The kids seem to be growing by leaps and bounds these days. Sadie is regularly saying 3 and 4 word sentences now like "Here you go, Max", actually "Here you go" is pretty much her catch phrase these days. She kinda runs the first two words together and says it in a a sing-song voice so it's more like "Heeree Go!" Her vocabulary is also exploding. She will really mimic any word she hears and there are so many times she surprises me with the words she knows, things like "hanger" and verbs like "sweeping". And today she even started counting a little. Earlier in the day she mimicked Caden saying "one, two, three" and tonight when I told her she could hold two balls she said, "two balls... one, two balls".
Also, overnight a few weeks ago Sadie not only decided she could sit still long enough to read a book in your lap, she wanted you to read that same book to her four times in a row! She love this book we have with a bear talking all about water (calls it the water book) as well as a book about an elephant and a bird called "Bump". We also read one about duck and goose looking for a pumpkin. On each page they ask, "Is the pumpkin in the tree/on the log/in the water/etc. ?" and she always yells out "yeah!".
Finally, she's really getting a sense of humor. On the way home from lunch following Caden's Little Kickers Soccer class last Saturday, Caden said something and Case responded in disbelief with "dude?!". Sadie piped up with, "dude!" from the backseat. That made Caden crack up. Well, she thought it was hysterical making him laugh so she said it again and cracked up herself... which made Caden laugh even harder. We were all laughing pretty hard all the way home. And now if you ask her to tell her joke, she'll say "Dude!" (Reminds us of when Caden used to say "gopher, gopher, gopher").
Both kids are also very loving right now (which is so nice because Caden can throw a 3 year old fit like the best of 'em). Last time I mentioned I always give Caden 5 hugs and 5 kisses before school - well now he always gives Sadie 5 hugs and kisses before bed. He also says things like, "Mommy, I love you this much" (arms open wide) out of the blue all the time lately. "Hug" is one of Sadie's favorite words and she'll ask for them for her babies as often as for herself.
Caden's imagination is really expanding too and he likes to try to get Sadie to partake in lots of role-playing with him. The other day I overheard him telling her, "I'm the teacher and you're the kid... I have one kid in my class... follow the teacher, hold onto the rope". He also gets really excited about taking responsibility for something or making a plan. The other day I was getting him dressed for bed and I tapped his finger with mine and made a "pop" sound. He got this big smile on his face and said, "OK, for now, from now on, lets make a special plan to do that every nap time and every bedtime."
He's very interested in everything right now and really thinks about what you're saying. We were looking at a calendar we got from the zoo and I was pointing out the cranes to him. His eyes got all squinty and he looked at me really hard and asked how there could be machine cranes and bird cranes. He also said he wanted to be like the Siamang monkeys when I told them about how they sing with their bubble throats. And he loves getting his Highlights magazine in the mail from Papa J or a picture of a big might machine from Zoocat.
Caden's also becoming more and more of a little social butterfly. He loves to talk about his buds and give them high fives or hugs at the end of play dates and he gets really excited if you tell him at bedtime that he's going to see one of his friends the next day. Today at the park he climbed a HUGE rope jungle gym to go down a really big slide and made friends with a 5 year old boy who was also climbing it. I could only here bits and pieces of their conversation but I caught the boy asking him his name and then saying he like it and Caden asking the boy what his parents' names were. Then they had a few races to the top before the boy had to go home.
Finally, Caden and Sadie are big time buds right now. Today at lunch Caden said, "I love my little sister. She's my favorite in the whole world". They play and laugh together a lot and even resolve some of their conflicts on their own (not all, but some). Sadie's generally pretty happy to share and follow Caden's lead (not always, but generally). One of their favorite games, which Sadie invented, is "night-night" where they basically lay down, often next to each other, I tuck them in and they pretend to sleep. They'll stay there for remarkably long stretches of time (5 - 15 minutes).
The other day they asked me to play with them in Caden's Bed. We all snuggled in a Caden popped up and turned off the light - guess who fell asleep. When I woke up 20 minutes later, I found them quietly building a road together out of wooden blocks in Sadie's room. (Now, how do I get them to do that everyday?)
