Whoops

Did I fall off the end of the world or what?

Nope I just got busy with my life and had no urge to post. I was debating if i should keep this blog open but now that my elder sister has moved to THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD (I am so jealous!!) I suppose I ought to.

so what has been going on in the last 2 months........

....... not all that much really. Our camera is broken so I can't even pacify you with pictures ;0)

Ciara suddenly decided she was done with pull ups overnight- she just stopped peeing overnight without us having to do or say anything. So one child nappy free at long last.

Enya still has spells where she has multiple accidents everyday at kindergarten for a week or so and then is completely dry for next couple of weeks. Not really sure what to do about this and so we're not even thinking about doing the nappyless nighttimes with her yet.

The girls seem to be growing up so fast now, even Enya is losing all her babyness. They both have started telling stories about their experiences at Kindergarten. I do so love what sometimes comes out of their mouths, the different voices and sound effects often just crack me up. They learn so much from the older kids and it's hysterical hearing it all repeated. The latest favorite saying is "you're not my (best)friend anymore", or when the other does something for them "you're my best friend".

Did you know that if you fall over and bang your head (insert appropriate sound effects of a something hitting the floor) you get picked up by the "amblans" and taken to the "fignit shop".... yup that took me a while to work out too. We have since had a discussion about how people go to hospital and cars go to the fix it shop (thank you Finley the Fire Engine)!

Talking about speech: Ciara has cracked the word "yellow" instead of "lellow", she even gets the "th" sound right about 80% of the time, her speech is getting clearer and she does so love to talk. I can remember my mom saying once toddlers start talking people wish they would shut up again, it's not quite that bad but every so often I wish I had some earplugs ;0)

Heard today

"Mommy, ice bear"
"Ice bear? What on earth does that mean Enya?"
"Ice bear PUH-LEEZ" pointing emphatically at the freezer
"oh" light bulb goes on "you mean you want an ice cream"
"ja, ice cream"

I don't think I need to add anything about the look of disgust I received because it took me so long to catch on what she wanted!

I won't even try and type what she mangles out of the word "bridge". It took me about 5 minutes to work it out the first time she said it!

out of the mouth of babes part 2

"Daddy mucky puppy"

"no sweety, that's Daddy IS a mucky puppy"

"Daddy mucky puppy"

"uh uh, Daddy IS a mucky puppy"

"That's right!" (very emphatically said by Enya)

The things kids say

Ciara and Enya are still very firmly in the 2 word sentence phase but they have a couple of quirky things that they say.

Ciara calls a belly button " a peter button", and as far as both girls are concerned other small children are called Anna. As in when we are looking at a book and there is a child illustrated there, it is pointed to with an emphatic "anna". I have got them to give a little on this point and when I say it is a boy, they will then grudgingly call it "neenus" (a friend's son is called Linus). However when we are out and about and see another child in a buggy, calls of Anna still resound. I think a continuation of this is that they refer to each other as Enya, it sounds kind of similiar and as often as I call the wrong name they feel it refers to both.

Any other moms out there who have the same problem, i.e. continually refer to their children by the wrong name? I know who I'm talking to and the name I want to say, unfortunately it is often not the name that comes out! At least I don't have any pets so can't call them by the pet's name like my mom used to do to us.

Kaputt spider

"KA-putt" and "peye-der" (spider) are the 2 newest words being uttered by the terrible two. Ciara delights in throwing everything on the floor and then stating "Ka-putt", not quite sure how we are going to manage this spell. I can't take all their toys away.

We have been practicing naming ourselves, you know Ciara, Enya, Mommy, daddy. They both will point to Enya if we ask where Enya is but they don't react when we ask where Ciara is. Ciara will in fact point at herself in the mirror and say "Enya". They refuse point blank to even say the name Ciara. I spoke to the play therapist about this today and she initially said maybe because it's harder to pronounce than Enya but kaputt is even harder and they manage that fine. I find this a bit ironic as I have tried so hard to treat them as individuals but they are still having a bit of an identity crisis. Neither girl will look at us immediately when we call their name and if we ask one to do something by name they both react. That being said if we ask name to give the other by name a cuddle they do react appropriately. I guess we just have to keep working on names.

They also are fascinated by building cranes right now and delight in pointing them out loudly to me everytime we drive past one, I now know where all the cranes in this area are! I believe they are going to be little tomboys as dolls are right now completely boring, cars and cranes and telephones are in.

New developments

It seems like the girls are going through another developmental spurt. Ciara has learnt to open doors which means yet again we've lost safe places. It uesd to be that anything we didn't want them to get hold of, we would put into our bedroom and close the door. Well that no longer works, witness me desperately searching for the till slip from our recently bought and now deceased coffee machine which Z had left on his bedside table. She also delights in slamming doors which means I have to invest in some door stoppers before we lose any fingers. Thank goodness when my parents were visiting, my dad fixed a child proof latch on our bathroom cupboard so I don't have to worry about the monsters getting into the detergents and cleaning supplies.

Talking about doors, we've had a couple of incidence where Ciara has locked us out. On the weekend she shut the terrace door while we were sitting with friends out on the patio. That is not bad but then she lifted the handle, locking the door. We didn't think she could do it so had no keys outside with us and no other way into the house. Thank goodness our friends 3 year old daughter was in the house too and she opened the door for us but it could have ended very badly (Enya was also in the house).

Then on Monday I was having a cleaning blitz of the kitchen and bedrooms, I'd hauled all our kitchen chairs into the entrance hall to wash the kitchen floor and was just starting our bedroom floor (directly opposite the kitchen across the hall), I'd shut the door to keep the monsters from sliding on the wet floor, when I heard something. I went to the door to see what the terrible two were up to and found I couldn't open the door. Ciara has slid a kitchen chair so the backrest was under the handle and I couldn't push it down. You can imagine my panic as I realised I didn't even have a phone with me to ring for help. Thankfully we live on the ground floor and our windows open such that I could get out it. I hopped out our bedroom window and ran to our landlady to see if I could get a house key, unfortunately she was out, as was her daughter who lives upstairs. As I ran back I glanced in the window by our front door to see Ciara disappearing into our bedroom. She'd obviously couldn't hear me and had gotten curious, she'd moved the chair again and opened the door. The end result is Z and I have decided we need a spare key somewhere outside so when this happens again (and it will, I don't doubt it!) we have another way in.

Still writing about Ciara (what can I say, she's had an eventful week so far), it finally happened last night. I went in to their room like I always do just before I go to bed to tuck them in again and stroke their sweet little heads. This time however Ciara was standing bolt upright by her cot side (she sometimes does this as when the bedroom door opens it wakes her up), I picked her up to lie her back down and noticed her babygro was open all the way down the front. When I started doing it up I realisied it was wet and her nappy was hanging at half mast, so of course I had to check her bed which was of course soaking wet. I knew it had to happen, I'm just glad we found out then and not in the morning. So we are now going to try 2 piece pj's as so far she hasn't started pulling her trousers down but press studs and zips she can undo!

Enya has put her first 2 word sentence together in the meantime. "Hallo mommy" while playing on the couch. I don't know if it was just fluke and then because I responded so positively with "hallo Enya" it got repeated over and over, or what, but we played that little game for 5 minutes or so before she got bored. I have to thank our toy phones for teaching the girls to say hello and bye bye. They both love to hold the phone to their ears and say hello or bye bye, just the rest of the conversation is still a bit lacking (although Enya does sometimes babble into the phone). Ciara even does bye bye with a wave and she is definitely using it appropriately, waving and bye bying strangers; birds; even her poo when we flush it away down the toilet (the poo, not the strangers, go down the loo ;0).

I'm now starting to relax about the whole speech thing, I think something has gone click in the last 2 weeks and they are slowly getting it!

More words

Other words that I forgot to mention: both girls say "down" and "oh dear" with prompting. I have to celebrate every word!

Enya even said "two" today, but only if I said it first. We'll have to see if she says it tomorrow too.