Energized Out

It had been an exciting week. With Mommy on vacation and Grandma and Granddad Roe visiting, the boys were constantly busy all week long. They played hard at home, splashed at the spray park, climbed all over the Playzeum, went swinging at the park, took stroller rides everywhere, sat on everyone’s lap, read dozens of books, posed for family photos in the park, traveled to see the animals at the Evansville Zoo, and celebrated their year and one-half birthday with their parents and grandparents. After Grandma and Granddad Roe left for Florida Sunday morning, Benji was too keyed up to sleep. He played through his morning naptime and refused to go down for his afternoon siesta. He fussed until Sandy thought he would wake Davey, so Daddy took Benji for a stroller ride through the neighborhood. He sang and talked through the first mile, then suddenly got quiet. Apparently, his adrenalin finally ran dry.

Underwater Boots

In the pond outside Grandma and Granddad Roe’s Florida home lives a small alligator we named boots. He received this label because we felt he was just big enough to supply that much skin. When we last visited, lily pads and other vegetation prevented much of a view under the pond’s water, so all we saw of boots when he swam where his eyes and nose. This exhibit at the Evansville Zoo allowed us to peak underwater at an alligator and watch him float and swim. Both boys were fascinated by this view and watched intently as the reptile moved about. The high point came when Benji pointed to the alligator and said “Meow, Meow”, the only animal noise he knows so far.

Happy Half Birthday Party

Most families with two children celebrate two birthdays per year; one for each child. Some twins feel short-changed because they must share a single party annually. December children also feel slighted because their birthdays come so closely to Christmas. Sandy suggested we celebrate our boys’ birthdays twice a year, the full ones in December and half ones in June. Summer is a better time to have outside parties and children count half years anyway, so why not have a party. Since the Roe Grands were in town, we moved this half-year birthday party up a week to include them. Beginning next year, we plan to make the half-year event the gift party and their December full-birthday just a cake and ice cream celebration. To make this year’s milestone special, we asked our friend photographer Brian Leazenby to take family photos. Everybody wore matching blue shirts to look festive. We resembled a bowling team with mascots.

Our First Zoo Visit

Like most children, Benji and Trey Davey love animals. Many of their toys feature animals and they seemed to really enjoy the petting zoo at the Bar-B-Q Festival. With the Roe Grands visiting we thought the boys were now old enough for their first zoo visit. The word zoo is an abbreviation of zoological garden or zoological park. Zoos are institutions in which living animals are exhibited in captivity. Since early times, individuals have owned animal collections privately and some have been put on display at festivals and other public exhibitions. The first modern zoo opened in London in 1828. One hundred years later, Evansville opened Indiana’s first zoo on a 70 acres section of Mesker Park. The zoo now boasts more than 625 animals from 200 species living in natural habitats surrounded by exotic plants, wildflowers, and trees. We had a wonderful time and plan to visit more zoos in the future.

A Swinging Good Time

Trey Davey and Benji are crazy about the swinging on swing sets. The giggle and laugh while undulation back and forth, never tiring or wanting to stop. Each time we take them for a stroller walk around Legion Park they point at the playground and beg to go swinging. Incredibly, they now are so smart that they know Legion Park is on J.R. Miller Boulevard and when we take that road going anyplace and pass the park they point to the swings and beg to play. With the weather perfect and the Roe Grands visiting this week, we took several occasions to accommodate their playful desires and go swinging.

Grandma’s Fruit

One of the advantages of having Florida family visiting is the care packages of fresh fruit. Trey Davey and Benji love fruit and Grandma Karen loves feeding them. On this trip she discovered they could feed themselves (with a lot of assistance). Each held the monogrammed silver spoon she had purchased for them. Davey is holding his with his right hand and Benji is holding his with his left. We believe Benji is left handed like his great-grandmother Roe. Using the spoons to eat fruit is tricky, even for adults. Using their free hand, sometimes they shoveled the fruit on their spoon and other times they just popped it in their mouth bypassed the utensil altogether. Either method brought cheers of encouragement from their happy Grandmother Roe.

Grands Visit Memorial Day Week

Granddad and Grandma Roe live way down in Florida and miss seeing their twin grandsons all the time. They made it a personal goal to try and visit the boys (and the boys’ parents) every couple of months. When they visited Kentucky in March, we caravanned to Indianapolis to visit Great, Great Aunt Jane Schott and then to Maysville to see an old family cemetery. On this visit, our plan is to stay at home in Owensboro and play with the boys. We plan trips to local a park, museum and to the Evansville Zoo. In July, we’ll travel to the Roe family cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Nurturing Creativity

Grandma Edds wants to encourage the boy’s creativity. Coloring with crayons is the first logical step, and she loves helping them color their placemats at restaurants. Unfortunately, adults too often become so involved with work and other responsibilities that they don’t allow themselves the time for creative endeavors. I remember what a talented artist she was years ago when she was encouraging me to draw and paint. Maybe helping the boys will reawaken her artistic interests and lead to her own creative renaissance. Even if it doesn’t, the art lessons she gives her grandsons will likely bear enough “fruit” to cover her refrigerator for the next decade or so.

Just Call Me Shades

Everything within reach is fair game. Grandma Edds learned this lesson on Friday evening when she and Grandpa came over to feed the boys before taking them to the downtown Friday After Five concert. After arriving she took off her sunglasses and laid them beside her purse on the piano. Once the boys were seated in their highchairs, her stuff was easily within their reach. Never resisting an opportunity to tease, Benji donned her shades and saw the world through a whole new perspective. Based on this result, we will all have to be extra careful with our car keys.

Happy Birthday Uncle Steve

This is my Uncle Steve and his son, my cousin, Levi. When we visit their house you can bet sports will be on the television and great tunes will be playing on the stereo. Uncle Steve is crazy about sports and music. He is a walking data base of sports and music knowledge, but he’s no one trick pony; he knows a lot about a bunch of stuff. For instance, last year he published a book call “The Losing Game” about the stock market. That must be interesting for some people but not little boys. We like to talk about fun stuff, and if you want to know about sports and music, Uncle Steve’s your man.

Active, even asleep

Benji is a restless sleeper. He will toss, turn and twist often during his sleep moving all around his crib. One never finds Benji resting in the same place or in the same position where he was originally placed. Blankets seldom stay on the child and are often found under him. He is a noisy sleeper, commonly crying out loudly when disturbed from his slumber. Over time, caretakers have learned to wait before rushing in to retrieve him, because they have learned that he often goes quickly back to sleep after a loud outburst. This was true the other night. Benji cried out about 11:00 pm and when Sandy investigated she found him back to sleep in spite of his legs caught in the crib bars.

Helping Hands

One of the boy’s developmental benchmarks this year was helping with household chores. Recently we noticed Trey Davey collecting dirty clothes and taking them to the hamper. We didn’t teach him this activity. He possibly picked it up from observing our movements and decided to emulate our behavior. Of all the things we do, how wonderful that he chose this task to copy. What helpful household chores might he copy next? He certainly watches us put his toys away five or six times a day. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he would put his own toys away? Is that really possible? I think this child aims to please.

Working on a Merit Badge

A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. What more could any parent want their child to be? We hope Benji and Trey Davey will want to become Boy Scouts when they get older. As one of the nation's largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations, the Boy Scouts of America provide a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and develops personal fitness. The twins have many scouting alumni in their family including both parents. In fact, Sandy earned the Girl Scouts’ Gold Award, which is even higher than the Eagle Scout rank. I for see many scout badges and Blue and Gold banquets in our future.

Constant Adult Supervision Required

This blog’s title was a posted message on the inflatable outdoor toy our next door neighbors rented for their son’s first year birthday party. It seems to be the theme of our lives these days. Benji and Trey Davey are a full-time handful, and helping them discover the world around them is unbelievably challenging and rewarding for us. Through their adventures we are allowed to discover new things for the first time all over again. For instance, if not for them would Sandy find herself playing inside a giant inflatable bouncy slide? Benji had decided to climb up the slide and down the ladder, and in do so he backed up the line of children waiting to go down the slide. When Trey Davey too decided to go the backward approach, Mommy climbed in to help. She didn’t leave Play Land until nap time.

Happy Birthday Mack

On Friday our next door neighbor Mack Burton turned one year old, and his parents invited us to his birthday party on Saturday. It looked like a rainout at the 3:00 pm starting time, but we joined the party inside and found several children and toys to entertain us. Mack is the boy in blue pictured to Benji’s right. By 4:00 pm the sun had reappeared and the children were allowed into the backyard where there was a giant inflatable bouncy slide. Like our boys were at their first birthday party six months ago, Mack was still just a little small to join the fun with the other children. Benji and Trey Davey, however, are now much bigger, stronger and steadier than they were in December and are able to hold their own, for the most part, with the other children. We look forward to Mack joining them in a few months.

Twilight Play

After a long day of work inside behind her computer, Mommy often wants to go outside and play. Unfortunately, this is not always possible due to extreme weather, but Tuesday’s temperature was perfect, so after dinner we headed to Legion Park. Trey Davey was rested and ready. He had enjoyed a lengthy morning and afternoon nap, and his batteries were fully charged. His brother, however, had not. Instead Benji refused to nap, and so half way around the walking track he ran out of gas and dropped off soundly to sleep. After we completed our two mile walk we enjoyed the swing, slide and teeter-totter with only one toddler. He could have gone all night.

Reflecting on Great Literature

Hmmm, let me consider. Do my ears hang low? That is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous ridicule or to take up arms against my mockers and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; no more; and by sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to; ay, there’s the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause: I think, not, nor do my ears wobble to and fro.

Saddle Riders

A week after the derby, our little jockeys found their mounts Saturday at the International Bar-B-Q Festival in Owensboro. These mechanical wooden stallions moved their riders up and down around the track to the sound of joyful pipe organ music. Just to be safe, Mommy and Grandpa rode along side to catch any rider who might be thrown. The contraption harnessing these thoroughbreds is sometimes called a “galloper” or “flying horses” to describe the equine’s movement. Other popular names around the world are the “carousel” and “roundabout”, which describes the platform’s movement. In this country, we most commonly refer to it as a “merry-go-round”, which describes the children’s movements.

Arrgh!!! Foiled Again

The boys’ developmental learning achievements now include mastery of the thumb latch. This newly acquired talent has allowed them to gain access to the hidden room behind our den’s bookcase on several occasions. Mommy and Daddy’s quick fix to this problem was moving the recliner next to the bookcase to block the door. Unfortunately, this solved one issue and created another. While the recliner effectively blocked the hidden room’s door, it also provided the boys with a ladder to the bookcase. On Sunday morning, Trey Davey climbed up into the chair and pulled the book under Daddy’s coffee cup. Fortunately, the liquid was cold. This prompted Daddy to install a lapse with a padlock on the hidden room’s door and move the recliner away from the bookcase. The room is now secure until the twins master the screwdriver.

My Brother is Totally Clueless

Trey Davey is having a ball. He’s all grins and giggles. He’s happy just to be here. He loves riding in these cars, even if we have no control. It doesn’t matter to him that we have no accelerator pedal, no brake and that the steering wheel isn’t attached to anything controlling the car. The fact that we’re driving around in circles doesn’t bother him in the least. It’s all a game to him, and he is so oblivious to our situation. The carnival guy put us in a pink Barbie Dream Buggy and Daddy’s shooting a hundred pictures of us, documenting this embarrassing event to show all of our future girlfriends. This is so humiliating.

Gently Does It

For the last few weeks Sandy has been teaching the boys how to touch things gently. This gentle-touching project developed after they learned to climb furniture and began yanking the house plants now in their reach. She showed them that they could tough things if they did it gently. This newly developed tender-touch was used generously when we visited the petting zoo at the Bar-B-Q Festival. Both boys were very respectful of the animals, approaching slowly and petting gently. We caressed a calf, burro, rabbit, miniature horse, goat, pot-bellied pig, sheep, rooster, and several puppies without one complaint.

Happy Mother’s Day

Feeding the boys is challenging enough. When we dine out, it greatly increases the degree of difficulty. Holidays, such as Mother’s Day, further complicate the restaurant experience because high patron volumes create much longer waits for tables, and toddlers are not patient. To head off this issue, we took Mommy to breakfast for Mother’s Day a day early. Our 8:30 am Saturday arrival found many Cracker Barrel tables open after the early morning crowd’s departure. We were able to feed our boys and enjoy our meal without a wait or rush. Interestingly, ten minutes after we arrived another family with twins arrived and were seated just a few tables away. Then about ten minutes after that another family arrived with triplets and sit right next to us. Those parents confessed that they were also celebrating Mother’s Day early to avoid the crowds.

First Festival

Today we took the boys to their first International Bar-B-Q Festival and had a wonderful time. Annually, tens of thousands of people flock to the Owensboro riverfront to enjoy food, music, shopping and attractions. Our first stop was the First Baptist Church Family Pavilion. There we enjoyed a pony ride and the petting zoo. Then we walked three blocks through a sea of people to the Carnival area where we found toddler sized rides. Trey Davey and Benji had a wonderful time, and Grandpa may have pulled a facial muscle from smiling so much. He’s already talking about how much fun we’ll have next year when the boys are a little older.

Twin Peaking

Exciting things happen just outside our window. Our neighbor Jacob and his friends play basketball in their driveway. Zack mows our lawn, his lawn and two others yards on our street. AnaKaye and her cousin Lacey ride their tricycles on their patio. Garbage men empty the trashcans and mulch the tree limbs. And, there is always the never ending construction activity at the high school behind us. Today, while Daddy was heating our milk, we moved our chairs to the window for better viewing. With all that is going on out there, we could care less about TV.

Big Shoes to Fill

Daddy’s shoes are so funny. They’re just like mine but huge! If they’re size twelve, my shoes must be about a size one-half. Still, when he’s not looking I like to slip them on and take a stroll. They’re so loose that it’s hard to steer them, and sometimes they go east and west when I want to go north. They’re so big that I have to lift my leg really high to take a step forward. I feel like a barge operator who has to plan his turns a quarter-mile in advance. Some people say you don’t really know a man until you have taken a walk in his shoes. Maybe when I’m older I’ll understand that custom.

Double Dating with Older Woman

On Sunday we went to a 20th Wedding Anniversary reception for our next door neighbors Wes and Karen Roberts. The crowd was mostly older, but Benji and Trey Davey were able to hook up with some babes anyway. The brunet is AnaKaye Roberts, who lives next door, and the blond is Lacey, her cousin. From the second-floor window in their playroom, the twins have often checked out AnaKaye and Lacey playing in the driveway. This party was the perfect opportunity for them to get acquainted. The girls acted giggly seemed impressed with our boys. If they are this desirable now, wait till they can talk and exit the stroller.

Birthday Benchmark – 17 Months

This month’s photo isn’t the best portrait we’ve taken of the boys, but it is the best we have. In fact, it is remarkable that we snapped even one shot this good. At this age the boys are constantly in motion and sitting still for a photo shoot is not in their agenda. They used to wait in the chair because they were stranded, too young to get away. These days they are climbing on and off of everything and exiting this chair simply involves rolling on their belly and pushing off to slide feet first to the floor. We tried this photo session four different times and failed to capture their attention. I guess seventeen is a restless age.

Musical Chair

One of the boy’s 2009 goals was the ability to move furniture. You can now check that off the list. Yesterday Trey Davey climbed up in this desk chair by himself. Once there he kicked his feet and sung like the cat who ate the cannery. For the rest of the afternoon Benji tried to climb into the chair unsuccessfully. This morning I heard movement and turned to see Benji moving the chair. He scooted it across the floor until it was next to mine then showed me how he could now easily climb up into the chair. Benji was so proud of himself and glib that Trey Davey felt compelled to push his brother off the chair so he could show me that he was a better climber. That stunt landed the chair in timeout.

Together We’re the Same Age

Cousin Levi was visiting Owensboro this weekend and dropped by with the Grands to see us. He is now 32 months old, twice our age. His visits are different nowadays because we are now old enough to play together. While they may be a little young for him, he seems to enjoy playing with our toys as much as we enjoyed playing with his toys when we visited his house in March. None of us really talk much yet, but we giggle a lot and love to goof. Since we grew hair and Levi got a haircut, we all look more alike. Check out his long arms and legs. Once we grow those, we’ll really have fun.

Hey Baby, Talk Derby to Me

Trey Davey, we like sports right? Maybe we could become jockeys and ride thoroughbreds in the Kentucky Derby. It’s the “Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports”, the first leg of the Triple Crown, and the “Run for the Roses. Think of it, the fame, the fortune, and the celebrities. What do you think?

Benji, it’s a cool idea, but I don’t know. Jockeys are very small, agile guys. A rider can be any height, but there is a weight limit of about 120 lb. People that size are typically shorter ranging from 5’ to 5’7” in height. We are small guys now, but we will grow out of that, probably by a bunch. Look, Daddy Dave was bigger than the largest jockey by the seventh grade. We have a better chance of jockeying jets, like Granddad Roe, than thoroughbreds.

Sit on your bottom, Benji

Our babysitter, Carol Cox, spoils us. Not only is she charitable with her time, but she is a generous gift giver. For Easter she bought the boys toddler-sized folding chairs. They were an immediate hit with the twins who joyfully climb in and out of them constantly. As their comfort level grew, our smart boys discovered other uses for these chairs, primarily as ladders. Fearless Benjamin moved his chair across the room and used it to climb on the couch. He was so pleased with himself that he rolled off the couch and attempted to repeat his trick. On his second attempt he stepped on the chair’s arm, lost his balance and tumbled to the floor. That landed the chair in time-out for the remainder of the day. Since then we have discussed the purpose of chairs many times and reminded our sons to sit on their bottoms, but we’re no fun.