quietly is OK, just not loud banging or yelling).  At 3pm when he opens his door, I can see what he's done during nap time.  Typically, he'll have gotten out all the wooden letter blocks and organized them by letter.  He has some sight words in a little box and he'll have those out and lined up on the floor.  He has fraction cards with little fraction pie pieces from 1 whole to twelfths (excluding 7ths 9ths and 11ths) and he'll have those out.  He has cuisinaire rods which he'll have out and sorted by color, lined up on the ground.  So there is a lot of stuff out on the floor, but it is all sorted and organized.  He's in an organizational phase lately.

The whole band

Aaron and Audrey perform a duet.  Sort of.

My little musician

Do-Re-Mi like you've never heard it.

Audrey

Audrey reading a book to her doll.

Preschool

Some photos from our preschool lesson today. Our theme was the sun and we also talked about the color yellow and circles.

Gettin' some love

Every morning either before the kids leave with Kim or before Thom goes to work (if he leaves before them), the kids give Papa some love.  Love involves hugs, nose kisses (aka eskimo kisses) and kisses.  And sometimes more hugs.

Eating oatmeal with Papa

Thom shares his banaba blueberry oatmeal with Audrey.

Reading

Kim takes Aaron to storytime at our local Barnes & Noble and one day they picked up a form for their summer reading program.  Kids read 8 books, record them on the form and then they get a free book (one of about 18 pre-selected children's books).  They had picked up the form last month and then we'd forgotten about it and lost the form. But last weekend, Aaron suddenly remembered and when they went last week, they picked up another form. 

That was Thursday.  On Friday, Aaron was so excited, he read 2 books to me before we did preschool at 10am. I wrote them on the form for him.  He was so excited.  He carried his entry form around all morning, showing it to the kids and moms who came over for preschool.  He carried it outside when we went to look at trees (our preschool theme).  The form was getting pretty wrinkled. 

After nap time, he read a few more.  He did a great job of picking out books that he could read almost all on his own.  Mostly board books, but not all.  Sometimes he needed help with words.  He wanted to keep reading but we had to go to the grocery story.  We actually had to fight with him over it.  When we left for the store, he had 3 books to go.  He read 2 more to me after we got back while I prepared dinner.  Then he read the last one at storytime before bed.

There was another storytime at B&N on Saturday so I decided to take him to reward him for doing such a great job reading all 8 books in one day.  But first I made a photcopy of the filled in book journal because he seemed so proud of it and I knew we'd have to hand it in.  The woman at B&N who does storytime on Saturday was the same one who does it on Thursdays so she knows Aaron well.  (We'd also been the previous Saturday.)  He was excited to show her the list and then she showed him the display of books from which he could choose. 

He picked one called Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig.  (Mercy actually is a pig).  The story is just OK in my opinion, but Aaron loves that book.  It's his free book that he got for reading 8 books.  It has 15 chapters (about 3 pages each with pictures).  He's so excited that it has chapters and that it has 15 of them.  If you forget to say the chapter and number when you are reading, he'll remind you.  He has been carrying his book around.  Yesterday we even took it to the library to show our friends we were meeting there.

This is the most excited Aaron has been about reading books.  We have 3 different library systems near us and they all have summer reading programs.  Even though they only award small prizes and not books, I thought about signing him up.  But sadly one just ended and the others end very early August so I don't think we'll get signed up in time.  As a lover of books and avid reader, I couldn't be more proud of him.  I hope he continues to love reading. 

July



First attempt at ponytails



Aaron playing chess with Grandpa

 OK, I guess I'm long overdue for an update. 

Audrey

Audrey's hair is now long enough for ponytails.  The first time I tried it (pictured above) she wanted them out within 5 minutes.  Now she asks for them in the morning.  As soon as I'm done, she runs to the mirror and looks at herself. 

She's very particular about what she wears, too.  Or at least about having control over what she wears.  It's very hard to pick something out for her anymore.  She's just as happy picking out drab hand-me-downs from Aaron as she is about picking out girly hand-me-downs from family and friends.  And she loves shoes, but isn't specific about whose.  She sees shoes, she wants to wear them and walk around. 

She is also obsessed with books!  That's my girl.  She piles up a stack of books and sits on the floor in the play area and goes through the books by herself.  If she knows the title, (like one called Wow!  Babies!), she will repeat the title as she pages through the books.  "Wow babies." Turn page. "Wow babies". Turn page.  "Wow babies."  This is more likely when I'm not in the room or in the afternoon after nap time.  First thing in the morning, she tries to get me to read to her.

She's teething all the time.  She's got the top 4 front teeth and the bottom 4 front teeth.  But next to those she has spaces followed by molars (so 4 molars total).  The spaces are starting to fill in.  Her favorite thing to alleviate teething pain is to chew on a wet washcloth.  She calls it a "chew".  She goes to the bathroom where we keep a basket of kids washcloths, pulls one out and climbs up on the step stool to try to get it wet.  I try to intervene so that she only gets a corner of it wet.  Then she'll go play with it hanging out of her mouth.  We find old chews on the floor all the time.  She tends to go through a couple a day if we don't manage to stop her.

Aaron

Aaron is such a big boy now.  He's reading pretty consistently.  If you remember, he read his first simple book just before turning 3.  We'd try to get him to read words here and there at story time before bed, but he more often than not didn't want to and we didn't push it.  But sometime after turning 4, he started reading parts of the stories and then picking out beginner books that he could read.  Some nights he has read all of his bedtime stories.  When we are out, he'll point out words on signs.  With his penchant for numbers, he enjoys reading exit signs on the freeway.  "There's Exit 18, Mama!"

He still loves music, too.  There is a folk group that we catch once a month when they play in the morning.  They have guitars, a stand-up bass (his favorite), a mandolin (his other favorite) and sometimes a banjo or other instruments.  And there is another band that plays at coffee houses in the afternoons that we are usually able to catch once a month.  They have a CD and we now own two copies.  I bought the first copy after we saw them the second time.  I enjoy their music as much as Aaron.  Then the 3rd time we saw them, a couple was watching them for the first time and were so enthralled by how interested Aaron was in the music, they bought him a copy.  (I think the fact that Aaron requested a song by name impressed them, too.  It's instrumental music - no lyrics.)  The back of the CD case lists the tracks and the time of each track and Aaron quickly memorized that info.  He knows how many minutes and seconds each song is and what the track number is.  That kid likes numbers.

I've been doing an hour long preschool program with Aaron and including other kids.  At first a friend and I were doing it at our houses on my morning off or in the afternoon, but then her parents paid for her older son to go to preschool twice a week and she's having baby #3 next month so we gradually lost momentum.  But Aaron really enjoyed it.  He started drawing with crayons more, something he never really wanted to do.  And he started trying to write numbers and letters.  And he'd ask about preschool when we didn't do it.  So this summer, I started doing it on my own.  I tried doing it at a park, but there were a lot of little bugs that annoyed Aaron, so now we are doing it at home.  We've had different friends join us each week.  There's too much going on in the summer for the other kids.  But I'm hoping we find a few families that want to join us consistently.  I'd like to keep this up until he goes to Kindergarten next year.  And at that point, I hope Audrey is enjoying it and I will keep doing it with her.  Right now, she listens to the story and colors during the craft project, but mostly she kind of wanders around and plays with stuff.

Oh, I taught Aaron how to play chess a couple of months ago.  I set up the chess board after nap time one day and told him the names of all the pieces and how they moved.  An hour or so later when I was making dinner, he wanted to play again.  I said I couldn't right then, but maybe later.  While I was in the kitchen, he set all the chess pieces back in the correct place.  He seems to like the game, but doesn't have any strategy.  And by that, I mean he doesn't try to get his opponent's pieces.  He just likes to move the pieces.  I tried to take him to chess club at the library a couple of times, but he's not quite ready.  They expect kids to play quietly and focus on the game and at 4, Aaron's not ready to do that.  I thought it would help him learn the game.  So for now, we just play at home sometimes. 

Or at my parents house.  As you see in the picture up above, my parents have this awesome chess set with oversize pieces.  My mom made the ceramic pieces about 40 years ago when we lived in Ohio but had never finished them.  My dad came across them in their shed a month or so ago.  They had them fired and my dad built a custom chess board for them.  Aaron loved it.  The hard part was keeping Audrey away from the pieces. 

Piano!

We've been thinking about getting an electric piano for a long time.  Aaron showed an early interest in music and instruments and I played piano growing up.  We have a keyboard the kids have been playing with, and although it was a nice keyboard, it wasn't a full 88 keys and we didn't have a frame and seat for it, so I rarely played it.  Thom found a nice Casio piano online which we just set up yesterday.  It sounds great and both the kids love it.  I've even gotten a chance to play it.  And a nice feature is the ability to use headphones with it since my best time to get on there is when the kids are asleep.

I have some of the books I had when I was in lessons as a kid and I play to start teaching Aaron.  He puts a book of music on the piano and pretends he's playing it.  So far he can find middle C (on the piano, not the notation for it) and he recognizes a treble clef and bass clef on sheet music.

Aaron turns 4!

Aaron turned 4 last month.  We didn't do a party this year, but there were many celebrations.  We went out to lunch the day before his birthday with Grandma and Grandpa.  On his birthday we took him out to lunch at In N Out Burger, which was his choice.  We surprised him by inviting another family to join us, our friends Mark and Jill and their two kids.  And we brought a trifle cake from home.

And that afternoon, I took him to see a local band he enjoys that was playing at a coffee shop. And best of all, that evening, Auntie Lia and Uncle George joined us for dinner. Auntie Lia cut Aaron's hair and Audrey's bangs. Auntie Lia had come and cut Aaron's hair a while back and Aaron said several times that he wanted her to come back and cut his hair on his birthday. And she was happy to oblige. He had a great birthday weekend.

A few weeks after his birthday, we had his 4 year checkup.  He was a little over 40 lbs and a little over 40".  He didn't get his booster shots that day because he'd been having a fever.  He had a fever for 5 days for no apparent reason.  Mostly just in the afternoons.  In the mornings, it was generally between 99-100, but it would shoot up over 101 in the afternoons.  One day it went up so fast, by the time I was ready to give him Tylenol it was over 104 (I wanted to give it to him over 103 but missed it).  I had to force him to take the Tylenol even with a bribe of cookies, but after a dose and a cool bath, his fever was down under 102.  It was apparently some unnamed virus and other than a slightly runny nose and being more tired than usual, he seemed perfectly fine.
 
At four, Aaron is reading more regularly, pointing out words when we are out and about.  He often reads one of his bedtime stories now.  Also, since his pullups have been dry in the morning, he now has the option to wear underwear at night.  So far he's been going back and forth between pullups and underwear.  He only had one accident and that was when he had the fever.  Around the time of the fever there were a few nights when he woke up to pee, but other than that time, he's pretty much sleeping through the night.
 
Another big change happened around the time he turned 4.  For about 3 years, he had oatmeal for breakfast every morning.  Usually with a banana, sometimes with blueberries.  But for weeks he was eating really slow and goofing off with his sister at breakfast instead of eating.  It was an hour long battle to get him to finish his oatmeal that he used to eat willingly.  Finally we decided to stop doing oatmeal.  Now he eats cereal with milk, picking out a different cereal each morning.  Sometimes shredded wheat squares (Autumn Wheat), sometimes Kashi's Heart to Heart, or Puffins.  And he eats it quickly, without us having to remind him to eat his breakfast.  The end of oatmeal in the mornings felt like the end of an era in our household.  I thought he'd eat oatmeal every day until he left for college.
 

For some reason, we've been having more melt-downs and time-outs with him.  Baths and hair washing have become a struggle with him and he often doesn't listen to us.  He's always been a rule follower so we've had it pretty easy.  But suddenly he's trying to circumvent the rules or outright lies to us.  Or he'll pull an Oliver North and say he can't remember if he hit his sister - 2 seconds after it happened. 

 

Despite some of the problems of acting out with his sister, he is actually a very good brother.  He often asks her questions (like "Is it Monday, Audrey?") and then tells her the answer if she doesn't know.  Or he'll tell her things (like "Look, Audrey, there's a bunny.")  I think it helps her to learn.  And he also tries to distract her with a change in conversation when she's crying or upset.  Sometimes it gets annoying because she'll be crying and he's yelling over her trying to cheer her up, but it's very sweet. 

Audrey at 18 months

Wow.  So Audrey is 18 months now.  Closer to 19 months, really.  And she is finally sleeping through the night.  The last 4 nights she has gone down between 7:30 and 8:00pm and sleeps past 7am in the morning.  Just a month ago she was waking up 3 times a night and sometimes keeping me up for an hour or more.  I was going crazy.  It's only been 4 nights, but it feels much longer.  It feels like a new era.  I knew for a long time that I was doing all the wrong things to get her to sleep better, but she's so little and still seemed like our baby so letting her cry for long stretches was too much for me.  Ultimately, we found a way that wasn't too painful for anyone.  It actually happened much faster than I expected. 

And now that she is sleeping well (she is also down to one approx 2 hour nap a day) she is nursing less.  After I cut out the night-time feedings (within the last month), I still nursed her when she got up in the morning.  But now we don't do that, either, since she stopped asking.  She usually still wants to nurse in the afternoon and before bed, but I think those will gradually go away now. 

And because she is nursing less, she is eating more.  She now eats the same oatmeal Aaron has for breakfast, although only a tiny fraction.  This is a big improvement over the first time I introduced oatmeal to her and she gagged on it.  She used to only eat crunchy snacks - cereal, crackers, chips, freeze dried fruit.  But she is gradually eating more and more.  Including yogurt, sandwiches, grapes, apple slices, cheese.  Stuff seems to taste better to her if it comes from Aaron's plate/bowl.

At her 18 month checkup, she weighed just 20 lbs 8 oz.  20 lbs is the minimum to put her in a forward facing car seat, but the new recommendations are to keep them rear-facing until 2 years, so we will probably do that.  She was down to the 5th percentile for weight.  The pediatrician didn't seem too concerned since she is otherwise healthy and weight gain tends to slow down at this age. 

Since she said her first word at 9 months, she was definitely ahead of Aaron on vocabularly.  I kept a spreadsheet list of the words Aaron knew at 2 years (a partial list is here).  I opened it up and created a new sheet with Audrey's words by 18 months.  Both lists were just under 180 words, but given that I forgot some, I'd say Aaron had about 200 words at age 2 and Audrey had about the same at 18 months.  Makes sense since she started talking 6 months sooner than he did.  Here is Audrey's list of words (she's added many, many more in the weeks since she turned 18 months - it's scary how fast she picks up new words):

hi

baby
Papa
Mama
Grandma
brother
Aaron
Audrey
Kim
Madeleine
boy
girl
ball
chicken
buddies
doggie
puppy
kitty
pig
sheep
horse
cow
bear
bunny
rhino
giraffe
duck
bird
monkey
penguin
alien
hat
shirt
sock
shoes
jammies
pants
jacket
hood
button
zipper
car
truck
train
star
bye
please
help
hug
kiss
yeah
ok
no
yeah
play
sit
off
done
go
more
again
away
table
door
paper
phone
book
hamper
cup
bowl
plate
milk
juice
food
waffle
grapes
apple
orange
pear
carrot
pea
green bean
cheese
chip
cracker
pretzel
bread
joe's o's
turkey
pizza
pasta
fun
open
up
down
in
out
buckle
cold
hot
on
off
clap
poop
pee
toot
bath
potty
flush
eye
nose
face
hair
ears
mouth
tongue
cheek
belly button
teeth
toes
arm
leg
hand
finger
foot
knee
head
tummy
neck
necklace
color
blue
pink
purple
red
two
nine
wagon
sack
bubble
night night
pillow
wet
water
walk
piano
guitar
drum
clock
move
crib
bed
chair
hop hop
cute
mirror
comb
dry
boogies
lap
tower
couch
push
dirty
clean
blanket
flower
timer
bow
work
home
this
that
drawer
clip
cupboard
did it
job (as in good job)
earthquake

(Earthquake is a game I play with her.  She doesn't know the real meaning.)
 
Although she says a few colors, she doesn't really seem to know which colors are which yet.  She also knows more instrument words than Aaron did at 2 since she picks them up from him.  As far as speech goes, she's been pretty stereotypical for a girl, I guess, speaking much earlier than Aaron.  She is not quite stringing words into sentences, but she is close.  She'll say things like "Papa.  Work."  Meaning: I don't see Papa.  He must be at work.
 
She is also trying to potty train.  She's not really ready in my opinion, but I don't want to discourage her.  She knows when she has to go and I'll put her on the potty.  A little more than 50% of the time she will pee when I put her on.  There have been mornings where her diaper or pullup (I alternate between them) stays dry because she is telling me she needs to go potty and waiting to be put on the toilet. She can't quite get her pants down by herself and she's too small to get on the potty by herself, but she is so interested in doing it.  She cries if I don't let her have some toilet paper (which she doesn't get unless she really goes potty).  And she loves trying to flush the potty and then climbs up the step stool to wash her paws.  She wants to be just like big brother.
 
I'll try to post an update on Aaron soon.  I can't believe he is almost 4.