Navigational memory

On our adventure yesterday, Parker and I took the standard route to my office, which is a block from the train station. As we got off the freeway, Parker said, "This is the way to Daddy's work!" And he was right.

When we we on the train, cruising on the east-side of highway 80 in Berkeley, Parker said, "That's the way to Ebba's house." And he was right.

As our train approached the Carquinas bridge from below, Parker said, "That's the way to Marine World." And he was right.

Regular readers of this blog will remember that I took Parker (across this very bridge) to Marine World about six months ago.

Riding the rails

Parker and I took a train ride yesterday, from Emeryville to Martinez and back, about 40 minutes each way.



It seemed like the perfect opportunity for him to learn to tell time on an analog wristwatch, so we worked on that as we waited for our train.



We got good seats on the second level of the train, which tickled Parker silly.




The views on the ride ranged from freeways and junkyards to lovely bay views. Parker was pretty pleased with it all.




All in all a great adventure.



Incidentally, he now tells time like a pro on his little Thomas the Train™ watch. In fact, I hope the novelty wears off soon because he was giving us minute-by-minute updates on the time today at the zoo, and he insisted on napping with his watch on.

Crafts

Amy got Parker a very nice craft box containing all manner of crafty thing from beads, to buttons, to feathers to googlie eyes. We got it out yesterday and the kids had a blast. Mostly the girls wanted to play with the glue, but Parker totally understood the situation and stuck on some numbers that he then painted. Oh, and yes, it's important to craft in the nude.

Leotard #2

I'm pretty sure what I'm about to tell you isn't condoned by any twin mom, twin expert or twin book.

First some background:

As you all know, the girls showed interest in peeing in the potty a long time ago. Elizabeth is pretty damn good at it now only having accidents when at someone's house and having a lot of fun. And she always knew when she was going to poop, but chose to hide in a certain place in the house rather than sitting on the toilet. So pretty much every time she disappeared I knew what was going on.

Miranda, who is having major issues with poop, is now on serious medication daily and the poop doctor (GI specialist) said we shouldn't even think of poop potty training her for 6 months after her poop is normal. In other words, a long ass time.

So a couple weeks ago, I told Elizabeth that if she pooped in the potty 5 times she could get a prize. A prize being anything she wanted. And not to repeat my story, she got the prize: a plain pink leotard that she chose completely on her own.

This worked so well, that I tried it again and told her we could choose another prize. So the next time we were at a kids store, we picked out a purple leotard (her choice again) and I taped it to the kitchen cabinet with the sticker chart underneath. (One sticker for one poop...5 stickers = leotard.)

Unfortunately, she lost interest and started hiding again to poop. Then the strangest thing happened. Miranda started pooping in the potty. After one such time, she looked at me and said, "I get a sticker?!?" I hadn't prepared myself for this, so I took the sticker chart and put a line down in and said, This half is Miranda's and this half is Elizabeth's. Then I put a sticker on Miranda's side.

They still kept referring to the leotard as Elizabeth's leotard, so I started reminding them that whoever got to 5 sticker's first got the leotard.

Within a couple days, Miranda had 3 stickers and Elizabeth had 0. A fact that I pointed out often.

Then something "clicked" with Elizabeth and one day she walked up to me and said, "Mommy, I have to go poop now," and took my hand and walked me to the bathroom where she peed. This happened again about 10 minutes later when she pooped. And since then, with only one after nap in the diaper situation, she has done this everyday. Usually, she feels the need, but can't get it out and then goes back a few minutes later to take care of business.

So this morning, it was Elizabeth 4 and Miranda 3 and Elizabeth went into the bathroom on her own and went poop. Then she ran to the leotard and started telling me it was hers. And she was right. I took it down and put it on her.

Miranda was sad, to say the least. But that sadness turned to happiness when I went and got her one of her plain black leotards. Then they both ran back and forth in the house for a good long time, laughing and giggling all the while.

More delayed blogs

Michael already blogged about christmas morning, but here are a few more pics.

Peter and Oliver were very efficient in their present opening. They identified their presents, opened them, put them aside and went to another. Miranda wanted nothing to do with much of it, preferring to hang out with Daddy. Parker was mildly interested and Elizabeth understood it completely, going to select presents, hand them out and then open them with Elizabeth type gusto. It was all over by 7:03am and time to eat pancakes.

So many blogs, so little time.

We've been neglectful here lately. Mostly because we were too busy enjoying ourselves to stop to blog about it.

Here is what happened on Christmas Eve.

In the morning, we went to the Lawrence Hall of Sciences with everyone but Julia and Amy. Ebba and her kids were there and it was raining so we said, what the heck. With our new third row we were able to get all the kids in my car. We also got to listen to Peter and Parker narrate the whole trip for us from the perspective of people going backward. I took the girls home after an hour or so and went back to get the boys a couple hours later.















Then that evening, we all opened one present. A tradition, apparently, in the Long family. For the dinner we gave Amy and Eran, we did the old "boxes wrapped in boxes" gag which is always a hit.










Then after the kids went to bed, Eran brought in all their presents and Michael got to work assembling the kitchen. He was up late.