This week I got an email from my sister begging me to send her pictures of the littles. The funny thing is that I feel like I have a ton of material to share, but so little time to share it! Which I suppose is in some ways a nice problem to have. The littles are doing great and I can't say enough about how much I am loving this stage of our lives. Ok, so there is a reason two-year olds get a bad rap, and we certainly endured our share of "spiritedness" this year. But so far ONE and THREE are really looking up.
Now that Magdalene is walking (lolling side to side like a drunken sailor), she is such a real playmate to Gabriel who encourages her to walk to him. Recently, in a desperate attempt to bring some sort of order to our lives, we moved ALL the toys to the basement and only allow a couple of toys up on the main floor during the day. The funny thing is that now the littles play much quieter (sometimes) and with each other rather than their toys half the time--rocking in their boat, playing "where's Maggie" in the curtains, building towers with pots and pans, covering the fridge in magnets and playing chase.
And while I am on constant guard to break up spats, enforce time-outs, impose calm-down sessions, and be on the watch out for hazards, I sort of feel like the pressure is off just a little bit to be mama/counselor/chef AND playmate extraordinaire. Phewf!
I love the way these tease each other--Maggie grabbing toys and dashing away under the table with a foolish grin on her face, the way Gabriel directs the play, "Maggie, come and play house with me," the way they get each other giggling about some secret toddler joke while they eat lunch.
Magdalene is really starting to develop a strong little personality. She is definitely dramatic, loves to dress up and put on necklaces, hats and mittens. She can be found sporting at least one necklace any time of the day. And talking up a storm saying all sorts of words, including, according to Jordan, "Onomatopoeia." He may think I am slightly exaggerating on the words in her vocabulary, but we all heard her say "raspberry" very clearly today. All her s's come out as whistles through those two adorable front teeth. She loves to wrinkle her nose and show those two teeth while she laughs mischieviously and gets her brother going.
Meanwhile Gabriel is the doting older brother, keeping Maggie in line with all the 'rules' in the house, as well as spoon-feeding (literally) his little sister. And we are pretty sure we can owe Maggie's extensive vocabulary to his never-ending chatter. They are definitely two characters with big personalities.
I'm definitely loving this new stage that I'm in. I've found over the past year, there have definitely been some tough moments. But I have tried hard to focus and take little snapshots in my brain (if my camera isn't handy) of the precious/quiet/endearing moments to tide me through the harder ones. But recently, I've found there are more and more of those moments I keep logging away. I'm sure we'll be moving into a new stage any day now, but right now, I'm logging this for posterity sake!
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