Here the girls are with their friends Brynn (2 yrs) and Brooke (almost 4 yrs and wearing the other fuzzy crown - also one of my god-daughters) who were visiting from Reno the other day.
So, what are the girls like now?
They love to put on (and take off) shoes. Those trendy Crocs shoes and rain boots are their favorites because they are so easy to do on their own. They know how to take off nearly every shoe, but they can put on the Crocs and rain boots by themselves as well. They also love to wear other people's shoes. Daddy's are the funniest to watch them wear since they look about as long as they are tall.
They love to feed themselves - give them the bowl of applesauce or yogert container and a spoon - they want to do it themselves. It's a big mess a lot of the time, but with the warm weather, just take off those clothes and put their toddler table outside. Not to worry - all you have to do is hose them off afterwards.
They still love their Wiggles - either VHS, DVD or CD. They dance, do the hand motions and sing along. Bettina is starting to be able to jump. Ava's way beyond that and has taken to skipping as well. They get a number of the words and phrases right. They have also started to import some of the Wiggles hand motions into their sign language vocabulary. Recently, they have shown interest in Little People videos as well.
They have started to put personality and stories into their play things. Graduating from just simply dumping out all the food/food utensils from the bins in their kitchen, they will pass out cups then come around with a tea pot to "fill them up." They get a kick out of hearing you slurping up the pretend tea. They will pick up play food and make eating noises to indicate they are pretending to eat it. Their bath tub animals and the animals from their Little People Farm move with hops and a "boing" or "clip-clop" sound. They will "stop" and make their animal noise (moo, neigh, ribbit, etc.). Their frog loves to "go night-night," hiding between the shower curtain and it's liner.
They love to name things - living at the ridge of the hills overlooking Oakland International Airport, we see a lot of airplanes as they run their landing patterns over the Bay. Everytime we go outside or into the car it's, "Airplane, airplane, airplane, car, car, birdie, birdie, neigh-neigh," etc. Today as we left the Nordstrom Rack parking lot, past all the new car dealerships, toward home, both of them excitedly exclaimed, "boo-dah, boo-dah (balloon)" for a whole 3 minutes straight.
They have taken a keen interest in gardening and bug-watching. They know what ants, bees and butterflies (called just plain "flies") are, but everything else is considered a bug. They love squatting down to watch ants move and get very excited when they find larger bugs. Tina has even gotten into the habit of looking under rocks for sow-bugs and beetles. Their idea of gardening is pulling off the flowers, which is probably what they think I'm going as I thin out the dead daffodils and prune other greenery so that the next set of bulbs (currently bearded irises and lilies) can come out. I bought a couple little windowsill vases for all the tiny flowers they bring me so we can enjoy them in the kitchen a bit longer than watching them wither on the ground. I don't worry too much about this bad habit of plucking flowers. I figure the garden will only get demo-ed in a couple months anyhow and by next year, I can teach them a more refined definition of helping in the garden.
Bettina surprized me when, at the doctor's, she weighed in at nearly 28 pounds! I though she was nearer to 26, which is probably more where Ava is. We have started to put away the 18-24 month clothes and most of their 2T dresses and shirts are unpacked and ready for wear. They have nearly all of their teeth, now. Ava's last set are coming through now. Bettina's got another set that need to break through, but both have very toothy smiles.
