More things

Raffe spent they day with us. When he left with his mom Jackson stood at the window saying "Raffe go, Raffe go" over and over.

Madison and Jackson consistently say "da" when we ask them to say Kristen (Raffe's mom). We eventually started to say Krissy instead and Madison caught onto that. She now says "antie Kissy".

Kristen is not from the north so she says "antie" rather than "auntie" which works out well for differentiating between Kristen and Courtney.

She's been putting two words together really well lately. You can tell she's really concentrating too. She takes quite a pause between the two words and sometimes if she pauses too long she'll start over to get the two words together.

Jackson has been really sweet to Madison lately. Last night they were walking toward each other in the living room. Jackson was leaning toward her with his lips puckered but she walked right by him. It was so cute and sad at the same time.

Today Madison was whining about something. I was holding her but couldn't figure out what she wanted. Jackson walked up to us and handed Maddie a binky. It was exactly what she wanted.

He is so good about sharing with her. Any time we say "Can Maddie have that?" he'll immediately give it to her.

Today they were both sitting on my lap eating strawberries. Jackson leaned over and put his head on her shoulder. Oh my god, I feel weak just thinking about how sweet that is.

Jackson is also very generous with his cold germs.  The cold he got a couple weeks ago eventually passed to Maddie, then me, and now my mother.  It hasn't been an awful one for the kids but I was pretty run down for a couple days including Christmas.

I think we're finally making progress in the "time out" area. For a long time now Chris has been very strict about putting the kids in their crib if they're throwing a tantrum over something. I was torn about it because I felt like if I knew what they wanted I could get them to stop by just giving them what they wanted and avoiding the downward spiral of the tantrum. I do however realize that this isn't teaching them any lessons on how to act appropriately. So mostly Chris has done the time outs (I *have* done a few). So now over the last few days if either of them are starting to melt down I say "If you continue to cry you're going in your crib" and they stop! Then I shower them with praise and give them what it is they wanted in the first place.

I'd say the biggest issue that we run into on a consistent basis is when I'm pouring them drinks and they both stand there and scream until I give them the cups. I would have tended to let them cry then give them the cups but Chris would make a big production out of it and put them in their cribs for a minute then take them out and attempt to explain to them why it happened.