Thing 1 and Thing 2

I don't remember how it got started, but Aiden and Connor have been referred to as Thing 1 and Thing 2 since shortly after Connor was born, or at least by Brian's family. It seemed quite fitting at the time. Aiden loves Dr. Seuss books, and especially The Cat in the Hat, so he knows who Things 1 and 2 are, and more importantly what they do. (He claims he can't be Thing 1, he doesn't fly kites in the house.) And lately I'm not sure he IS Thing 1...Connor has been learning lots of new tricks that are putting him in the lead for title of Wild Child in our house.

Lately Thing 2 has been learning how to pull himself up on anything and everything he can reach. Last week he pulled himself up on the baby gate we put up in Aiden's doorway so we can see into Aiden's room without Connor getting into all of his toys. He stood up and smiled and laughed, and then started shaking the gate. Much to my surprise, and his, he pulled the gate loose and down went the gate and down went Thing 2. I calmed him down and moved the gate to the other side of the door jam so he couldn't pull it over.

The next day he's right back at it...standing up, holding on to the gate and bouncing. The next thing I know, he sticks his little 7 month old foot in one of the holes in the baby gate and tries to climb OVER the baby gate!! That was all the further he made it before I pulled him down and distracted him, I wasn't ready for him to be climbing!

Now that he has learned how to pull himself up, he will climb up anything that doesn't move. And if it does move, even better, he'll get on his knees and push it around! But as soon as you take it away, he's back to doing his army crawl, because he still refuses to pick his belly up and crawl. He will hold my fingers and walk all over, but has no interest in crawling. I think he's been watching Thing 1 and knows that if he wants to keep up that crawling thing just ain't gonna cut it.
 
So being the wonderful, helpful big brother that he is, Aiden has decided that HE can help Connor learn to walk. This morning I turned around and Aiden had let Connor pull himself up hanging on to Aiden's hands and was trying to walk around with him. All was gong well until I told him to make sure that if he wanted Connor to let go he had to make him sit on his bottom so he didn't get hurt. Apparently that meant just let go of his hands and see how well baby Connor can balance.   

But Thing 1 isn't giving up the title without a fight (and with the help of his "Mud Slingin' Jeep" from Aunt Alayna, he's back in the running.) We finally got around to cleaning the garage out and Aiden was begging to get out the Jeep he got from his aunt for Christmas, since the garage is clean and he has room to drive it. Well of course Brian wants to play with it too, so we get it out. Keep in mind Aiden is four (and a half) and the box says 8+ on it. He mostly understands the forward/reverse controls, but the left/right steering is not user friendly (even for me). So after running into everything he could in the garage, the batteries finally died. And this is where the 8+ part comes in...it takes 8 hours to charge the battery for every 20 minutes you play with the Jeep. Try explaining THAT to a 4 year old!!

He got the Jeep out again this morning, but instead of trying to play with it in the garage, he wanted to take it outside. The windchill was -6 this morning, so I said he had to wait until Connor took his nap. (Aiden immediately went to get Connor's nap time book so he could read it and we could put Connor back to bed) That is one tough Jeep. It was skidding on the ice, so Thing 1 had it out on the snow in the yard and was doing a pretty good job of not getting it stuck...until the batteries died, again. 

After having his cheese n crackers with hot cocoa, Thing 1 is now watching Word World, and Thing 2 is still snoozing away. (and I wish they came with the Thingamajigger to clean up all the messes they make!!)