A Quick One: The New Piano

A beautiful shiny red toy piano, a gift from a dear friend, becomes an instant hit.

Cheap Entertainment

Sylvie Rocking

It is hard to tell from this not so hot video, but I just love the way little Sylvia can catch a beat. She really digs music.

Teething and Reading - Xmas Files

I just found this half done post with lots of photos from December. Best are the videos at the bottom regarding Rosemary's reading and tooth loss, both taken on the same day when she and I went on a trip to Grand Central to see the holiday train at the MTA shop. She was really, really excited to have a wiggly tooth. It is now gone, and the grown up one is on it's way in. The other day we were talking about how she's the first in her class to lose a tooth and I said to her, "That's great, but you're not boasting about it, are you? And she said, "No, I'm not boasting. I'm telling everyone about it. All the time. Everyday. Is that boasting?"

Diagramming the Twins

Even as I start typing this entry, the babies are noodling around in their cribs waiting patiently/impatiently to be freed. So I'll be brief. Rosie and I went to a fun kids event at the New Museum the other day, where they gave the kids blank Venn diagrams to fill out. Venn Diagrams are the overlapping circles where the overlapped part demonstrates shared characteristics of two things. This morning we made one for the babies. 

Now before I start this, let me just say something that's always in the back of my mind when people as me to describe Sylvia and Magnolia. Maybe I'm repeating myself - sorry about that, if so. Once I was chatting with a neighborhood mom acquaintance  - she's a psychiatrist? Psychologist? I don't know her well, so I can't recall -- and she said that in her practice she's become aware of this tendency to make twins' characteristics more disparate than they truly are. Let's just call it the Nice Elizabeth-Evil Jessica Phenomenon, and if you don't know who I'm referring to, then you definitely didn't read teen crap books in the '80s. Anyhow, people tend to say - for example - Magnolia is the shy one and Sylvia is the outgoing one, etc. But really they are neither one extreme or the other, and it varies from day to day, and I always feel a bit bad pigeonholing our little people. But of course I do.

But here is our diagram. It is hard to read, especially with the misleading preschool handwriting "CAT DOG" at the top. So I'll summarize it:

Sylvia:

Pretend feeds you

Likes to play the keyboards

Has a crib she likes best

Says dada

Rhythm! She's got it.

Likes to be tossed in air

Obsessed with dishwasher and windows

Happy sniffs (hard to describe)

Cuddly with people and pillows

Magnolia:

Downward dog (Very coordinated.)

Waves 

Almost stands on her own

Exceedingly ticklish

Says mama

Doesn't like to be tossed

Likes paper (eats it)

Obsessed with socks

Very sensitive to other people's expressions

Sylvia AND Magnolia:

Have a big sister

Like blueberries

Silly

Dark eyes

Like to play in the toy kitchen 

Sylvia enjoying the New York Times. (Like the TV commercial says, I go for Arts & Leisure, Jason grabs the Real Estate section, Rosemary grabs the Toys R Us ad, Sylvia likes the blue wrapper, and Magnolia eats the whole paper.)

Magnolia in the kitchen, in the kitchen toys.

Waving Maggie: