Snapshots of the Twins

[Verbal snapshots, that is, because we've established that I'm not much of a photographer.]

This weekend, both Maddie and Riley started using verbs. Their talking used to be exclusively noun/adjective/pronoun based, along the lines of, "This Maddie jacket. No YaYa brown pants. More milk, please." An occasional verb now makes an appearance. Not always in the right place, mind you, but I heard things like, "YaYa ladybug bite. Maddie read book. YaYa eat! I found it! Mama book read," this weekend. Very cool.

The twins are starting to share my love of food and cooking. They helped me make banana bread, lemon bars, and pasta with tuna/capers/lemon/parsley/garlic this weekend. They ate up the pasta like it was going out of style, too, although the lemon bars were totally rejected and the banana bread garnered lukewarm reviews. It's fun to have them help, though. They were fascinated by watching eggs get cracked, and they love to stir.

Riley's word for canteloupe is yummy.

They have invented two games. One is called "Table." I sit in the play tent on one side of the playroom. The twins take turns giving the little craft table on the other side of the room a resounding smack, then running at full tilt over to the tent and flinging themselves on my lap. The other game is called "Ba Be Bo." This one is played by yelling, "Ba Be Bo [person]," then running over to the named person and giving him or her a hug that usually ends in being tackled on the floor.

Riley likes to hold and inspect things. He's very gentle and can be trusted even with delicate items like digital cameras, although I try to limit what I let him have. But he's hard to resist, when, instead of saying hold, he says ho-be, in this sweet, small, innocent voice. That's what he says when he wants me to hold him, too. "Mama, ho-be? Mama, ho-be?" How can I say no to that?

This morning, I put the song "Apples and Bananas" on the CD player. When the song was over, Riley looked at me and said, "More platano, please? More platano, please?" I was confused because it was 7:30 a.m., and bananas had thus far not been a part of our day. Then I realized, "Oh! He wants to hear the song about apples and bananas again!" Duh. He was smart enough to make the English to Spanish translation; it just took me a while.

Maddie reads books to herself now. She will sit with a favorite book and turn the pages and tell herself the story sotto voice. Baby Cakes is in heavy rotation right now, and I often find her paging through saying, "Baby Cake, I love you!" or "Baby Cake, la la la!" It's very sweet.

Riley is all about giving kisses all of a sudden. And big, big hugs. And "I love you" contests where we both say, "IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou" over and over, right in each others' faces.