I’m not good at embedding so I’ll attach the link as well:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUeKJYgsBQM

Here, the girls are home with Daddy and he turns on the music–their favorite song “Toes”. What I love the most about this video is not just the sweet dancing that’s going on but how the girls connect in different ways with the music.

Tessa (in green) goes to get the rattles to dance to the music which is demonstrating her connection of the rattles to the music. And she starts dancing and bopping around the room with her rattles. How appropriate to get out the rattles to shake to the music–which Tessa vigorously engages in.

Nora (in pink), however, goes to get the pink capes. The capes are actually just blankets that we put on the girls (like capes) and then we fly around the room and sing. The girls love to wear the capes. She first hands one to Tessa. Sharing. Helping. Engaging. Tessa, however, is busy with her rattles, but Nora insists that Tessa takes the cape, which she balances in her mouth for a short time before it falls to the ground again. Nora then takes her cape to Daddy so he can help her put it on her back. You can hear her say, “Dad” before the sharp “uuuuh!”–the insistence that Daddy is not moving fast enough to put the cape on her. Then you see her swaying and “flapping” along with the music. Once Nora has her cape situated (and Tessa’s cape falls off) you see Tessa decide that she too wants to wear a cape like Nora and begins to petition Daddy for his help. But the video has to be put down to accommodate the “cape maintenance” responsibilities of Daddy.

I’m not sure why Nora connects the capes with the singing and dancing, although we do sing and coo when we wear our capes. I think she is initially prompted to go over to the toys (and capes) when she sees Tessa go over there to grab the rattles. This is an example of the “herding” that I see with the girls. We call it “monkey see, monkey do” around the house. It reminds me of the part in Jurassic Park with the dinosaurs are running in the field and run as a pack, a herd, following each other wherever the leader is leading them.

Anyway, I think this video is fascinating. And not too bad for a camera phone.

They’re not babies anymore…it makes me both happy and sad.

…a SiLLy hat(s)… (sing it, girl!)…

…a SIL-eeeeey hat(s)…

…now, Nora hAs a silLy HAt(s)…(and some mysterious water-substance or probably lunch…)

…on her HeAD!

It’s hard to do justice to our “silly hat” song on a blog.  But those are the lyrics.  The song mostly applies to our friend “Pez”–a dead tree down the street carved into the shape of a Pez dispenser that (who?) has various “silly hats” on its (his?) head depending on the season of the year.   This is “Halloween Pez”…

We love pez.

Tessa is near…

We could spend hours in our tunnel.  We chase each other round and round and round in the tunnel.  Sometimes daddy sticks the tunnel on his head and it looks like he got eaten by a giant rainbow worm!  So funny. 

Pocket full of posies…

Ashes, Ashes…

We all fall DOWN!

Look at Nora (in blue) already doing the “again again again” sign. 

It’s so much fun to play.  After they fall down they say, “down, down, down”.  The girls will even hold each others’ hands and play.  And they sing, “ooo oooo oooooo”.  Very cute.

Thanks daddy and poppie for the game!  So fun.

Last week I got a card for my 32nd birthday and in the card was one simple phrase: “Enjoy every moment.”  I don’t think she meant the very fleeting moments of my 32nd year of life.

So, I am reminded, to enjoy these moments:

Tessa says, “Chuz”.  For “shoes”.  When I get home from work, both girls run frantically to the drawer where we keep their shoes.  I don’t know what this means.  But I do know they love their shoes and urgently want to put on mismatched variations of shoes and socks.

Both girls say, “down”.  They don’t say “no” yet but “down” is more like, “Let me down, lady, I’m outta here.”

When asked what sound does a kitty cat make, Nora says, “Mmmm…ow”.  There’s no long “e” sound.  Just a long, closed mouth “mmm” followed by “ow”.  Nora loves kitty cats.

We have the “oo oo oo” sound down for monkey, and it easily translates in the the sound also made by owls and ghosts.

“Mum mum mum” still comes in triplicate.  “Da da” for dad.  “Pa pa” or “poppie” sometimes for poppie Jerry.

We can point to everything.  We can point to specific people when named, our ears, our eyes (ouch!), mouth, sometimes to the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” our feet, where our hats go…our head, and we can point to my personal favorite, our bellybuttons.  Very cute.  We’re trying for “elbow” but that’s difficult to reach.

We can play “Ring around the rosy.” And if we can’t find a partner to make a circle, we just turn around and around by ourselves.  Falling randomly to the ground.

We can dance and sing.

When we go downstairs (feet first, facing forward–’cause the girls refused to turn arond and go down on their bellys), we say “schooch, schooch, schooch, DOWN” and drop to the next step.  The girls imitate us saying, “chu chu chu, DOWN”.   Cute.  They are very good at the schooch.

Tessa says, “All done” for everything and consistently gives the sign for it. 

“All dun. All dun.”

The most reliable, and universally applicable, word we use is “ball.”  Everything is a ball–particularly during the season of pumpkins.  “Ball. Ball. Ball.” Everywhere we go.  There are balls. 

And giggles.  Lots of giggles.

To Aunt Mergana and Mommy.

 

Sharing a birthday is great.  Just hang out and enjoy it!

Chad got into a car accident a few weeks ago, and while he, thank god, walked away unscathed, the car was totalled.  Also, work has not been going well for me.  Enough said on that front because this is not the forum for such discussions, but suffice it to say that I feel like I’m at the bottom of my game this last month.  Teething is amongst us again with big gnarly fat molars invading the delicate gums of my very young, non-verbal, and consequently cranky children.  We also have many friends facing illnesses, worries, sadnesses and they have monumental struggles in front of them, in front of all of us.  Worry and concern grip me at my throat as thoughts of them wander in and out of my mind every day and night.  And, last night, we went into the basement to get some paper towels and I realized that the carpet was wet.  We spent last night moving things out of the basement and ripping up the wet carpet.  Sigh.  It has been a hard couple of weeks for us.  It seems unrelenting.  And I am exhausted.

And then something happened last night–a gift from an angel.

Grammy and Gana were over helping me get the girls ready for bed as Daddy was at a church meeting.  The girls had eaten their dinner, played played played, taken a bath and they were in their jammies winding down, getting ready for bed.  Grammy was in the rocking chair singing a lullaby and my head was resting on her knee as the girls were busily playing, reading books and gabbing gabbing away.  Then, out of nowhere, Tessa walked over to me, looked me square in the eye and said, “I love you”, paused, and planted a kiss on my lips.

 

If I didn’t have Grammy as a witness, I would not have believed it.  It was a GOOD KISS, too.  Not one of those open, curled lips, licking sort of kisses.  It was really good baby pecking kiss!  And nothing sounding like “I love you” has ever crossed Tessa or Nora’s lips.  Of course, there was no repeating that incident as we were instantly swept up into our books and blocks and the slide and the sippy cups and could not be bothered to say it again…

I love you.

It was at that instant in time, a moment out of nowhere, that I knew that I had been given a gift to empower me to turn around my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  As these days are too fleeting and do not repeat themselves.  I cannot turn back time, I can only face what is in front of us.  We walked away from that accident.  This job allows me to buy a new car.  Out of sickness there is hope and peace.  The teething is almost over (I think we’re up to 16/20 or so now).  And, I don’t know what to say about the carpet.

But I do know that Tessa and Nora amaze me.  They inspire me.  They bring me hope with each and every new day.  I love you, too, Tessa.  I love you, too, Nora.

 Right now the “Caped Royals Crusaders” are the obvious choice.

First, we get our capes and our hats on.  Thanks for the help, Poppie.

Then we buzz around the room with electric excitement!  Cheese Tessa!

Nora strikes a pose.

 

 Also in the costume running…

“Sock hands”

But it’s hard to grab candy with socks on your hands!