The Wearing of the Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day! We celebrated as we usually do, by wearing a bit of green, cooking up a St. Patty's Day feast (corned beef, colcannon, and soda bread), and watching The Quiet Man. Some beer was consumed, although we skipped the Guinness and went with a domestic brew. Apparently the Irish genes that I'm sporting didn't include a love of stout.

Earlier in the day we went out and did some shopping. We discovered that Best Buy is a little boy's paradise -- buttons, buttons everywhere! Max eyes lit up when he saw remote after remote displayed in the TV aisle and he kept saying "More!" (adding the sign for extra emphasis) when we looked at the phone display. He seemed sorry to leave, even though we did buy a new phone system for the house and let him play with the old (nonfunctioning) cordless telephone when we got home.

In other news, Molly is cutting her third and fourth tooth (bottom side left incisor and top middle left incisor). We spotted the bottom tooth last week, but were surprised to find that a top tooth was coming in as well. This probably explains why she's been hasn't been sleeping well the last couple of days. She has also discovered that she can get anywhere she wants by rollings and now loves to get down on the floor and play. Max is less thrilled with this new development, since her newfound mobility also means that she can get into his toys. He's started saying, "no, no, no" to her (the same way I say it to him) when she has something that he wants. Molly has also started really trying to push herself up and get her knees under her, so we're thinking it won't be long before she's up and rocking on all fours. She's still enjoying her cereal, although she isn't the eating machine that Max was at the same age. We've worked our way through all the different types of baby cereal, so we'll probably try out some veggies soon.

Max is definitely working his way through the terrible twos. He has discovered the joy of throwing tantrums and will now howl, fling himself to the floor, and writhe around when things don't go his way (and, when you're two, this happens a lot). He started saying "yes" the other day when you ask him questions. I was talking to him and I asked him the rhetorical "So, I suppose that's a yes?" question. I was surprised when he solemnly replied, "yesh" with a firm nod of his head. He's also discovered that the word "no" can be used on other people besides himself. If you try to get him to do something he doesn't want to do, he'll now say "no!" and, in most cases, turn into boneless boy and collapse on the floor. Since the weather was really nice last week, I was able to takes the babies out for several walks (which Max loves). Now as soon as he sees his tennis shoes he starts saying, "Wah" (walk) and "Go!"

We finally got Max a potty the other week and a copy of Once Upon a Potty. He is very enthused about the "pah-pee" (potty) and is totally loves the book. There is one page of the book where it repeats "and he sat and sat and sat and sat" many times. For some reason this is Max's favorite page -- he always wants me to read it again and he refers to the book itself as "and sat and sat and sat." We've been sitting him on the potty a few times a day, just to get him used to the concept (since I don't think he's really ready yet). We were thrilled when he actually peed on the potty this week, although we suspect that it was more by coincidence than by design. Of course there was much cheering and clapping and a cookie reward. Hopefully the trend will continue, especially since Max is getting increasingly adept at removing his pants and his diaper.