New Milestones

It's the last few weeks before the official "March Birthday Month" in the Martin household begins. Nate was 11 months yesterday and Ben will be turning three on March 20th. Hard to believe that so much time has gone by already!

So, what have the boys been up to? Well, to begin with, they are indeed boys, which means there is never a dull moment. I seriously don't think I could muster up as much energy in a year as they have in a single day. And now that Nate is crawling (everywhere!), they seem to be even more on the go than before. They really just play off of each other; where you find one, you will usually find the other not too far away. Oh, I am dreading, er, eagerly awaiting the day when Nate is walking. I'm sure they will be double trouble!

The boys and I have established a routine where they have a snack after their naps and then bring some toys into the kitchen to play while I get dinner underway. Usually seems to buy me enough time to get things at least started, but with two little boys, and then add Barney into the mix as well, it often makes for a cooking adventure - toys all over, a baby crawling every which way, a toddler chasing the dog while the baby laughs. Fun, fun!

Here are the boys being cheesy for the camera a few nights ago as I tried to cook. Of course the photo is perfect - smiles, centered, exuding brotherly love (instead of fighting :)) - so Murphy's Law, it came out blurry. Oh well! This also gives a good look at the recent tile job Andrew has done.

As far as Ben, what has he been up to? Well, for starters he has been enrolled for preschool next year at the Grace Bible Church's Indian Valley Nursery School. He is very excited as two of his best friends - Tyler and Samantha - also will be going to the school. He talks about going to school often.

He still has an obsession with trucks. Seriously. Everything is about trucks to him. He does show a lot of interest in soccer lately as well, though, so this may be something I look into for the spring for him.

Finally, the Puzzle Sleuth continues to charge ahead at top speed. Ben still loves puzzles and does at least 10 of them a day, probably more. His current love is the US state map. Yes, they are all marked ages 5 and up but Andrew felt that Ben should be exposed to the states earlier (stemming from his own love of the state puzzle when he was younger!) so Ben got a states puzzle. And he has expressed such interest in it! Ben now does it himself several times per day and knows the names of at least half of the states. He also likes to point out where his family members live as he does this and to look at the state-specific pictures on each piece, letting us know that Idaho is the potato state and that crawfish are from Lousisiana (he just learned this one last night!), etc. . Hilarious!

Nate is continuing to grow quickly as well. I can't believe that he will be a year old in less than a month! Now that he has started to crawl (still using the commando crawl, by the way), he also has quickly learned to sit up himself from a lying position, to climb stairs and has even started to cruise when the objects are close enough together. I love that we have two little steps going from our study to our playroom. It gives him good practice on a very little flight of stairs and is fully carpeted. Here he is climbing the stairs (and so proud of himself!):

On another note, Nate has started to repeat some words if we say them enough times to him ("girl" being a favorite - little womanizer already!). He also has a few words that he will say within context, such as "baba" whenever he seems his bottle or cup, "bear" when he sees a bear, and "dat" (aka "that") when he points to something. He also barks when he sees Barney! After deciding to have Ben evaluated when he was two years old because he was barely talking, I did a double take the first time Nate talked since he was only about 10-1/2 months old. Just goes to show how different even brothers can be - Ben was so much earlier with the physical movement and now Nate is earlier with the verbal skills.