The Fountain Effect...

Lucas taught Astral and Defy to toast! Cheers to the kale juice!!!


January has been a month of many new adventures in the lives of Astral and Defy, our 22 month old big boys. With the promise of a new year we expected many changes, but not this fast. Within the past month our guys have started making sentences and communicating more clearly. We have always been conscious of our behavior and actions in front of them, but now we realize that even little things that we say are being totally absorbed. For instance, whenever the boys eat a meal Star and Sunny, our canine companions, wait to gobble up any food that is dropped. We have no problem with that, we love them being instant little vacuum cleaners. Sometimes they get overly excited and jump up on the chairs and scratch at the boys’ legs and feet to try to get a hard-to-reach morsel of delight. I have found myself saying “go away” on occasion and had never thought anything of it. Well…until a couple of weeks ago when Astral and Defy started saying “go awaaaaay”. Where the hell did they learn that? They don’t watch television, go to daycare or a babysitter. After thinking about it, I realized it was me! They picked it up from the mealtime chaos of two toddlers and two doggies! I now try to choose my words even more carefully,no matter what the situation.

Along with clearer speech and an extensive toddler vocabulary Astral and Defy absolutely love to sing! They are seriously entertaining and really feel the music. They try so hard to carry the tune. I think we might have two little singers on our hands! They also love to dance and have the best and most randomly creative moves ever. They just need one more member to form their own little punk band…

Potty trainings is going very well. We introduced the potty early on to make them feel comfortable and to ease the transition. Astral and Defy currently wear diapers during naptime, bedtime and when they go outside. They use their potties the rest of the time. We have a bunch of organic training pants, but realized that they posed a problem, a problem we’ve coined as the “fountain effect”. Astral and Defy pee standing up and daddy taught them how to pull down their training pants to go to the potty, but sometimes they have a problem with pulling them down properly, so we end up with pee going straight up in the air. Not a fun clean up but worth a chuckle or two after the fact…

The cutest thing happened two nights ago. Lucas went in to check on the boys during the night. He didn’t see Astral in his bed and after looking around for him in the dark, he found him cuddled up in Defy’s bed. It was super adorable. We knew this would eventually happen. We’ve read and heard many stories from other twin parents about their sets sleeping together. We wonder if they will choose to sleep together often; they haven’t since that first time.

Over the past month we have had our fair share of the usual bumps and bruises that come along with twin toddlers. Astral scraped his back after falling from the handlebars of our treadmill. They are always scaling something and I always tell them when they are at the top of a rock climbing wall at the park or any appropriate climbing apparatus that they are “AMAZING”. I turned my back for like one second while in our bedroom and I hear “AMAZING” in the sweetest little voice and then a big CRASH! Again…they are such sponges! Thankfully he was okay and there was no permanent or severe damage. They are such stealth little danger twins. Lucas and I need another pair of eyes in the back of our heads and an extra hand or two each. EVOLUTION…

Lucas took the guys to their first stay-at-home dads’ play group yesterday. There were around 30 dads and many children. It was such a great opportunity for Lucas to mingle with other dads that understand and can relate to his lifestyle. He’s come along with me to a couple of the mommy playgroups I belong to, but I rarely get to attend since I work outside of the home fulltime. He had been hesitant to go to them without me because he just wasn't sure if the moms would feel comfortable with some dude hanging around, cramping their all-mommy style! We are very fortunate to live in an area with plenty stay-at-home daddy support. Now if only we could find a vegan stay-at-home dad playgroup. Ahhh vegan parents can dream, can’t they…

all photos are Astral Defiance and Defy Aster at 22