First Haircut

Bye Bye Hawaii

We're back home after a lovely vacation in Hawaii. There's not much to report except that we had a great time.  We didn't do anything too exciting - just a lot of walking around, hanging out at the beach, etc.  Once we got to Oahu, we did visit the Honolulu Zoo (twice!) and the Aquarium and hung out on Waikiki Beach.  The zoo was a big hit with the girls and it makes me wish we lived near a zoo.

Aloha

I'm writing this post from beautiful, warm Kauai. A week or two ago Josh and I were talking about how nice it would be to go to Hawaii this winter. The winter has been rough with lots of snow, cold weather and illness after illness. So, after a lot of internet searching and phone calls, here we are!

This is our fourth time to Hawaii together and second time on Kauai. This trip is very different from our past visits to Hawaii - we haven't gone out to a meal once the whole trip (unless you count scarfing some Baja Fresh at LAX before our flight), haven't spent any time sitting by a pool with a mai tai, haven't gone bogey boarding, haven't gone snorkeling. Well, you get the point. Despite this and despite Maya coming down with croup and not going to sleep until 2 AM, we are still having an amazing time. The girls love the beach and love to play in the water. They love to run around the beautiful manicured greenbelt next to our rental house in bare feet and love to get wheeled around in the little red wagon we rented for them. Watching our two little girls run around in bare feet and cute sundresses makes up for those mai tais I'm missing this trip!


Maya eating breakfast


Maya in her cute sundress and hat.


The girls getting their first taste of "shave ice"


Maya enjoying her shave ice


Chasing chickens


Happy Kate


Kate, Maya and Josh hanging out at the beach


Maya loves the beach - even with croup

Warning:  This is a post wherein I brag about how cute and intelligent my children are.  Please look away if gushing mothers make you nauseous. 

The girls have been incredibly happy and easy going recently.  I'm not sure what happened except that maybe they finally feel healthy after being sick for a few weeks.  They woke up this morning at 7:30 giggling and playing Peek-A-Boo with each other in their cribs.   Finally after all those months of waking up too early cranky and crying we have happy morning babies!  Waking up to see two happy, laughing babies jumping up and down in the crib is the best.  (Well, maybe the best would be to wake up at 9 AM to see two happy, laughing babies instead of 7:30, but I can't be too picky).

So, they started out the day happy and it just continued.  It was pretty much a happy toddler fest at our house all day - lots of laughing, running around, and generally goofiness.  Kate spent a good part of the afternoon jumping up and purposefully landing on her bottom which sent her (and Maya) into hysterics each time.   She also has been practicing her "downward facing dog" which are transitioning into somersaults. 

Can you handle some more gushing?  Are you sure?  OK, here goes..

In our continuing quest to civilize our wild monkeys children and to eventually turn them into somewhat polite and functioning members of human society, we've been working on table manners.  We've been mostly working on the basics first - like "this is a fork, you use it to move food from your bowl to your mouth."  They are actually making great strides with their silverware - though, eating with their hands still predominates.  The big breakthrough today, though, was when I asked Maya if she wanted more food, she shook her head to say "yes" and then said "pweez". 

Is that not the cutest thing ever?  And to top it all, she was saying "yes, pweez" to another helping of broccoli. 

Well, that's enough gushing for one day. 

Pics

I've posted lots of pictures of the girls being messy while eating - now, here are two where they are kinda, sorta eating like normal people.  Kate can actually eat a whole bowl of cereal with a spoon - not that she choses to do so very often, but she can.   

Here's one of Maya playing and smiling - something that's been in short supply over the past week.  She's been sick with Roseola and a cold, plus has been cutting four new teeth (only four more to go!).  She's finally feeling better and is almost back to her normal, happy self.

A Date with Kate

Today, we all had "date afternoon" - this is kind of like "date night" but instead of going out to dinner and a movie with each other, Josh and I each took a kid out to do something special one on one.  I took Kate out and Josh took Maya.  Sadly, I don't think (or can't remember) ever doing anything with Kate when Maya isn't around except when Kate wakes up from her nap earlier than Maya. 

Josh took Maya out to lunch for pizza and then to a ski resort where they walked around.  Kate and I had a nice relaxed lunch at home, spent some time out on the driveway running around and playing with snow and then headed out to get coffee (me) and steamed milk (Kate) at a local cafe.  It was so much fun hanging out with just Kate - and, oh my, so much easier to have just one toddler to deal with.  Kate sat peacefully in the high chair, drank her milk and then happily ran around the cafe and waved at everyone.  We then walked around downtown - without a stroller!  I just let Kate walk around on her own and followed her to make sure she didn't run into traffic or get into something she shouldn't be in.  She just loved the freedom - something that is very difficult to do when there are two of them.  (Even when there are two adults, it's quite difficult to let two 15 month olds have free rein because inevitably they will run in opposite directions and unless we want to all get split up, we have to keep them in the same vicinity.)  Kate then fell asleep in the car (she skipped her morning nap), and I didn't have to worry about what to do with one kid who is awake and wants to get home and one who is asleep and needs to keep sleeping.  I just drove out to a local reservoir and watched it snow and listened to the radio while Kate snoozed.  All in all, it was a pretty perfect first date with Kate. 

Josh and I both realize that we really need to split the girls up more than we have been doing.  It's fun for everyone and  it lets both girls develop a relationship with each of us independent of her twin.  So, hopefully next weekend I can have a fun date with Maya.  I can't wait!

Laying down the law...

We ventured back to the river walk/duck pond again today - this time with Josh.  It was another lovely winter day, though, Kate was not as peaceful as the last time we went on the walk by the river.  Instead of just quietly watching the world go by and saying "hi" to the many dogs, Kate decided to spend a good part of the walk twisting and turning in her stroller restraints and screaming/screeching very loudly. 

Kate is intelligent, curious, generous, beautiful, funny, fearless, musical - all sorts of great things.  One thing she is not is quiet.  I'm not sure where she got her loud, booming voice from - neither Josh nor I have particularly loud voices - but, she surely does have a loud voice.  I've reached the point where I've kind of decided that I can't keep coddling her and trying to figure out what she wants when she screeches.  I usually respond to her when she complains/screams by offering her water, snacks, cuddles, singing, etc. - and it never really helps.    Everyone says you can't spoil a baby and I've tried to keep that in mind when dealing with the girls.  However, I'm pretty sure you can spoil a toddler and I'm starting to think that maybe my responding to her everytime she shrieks is actually encouraging her to shriek.  She still doesn't speak a lot, but she knows a lot of baby sign language and understands almost everything we're saying - so, it's not like she has to screech to get her point across.  So, I'm trying to ignore the shrieking and pay lots of attention to her when she is being quiet (er) and nice.  We'll see how it goes! 

Kate hanging out with the ducks

I love stores that have "double" carts.  The double carts are a big reason I do most of my grocery shopping at Costco.  Today I discovered that not only does Home Depot have double carts, but they have double carts with steering wheels.  How cool is that?  Kate and Maya loved it and made "vrooming" noises as we wheeled around Home Depot today.