There are 3 stages to your child’s development.  I like to call them the 3 P’s: Plant, Pet, Person.  Let me be your guide.

Stage 1, Plant: When you bring your baby home from the NICU hospital, they are basically like a plant.  You feed him, he waters you.  Your baby will sit for long periods of time, not doing much. You try to make sure your house is nice and warm to help promote growth  You want to make sure you keep your plant baby in a nice dry place where the dog won’t knock him over. 

Stage 2, Pet: Around 6 months, your baby will start following you with her eyes.  If she’s able to crawl, she’ll follow you anywhere.   She really looks forward to seeing you every time you enter the room.  She’ll start to squeal when you give her a good head scratch.  You can even start giving her treats at this stage.  “Who’s a good girl?”

Stage 3, Person: Sure it’s fun to play fetch with the toys, but the real fun starts when your child is about a year old.  Your child is probably walking by now and their personality is off the charts.  You’re able to have conversations with your child.  Sure they can’t articulate everything back to you, but they understand everything.  You’ll typically realize your child has become a person when you tell them “no” and they do it again and again and again and again. “oh no“

Where did everyone go? Do I smell?  Is it gas?  Hello???

What would it be like if we just had Paige first, then Cole, then Drew?  Everyday we see Cole and Paige interacting and think to ourselves, would it be boring having one kid?  Well not boring for us, but boring for the kid.  Paige and Cole play so much together.  They are rarely apart.  Chase has become the game of choice.  Cole is super quick.  Future marathon runner?  Sprinter?  Maybe.  Drew wants to be part of the 2 year old club.  He tries so hard to keep up with the other ones.  Funny enough, he is just as big, he just doesn’t have the skills (yet)!  If Paige goes and grabs the ambulance to play with, Cole will grab the police car.  If Cole has a popper, Paige has 2 poppers.  It’s a treat to see the connections these kids make with each other.

Paige has become our resident hoarder.  Instead of grabbing one toy per hand, she’ll try to carry as many toys as possible bundled in her arms.  Cindy recently gave us another popper.  Ever try to see a little girl carry 3 poppers around the house?  She’s a determined little girl I tell you.  For the past few months we gave in and let Paige sleep with us.  I can tell you we regretted that decision the moment it happened.  She started expecting it every night and instead of waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning to come to our bed, the time started getting earlier and earlier.  It got so bad that we would put her down at 7 and she would be up at 9 wanting to come to the adult bed.  It all started to change when Tobie went to Babies R Us and threw Paige’s toddler Princess bed on top of the car.  Paige has now been sleeping by herself for the past 5 nights.  She’ll still wake up screaming in the middle of the night, but she’s accepted that she’ll go back down in her bed, not ours.  Hopefully our good fortune will continue.  We were about to have a sleep study scheduled as we were at the end of our rope.  We’ll revisit after her eye surgery next month.

Cole’s vocabulary has taken off.  I’m still not sure what he’s saying half the time, but there are lots of things coming out of his mouth that sound like words.  Hey that’s better than “da da” and “ma ma” for the past 8 months, right?  His newest saying is “pwitty pwitty, pwitty” (pretty).  It’s hilarious when he says it.  He’s definitely a boy’s boy.  Loves cars and trucks and pushes them all around the house.  He’s our little compassionate boy.  Anytime someone is upset or hurt, he’ll come over and try to comfort.  We hear from both kids the phrase “uh oh” about 1000 times a day now.  Drop a toy, “uh oh”, throw their bottle from the high chair, “uh oh”.  Lots of times they do it in tandem.  It doesn’t grate on you at all!

And then there is Drew.  I could write forever about all the things he’s doing nowadays.  But I’ll just leave you with this.  Changing his diaper or dressing him SUCKS!  He’s at that stage where he’ll fight lying on his back so it’s murder trying to get him dressed or his butt clean.  He does a total freak out like Paige and Cole did at this stage.  It must run in the family.  How long does this stage last?  It can’t end soon enough!

Who was supposed to bring the cards?

I don’t know what happened.  I don’t know when it happened.  But my little angels are the best kids on the planet.  Seriously.  Every day they are amazing me with their personalities, their emerging language, and their love of each other.  One of our readers said you can tell from the pictures how much they love each other.  It’s true!!  They really are starting to look out for each other.  Sharing food, sharing toys, playing together.  It’s awesome. 

Drew: “Don’t even think about it Paige!”

Cole is talking like crazy!!!  He imitates words, initiates his own words, knows all kinds of new things.  Cow says moo, pig says oink oink.  Paige and Cole were pushing their ride-on toys this morning and Cole’s tipped over and I said uh-oh you got in an accident…call the police.  Then they both go off for a few minutes and come back with the ambulance and police car toys.  Wow!  I was busy cleaning up this morning and they come up to me with a book.  Cole sits down, Paige sits down pats the floor and says “sit down” to me.  Wow!  In therapy today Paige sorted rings on pegs by color.  She was 20 for 20.  I’ve been working on colors but to see it in action was tear-jerking.  At naptime I was reading a story I haven’t read in a while and they were giddy at the story.  Not the pictures, the actual story.  On the slide in the house, if Drew is crawling up the slide and they are sliding down the slide, they will stop themselves midway so they don’t hurt Drew.  We’ve been having morning snack in front of the TV and Cole will help push the highchairs into the TV room.  Paige will hand me back the cups when they are done drinking so I can stick them back in the fridge.  She will even bring me her brothers’ cups.  Yes, Cole has been bottle-free for three days now.  We are not looking back.  If Cole’s glasses fall off, he will either hand them to me or I’ve caught him putting them on the kitchen island out of harm’s way.  I no longer have to pin him down to put them on.  He closes his eyes and holds really still when it’s time for glasses.

It’s incredible.