Sweet Caroline

When our friend Dawn drives over from Evansville to visit, she often brings her niece Caroline. This young lady, just five and a half years old herself, is very mature for her age. She loves the boys and they respond positively to her presence. An only child, Caroline seems to enjoy the older sister role she plays when visiting. She is very attentive to the boys and plays very patiently with her young friends. On this visit we elected to eat at home and Caroline was eager to help feed the toddlers, who in this photo appear to be intensely focused on the meal preparation.

Knee-Friendly Floor

If you are a 15-month old like me, you have no appreciation for beautiful old hardwood floors. They’re slick, hard and cold. This is not good flooring for people just learning to walk. You want a floor with traction for sure-footing and a soft landing-surface should you fall. You want a warm surface for playing that’s easy on the knees and palms. You know, sometimes people my age spill things or have other accidents, so a floor surface has to also be easy to clean. While carpets are an improvement over hardwood floors, they are difficult to clean and some spots are not easily removed. The best flooring choice for folks like me is foam-rubber matting. Mommy and Daddy chose interlocking exercise mats so they could cover the entire playroom floor. They’re warm, soft, non-slippery and easy to clean. I recommend them to all my friends’ parents.

Living Room Reclamation

One of the benefits of creating a larger play area upstairs is reclaiming our living room. Once the boys began crawling around Thanksgiving and then walking around Christmas, they found a plethora of items to get into in the living room. For Christmas we arranged the furniture for maximum play area and to block their access to forbidden areas like the fireplace and potted plants. We removed all books from low shelves and put the most expensive breakable things away from any errant flying objects. With space confined upstairs, we left some of the larger toys downstairs where there was more room. Now that the upstairs playroom is complete we can move the furniture back and have a nice place to greet any guests brave enough to visit.

Vacation Day at Home

Sometimes it’s nice to take a vacation day and just stay home. This is exactly what Sandy did today. She is scheduled to work this weekend and has accumulated excess vacation days that will be lost soon, so she needed to use them. Daddy Dave got up early with the boys allowing mommy the opportunity to sleep late. She then enjoyed serving the twins breakfast and playing with them while Daddy Dave worked on the blog backlog. The January 28th Ice Storm’s aftermath really played havoc on everything here including Daddy’s ability to keep the blog updated. Readers may want to go back and reread all the February posts that have only recently posted.

Happy 12th Birthday Tyler

On first learning the news that we were expecting twins, Cousin Tyler became one of the most excited. Having been the junior member of the Roe family for 10 years, he was ready for some younger cousins. He first got to visit Benji and Davey while staying at the Grand Roe’s Florida home last Christmas. You could almost see him mature overnight into the cool, older, male-cousin role-model. He held each boy with the secure, tender skill of a veteran. Without protest, he graciously accepted that the family’s attention, once focused on him as the youngest, was now directed towards the baby twins. Tyler asked a lot of questions and learned much about his young cousins. Aunt Sandy and Uncle Dave were very happy and proud to see him becoming the fine young man their sons will look up to as an example.

What a weird dream

Several times a week, Daddy Dave will take the boys for a minivan drive to relax and encourage their afternoon naps. This routine is so successful that the van will often be barely out of the driveway before one or more boys are fast asleep. On this winter day it was exceptionally warm, so daddy decided to wash the winter grime off the van. Choosing a new automated car wash, we drove in for the works. Davey was snoozing and Benji with fighting sleepy eyes, before the action started. It was hilarious watching his expressions as the high pressure water and soap scrubbed to van. He had never experienced anything like this before and the encounter was confusing. He didn’t know whether to be excited or scared. It was very perplexing, especially when the dryer jets made the wiper blades float in the air. After that ordeal, sleep came easily.

Cool Tools Dad

Benji and I know our place pretty well. We’ve gone over every square inch and know where everything goes. When someone brings a new item into our space, we are very prompt about inspecting it and finding out all we can. This was never truer than when Daddy Dave recently brought tools into our room to hang shelving. Seeing this we immediately dropped our toys and ran over to watch. Guys like tools, even little guys like us. Its fun to watch dad use screwdrivers and other hand tools, but what’s really great is his power tools. For this job he used his cordless drill, which made a lot of cool noise. We can’t wait to get our hands on those.