10 on Tuesday

1. I fished 3 roly poly’s out of Genevieve’s mouth yesterday. I have no idea where she is finding them.

2. She’s enjoying her Alaska t-shirt, courtesy of Aunt Nae Nae.

3. Tristan lets us know every time we are going up (onto a bridge) and then every time we are going down (off of the bridge). It’s fun to see him noticing his surroundings and making the connections. There are a LOT of bridges around here!

4. Tristan’s teacher nicknamed the kids Mr. T and Baby G – very cute.

5. Tristan is very in to making pallets on the floor for himself and his toys. He pulls out all the blankets in his room and is starting to pull all the blankets from Genevieve’s room too. Fun, but this turns into a lot of extra folding and laundry for Mommy.

6. James uses the phrases, “Be part of the process” or “look alive” when he’s trying to get Tristan to pay attention and help clean up, cook dinner, etc. Tonight when James and the kids were building “big, big towers” with the blocks, Tristan said to Genevieve, “Be part of the process, baby.” James, Renae and I just looked at each other and started laughing.

7. Genevieve has gotten preoccupied with toys several times, let go and stood up for a few seconds on her own. We’re getting close…

8. Genevieve is learning her way around the house. Now if she realizes that I’ve left the room, instead of sitting still and busting into a crying spell, she still cries but she also crawls around the house looking for me. She looks in the kitchen, in the laundry room, in the office and then sits at the bottom of the stairs looking up. She’s getting so used to her surroundings that she remembered how to get to the toys upstairs. This morning I was keeping a distance so she wouldn’t see me and I was just watching to see what she would do. She crawled right up the stairs to the playroom and quickly occupied herself with the toys. I quietly closed the gate behind her so she wouldn’t fall back down and she entertained herself for a good twenty minutes before she needed some company.

9. Last night James hooked up the mirror ball in the playroom and we all played around in the cool lights. Both kids seemed to really enjoy themselves, although I think it just really made Tristan hyper. He spent most of the time yelling out random numbers (4, 19, 14, 8, 11…very loudly), giggling, smiling and jumping off the futon. Genevieve was trying to “catch” the light as it sped across the floor. It was lots of fun!

10. We actually went to the library, the whole family, to check out books and not just go to storytime. Tristan was really on his best behavior and was being so cute. We looked at books together and played with an animal felt board while we waited for Daddy to finish finding his book. Genevieve didn’t make a single peep the entire time we were there and was content to be held by Daddy and take it all in. Tristan held my hand and stood in line so nicely that the librarian gave him a fun sticker. Hmm, checking out books from the library instead of just buying them – what a concept!