NOTES ON THE KIDS

I wanted to make a special entry for notes on the kids. I thought that if I separated out these notes, I will be able to find them more easily later.

So, here are some things about the kids that I don't want to forget:

The way that Jaden says "tr" as "f". He talks about trucks a lot, so this leads to some embarrassment around other people. But, it's still pretty funny. Oh, and he doesn't say "gl" at all, so don't ask him about his glass. An update on this - Just a week or so after I wrote this, Jaden is doing much better on saying these letter combinations! He now usually says "trrruck" and "g-lass". It's cute how he has to emphasize the second letter in order to say words like this.

I love Danielle's laugh and her little buck-teeth. Her smile is so adorable! I love the gap between her two front teeth.

I love Danielle's birthmark. I don't know why, but I think that it is the sweetest little thing! One of my favorite things about the pictures of Danielle that I recently got at Flash Photography is the fact that I can see her little birthmark on her back.

I love watching Danielle copy Jaden. Lately, I've seen her doing things that I know she picked up from Jaden. One of those things is that she crawls around with shoes on her hands. He loves to put shoes on his hands and feet and crawl around on the floor playing "dinosaur". Now, I see her putting shoes on her hands the same way. She's also constantly roaring like a dinosaur. I also love seeing her push little cars around on the floor because I know that that's what she sees her brother do all the time.

I love going in and kissing Jaden goodnight right before I go to bed. Often, he wakes up just a little bit and we are able to tell him we love him and get a kiss from him. He's so cute in this half-asleep state. For awhile, he went through a stage where he took his clothes off every night, so we would have to put them back on him when we went in. He would drowsily help us dress him - lifting an arm for us, sitting up when we asked him to - and then he would flop back down and immediately go back to sleep. I'm so glad that he's not a light sleeper (like Danielle is)!

Jaden always has to be right. Often, after he says something, just any little thing, he'll say "Mommy, say 'You're right.'" Even if he's wrong, he insists that I tell him he's right. Oh boy! Guess he got that from Daddy! :-)

Some cute things that Jaden says lately:
"I so sawee Danielle, I never mean to do that." (after pushing her over or something, of course)

Differences between Jaden & Danielle:
Danielle seems like so much more of a baby than Jaden did at one-year-old! I saw a picture of Jaden at his one year birthday and wow! did he look like such a big boy!!
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that he had so much more hair than her. I think he had his first haircut at about 9 months old and she (at over 13 months old) still has just barely a wisp of hair.
He also had such a round little face and big huge eyes. She is generally much leaner than him.
He was also always such an active little boy. She is much calmer. She is content to come and sit with us or to play quietly with a toy. He was always so rambunctious - Constantly on the move. He was walking at 9 1/2 months and climbing up onto things very soon after that. She is just now starting to walk and loves to just stand and check things out.
Overall, I think that she is much more even-tempered than Jaden. She has her moments when she gets upset, and she certainly gets whiny sometimes (especially when it comes to meals), but in general she is very calm and happy. She is almost always smiling. She is such a wonderful little sweet girl. Jaden was wonderful and sweet too, but in a much more energetic way.
As far as language goes, I think that Danielle is probably pretty much in the same place that Jaden was. She doesn't really say much of anything real, and I don't think that he did at this age either. But I seem to remember that by this time he was already "talking" like crazy - having these elaborate conversations in his own language, using inflection and everything. I could be wrong on that though - he could have started that later. At any rate, I think this would just be one more example of him being in "high gear" - just more energetic.