playing together

Sonja and Mikica play wonderfully together. They wake up together and chat and laugh every morning, and during the day they are at play together most of the time. When I take them to a birthday party or a playdate, they will all three play together, especially if there was a bucket with balls that they could sit in or a sandbox. They will manage to push all other kids away and monopolize the area (Sonja would give others her mean angry look along with a loud 'NO, MINE!)Mikica still says 'pao' and 'baci', but now he'll repeat some other things that I say, like 'crocs' for shoes. Sonja would sometimes say a word so clearly that I'm surprised that she doesn't speak real full sentences. Sometimes, besides her favorite word 'no' she will say 'da' (yes), which is a nice change! She still babbles but still in her own language that sounds like English. Now she is adding hand motion, very girly hand motion, like opening her hands out to the side, crunching her shoulders and raising her eyebrows like she is saying 'I really don't know why Mikica and Nikolas are making such fools out of themselves.'

Sonja can now also put her socks on, not just the shoes. Mikica can put all other shoes on but his own. They are also great at taking their shoes off as soon as we walk into the house (they got trained pretty well!).
Nikolas is at the moment closed in his room with Sonja and Mikica, READING A BOOK TO THEM! He had been practicing writing his name at school. He can sound out words in Serbocroatian, slowly but surely. I started taping large pieces of paper on his wall with simple sentences about what he does every day so that he can read in the morning while he is waiting for me to come and dress him. We removed the knob protector from his door knob so that he can now freely leave the room when he wakes up in the morning if he wants to. He will use the potty (still sleeps in pullups), wipe himself (just started this), empty the potty and even fill it with clean water (after seeing me do it). He is so great at remembering procedures.
I got Nikolas the Connect Four game and we played it a couple of times. He plays with it on his own. Sonja likes to take all the coins and stuff them inside her onesie and then run around so they would jingle, laughing....

Nikolas learned lyrics for some songs on a music CD that we brought from baka last Christmas. That was the first time I heard him sing to a song on a CD (he sang children's songs with me before). He also remembers lines from stories that I read often. While I'm reading Macak U Cizmama (Cat in Boots?), he'd interrupt me by quoting a line from another story about a cat and a rooster that lived together...