Month: June 2012

Well. My oldest is now 8 years old. I can hardly believe it. It seems like yesterday that she was this little toddler racing around. She’s a lot bigger now, and still races around! She moves all the time, sitting still is not her forte. She spends a lot of her time upside down, doing cartwheels, walkovers, head and handstands. Despite all this she is not keen to be in formal gymnastics class. She is a free spirit and like to do her own thing.

She likes to read and watch movies. Above all though, she likes to write. Lists, stories, facts and surveys often accompanied by vivid pictures. Her favourite thing would be to have an endless supply of clean blank note books. She can be super sweet with her siblings, and it is just a joy to watch those moments. I often wonder what she’ll accomplish in life with her boundless energy, and hope I am around to watch.

I should add, that lots of stuff in our house is “sick”, which is the new “Cool” for those of you without 8 year olds. She brings these different expressions home from school all the time!

Little miss E is five and a half months old. She is a dear sweet baby, and very happy. She sleeps through the night (knock on wood) from between 8 and 11pm until about 7:30am. She is a lot like her brother in that she wakes happy, and is content to lie in her crib, most recently spending time eating her toes.

She has a loose schedule, up, drinks a bottle then naps again around 9am for maybe 45 minutes. She’s then awake and ready for anything until around 11am or noon when she naps again. At some time in the afternoon she has a longer nap, although the turkey girl likes to sleep for an hour, demand a bottle, then sleep for another hour, even if she has just eaten! She is awake and active then until a short cat nap around dinner time.

She likes to sit in the bumbo where she can watch the rest of the chaos swirling around her. She loves her fingers, and sucks the middle two (on either hand) to calm herself. I must say I prefer this to the soother at the stage! It’s also likely why she sleeps through the night as she can self soothe. She is almost able to roll over, she rolls her lower torso over, but doesn’t quite manage to finish rolling her upper torso over. She may have rolled over all the way today but there is a good chance her sister “helped” her. She does like to lie in her baby gym and swat at the toys, and just roll around.

She is very blond at this stage, and it looks like she has daddy’s colouring too. She is a sweet happy baby, and I can’t wait to watch her discover her world!

My little J man. He is two and a half. He is a sweet dear boy almost always in a good mood. He loves his bed, quite often asks for it when he is tired. He names all his favourite things in his crib, Mimi (the monkey) donkey, tigerlilly, soo (soother) and clothie (his washcloth). He is quite happy to be in bed awake, as long as he has his things with him.

He likes to talk (not as much as his older sister) and is just starting to get frustrated when we don’t understand him. He will repeat almost anything which is at times funny, and other times quite scary! Just yesterday I heard him count to 10 on his own though. He is reluctant to share this skill, but I was fortunate enough to hear him do it again today. R tried to teach him these things, although quite often when they have these learning sessions then end in giggle fests.

He likes to read books, ‘Chicka Chicka Boom Boom’ is a current favourite, although I prefer ‘Where is the green sheep”. He loves music and is just starting to do a bit of singing along with favourite songs like ‘The wheels on the Bus’, and “Oh Susannah”. He starts negotiating with me when we drive down our street, starting with “Outside 10 minutes”. Sometimes we can play outside, sometimes not and he is most displeased when we do not.

He likes swimming although he is not as fearless as R was at his age. He is happy to play in the water table outside though and likes to shovel rocks. He likes going to playgrounds. There he likes to climb up stairs and ladders, but he rarely slides down, he’d rather climb down again. He is currently obsessed with cutlery, knives in particular. He always is telling “I need knife”, or “Joseph cut it”. He spends a lot of time cutting (or attempting to), and not so much time eating anymore.

He is pretty cautious, but does enjoy trying new things. I am enjoying watching him grow, discover and explore.