Day: July 14, 2009

Part Two of the B. girls update.

L.’s full of tricks, too.

She’s crawling like a mad-girl, all over the place and getting fast enough to be dangerous. A week or two ago you could put her down on the floor, run to the other side of the room and get something done. Now, she’s on your heels the entire time. I had to pick her up and move her back to the living room three times tonight when I was doing dishes.

She’s also pulling up on everything that she can get her hands on. We have a push walker that she has suddenly started moving around. I don’t think walking is imminent, but I bet she’ll be closer to C.’s 11 months than M.’s 13 months for starting to walk.

Tooth number four is just pushing through her gums. All four front ones appear to be coming in normally. We’ve been working to move her towards solid foods, but most of the time she shows no interest. Which is weird, because when we first busted the cereals and baby foods out she went right at them. For the past few weeks, though, anytime we feed her she literally spits the food out at us. We may need to try some different flavors, although even the sweeter foods don’t seem to do the trick. She does enjoy the occasional Cheerio. She’s also a big fan of eating paper, which isn’t something I shared with the pediatrician at her nine-month check-up.

Then again, the spitting food may not be related to food at all. One of her favorite things to do is to crawl around, play with her toys, while spitting and making raspberry noises the entire time. She’ll do that for 10 minutes straight some times.

We won’t talk about sleeping. It looks like we’ll go 1-3 when it comes to good sleepers in this family.

When she’s not tired or hungry, she’s about the happiest baby in the world.* I think this is my favorite stage, around nine months when they get mobile and develop personalities and are delighted by everything. I love how she’s not just interactive, but initiates play now. It’s such a clear and enjoyable sign that she’s not going to be a baby for a whole lot longer. I’m going to enjoy the next six months or so before the whining kicks in.

(I believe I’ve said that with all three girls. We’ve been very fortunate.)

A long-overdue update on my crazy daughters, part one covering M. and C.

The last month has been dominated by swimming lessons and a new gymnastics class for the two big sisters. Each class reinforced much of what we already know about M. and C.’s personalities: M. is cautious to a fault while C. has no fear of anything physical.

For example, it took M. over three weeks of the four week swim lesson class to finally put her face in the water consistently. And even then she was just kind of bouncing in the water rather than kicking around like the other kids in her class. To be fair, she was by far the youngest kid in her class and most of the other kids seemed to be pretty comfortable and were learning how to actually swim. C., on the other hand, routinely dunked herself under the water and popped back up, screaming with delight. The last day of class, she even waded into the pool and kept going past the point where she was supposed to stop. She slipped, went under, and the lifeguard had to jump in to fish her out. If M. did that, she would avoid water for a month. Once C. stopped coughing, she was itching to wade back in again.

Still, M. did get a lot more comfortable in the pool. When we go to my in-laws’ pool, she now jumps in on her own and spends most of the time swimming around with the help of some water wings. Getting that comfort level is the most important thing at this age. Next year we can worry about learning strokes and whatnot. C., strangely enough, has become a little more cautious. I’m not sure if her going under spooked her, or if it’s just because the in-laws’ pool isn’t zero entry and she can’t keep her feet on the bottom, but she tends to stick around the steps and play there, and she doesn’t seem interested in jumping in from the side. Unlike M., she could use a good scare to teach her that she needs to pay attention to what she’s doing.

They started gymnastics the week we were in Mexico and have now been to three classes. They’re both in age-specific classes, but do basically the same things: tumble, walk on balance beams, jump on trampolines, swing on ropes and hop into foam pits, swing on rings, etc. They both love it, although again we see the differences in the two: C. is all-out all the time. She’s constantly running, jumping, rolling and the teachers often have to bring her back to the station they’re working at because she has wandered off to another area. M., as usual, always has one foot on the brake. When she heads down a runway towards a ramp to tumble, she runs full-speed, then comes to a stop at the ramp and carefully hoists herself up before summersaulting into the pit.

At the end of each class the kids climb onto a big net that hangs from the ceiling, wind their arms and legs through it, and then their teachers walk it back-and-forth so it swings. Then, they all get to pick a treat out of a candy basket. The first week I went, C. picked out a super sour jawbreaker. Her teacher asked her if she was sure that’s what she wanted, and C. said yes. The teacher said, “She would be the one to try that.” Of course she hated it, but even when it comes to sweets she’s fearless.

Those are the big activities we’ve planned for the summer. Swim lessons took up June. Gymnastics last until mid-August. We bust out the wading pool and water mat a couple times each week, and head to the in-laws’ pool about as often.

Fortunately, the girls play together really well. Most of the time. I have to yell at M. to stop telling C. what to say and do about 40 times a day. They’ll be playing in the other room and I’ll hear something like this:
M: “Let’s play Grandma. I’ll be the Grandma.”
C: “OK!”
M: “C., you say, ‘Grandma, I want some cake.'”
C: “Grandma, I want some cake.”
M: “OK, now say…”
D: “M.! Stop telling her what to say!”
M: “Sorry. C., say…”

They have games called both Grandma and Mama. I have no idea what the particulars of either game are, but they play them both each day. They also enjoy ripping leaves off of trees, collecting flowers that we’ve trimmed, and then “planting” them somewhere in the mulch. They don’t understand why we don’t have new trees and flowers sprouting from all over the place.

Coming in part two, an update on L..