Thomas is 3, Sophia is 21 months

Thomas is starting to read some words! The other day we went to a restaurant with some friends, and he looked at the kids' menu and said, "Hot dog! I want a hot dog!" I was amazed! On one hand, I was so proud that he was reading. On the other hand, no more pretending there's not a hot dog on the menu in favor of other more "healthy" things! Fortunately, he can be distracted from his hot dog by spaghetti and meatballs.

Today the kids were watching their favorite program "Super Why" and saw some letters floating on the screen. Thomas shouted out excitedly, "T! Y! U!" And Sophia held her finger up to her mouth and said, "Shhhhh!" Thomas looked at her and she nodded vigorously. Somewhat chastened, Thomas turned back to the TV and explained quietly, "But... I need to shout ..."

Sophia is getting demanding! Sophia, holding up a piece of her dinner to me: "You! Eat that!" She also loves to say, "No! Mine!" "Too loud!" "My turn!" "Go away!" "What that? Why?" She's starting to find her power! She also turns off the music if we've been playing it too long. And boy, does she cry when we put her down for a nap! Gone are the days when we cuddled her and she almost fell asleep on our shoulder, then rolled right over and fell asleep when we put her down in her crib. And then there was the phase where we put her in bed awake and she just lay down by herself and quietly fell asleep! I'm just hoping those days will come back again sometime. Soon.

Thomas is 3, Sophia is 20 3/4 months

We are in a good routine. I wake up about fifteen minutes before they do, which gives me time to get dressed, make the bed and sometimes brush my teeth and make a cup of tea before they wake up, which makes a huge difference to my mental state! These days I even have to wake them up so that we have time for breakfast before swimming lessons on Mondays through Thursdays. After swimming lessons, sometimes we have errands or a playdate. Then we come home, and sometimes Thomas helps me make sandwiches for lunch, or brings forks or plastic plates to the table, or loads the soap into the dishwasher when it's full, then closes the door and turns it on for me. After lunch we have naptime for Sophia, who goes down all by herself like a dream, and quiet time for Thomas, who is getting much better at staying in his room and staying quiet for the whole hour if he doesn't fall asleep! I think it helps that we have a digital clock in there and write down the time that naptime is all done so he feels more in control. It works really well if it's something easy like 3:00, but I think he still is not clear that if naptime is done at 3:15 and the time is 3:20, then it's ok to come out. He can read the numbers without any trouble, though, and can even count up to a hundred (but needs help for that number after 39)! If I'm lucky, then I get a nap, too, while everyone is quiet! Then we have more playtime and talk to Daddy on Skype, and then I park them in front of a TV program while I cook dinner. Thomas used to request The Cat in the Hat every time it was his turn (sometimes the same episode four or five times in a row), and then for a little while it was The Wonder Pets, and now it's Super Why! If the program is very absorbing, I have 30 minutes to make dinner, but if Sophia's too hungry or bored with the TV, she'll visit me again and again, demanding food. Thomas stares at the TV like a zombie, absorbing every last little bit of it, and only comes back to life when the program ends with a blank blue screen -- hooray for DVRs! He turns it off by himself without prompting, then comes back to the kitchen to check on what is for dinner. It used to be that dinner-cleanup-bath-bed was the big stress time when Matthew, Mom and Dad are gone, but it is so much easier these days now that Thomas and Sophia can play by themselves (with their trains) while I clean up the dining room and kitchen and then put one or the other into the bath. They can even play upwards of half an hour if I keep puttering around! The minute I sit down to read the paper, though, they're all over me, so sometimes I putter in the kitchen a little more than is strictly needed. And now Sophia can safely entertain herself while I give Thomas his bath, and vice versa, so I don't have to worry about Sophia crawling fully clothed into the bathtub, or standing on a stepstool and falling off it and getting hurt, or Thomas wanting a story while I try to wash Sophia. After the bath, we read Thomas two stories if we've cleaned up the playroom, and when Thomas hasn't had a nap, we put him to bed first. If he has had a nap, then we read a couple of stories in his bed while Sophia sits on my chest and bounces up and down in a desperate bid for attention to tell me that she's ready for bed. Then I ask him to stay in bed while I put her to bed, and he stays in bed! No more getting out of bed and following me, making all kinds of noise! No more stripping the bed down and then throwing the mattress on the floor! No more stripping his pajamas off and then refusing to put them back on! No more demanding potty, or water (mostly) or an extra story, or crying that he's scared of the dark, or a ghost! He lies on his bed and waits for me to come back, and then we finish the going-to-bed process. It is heaven when it all works.

But this routine has been out the window for the past little while. Sophia has had a head cold for the past week and a half, and not only is really congested and coughing, but is also cutting three canines and is pretty grumpy. They have finally come out! And then to really turn things upside down, Thomas has had a bad stomach bug and has been throwing up for the last two days. This morning he is much better, and Sophia is too. Rose and Pam came over yesterday so I could run to the store since we were out of all the essentials! Thanks, you two!

Sophia adores her big brother and mimics whatever Thomas does or says. Sometimes he likes being a cat, especially at bedtime for some reason, and she will follow along. They'll crawl after each other on all fours, meowing, or have little meow conversations. "Meow meow meow?" "Meow! Meow meow!" Thomas will even stay in character while I try to brush his teeth or dry him off after his bath, which means he meows in answer to all my questions, won't stand up on his feet, or crawls out of the bath on all fours. Thank goodness he doesn't know that cats don't like baths!

This morning when I got Sophia out of bed, she said to me, "Wake up brother, too!" A four-word sentence! Amazing.

Included is a picture of Thomas and his hopscotch squares (he saw it on Blue's Clues). He drew the squares himself, wrote the numbers himself, then wrote out the numbers that I spelled out for him, by himself! So proud!

Thomas is 3 years; Sophia is 20 1/2 months

We are doing a lot of talking. Both Thomas and Sophia are talking a lot! Thomas is a question hound: "What's a planet? What's moisture? Why?" Or he pretends to be one of his trains, or a character called Alpha Pig, or something else imaginative. Sophia babbles a lot, and comes out with some great words and phrases. Some of the things she says, we actually understand! "Where did Mommy go?" "alligator," "chase-chase!," "underwear," even a "Go away, Mommy!" Instead of the word yes, she used to say, "mm-hmm, yeaaaaah" in a Wisconsin accent, but now she says, "I do, I do!" Tonight in the bath she even said, "T-O-M-M-...." And I leaned forward and said, "Yes, Sophia? What comes after T-O-M-M-...???!" and she said, "Y!" Wow. Her favorite TV show seems to be Super Why on PBS, even though it seems pretty advanced for her age. It's a show all about learning how to read, with letters and words flying around. It's Thomas' favorite show, too. He loves to shout out lines from the show, including, "And I am Super Why, with the power to read!" So now whenever we even mention TV, or it's her turn to pick a TV show, she says, "Watch! Super Why! ... Power! Read!" She also sings, "Wait, wait wait ... what? do? wait?," one of my favorite Blue's Clue's songs about waiting, and what shall we do while we wait? One of the things we can't figure out yet is when she points to me and says, "Batta! You!" Butter you? Batter you? It's a mystery.

Thomas and Sophia have had two weeks of swimming lessons, and were supposed to be having more, but Sophia has been sick so we haven't been this week yet. At Thomas' first lesson, he wailed for the first ten minutes, and then after a short silence, we heard him giggling, so that was a big relief. His favorite part seems to be pretending to be an alligator in the 10-inch deep pool. For Sophia's first lesson, she was okay for the first five minutes or so, but once she went under the water, she cried for the rest of the lesson. She has gotten better over time, and now when we practice jumping into the water, she actually kind of makes a jumping motion, instead of having to be dragged in! She practices holding her breath underwater, and kicking to the side of the pool and pulling herself up out of the water.

This morning we had our first serious sibling altercation. We were grocery shopping, and the two kids were in the double shopping cart/trolley, where the two kids can sit in the trolley side by side, with little steering wheels so they can "steer" the cart. We were in the store for a while, and Thomas started squashing Sophia, as usual when he gets bored and antsy. Then when we got to the checkout counter, he leaned over her to play with the pen and squashed her again. She struggled and wailed, and then she bit him really hard on the arm. They were both really quiet after that. No crying or blood, thank goodness. I think they were both a little startled themselves by what had happened! We'd better not see any more of THAT, but I suspect there is going to be more fighting and fighting back, from now on. Oh dear.

This is Thomas and Sophia playing hopscotch! I drew the squares, and Thomas filled in all the numbers by himself! And then added the box for the zero!

Thomas has been doing poos on the potty! I was starting to wonder if it was ever going to happen. I think Thomas had a bit of a bug, because one night when Matthew was home, Thomas woke up at one in the morning full of urgent news that he had to go potty, so Matthew instantly got his pants off and just held him over the toilet. We've had a bunch of poo prizes gathering dust on the shelf, waiting for this moment, so once Thomas got the first prize, it was very motivating for him to keep going on the toilet! So now except for the occasional wet morning, and daily potty dance ("Tommy, I think you have to go to the bathroom." "No I don't!" *while dancing with legs crossed*), we can say that Thomas is all done being potty trained!! Yaaaaay! Sophia's turn next!