Toddlers and Scholars

• Just got my first rejection letter for the five or so fellowships I applied for. This one was discouraging because it came so early (which probably means I didn’t come anywhere close) and because I thought it might be my best shot.
• On Saturday night we hosted a movie night with a half-dozen students in the history department. We (and our adviser George Marsden) watched Jesus Camp, a documentary which features 8-year-old kids speaking in tongues and praying over Bush.
• Jonathan continues to learn to walk. A couple times yesterday he took about five steps before crashing.

Today got off to a nice start. I think they boys woke up around their normal time (7:30), but they played by themselves for quite awhile so we didn’t have to get out of bed until almost 8:30! When I walked into their room, Jonathan was lying on his back playing with the hem of the curtains that he had pulled into his crib, and Andrew was lying on his side watching Jonathan and murmering/singing to himself.

On Thursday we visited some friends from church and, while we were there, Jonathan stood by himself and took a couple of steps on his own before sitting down. Since then, he’s done it a couple more times and both he and Andrew have stood on their own for extended periods of time. I think they’ll be walking very, very soon.

Here’s my “Twin Development at 11-Months” list:

• We’re completely done with Andrew’s staph infection and everything it involved. Both incisions are healing up nicely, and he probably won’t even have scars.
• Both boys are very enthusiastic—but very messy—eaters. They still eat lots of pureed sweet potatoes and peas, but can handle pretty big chunks of vegetables and beans. They especially like split pea soup and graham crackers.
• Andrew recently decided that it’s fun to sweep all of his food off the tray onto the floor. Jonathan likes to chew on his bib in between bites—which makes almost as much of a mess as his brother.
• We usually only give them a bottle before bed and sippy cups during the day. They’re doing pretty well, although occasionally they just refuse to drink from it.
• Still obsessed with the bathtub. They crawl straight to it anytime they’re given the chance to go upstairs. It’s hard to give them a bath together because they’re so enthusiastic that they splash and slip everywhere. But when we bathe them one at a time, they just kind of sit there and look around as if to say “what am I supposed to do here all by myself?”
• I think their biggest fear is the vacuum cleaner. Jonathan especially. When we get it out of the closet, he cries and cries as long as it’s in sight (even if we never turn it on), and has to be convinced that it’s not hiding behind the furniture before he’ll stop.
• They still sleep from about 8pm to 7:30am and take a nap from 10-11:30am and another from 2-4:30pm. They often wake up happy and “talk” to each other from their cribs until we come in to get them up.
• They both enjoy “walking” around the house holding one or both of our hands.
• They’re starting to play together more and notice each other more. When we put hats on them to go outside, they sometimes laugh at how the other looks.

• I’m at a local supermarket drinking coffee and writing my dissertation. Right now I’m focusing on the emergence of social science departments at evangelical colleges and new urban churches such as Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C. Lisa is watching the boys this morning. In a few hours we switch places; she’ll spend the afternoon on campus.
• Yesterday Lisa took here first statistics exam of the semester. She said it went fairly well. I looked at the exam afterward. The only words I recognized were the occasional articles like “a,” “the,” and “an.” Click here to see the exam:

Here’s a photo of Andrew. He’s playing peek-a-boo with Jonathan. They’re separated by a glass door.

–David

Did you know that laugh tracks are being used less and less in television sitcoms? In fact, the top four comedies on TV right now don’t use them at all. I guess we’ve finally been trained enough to know what’s funny.

***

Here are some more photos from our weekend in Freeport. Here’s David carrying Joel around the house before he left to feed the animals.

Here’s Jonathan hiding under the kitchen table.

And the boys getting fed by Grandpa Steve. No one could figure out why then kept leaning to the right. The floor was level.

This was the first time they had slept together in about a month. They slept very close, probably because it was a bit cold. Often one would use the other’s legs as a pillow.

Andrew is healing nicely once again. We were quite concerned about a spreading red rash near is incision. But it had nothing to do with his surgery; it’s just really bad diaper rash from all the moisture being trapped under his bandage. Thankfully, we no longer have to painfully insert gauze into the wound, nor bandage it.

He looks a bit pensive in the photo below. Hopefully the trauma is now over and he can revert back to a happy little boy.

–David

Another P.S. from Lisa: Actually, just for the record, Andrew might look pensive in this shot, but when the photo was taken he was playing peek-a-boo with me, going back and forth between giggling and waiting for me to peek out from behind the camera–like he’s doing here.