Little sponge and the incredible (and adorable) hulk!

Sand play is an everyday thing now the weather has warmed up

So far, this week has been huge for Violet, she is coming on in leaps and bounds! Four things happened today that amazed me. Little things, but amazing all the same!

First of all during breakfast I randomly said 'Violet clap hands', and she did! It never ceases to amaze me how much they understand at such a young age. This confirms how much of her world she is absorbing and just how much she understands.

Then for the first time to day she was playing in her baby kitchen and a little snippet of music came on and she danced to it by bobbing her head up and down. Everytime the music played she danced. How do babies know to dance to music? I guess we humans are just wired somehow to repond to music. I love my little dancing girl!

The third thing! I have been signing the very basics to her for the last 3 months or so. Nothing crazy, just when I remember and just the signs for 'more', 'milk', 'eat', 'sleep' and 'all done'.  Today I could see she was really enjoying her lunch of maccaroni and cheese babyfood. I put the bowl down after the first few scoops. She watched me put it down and let out a little screech. "More?" I asked while doing the sign. And she screeched for it again. "More?" I asked again, this time without doing the sign and I swear she put her fingers together like little pincers and hit them together a few times...the sign for more!! I quickly picked up the bowl and fed her more, to reinforce. She 'asked' for it, and she got it, you could see she was so pleased with herself! I tried it again after a few minutes and sure enough, she did it again! I am so excited! I did the basics with Caden and even little CC before him and neither one picked it up so I left it alone. I so excited my little prodigy signed her first word!

And lastly, I was reading her 'Sleepy Baby' book before bed and said 'Kiss the baby". And she did. It was adorable.

Violet's brunette hair seems to be getting a lot of blonde highlights all of a sudden, that long front piece is darker than the rest I think.

Playing with my tobys

They both had their respective 3 year and 10 month well visits at the Doctor's office yesterday. Caden was as good as gold, letting the  nurses weigh and measure him. Take his temperature and even do a vision test in a dark room looking at a little screen with electrodes on his head and a patch on each eye, one by one. He did great.

And as soon as the Doctor came in his evil twin entered the room and screamed bloody murder. The Doctor simply wanted to hear his chest, look in his mouth and ears and palpate his stomach (For the record, she is lovely!) He was screaming, shouting and crying and hiding behind the trash can under a table. Total nightmare.

We finally finsihed and he was allowed to pick a prize out of the prize box for being a good (bad!) boy. He picked out a snake. And then the remaining 2 snakes that were also in there. With hindsight I should have just let him take the damb snakes but I said 'only one honey' since the lady was standing there holding the box. Well he screamed and cried all the way home trying to break out of his seat with a bright red face and sweaty hair until he fell asleep a block away from our house. When he woke up he had tiny little purple dots all over his upper face...burst blood vessels I expect!! He was like the increbible hulk! God love my little Aires boys, headstrong to the end! Quite honestly, Mike and I agreed, it the worst tantrum we have ever seen!

I warned them to just continue with him while he was cooperating so nicely but they wanted to do Violet's visit in between for some reason, seriously, mothers know best!

On the bright side Caden is growing like a weed and surpassed the assessment on his skills and development. Violet also had a huge growth spurt in terms of length in the past two months (she went from 19th percentile in length up to 46th percentile in about 6 weeks!), and is gaining weight right on track for her growth curve. Long and light!

Today I asked Caden if he remembered losing it at the doctors and he was smirking like he remembered and was a bit embarrassed about it! Later, out of the blue, he came to me with the ONE snake he picked out of the prize box and said 'We need to make two more snakes. We need paper, scissors, some paints and a screwdriver'!!! Oh how I love how the three year old mind works. I am tentively thinking about making a papier mache snake with him tomorrow if Violet takes a decent nap. But if all fails Mike can always get out the old screwdriver and whip up a snake or two!

The Easter Bunny left some so-called 'blunt' pre-schooler scissors in his easter basket (for left or right handed children by the way, did you know he is left handed like his Auntie Jemma and Auntie Kate?? Uncle Brian is excited about this...its good for baseball apparently!) I let him cut some paper with them yesterday, its pretty tricky so he uses two hands for the time being. When he was done I put them in the kitchen drawer. Anyhoo, this morning he came to me looking sheepish and pointed to his pajama pants, Sure enough they had two half inch gashes in them. I thanked the lord there was no hair shed and vowed to put a new lock on the junk drawer... Three is a wonderful age, full of learning and fun and lots of talking but with a decent dose of 'trying' behaviour too, I am finding!

Her first summer dress picture (with a onesie for a little extra layering!) although it did get chilly as the day went on!

Violet is really enjoying her big girl food now, I will have to get more inventive because she seems to want the babyfood less and less. This morning I made both kids a scambled egg and a slice of toast. One of them ate every scrap plus some cheerios and watermelon. The other only ate the toast. Yes you guess it, my 18 pounder was the one that ate it all!

But my 35 pounder made up for it later, he may be the only 3 year old that asks for hummus and crackers and then grapes with cheese for a snack! I hope he sticks to liking a varied diet and fruits and veggies. Tonight I made tacos with all the trimmings, I usually make Caden something else but today he assured me "Mummy, I like spicy" and he did!

My baby boy is looking very tall all of a sudden!  But he will always be my baby.

A walk to the local playground proved too much for Violet...she slept through it, until the screaming naughty boy and his shouty mother woke her up. Note to shouty mother: If a baby starts crying and you see the mother rocking the carraige back and forth while looking at you, that means stop shouting so loud at your naughty kid. He's not listening anyway.

Dreaming of scrambled eggs.

Lastly, its a mystery to me how I wake up to a clean and tidy house and within 5 minutes it looks like this:



Auntie Jemma, aka Little Miss Tidy, would clearly have a fit!