There is nothing like the first time your baby (and in my case, babies) says your name to you. 

When the girls first started talking it was hard to tell when they were saying Mama for me or just saying it because that is the first word I tried to teach them.  Marayla has been saying Mama for quite some time now, not that the "Dada" journal entry would lead to that, but it's true.  In fact I think she said Mama before Dada--there may be a lifelong disagreement about that one.  It is true that she mastered Dada before Mama, and I think understood that Dada was for Ryan and all her other toys and sister too, of course.  Last week, after I recovered from the flu and stepped back into a parent role, I noticed that the occurrence of Mama was higher during the day while I was home with the girls and Dada increased when Ryan came home from work.  I have also noticed that Mama is a needy word like “Mama Mama Mama" while Marayla is in her highchair means get me out of here, while Dada is a word that is lighter and happier like for Cheerios and toys. 

What does that all mean?  Well, it is just another example that I have noticed lately of how children react differently towards their Mom and Dad.  Children need their Mommies in a way that is very different from their Daddies.  They need Ryan to play with them and Love them and care for them.  He does it better than me most of the time because he is not thinking about the “house list” and what needs to be done next, as I confess I usually am. This takes me to my Julia.  Oh, sweet Julia.  My daughter that needs me so, who cries if I walk away, who gets mad if I am not holding her, who stands at the banister between the living room and dining room yelling for me when I am not near her.  She is very Mommycentric right now and perhaps will always be.  In the past Marayla was the baby that needed more, but lately she is the baby that is content to just play for long periods of time and generally doesn’t yell for me unless she really needs something.  She just roams around babbling to herself and her toys, giggling at puppets and her sister, and smiling at her Mama and especially her Dada.  

I have been waiting for my Julsie Girl (my new nickname for her) to start calling my name.   In fact Ryan and I have been wondering when she would start putting words together as Marayla has been chatting for such a long time—hard to not compare your twins.  Well, on February 22, she started to whisper a baba and mama, it was mostly her opening and closing her mouth and I could tell that she was forming those sounds.  So I just kept encouraging her and, of course, saying Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama and maybe a few more Mamas!  By the next day she was saying Mama out loud and today she was looking at me and saying Mama.  She needed to get that one quick so that she could let me know (even more than she was before), I need you Mama.  How can I say no to that?

So, a huge milestone in the girls lives.  They are beginning to talk, a parent’s dream so you can know what your children need, but a goodbye to the quiet days.

It seems that the girls’ brains and motor skills have jumped into hyperdrive!  We’ve got oodles of new and exciting things going on in the household, and Julia and Marayla are no longer spectators.  First, Ari and I have introduced that oh-so-popular baby game, “So Big!”  The rules are simple:  ask said baby a question along the lines of, “How big is the baby,” then bring the baby’s arms up over her head as you respond, “Sooooooo Big!”  Follow this up with a hearty “Yay!!”  After a number of times of doing this for the baby, and showing how you can do it, too, eventually the brilliant child will start to raise their arms after the question is posed and you provide the verbal response of “Soooooo Big!”  Naturally, the baby will clap when you provide the “Yay!!”  Julia and Marayla have picked this game up very quickly (we started it on Sunday).  They are big fans.

I have started blowing them kisses in an exaggerated fashion, in the hopes that they will respond in kind.  However, as of now they are very into the Fish Kiss, which Ari and I introduced a few weeks ago.  This is when you suck in your cheeks so your lips resemble a figure eight.  In fact, once Ari or I say the word “kiss,” the girls immediately suck in their cheeks and await their fish kiss.  This certainly is acceptable entertainment for us while we wait for our daughters to blow us a kiss.

Finally, bath time has become one of the girls’ favorite times of the day.  They play with their bath toys, Mr. Hosehead (the shower head on the hose), and they brush their teeth.  In the past week, the girls, in their discovery of each other, have become fascinated with each other’s belly buttons.  They sit in the tub, facing each other, and take turns leaning forward and pointing their finger into said button.  They will then look down and point at their own belly button.  It’s like they’re saying, “You have one, I have one.  Hmmm, it’s like we’re identical or something.  Crazy!”