On the Verge of Enjoying

I had a book called "Your Baby's First Year" that alerted me to all the developmental events taking place in my kids' brains. But the AAP hasn't yet published the "Second Year" edition, so now I'm on my own trying to figure out what these little people are up to. (I'm doing my best not to Google every little thing these days...)

My latest observation: I think the boys are starting to enjoy life more. Sure, before they had things they liked, such as eating, crawling, and waving rattles. But now they are starting to show preferences for what actually makes them happy. It's fun to watch them discover life! And whenever we can figure out an event/activity that combines a lot of their "likes," so much the better :)

So far, they have fairly similar interests. I'm sure we'll see different personalities continue to emerge, but for the most part now they are being twins, ha ha.

Popsicles. Maybe this is a summer thing? We've been to 3 outdoor events in the last week where Mempops had a booth, and the boys were definitely happy to slurp on little bites of frozen deliciousness. We also have a daily afternoon popsicle snack at home. This started when Baby A (Gus) went on a bottle-drinking strike and I was trying to keep him hydrated.

Animals. They love to look at animals in real life, on TV, and in books. They are good at making animal sounds, including "meow," "woof," and I've even heard a "moo" or two. They get excited if we're out on a walk in the neighborhood and they hear a dog barking - we have to stop and look at it for awhile.

Music. I had NPR on in the car the other day when they started playing opera. I was going to change the station, but then I heard Baby B (Gibson) singing along in the back seat. Laaaaaa! Sometimes when I'm singing a song, they'll make some "la" noises, too. We have this musical turtle that I'm attempting to use to teach them about chords...

Other kids. They are really interested in what other kids are doing. They like to watch them run around. If another kid is crying, like in a store, they seem worried and look at me like, "Mom, aren't you going to help that kid?"

Playing with trucks. We got them some toy trucks that they are totally obsessed with. They make a "vrroom" noise and walk/crawl up and down the hallway over and over. Lately they've started picking up other little toys to carry in the truck's bucket. The other day, I took the boys to this dinner event at church and brought their trucks along. They had a BLAST roaming all over the wide open space of the fellowship hall + foyer. DF also had a blast, I'm sure, chasing them around so I could eat :)

If this trend continues, I see many more fun weekends in our future! Up till now, we've basically been asking ourselves, "What can the boys tolerate?" But maybe soon the question will be, "What would they like to do?"