The Kids' Personalities

I always end up waiting so long in between posts so I dread doing a new one because there just seems like so much to catch up on. I've been wanting to capture the kids and their personalities a little bit, seeing how this is sort of my journal and all, and I don't want to ever forget anything!

Let's start with little miss Baylee Rayne:

She's as spunky as ever! Always trying hard to be the big sister and be "in charge". She wants to be able to control everything and everyone. As hard as she tries to control Tate she is also extremely sweet, I think she really does have good intentions, it just doesn't always seem that way with some of her actions. She loves to help and loves to run and laugh.

Lately her favorite thing to do is play "restaurant" in her room. She loves being the waiter. And ever since getting Ratatouille for Christmas, she enjoys having Tate be her "little chef". She is crazy smart! We've been working on reading with her. We try to do very simple words that have letters with the basic sounds, no long vowels. Essentially a word where she can sound out literally every letter and have it sound like the real word (i.e. clap).

Although I delight in her intellect, my heart breaks for her socially. She really loves playing at home with mom and dad and Tate, but she struggles very seriously at church! We've tried to help her make friends and have them come over so she is familiar with them, but she often just ignores them. Then, later on, she'll talk very highly about them and call them her best friend, even if she gave them the cold shoulder just an hour before. Something we are working on.

Ultimately, she is my sweetheart, too. Or, more likely, Dustin's sweetheart. She is very much so daddy's girl! She says the funniest things, too! She told me just the other day that she is "so way even totally funny."

Tate Israel:

I don't even know where to start with this boy. He is so funny! And I'm crazy about this stage that he's in, it's probably my favorite, or close. He has just very recently started signing a little bit! I am thrilled, by the way. I swear Baylee was doing many signs when she was 12 months. Here we are with Tate, 18 months, and I finally feel hope to communicate with him. Though he just started signing, he's been able to understand and obey simple requests and tasks. He became so helpful, in fact, that we had to start locking the garbage can in the kitchen. When he was finished with anything, he would waddle over to the trash and throw it away. I found dominoes, sippy cups, plates, Perry, all sorts of things in there.

He also finds pain particularly funny and soothing. He uses Perry's foot to calm him down by poking his eyeball with it. Granted, yes, Perry is a stuffed animal so it's soft, but he uses this technique to calm himself down all the time! He also finds it interesting to poke pencils in his eye. Then, because he enjoys that for whatever strange reason, he thinks other people automatically like it, too. So he tries to poke us in the eye with it! Not gonna let that one fly. Along with the pain part, he's always hitting us and tackling us. He's gotten better at not pulling Baylee's hair. But then again, she's gotten better at not pestering him so much.

He tackles me all the time if I'm sitting on the floor playing with the kids. Then he lays on top of me to keep me down. As soon as he gets up, I sit up and he tackles me again by laying on me until I finally fall.

He dances to music by bobbing his head back and forth and then sticks his hand out and kind of waves it up and down a little bit. As soon as I get into the kitchen for anything, he wedges himself between me and the counter so I can't get anything done. He also recently learned how to take his clothes off. I walked in to get him one morning and found him naked in his crib, waving his jammies around like a toy.

I love the stages we are in right now and I don't want anything to change! I seriously want to freeze time right now. It would actually be helpful to have Tate communicate a little better, but other than that, loving it.

Bunches of pictures: