28 months & counting

Ah, how are our kids almost two and a half already!  I think this year I'll try to write these little summary posts every 3 or 4 months since it seems like I NEVER find time to blog anymore unless I get up before the crack of dawn like today.  I have been wanting to do a little summary post like this so we don't forget all the cute little things they've been doing over the past few months, but a million other things have been taking priority lately.  As I was going through pictures to add to this post I couldn't believe that I never posted these!  These were all taken on a crazy warm day in mid December and are in my top five pics of the year, maybe of all time!

The TerrificTripletTwos as we have dubbed this year have definitely been super fun, but also super challenging. If you follow our Facebook page then you have probably heard about our recent naptime (aka toddler party time) challenges and a smattering of "reason #125,678 that my child is crying" pics, and there are lots of trying times, but there are also sooo many fun times too.  If you aren't already, you should follow my channel on YouTube because we post quite a few videos of them there and don't always remember to post a link to Facebook or the blog.  Here's a quick recap/snapshot of each of the kiddos at 28 months.

Isaiah

Over the past few months he has really had a language explosion.  There are still times when he is harder to understand or he'll bust out a string of gibberish,  but he now regularly uses 5+ word sentences and is much easier to understand.  I think this has helped with his frustration (and ours) so that has been nice.  Isaiah is still our "arts & music" guy.  He sings A LOT, often busting out a verse of Frosty the Snowman, or whatever his song of the week happens to be, just because.  Lately he's also started making up songs a lot which is super cute too.  Last night on the drive home from our friends house where they read a book about Otis the Tractor & his puppy he made up a song about that book.  These made up songs are where we hear the gibberish come back for sure and only a smattering of words are intelligible in these songs, but it is pretty adorable.  Oftentimes, Isaiah's singing is rather, well, loud and this has a tendency to drive the girls nuts, especially Ellie.  Ellie will say "I don't like that song!", which of course just makes him sing it even louder.  Isaiah is the first one to start dancing and participates the most whenever we catch an occasional music type class.

little cowboy

A big development for Isaiah is that he decided to take ownership of potty training and just declared "no diaper!" one day.  We still have our moments, but for the most part he is doing really well and now rarely wears a diaper except at night and naptime.  He's so cute because sometimes I'll ask him if he needs to go potty and he'll say "no, I being 'sponsible" (aka responsible).  It is funny to hear these little people using the big words we use with them over and over throughout the day like responsible and cooperative.  The other day I think it was Isaiah who said "I cooperative-ating."

Isaiah's favorite color is still pink and on any given day there is about a 30% chance he will choose to wear  a dress, though lately he's been really wanting to wear sweaters and sweatshirts on top.  And for the past week or so he's been on a kick where he wants to wear one of his shirts with tights, though we insist on pants on top for outings.  It actually works out pretty nicely since we're not quite ready to add the undies into his potty training and the tights give a nice layer under the pants without feeling like a diaper, so I've been very supportive of this new interest!

rocking both the pink & the tights =)

Let's see, what other little tidbits do I want to make sure to remember about Isaiah at this age?!  He is still our best and most consistent counter, now pretty consistently counting to 12.  He's taken the longest so far to pick up on letter recognition, but is getting pretty good at recognizing A, E, I & M now.  Though, in all fairness, "I" is the hardest one because it looks so different depending on the font and it's confusing at two that sometimes it's just a straight line and other times it has a top and bottom.  He often sees a T and calls it an I, which is totally understandable!  Oh, Isaiah is pretty obsessed with the cartoon Paw Patrol.  We don't really do character clothing, etc, but made an exception and told my sister she could get them Paw Patrol PJs and Isaiah wanted to wear them pretty much every day.  He LOVES the rare days when they get to watch an episode on Amazon Video.  I ended up buying a full season a few weeks ago when all three were sick and Michelle was out of town interviewing.  They don't get to watch much TV and didn't used to care about it that much, but recently have become much more interested.  It's fine, we aren't super anti-screentime, but lately he & Ellie have been having little meltdowns when a show is over so we're taking a little movie break this week!

Ellie

Ellie-belle is still our little fashionista.  She gets up in the morning and often within five or ten minutes says "I want to go get dressed!"  I think I could probably count on one hand the number of times she has voluntarily chosen to wear something other than a dress in the past four months.  This girl just loves her dresses!  Occasionally we've tried to hang up a long tunic shirt to try to expand her wardrobe choices and she'll choose them, but as soon as they are on her body she's grabbing the bottom and trying to yank it lower saying "no, I want to wear a long dress!" or "No, this is a shirt not a dress!"  And she is still a pink lover, though recently she's been a little more interested in wearing her non-pink dresses.  I think if she had it her way we'd find a way to lower the bar in the closet so she could reach the dresses at will and if that was the case she would change dresses four or five times a day.  Occasionally she'll try to work the system and if she's been denied an outfit change she will quite intentionally spill water on her current dress and say "my dress is wet, I need a new one!"  And wearing any wet clothes is like the end of the world for this little one.

Ellie loves to read books and having us read to her is often a leisure activity of choice for her.  Her vocabulary is huge!  The other day Michelle had to practice giving a receptive vocabulary test so she practiced on the kiddos.  You are supposed to be two and a half to take the test so they are a little young, but for a 2.5 year old Ellie scored in the 99th percentile with an age equivalent score of 4 years 9 months.  I laughed because just the other day Aimee, our nanny, said "I talk to your kids like they are four year olds."  She didn't know how spot on she was! While Ellie loves to read she also loves, and really needs, a lot of movement in her day to stay regulated.  She is often the one initiating running circles around the couch or going down to jump on the trampoline, which I moved to the basement a month ago. She'll say "I want to go jump on the trampoline a couple minutes, okay?" Adding "okay?" to the end of her statement to make them questions is a relatively new development for her and it's pretty cute.  Ellie has also become quite the little negotiator lately.  She's big into asking for "one more minute" or "just a couple more minutes, okay?" whenever it's time for a transition.  Of course, she's two, so those couple minutes go by and she doesn't believe me when I tell her it's time to leave/do xyz, and then starts whining "no, I said a couple more minutes!?!"

"just a couple more minutes"

Ellie has picked up on the letter recognition stuff the fastest.  I'm sure that if we had letter flashcards she'd learn her whole alphabet in no time, but that's not really our style and certainly isn't a priority.  Right now we just point out letters in the course of our daily routines, on signs, books, etc and she's just a sponge.  She loves pointing out "E for Ellie" anytime she sees it.  She surprises me sometimes with knowing letters.  Yesterday we were reading a book called "Blue Goose" and I pointed out all the letters in the title and after I pointed out the G, she told me the rest of the letters independently.  Ellie is a good counter too, but Isaiah tends to dominate group counting opportunities and she just lets him have at it.  As I mentioned earlier, Ellie is sensitive about sounds and doesn't like it when Isaiah gets too loud.  She's also very sensitive to tone and  silly voices.  Sometimes Michelle or I will just say something in a silly voice and she'll say "Don't say it like that" or "Don't use a monster voice."

Avery

Avery is a really big helper and LOVES to help cook in the kitchen.  If she's awake and a meal is being made there's a 99% chance she say "I want to help you make dinner" or "You have a job for me?"  And although sometimes it's tough to come up with jobs she can actually help with or do by herself, she is actually the most helpful and has proven to me that she can do quite a bit.  She is really into dumping/pouring lately so that is a favorite kitchen job, but she's also been very responsible about understanding the safety issues and can be trusted to stir things on the stove and cut with a sharp knife with supervision. (If I ever get to sit down to write it, I have a "how to let toddlers help in the kitchen" post in my head & lots of pics/videos to include!)

She continues to be our little grammar kiddo, always the first one to explore the next step in grammatical structure.  Lately she's been really working on pronouns.  She has "me" and "you" down now and is trying to sort out him and her.  She will say "Ellie not listening to me.  Her just walking away from me."  She also has a big vocabulary, testing just below Ellie in the 98th percentile.  About a week ago Avery asked the first "why" question so Michelle and I are bracing ourselves for the coming onslaught of why questions times three.  Avery is definitely big into demonstrating her independence and figuring out how to do new things.  She can get herself dressed and undressed the most successfully of the three and likes new challenges like figuring out how to get her socks on.  She is the most likely to say "You not help me.  I do it by myself!"

Avery works the hardest at making friends.  When we are out and about she will go up to other kids and sometimes even adults and say "hi, what's your name?"  It's pretty adorable.  The tricky thing is figuring out how to expand the conversation.  If they ask her name she will tell them, but then she's not sure what to say next and will often ask their name again.  The bigger kids say "I already told you!"  And if they walk away she gets super offended/hurt. Avery continues to be the biggest lover of babies and animals.  She is so nurturing and sweet to babies and wants to pet every dog she sees.  Avery is also the most likely to share with her siblings, often offering without prompting.  And to balance out all this sweetness, she is also the most likely to willfully do the exact opposite of something Michelle or I ask her to do or not do, which is totally age appropriate, but nonetheless maddening!

:"her cryin', I give her some milk so her feel better"

Avery has a great memory and strong associations.  We will go to a park and she'll say "Lindsay come here with us last time!"  She's also good about reminding us about things we said like "You said after lunch we get to have nuts" and things like that.  She also puts her good memory skills to use finding lost items.  Seriously, when something goes missing, like Ellie's froggy, we always ask Avery to help us find it.  And if you ask Ellie or Isaiah "who is good at finding things?" they will both say Avery.  I've even heard Ellie ask Avery to help her find something completely unprompted.  It's fun to see them learning each other's strengths.

They are growing and changing so much that I really need to write these summary posts more often than every four months because I know I'm already forgetting things.  I'll try to do it every 2-3 months this year.  We'll see how that goes!  These guys certainly keep us on our toes!