We almost have a one and a four year old.

Life keeps plugging away as we find a little groove. The kind of groove that involves tough nights, needy kids, threats of sickness and heat induced seizures, and days long stomach bugs brought home from sushi in Idaho. Fortunately for us, this groove also involves lots of snuggles and witnessing substantial development of both kids.

First, the boy.

With every passing day, he seems to be more of a boy than a toddler. Here are some broad categories:

Music

I need to do a Suzuki based update, but his pursuit of music continues on. Mama has taken over all things Suzuki, initially motivated by mercy. With all of the home-making activities I keep up with, adding daily violin practice was pushing my limits of competence and reliability. Mama has been doing a great job and Nashi has been progressing nicely. On top of that, he’s been connecting it to his piano play as of late. Grandma Jill taught him to play twinkle twinkle on the piano so he’s now experimenting with the violin variations on his own.

Another new activity: he plays demo songs programmed into our digital piano. Each song has its own story and he narrates what’s happening throughout. “This is a serious song. No laughing. These are gun shots. Babies are getting shot. Say oh no, papa.” Disturbing? Yes, quite. Creative genius? Future theater director? I think so. Some songs are about dancing, to balance it all out.

Focus

In the past couple months, Nashi has shown extended focus on activities for the first time. He’ll decide to make a car transporter by stacking all his cars, and carefully work towards balancing them together. When it collapses before completion, he’d get frustrated and throw one of the cars. He never used to stick with something like that long enough to get frustrated.

Threenager status

The single worst impulse he now has is doing the opposite of what we ask in the heat of the moment. He won’t stop trying to run away when we say stop, or won’t let go of something when we tell him to. I always communicate this as unacceptable, because I worry someday I have to yell stop when I see a car coming and instead he runs. Aside from this, we’ve actually seen a gradual improvement in behavior over the past couple months. Part of it might be us getting better at handling it, and part may be him progressing out of the worst of it.

Now, the girl.

She’s looking so big! Her colorful personality is starting to come through.

Mobility

The big activity for her these days is standing up against something, all by herself. After a slight breakthrough at the pool where she got to experiment a little, she can now walk sideways a bit when holding herself against the couch. She’s also a super fast crawler now. If I lay on my back on the floor, she’ll spend some time crawling over me, yank on my hair, pull up my shirt to poke my belly button, and attempt to eat my nose.

Teeth

She has two teeth!

Language

She says mama and papa, both at about 75% accuracy. She really loves reading Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? I make the animal sounds each time and she copies at least half of them. As of a few days ago, an adorable new thing has been saying “uh oh!” I don’t really know where she learned it, but it’s cute.

Sleep

Saving the best for last. And by best, I mean of course mean worst. For too many nights now, she’s been waking constantly. Likely a combination of teething, developmental stuff around the standing thing, and general need to not make it easy on the parents. When Mama reaches her limit, she’ll have me take over the rest of the night. Without the comfort of a boob, my strategy has been limited to “lay there and shush her while she cries.” A good development has been going down from three naps a day to two. It cannot be overstated, how much we’re looking forward to sleep becoming a non-issue. Maybe by the end of the year?