Mel the Mail Lady

We love our mail lady.  Her name is Mel.  It may be Melinda... or maybe Melanie.  I'm not sure.  But she is beloved in our neighborhood.



Almost every day, the kids (or at least Elliot) run outside to meet her.  They run to our neighbor's house so that when she gets to their mailbox, she will race my kids back to our mailbox.  They love it, and she lets them win every single time.  Thanks to postcards from Papa addressed individually to each kid, she knows their names and hands them their postcards and/or mail stacks individually.  It's adorable.



They are out there with her, rain or shine.

Twenty-Three Months (Oliver's Monthly Photo)

Only one month left!!  Our little Oliver is almost TWO!



Seems like just the other day we were strapping him into his seat on the airplane to England (at 4 weeks old).  And now he's a running, jumping, climbing, gesturing 23-month-old!



Notice I did not say talking?  He is not a talking 23-month-old, but we intend to remedy that.  Got a little speech evaluation on the calendar, and we're focusing hard core on speech now.  Lots of over-enunciating and songs with emphasis on imitating sounds.  Luckily I am friends with a couple speech therapists, so I don't have to wait for the formal evaluation to start implementing some ideas.  Daniel's been playing this little yes or no game.  It goes like this.

Hey Oliver.  Can I give you a kiss?

Ssssssssss

Hey Oliver.  Can I bite you?

Neh

Nice, huh?  The whole concept of teaching an almost 2-year-old to say no is so funny to me.  I definitely did not have to teach the first two to say no.  Granted, Oliver shakes his head very clearly for no.  There's no lack of communication there.  Merely the speech part.  Anyways... the speech evaluation is in a few weeks, so hopefully we'll have more direction then.



Other than that, Oliver's happy and healthy and totally on track with other milestones.  He loves reading books -- especially about trains and trucks.  Loves trains.  Loves them. He has one "choo-choo shirt" that he tries to wear every single day.  He goes to look for it in the dryer if he can't find it in his drawer.  In fact, I had another train shirt to give him for his birthday, but I couldn't take it and gave it to him early, just so he'd have an alternate train shirt.  Couldn't stay on top of laundering his one train shirt every night.

He's napping like a champ, still.  About 2 hours per afternoon.



He's floating great.  Not much interest in turning over to swim.  But he's a solid floater.  I'm hoping he's more interested in swimming once we start going to the pools.  We'll see.



I tried to get him off the bottle this month.  I gave him two special sippy cups that are just for him -- a train one and a fire truck one.  He went with it for a few days, but he's back to demanding the bottle at night time, and because we are tired and he is the third and we are desperate when the evening comes, we usually give in.  It's fine.  He's not going to college with a bottle.

He climbs out of his crib on his own now.  Maybe he's been doing it for 2 months or so.  It's wonderful (no, seriously--it really is).  He stays in there all night, but in the morning he often climbs out all by himself without screaming, "MAAMAAAAA!!!!!  DAADAAAAA!!!"  He just appears in the room.  It's awesome.



Oliver, we love your sweet, spunky, affectionate disposition and your adorable gestures and signs.  You are a gift, and we treasure you every single day.

Six Months Old (Charlie's Monthly Photo)

In the last month, Charlie has gone from a pretty decent tummy time head/shoulders lift to hands-and-knees, rocking... ready to crawl!



I bet he'll be crawling in the next month.  He seems to have skipped sitting, though.  I hope he gets to the point where he wants to sit for a while.  He's definitely mobile, in any case.  He can scooch several feet if he's properly motivated.



I love his happy face.



He is truly one of the happiest babies I've seen.  He's not as ticklish as Oliver was at this age, but still he's pretty darn ticklish!  His legs especially.  And he loves being thrown up into the air and being kissed on the neck.  He loves lying down and having us play with this legs, "running them" up and down and making silly faces.



He seems to get a kick out of when Lucy carries him.  She's perfected the technique, with one hand under his bottom and the other behind his back, carrying him on her little 4 year old "hip."  Maybe he likes it because he can see me looking down at him from over her shoulder.



He's napping 2 to 3 times a day now.  Still sleeping great through the night, about 10 hour stretches.  My milk production has dropped a bit, but thankfully he's more patient than Lucy was at this age.  At least he doesn't scream and kick while we're both waiting for his lunch to come.




I think he's 14 pounds now, which puts him on the lower end, percentile-wise.  Tracey, our swim coach, calls him a little peanut.  Speaking of that, he's finished 2 weeks of swim lessons and is doing great!  He'll be floating consistently in no time.




He's very sweet during his lesson. He cries a little--his pitiful, sad cry.  But often he just puts his head down on her shoulder and is still and quiet.  Unfortunately, swim lessons are the same time as his morning nap, so he's often pretty tired during them.  He's fallen asleep mid-lesson before.



Charlie, you are just a charming, sweet, fun, adorable baby who is so well loved by your siblings and parents.  We are so glad to be raising you and loving you and can't wait to get to know you even better as you grow!

First Gymnastics Exhibition

Lucy's been in gymnastics since age 2.  So has Elliot.  But we've resisted these exhibitions for a over a year.  Something turns me off about the whole "everybody gets a medal" thing, especially at such a young age, when I want our kids to think gymnastics is a fun thing to do--not an arena of competition.

Lucy, making her "what the heck are we doing" face during beginning stretches

But having said that, it was fun seeing Lucy and Elliot participate in their first gymnastics exhibition!!



Lucy had been referring to this event as "the gymnastics party," I think because she had heard each participant would receive a goodie bag.



I had to correct her a couple times -- that it is more like a fancy gymnastics class with all the parents present.



Still, I think she wasn't sure what to expect.



Elliot seemed to really enjoy it.  Apparently the instructors reminded the kids frequently throughout the exhibition that only kids who sat patiently on their bottoms between events would receive goodie bags.




All the kids were quite well behaved!  Even some little friends who frequently have a hard time in class did really well at the exhibition.



Lucy was awarded the "special acknowledgement" trophy for the four year olds.

Elliot accepting his medal and ribbons

I'm not 100% sure what criteria is met for the awarding of a trophy at this age, and Lucy didn't seem to understand why one might want a trophy.

Lucy with her trophy, making her slightly embarrassed "this is silly, I'm getting off of here" face

But we were excited for her nonetheless.



Daniel was a champ with Oliver.  I held Charlie a lot of the time.




Oliver was a pretty good sport for most of the exhibition, but it's kind of long - - almost 2 hours.  And Oliver and Charlie were both ready to go when it was over.



The three year olds were also awarded traditional gymnastics straw fedora hats and windmills.  They were pretty pleased with their winnings.  Overall, the kids seemed most excited about the candy in their goodie bags.

But Lucy did seem amused with her trophy, as well.  We took a picture of her with it that night to send to the papas, the nonnis, and the mimis who weren't able to make it.

Visiting Betty

Betty is our new friend.



We've known her a couple months now.  We visit her every Wednesday at a senior living facility in town.



She loves my kids.  She calls them her babies.  It's unclear whether she knows their names, so I repeat them often.




Our kids are reserved, and I was concerned about tossing them into a new environment with someone new... who might want them to give hugs before they're inclined to.



I'm grateful that Charlie doesn't have separation anxiety yet.  He usually sits contentedly in Betty's lap while she watches the older kids play with various toys.



Although she really engages well with the older ones, and they have warmed up to her significantly over the past several weeks.



It's interesting watching the very young interact with the very old.  Her memory slips often, so we stay in the present moment.  But sometimes the kids are confused by what she says, and I try to explain as simply as possible that sometimes when people get older, they forget where they are or with whom they're talking.



A few weeks ago, one of my little helpers was assisting me, wheeling Betty into the dining room while two of the other kids sat on her lap.  We hit a large bump, and everybody spilled out of the wheelchair.  I was horrified.  Mortified.  Terrified she was hurt--or one of the kids.  But mercy of all mercies... everyone was fine!  Oh.  my.  goodness.  We've navigated that bump a few more times since then--with no incident--but it still causes a visceral reaction when I even just notice it as I walk by.  We must have had angels around us that day.



I'm completely in awe of the mommy who started this ministry, pairing young moms with senior residents.




There was a dedication of the room--Hal's Hangout--a couple weeks ago.  It was such a fun celebration!



We planted an iris for our resident, ate hot dogs, and played with a parachute.



Our friends Asha and Alex were there, too, so we got to enjoy a nice picnic with Betty and our friends.



The kids were trying so hard to play "Ring Around the Rosie," but they couldn't quite get the walking in a circle part.  They kept walking across the grass in a big blob, holding hands.



I hope Betty is around for a long time.  We really like spending time with her.



And I think she really likes spending time with us.