Toddler Toy I'm loving

We have a cornucopia of toys in this household.  Most of them are a bunch of different parts that are scattered throughout the house making them difficult to play with.  A variety of blocks, shape sorters, that kind of thing.

I want to show the kids how to draw and scribble but markers get sucked on, crayons get eaten, and it generally turns into a mess so I give up and put it all away vowing to try again another time.  I've tried a variety of no mess markers that need special paper to draw, but while that's a great thought, the girls just rip up the paper and suck on the pens.  Dry erase markers wipe off pretty easily so I was trying that for a while, but I still don't like spending all my time trying to get markers away from mouths.

The one system that's working for me is the Melissa & Doug Water Wow Kit.  They have these little brushes that you fill with water and the cardboard pages are generally white with black outlines.  As the pages get wet, color is revealed.  It takes the pages 5-10 minutes to dry and become white again.  Middie Biddie does like sucking on the brushes, but it's just water so it doesn't bother me.  When they get older, some of the books have outlines for numbers and letters so they can practice writing.

I don't talk about specific products very often because I hate sounding like an advertisement, but I really like these.  I found out about them from another mom in my Moms of Multiples club.

Toddler taste buds

Chicken?  Yuk.

Ground Beef?  Ewwww.

Roast Beef?  Not a chance.

Cat food?  Hell's yeah!!!!

For the love of boundaries

My kids surprise me a lot.  One of my biggest fears with having twins is when one goes one way and the other goes the other and me not being able to contain them.  Apparently I don't have to worry about this too much.

For some reason, my kids are really comforted by boundaries.  When given the freedom to run and play, they generally choose not to.  When in a safe environment, I try to encourage them to exert their freedom, but they just don't.  They'll choose one spot and observe the world from there.  When we leave a gate open, they rarely cross it.  Even if they do, they'll generally just amuse themselves by going in and out of the gate, never really leaving it.

Twice today, they exerted their desire for boundaries.  I took them out to the backyard and let them play while I blew bubbles.  After about 20 minutes, they climbed back onto the deck which is basically just an outdoor cage and didn't want to come back down.  This afternoon, we went out to the front, which is a driveway, an open rock garden, and free access to the cul de sac.  They pretty much wouldn't leave the driveway and then after 10 minutes, they both marched themselves back to the front door, went inside, headed straight for their playroom and closed the gate behind them!  They purposely caged themselves in!

Um, yay?  This certainly makes life with toddlers easier, but I hope they'll get a little more adventurous at some point.  Easier doesn't always mean better.  Then again, easier is a whole lot easier.

As toddlers learn to talk

Be very careful what words you teach your toddlers before their pronunciation is good.  Teeny Tiny has a new favorite word!