Similarities and Differences

Some differences:

Mabel loves stuffed animals, Stella loves babies. Stella loves her binkie, Mabel doesn't really care about it but likes to chew on it sometimes so she can be like Stella. Mabel likes to copy Stella's pronunciation of some words. Mabel used to say "wa-wa" for water but now she says it Stella's way: "yo-yo". Stella knows how to pee in the toilet (but only when she feels like it) and Mabel doesn't seem to be able to make herself go. Stella is very shy around people that she doesn't know. She puts her chin to her chest and looks up at a person through the top of her eyes. When Mabel meets a new person she just kind of freezes and stares at them while they talk at her.

Some Similarities:

They both love to climb. Anything. Stella recently managed to climb up onto the bathroom counter using the cabinet handle as a foothold. They love fish. They love to pet the fish. (Sorry Speckles, I hope you don't hold it against them.) Finding Nemo is their favorite movie. We turn it on daily, usually in the kitchen when they're strapped into their highchairs having breakfast. They love Grammie. Their faces light up and they get all excited when I tell them that we're going to get Grammie on our way to dance class.

potty training and dancing

We started on Monday. No more diapers when they are awake. That was my original plan anyway. I guess it's still evolving. After five days of running pantsless or naked in the kitchen for most of the day, Stella gets it. She's doing really great and doesn't like to put a diaper on anymore. She can control when she pees and gets a really worried look on her face when she has to do #2. Today she had only two accidents. She caught herself on the first one and finished in her little potty. The second one was a number two and I was getting the tub ready for their bath so I didn't catch it. But she did come running in to the bathroom saying "po-po! po-po!" over and over again. Stella wouldn't allow me to put a diaper on her for bed tonight so I put on her panties and laid her down for bed. I checked her at midnight and she was still dry. I'm so impressed!

Mabel isn't too interested in going potty. She won't sit for very long and she doesn't worry too much if her undies get wet. She does, however, point to the puddle and tell me that she went "pobby". I gave up temporarily and put her back in diapers yesterday. It seems easier to concentrate on one at a time. I tried to get her to go again this morning and learned that she will pee for m&m's. This is a promising discovery.

Yesterday was their first dance lesson at Nutmeg's. When we arrived at the studio, both girls were asleep in the car. It was a 90 minute drive and Stella was in underpants, so I rushed the girls into the studio and ran straight for the bathroom and sat her down on the toilet. It was all just a little too confusing for her and she refused to sit on the potty. They were not ready to be social so soon after being rudely woken up so they didn't participate in the dance class until it was nearly over. Just as they started to warm up to the whole thing, Stella peed on the dance floor. Oops. They really liked wearing the fairy wings and shaking the maracas. After dance class they had lots of fun playing in the waiting room and watching the 3 year olds dance.

what's the latest?

Among other things, this summer was the summer of teeth. Stella started the summer with six teeth, four on the top and two on the bottom. Mabel started with seven - the same six that Stella had plus one back molar. At the end of the summer they had both gotten all four of their back molars in and Mabel got one of her bottom front teeth in. I think it was the teething that caused all of the unexplained fevers and multiple bouts of diarrhea and diaper rash that we dealt with while we were away in Utah.

Mabel and Stella are both working very diligently on their vocabulary. They are both willing to take a stab at saying any word you ask them to...with one exception. Much to Grammie's dismay, Mabel refuses to say "Grammie". She will say alligator, but not grammie. Every time Grammie asks her to say it, Mabel gets a coy little grin on her face and looks away. Sometimes she downright smiles and looks her straight in the eye while refusing to say it. I know Mabel is just playing Grammie. She is a witty little girl.

Last week Mabel made her first sentence. She used to just say "more" if she wanted more milk at breakfast. But she took it up a notch and said "more milk" while she held her cup out to me. It sounded like "mo me". She's very advanced.

We are starting to get serious about the potty training. They are both ready for it. When it's time to change their diapers I've been having them sit down to try and go potty before the new diaper goes on. Stella really likes to sit on her potty. This last week she has been pretty consistent about sitting on her potty and peeing in it. She hasn't peed on the floor once in the past week and she's peed in her potty about six times. I think she gets it. It's just about time for big girl panties. Mabel will still pee on the floor, but she'll tell me that she did it and point to the puddle. They both kind of fight over who gets to sit on the bigger blue potty that we have only one of. They don't like the little pink ones so much anymore. There is a lot of screaming and pushing when they both have their diapers off. I think it would be worth getting another blue one.

They are down to one nap per day now. They wake up around 7 am and get sleepy around 10:30 or 11 and nap for around two hours. Then they go to bed around 7:30 or 8. It's a pretty good schedule for them.

They love to play on the swings and slide. Thanks to Uncle Rob and Aunt Jen for passing on their great playground set! They will swing and slide for a very long time. Stella fell asleep in her swing a couple of weeks ago. They are both pretty good at climbing up the ladder to the slide. They've only had one or two spills in the past week.

actual recognizable words

I've missed writing about lots of really great things that we've done. We drove to California and went to Sea World, we went to Hogle Zoo, camped for two nights in Capitol Reef. I'll try to go back and fill in the blanks.

Last weekend during our camping trip in Capitol Reef, Mabel decided it was time to make some real words. She was just bursting with vocabulary! She started naming everything we pointed out to her. Here's a list of what she says:

tree (dee)

car (cah)

deer (deh)

rice (ice)

apple (ap-po)

water (wa-wa)

uh-oh (uh-oh)

more (mo)

bye-bye (ba-ba)

baby (bay-bee)

daddy (da-da)

mamma (ma-ma)

stella (da-ya)

penguin (de-de - i don't get it either, but she's consistent)

cow (coh)

cracker ('ca-coh)

cheese (shhhh)

sticker (de-'kah)

shoe (shhhh - not to be confused with cheese, of course)

sock (sssss)

no (no! - with vigorous head shaking)

Stella is not one to be left out. Within a couple of days she began her own quest for words. Here's her vocabulary list:

cheese (shhhh)

shoe (shhhh - they sure sound the same, don't they...)

yes (yeh)

no (no - with gentle head shaking)

bye (ba)

dad (da)

mom (ma)

mabel (may)

baby (beh-beh)

car (cah)

cow (coh)

They have both learned a few more words in sign language during the past few weeks. We taught them the signs for eat, drink, and more in addition to the sign for all-done that they've been doing for months. They're really good at doing the signs and it is so nice to not have to guess at those things anymore.

Llama Fest

We went to the 15th annual Llama Festival in Spanish Fork this afternoon. It was quite an experience. It was held at the Hare Krishna temple. We met up with Grandma and Aunt Kelly.

There were llamas everywhere! We saw a big group of them run in a llama race. Some others were running in an obstacle course. We went into an enclosure where many of the llamas were either eating hay from bins or eating grains out of people's hands. Mabel and Stella walked up near one and just watched it. When it started moving around they seemed to get a little nervous. I picked the girls up so they could pet them. Stella gently patted the llama and quietly watched. Mabel giggled and patted the llama a little less than gently. Ok, so the llama flinched when she pet it. But it didn't run away immediately.

There was a small enclosure with a peacock, a pea hen, a cockatoo and a macaw. We watched the poor peacock run laps back and forth desperately searching for a way into the pea hens enclosure. It had been pacing for so long that it had actually made a smooth path in the dirt. The macaw was very interested in Mabel. It climbed off of it's perch and made it's way over to see her and stopped right in front of her. They just regarded each other for a little while. Mabel started giggling and wanted to touch it. Then the macaw screeched, "CAAA!" and that was enough for Mabel. It made her jump and cry. They parted on bad terms. But I think it was all just a big misunderstanding.

We ate vegan food inside the temple which tasted surprisingly good. Mabel really liked the cream of wheat. Stella had a couple of bites of that but opted instead for the cup of applesauce that I had brought along. Stella and daddy went upstairs to watch the people chanting "hare krishna, hare hare krishna krishna".

Both girls were completely tuckered out by the time we got home. Stella was practically begging to be laid down in her bed. And Mabel laid down without a single complaint. It was a good day.

berry picking

We went to Aunt Kelly's house today to water her garden and pick raspberries for her while she is away. She has a whole fence line full of raspberry bushes that were just exploding with ripe berries. When we first got there Stella went straight for the baby swing. I buckled her up and gave her a push and she was in heaven. She very nearly fell asleep in there. Mabel sat for a while in the little red car and practiced her steering techniques. After a while she came over to me and I gave her one of the raspberries I had just picked. It turns out she really likes raspberries! And she was especially happy that she could just pluck them off of the bush and pop them in her mouth. She very quickly learned how to tell a ripe berry from an unripe one. She sputtered and spit out the pale unripe berry and from then on only picked the bright red ones. She was picking and eating them faster than I could! She worked on the low branches while I picked from the high ones. We managed to bring home a couple of bags full of berries (and one belly full of them too!) Now we'll have to think of something delicious to make with them...

going for a hike

This town shuts down on Sundays, but as Bill says, they can't shut down the mountains. So today we're going to put the girls in the backpacks and go for a hike.