People often comment at how well Henry and Molly get along. Adam and I were laughing in the car today that they are already ganging up on us, we can't imagine what it will be like when they are both fully verbal. We are afraid. Very afraid.

Last night Adam got an On Demand movie for them. There was some sort of scary character in it that Molly decided she was afraid of. Everytime it came on, she would say "I'm fraid." Henry decided it would be best if she hid her eyes during those parts to he told her she could shove her head up his shirt. I'm not really sure how well she was breathing but she kept going for it and spent half the movie with her head jammed up his shirt.

She also located a case of juice boxes and kept sneaking new ones in for them. It looked like the morning after a fraternity party in our living room with empties everywhere!

It is funny how quickly Molly is learning to give it as good as she gets. She has come up with a name for Henry that he hates. She calls him Henry-ya. She never uses it unless she wants to make him mad and then she keeps saying it over and over. He goes nuts.

Today we found this little deserted beach on the Long Island Sound. We dragged some boat cushions ashore because we thought Molly would stay asleep. Henry was trying his hardest to make a little bed out of them and remove every speck of sand. As soon as he turned around Molly would hurl herself on them and lay down. She would shut her eyes and say "Leave me alone!" over and over.

Last week I overheard Henry ask Molly if she wanted to lick his shirt. He had gotten into a package of macaroni and cheese powder and it sprayed onto his shirt. She readily agreed for some disgusting reason. I had to demand that he refrain from asking her to lick his hands. He likes to pretend that she is his cat.

My sister had a good description that Henry treats Molly like his evil little pet. She will do any bad little thing he tells her to do. I recently was showered in orange juice because he told her to make bubbles into a full bottle of juice. He tells her to jump on the couch and rip up pieces of paper and put his underwear on her head as a hat. He is always trying to get her to jump from things. I left them with Adam last weekend and when I walked out of the door Molly was naked, standing on an ottoman and ready to dive into a pile of blankets. He is always trying to get her to curse. I have to ignore the repeated Oh Damnit! Oh Crap! and Jee-zus! raining from the backseat while I am driving. She sounds like a foul mouthed sailer with a speech impediment.

Nighttime Antics

From the time he was very young, Henry slept with us off and on. We never had trouble getting him to lie down and go to sleep. The threat of going into his crib would shape him up and even now he will easily fall asleep with one of us there.

Molly is a different story. If anyone is in the bed, she turns into wild girl. Jumping, laughing, playing...she will not go to sleep. Henry is dying to have her nap with him, he asks every day. She promises that she will go to sleep but it is impossible. She pretends to shut her eyes and then just keeps talking. "Mommy sleeping. Henry sleeping. Molly sleeping" before breaking into a fit of giggles. Or she will say "Shhhhh. Henry sleeping" with her lips pursed and her finger at her mouth. When I say "That's it Molly, you are going into your crib" she laughs and says "No. Sleeping!" and pretends to fall in line. Of course it does not last. As soon as I put her in her crib she is out like a light.

Last night, Henry had a nightmare and woke her up when he ran screaming from his room. Adam went to check on Molly who was now screaming as well. She stopped screaming as soon as she gained entry to our bed but then proceeded to torture me for the rest of the night. She was standing, crawling around the bed, hurling herself headfirst over my side...She was tracing one of her fingers around my face for HOURS. Sounds cute but it is unbearably ticklish and distracting. Whenever I tried to move her back to her crib she would just scream and scream so it was a Catch-22. She finally passed out around 4am and the alarm rang for my exercise class at 5:15am. I have been dragging all.day.long.

Chatty Cathy

At 20 months, Molly is quite the little chatterbox. I can understand what she wants the majority of the time and if I can't, Henry interprets. I could not even guess how many words she has, she knows: names, animals, colors, numbers, fruits, vegetables and tons of other nouns like airplane, elevator, button etc. She asks questions like "Who that?" and "Happened?" for "What Happened?" She can say "Hold me", "Kiss it", "I love you". She repeats almost everything we say. She can sing "Twinkle Twinkle" "Monkeys on the Bed" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider" well enough that you know what she is singing. She reads certain books out loud to herself. She can even repeat certain things that Henry has taught her in multi-word sentences like "Bear chasing me. Bite my shirt. Scary!"

It is just amazing the vocabulary she has at this point and it is so fun to hear what she has to say.

Diaper Free? Could it be?

Molly is basically a nudist and refuses to wear a diaper at home. Even if I can wrestle one onto her, she has it off within minutes and stuffs it into the hamper. Since she is treating our house as one giant litter box, I have decided to potty train her.

Since she is so small, I had to buy her the Elmo Singing Potty. We are having some success, she actually peed on it yesterday. I ordered her some tiny underwear and am going to see where she takes us. I wouldn't be surprised if she is fully trained within a month or two.

Temper Temper!

Molly has a nasty temper. If she does not get what she wants, she will hit you, pinch you, whatever. She can scream non-stop for an hour if you let her. No bribing, punishing, soothing, cajoling will stop her when she is on a tear. I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but she once screamed for ninety straight minutes on an airplane. We thought she had a stomach ache but now my best guess is that she was just pissed off. You should hear her in the car.

We were driving home from the pool this afternoon and she was in a foul mood. Adam called on the cell phone and I passed the phone back to Henry. He spoke to him for a minute and then gave the phone to Molly. She didn't want to talk but she didn't want to give the phone back either. Mind you that Adam was still hanging on the line. I was shouting in the car "Just hang up! Molly has the phone!" She is as stubborn as a mule and as strong as an ox. Henry couldn't wrench the phone from her hands. I actually had to pull over and wrestle the phone from her. She then proceeded to scream "Daddy! Phone! Phone!" for the next fifteen minutes. Egads, I am it for it with this little girl.

My Little Swimmer!

Henry loves the water. We joined a pool club in New Jersey and have been going swimming almost every day. They don't allow swim arms or swim diapers in the big pool, so during the week we are mostly confined to the kiddie pool. Despite these constraints, Henry has made huge progress with his swimming.

Adam missed his calling as a kiddie swim instructor. Just based on his weekend instruction, Henry now jumps from the side of the pool unassisted and goes under the water. He can tread water to the surface and swim a short distance to the side of the pool. He can also move himself along the edge of the pool, stand on his tip toes and he was attempting to swim underwater in the kiddie pool today.

On Sunday, we went out on the boat. Wearing a life jacket, he jumped off the swim platform and was swimming around. Even his big baby mother doesn't like to do that yet.

My Little Goat

Molly sticks many things in her mouth. Things she finds on the floor, old food, half chewed pieces of candy. She has also swallowed 2 cherry pits. Yesterday she and Henry were peeling hard boiled eggs and eating them. I turned my back for one second and heard a crunching noise. She chipped a tiny hole in the egg and then proceeded to take a big bite. Eating egg white mixed with a healthy dose of shell. I asked her if it was good and she said yes. It didn't stop her from eating more eggs either.

I thought they just made this stuff up

I am continually surprised at the differences between having a boy and having a girl. At such a young age, I really thought all of this gender difference stuff was a load of baloney. Molly does things that just shock me coming from such a young child.

This morning, Adam got Molly dressed for the pool in some shorts and a ruffle necked tee shirt. He said "Oh Molly, you look so pretty. That is such a nice shirt. Show Mommy how pretty you look." She turned around, cocked her head to the side with a big smile and was just posing for me. It was just such a girlish gesture that I was shocked.

Then this evening, she and Henry were doing their tag team campaign to get an italian ice despite the fact that neither of them ate their dinner. I told them no a million times and then they would just run into the kitchen and ask Adam.

Molly then marched back into the living room. She looked at me with her saddest face and said "Mommy...hungry." I said "Oh Molly, would you like to eat your dinner?" She made a funny face and said "Noooooooo." I said "Oh no? Would you like a yogurt?" She made her little look again and said "Nooooo." She then put one foot in front of the other, jutted her little hips out, cocked her head and gave me her most winning smile. Without saying a word, she was saying "You know and I know that you know what I want." I said "Oh Molly, did you want an Italian ice?" She got a huge smile on her face and yelled "Yes! Cherry!" and ran into the kitchen.

It is just shocking than an 18 month old could be so manipulative already.

So Sweet.

When I was a kid, my mom played this game where she would bounce us on her knees. It started off really slowly "And this is how the ladies ride." It got a little faster "And this is how the gentleman ride." And then you got bounced like crazy with "And this is how the cowboys ride!"

My mom taught it to the kids and they both love it. Of course because she doesn't live in our apartment I am the primary knee bouncer. Molly is always asking me to do it. She climbs on my legs and shouts "Cowboy!" and if I pretend not to understand her she yells "Bounce Bounce" while jumping wildly on my kneecaps.

Molly was screaming about something or another last night so my little peacemaker Henry offered to bounce her to cheer her up. Now normally, Molly refuses to do anything that Henry asks her just to bust his chops. "Molly, can you give me a kiss?" "NO!!!" But for some reason, she was feeling nice and agreed.

He sat down on the floor with his legs straight out (so this is never going to work) and she sat on his lap facing him. She wrapped her chubby little arms around his neck and I could see his face light up. He bounced her about a millimeter up in the air and they were both happy. I overheard him saying "Oh Molly, I just love you so much."

He walked over to me and was so proud. He said "Oh Mommy, did you see? She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me!" It was just so cute I damn near welled up with tears. As much as I want to strangle him half the day for all of the naughty things he does, he is just so incredibly sweet and loves Molly so much.

City Mouse, Country Mouse

We were at my brother's house last weekend to celebrate my niece Sydney's Eighth Grade Graduation. We were having fun in the back yard, playing with the cousins and swimming in their pool. The cousins went down to the playroom in the basement. I asked Henry, "Do you want to go play with the other kids in the basement?"

My poor little apartment-dwelling son looked at me with confusion and shock and said "They have an elevator here?"