Emerging independence

In the mornings, the boys hang out upstairs with us while we get ready for work. They usually do a fairly good job of destroying the upstairs, but there's not much we can do, as we have to get ready and the boys are too young to play downstairs by themselves while we get dressed.

Or are they?

This morning, Cary decided that he was going to go downstairs, by himself. I was unaware that he had ventured to the first floor because Dean was still around distracting me by handing me stray bobby pins he found lying around, and pulling on Lester's phone chargers.
Then I heard the melodic sounds of "Old MacDonald" coming from downstairs.
"Where's Cary?" I yelled to Lester, who was in the next room.
"Downstairs," he said, nonchalantly.

My first reaction was to go get him, but then I thought about it. The baby gates are up. We've pretty much made sure the first floor is kid-friendly. What's the harm? He wanted to play with his toys, and we were taking too long getting ready, so he took matters into his own hands.
I decided to let him be.

A few minutes later, I noticed that it was awfully quiet down there. No B-I-N-G-O. No annoying Cookie Monster "C-is-for cookie," toy going off incessantly. Just quiet.

I leaned over the banister and yelled: "CARE-EEE?"

"Hmmm?" he said.

"What are you doing?"

To which, my 18-month-old child actually replied, "Reee!"

I stepped down a few steps, in order to peek between the stairway slats. And sure enough, there he was, sitting on the playmat, books strewn all around, "reading" his "Beep Beep" book.

And when he was finished, he simply crawled back up the steps and began taking things from Dean, causing the normal weekday morning commotion.

As much as people always say, "It's so great you have twins; they can entertain one another!" I have to say that -- surprisingly -- I liked it so much better this morning when at least one of my boys discovered he could entertain himself. By himself.

John Glenn would be proud

We went to my Mom and Dad's this weekend for Dad's 59th birthday!

The boys missed all the revelry -- and cake and ice cream!-- because it happened after their bedtime, but all that resting did them some good.

Both boys figured out this weekend how to go up and down a single step, which is in between the family room and the eat-in kitchen area of my Mom's house.

At first, Dean could go up and not get down, and Cary couldn't get up but could get down. But after many, many attempts, eventually they both got it!

Hooray!

One small step for Cary and Dean; one giant leap into "OMG! We need to get those gates up by the stairs!!" for me and Lester.