It’s baseball season!

Jack has become obsessed with baseball. Daddy is watching the Reds, and so naturally, so is Jack. He wants to play whenever the Reds are on TV, and he quickly finds his bat (“bap”) and ball (“baaaaallllll”)  and wants to play with Daddy. Daddy tosses it, Jack hits it. He used to be the pitcher, but now Jack is the batter. Whenever the Reds player makes contact and hits the ball, Jack cheers. Yay! His favorite toys include the bobble head and Johnny Gomes Gnome. Even though the toys went to the store and have sustained some droppings, they are still up there as favorites. He then noticed that the figurines have the “C” for Cincinnati Reds, and that’s when his interest grew for the baseball on TV. Sophie has also learned the word, “Baaaaall” and she will say it and try to steal the balls. Jack does not find this amusing. Last night,  Jack insisted on sleeping with his balls. A real baseball, a hard one, and a soft play one. Ok. Whatever. So into OUR bed the balls come. Sophie slept in her own bed, but awoke to nurse around 1:00. SCREAMING. OK. So I get her and bring her in to nurse. Then I fall back asleep. Next thing I know... I awake to Sophie talking… “Baaaaall! Baaaaall!” as she is playing with one of the balls. It must have seemed like the best thing in the world to her. There was a ball in the bed in the middle of the night!!!! Wow. Amazing! HAHA! So back to her bed she goes, because we aren’t playing ball in the middle of the night. Then Daddy rolls on a baseball, so he tosses it out. First thing when Jack wakes up, Baaaaall? Baaaall? Yes Jack, here they are. Uh oh. Only one. Two! He says. Two!!!! Because he remembered there were two. We look and look and locate the said ball. Smiles across his face… well until Sophie begins to steal the balls. “Baaaaall! Baaaall!” she says. J

Jack, 2 yrs

Jack’s talking is taking off. Its hard to even list the words. Some of the new words include, Ball, Bat, Tree, Tent, Peez (Please), Mommy, Kiki, Gigi, Paul, More, Nemo!, Dori, Truck, Bus, Bee Bee, Nonna, Nana). His signs are all over the place- he has signs for everything of makes them up. Like moving his feet really fast for a walk, or shivering as in “brrr” for cold. We have been working on 2-3 word sentences, and we can get Mommy drive, Mommy please, Daddy Please, Mommy Nemo Please, Tent please, etc. This is great news! He seems to be able to count to 3, (1 – with a finger, then 2 and then 3)… but can’t say any other numbers yet. Although I think he recognizes some of them. He knows the following letters of the alphabet: A, B, D, E, G, I, O, P, R, and T. And can say them. He likes to push Sophie and gets mad when she is playing with his toys.  So we started time out. So he started chest bumping her. Um, no, Jack. But yes, you did get us on that “technicality”. Jack likes to steal extra attention by pretending to learn to walk like Sophie, taking baby steps, and then “falling” over just like her. “Oh jack!” we exclaim! Jack is learning to walk just like Sophie! Mommy and Jack also have lots of little special things we do, like wink at each other to say we love you, and Jack gets to stay up an extra hour after Sophie to spend special one on one time with Mommy. What do you think he wants to watch? Nemo!!!!! Nemoooo! (Just keep swimming just keep swimming… Ah hoo wah hoo, ah ah ah!)

Sophie, 11 mths

Sophie is walking all over the place. She goes up and down the stairs and can get around any object or obstacle we use to block the stairs. She is jabbering- she says uh oh, baaaaall, mama, baba, na na, hello and she is trying to say Tree (ee). I love her little tricks of, How big is Sophie (So big!) and she answers phone calls on her hand- but holding her hand up to her ear and saying Eh-o! (Hello!). Sophie is still a Mama’s girl. I hold her about 100% of the time, unless she is trying to walk. Up and down. Up and down. Hold me. No let me walk. No hold me. OK, let me walk. Sophie is so beautiful these days. Although she has no hair, I think it lets me focus on her adorable little face. I cannot believe my baby is turning one!!! Just 2.5 weeks! Where did the time go? It feels like I was just rocking and cradling a crying baby for 3 hours every evening, and never setting her down. Then suddenly, she was crawling, and now walking and now I have two toddlers. I am excited about her language development. It is much faster than Jack’s and seems to be taking off. She asked pointed to a tree this week and asked, ehh? Like she wanted to know what it was. Then she pointed to every tree on the walk after that. Then a day later, she was trying to say it. EE? She can point to my nose on command. She points to the dogs on command. And she is interested in the airplanes (and kites) just like her brother. Pointing and pointing.

Wow. The kids have grown so much. I am so proud of both of them. Looking forward to Sophie’s BIG day in just 2.5 weeks! I have a feeling she will do well with her smash cake… because she loves all food and especially cake and ice cream. J