Ah, pregnancy and chasing my current children has finally allowed me to update everyone on how they are doing! Let’s see…Elisa is SAILING through learning how to read. She is doing better than we expected. They teach them how to read ’sight words’ which I wasn’t too familiar with - but basically they learn words in families like, ‘can, fan, dan, ran, van,’ or ‘big, pig, jig, dig’. She had a test last week on 21 words - and the night before she was missing about 8 of them. Well she came home the next day with the test results and had only missed three! Her teacher told us she is in the above average reading group at her school. We are so proud of her! Next time you see her ask to see her page of sight words and have her read them to you. It is truly an amazing experience to see our little girl READING and WRITING! Elisa’s behavior has also improved greatly. For a while she just wouldn’t do what she was told no matter what the consequences were. Now - I can ask her to clean her room and she actually does it! And every night she cleans up toys for me mostly without giving me a hard time. We used a reward chart for a while and it really motivated her. She told us we didn’t need it anymore because she filled it up last week. It was kinda funny. But, she is still doing what she is told even if we don’t use the chart - so we will see how it goes. Yay my big girl! She’s a great helper and big sister!

Oh, twin toddlers. Need I say more? To start, sibling rivalry or whatever you might call it has sunk in. I call it the battle of the twinkies because it’s always a fistfight or slugfest. For starters, Sarah loves to take ANYTHING Stephen has in his hands away from him. She isn’t being mean, she just gets interested in whatever he has. Well, little Steve has a bit of a temper. Instead of going and getting back whatever he had, he gets angry and starts throwing smacks or kicks. This phases Sarah NONE no matter how hard he slugs at her. She just goes on with whatever she took from him. Occasionally Sarah will pull Stephen away from whatever he is playing with and that also infuriates him. He has perfected this little growl that we only hear when Sarah is messing with him.

In addition to taking toys, Sarah has developed a liking to sitting on Stephen. Or Elisa, for that matter. She likes to also pull him off of the sofa or chair he is sitting in, or sit on him if he is laying on the sofa or floor. If he is laying down she will plop right on him from his head to his toes, depending where she lands. Again you get the little growl and the hands or feel flaring when she does this. Again it phases her in the least. It’s almost like she likes to get a reaction out of him, which wouldn’t surprise me if that is her actual motivation. She sure gets a reaction when she does it. I turned the tables on her the other day and sat Stephen right on her tummy, and she didn’t like it one bit. She flung him off of her and got up. But, she didn’t sit on him again that night. Matter of fact, she didn’t sit on him again today either.

Both of the twins are cutting molars and eye teeth. Stephen currently has 4 poking out and Sarah is not too far behind with 2. These are the biggest teeth they will get and they are miserable a lot because of it. They don’t really want to eat too much, they want sippies with ice water most of the time, and talk about cranky! I feel bad for them because I know it hurts them and I try to comfort them the best I can. Sometimes though they just give me attitude and won’t let me comfort them…but I guess that is understandable too. Can someone make them cut all of their teeth in the next 4 weeks please? Like, prior to March 30?

Elisa is signing up for a kids club that our apartment complex runs and she is SO excited. They will keep her full time during spring break and summer for $35/week. You can’t beat that anyplace! They have an after school program too which we might look into temporarily while we get used to the baby and recovery and such. We can see the office right from our window where the club takes place and it would be really convenient. Elisa longs to play with other kids every waking moment and right now I can’t let her outside unsupervised or go outside with her, so this is a good solution to her need. Let’s hope we get the paperwork in order and she is signed up soon.

Ah, more words! Stephen now says ‘thank you, uh oh, all gone, and PIZZA!’ He started saying PIZZA before he even said MOMMY! Can you believe that? Sarah is now saying bear, duck, bird, diaper, and I think she is saying ‘what’s this’ as well. She babbles a whole lot and it’s hard to tell what she is talking about. They also say nana, Stephen has perfected ‘Elisa, Sarah, and Daddy’…let’s hope mommy is coming soon! Stephen also asks ‘what’s that?’ and points to whatever he is meaning. Tonight after he ate dinner he said, ‘all gone’! It was adorable.

The twins have learned how to feed themselves finally as well. They sit in their chairs and hold their spoons or forks and do their very best to get food into their mouths with their utensils. Sarah will give up faster and just grab food with her hands or occasionally put her face in her dish, but Stephen will be patient and use his fork or spoon. I am proud to say Stephen is using his left hand and Sarah uses both. WHOOHOOO! Something my kids do that is like me! Left handed!!! Let’s hope…

Life is definitely interesting right now as we work through mommy’s last few weeks of pregnancy. I have very patient children who (mostly) are understanding of my limitations and don’t give me a hard time because of it. I plan to recover as quick as I can so I can go back to being on the floor with the little ones and outdoors with my Elisa. Let’s hope for a fast recovery so mommy can return to work full duty!