Just a quick kid update since I'm realizing it's been a really long time since I did one of those:
Milo:
Milo is 2 1/2 and finally putting together some sentences. Verbally he's progressing just fine as far as boys go, but man alive it's so hard sometimes when he can't communicate what he wants! We've been working really hard to help him identify his emotions. A few of our breakthrough moments were of him saying, "I'm sad" when he tripped, "help please!" and guiding me to the problem, and his first proper use of pronouns yelling, "I POOPED" as he walked down the stairs one morning. While he's not speaking a whole lot, his comprehension is just staggering. He's correctly counting things in his books, recognizes specific words in any context, and can follow multiple steps of instructions.
Milo is one of the most even tempered kids I've come across. He doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve so he seems really stoic, but he's quick to smile and laugh when he wants too. His biggest tantrums come when we're transitioning activities and I think it's because he gets so laser-focused on the task at hand that it takes a lot of effort for him to pull away from it. That along with his lack of communication makes things very frustrating for him and us occasionally.
Physically, Milo is absolutely huge. Just a giant. Whenever I put him in a cart at Target I get weird looks from people because his feet dangle halfway down and it looks like I'm still making my 4-year-old sit in a cart. He's thinned out a lot the last few months. The 3T jeans I bought him in September and had to cuff 2 inches are close to being high waters on him. He's wearing size 10-11 shoes and is just shy of 40 lbs. We've had to move him up to 4T footie pj's since he was walking around with a perma-wedgie! With his size comes a lot of strength; at a playdate a few months ago he threw a tricycle it at some kid :/ We're working on helping him realize how strong he actually is so he doesn't accidently hurt other kids.
Milo's very favorite thing to do is read books. A few weeks ago I went in to check on him before going to bed and he had climbed out of his crib, grabbed most of his books, and was sitting on his chair reading them. We have no idea how long he'd been out of his crib (or that he even could climb out?) but we're just grateful that's all he did! He really loves Magic School Bus, veggies (particularly salad?), everything that has wheels, ring-around-the-rosie, his Etch-a-Sketch, and ordering things according to size, color, and type (no idea where he gets that from...). Milo's extremely curious and is already constantly asking, "what's that!" about everything. He needs a lot of alone time during the day to just sit and explore things. That's been one of the more unusual things for me to get used since I am NOT that way at all.
Milo is extremely wary of being unsteady on his feet. Sometimes I wonder if he's afraid of his own height! He does NOT like climbing things, going down slides, jumping, or being upside down. This tempers his curiosity with a healthy dose of wariness which I'm really thankful for because he could be getting into a LOT of stuff with how tall and strong he is! He also really dislikes thunder & lightning, messes of all kinds, and having to put his toys away.
Milo is very sweet to his sister for the most part. There are normal sibling squabbles, especially with Livvy following him around like a puppy and him needing more alone time, but Milo is more than happy to have someone to play with. We frequently hear him saying, "come on, Wivvy!" as they climb up the stairs to play, and he loves to surprise/scare her since she laughs so hard at it. Milo's also become a little protective of her which I never expected. At the playground the other day, a 4-year-old was pushing Livvy out of the way so he could go down the slide and Milo turned to him and yelled, "NO!!". The kid was shocked (it helps that Milo was taller than him), and then went back down the stairs. It was really cute until Milo turned and pushed Livvy down the slide. Apparently pushing her is a job reserved for him haha.
Livvy:
Livvy is 15 months old and started the new year off with a bang by walking and climbing like she's always known how to do it. We went to Reno to meet up with some friends and I swear the change of environment catapulted her into walking. That and attending nursery for the first time and seeing that everyone else was walking. If we thought Livvy was active before now, boy were we wrong. SHE DOES NOT STOP MOVING and she is fearless. She doesn't stop moving even in her sleep; she is the most restless sleeper I've ever seen and half the time I find her asleep sitting up! She doesn't have a long attention span and goes from activity to activity lightening fast. Before I even knew she could climb the stairs, she was up half of them before I could blink. While Milo stands at the tops of the slides, refusing to go down, Livvy pushes him aside and goes down head first. I used to have panic attacks over her accidently hurting herself, but when she falls, she just gets annoyed and bounces back up.
Livvy girl LOVES food. Just absolutely loves it. Her very favorites are mangoes, avocados, oatmeal, peas, and bananas. I honestly don't know if there's been a point where she was so full she was turning food away. She will always, always open her mouth if you offer her something which is impressive since she only has 4 teeth still. I'm really thankful for her appetite because she certainly needs it. At her most recent appointment she was measuring in the 96th percentile across the board. Our pediatrician commented that we make big, symmetrical children haha. Between her verbal and physical progress she's burning through calories like crazy!
Livvy shocked me to my core when one day she started saying "mama" at 11 months old. I just sat there looking at her really confused and she said it a few more times. Since then she also hasn't stopped talking. Soon we were hearing "daddy", then "Wivvy!" and we taught her how to say "please" by feeding her bits of cake. She repeats everything we're saying and loves when Milo talks to her in the backseat of the car. When she gets really hangry, she'll go through every word she knows knowing that one of them might at least trigger us into giving her some food.
What has surprised me the most with Livvy is just how easy it is to tell how she's feeling. For the most part she's extremely happy and lights up every time we come into the room which just makes our day. The flipside of that though is that she can throw colossal tantrums. At first we genuinely thought something was wrong every time she did this, but the tantrums grew suspect when they immediately stopped after picking her up ;) Livvy's emotions are much more of a roller coaster than Milo's, but luckily she's young enough that nothing upsets her too much for the time being. Livvy also seems to be very in-tune to others' emotions. Whenever I'm feeling sad, she'll race up to me and give me a micro-hug by putting her head on my legs. It's heartbreakingly adorable, even if it's short-lived ;)
Livvy absolutely adores Milo. Anything that he is doing is immediately the new, cool thing to do. Any toy he's playing with, anything he says, any book he's reading, Livvy insists on imitating him. Right now we're working on making sure she also learns how to spend time alone since she hasn't had much experience with that. The first few days/weeks of this were NOT fun, but she's gotten a lot better. She's just now starting to be interested in looking at books (as opposed to eating them), stacking blocks, and racing cars around, but mostly she just prefers to be moving; climbing on the couches and out of her highchair (!!), up and down the stairs, and racing around the living room.
We've been doing our best to prepare them both for our new baby. My hope is that they'll keep each other entertained and occupied a lot once this new baby comes. I think Livvy might "get" it a tiny bit more than Milo; either that or Milo just isn't interested at all. I'll ask Livvy where the baby is and she immediately pulls my shirt up and hugs my belly. I once got Milo to put his hands on my belly, but baby girl kicked his hand and he freaked OUT. Probably scarred him, poor kid. I was getting a little worried about how this transition would go, but then as we were in line to checkout at Costco, the gal in front of us had a new baby in a carseat in her cart. The baby started crying and both Milo and Livvy were riveted. Milo kept saying, "baby sad!" and both of them were looking at me with a lot of concern in their faces. For a full 5 minutes neither kids looked away from that crying baby and because I'm a pregnant hormonal mess, I was crying by the time I had to pay.
With Livvy walking now it's like a light switch went off and all the hard moments of having them 15 months apart is paying off. It was a lot of work in the beginning. I had to tell myself mentally that I actually had twins so that I wouldn't overestimate Milo's abilities; he seemed so much older once I had Livvy so I had to constantly remind myself of his age. The downside of having kids so close together are all the immediate needs the parents have to help them with. The lack of independence of multiple kids is exhausting and often overwhelming. Now that they're older and slightly more independent, all of that hard work is paying off. Neither kid has known what life is like without a sibling to have to share toys with, take turns, be gentle towards, and get along with. That doesn't mean that there aren't tantrums and unkindness ever, but I think we missed a lot of that adjustment stage. Milo and Livvy are the best of friends and I hope that continues throughout their lives.
Livvy girl LOVES food. Just absolutely loves it. Her very favorites are mangoes, avocados, oatmeal, peas, and bananas. I honestly don't know if there's been a point where she was so full she was turning food away. She will always, always open her mouth if you offer her something which is impressive since she only has 4 teeth still. I'm really thankful for her appetite because she certainly needs it. At her most recent appointment she was measuring in the 96th percentile across the board. Our pediatrician commented that we make big, symmetrical children haha. Between her verbal and physical progress she's burning through calories like crazy!
Livvy shocked me to my core when one day she started saying "mama" at 11 months old. I just sat there looking at her really confused and she said it a few more times. Since then she also hasn't stopped talking. Soon we were hearing "daddy", then "Wivvy!" and we taught her how to say "please" by feeding her bits of cake. She repeats everything we're saying and loves when Milo talks to her in the backseat of the car. When she gets really hangry, she'll go through every word she knows knowing that one of them might at least trigger us into giving her some food.
What has surprised me the most with Livvy is just how easy it is to tell how she's feeling. For the most part she's extremely happy and lights up every time we come into the room which just makes our day. The flipside of that though is that she can throw colossal tantrums. At first we genuinely thought something was wrong every time she did this, but the tantrums grew suspect when they immediately stopped after picking her up ;) Livvy's emotions are much more of a roller coaster than Milo's, but luckily she's young enough that nothing upsets her too much for the time being. Livvy also seems to be very in-tune to others' emotions. Whenever I'm feeling sad, she'll race up to me and give me a micro-hug by putting her head on my legs. It's heartbreakingly adorable, even if it's short-lived ;)
Livvy absolutely adores Milo. Anything that he is doing is immediately the new, cool thing to do. Any toy he's playing with, anything he says, any book he's reading, Livvy insists on imitating him. Right now we're working on making sure she also learns how to spend time alone since she hasn't had much experience with that. The first few days/weeks of this were NOT fun, but she's gotten a lot better. She's just now starting to be interested in looking at books (as opposed to eating them), stacking blocks, and racing cars around, but mostly she just prefers to be moving; climbing on the couches and out of her highchair (!!), up and down the stairs, and racing around the living room.
We've been doing our best to prepare them both for our new baby. My hope is that they'll keep each other entertained and occupied a lot once this new baby comes. I think Livvy might "get" it a tiny bit more than Milo; either that or Milo just isn't interested at all. I'll ask Livvy where the baby is and she immediately pulls my shirt up and hugs my belly. I once got Milo to put his hands on my belly, but baby girl kicked his hand and he freaked OUT. Probably scarred him, poor kid. I was getting a little worried about how this transition would go, but then as we were in line to checkout at Costco, the gal in front of us had a new baby in a carseat in her cart. The baby started crying and both Milo and Livvy were riveted. Milo kept saying, "baby sad!" and both of them were looking at me with a lot of concern in their faces. For a full 5 minutes neither kids looked away from that crying baby and because I'm a pregnant hormonal mess, I was crying by the time I had to pay.
With Livvy walking now it's like a light switch went off and all the hard moments of having them 15 months apart is paying off. It was a lot of work in the beginning. I had to tell myself mentally that I actually had twins so that I wouldn't overestimate Milo's abilities; he seemed so much older once I had Livvy so I had to constantly remind myself of his age. The downside of having kids so close together are all the immediate needs the parents have to help them with. The lack of independence of multiple kids is exhausting and often overwhelming. Now that they're older and slightly more independent, all of that hard work is paying off. Neither kid has known what life is like without a sibling to have to share toys with, take turns, be gentle towards, and get along with. That doesn't mean that there aren't tantrums and unkindness ever, but I think we missed a lot of that adjustment stage. Milo and Livvy are the best of friends and I hope that continues throughout their lives.
All pictures taken by Chris Romney. Look him up on Instagram! @chrisromney.art
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