Somehow while cutting the girls’ nails last night I forgot Miranda’s toenails and Eleanor’s fingernails.

Agnes recorded this video of Miranda reading. In this case, the book is Frog and Toad. I think Miranda had her big breakthrough in understanding that the letters make up sounds that make up words almost two months ago and she’s been steadily improving her vocabulary ever since. In the car, she’ll tell us about all of the signs that she’s been reading.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in MP4 format appropriate for an iPod: MP4 (4.05MB).]

The photos for May 2009 are up. It was a busy month for us with a wedding in Houston, and with Albert and Erin visiting on their way back from Hawaii.

In May, we introduced the kids to playing cards. They have a rudimentary ability to play Go Fish, Crazy 8s, and War. Miranda seems to grasp the rules of the game better than Eleanor, but they both have trouble fanning the cards. Out of the three games, War is the easiest to understand for them.

At school, they also learned to play Tic Tac Toe. We’ll play with the kids sometimes. Agnes noted that Eleanor can recognize when she’s won, but she cannot block, and she cannot see where she should go to win. Miranda cannot block, but she’ll see where she should go to win.

I’m still struck by the strange language constructs that the kids come up with. I’m starting to think that I should gently correct them when they use a weird one. Miranda has long used “look-it” instead of “look at this” or “look at it”. When I told her it wasn’t right, she tried “look-it, please” and a few other variations.

Eleanor will say, “but how do we?” She uses this after she says that she wants to do something that she doesn’t know how to do. It’s like, “Let’s go up there. But how do we?”

More recently, Miranda has developed a strange way of saying her A’s. It mostly comes out when she’s reading, but instead of “daddy”, it comes out “dyaddy”. Some people we know from Chicago stretch out their A’s like that, but we have no idea why it’s cropping up in Miranda’s speech. I have not been correcting it yet.

The kids went through a period of time when they were afraid of spiders. My mom showed them how they could get a tissue and squish them, which they were willing to do for a while, but then became scared again. After telling them that spiders are our friends for a while, they’ve finally gotten used to them again. Now, they blow on the spiders to see the scurry around.

Finally, the month of May was a month where we went to a number of beaches. We checked out Huntington Beach and Seal Beach, both of which are pretty close to where we live. We made a trip to Redondo, and while we like it because we’re familiar with it, it’s a little far from home now.

I showed the kids a potato and asked if they knew what it was. Eleanor guessed, “a mango?” Miranda knew what it was. Eleanor then said french fries are made from potatoes.

Eleanor figured out how to open the refrigerator. This could be bad.

I asked Miranda what pandas eat. She said penguins.

I realize that the following story may be of little interest to anyone other than maybe Eleanor and Miranda in the future, but I thought I would transcribe it. Eleanor had a blank notebook and was telling a story while flipping the pages. Here’s what she said:

“Once upon a time there was a little girl whose name was Miranda. She went out to the playground. One morning she went to her mommy and daddy. Then, one day, she went out to the playground again. Then she just go to sleep. And she saw her mommy and daddy. One day, a little girl who has cookies and they were so yummy. Once upon a time there was a little girl who sat on a chair and she was trying to look for her mommy and daddy. Once upon a time, nothing was a bed. Mr bed was walking (it’s a silly story) Mr bed was walking all around backward. Once upon a time, flowers and the people just hold them, and the minutes were gone. Then it’s morning time. Once upon a time there was a little house and a big house and a rainbow and a waterfall and a la la la la la. Once upon a time, Miranda and me were walking like this yah yah yah yah and they marched in the parade and they had a birthday party and they said bllbllbllbll. And they went in the woods and the woods and the woods and the woods…”

I guess she doesn’t quite get that you don’t need to start the story over with each page.

The frequency of my entries on this baby blog has definitely slowed, and Bernard and I have been talking about ending the blog in the next year or so. It started as the recording of our experience raising twin babies, and was definitely an outlet for some of my frustrations and fears in this process of becoming a mother. I’ve definitely appreciated all of the advice and support people have given me, either publicly on the blog, or in private conversations and emails.

When we started the blog, we did envision ending it about the time the kids started school. We didn’t want the kids or their friends to be able to read it. At some point, kids become self-conscious and privacy is important. Our kids aren’t quite there yet –they still run around naked after their baths, even when we have guests over. They still go to the bathroom with the door wide open. But it will probably happen soon.

After we end the blog, we’ll probably pay more attention to the original bernardandagnes blog, and post things about our family in the “Journal” section.