Oliver is now two and a half, and showing every bit of it. One of his favorite words is "no", but he's getting a lot better at listening and obeying. I've also noticed that his "hard time" coincide with hunger, tiredness, or being over-stimulated. When he's well-rested, and well-fed, he is really one of the best people to spend your day with. He is absolutely hilarious, so full of love, so forgiving, so patient, and a genius to boot.
This morning we had some friends over with their daughter, Grace, who is a little younger than Oliver. Now, Oliver being the wild child that we know and love, turned into the sweetest little gentleman when sweet, quiet Grace was over. He even gave her a diamond (from his shapes box) and would let her leave he had so many hugs and kisses for her. And he didn't even walk over her too much or steal too many toys. He's really growing up, and it was adorable to see them playing together. They also discovered, with the help of their dads, that Camilla's pop-up toy can be used as a catapult for checkers. We also discovered that checkers can get send down into the pop-up toy, so I got to take it apart and marvel at the mechanics.
Tonight we were getting ready for bed, and Oliver wanted to read "Are You My Mother?". Just for fun I had him read it to us. After eating all of the pictures of the bird's egg, I asked Oliver "Oliver, what did the bird ask the kitty?" to which he replied "More eggs, pwease."
Life's a beach with Oliver. Literally. Every single day he finds some way to say "Oliver go beach!" Sometimes it's my lap, sometimes it's his little PVC chairs flipped sideways, sometimes it's his Happy Birpday in a little toy piano. Oliver LOVES the beach. And worst story of all, is in the pictures of Jesus on the cross, Oliver thought he was wearing a swimming suit. I made sure to teach him otherwise, but Oliver was sure excited that "Jesus go beach!" I should have been quicker and shown him the fishing and boat pictures.
Oh, and the "Happy Birpday" is a little pickax. After watching Frosty the Snowman Oliver immediately started putting the little pickax in his mouth like a corncob pipe, and saying "Happy Birpday!"
I've been trying to have little "school" sessions with Oliver when Camilla goes down for her morning nap. Mostly because he can't focus for more than 2 seconds, so I figure that slowly working with fun activities should help, right? Anyway, my mom bought us this book with poems, songs, stories, art, etc that we've been using. There's history and science in there, but those lessons are longer than 2 seconds. So far the art has been really fun, and we will try to recreate the art or do something inspired by art. The other day we looked at a painting of people playing Dominoes, so we pulled out Matthias's Dominican Dominoes, and Oliver even helped me match the dots...slightly. Mostly he was just lining them up and counting the dots. In the end they were thrown everywhere and we had to put them up, but I like seeing that he can handle new experiences calmer than he once was able to. This week he's been loving to play with some checkers and dice from and all-in-one game we have.
Oliver still calls underwear "choo choos". It's too cute to fix, really. We got him some incentive underwear to learn to go #2, so now he has Buzz Lightyear choo choos, Lightening McQueen choo choos, etc. Speaking of going #2, Oliver has been pretty consistent about going in the toilet. This is amazing because even before he was 1 he has HATED getting his bum wiped and there are always lots of tears. Now those tears only have to last a short second, and it's amazing. It's still a work in progress, but we are finally nearing the end.
Today when we were driving into the church parking lot Oliver said "I find church!" While we were driving home and getting close, Oliver said "Where Oliver's house? Where Dada's trash can?" and sure enough "I find it! I find trash can! There's Oliver's house!" (imagine all of these in amazingly high-pitched excitement)
Now onto our little Camilla. It seems like until November she was still pretty motionless. She was content just observing. Oliver was constant entertainment, so she was happy. She was already rolling over occasionally, but mostly just liked watching Oliver all day. After our Thanksgiving vacation she has really been growing in leaps and bounds. She now rolls and scoots anywhere and everywhere. She sits now too. She is down to 2 naps, which conveniently fall just outside of Oliver's nap so I don't really get a child-free nap time anymore. I do like that I get some alone time with each of the kids though, and with Matthias in grad school I get my alone time at night while he works on class.
Camilla has been having quite the time teething. She is such a happy girl, but lately she's had trouble getting to sleep, and when she is sleeping she'll cry out every half hour or so. It's sooo sad! Luckily her first tooth popped through last Sunday and her 2nd popped through on Friday. Now she is much more content, and a much better sleeper as long as we don't drag her all around town during nap time. :)
Camilla has the sweetest smiles that always melt my heart. Seriously I never knew that smiles could be so powerful. She's learning so much too. She's been clapping her hands for a couple of weeks, she loves to click her tongue and play mirror tongue. She says "Da, Ma, Ba, Na" and currently is working on "Guh". She makes a very throaty sound that is a bit Donald Duck-esque in response to us saying "Guh" and will do it over and over again in response. She loves eating finger foods and is becoming a very independent eater. Even before her teeth popped through we could feed her steamed baby carrots and she would just gnaw away until they were gone. She still happily eats whatever we offer her. She loves looking in mirrors, and her favorite way to be held is head upside-down, and she goes dead weight. She LOVES being upside down. She's started fighting back and going after toys when Oliver takes them from her, which I love (he's got to figure it out sometime, right?)
Camilla is totally a blankie girl, and when I put her down she has to be covered and then she pops he fingers in her mouth while holding onto her blankie. She likes the fuzzy ones best, but doesn't care if it's the boy one or the girl one.
Camilla's hair is also thickening in quite nicely, and even shows a little curl now and then. We are still undecided on what color her eyes are. Oliver calls them black, but I see gray, brown, blue, and green in them. Maybe they'll be hazel, but we're still waiting. And her eyelashes are to die for. Seriously.
Besides teething it's felt like she's been congested since Thanksgiving. I had some allergy problems while we were in Arizona, so I figured it was just the dry, dusty air. She was diagnosed with an ear infection, but that's gone and the congestion has never gone away. She's only had a couple miserable days, but when she's mostly better (with just the remaining congestion) the next day, it's hard to say what's up. We've taken her to the doctor a few times, and they always say we're doing everything right and to bring her back if it gets worse or stays the same. Since it doesn't really bother her, I'll just wait until her next doctor's appointment. But her little cough and rough breathing are horrible to listen to.
Camilla loves to be tickled and has an adorable laugh. One night Oliver and Camilla were laughing at each other (from their respective beds, luckily Oliver doesn't climb into her crib anymore!) for over an hour. It was adorable, but we did put an end to it so that we could have happy laughing kids the next day too. These two love each other, and while some days parenting is hard, watching them interact with each other makes it all worth it.
I love how much they love each other!
