Personality and Developmental Notes 12/31/10

Becca says "no." To everything. All the time. Even when she means yes. She also says "nuh uh" and shakes her head "no."

Julie, on the other hand, will shake her head "yes," but when she does, she does it very slowly ... it's almost like she's belittling us.

While I mentioned Becca and Emma being mothering in my last post, Julie has really taken to one of the new baby dolls. She does lots and lots of pretend feeding it.

Julie still has a bit of a biting problem at daycare. But the girls have started saying "no no, bite." They say it to each other, to the cats, and to their dolls.

The words that they are saying right now are just exploding. They try to repeat everything that they hear us say. Earlier this week, Emma and Julie both said "radish" (a new vegetable kit they got for Christmas). I know that they have no idea what it is, but they are learning to say the words.

The girls, especially Julie, like to tell us "shhhhhh" when we say that someone is taking a nap or someone is asleep. Except that they think you're supposed to touch your nose when you say it (as opposed to putting your finger in front of your lips).

Emma says "'jamas" for pajamas, but it sounds like "damn it."

When we went out for pizza last week, they put the plates on the table and they were all different colors. The girls amused themselves for quite a while just by swapping plates back and forth.

We've finally started trying to get the girls to pick up their own toys each night. Becca's a rock star. When we're done, she makes the "more" sign with her hands. Julie helps with a few things. And we're still trying to pry that spatula from Emma's hands.

I wasn't here when the girls went down for their nap on Sunday, so this story is 2nd hand. But Greg said they babbled for a while and eventually started crying... fairly unusual for nap time these days. Emma and Julie were still up, but Julie didn't seem upset. Greg laid Emma back down and she calmed down for a bit, but stood back up when he tried to leave. She pointed behind Julie's crib and said "duck." Apparently, Julie had lost her little Aflac duck behind her crib, and Emma was more concerned about it than Julie. Greg got it, gave it to Julie, and Emma laid back down and went to sleep.

We've started letting the girls use forks. We tried introducing them before, and they were just like toys. But this time, they got it really fast. They are still trying to sort out when to use a form and when to use a spoon. They had chocolate pudding for dessert last night. Julie used a spoon. Emma used a fork. Becca used both.

We took the tree down on Thursday while the girls were at daycare. I knew that they'd be asking about it when they got home, because we always turn on the lights and clap when we got home each night. They noticed right away. "Tree? Tree?" I felt so bad. They seem to have accepted it... we kept saying "bye bye tree."