Saturday, March 1, 2014

“It doesn’t get any better than this.”

The end of February.  The beginning of March.

Cornelia is nearly three years old.  She’s a little person with her own thoughts, her own opinions, her own personality and her own questions.  And she has a lot of questions.  “Why?” is a current favorite, which I think is pretty standard for her age.  Personally I like the challenge of seeing how many times I can answer a string of her “why?” questions with a legitimate answer before she moves on to something else.  Another favorite question is “What’s your name?”  She likes to ask this questions over and over and over again.  It goes something like this:

     Coco:  “What’s your name?” 
     Me:  “Daddy.” 
     Coco:  “What’s your name?” 
     Me:  “Daddy.” 
     Coco:  “What’s your name?”
     Me:  “Daddy.”
     Coco:  “No, that’s what I call you.  What’s your name?”
     Me:  “Mike.”
     Coco:  “Noooo . . . . It’s Daddy.”

I think this is somehow a three-year-old’s version of a “knock knock” joke.

Coco continues to be very much a “girly” girl.  She loves to wear her ballerina tutus and dresses (she has several) and dance around and put on shows for Daddy and Papa.  Angelina Ballerina is one of her favorite choices for her bedtime story, as is Ladybug Girl.  She likes to be a princess too.  A couple weeks ago we were on our way to the country on a Friday night.  It was late, so of course Ken and the twins were asleep.  (Because that’s what they do on the way to the country.)  I was driving and Coco was in the back seat playing games and watching videos on the iPhone.  (Because that’s what we do on the way to the country.)  As I listened along to her video I heard someone (I think it was Daniel Tiger) ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Without even so much as a pause Coco responded, “A princess.”  Thank god Ken was asleep for that little quip from the backseat!

We have definitely entered a sweet spot with the twins.  They’re now six months old.  And they are sleeping through the night.  Consistently.  (But don’t tell anyone.  Other parents will hate us.)  They go to sleep usually around 7:00 or so and they sleep for up to twelve hours.  Of course, this also means that I have to regularly check to be sure they’re alive and breathing.  It’s just such a shock for them to go from sleeping only 5 or 6 hours to suddenly hitting 10, 11 and even 12 hours a night.  Something must be wrong, right?  And Flynn doubles my stress since he flips over onto his stomach within minutes of going to bed and then sleeps that way all night.  Margot also just started rolling over. 

Fortunately one of my “parental super powers” is super-duper hearing.  I can hear whether or not a baby is breathing from outside a bedroom door.  My other “parental super power” is soothing a crying baby back to sleep (most of the time) and Flynn has tested that super power a lot in the last couple weeks.  My third parental super power relates to poopy diapers so I’ll skip the description.

Besides sleeping through the night, Flynn and Margot are now very expressive.  Their faces light up when they see you.  They smile and start waving their arms with excitement.  In addition to “happy” they also do pretty good “surprised,” “puzzled” and “concerned” faces.  They are just starting to laugh a bit as well.

So right now is a pretty special time, I think.  At the end of the day when I come in the door from work Coco still yells “Daddy!” and runs and jumps to be picked up.  She likes to hold hands going everywhere (including just going up and down the stairs in the house).  The twins are happy to see you when they see your big face appear above them, and they are fascinated by pretty much any expression on your face or any sound out of your mouth.  It really doesn’t get any better than this, right?


  
Coco and Flynn "hangin' in the crib."

The double stroller with "piggy back" (the wheeled stand for Coco to ride on)

Family time on the iPad