Random Squabbles

Feb 26, 2025

As I mentioned previously, I want to write more here to help me remember as I am a person with a terrible memory for stories. I can remember people's birthdays, names or phone numbers easily but stories, not so much, unfortunately! So I'm just going to blot down some things they are doing / up to now days. 

Oliver- loves his Koala, carries him around often and sometimes pushes him in the toy stroller. He loves to point out the koalas body parts.  He also loves to imitate Luke going pee, and leans back and touches his diaper  and says he is peeing. Hmm, I wonder if he is.  Sometimes he says he wants to try and pee on the potty but so far we haven't had anything come out on the potty yet. He loves to draw with Luke, but usually he insists on using markers and taking off all the lids of the markers and throwing the on the ground. If you give him just one marker he is very angry about it! He usually colors on paper for a few minutes until he starts coloring on the table or the wall before I need to take away all the coloring items. He loves cars just like Luke and loves to put them on the hot wheels city track too. He adores his books and toys with sounds, especially fire trucks or ambulances. He seems to be slowly gaining more interest in books but his all time favorite is still Llama Llama, red pajama. 

Joel went on 12 day business trip to Australia and during that time Ollie slept through the night a few times, but in general he slept really well only waking up once a night and sleeping until a nice hour in the morning. During that trip, Ollie got sick so of course was waking up in the night again. Once in a while he still has a bad night and wakes up every two hours and won't go back to sleep after 5am. He naps really well at school and often sleeps more than two hours, while at home we are lucky to get two hours. 

Ollie is very independent and wants to do everything himself. He can already put on some of his shoes, and is especially great at undressing. Luckily he hasn't quite taken off a diaper.. yet!  Luke and Ollie do these running "races" around the house and it's the best. They stand in their ready position, with one hand directly in front of them, the other arm bent in the back, and then standing in a sideways squat. When I say go, they are OFF! They also love to drive around their house on their tricycles, cars, or the inflatable rabbit. Often times, Luke will choose a vehicle and Ollie goes after him on foot! Luke has these crazy "crashes" on purpose and then needs a mechanic to fix his broken wheel or whatever piece may have been affected in the crash. Luke also loves to lay the cars sideways and fill the wheels with hot wheels cars. He is still absolutely crazy about cars and hot wheels. He has to look at every single one if we go to a car, he still loves to line them up in different places, make a car dealership and display them differently. Outside, he loves to use chalk and draw a race track and then inside the race track, he makes parking lots for all the cars. Usually he never ends up racing them on the track but parks them, and at the end of the day, cleans them up. Sometimes he creates these elaborate racing names and scenarios and announces them as he races two cars around the house, sometimes on top of or around furniture. 

Ollie doesn't love to get buckled into the stroller lately, but once we get going he's fine as long as we keep moving. He does love to sit on his tricycle we got him for Christmas that has a bar for us to push him. However, sometimes he turns the handle bars unexpectedly and there have definitely been some near crashes! Anyways because he isn't enjoying time in the stroller we have started walking to school more often and it's the cutest. It takes double the time of me walking myself but the boys love it. I am grateful to live within walking distance of their school. As long as it hasn't been raining too much, we cross through a field and check on the sheep, check out the construction of two huge apartment buildings they are working on.   We recently went to a birthday party at the petting zoo and he loves the animals until they get up close. It's the same with the animals in the field on the way to school, or the field where we walk Mel.

Luke- still loves reading books. Often when he calls grammy and grandpa, he asks them to see their hot wheels collection and then he wants them to read a book to him. If no one is availbel to read to him, he will pick up the books and look through them himself.    He is doing a great job in swimming class. He has no fear when riding his bike, he loves going through puddles still, lifting his legs off the pedals or pedaling backwards.  

One of my favorite somewhat recent conversations with Luke: 

Me: What do you want to do today? 

~Luke: We do what we do. 

Another one: Luke (blocking the door to go outside) I'm carefulling for Ollie not to go outside.  

Publishing this on June 11th after I finished writing Ollie's second birthday letter and thinking back that so much has already changed since I wrote this! Time is a thief for sure!