A Week of Bugs

For a guy who had never been on antibiotics before, Ryan has had quite a week. Last Thursday, he woke up with pink eye, completely out of the blue. After a call to his doctor, we soon had an antibiotic eye drop waiting for us at the pharmacy. I felt thankful that it could be diagnosed over the phone, saving us a trip to the pediatrician's office. Little did I know, we'd be visiting the doctor's office for something else in a few short days.

The pink eye cleared up quickly, and seemed to be nothing more than a nuisance for Ryan (and Lucie who had a touch of it too). Lucie and Ryan absolutely hated getting their eye drops, but Ducky and Bunny were good sports and elected to take their doses first to make L & R feel more at ease. Ever since, giving eye drops to stuffed animals has turned into a favorite game (along with breaking in their backpacks and "Ha-wa-yee sandals" which they are doing here).

Yesterday at the park Ryan started complaining about one of his ears hurting. Another call to the doctor's office and we had an appointment that afternoon. I guess that anytime kids complain of ear pain they are to be seen right away. Turns out, Ryan had the beginnings of his first ear infection. Though I felt bad for him being sick again, it was kind of neat that he was able to verbalize to me what was hurting so we could get him help fast. Since we were in there already, I had their doctor look at Lucie's ears too, which were deemed healthy. Or, as the doctor said, "fine for today, but I can't say about tomorrow". Now, that's reassuring.

Nap Strike and Other (More Fun) Adventures

I've been trying to wrap my mind around what life will be like when Lucie and Ryan stop napping. I know the day is coming soon (many people tell me this happens between age 2.5 and 3), and it's not exactly something we're looking forward to.

We've had a taste of it lately with the longest napping strike ever recorded - four days straight. My state of mind (and frequency in blog postings) has been suffering a bit. What once was a peaceful two hours of sleeping has turned into an hour of "jumping game" in their cribs, stuffed animal throwing, and non-stop giggling, followed by ten minutes of screaming "MEGGIE! MEGGIE!" to convince me to let them out of their cribs. Once they heard Chris call me this and now they know to use it anytime they really want to get my attention. It works!

Each day after the failed nap, I've loaded them up in the stroller and gone for a walk. They've fallen fast asleep before I've even made it a block. Clearly, they're still tired and need the rest, but I guess sometimes the joy of having a buddy to do jumping game with far outweighs the appeal of a good nap.

Thankfully, it looks like this was only a taste as napping resumed today. After being grouchy all morning, Lucie and Ryan went down without a peep, and haven't been heard from since. Phew!

In other news, we had a weekend of wonderful adventures (and attempts to tire out Lucie and Ryan) with Aunt Rach and Uncle AJ this weekend. Lucie and Ryan were so excited that Aunt Rach spent a night with us and couldn't believe their good fortune when they got to spend the whole day with her on Saturday, and woke up Sunday morning to find her still there. Their favorite thing to do with her was pretend she was their baby, cover her up with all their favorite blankies and bring her bottles. (I guess pretending to get someone else to nap is much more fun than doing it themselves!) She also helped them create massive construction sites with Ryan's new diggers, sat between their car seats in the car, treated them to ice cream and admired Lucie's new summer dresses for our trip. Lucie and Ryan absolutely love their Aunt Rach - she's so good to them!

Latest Funny Antics

The more Ryan and Lucie talk, the more we all laugh. Everyday it seems like they come up with something silly, clever and incredibly insightful about the world around them. A recent funny thing is their newly discovered creativity in naming their stuffed animals. It used to be that every animal had an obvious name - the duck is named "Ducky", bunny is "Bunny", etc. Now, out of the blue, their naming skills have evolved. On some days, Lucie's new stuffed duck from Easter is named "Michaels" after cousin Maggie's turtle, Michael (I have no idea why Lucie went with the plural form). On days when the duck is feeling more dog-like, he's called "Beagle". Her dinosaur is now called "Duck".

Ryan's new stuffed animal names are super silly. His monkey now goes by "Monk Jr." so as not to be confused with the stuffed monkey's Dad. His new Easter duck has curiously been named "Goggles". It all started with a stork piloting an airplane from one of his favorite books who Ryan started calling "Goggles". Then suddenly, many things took on this name, including the duck and strangely enough, the hallway light. Every night when we close their bedroom door, Ryan asks that we turn on the hallway light while declaring, "I'm turning on the hallway light!". Now that hallway lights has been named "Goggles", we are instructed to declare "I'm turning on Goggles!" after shuttling the door. It's the silliest thing, but he loves it. I'm sure if our neighbors could hear us each night at 7:00 pm yelling out, "I'm turning on Goggles!", they'd think we were completely loony.

In preparation for our upcoming family trip to Hawaii (can't wait!!), we've been talking a lot about what we'll do and see there. We talk and read about turtles, tropical flowers, palm trees, bathing suits, etc. Each day R & L love to put on their new beach sandals and parade around the house breaking them in. Sometimes when we're out and about, I'll see something (like a palm tree, for example) and point out, "This is what we'll see in Hawaii!". They smile and nod knowingly, but really, they have no idea what I'm talking about. For all they know, Hawaii could be a new bagel shop down the street. They just know I'm excited, so they feel they should be too. That's why I thought it was so funny this morning when Lucie draped her blanket across her wagon, ran over to bring me to it, and said, "Mommy, this is what we'll see in Ha-wa-yee!" If it's special or wonderful (like a wagon draped with beloved green blankie), it surely has to be in Hawaii, right?

These photos are from our Spring Twins Club party. Ryan spent almost the entire morning by the bucket of bubbles, while Lucie hula-hooped and bounced her heart out. The bouncy-house photo isn't the best quality, but I still wanted to post it to show the joy (though fuzzy) on her face.

Ticklish Toes

While mornings out and about are fun, often times Lucie and Ryan are just as happy spending the morning at home. It's nice to have a big block of time to do projects that L & R enjoy, but that we can't do often because of the time needed for set and clean up. Painting is a perfect example - tons of fun, but not exactly the kind of thing I can pull out for ten minutes of entertainment while I brush my teeth.

Today L & R spent an hour painting and loved it. We did hand and foot prints taking turns on whose foot was painted. When Lucie had paintbrush in hand she would say, "Rye-Rye, does it tickle?" And Ryan giggled, giggled, giggled. Once Ryan took the paint brush, he was very thorough. He spent extra time on each toe, even painting Lucie's ankle while I wasn't looking.

I kept thinking two things: 1) how big their feet are! Ryan's a size eight now and Lucie's a size seven, and 2) how lucky they are to have a partner to share their enthusiasm for art-making adventures.

Sous-Chef in Training

Ryan has always been a character, a little man of his own mind. That's one of the many things I love like crazy about him. Lately he's been up to some especially eccentric antics. I've written before about how much he loves kitchen appliances - the blender, toaster, and microwave are some of his favorite items in the house. He knows where all the appliances live at his grandparents' houses, especially Gigi's standing mixer. His latest favorite at home is our hand mixer. He'll ask to look at it, and then can spend the next half hour studying it (unplugged of course) in deep concentration, putting the mixers in and out and pressing the buttons.

One morning last week Ryan not only wanted to play with the hand mixer, but he wanted to take it to our stroller class with him. At first I protested - a hand mixer has no place at the park! But we were running late, and he seemed dead set on bringing it along, so I gave in, with the agreement that it would stay in the stroller and not take a tour around the sand box. I didn't think twice about it until we showed up for class and the instructor did a double take and started laughing. "What's he holding? Is that a real hand mixer?" she asked. "Whatever gets us out of the house!" I replied. A few other moms of toddlers gave me a knowing nod - there are definitely some days when you'll grant any and all crazy requests just to close the door behind you and join the outside world.

Turns out, Ryan is a trend setter. By Friday, one boy convinced his mom to let him bring an ice cream scoop to class, and another had successfully pleaded for a new (toy) blender for his 3rd birthday. That's my guy - helping out fellow kitchen gadget lovers realize their dreams!