This blog is, if nothing else, a general chronology for all of us in one way or another. But the other day one of Joseph's educators commented on an aspect of learning and coined it perfectly: "That's not even half of his life so far". And it really brought home the notion that while us, as the authors, and you, as the reader enjoy the (more or less) monthly pace of our little newsletter, we are really recounting such large portions of Carli and Joseph's life each time we take a break and come back.
Which brings us to present, and aside from the fact that the kids are still tripping over their Chanukah presents, their accomplishments in the last few weeks do seem to have encompassed large portions of their lives.
Carli is so happy to be enjoying her life without diapers, she'll show you her panties over the phone. Just ask those who've already "seen" them! Yup, with little fanfare and much pride our little miss is losing the little and gaining more miss. (wait, her aim is pretty good. Well, you get the point.) Unfortunately, she offended Joseph when she ran to the toilet and slammed the door on him, screaming, "No, give me some privacy!"
And, much to our delight (but heartbreak at that exact moment), from the other side of the door comes: "Nonny! I see Ayee!!!" And while Joseph pined for his sister, we all collected ourselves at that moment and realized that months, actually, years at this point, of guiding, illustrating and loving culminated at one emphatic, maturing moment.
On the heels of his sister's momentum, Joseph is practicing sitting on the potty and screaming "yay" at Carli whenever the rest of us do, waiting and slowly plotting his own diaper free moment.
And life at home has been terribly spoiled as we got to enjoy Nana Sheila's unemployed status. She's been around for a few weeks and the kids have access to a surplus of hugs, toys and sugar. (we'd say the kids are eating more with her around, but for those of you who know them, that is simply not possible!)
One thing Carli did figure out quickly was that the absence of mom yields more immediate gratification. When she asked for a sweet snack after breakfast, mom said no, so she immediately said, "mom, can you leave?" And ran to hug Nana's leg and stare at the cupboard.
And take our literary Joseph, who also likes being read to so much these days decided to pay it forward and read to Carli in the morning before he's summoned for a diaper change and breakfast. And the idea that we have been reading to them for at least 80% of their lives was such a crazy notion to ponder- but the numbers don't lie.
And now that mom has become a little more capable with her camera's video feature, we hope you like our new videos! If you can't view them here, they're usually accessible via mom's facebook profile. (add mom if you aren't already a friend).
We do have a big array to choose from, but we'll start of small for now and let the gallery grow- this way mom won't feel so bad if she's at a loss for words in the future. As we are still in the experimental process, not all the videos may work. We'll try and improve this for next time.
Or we can just listen to the latest verbiage to emerge from our gang (and NO, mom does not sneak into their room to subliminally implant words by reading the dictionary as they sleep). Joseph's new musical instrument of interest is a hammered Dulcimer and Carli's favorite new amazonian animal, the pygmy marmoset.
See you soon!
