Max's Scientific Method

Before I get to the update, here are a few pictures I forgot to include in the last post.

First, from Story Time at the Library:

Caroline enjoyed climbing on the chairs and checking out the other kids

Notice how both Caroline and Daniel have their backs to the proceedings

Caroline pokes around in the librarian's box while Mr. Pickle leads the good-byes

Daniel liked Story Time!

Max was not quite as sure

Caroline tried to make a new friend by chasing Charlotte around the room

And from the Triplet Mommy get-together.  Daniel and Max each got scooped up by a Triplet Mommy (thanks Emily and Tara!).  At some point, Caroline decided that being on my lap was boring and went searching for something more interesting:

Yes, she climbed into the stroller to get a better view - of what, I'm not exactly sure!

And now for Max's scientific method.  

Bath time for Salvateenies involves a lot of babies standing up and splashing in the tub, while Mommy gets drenched and has mini heart attacks worrying that they will tumble backwards, whack their heads, and drown.  Luckily, they still tend to sit right on their bottoms when they lose balance.

The past few baths, though, at some point Max has looked down from his standing position and noticed the surface of the water.  Usually at this point the water is soapy and a little filthy (three babies' worth of cleaning, don't you know), so it is not transparent as it might once have been.  Max seems to see the line of the water's surface and surmise that it is solid, like a step.  He lifts his foot up high - always his left foot, and brings it down again in an attempt to step up onto the surface of the water, only to be astonished and perplexed as his foot goes crashing through the water and down to the bottom of the tub. He repeats the attempt, and then tries again, and again, trying over and over until he gets frustrated and tries to climb out of the tub and we have to wrap him up in a towel and proclaim bath time over.  

I'm wondering how many baths it will take for Max to accept that the bath water is a liquid and not a solid.

Or to accept that, much as we may praise him and think he is wonderful, he cannot quite walk on water.

Social Interaction, Toddler Style

The past two weekends we have had a bunch of outing activities, with varying levels of success.

Last Saturday, we went to Beth and Brian's house to celebrate Australia Day with traditional chicken and champagne.  The Salvateenies attended last year, in their car seats.  This year was a little more active an affair, as we ran interference to keep them from pitching down the stairs to the first floor, but they were a charming welcoming committee as guests arrived and were adventurous with their diet, sampling every type of fruit and vegetable offered - including beets!

We tried to get a picture of all three of them together, but Caroline had other plans

After enjoying the party, we made our apologies and headed across town to meet Tamara and Jonah at Sherith Israel, a beautiful synagogue, for a PJ Havdallah.  Havdallah is the ceremony that ends the sabbath on Saturday evenings, and this is an activity that Sherith Israel puts on for its children's groups, which this month was being co-sponsored by the PJ Library, a great group that sends free Jewish kids groups to children.   Amazingly, we got there just as Tamara and Jonah were walking in, so we all navigated our way to the activity room together.  When we got there, we were amazed.  There were A TON of kids - mostly older than the 'Teenies - and lots of parents, too.  Everything was just about to get started, so we scooted into the room.  There were toys for the kids to play on, and the kids were all supposed to be watching a story about how the bear learned about shabbat, or something like that, but there were just too many people in the room and it was a little chaotic (or, as Tamara said, "intense").

We tried keeping the kids hydrated with their water bottles, but they kept throwing them on the floor, which meant we had to go retrieve them, and keeping an eye on all three was a challenge.

All three of the kids enjoyed trying out the ride-on toys and the little car, until an older kid named Ike (that's right, I'm outing a 4 year old on my blog) pushed each of them down or out of his way at different times.

I could tell a bad Mommy  moment was coming on.  All I could think was, "Alright, where are Ike's parents and why aren't they doing anything about him knocking my children over?"  He did it right in front of me, and in front of Uncle Kelly, but we were on his turf, so we focused on rescuing the fallen Teenie, rather than scolding the offender.

After the story there was a brief musical interlude and then everyone was invited to get food - cheese pizza and lemonade.  I figured we should take this opportunity to slip out, especially since none of the other parents had made any effort to say hello to us and seemed to be turning their noses up at us at every turn.  There was also the matter of Ike's parents - now that feeding time had begun, he had settled down to eat with them and it was taking every ounce of will power I had not to march over and inform them that their son was a bully.  Instead, we snagged five pieces of pizza and headed out to eat in the van.

Hmmm...I wonder if Uncle Kelly's German Military Jacket is to blame for our reception?

So, you can imagine the apprehension I felt as Grandma and I packed the babies up to take them to Family Story Time at the library on Saturday morning.  I am happy to say, however, that it was a success!  The babies wandered and interacted with the other kids, but the parents were all calm and comfortable and friendly.  Caroline didn't even get in trouble when she walked up at the end of story time and emptied the librarians box of all her books and started turning the pages herself!  

On Sunday, we loaded the van back up and headed to the East Bay to see Sam and Junior.  Sam had been planning a holiday gift exchange with the members of her Mommies group that kept getting postponed, and this was finally the day it was going to happen!  There were only two other mommies who could make it, but that still gave us a total of six babies - and Caroline the only girl among them.  She was in heaven!  Of course, most of her attention was reserved for Junior, whom she adores, but she took the opportunity to meet Isaac and Prithvi as well.

Junior, preparing to share all his toys

Max, showing everyone the new tooth he's growing 

It doesn't matter whose couch it is - that's where they want to play!

Junior has an infectious laugh

Caroline was constantly in motion!

Prithvi smiled BIG when I aimed the camera at him

Elizabeth and Isaac in the background as Prithvi snuck up on Daniel

I think he saw Caroline massaging Junior's head and thought it would be fun to try

This is the ONLY time Junior cried the whole day

Daniel climbed in one box of toys and proceeded to toss every item from the other box on the floor

Caroline climbed up to figure out how to turn the TV on

And as if that wasn't enough, Sam and I piled all four kids into the minivan (because we can do that now that we have a minivan) and drove 20 minutes to San Leandro so I could pop in on the Bay Area Triplets (and one Twins) Mommies group's get together.  It was supposed to be sort of a Mommies' Day Out, so it was a little awkward with the babies there, but a couple of the moms of older triplets stepped right up and grabbed a baby to hold and I was able to stay for about forty-five minutes and at least meet a few of the other mommies before packing everyone back into the car and heading home.

Oh! And let's not forget Friday!  Joe and I took the boys down to Gymboree HQ for a "go see" and they were proclaimed the perfect size for 12-18 month fit modeling.  Fit modeling is what it sounds like - they bring the babies in to try on a handful of outfits and see if they're cut right for a 12-18 month old sized baby, then pay you a small amount.  It's not glamorous, but if the babies do it well, it's possible the folks at Gymboree will keep them in mind for print ads they may do along the way, so it's good for their "career" in the long run.  

The cutest thing about the whole encounter was watching Max interact with his reflection in the full-wall mirror.

He's looking for the Max in the Mirror....

What you're missing here is the next scene - so cute we missed a picture of it - as Max walked right up and kissed himself in the mirror.  

Have I mentioned that Caroline is brilliant?

Last summer, the babies went to Anjali's birthday party and got some really neat books as party favors. They each have pictures of children signing to a popular children's song - The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Row, Row, Row Your Boat. In the last month or so, these have gotten so popular, in fact, that we regularly have to hide them to avoid losing our voices from excessive singing along.

The Row, Row, Row Your Boat has a few additional verses that we didn't know before, involving a Crocodile and a Lion. Obviously, we've adapted these for our Croco-Daniel and Caro-Lion. Zo we sing like this:

Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily,Merrily, Merrily, Merrily
Life is but a dream

Rock, rock, rock your boat
Gently down the stream
If you see a Croco-Daniel
Don't forget to scream!

Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Gently to the shore
If you see Caro-Lion
Don't forget to roar!

But poor Max was left out! So I had to add another verse:

Row, Row, Row Your Boat
While lying on your backs
And if you see a monkey there
I'll bet his name is Max!

Tonight, the babies were really tired and having meltdowns and reading/singing to them calmed them - for a while. So I ended up singing quite a few times. A little while later, Caroline picked up the book, looked at the cover, looked up at me and said "doe woah yo bow!" For those of you unsure about Salvateenese, that's, "Row, Row Your Boat!"

Taking the Loss Hard

The Salvateenies were getting a little full of themselves, sure that their Salvateenie Mojo, which had carried the San Francisco Giants to their first World Championship in 56 years, was extending to their other hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers.

The 49ers have not had a winning record for the past 8 seasons.  They have not been to the playoffs in 9 years and it has been 14 years since they last made it as far as the NFC Championship game.  They went 6-10 in the 2010 season, which is understandable, since the Salvateenies had focused their attention on baseball that fall.

This season, with the Giants safely out of it as football started up (some might have still been holding out hope, but not us), the babies tuned their mojo to football mode and...voilá...the 49ers went 13-3 and earned a first-round bye in the playoffs.  Last week, we all cheered as they squeaked by the Saints for one of the most exciting playoff victories in history, earning them a spot in this week's NFC Championship game against the New York Giants.

The outcome was a foregone conclusion as far as Daniel, Max, and Caroline were concerned.  This was the 49ers' year.  The Salvateenies would see both of their hometown teams World Champions before the age of two!

But then, it didn't happen.  Here is their reaction as they realize the 49ers will not be getting the ball back after Lawrence Tynes's field goal eight minutes into overtime:

After some reflection, they are looking into ways to re-calibrate the Mojo so that it favors "San Francisco", and not "Giants"...

Daniel's Learning Style

OK, to recap, Max started walking about a week after his first birthday.  Within the next month, Caroline was toddling.  Both went through serious Frankenstein stages (though I think Max just enjoyed tossing his head back and walking with his arms thrust out) and did a lot of falling over, but they were both pretty much walking by the end of their thirteenth month ... or at least right around the beginning of month 14.

Daniel was taking his time.

At their 12 month doctor's appointment, Max was walking and Caroline had taken steps, so the doctor said to let her know if Daniel hadn't taken any independent steps by 15 months so that they could do some intervention with him.  We weren't concerned.  Daniel was already up and cruising (walking with the assistance of furniture), so it wouldn't be long, right?

Fourteen months came and went and Daniel showed no interest in walking.  Now that he could speed along on his hands and knees behind his siblings, he was actually a little faster than they were on foot.  No worries - we still had a month.

Then fifteen months came and went.  Daniel could stand in the middle of the room with no problem, could cruise along any surface, and walk holding your hand, but he had yet to take an independent step.  But we didn't call the doctor.  I justified that it was just a week or so before Christmas, and nobody was going to schedule anything before the end of the year.  And, besides, they were preemies, so he was REALLY only 14 months old, right?  I told myself I'd call if he made it to sixteen months without taking a step.

Last Sunday, the babies would turn 16 months old and Daniel still had shown no interest in walking.  This was it.  After the holiday weekend was over, I really did need to call the doctor.  But on Friday I got home from work and Joe mentioned that Daniel had taken a few steps that day.  He debated not telling me because he was worried I would feel badly that I'd missed it, but since we'd been waiting for it, he thought it was best to share.

All through the three-day weekend I watched, but he wouldn't walk for me, and then on Tuesday he did it again with his aunt here.  And today he walked for his grandparents in Livermore.  This was getting ridiculous!

Finally, this evening, I saw him take his little steps.  And I realized that he might really have been walking before and I might not have noticed it.  His steps aren't hesitant at all.  He sees something he wants, takes a few steps towards it, then bends over to pick it up.  No dramatic wobbling, no spectacular falling, just nice, quiet, careful steps.

So it's true - he was really just waiting to try until he knew he could do it perfectly, just like he did with crawling.  Oh...learning sports and doing homework are going to be quite the challenge with this little boy!

In other news, we have some "sneak previews" from the photo shoot we did with Kree two weeks ago.

Enjoy!

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears  -  OH MY!

Mommy and Daddy need to take tips from the 'Teenies not to squint so much when we smile!

Poor Max

We've fallen into a pretty good nighttime routine around the Salvatore house.  Of course, the minute I say that, it will all change, but for now, here it is.  At around 8pm we start diaper changes and warming bottles, while the Pajanimals entertain the babies. Then everyone lies down and sucks down some milk while Daddy and I "clean up" the toys and books that have been taken out and used all evening.  After bottles, we brush teeth and swaddle the kiddos up (YES, we still swaddle them - get over it) and settle in with Sprout for a bit more of the Good Night Show with Nina.  I'd love to read books with them, but even swaddled they pop their arms out and crawl over to grab the book and change the pages - not bedtime behavior!  Maybe someday.

Anyway, after about 20 minutes of Driver Dan and Caillou, Daniel is ready for bed and I cart him off, kiss him on the forehead, and plop him in his crib. Ten to fifteen minutes later, it's Caroline's turn.  The time in between is crucial so that Daniel is asleep before I put Caroline down.  Once he's asleep, it takes A LOT to wake him, but if I go in too early or Caroline's too fussy, we'll have them all crying.

Usually, Daniel goes down around 9 and Caroline goes down 15 minutes later, after we watch the Berenstain Bears (sorry this somehow turned into an ad for SproutOnline...oops!)  The other night, though, she was apparently ready for bed before I thought she was, as she got up and toddled toward the back of the house on her own.  Every once in a while, I have to talk Caroline into going to bed.  I point out that she's a good big girl, going into her big girl room to sleep in her pretty big girl crib.  For whatever reason, this convinces her.

It does not convince Max.  Max does not like going to bed.  After the other two are down, I spend some one-on-one cuddle time with Max in the living room.  We turn off the tv and snuggle in the dark for a while.  Sometimes he falls asleep, and sometimes he doesn't.  There have been nights when I absolutely could not put him to bed until he was FAST ASLEEP.  Last week, while he was teething, he seemed to have an other-worldly aversion to his room.  He would be fast asleep, completely limp in my arms, and then go rigid and start screeching the minute I crossed the threshold into the room.  Step back into the hall and he was fine - it was bizarre.  Luckily, with a couple of days of aromatherapy pillow spray, he's gotten past that, but it was scary nonetheless.

Putting Max to bed is tricky business, in part because he seems to have night terrors.  This means that the normal "cry it out" method we can use on the other babies does not apply to him, because when he's crying he might not actually be awake and needing to learn how to soothe himself back to sleep, but actually still be asleep and needing to wake up so that he can clear his brain of the terror.  As it's been explained to me, it's kind of like a spooky image that gets stuck in his brain until he wakes up and it's cleared, completely, like you've hit "reset" on your computer.  One night he was sobbing, screaming, and thrashing, but obviously not really "awake", even though his eyes were open.  The advice nurse we talked to told us she'd just been to a training on night terrors and that recent research shows it may be connected to the same thing that gives older children and adults leg cramps at night, and so that it's good to give them something solid to eat to help calm it down - we've tried bananas, and it seems to work, so far.

But it also means that I'm extra careful when it's Max who wakes up crying.  Last night, around 11:30, he started sobbing.  I could hear him from the living room and went back to hover outside the door.  It's a heart wrenching thing to stand in a dark hallway listening to your child crying, trying to determine if it's "bad enough" to warrant going in and getting him up (and potentially waking the other children).  I've even caught myself petting the door jamb and repeating "shhh...shhhh..shhhhh", as if he could feel it through the door.  Last night, I was just about to slide in and grab him, no doubt setting myself up for an hour or more of cuddling and calming, when I heard WHOOMPH as he flopped back down on his mattress, a little muffled whimper as he snuggled in, and then just a faint breathing sound, that I might have been imagining, since the white noise machine is cranked up pretty loud in that room.

And that was it, he slept through the rest of the night.

So, it's all just a guessing game, I guess.

Our final Xmas of the season

We went to visit the Linerts on Wednesday for our final holiday get-together of the season.  The 'teenies really enjoyed hanging out with Anjali and Ajay and playing with all their cool toys (giving Mommy great ideas of things to ask Grandma and Grandpa for!)

Luckily, Chris and Jayanthi took pictures, so I'll let them speak for themselves.

Jayanthi set up a card table and we strapped their little booster chairs to the toddler chairs she has.

Daniel enjoying his spinach, squash, and wheat

"What? No more?"

Anjali helps Caroline out

Pretty girls!

Max enjoying his food

And feeding himself

After a big dinner of chicken, red beans, Cheerios, and the spinach/squash/wheat concoction, Caroline was still hungry, it seemed.

Trying to chomp down on a "gear"

Max was a little fussy, which called for a little tummy tickle!

And Caroline was still hungry!  Enter the treat cup...

Hanging in the kitchen with Anjali, Caroline has adopted her perma-pout.

 Meanwhile, Daniel was still in his high chair, double-fisting the treat cups:

Caroline finally figured out what those gears were really for - and she LOVED the game!

"Can we ask Grandma and Grandpa to get us this for Chinese New Years???"

 But she still practiced her sharing:

The past few days, the boys have been wrestling a lot and we were wondering where they learned.  Now that I look at the pictures, I think I know...

Get her, Daniel!

Max's turn for a pin!

No hard feelings!

Luckily, Ajay was there to help clean up!

Oh no! Anjali the Tickle Monster!

Caroline actually tried to sneak this phone home in our bag

Magnet letters are, apparently, yummy.

Max isn't sure the milk is yummy

 Then it was present time!

"Cool! I got a new book!"

"Phone call for Caroline!"

Anjali might steal Daniel's new slippers

 Everyone loved the tissue paper:

Trying to make the fancy Santa bag laugh.

Anjali is reading to Max while Ajay explains other toys to Caroline

Max's new Elmo slippers are yummy, too!

Chris posed with Daniel

But everyone was all smiles when we got both boys in the picture