The babies’ verbal abilities are now expanding rapidly. They have gone from single words to conveying ideas using small sentences. This is a major turning point for all of us: for them it is now getting easier to express themselves, and it’s getting easier for us to understand. Like Everett (and most other children), the desire to speak is so strong that even when they can’t recall the correct word they will try to reproduce something similar, and if all goes well then this will be close enough that their parents will understand them. This is how it starts.

One of the roughhousing games that Dad plays with the children is belly nibbles. We recall the time at our Kavanaugh House when Everett was about 2 and said “Dada, can you nibble me?”. So Chris pounced on Everett and after a couple minutes Grandaddy said “Now that’s a proper nibble!” Everett has since grown to dislike it, but the babies seem to enjoy it quite a bit. Recently Chris started doing the same thing with them and a couple days later Gwen said “More? More nimbles?”. Chris knows that she wants to roughhouse because she sits in his lap and gets a pouncy look in her eye. She also does not like sharing Dada’s lap – if either of her brothers tries to join her she says “Like it!”, meaning she doesn’t like it, and she tries to push them away while saying “No! Off!”. Alternately, if Chris tries to nibble her and she doesn’t want it she says “No! No nimbles.” For some reason this feels different from when a boy says no.

Teddy has always been a picky eater so we take notice when he likes something. After a fair amount of experimenting we now know that he likes bacon and sausage. He also likes yogurt, or foods that resemble it such as sour cream. And of course he also likes anything that falls in the dessert category – tonight when we went to Mark and Emina’s house he took almost no interest in dinner but this changed as soon as dessert came out. As Chris ate bites of cake Teddy would open his mouth wide and smush his cheeks up against Chris’. This is the same kid who’s first word was “cookie” last December. Another food that he recently discovered is “noonles”, as in mac and cheese or really noodles of any kind. It is a relief to us to be able to find foods that he will eat, even if it is a limited list. Despite his pickiness, he can be pretty funny and spontaneously goofy at mealtimes. The other night he pulled his bib up over his head and waited for us to notice. He also takes food and puts it on his head while saying “Hat!”.