I’m a stepfather of twins!!

January 1st, 2009 / posted by Jake

When Tyler was first starting to talk, he would always call me “dude” and it never bothered me. Recently, Tyler has only been referring to me as “Jacob” and when he’s feeling nice “Jake”. I think it’s because my normal daddy duties have changed dramatically – I’m no longer gone from 7 to 6. Instead I’m home all day and even when I’m working, I’m just in the other room. So I suppose instead of only spending time with me for 2-3 hours a day, he has me all day which clearly confuses him.

In public it’s especially fun to switch things up. When he refers to me as Jacob and people are eavesdropping, I’ll say, “ok Tyler, run and go find your dad” and he’ll run off. People really start scrathing their head as they see Tyler, who looks exactly like me, running down an aisle looking for…. me.  Now I’ve also tried to use this to my advantage with Lindsey.  Since he no longer refers to me as daddy, this releases my parental responsibilities as well.  Especially when it comes to him waking up way too early and not falling back asleep.  Lucky for Lindsey, Tyler is going on 6 months potty trained otherwise I’d try to get out of diapers too.  Unfortunately this idea didn’t fly well with her.

We’ve always heard about the terrible two’s and have been thinking that we never experienced them.  This was until Kaitlyn turned 1 in November.  All of the sudden Tyler decided that he wanted to do everything Kaitlyn was.  If Kaitlyn was screaming, Tyler was screaming.  When Kaitlyn cries, Tyler cries.  If Kaitlyn takes tiny bites of her food, Tyler takes tiny bites of her food.  This has also caused Tyler to talk less.  Instead he grunts, screams, whines, rolls around on the floor crying, basically everything except “using his big boy words” which is frusterating.  Why?  Because it’s what Kaitlyn does.  If Kaitlyn has a toy of his, Tyler decides he wants it and takes it from her which causes Kaitlyn to reach back for the toy and take it back from him.  She’s learned alot from this game of tug-o-war.  At first when Tyler would take something, she’d get over it.  Now, her spider senses alert her before Tyler gets to her and she runs or throws it before he can get it.  It’s pretty fun to watch.  As I’m writing this, Kaitlyn is tugging on Tyler’s legs screaming trying to get her toy back.  Having twins is great.

Christmas was Tyler’s 3rd Christmas but we are technically going to call it his first.  Even though he turns 3 in February, this year he was old enough to slightly comprehend Christmas.  Last year he didn’t understand how to unwrap the presents nor did he grasp Santa Claus.  This year was much different.  He ripped every present within his grasp open real quick after which he’d scream, “MERRTY KISMAS!”  He’d also pass the gifts out to everyone 1 by 1 which helped keep him focused on something besides opening everyone’s gifts.  Another thing Tyler enjoys doing is saying prayers, so much so that he stops everything he’s doing, closes his eyes and folds his arms and starts saying a prayer out loud.  Even though he’s still saying the exact same one over and over it’s very interesting to see.  He grasped onto praying quick and now does it 3-4x a day or anytime we ask him to.

This last semester I finished my EMT class which was big news.  Now I have to pass the national exam which certifies me as an EMT and allows me to work.  This is big news because it’s step one in this long process towards becoming a firefighter.  I’ll be returning to school in 2 weeks and then in the summer/fall I’ll go through the fire academy.  After that I’ll still need to goto paramedic school which is about 12-14 months long so I’m still plugging along.  Lindsey is returning to school in February as well with her eyes still set on Nursing.  She’ll probably finish before I finish paramedic school.

Tags: birthday, christmas