Nathan and Kenna Update - 21 Months

First, look over at my ticker - today is my due date! When you get a due date when you are first pregnant, I think most people assume the baby will come BY that date. Sort of an expiration date like on a loaf of bread. :) Unfortunately I'm still baking! So postponing my c section a week in the hope of labor didn't lead to the hopeful outcome BUT it was a really good thing because 1) it gave me time to feel better about the decision and 2) it gave me time to recover a bit from my cold. I'm still sick and will still have lingering cold symptoms on Tuesday but it will not be anything like it would have been last Tuesday. So I'm very grateful for that.

In the meantime, it's time for a 21 month old update. The twins turned 21 months last week. I mentioned this in the past, but I've really noticed that babies/toddlers really seem to go through major developmental spurts every three months. I have found that again to be true at this point - the difference between 18 months and 21 months is huge, and I've seen most of that change just in the last 2 or 3 weeks.

NATHAN

Nathan has totally and suddenly come into his own verbally in the last month. It's like a language explosion for him! I realized last month that whenever I ask them a question, it's always answered by Kenna and then we move on. "Do you guys want milk now?" "Yes" (Kenna) "OK, let's have milk then." I always chalked up Nathan's lack of responses in those areas to the fact that he was just slower to talk than his sister and Kenna LOVES to talk. But then I started realizing that he has no incentive to communicate responses because Kenna does it all for "them". Not only did this mean that he rarely answered a question directed at the two of them, it also formed a bad habit in that even when something was asked of him specifically he didn't really pay attention and just stayed focused on whatever he was doing. I immediately tried something new after realizing this and started always requiring an answer from Nathan. In cases where it was a question to both of them, after Kenna answered I said, "And Nathan, (repeat question)?" At first I had to really get him to look at me so he would realize I was requiring an answer. But literally after a couple of days he started answering questions on his own, no prompting, even when Kenna did too. And more importantly, he quickly became more aware and responsive when I was talking to him. It has been like night and day. He started using tons of new words, points out things wherever we go, tells me about things we read in books, etc. I don't know how much of this is due to the fact it was "just his time" but it sure did coincide with my change in "requiring" his communication. It was probably some of both. But I have felt really bad about not realizing it sooner...I feel like it's one of my worst parenting failures. :(

So the big news for Nathan is this communication explosion. I love hearing him talk and finally hearing so much about what goes on in his head! He has started to put two words together too, at the same time as Kenna. I assumed he would follow her development curve with all this language stuff and do that later, but he has started putting words together at exactly the same time. They have this little fall book about finding a pumpkin and he asks for it by name "pumpkin book!". They LOVE this book. On each page you look for the pumpkin but it isn't there until the end. So you keep asking the question and the answer is "nooooooo..." Nathan is gleeful about saying "nooooooo" and throughout the day I can ask him silly questions with that as the answer and he replies through sweet little laughs "noooooo". I love that!

Nathan seems to really have a sense of humor developing. He says things and then just starts laughing. One "joke" he likes to make is about enchiladas. He and Kenna both LOVE enchiladas when we go out to eat. They call them "ladas". They associate them with one particular place we go often and know immediately that's what they'll have (and can hardly wait). But when we go to other places, after we get them in high chairs, Nathan will say "ladas! Rice!" and laugh heartily, knowing we aren't at that place he knows! It's so funny to see him "make a joke". He also says it at breakfast sometimes and thinks it is so funny while we are eating oatmeal. "Ladas!"

Other random things Nathan enjoys right now:
--Emptying out boxes and sitting in them
--Climbing up playground equipment in order to go down big slides
--"Sharing" the foods he doesn't like as much with Kenna (he likes to pick out broccoli pieces and hand them to Kenna, saying "share!")
--The play box of kitchen utensils (plastic toys, not real ones!) - he gets it out first things every day
--Sleeping with TWO stuffed turtles...it used to be his one favorite stuffed animal but it was getting so dirty that grammy and papa ordered a replacement one for when we needed it. After that he started needing to sleep with BOTH of them after seeing they weren't one and the same. :)
--Climbing on anything and everything
--Putting things away...if it's out of place, it MUST be put back
--Immediately saying "hug" when he falls
--His "papa" (Bryan's dad)...when the doorbell rings, he shouts, "papa!" every time. Randomly throughout the day he will start talking about papa. Sometimes while driving he says "papa". The other day was the first time he said he loved someone unprompted and he said "I love papa".


KENNA

Just like with Nathan, Kenna has had a language explosion in the last couple of weeks...beyond what has already been a really incredible vocabulary. Every day she says new things that take me by surprise and she is getting really good at putting words together. She says things like "get it", "sit down", "lie down", "Nathan sad", "mommy sick" (while I have had a cold), "daddy working", etc. I think full sentences are just around the corner!

Kenna's French is also coming along really well. She knows about 15 animals in French, several body parts, several foods and many day to day words. She seems to really enjoy saying words in both languages and appears to grasp that there are two ways to say anything. She'll point at milk and say "lait! milk!" for example. Or in word books with animals, she will go through and point at them in English then tell me each one's word in French. She asks for her French books in French (i.e., by French title)! Bryan's dad commented the other day that he doesn't hear her/them say French words and was wondering if I was still talking to them in French. It's funny - I think she realizes that I'm the one who speaks this "other" way that she is learning and only uses the words with me. I never see her using the words with Bryan or anyone else. And I've observed that she uses some Spanish words with our nanny (she comes one day a week and speaks some Spanish to them, but not 100%)...though she never says anything in Spanish to me. I actually saw one day that our nanny was fully asking some questions in Spanish to Kenna and she responded with a Spanish word! I had no idea she was learning so much Spanish! I'm so fascinated by all of this - that she doesn't mix languages and knows who speaks what. It's really cool. Nathan understands some of the basic French instructions I give and a few basic words but doesn't show any interest like Kenna. It's clear that interest level impacts learning hugely at this point (any point I suppose). For him to learn, I would need to be much more fluent so that it's part of his every day life. With Kenna, she loves to memorize and use books, so that's perfect for my level of French to help her (I have a pretty huge vocabulary and basic conversational skills, but to just seamlessly incorporate it all day long wouldn't be possible).

One big developmental change for both of them lately is that they have learned their shapes and can easily put the shapes into shape sorters (lids with the shape hole cut out). A month ago they would get so frustrated with it and scream. Now they know what the shapes are called and can identify which hole they go into on first try usually. It seemed to happen over night!

Kenna is trying to figure out numbers. Anytime there is more than one of something, it's two. If there are lots of ducks at the park, there are "two ducks!" But I can't get her to understand there is a word for when there is only one of something. Both she and Nathan will carry two of something around and say "two (whatevers)". A good technique for calming Kenna has been to tell her we are counting to ten for her to get self control and if she has not calmed down she'll go to time out. She tries to count along when we get to 6...she says, "6, 8, 10"! Bryan says she just prefers to show us that she knows even numbers already. :)

I would be remiss to not mention that Kenna has been EXTREMELY difficult in the last two weeks. Like we have never seen before. Like a poster child for the "Terrible Twos". I sort of assume that a lot of kids get like this at some point but this was SUDDEN and we can't figure out what triggered it. I'm working on different discipline techniques to see what is going to be best to manage this. It's been better for a couple of days so I'm hopeful. Before that, she had started to throw things ALL THE TIME, she was hitting at her toys and Nathan, screaming any time you said no, and all kinds of other lovely behaviors. Not a good time to push mommy to the breaking point when mommy is 39 weeks pregnant with a cold. I'm quickly seeing that she thrives off seeing that she made you angry, even when she is the one receiving punishment. I have *completely* reeled that in for the last couple of days by never looking angry and just swiftly putting her in time amount or holding her hands down. It seems to be working well (the lack of visible anger combined with very swift discipline - NO warnings - she is asked once to do whatever and if she does it again, immediate discipline). I can't believe a tiny child would be enjoying the power from seeing that she made someone very angry, but I'm starting to see that was the case here that augmented a bad snowball of behavior. So we're both working on it. :)

Despite this, she is still a very affectionate little girl and every night at bed time must give each of us and Nathan multiple kisses. She gets very upset if Nathan is already in his crib and she hasn't had enough kisses! "Kiss! Kiss!" We have been trying to teach them to say "I love you" for a while, and they are getting better at pronouncing it/repeating it. But yesterday I said "I love you" to Kenna and she turned around while climbing stairs and said (unprompted) "love you!" :)