Lindy
If she had a super-power, it would be not blinking. She can hold those steely blue eyes open endlessly! She has two bottom teeth now, so now more than ever, her aggressive kisses reeealy hurt. She uses her super-human pinching skills to grab onto your neck, cheek, hair, anything in reaching distance and pulls you in and devours your face. It used to be kind of cute and slobbery without teeth, but now, it's just plain painful. She's such a champ. She continues to rock at sleeping and be fairly mild mannered and happy. Between the hours of 5-8 pm is her grumpy time. Don't even think about putting her down with some toys, you must be there giving her continual attention. Everyone keeps commenting on how much she looks like her dad. She may have her daddy's brow, but she is a mama's girl. It's kind of flattering, in a really annoying way. :) She prefers me over anyone else, dad is a close 2nd, and then she cries for anyone else. She really has to warm up to people, and usually warms up to cute boys the fastest (no joke). Major stranger danger goin on. She loves her older siblings, but I think she really has a thing for Miles. She just lights up whenever he's around and he works hard to keep her happy. She's almost crawling, not yet, but she's plenty mobile without crawling. That window of being able to sit up but not be mobile is so short.... Also, she can communicate quite fluently without words. She's great at grunting and uses specific ones for specific times. The "I don't want to eat that" grunt. The, "I want to wrestle" grunt. The "I'm excited to see you!" grunt. etc etc.
Gwen
Continues to be our drama queen. :) She can turn on the water works instantly and has the best pouty face.I never know how she'll react when I ask her to clean up things. A rule about coming out of quiet time is that their room has to be clean before they can come out. Sometimes, she cleans it up in 5 minutes and is as happy as can be. Other times, she's totally immersed in playing something and doesn't want to come out, even if she's been in her room for 2 hours. And sometimes, the moment I say, "Ok, you can come out whenever your room is clean" she collapses to the floor, bursts into tears and shouts, "But it's too hard for me!!!" and then spends sometimes up to an hour crying and flailing all over her bedroom floor. :) I wish I could catch some of her enthusiasm and bottle it up. She gets so excited about things and just lights up! We recently inherited Uncle Jacob and Uncle Jeff's old bunk bed, so she's officially out of her toddler bed and on the bottom bunk in a full size. She thinks she's pretty special. :) She really looks up to Miles. She wants to play with him all the time, usually agrees to whatever movie/breakfast food/book he chooses. She watches him to see what he does first in certain situations and the follows suit. At the moment they are fighting and "will never like each other again". That will last for about 30 minutes I'm guessing. She wants to hold and cuddle Lindy all the time and is generally very kind and sensitive. The thing that has surprised me most about her lately is her reading skills. I knew she knew most of her letters and sounds already, but I started at the beginning of this letter "curriculum" with her this year, just to make sure she had a good foundation. This "curriculum" is about 3 books long to use during the school year. She's already well into the 2nd book and isn't the least bit challenged. I work with both kids separately when it comes to reading, but she usually is looking over Miles shoulder when it's his turn and she's starting to pick out words faster than he does sometimes. She seems to be an auditory learner. Don't say anything around her you don't want repeated word for word! It always blows us away. The other day, she picked up "The Count of Monte Cristo" (what Rich is reading right now) and summed the entire plot of the book up nicely in about 3 sentences. Richie must have told her about it. She is a great conversationalist and can hold a good, detailed conversation with just about anyone.
Miles
Continues to be our sensitive child. (good and bad, mostly good.) He is the master of changing his attitude. He can really put up a stink and throw a really good fit, but but if we just leave him alone in his room and tell him he can come out when he calms down, he'll calm down fairly quickly and come out our sweet boy once again. He'll usually say, "I changed my attitude! I'm happy now!" He's so good at it. That's a hard skill for me, so I'm constantly blown away by his innate ability to do so. He's also the master as saying, "I'm sorry" and "I forgive you". Also, hard skills for me, so I don't know where he's getting this. If I'm particularly angry for a time, after I'm back to being a happy mom, he'll come give me a big hug and kiss and say, "It's ok mom, I forgive you." He's also a big fan of cuddling at night after he's been tucked in. Gwen too, but more so Miles. When we got the "new" bunk bed, he claimed the top bunk and then said, "Ok, no more snuggles for me!" as if it was a right of passage or something. But he still shamelessly asks for them every night. I need to be better about indulging it. He's my big helper and he takes a lot of pride in doing so. He wants to help me make lunch, or prepare snacks for everyone. I helped set up for the ward trunk or treat the other day and he was right beside me setting up chairs, tables, all while saying "I'm a big helper huh!?" or "I'm so strong, huh?!" If I ask a favor of him, he still responds with a "yes sir" and salute. Ha! Although, lately he's been into asking what day it is, and whenever it's not Saturday, he'll say, 'Whew! I didn't want to do chores today." Miles seems to lean towards being a visual learner. If you tell him something, he forgets more than if you showed him by example. He remembers stories better if he's seen the movie or seen pictures.
