magrilless

Fantesstic Friday

I’m convinced (again) that Tessa is teething. She’s so chewy. And she just doesn’t seem quite herself at certain parts of the day. (Although as Bill points out, babies are never really the same person as they were the day before; everything changes so fast.) Plus, I can make a little white line appear on her gums if I look at them long enough. Of course I have a good imagination, so who knows really. I guess we just keep taking things one nap at a time.

Speaking of sleeping, last night was Tessa’s first night unswaddled. We were prepared for disaster and figured an early Friday morning would be only one workday until the weekend, when we could still have two more interrupted nights without Bill firing all his research students in favor of sleeping in his office during the day. Anyway, she did great! She woke up a couple of times, but managed to put herself back to sleep twice. I did end up waking up at 3:30 and staying up, but we’ve had nights like that with swaddling going on. All in all, she’s headed in the right direction for sure. It’s simply getting too warm to be swaddled up all night and she loves sucking on her fingers so much we wanted to make those available to her mid-night.

Next projects: Napping during the day in her crib instead of her stroller (which is to say, getting to where she can sleep as long in her crib as her sometimes-3-hour stroller naps). Trying cereal again (she is definitely interested in eating; now her tummy has to agree to it). Loving her up. She is just the sweetest!

Best teether ever: soaker hose

Fantesstic Friday

Tessa has turned into quite the chatty cathy. Bill and I were shopping in an appliance store in the mall while she was hanging out in the atrium and we could clearly hear her squealing and singing and carrying on. It’s pretty great. It makes my Maggie-Tessa-talking-buddies theory all the more plausible. Tessa sure does watch Maggie like a hawk, and I think we have trouble on our hands!

Today was a big day for Tess. I gave her her first bites of “solid” food. Solid is such an optimistic term, since it’s mostly breast milk with a little bit of rice cereal to make it stick to the spoon. She’s been watching us eating and seems like she’s interested in mealtimes, so I decided to go for it. Plus, maybe she’ll sleep for longer periods of time at night with some more sustenance in her tummy. As you can see from the pictures, though, I’m not sure she’s such a fan of the whole thing. If her digestive system doesn’t object, we’ll try again tomorrow and see how things go. Grown up!

//www.youtube.com/get_player

Maggnificence

Maggie is growing up growing up growing up. She’s getting more independent and skillful (she likes to use the bathroom all by herself without any help or peering eyes now); able to follow complicated instructions (like “find me a bib for Tessa in the clean clothes in my room which are in the hamper next to the bed”); and taking initiatives (bringing her dishes into the kitchen without being asked). Her teacher at school is constantly bragging about her smarts (for instance, she can recognize the written names of all her classmates). She is a stronger hiker and biker than her peers or kiddos even older than she is. Soccer didn’t turn out to be a super good fit for her (at their last game Maggie did get a dribble in, but it was toward the wrong goal). Generally she just flitted around the field looking off to who-knows-where, if she was on her feet at all, and turned her head to me in interest when she would hear me screaming to chase the ball. Maybe it’s an age thing. And, boy, can she ever remind us that she’s three years old and perhaps our expectations shouldn’t be quite too high. Especially the day after a school day. Hoo, doggy. But in general, she is an outstanding kid and we love being around her every day.

Here is a sampling of her recent activities:

Yoga at the library. She did great for about half an hour and then decided she needed some less structured movement.

Maggie dressed herself for dinner. Crown, ladybug wings, dress, bracelet, sparkly skirt, tutu, and magic wand make a beautiful ensemble.

She hiked the Hogsback up the street from our house without being carried. It’s a steep sucker of a hill, with 825 feet of vertical gain in one mile. She did great!

And afterward looked like this.

And it’s about time for Mags to graduate from her pedalless Strider bike to a pedal bike. We got this one for free from a friend, but it’s a bit too big. The one we found in a bike store was $250. So we’ll either save our pennies, wait until she’s tall enough for this guy, or find something at a garage sale in the meantime. She’s very proud of this, though, and tells anyone on a bike, “I have a pedal bike in the garage! It’s too big for me though. But I’m going to ride with pedals just like you! I’m Maggie and I’m three and a half. My birthday is in November. This is my baby, Tessa.” And then to me if they don’t respond, “I guess they were concentrating.” (Did I mention she’s not shy?)

Trivia Time

The other day we were on a walk, and someone asked if I would tell a story. I was feeling a little tapped of creativity, so I started a tale about the magical kingdom of England. This island has a Queen Elizabeth, a King William (a few liberties were taken), a Prince Harry, and a Princess Kate. At which point someone interrupted the story to ask why Kate is still referred to as Kate Middleton. “Don’t you think she would have taken the name of William? So she should be Kate … um … ?”

And we realized that we had no idea what is the surname of the British royal family. Does anyone know what it is without doing any research? (We googled it and now know, but is anyone out there smarter than we are about HRH?)

Fantesstic Friday

There’s been a bit of a sleep strike going on over here. Tess has been taking a lot longer to go back to sleep at night, so there have been a couple of mornings when I wake up at 3:30 and that’s that. And we’ve sort of been taking the easy way out for nap time: the stroller. Tessa will sleep for hours in there, whereas her crib results in short and interrupted sleep. One day we’ll have to bite the bullet and get her to be comfortable in there. It’s so tempting to use that stroller!

She’s still the sweetest thing, though. She may be awake and awake and awake, but she’s darling almost all the time. And still continues to be fascinated and entranced by Maggie. I do think they will be good friends.