Some older pics...
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Adi at 5 years
Adi has become an independent, witty, creative and perceptive girl. Animals are still her passion, especially dogs and horses, but she plays well with other kids and has a naturally gentle touch with her little sister. She is still emotionally sensitive but seems to be her best during stressful moments when she can 'step-up' into a grown-up role.
Animals
The thing that Adi wants most in the world is to have a dog and especially to walk it on its leash. She came to an appointment with me where a puppy was being trained as a guide dog. So Adi got to walk it around in circles, telling it to stop and go and sit. It was the first time I've seen a dog obey her and she was elated. She often gets to walk her babysitters dog and that has made it so she is disappointed on days when the babysitter doesn't come.
Creativity
"Pretend I'm asleep and you're trying to wake me up."
"Pretend I'm a dog and I won't do what you say."
"Pretend I'm a dog and I won't do what you say."
And so it goes around the house all day. Adi *loves* pretending, but she very much wants to make up the story.
Food
Adi's favorite foods: peanut butter, chocolate, candy, tacos, macaroni and cheese, soda. Her favorite vegetable: cauliflower (this surprised me, too!).
Emotionally expressive
It seems that Adi has a talent for knowing why she is upset and the vocabulary to put it into words. She remains a very emotional person so it will be helpful to her in life to be able to identify and communicate what is causing her emotions.
As I was leaving her at my parents' house and she was clingy:
ADI: I'll be sad until I forget about you.
At the end of the Finding Nemo movie, when the daddy fish finally finds his son:
ADI: [sobbing] I want to go home!
DAVE: Why are you crying?
ADI: Because I'm so happy!
Tough girl
After the kid's running race at our town's labor day festival:
ADI: See this [red mark] on my knee? That's where I fell down during the race.
ME: You fell down? Did you cry?
ADI: Nope, there was no one around [that I knew] so I just got back up and kept running.
When she is up to it, Adi can be very tough. In contrast to the emotionality that she often displays, she seems to be adopting a cocky attitude more and more of the time. This is not so pleasant when she is talking back to us around the house but, indeed, is better than the alternative of bursting into tears when we correct her.
She also likes scary stories and movies and likes to be chased or startled. This seems at odds with her sensitivity! And, in contrast to other ticklish people I've known, she *loves* being tickled. In fact, it can sometimes break her out of a bad mood.
Miss Independent
We frequently hear Adi say, "Stop telling me what to do!" She has informed me that she thinks she is old enough to live on her own without a mother and father telling her what to do. Although she did allow that I could visit so that she wouldn't miss me.
She is much more likely to do something if we can remind her in a way that makes her think she's doing it on her own. She loves to surprise us and gets angry if we ruin the surprise-- whether she's tip-toeing around a corner to say 'boo' or cleaning up the living room while I'm putting Vivian to bed and then blaming it on "fairies".
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| With the clip-on earrings she chose with her birthday money from Great-Grandma Bundy |
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| Wearing a shirt that my Grandma and Grandpa Richards had made when I was four years old. |
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| Pushing Vivian in a swing; wearing one of her favorite skirts and her favorite hairstyle (which she can do herself... with my clip which she has adopted). |
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| At Uncle Buck's wedding, wearing Aunt Kara's old dress. |
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| Frosting her kitty cake. |
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| Examining a bug in the microscope. Adi is fascinated by bugs and loves worms, whom she usually names "wormy" and tries to keep in a jar. |
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| On her 16" (wheel diameter) bike. Adi was very cautious for the first few weeks on this larger bike-- only wanting to start on perfectly flat ground but she gained confidence after a few weeks of riding and now will stand up on the pedals or hold with only one hand (a very subtle trick!) |
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Vivian at ten months
Ten months. Ten! That's almost 1 year. Aach!
Crawling and Standing
As you may have seen with the videos and pictures, our littlest one is mobile! After crawling backwards for a few weeks in her ninth month, she took off and now squeals with joy as she chases us around, her little hands slapping the wood floor.
But she is on her way to more-- instead of starting by pulling up, she started to stand by pushing up, first off a prone parent and now off of anything (and sometimes even just the floor). Throwing her hands up into the air, she smiles, squeals and occasionally even claps for herself while hovering in an unstable equilibrium. On the very few occasions when she has miscalculated and fallen forward, we have been reminded that catching oneself with one's hands is not an instinct but a *learned* reaction...
Three weeks ago she started to step while we were holding her hands and now seems to enjoy being walked around the house. Luckily there are plenty of volunteers to help her walk, even when she doesn't want to.
Sounds
Vivian has added "ma" to her vocal repertoire; once she said "ma ma" when she saw me but it hasn't been repeated so can't be said to be a first word. She enjoys making noises; one of her favorite things is to rub her fist back and forth over an O-shaped mouth to make an 'ah-wah-ah-wah' sound.
She also really loves music. When the radio is on, she'll respond to the brief interludes of music between news stories by bopping up and down. We recently decided to let her play with her sound machine-- we use one of the white noise sounds while she's sleeping but there are several tunes to dance to: Rocking out to her sound machine
Tricks
There are now three tricks in her hat: she'll put her hands straight up when asked "how big is Vivi?", she'll touch her head when we ask, "where's your hair?" and she'll clap when we say, "yay!" or clap or start the patty-cake rhyme. She's also occasionally made the sign for 'daddy' that Dave made up (hands straight up in the air). It's so much fun to see her responding to our words and she seems to enjoy entertaining everyone, too.
And another party trick (that's actually useful); it turns out that she can drink through a straw.
Books
In general, Vivian will turn the pages of a book that we're reading and stop and touch some pictures. When we read one of those with tactile pages, she knows just where to look. And I noticed several months ago that she reaches out to touch the eyes of animals (eg. in Brown Bear, Brown Bear), showing that she has some idea of what she's seeing. And in general, she show a real fondness toward:
Animals
When she see one in a book or real life, she coos and coos. In fact, she pushes away books that don't have pictures of animals. Her nanny usually brings her dog so it could be just early exposure but it seems she's on her way to be an 'animal person.' She had the same reaction the other day when Adi was pretending to be a dog, too.
Resistance
I've realized that, when Vivian is nursing, she likes to push (like her feet against the arm of the chair) or pull (like on a burp cloth or my braids). It has made me wonder if this is a personality trait-- you hear that kids like "pushing boundaries" in order to see where they are but I wonder if sometimes they just want to feel that resistance, like a dog likes pulling on a rope. It'll be interesting to see as she gets older but hopefully I can keep this in mind (to keep my patience!)
Cloth
She continues to have a fondness for cloth things. When drinking her milk at bedtime, she pulls a burp cloth over her eyes or rubs it along her face. Stuffed animals are some of her favorite toys, which she shows by cooing at them and burying her face in them. And she seems to like to lay her cheek on the carpet.
Sleeping
There might be nothing better than a baby who goes to sleep when you want her to. Vivian is certainly keeping our lives easy in this regard-- after a quick bedtime routine, she often pushes out of our arms in her attempt to get into the crib. After rolling over to grab 'Erin the Giraffe', we rarely hear from her for 10 or 11 hours. The only negative is that she wakes up if we come into the room, so no stolen good-night kisses from her. But really, we appreciate it as much as possible. (A note: she is also psychic and likes to prove me wrong. One hour after I wrote this, she woke up crying and carried on for 2 hours that night, then wouldn't go down for a nap on the weekend. Knock-on-wood that this then passed but there is a reason that we are superstitious about ever mentioning a "good bedtime").
Eating
I hope to do a whole post about 'baby-led weaning' sometime but I want to include in this update how well it's worked for us. Essentially the theory is to start babies off on big pieces of food (not purees) so they learn how to chew and swallow as they learn how to eat, not to feed them pureed food until they develop the 'pincer grip' around 8-9 months old. So from the age of 6 months, we've been feeding Vivian large, thin pieces of foods like apples, pizza crust, bell peppers, strawberries, tofu... basically anything that is somewhat soft. And she has very rarely gagged or thrown-up and (so far, knock-on-wood for real this time) never choked. We have done a mix of these finger foods and pureed foods (which the BLW people seem to be against) but she's definitely leaning more toward the finger foods now. In fact, she used a spoon to eat for the first time to (messily) eat quinoa tonight (9/19).
She has tried just about everything except for nuts and meat. When we gave her her first piece of cheese, I swear she looked at us as if to say, "You've been feeding me unsalted peas and rice puffs when there is cheese in the world? What else are you people hiding from me?" But seriously, her favorite food right now is fresh tomatoes (it helps enormously that they're straight out of the garden); for the past few months it has been pureed spinach and onions. But raspberries? Peaches? Those get dumped right off the tray. So she definitely has odd taste, although she's recently shown an unlimited fondness for pasta. But mostly she seems to want variety-- not from meal to meal but from bite to bite. Often she'll return to eating something if she gets something else for a while. And she has developed a fondness for water from the sippy cup (or any cup from which she can get it). Today she kept crying when I tried to take the water away in order to nurse her. I guess that bodes well for weaning, eventually! (Update: now she won't touch tomatoes. She still likes cheese, though).
There is so much that I'm forgetting but I'd like to get this posted (since it started out as the nine-month update and now is a month late anyway...)
Crawling and Standing
As you may have seen with the videos and pictures, our littlest one is mobile! After crawling backwards for a few weeks in her ninth month, she took off and now squeals with joy as she chases us around, her little hands slapping the wood floor.
But she is on her way to more-- instead of starting by pulling up, she started to stand by pushing up, first off a prone parent and now off of anything (and sometimes even just the floor). Throwing her hands up into the air, she smiles, squeals and occasionally even claps for herself while hovering in an unstable equilibrium. On the very few occasions when she has miscalculated and fallen forward, we have been reminded that catching oneself with one's hands is not an instinct but a *learned* reaction...
Three weeks ago she started to step while we were holding her hands and now seems to enjoy being walked around the house. Luckily there are plenty of volunteers to help her walk, even when she doesn't want to.
Sounds
Vivian has added "ma" to her vocal repertoire; once she said "ma ma" when she saw me but it hasn't been repeated so can't be said to be a first word. She enjoys making noises; one of her favorite things is to rub her fist back and forth over an O-shaped mouth to make an 'ah-wah-ah-wah' sound.
She also really loves music. When the radio is on, she'll respond to the brief interludes of music between news stories by bopping up and down. We recently decided to let her play with her sound machine-- we use one of the white noise sounds while she's sleeping but there are several tunes to dance to: Rocking out to her sound machine
Tricks
There are now three tricks in her hat: she'll put her hands straight up when asked "how big is Vivi?", she'll touch her head when we ask, "where's your hair?" and she'll clap when we say, "yay!" or clap or start the patty-cake rhyme. She's also occasionally made the sign for 'daddy' that Dave made up (hands straight up in the air). It's so much fun to see her responding to our words and she seems to enjoy entertaining everyone, too.
And another party trick (that's actually useful); it turns out that she can drink through a straw.
Books
In general, Vivian will turn the pages of a book that we're reading and stop and touch some pictures. When we read one of those with tactile pages, she knows just where to look. And I noticed several months ago that she reaches out to touch the eyes of animals (eg. in Brown Bear, Brown Bear), showing that she has some idea of what she's seeing. And in general, she show a real fondness toward:
Animals
When she see one in a book or real life, she coos and coos. In fact, she pushes away books that don't have pictures of animals. Her nanny usually brings her dog so it could be just early exposure but it seems she's on her way to be an 'animal person.' She had the same reaction the other day when Adi was pretending to be a dog, too.
Resistance
I've realized that, when Vivian is nursing, she likes to push (like her feet against the arm of the chair) or pull (like on a burp cloth or my braids). It has made me wonder if this is a personality trait-- you hear that kids like "pushing boundaries" in order to see where they are but I wonder if sometimes they just want to feel that resistance, like a dog likes pulling on a rope. It'll be interesting to see as she gets older but hopefully I can keep this in mind (to keep my patience!)
Cloth
She continues to have a fondness for cloth things. When drinking her milk at bedtime, she pulls a burp cloth over her eyes or rubs it along her face. Stuffed animals are some of her favorite toys, which she shows by cooing at them and burying her face in them. And she seems to like to lay her cheek on the carpet.
Sleeping
There might be nothing better than a baby who goes to sleep when you want her to. Vivian is certainly keeping our lives easy in this regard-- after a quick bedtime routine, she often pushes out of our arms in her attempt to get into the crib. After rolling over to grab 'Erin the Giraffe', we rarely hear from her for 10 or 11 hours. The only negative is that she wakes up if we come into the room, so no stolen good-night kisses from her. But really, we appreciate it as much as possible. (A note: she is also psychic and likes to prove me wrong. One hour after I wrote this, she woke up crying and carried on for 2 hours that night, then wouldn't go down for a nap on the weekend. Knock-on-wood that this then passed but there is a reason that we are superstitious about ever mentioning a "good bedtime").
Eating
I hope to do a whole post about 'baby-led weaning' sometime but I want to include in this update how well it's worked for us. Essentially the theory is to start babies off on big pieces of food (not purees) so they learn how to chew and swallow as they learn how to eat, not to feed them pureed food until they develop the 'pincer grip' around 8-9 months old. So from the age of 6 months, we've been feeding Vivian large, thin pieces of foods like apples, pizza crust, bell peppers, strawberries, tofu... basically anything that is somewhat soft. And she has very rarely gagged or thrown-up and (so far, knock-on-wood for real this time) never choked. We have done a mix of these finger foods and pureed foods (which the BLW people seem to be against) but she's definitely leaning more toward the finger foods now. In fact, she used a spoon to eat for the first time to (messily) eat quinoa tonight (9/19).
She has tried just about everything except for nuts and meat. When we gave her her first piece of cheese, I swear she looked at us as if to say, "You've been feeding me unsalted peas and rice puffs when there is cheese in the world? What else are you people hiding from me?" But seriously, her favorite food right now is fresh tomatoes (it helps enormously that they're straight out of the garden); for the past few months it has been pureed spinach and onions. But raspberries? Peaches? Those get dumped right off the tray. So she definitely has odd taste, although she's recently shown an unlimited fondness for pasta. But mostly she seems to want variety-- not from meal to meal but from bite to bite. Often she'll return to eating something if she gets something else for a while. And she has developed a fondness for water from the sippy cup (or any cup from which she can get it). Today she kept crying when I tried to take the water away in order to nurse her. I guess that bodes well for weaning, eventually! (Update: now she won't touch tomatoes. She still likes cheese, though).
There is so much that I'm forgetting but I'd like to get this posted (since it started out as the nine-month update and now is a month late anyway...)
Friday, September 14, 2012
Reno
We took the family to Reno for a long weekend with the Colemans. Vivian
enjoyed the flights so much that she refused to sleep but
she did manage to charm the other passengers.
Much quality time was spent with the cousins:
Picking blackberries on the banks of the Truckee River,
Picking blackberries on the banks of the Truckee River,
Reading stories with all of the cousins (thanks, Aunt Jennifer!): 
Such a beautiful place, especially as viewed from the cold, silvery water of twilight, swimming to music with my daughters!
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Crawling/Standing/Bouncing baby girl
To see Vivian's latest skills, and the craziness of her environment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6uEIHAt39o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6uEIHAt39o
Sunday, September 2, 2012
'Seeing' the President
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| Waiting in line, in the hot sun, for 2 hours. |
During the presidential election, we took advantage of the multiple visits of the candidates to our swing state by going to see President Obama speak at a rally on the CU campus. Thinking it would be a good experience for the kids, we (insanely) took them along.
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| Entertaining the kids as the line *crept* forward. |
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| Vivian could entertain herself when we finally reached our 'seats' on the green. |
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| Waiting... |
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| And waiting... |
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| Mae found a place to take a nap. |
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| The President spoke in front of the building in the distance. We couldn't see more than a dot waving it's arms; a bit underwhelming! |
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| Souvenir! |
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