MacHaffie Kids

More changes

July 30, 2006

We’ve been sick again (a cough this time) for the past week or so. I think we are just about at the end of it, though.

The boys have changed a lot in the past two weeks. Andrew has learned the word car (and knows what it means!) So now we can say truck (brrroom) and car (car). It makes driving a much more interesting. I think Owen learned car yesterday as well, but he hasn’t been using it as much as Andrew yet.

Both boys can climb into the rear seat of the big stroller by themselves. It is instructive to see how they climb up there. Owen throws himself as far into the seat as he can, then scrambles to get his legs up. Andrew treats the outside of the stroller as a ladder and finds hand- and foot-holds until he is in the seat.

The boys are learning to flip through real books and magazines without damaging them. We’re still not putting our books out where they can get to them, though. Maybe in a few more months we can refill the bookcases.

We went to my company’s picnic yesterday. The boys had a great time. They both climbed up the ladder to the big slide all by themselves (with a parent right behind them). We went down the slide several times. Owen got to throw several different kinds of balls around the park.

Andrew found a cooler which had wheels on it, so he had to drive that around.

And then one of my coworkers showed up with a red wagon for her daughter. The boys immediately glommed onto the wagon. They dragged the wagon around. They dragged Lyli (the little girl) around in the wagon. They dragged each other around in the wagon.

Nancy and I will be looking at wagons now

Owen has had a conceptual shift recently. He now knows “my turn” or “mine”. Fortunately, he pats his chest for both words. I’ve heard from other parents that “mine” (said in a whiny tone) is actually a worse word than “no”. We were at lunch the other day, and Owen pointed at my silverware and patted his chest. I had to keep telling him, “no, that’s mine”. Yesterday, Owen fed Andrew a strawberry, and Andrew ate it, without even biting Owen.

Other new words: I think the kids are now smacking their lips to me strawberries. I’m not entirely sure about that, though. Both Andrew and Owen have a good list of animal words:

Dog — patting the leg
Cat — Sssss, fftt fftt
Butterfly — hands together, flapping (the official sign is thumbs together, fingers waving)
Lions, tigers, and bears — Roar (Owen has a very cute roar)
Fish — hand swimming like a fish

We had gone somewhere new and were getting ready to go. I asked Andrew to go to the door, and he went over to an interior door. I said, “Andrew, go to the door outside” and he did! I was impressed. The boys understand a lot more than they can communicate.

That’s all I can remember–it’s hard to keep up with everything the boys do in a week (or two).

Pictures

Owen on a teeter totter

Owen in an umbrella stroller
Owen in a stroller

Andrew pulling Owen in the red wagon

Andrew reading on the couch

Andrew riding in the wagon

Andrew in the stroller, light and shadow

Climbing

July 19, 2006

Every day, the boys get better at climbing. We went to the elementary school near us, and Andrew climbed up to the top of the six-foot tall slide. He climbed up five or six times, with me right behind him the whole way. The only difficulty was getting settled at the top of the slide–there almost wasn’t enough room up there for both of us.

Andrew and Owen were both going up and down the stairs at lunch yesterday. Andrew was very cute–Grammie and Grampie brought him a dump truck, and he didn’t turn loose of it at all during lunch.

Andrew is now using the word “garden” for both “plants and trees” and “garbage”. You have to see what he’s looking at to figure out which one he means. He is also getting very good at making animal noises when we read books with animals in them. He knows: cat, dog (uses the sign), bear (roar), sheep (baaa), cow (mmmm), and truck (vroom).

Owen is getting much better at telling us what he wants. Owen also got to try out the swing with me holding him in place. He liked that, but Andrew isn’t too keen on it yet.

Pictures

Andrew escaping the shopping cart

Andrew standing by his stroller with Grandpa
Andrew standing with grandpa by the stroller

Andrew playing in a sandbox
Andrew playing in the sandbox

Boys leaving the pool

Boys wading with Grandpa

Owen with Grandma and her purse
$Owen with Grandma\'s purse$

Owen sleeping in a chair

Owen wading

Vacation

July 11, 2006

I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks because we were on vacation. We went to Black Butte last week. We were there for eight days, Saturday to Saturday. All of us had a wonderful time, especially the boys.

We went swimming every day we were there. The boys loved swimming. They got to motorboat around with Grampie, and they both worked on kicking. At the start of the week, they weren’t too sure about the big pool, but they settled in by the end of the week.

The boys also got to play at the playground almost every day. They loved climbing and going down the slides.

We got to see some new behaviors. Owen said “Thank you” when I handed him some food. He also learned to climb down the stairs at the place we were staying by himself, using the handrail. A couple of days ago, he said “I more”, which is his second two-word sentence. (A while back, he said “dog bye” when Reigny left the gate to go outside).

Andrew learned to climb up to the top of the play structure all by himself. It was fun to watch–he would switch from one side to the other so that he could use the hand rails. Then to get down, we would go down the big slide. We went over to the Head of the Metolious River, and Andrew pushed his stroller all the way down! He wasn’t interested in riding, he wanted to be doing something.

My parents bought two individual strollers, and we ended up using those more than we used the one big stroller. They are much lighter, but you need two people for the individual strollers so Nancy will stick with the big stroller by herself.

The boys are starting to use a sign for “want”. They open and close their hands rapidly (like waving bye-bye, but pointing towards themselves). This is really nice, because we can now tell that they want something–the trick is then figuring out what exactly they want.

Pictures

Owen looking at a fountain