Fourteen Months Old!

I can't believe I ever stressed about Anaya not moving.  Seriously.  What was I thinking?  I should have savoured every single moment she didn't move.  Because now?  There is no savouring anything.  There is no time.  My time is solidly spent following Anaya and Audie around, picking up the pieces.  They are like the Tasmanian Devil - sometimes they're like two little devils and sometimes they combine their powers to form one big devil.  Either way, they leave severe destruction.  They are both opening their eyes to the great big world and there are tiny pointer fingers flying all over the place, accompanied by a grunt that sounds like "huh?"  They are such a handful right now, but there is a lot of enjoyable time, too.  Their interactions with each other are always entertaining and amazing to me, and they provide plenty of laughs for all of us.  Adam is a great helper, cleaning up the toys and bringing them stuff in their cribs if he gets to them before I do in the morning.  I think he is realizing that very soon, he will have two constant playmates.  Their mobility brings about a lot of freedom, but it also leaves plenty of opportunity for this world to seem too small for the both of them.  The first video below will perfectly demonstrate how quickly things can go awry.

Anaya walks now more than she crawls.  She kind of favors her right foot and does this little high step with her right foot, followed by an almost-drag of the left.  She sticks her little booty out and holds her hands up, sometimes pointing in the direction she's walking.  Precious.  She is a much happier toddler than she was baby, but still has a really short temper.  She says "Adam" and "go", makes monkey and lion sounds, and points to her feet, tongue and teeth.  She can sign "more" or "all done."  She also points at the computer when I say "Where's Grandma?" and starts waving at the screen as soon as she hears the sound that Skype makes when it's dialing someone.  She has gotten really good at expressing what she wants, by pointing and grunting or yelling, whichever gets the job done fast enough.  She loves playing in my makeup drawer, which makes me proud.  She's got four teeth now and is still my best eater.  She also remains Rosie's favorite because she's such a good sharer.  She loves to play in her ball pit and loves to play with her tea set from Aunt Ra Ra.  She also loves to push one of her walkers really fast and ram it in to stuff.  She's the crazy one.  I think we're slowly getting the hang of this "raising a princess" thing.    

Audie still crawls most of the time, but today showed a renewed determination to walk more.  He'll get up and take six or eight steps before he collapses and continues on crawling.  He is still a little sweetheart, but is also becoming quite mischievous.  He's quite sneaky, so sometimes it takes me a few minutes to realize he's gone...and that Adam has left the bathroom door open and the toilet seat up.  There's Audie, elbow-deep in the toilet water.  Or maybe I left my bathroom door open and he thought eye shadow was for eating.  He's a curious little guy and we're no stranger to that around here.  It's one more way he takes after his big brother, which I think is his primary goal.  Audie loves Adam and just wants to be in his space.  Who doesn't?  I get it, Adam is a magnetic little dude.  Audie eats well, but is slower than Anaya.  He says "ball" and his own name and can also sign "more" and "all done," and has six teeth so far.  He has a precious, innocent smile that makes you believe he didn't do it, even if there is purple eyeshadow all over his face or 150 sandwich baggies scattered across the floor.  He's very serious and somber a lot of the time (see photo #2 below, where you would think he would be squealing with delight while being flown across the floor by Anaya).  He also has a surprisingly short temper when it comes to anyone but Anaya.  He's extremely patient with her, which is a blessing...because she is patient with no one.  I guess twins are good like that. 

Overall, things are just moving right along over here.  We appreciate all of the concern over what happened in Sendai, and want everyone to know that we are safe for now here in Okinawa.  We promise that if we were in danger, steps would be taken to get us out of here.  Please don't worry.  I think we are finally getting used to the drill of taking three kids places and we're actually voluntarily doing it more often.  I think this summer will be fun and we have a lot to look forward to here over the next however long.  It feels good to be out of that first-year tunnel - to be able to envision the future a little better, and for it to look like fun!  It still looks busy, but fun.

 "One Sock Audie"  He never fails to lose a sock somewhere along the way...