Jumping - the Latest Craze

Above: Maddy contemplates a leap, and does. Milo cheers her on. September 2010.

Obviously M&M are our first kids, so I have no way of knowing whether the jumping thing is a phase or something peculiar to our toddlers. I'm guessing it's pretty common among all children in the ballpark of two. Either way, it's pretty amazing how fixated they are with jumping off and over things. And they're not too bad at it either. Maddy in particular is pretty bold. Though Milo will do everything she does, once he's seen her do it first.

Displaying good form and solid landings. The judges scored this round an impressive 9.5.

Since it's finally warmed up here in the Bay Area in the last few weeks, we were able to get the kids out to the pool. Maddy was pretty reluctant. On the first visit, she wouldn't go in at all; on the second she sat on the side and kicked her feet in the water; the third trip was pretty much the same as the first. Baby steps, I guess... Milo is just the opposite. He seems to think he knows how to swim. He doesn't, but that doesn't stop him at all from wanting to try on his own. He also loves jumping into the pool in keeping with the whole jumping theme.

I managed to find the kids a play structure for the backyard off Craigslist. This one is pretty nice and the kids seem to like it a lot. We'll finally be retiring the little slide for good.


With toddlerhood comes the inevitable tantrums, and with tantrums come time-outs. So far the time-outs seem to work pretty well and the kids are slowly getting the message. One setback, our attention-starved cat really likes Milo and whenever he's in time-out, she jumps in with him -- which of course, he loves thereby defeating much of the purpose.

Above: Maddy discovers the wonderful world of stickers.

It's nice to finally be able to let the kids walk around on their own. They are getting pretty heavy, and they both dislike the stroller. Hard to believe how far they've come.

Milo likes oranges -- a lot! And not just oranges, I stood by stunned watching him eat a half of a cantaloupe on his own.

Milo sits on the ottoman and watches his new favorite show, Mr. Rogers. I would have never guessed that Mr. Rogers would quickly replace the Wiggles, but old school wins out! Kind of nice that they are so into a show that's so much lower key than the Wiggles and Elmo.

More jumping...

Even yet still more jumping...