Buy One Get Two Free!: Camping!

This year's camping trip was a little more exhausting now that we have active 21 month olds running in all directions. From the moment they wake until the moment they crash, all they want to do is explore. Open and close things, shake things, climb things, bang things on things, stack things, throw things, stand on things, fight over things, the list is endless. For me this is exciting, watching them learn and experience new adventures. For my husband this is a nightmare world of a million ways they can hurt themselves. Our parenting skills could not be more opposite, so put us together and the kids see a little of everything.

This is a good time to mention Danny put two words together! What an exciting development! They are 'DON'T TOUCH'. Yep. My kids first grouping of words is don't touch. Not play ball, not Daddy's home....Ahhhh. He walks around going to all the things he knows he is not supposed to touch saying 'don't touch'. When one of his siblings goes near something he says 'don't touch'. It really is so cute, and he now gets how this works. He added 'all done' this week too. All the babies sign 'all done' but he said it out loud as he signed it. I notice he is trying to mimic when I say something now. Time to watch my language :)

Sam is my biggest talker, he's just not making a lot of words yet. He definitely has the most sounds down out of all 3, and babbles all day long combining these sounds. He really pays attention when you say a word and you see him try to form the word. This week he is trying banana and ball. He likes the 'b' sounding words the best. Elsie is my most vocal, she makes the most noise, but it usually is not words but yelling and complaining about her brothers. She has a lot of different screams, some violent when the boys invade her space where she is playing, some excited when she figures out how a new toy works, some focused as she points to what she wants, but not a lot of words. She definitely says 'uh uh' and points when one of her brothers is doing something they are not supposed to.

I've been playing around with the schedule trying to maximize our one nap. I tried noon and 1pm, but they weren't sleeping more than 1 - 1.5 hours because their bodies were still feeling it was a morning nap which was always shorter. I think I've finally found the perfect time at 2pm, where they sleep between 2-2.5 hours and wake up happy. Making it to 2 is the challenge though, if they don't have something exciting keeping their attention they can get pretty fussy. By 2:05 everyone is sleeping and Mommy is considering her own nap.