James and Julia 24-28 months, Part III: Whole Foods Mini Shopping Carts, a Tunnel, and a Giant Box

Here is Part I: Singing "Genko Ball" and Wearing Santa Diapers

Here is Part II: Rediscovering the Mall, Gymnastics Party, and Pizza at Papa and Gaga’s Apartment

Health

The twins attend their wellcheck appointment on their birthday and scream the whole time. The doctor acts like this is unusual. (Um, they’re somewhere new and being poked and prodded by a stranger.) James has had a rash next to his mouth off and on since he was 13 months old. I had been told it was a pacifier drool reaction (and took away pacifiers but he still had it), and a dermatologist even prescribed a hard core steroid ointment which James hated having me apply. One day it occurs to my mom and me that James tends to get this rash after he eats certain foods with citric acid (something I was allergic to as a baby), particularly tomato sauce, because they’re more likely to come in contact with his face. We see a new dermatologist and he agrees with me and has me simply apply Aquaphor to his face as a barrier before he eats. And voila! it finally goes away.

In February Julia gets laryngitis and it’s sad hearing her rasp, “Mommy!” Mark is funny trying to get her to say “Jack, a boat!” like at the end of Titanic.

Motor Skills

In December the kids jump (or try to) for the first time. Julia is really excited. While chatting on Skype, Bubby gets the twins to jump with her Tigger puppet. It’s the first time James has jumped on anything other than the crib mattress (jumping on the crib mattress is also something he loves). While at a Las Madres playdate at Todd’s, the kids take turns standing on a baby stool and jumping off. The other kids actually jump. Julia on the other hand simply steps off, looks jubilant, and excitedly runs to me for a hug, and then does it again and again. (I melt from the cuteness.) James gets on the stool and springs his body straight up... without ever actually leaving the ground.

Bubby keeps James safe while he engages in one of his favorite pastimes - bed jumping.

Julia and James now climb into the stroller and car seats themselves and get mad if we try to help. Both occasionally like to stand and spin around in a circle which is pretty hilarious to watch as they get dizzy. Mark shows the twins that he can run and then slide when wearing socks. James tries and ends up just running nonstop around the house. He just can’t get the sliding part down but does like crashing into me for hugs.

James and Julia really like the book, Shake a Leg!, which instructs them to do different physical actions. For knock your knees, James knocks each one like it’s a door.

Activities

The kids continue to attend Gymboree classes. The instructors tell the parents to let the kids dance with Gymbo instead of having us move them, and our kids do great, especially James, at moving to the music. Julia loves hugging Gymbo (the puppet mascot) and she hugs him, grins, runs back to me, and runs back to Gymbo for more.

Julia kisses Gymbo.

In January the twins use mini shopping carts for the first time at Whole Foods, and they are so much fun to watch. They add anything they find to their carts including Punjabi lentils and protein energy boost, and we end up returning most of their finds. James spies cherry tomatoes, exclaims, “apples!” and grabs a container (and a few roll out). On future trips to Whole Foods they get super excited when they hear where they’re going. In fact, when I take James ouf of his car seat he tries to run inside to get his shopping cart while holding my hand. Meanwhile Julia talks non-stop: “Grocery store! Shopping cart! Buy food! Julia grocery store! James grocery store! Mommy grocery store! Daddy grocery store!”

James kept picking random food off the shelf at Whole Foods, and Bubby ended up buying some of it because it looked tasty.

James and Julia develop a habit of raiding grocery bags as soon as they’re set upon the kitchen floor. James pulls two cucumbers out of a bag, holds them up triumphantly, and declares, “Green beans!” He also excitedly picks up the box of mac ‘n cheese and exclaims, “Macaroni and cheese!” (The box has no picture of its contents and I’ve never mentioned it before that I can remember, but he KNOWS.)

The kids play with Play-Doh for the first time while sitting in their high chairs. After I make a big deal about how they shouldn’t eat it, of course they then joke that they’re going to eat it. James thinks Play-Doh is HILARIOUS to roll around and then drop on his tray. (See this  video and another.) The new tunnel is so exciting that they immediately go through both ends at once. Later Mark puts it over the twins and they love it. 

James and Julia share the tunnel.

"I am Daddy-O-Tron. Beep. Bloop. I require Pretzel Crisps for fuel. If I cannot have Pretzel Crisps, I will eat this humanoid girl."

I put dried beans in containers for them to fill and spill and Julia uses the scoop to fling them everywhere. (See video.) They also conduct physics experiments by taking lemons from our tree off the ground and dropping them down the slide. We put a big box in the family room and James and Julia love playing in it. Mark closes them in it and they LOVE hiding inside and popping out. And they’re totally happy just lying inside it, too.

“SURPRISE!”

Gaga sings Row Your Boat in the box with James and Julia.

The twins play hide and seek for the first time with Gaga. They’re good at finding but when they hide they run away for 10 seconds and then happily shriek while they run back to us. Papa has James walk up his chest and face. James loves it. When I play 1-2-3 Hug with them, half the time Julia likes to do a fake-out hug where she almost runs all the way to me and then laughs and turns around and runs back. She also does that when she’s excited when my parents arrive after time away. The twins also like running between my legs and James likes to pull my legs apart and then push them together, saying “open,” “close.”

Papa takes a foot to the face playing "Up, Up, Up" with Julia.

James and Julia enjoy taking walks around the neighborhood. They like saying “bye bye” to things they see. One day while addressing some purple flowers, Julia calls out, “Bye bye purple!” Mark likes to take them on a ⅔ mile walk he calls “The Circuit” which is the big circle of Preston-Grant-Levin-Preston. Papa points out house numbers on their walks and Julia often remembers them several weeks later. The twins have many landmarks in the neighborhood and they know the way to get to most of them: the apple tree around the corner on Preston, their friends Josh and Sam’s house, the big blue mailbox on Levin, and the ivy in front of neighbor Ernie’s house (that they insist on touching when in the stroller) where Preston meets Grant.

James and Julia 24-28 months, Part II: Rediscovering the Mall, Gymnastics Party, and Pizza at Papa and Gaga’s Apartment

Here is Part I: Singing "Genko Ball" and Wearing Santa Diapers

 

Events

Last year the babies only got to lie down in the piles of leaves in our front yard. This year they get to play in them for the first time. Our plumber comes by while we are taking pictures, and Julia lights up with a big smile for many of the pictures because she’s telling him “hi” and keeps trying to catch his eye to make sure he’s watching her. Julia loves an audience. 

 

Julia trying to get our plumber to smile at her

At the end of December the twins ride in shopping carts for the first time - one per cart - at the Mountain View Target. They love it. (Previously I kept them in the stroller while shopping and piled my purchases on top of them.)

On New Year’s Day the twins go to the mall for the first time in 1 ½ years (since I went there with Bubby in search of an outfit for Jeopardy). They love eating a big pretzel with Daddy and running around the fountain in Santana Row.

Julia playing by the fountain in Santana Row

A few weeks later we return to Valley Fair Mall and Daddy takes the babies in the stroller on the escalator for the first and last time. (He doesn’t recommend it because the stroller was very heavy and hard to hold level, especially with two kids. He also doesn’t realize this was against the posted rules before doing it.) The kids love it though, and they still tell me about visiting the mall three months later. (Afterwards I ask James what he likes more - escalators or pretzels - and like a baby politician he responds “Escalators AND pretzels.”) Mark takes them to Banana Republic and puts sunglasses on them. James sits back in the stroller with his first pair on and is chill. Meanwhile, Julia immediately takes off each pair and demands another. This seems pretty true to their personalities.

James tries on sunglasses on Banana Republic.

The twins visit San Francisco since the first time when they were a few weeks old. Since James is afraid of elevators, I carry both down the Macy’s escalator at the same time. And since it’s easier to keep going once I’ve already got two kids in my arms, I actually descend one escalator, walk around to the next escalator on the other side, and continue down that one - all while lugging 55+ pounds. On the way back up I let them step on the escalator themselves for the first time. This doesn’t seem to be a momentous occasion at the time but a few months later they become obsessed with escalators.

The twins attend a Hanukkah-themed playdate at Debbie’s house and eat latkes and sufganiyot, attempt to spin driedels, and search for the items on the Seder plate. A few months later Stacy hosts a Valentine’s Day playdate, and Mark teaches James to say “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mommy!” I host not one but TWO St. Patrick’s Day parties because I am insane. We take the kids to Google dressed in their St. Patrick’s Day finery. James is afraid to go inside the building until Mark offers him cookies. On a later visit to Google, they are thrilled when Mark’s co-worker Emily gives them stickers and they request that the stickers be placed on their tummies.

James and Julia are quite the social butterflies and make appearances at several birthday parties. They attend the birthday of Hudson (from Las Madres Sunnvyale) at Airborne Gymnastics. James cries the first few minutes upon arriving but then loves it. Their favorite activity is jumping in the foam pit. Julia squeals with delight before jumping in. She also loves the rings, too.

Julia loves jumping in the foam pit.

Their playgroup friend Ronan has a Curious George themed birthday party and the books that are party favors inspire a love of Curious George books in the twins. At Zachary and Zoe’s birthday party at Swaray, James builds a stack of Mega Bloks taller than himself and Julia goes into the bounce house, jumps once, slides out and repeats. They also enjoy holding the basketball to make baskets with Daddy.

Stacy cleans Ronan in the sink after he enjoys his chocolate birthday cake a little too much.

Julia slides out of the bounce house. Again.

Mark helps Julia dunk.

James and Julia attend the open house at Mountain View Parent Observation Preschool, which will be their preschool in the fall. They enjoy all the activities. Julia paints for the first time (James skips it), and despite washing up immediately afterwards, does not like getting paint on her hands. This ends up being so memorable she refuses to paint at school when she starts attending six months later, until halfway through the school year.

We surprise the twins with a last minute pizza lunch at Gaga and Papa’s apartment in Cupertino. The kids love it - especially rocking in their grandparents’ recliners. After living there a year (in addition to their house in San Diego), Gaga and Papa move out a month after our visit because keeping the apartment didn’t end up making financial sense.

James eats pizza at Papa and Gaga’s apartment.

James and Julia enjoy rocking with Gaga.

James and Julia 24-28 months, Part I: Singing "Genko Ball" and Wearing Santa Diapers

Foreword

This blog post is ridiculously long. I actually started it a year ago. A year ago! And I worked it on at least once a week since then. Just reading it all the way through took several hours. I’m breaking into several parts 1) so I don’t crash the website where I post my blog, and 2) so I don’t bore anyone to pieces by reading it all at one time. Enjoy?

Birthday

The twins celebrate their second birthday. When James is asked how old he is he says “2.” Julia begins the day by answering, “2” (said “twooooooo!”), but quickly changes her mind and decides to begin saying “3.” Clearly she’s already envisioning acquiring a fake ID by the time she’s 6.

For the first time they get to watch Sesame Street that day and they immediately become enamored. While viewing, Julia prefers to lie on the sofa in weird positions and yell “Elmo” whenever he’s onscreen. He’s the Norm of the toddler set.

Watching Sesame Street with Papa and Gaga

Christmas

Before Christmas, when Gaga sings Santa Claus Is Coming to Town she mentions that Uncle Michael is coming then, too. After that the twins add “Michael” to the chorus of the song (Santa Claus and Michael Are Coming to Town).

My parents and Michael visit us for Christmas and the babies are standoffish at first because they haven’t seen their uncle in a year. At first Julia covers half of her face whenever he’s in the room like she’s playing peek-a-boo, no doubt reasoning that if she can’t see him he can’t scare her. Later Julia hugs Michael and he reads to her and she likes getting him to ride the horsey and zebra with her to Jingle Bells. James warms up to him just in time for him to return to Alabama.

Uncle Michael rides the zebra while Julia jubilantly rides the horsey.

After my family leaves, the twins continue to refer to the dining chairs used by my family at Christmas by the occupant’s name during the visit. Julia keeps wanting to climb on “Gaga T” (Gaga’s chair) and when I finally put her in her own chair for breakfast, she fumes and doesn’t want to eat. Later she climbs on Gaga T again and once there calls for me again and again because she can’t actually get down herself. I enjoy this little game so much I end up hiding all the dining chairs.

James and Julia go nuts when they hear Jingle Bells while on their horsey or zebra, and if they’re not already on them they’ll rush over and then ride them furiously. Julia requests this song by saying “Genko Ball.” They back off on riding during the verses and then bounce again excitedly at the chorus, adding in the “Oh!” in the song. They also love sitting on their horsey and zebra and requesting Raffi Christmas songs. God help us all.

The twins see houses with Christmas lights close-up for the first time. When we visit Christmas Tree Lane in Palo Alto it’s a wondrous and confusing experience for them, especially Julia who runs up to a lit wire frame present in someone’s yard, yells “present!” and tries to carry it home.

After Christmas, I subject the twins to a Santa Diaper photo shoot, and we exchange holiday gifts with Kelsi, Drew, and Ari, and Rachel, Matthew, Raelle, and Rivven at our place, and then all eat at La Fiesta.

James and Julia in their Santa diapers

Wait, what is Julia wearing?

James surprises me by saying “Happy New Year.” He remembered it only from hearing it once the day before while at dinner.

Visits

Papa and Gaga visit off and on as always, though this time they because of their travels to the Caribbean and the East Coast they are away the longest stretch yet - 6 weeks. When Bubby visits in February she surprises the twins by suddenly showing up at Cooper Park where they are playing. (Mark took her straight there from the airport.) They don’t seem to recognize her at first in her sunglasses, but when she removes them they are all smiles. (See video.)

Easter 2013

I borrowed Curious George Colors Eggs from the library to get the kids into the Easter spirit. Mark’s reading of one of the lines in the story made me laugh long and hard: “THEY WERE GOING TO DYE… eggs.” (Of course I heard “dye” as “die.” See video here.) Because she saw my reaction, Julia then began saying that line just like Daddy which sounded hilarious coming from my squeaky girl. (See video here.)

The Easter season was filled with egg hunts - four of them to be exact. First there was one at Mountain View Parent Observation Preschool. After decorating baskets and dyeing eggs in class, the kids ran around on the grass and collected six eggs each. Inside the classroom they examined their loot to find out what toys and stickers they’d found.

Julia dyes an egg at preschool.

And they’re off!

Finding eggs in the preschool yard

Opening eggs

Julia likes the spring animals, and (no surprise) the bunny.

We dyed eggs at home the night before Easter and decorated them with stickers a few days later. We faced the age old problem of egg dyeing - the kids want to do it more than the parents but the parents can’t let them do much. We’ll revisit the same problem carving pumpkins in October.

Daddy blows their minds by dyeing a two color egg.

So… Easter! I wanted Julia to wear a special Easter outfit but also knew I wouldn’t be able to get her in a dress. As a result I purchased a bunny shirt for her on Etsy and pinned it to a tutu, telling her they were attached and if she wanted the bunny shirt it was a package deal. Well, that didn’t work and she ended up wearing the bunny shirt with - her favorite clothing item - jeans. This time, sparkly ones. And getting her into some new bunny pigtail holders took a LOT of bribery.

Julia’s Easter ensemble, a.k.a. “the best Mommy could do”

Despite labels on the Easter baskets indicating whose basket was whose, Julia quickly declared that she wanted the blue and green basket this year and James got the pink and purple one and that was that. Julia has the eye of the tiger and ran as fast as she could from egg to egg. She reminded me of my super competitive self that still loves Easter egg hunts. At one point she just carried the eggs in her arms, eschewing her basket, so she could scramble (no pun intended) faster from egg to egg. Meanwhile James happily plodded along collecting an egg, looking around, and eventually collecting another egg.

James is a study in calm.

Meanwhile here’s Julia.

“Basket? Who needs a basket?”

The Easter Bunny hid 56 eggs in our newly landscaped backyard. This was also the first time our eggs were filled with anything (M&M’s, jelly beans, and stickers), and the twins sat on the deck afterwards to go through them, compare, and eat candy.

“What’s that Julia has?”

James enjoys all the M&Ms he can eat… until we finally put them away.

Afterwards the twins had a picnic lunch on a blanket in the backyard, complete with bunny-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Even though James is eating, Doggy still likes to cuddle.

Picnic lunch!

Mark’s birthday was the same day this year as Easter so we went out to dinner at Bombay Garden. When we got home Mark read his cards from the twins. I tried for a week to get James and Julia to make birthday cards to no avail. I finally got them to make them that morning by giving them their favorite letter stamps from Bubby to decorate cards, and Mark helped them finish not knowing their sheets of paper were going to turn into his cards. They also helped Mark eat his Kara’s Cupcakes and open his birthday presents. One was Magna-Tiles, clearly a present for the kids though it was something Mark wanted.

The kids are getting really good at using their letter stamps.

"Are shirts what passes for grown-up gifts? Bo-rrrrrrring." "That's it? A shirt? Seriously?"

Next was an Easter playgroup playdate at Vicky L.’s house with her twins Amelia and Sophie along with Rachel P.’s son Oliver, Beth’s daughter Laura, and Stacy’s son Ronan. The kids decorated baskets and also tried on pretty Easter hats.

 

Julia in her Easter hat

Huck Finn in his

The egg hunt was in the backyard. Julia again was Miss Uber Competitive, and James meanwhile saw eggs but didn’t pick up any. Suddenly he started bawling - apparently Laura took an egg he had his heart set on (he was five feet away as she took it), and he kept crying and didn’t gather any more. As the other kids passed him to go inside, each sweetly put one egg in his basket and Julia did too (even though I didn’t suggest it), which filled his basket. I re-hid his eggs just for him. Afterwards James and Julia sat outside and were genuinely excited for each other as they both opened their new treats.

Ronan, Sophie, Laura, Amelia, Julia, and James about to hunt for eggs outside.

Julia has her eye on the prize.

James has his very own egg hunt.

Happily checking out each others’ loot

When my parents visited a few weeks later, I hid eggs in the backyard and held an Easter egg hunt re-enactment, which brought the total number of Easter egg hunts to four.

Julia fills her basket during our Easter egg hunt re-enactment.

The End

Here’s Easter 2012 and 2011.