Dance Moves & Bouncy Balls

Since Easter Sunday, all four Sewell's have been out of commission various days throughout the last week with a head cold. We call came down with the same thing Sunday evening and it seems that Matt is the only one who has fully recovered. He's been under a lot of stress this past weekend, though, since he misplaced his wedding band! Eeeek! We were terrified that one of the girls got ahold of it while he was in the shower or something and threw it away. Very very thankfully though, it was waiting for him downtown in the lost and found at the building he worked in on Friday last week. Hopefully now that his ring has been recovered, the girls and I can do so from our sinus ailments as well! 


Despite their illness, which really has been mild, the girls have been up to their usual shenanigans. Their Aunt Stephanie and Auntie Emily will be proud of them--they've taken up dancing! These girls have loved music since before they were born and the moves have finally caught up to them! They're still very toddler-esque and their moves are very wobbly and unbalanced, but they definitely enjoy themselves while they rock back and forth, squat up and down, or shake their shoulders to the beat...or to no beat! Sometimes they dance when there's complete silence! Aunties--we may have some future ballerinas on our hands! Sophie danced for her daddy in the elevator on the way home from picking him up tonight, and then continued dancing as she walked down the hallway. It was adorable! In the next few days I'll work on snagging a video of this going on...it's too cute to miss!


You can imagine that having twins would lend itself to having a ridiculous amount of toys, most of which we have two of. I'm guessing most moms feel this way about the toys that have taken over their own homes (the baby stuff takes over a house like a fat guy takes over an all-you-can eat special!). But seriously, we have two of most everything. This fact doesn't keep the girls from screaming and fighting over a toy that the other one is holding at the moment, and despite the ever-increasing mound of children's junk that has taken over my house, I still feel the need to make sure that each child has their own, "this isn't yours, it belongs to you and sissy" toy to keep them occupied. One toy that the girls didn't have any of (if you can believe that there's actually something that exists that they don't already have...two of...) is a ball. Simple. We didn't have any balls for them to play with. Balls have been a favorite of Sophie's since we went to the park with cousin Linus and he brought some of his to play with, but we never had any at home for her to enjoy. Last Sunday she got to play with what I call the "crazy ball" at Linus' house again (it's this ball with little knobs all over it that cause it to bounce in unexpected and random directions) and she enjoyed every minute of it. Then, yesterday we were having a play date with a new friend, Gretta, and her mom Amie and Sophie discovered that Gretta has a beach ball to play with, so of course she went nuts with that too. And all the while she toddles around saying, "bah! bah! bah!" which of course, is obviously her word for "ball". 


So finally, today we were at Target and I decided there was no time like the present to get the girls their latest toy obsession. We found the bin that had those giant rubber marble-swirled brightly colored balls and of course, they were on sale for $3. I think that sales in the toy aisles at stores are a parent's worse nightmare. Here she was, my darling little one, who derived so much innocent pleasure from rolling around  giant bouncy ball! How could I resist giving in?! Okay....so it wasn't that dramatic, but I did think to myself, "psh, these would be on sale". I found a brightly colored blue one that I decided I could stand looking at for the next who-knows-how-many years, and I dug it out of the bin. Sophie knew what I was doing right away and started shouting, "bah! bah! bah!" and I tried to explain to her little toddler self that she needed to be patient and that when we got home she would be allowed to play with it. "Bah! bah! bah!" was all I heard the rest of the time we were in the store, and growling angry screams were all that I heard the entire car ride home. I'm grateful to her that she somehow managed to wait until I had her in her car seat to fall apart completely seeing as how the lines at Target were crowded today and she would have made quite the scene. She had calmed herself to the point of gasping sobs by the time we made it home. From the minute I set the thing loose in the house all the way until bedtime, she pushed and kicked and bounced that ball around to her little heart's content. And where is Olivia in all of this? She was excited about the orange "crazy ball" that I got for her at Target today too, but showed no where near the same level of enthusiasm for her new toy as her sister, although they did have some fun playing with the balls together.....

Oooooh those crazy kiddos...

I love that this ball is about 2/3 the size of Sophie and she insisted on carrying it around with her the entire afternoon and evening.

Even when she needed a break from all of the running around, she wanted to have the ball in her lap.

When she decided that she did want to watch the show that was on for them, she made sure that her big bouncy ball was right next to her...she sat like this for a good 15 minutes or so.

Maybe Olivia's enthusiasm will increase once Sophie's wears off a little bit?