In my part-time job, I work online and view a variety of interesting websites. One site I have gotten hooked on is http://www.5minutesformom.com/ . It’s twin girls running the site who are also moms of young children. They promote other moms’ websites and blogs, and offer helpful advice. Their site is popular enough that manufacturers like to promote products through them by way of contests. I put my name in for their latest contest–for a product called Presto, a service that delivers emails, photos and other content to people who don’t use a computer. I promised to link their website on my blog for the privilege of entering their contest, so here it is!

I have great photos from last weekend when Steph and Roger visited–I’ll post them as soon as my computer gets fixed. Eric and Jack spent the night with us this past Saturday night–AK was in heaven with her cousin to play with. I think I’d have had twins years ago if I’d known that my family would start dropping in every other weekend or so. It’s lovely.

Anna Kathryn is expanding her vocabulary every day. Sometimes she seems to think she’s a grown-up. Tonight, John had to stay late at church to help with Passion Play setup, so AK went to John’s parents’ church with them. That gave me a chance to stay home with the twins and get some things done. AK and I left the twins in their “johnny-jump-up” doorway swings and sat on the front step waiting for her Omie and Papa Bill to pick her up. She clutched a penny in one fist and a string of Cinderella-blue princess beads in the other.

“Mommy, you wanna come wis us?”

“Well, I need to stay home and take care of Brothers,” I responded. She shrugged dismissively, “Oh, they’re just jumping like kangaroos.”

As if that took care of that little wrinkle.

My daughter is very interested in what her Mommy does. Because I work part-time online, I’m at my computer a lot. When I am there, she’ll often climb onto my lap and ask about what she sees. (Occasionally, she’ll encourage me to go to work when she’d like to engage in forbidden activities, like hanging on her brothers’ swings or filtching Valentine’s candy. “Go to your ‘puter, Mommy. I talkin’ ta brothers.”)

Today, she was fascinated with my emoticons. You know what I’m talking about–these little guys:   I had a page of about 20 or so emoticons up when she pulled herself onto my lap and hugged my neck. “I went potty, Mommy! I love you.” Suddenly, her eyes snapped to my computer.

“Mommy! She’s so sad! What’s wrong with her?”   

I didn’t quite know what to say, but before I could come up with an explanation of emoticons befitting a two-year-old, my daughter took matters into her own hands. She cupped her hand close to my monitor, and coo’d.

“Come here! Come on. Don’t be sad! I talkin’ ta you, come on.”   

Still staring at the sad little smiley faces, AK addressed me, “Mommy, she’s very, very, very upSICK. She’s very, very upSICK, Mommy.” Then to the faces again, “It’s okay. Come here, come on my hand…”   

Honestly? The kid broke my heart. She has empathy for miserable smiley faces. I half expected them to come jumping out of my screen and into her hand, get their hug, put on their winky faces, and jump back in. There’s something in me that absolutely can’t resist that child. She’s just like her Daddy.

Hi there. This is John, Kari’s husband and Anna Kathryn and the twin’s dad. I’ll be taking over the blog today to tell you about my day with my lovely daughter.

Have you ever heard of The Wiggles? Well, until about 6 weeks ago, I hadn’t either. Apparently though they have been around for over 15 years, and are all the rage with the “cool” preschoolers. And since I am the proud parent of the coolest preschooler ever, Anna Kathryn is very “hip” on Anthony, Jeff, Murray and Greg (who’s been replaced by Sam, in case you didn’t know). Imagine my excitement when I heard that The Wiggles were coming to town. Well actually, to me that is slightly less exciting than watching the yard guy spray pre-emergent weed control on my yard, but then I was never accused of being part of the “hip” preschool crowd. But what my daughter is interested in is what I’m interested in, and so I dutifully plunked down for two tickets to see this group of Child Psychologists who actually put their education to entertaining and profitable use.
I decided to make a day of it. Now I must subject you to that day.



I picked up some lunch from Chick-fil-A (toddler-speak “chick’n an fries”) and drove downtown, where we parked and walked to the trolley stop. (Hereafter referred to in toddler-speak as the “trolley-train”). As we waited on the trolley-train, my adorable soon to be 3 year old, who was very excited to be about to ride on the “trolley train”, began to call out to it as we could see it coming. “Come on Trolley-Train! Vamanos!” I looked at her funny, as I had never before heard her speak Spanish in conversation. I guess the steady diet of “Dora the Explorer” will lead one day to a brilliant career in the Foreign Service, but today it created an odd moment when my obviously Anglo, blond-hair blue-eyed daughter is yelling out in Spanish on the Main Street Mall in downtown Memphis. (The apparently Elvis-hunting, Japanese tourists at the trolley stop didn’t seem to notice however.)


After a most excitable ride for about three blocks on the “Trolley-train”, we got off at the downtown mall, where we went in to eat our “chick’n an’ fries”.



I should mention, that of late, Anna Kathryn has developed a desire to scoop up and hold tight to any pennies she spies. She would make Scrooge McDuck most proud. (We are working on the “ask before you take” thing, and she’s about got that down.) When she saw the fountain with the coins in it, she was beside herself. Water, her most favorite thing to play in and pennies, currently her favorite “play-pretty”, both together in one place!!



I’m most proud of her, because while she so badly wanted to get in that water and scoop up pennies, she obeyed daddy, and reluctantly stood up, abandoning her attempt at “fountain robbery”, and threw the two pennies she brought with her into the water.




After we were done at the mall, we went over to FedEx Forum, where Anna Kathryn excitedly ran to the “soccer balls” in front of the arena, but discovered, much to her chagrin, that they were actually heavy, painted concrete spheres that only looked like basketballs, soccer, tennis and baseballs. Oh well, we didn’t come to play with balls anyway. We came to see The Wiggles!!




No matter. We had to go get our tickets. Anna Kathryn was very much interested in that.



We got there pretty early, but the organizers anticipated that there might be antsy preschoolers there early in need of distraction. So not only were there Wiggles videos’ playing on the monitors, but they had Wiggles crayons and coloring cards at each seat.

Very smart.





We were very, very close to the stage. In fact, from my seat, I could have reached out and “touched” different “Wiggles” throughout the performance. Anna Kathryn was just tickled at the entire show, which I would have to admit was a very good show. It was very interactive, and she would get into things here and there, and participate.




This video was taken at the very end, when Anna Kathryn, who had refused to get off my lap the entire time, got brave and went to the very edge of the stage and tried, vainly, to get their attention. However, over the course of the show, she would wave madly at the Wiggles, and three of them caught her eye and gave her a little “wave” and a smile at different times. Made her day.




Well, it was then time to make our way back to our car, via the “trolley-train”. But first, a quick pose in front of the Forum




And then another at the corner of Beale Street and Highway 61. If you are a fan of W.C Handy and “The Blues”, this is supposedly the most famous street corner in America. Or so says the plaque at the corner. (Before anyone calls CPS, we did not go “clubbing’ on Beale while we were downtown!)



Another “trolley-train” ride



And then, after a quick stop for some ice cream, the “Daddy and Daughter day” ended with an exhausted little girl falling right to sleep.


POSTSCRIPT
The next morning, Anna Kathryn crawled into bed with me before I was fully awake. She patted my back and said, “Thank you, Daddy, for taking me to ride the trolley-train.”

“You’re my best friend”.

Best return I’ve ever gotten on an investment.

This is going to be a video-intensive post. I am putting that out there right at the top, so that when you start rolling your eyes and calling me obsessive about my children, you will have been warned. Here is a slight disclaimer on my behalf, though: I started this blog in large part for the sake of my dear mother who lives over 1,000 miles away. If I don’t post pictures and videos of my children, she may pack up and move in with me. Well, okay, she wouldn’t do that (love you mom!). But she misses her grandkids, so I am sharing them with her. The rest of you, roll your eyes if you want to. But I promise if you watch these you’re going to ooh and ahh anyway. It can’t be helped.  (I realize that I don’t usually address my readers directly, but I felt compelled to acknowledge and address the parental narcissism that is becoming prevalent in my posts. Don’t ask me why.)

First, a gratuitous photo. William is playing with the giraffe Aunt Stephie gave him, and Stephen has a bear rattle on his wrist. Notice the wedge pillow between them? I had to institute this “separate but equal” rule when William learned how to scoot on top of his brother. There will be no smothering going on in my household! They start working on “survival of the fittest” young. . . and that came out morbid.

Moving along. In my first presentation for your viewing pleasure, I present HAPPY BOYS. The wiggles and giggles that ensue when my sons see their mommy poking her head over their bed. This video is a warm-up for…

BUMBO BABIES! They are best buds. William apparently thinks he is superior as first-born, as he calmly gazes at his brother then looks away while Stephen chats glibly.

And lastly, in honor of the title of this post, SAY CHEESE! by William and Anna Kathryn. I was going to delete this because of the prominent pink foot, but the audio made me laugh.

Okay, it’s over. You can stop looking now.

When I watch my daughter play, I remember being that young and using my imagination to feed, clothe and house my dolls. Steph and I used to split up the doll house furniture and set up our individual homes. She usually let me have first pick, and I always thought I was getting the better end of the deal…and then she would set up her house like Martha Stewart, and I’d realize I’d been duped. Anna Kathryn doesn’t have to share, but she still shows some of the motherly instinct common to a firstborn girl. Here’s what John and I saw when we looked up from our work the other day–all the Little People were being fed AK’s breakfast.

Cereal, anyone?

I have to say, it’s rather disconcerting to find that your child is not fazed by torture.

Before you call Child Protection Services, lemme’splain. I am potty training. My child has actually responded rather well to being trained, or did once I followed my MIL’s “old style” version. My version wasn’t working at all. I would sit her on the potty every 30 (and then 15) minutes and give her five minutes or so to “try”. She had to run around the house in panties so she could learn what an accident felt like. She learned nothin’. I learned how to clean my wood floors in a hurry. It didn’t matter how many times I had her sit and try; she would have an accident after she got up. So my MIL told me to stop that nonsense and do it the tried and true way of old–set that child on the potty in the morning, make her sit there until she went, praise, reward, and do it again thirty minutes later. After a day or two of sitting and waiting for literally hours at a time (we got a lot of mileage out of Heffalump and Socks on Fox), she finally realized that she could control this thing, and she did. Voila! Trained, right?

Wrong.

My child forgets. Procrastinates. And I still find myself pulling out the can of carpet cleaner a couple times a day.

This is where the torture comes in. Surely you’ve all heard of the joking comments that when your child just refuses to potty train, you should just take them out to the garden hose and wash them down with cold water? That ought to do the trick after a couple times. Well, if anyone actually does that they aren’t admitting it to me, and no, I haven’t lowered myself to such depths either. Besides, it’s the middle of winter. I think *I’d* call CPS on myself. It did occur to me that I could put her in the bathtub after an accident, however, and wash her down with cold water. Surely that would be odious enough to encourage her to get to the potty in time, right?

Wrong.

She laughs. It’s hard to get some decent torturing accomplished when your child thinks said torture is funny.

AK and William

Stephen

Saturday morning while Mommy and Daddy get thirty extra minutes in bed.

Somebody said to me the other day that having twins must be very interesting in that you get a chance to watch two people develop at their individual pace while being exactly the same age and from the same family. All of a sudden, the comparisons you can make with every child, twin or not, become more glaringly obvious.

I still remember every milestone of Anna Kathryn’s first year. I remember when she got her first cold, when she started to grab for me when I picked her up, when she knew by my face that she was looking at her mommy. I don’t remember the milestones to the very day, however. With the twins, I see every milestone in duplicate, and though they are developing generally on the same level, they make their discoveries on their own. One day, William smiles at me for the first time. Another day, Stephen rolls over. A week later, Stephen smiles and William rolls.

What’s even more interesting to me, though, is the development of their personalities. When AK was this age, I wasn’t sure if I was seeing personality or just “baby”. Surely every baby went through the same development process, right? Well, with the twins, I see it. They both cry like all babies do, when they’re hungry or uncomfortable or tired. But they react like this according to their own personalities. Stephen waits patiently for his bottle until he just can’t wait any longer, and then completely loses it. His face looks absolutely heartbroken that he hasn’t been fed yet. William is far more impatient; he cries for his bottle before he’s really hungry, I suppose because the bottle comforts him. When I bring it, he grins at me through the crocodile tears. William gets annoyed when he’s sleepy, and cries it out until he suddenly drops off. AK used to do that. Stephen gabbles, whines a little, then watches William until he falls asleep.

Sometimes I think they’re comforting each other. I have a grainy video of the twins in their bed, all swaddled up for the night. Stephen’s the one doing all the talking.

I hope to keep them in the same bed until there’s just no more room or I get a bigger one–I want them to be the best of friends.

Does life get any better than this?

My three little caterpillars are going to burst out of their coccoons into beautiful butterflies one day. John said tonight, “What am I going to do when my daughter grows up and leaves me?” We’re going to miss her, that’s for sure. So we’re making the most of every minute now.

Anna Kathryn is learning her letters. She can draw an “A” on paper, and knows that it’s the first letter of her first name. It turns out she understands her phonics a little bit, too.

“Mommy, look! I am making an ‘A’!! Can you do the ‘F’ for me?”

She pronounces her own name “Anna Traffryn” so apparently believes that the first initial of her middle name is “F”. I showed her the “F”, and then explained about the “K”. I suppose she’ll put it together properly one day.