Kate:
-- takes after aunt Katie in almost every way. She grooms me-- Katie used to sit and pick earwax out of Mom's ears. yuck. Kate likes to peel dead skin from my feet or brush my hair. She likes to pick things off my face and wipe my chin with a napkin.
She's also the showman. After completing a somersault or showing us a work of art, she'll throw her hands in the air and say, "Ta-daaaaah!"
-- is the "mom child." Every family has one. Whenever we say, "Prayer time!" Lauren is the first one to fold her arms, but then she goes around and taps everyone else on the shoulders and says, "hey... peeyer. shhh.... arms.." and shows them how to fold their arms. EVERY. TIME. Kate no longer listens to us, she only puts her food down and folds her arms when Lauren says, "Kay! Preeyer!" :) The other day I was waiting for the girls to come inside, and Lauren sees me calling her from the front door and immediately comes right over. When she heard me continue to call for Kate, she looked at me, furrowed her brows together, held up her little hand to me, and said, "No... wait." Then she turned back toward Kate and said, "Kate! m'here! Look! We home!" :) She's quite the little boss. It always makes me laugh when she gives me this look that says, "Mom, I'll handle this...." and then goes over to Kate or Nicholas and tells them to stop doing whatever they're doing.
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| Lauren (blue jammies) reaching out to make sure Kate (green jammies) is still there. Sister love :) |
-- is the most affectionate child of the family. She loves to give me hugs and kisses and pat my cheeks. It's quite nice to have random affection from at least one of my kids :) She always makes her way to our bed in the middle of the night too, and she can't fall back asleep until she's leaned over and given both me and Armando a hug. Then she settles in, right between us, with her arm around one of our heads. This is really cute, and I don't mind having a child in bed with us....until it's two children. The drawback of twins--- everything comes in twos.
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| Lauren left, Kate right |
-- has become quite the little adventurer. Lauren is always the first to go willingly to new people. At church, most of the 8-11 year old girls think the twins are the best. thing. ever. There's usually a crowd of little girls waiting outside the nursery for the girls to get picked up. Then they whisk them away into the empty primary room and play and laugh until we say it's time to go. Lauren is always the first to go to them, and the last to leave. She's also usually the first one to be comfortable in new environments. We go to a new park, and Lauren is the first one climbing the ladder to a slide.
-- talks with a lisp like Cindy Brady. I think it's adorable. She's signed up for Early Intervention for speech therapy, but the red tape takes weeks to process and I'm in no rush to have her lose the lisp.
Lauren:
-- lines things up. She a bit of a neatnik. I can always tell whether it was Kate or Lauren to get into something by the things strewn about. If my sewing box is opened and things are scattered helter-skelter, things somehow ending up in every room of the house....it was Kate. If my sewing box is open and I find all of my presser feet lined up on the edge of my desk, my thread unrolled and piled in a neat row spool by spool, or my pins have been removed from the pincushion and placed in a line upon my floor.... it was Lauren. You know, hypothetically speaking....
Kate:
-- Kate LOVES dogs. I'm talking crazy love here. Twice she has climbed over the gate, run across the street, and taken the little dog statue from our neighbor's garden. I found her, both times, lovingly stroking it's back saying, "goo dah, goo dah!" (good dog, good dog). I remember one time having to rely on Lauren's innate "adult-ness" and leave her on the sidewalk unattended while I sprinted after Kate because she took off after a passing dog. I lost her at a playground once because she disappeared in pursuit of a dog when I turned to help Lauren off a ladder (turns out she had crawled after the dog...UNDER THE FENCE!)
Kate: Can climb anywhere. And I mean anywhere. She's a little monkey. Think something is out of her reach? ha! Think again. Climbing is one of her favorite things to do. She's very adept at it too. Parents on the playground are often aghast to see a little 2 year old climbing up and down the big jungle gyms and rock walls unassisted. They often point it out to me and wait for me to get up from the bench and get her down, but I always say, "Aw, she's fine. Thanks." One mother insisted on following her around for 20 minutes with her arms outstretched, ready to catch her. Finally, even she had to admit that Kate knew what she was doing.
When we haven't been able to get out to a suitable climbing area for a few days, I will lay on the floor and put my leg straight up in the air. Immediately she runs over and starts climbing my leg like a pole. Scaling all the way to my ankle, hand over hand. It's pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.
Both Kate and Lauren love to dress up. Any time they see a dress lying around (or a necklace, bracelet, purse, sunglasses, etc) they run over to me and ask me to help them put it on. Their preferred dresses are the princess dresses that Grandma gave them for christmas.
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| Lauren |
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| Kate |
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| Wearing the high-heel shoes Grandma bought them from Walmart. They insist on wearing them everywhere--- |
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| even in the bathroom. |
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I could write so much more about these two, but I'm out of time. They are loving and warm, entertaining and cheerful. They fill our lives with happiness--- and a lot of running.
