Okay. I have been totally dropping the ball on updating this thing, so let me do a quick recap on what we have been up to. Mostly playing at the park, taking walks down to get frozen yogurt now that it is getting so warm out, and watching the kids grow up a little too fast for my liking.
More than physically growing, they are developmentally growing as well, so quickly. Roman is talking in complete sentences, and I just giggle every time he says even the most basic things because it is so exciting to see him expressing himself all the time. And I think it's really funny that he "needs" everything. Like, he NEEDS to play cars in mommy's room; he NEEDS to go outside; he NEEDS frozen yogurt. We are trying to explain need vs. want, but it doesn't seem to making an impact on his thinking. And he can now point out and name just about any car that he sees, and he will then tell us about all the cars he's seeing. The other day we were grabbing dinner, and he said, "Daddy, that white Lexus is backing up." And Marc and I looked back, and sure enough, there was a white Lexus backing up. He will scream, though, if he sees a "BMW car" or a Mustang because those are apparently his favorites. I am in no way surprised that he has developed an affinity for cars, but it is pretty amazing that he has memorized all the badges to cars and can identify nearly every car on the road (by make, not necessarily model).
And his memory is so sharp already. We saw Erin over Easter (more on that in a moment) and she said, "Hola!" to Roman while we were there, and he thought it was the funniest thing. Well, a couple days ago he walked up and said, "Auntie Rin says HOLA!" and laughed and laughed. It was pretty cute. And he is constantly talking about playing with Erica, Uncle Nano, and the kids, or playing with Uncle Alex when he visited a few weeks ago. Oh, and the cats at Nana and Papa's house. I love that he'll just come up to me now and tell me all about these things running through his mind. It is interesting to find out what things have really stuck with him. Which reminds me of a story... I am not sure if I have already told this story, but here we go. We were visiting Erica when she had baby Maren so that I could clean, cook, whatever, and on one of the days we were over there Roman asked if he could go see the race car in the garage. And I laughed and told him that there wasn't a race car in the garage, and he looked at me funny and then went outside to go play with the kids again. I thought it was odd until I realized that all of the houses he usually visits has a race car. Our house, Beau and Jaime's house, and Grandma and Grandpa's house all have race cars. So it just made sense in his mind that garages = race cars. Cars. Cars are what stick in Roman's mind.
We are working on potty training (albeit slowly), but I think that we are finally making some headway. Marc and I made him a chart that he gets to put race car stickers on every time he uses the big-boy potty. And when he finally gets to the end of the chart (which may be next year sometime, who knows), he gets a new tow truck and race car. As you can see from the following picture, the cars are in a bit of a pile-up on the race track, but that's because the car stickers are much bigger than the circles allotted for the cars, so we've had to improvise a bit. But Roman doesn't care; he thinks that it's exciting to get to put stickers on and that it's funny that some of the cars are "crashing." I thought that that would be enough incentive (especially since his prize is displayed in the living room on a shelf, and he points to it all the time and knows what he has to do to get it), but I think he is just too much like me and would rather play or eat or do anything else besides taking the time to go sit in the bathroom. We are trying to make going as awesome as it can be (and he is always really excited to put a sticker on the chart), but every time we ask him to go it is a battle. He knows how to go; he just doesn't want to go.
We are also struggling a bit with Roman seeming to not want Livia around anymore. That's the best way to describe it; he's just over her completely. He got in big trouble yesterday because he slapped her hand away from a toy that he was playing with. Aaargh. This is getting so frustrating. He never gets away with being mean to her (timeouts are becoming a far-too-regular occurrence in our home), so I am not sure why this attitude is persisting. He plays well with all other kids and even shares pretty well with them, but not with Liv. I am waiting for him to grow out of this because am not sure there is much else I can do, but now that she's crawling and getting into everything, it seems to only be getting worse. I was actually really surprised when Marc sent the picture below because Roman was actually having fun playing with Livia in the big cardboard box that came with her new car seat. They have been having so much fun in that thing, but Roman gets weirdly protective of it even though we have explained that it is technically Liv's card board box since it came in the mail for her. Roman begs to differ.
But speaking of crawling, I think that Liv will be an army-crawler until the days she walks, just like Roman. She can get up on all fours, but as soon as she starts moving she's back on her belly and pulling herself along the floor. And she is FAST. The other day I left her in the living room to play while I made dinner, and when I realized that I had left the gate open, she was already trying to get into the kitchen. I mean, this took seconds. And I hate when she's by the gate anyway because that's where Millie likes to lie so that she can keep a watch on everything, and Livie likes to crawl over and pull Millie's hair and put it in her mouth. So gross. I know that exposure to dogs and dog hair is supposed to help kids build up a resistance so allergies are less likely, but I don't think this is exactly what doctors/scientists have in mind.
She is also mimicking sounds and clapping and singing. She is such a loud baby. It's very different from our quite little boy, but it's also very fun. She has been having a few rough weeks since four more teeth decided to come in all at once (she has seven total with one more on the way), she's had a runny nose, and then she had to get her hemoglobin levels checked and a shot at her appointment Friday, but she has been so good and so cheery anyway. Maybe a little clingy, but still laughing and singing (and drooling) away. She's a very happy girl.
Liv was an especially happy girl on her first carousel ride. I have taken the kids to the WAP many times, but I can't take both the kids on the carousel by myself, so Liv hadn't been able to get on yet. Marc took a day off work so that we could see the butterflies while they were here, and since there were now two adults, the kids could ride the carousel together, and Livie loved it. I remember Roman not being too sure about what was happening, but Liv was pretty immediately excited by the whole thing and stayed on for a second ride... If I remember correctly, Roman wanted off after his first ride because he had had enough.
OH!! And Roman and Liv had their very first train ride. Livie could take it or leave it (like most things at this age), but Roman was pumped. We had talked about it all week, and the morning of he kept saying that he was so exciting (which is how he says that he is so excitED). We rode the train from Oceanside to Old Town, which is about a forty minute ride down and then another forty minutes back up, and the kids did really well the entire trip. Roman made friends with the conductor and various other passengers on the train that day. It is really a commuter train, so it was pretty empty since it was a Saturday, which meant that Roman could move around a bit, and that was definitely a good thing. We grabbed him one of those little booklets that has all the schedule information in it so that he could look at it when we got home, and he'll tell you that the book is from the train ride. It was a great day.
We had a big trip to Nevada at the beginning of April... Wait. First Erica, Than, and the kids came down for Than's half-Ironman, so Roman was STOKED to get to go play with them. We only had one morning because then Marc and I were headed out to Nevada, so we went to the park and had a blast. Our friends (Melissa, Trevor, and their kids) from Alaska were visiting too, so we had a bunch of kids and snacks and just let them go crazy. Roman (sort of) learned how to play Red Light, Green Light and Duck, Duck, Goose, and he's talked about it for the last few weeks! It was so much fun to sneak in a park day right before we took off... And, of course, I only took two pictures the whole time.
Back to Nevada: Have I said how much I love going out there? We play games, we relax, we drink, we play more games, we eat, we play even more games, and we drink some more. I love our trips out there. This time we happened to be heading out over Easter weekend, and Erin and Rick had decided to meet us out there, so we had a big Easter Sunday, complete with an egg hunt just for Romey, and he loved it. The Easter Bunny gave the kids some good stuff; Rome was especially excited about his car-up (car transporter) and big bubble wands, and he hasn't stopped playing with this blue car that he can take apart and put back together that Uncle Rick found for him. Roman is a spoiled boy. The Monday that we were there was mom's 63rd birthday, so we celebrated the way mom would have, with beer and horseshoes, and Jan and Rick kicked all of our behinds; I demand a rematch!! It was funny though, because all of us (Aunt Nancy, Uncle Mike, Marc, Rick, Erin, and I) play this minigolf game on our phones against one another, and one night we all sat in a room together playing on our phones for a couple of hours. It was quite a sight, but we were visiting and relaxing together, so I think that it was just fine. And Roman loves being out there playing, too. The other day he was pretending that this basket in our living room was a car, and he said, "Bye, mom. I see you later." And I asked him where he was going and he said, "To Nana's and Papa's house." Clearly we need to make a trip back there soon.
And big news for me: I turned in a complete draft of my thesis! I already got some great feedback from two of my readers, and I am just plugging away trying to get this thing finished before the end of summer. It will be so nice to be able to move on finally. Move on to what? I have no idea, but at least I can start actually thinking about it.