Our Kiddos

Our kids are really cute... most of the time. We have had some fun times over the past week or so. Check it out:

Eddie went on a pony ride at the Thanksgiving Point Farm. He wore his cowboy boots and his Woody vest and insisted that I not walk alongside him the whole time.

I think that pretty soon Violet will be as big as Eddie is. Then he'll get a little taste of his own medicine. For now, Violet adores her brother.

Violet is such a dainty little girl. She holds her hands out like that a lot. I am excited that the weather was finally cool enough yesterday and today for her to wear some of her long sleeve shirts before she grows out of them.

Yesterday, the kids and I took a walk and arrived home just as it started pouring rain. Eddie said he had to get in his cave to be safe from the thunder and the rain.

Violet puts up with a lot from Eddie.

Too Fast

I think as the parent of more than one child, it is impossible to not compare the kids in some respects. While Eddie had low muscle tone and gross motor delays, Violet definitely does not. Since we went through physical therapy with Eddie and he didn't crawl until 11 months and didn't walk until 14 months, we had plenty of time to prepare ourselves for it.

Violet, on the other hand, is giving us no time. She is just ready to go. It has only been a week since we lowered the crib mattress one notch after she learned to sit up by herself. Then yesterday, she surprised us all by learning to pull herself to standing. Since then, we have found her standing in her crib several times, so we had to lower the mattress the rest of the way today so she wouldn't fall out. She hasn't quite figured out how to pull herself up on all the furniture (where she can't get a good grip), but keeps trying to stand unsupported. It won't be long before she starts climbing the stairs and walking, which is a little scary.

Trying to climb into the tub with Eddie

I also suspect that Violet is starting to learn some words. I think that she sometimes says "Eddie," but nobody else has heard it, so I could just be hearing things. She also says "Dada" a lot, and when asked "Where's Dada?" she will look at Dave.  But I'm not sure if she only says it in reference to him. Seriously, she is growing up way too fast.

Sitting & Sleeping

Over the last week, Violet learned to sit up on her own! I went in to get her up from her nap last Tuesday and she was sitting in her crib with a big smile. Since then she has practiced a lot and is becoming more and more mobile by the day. She likes to get onto her hands and knees and bounce, and we suspect she will start crawling soon.


We also started sleep training last week. I had just started reading Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Dr. Richard Ferber and the very first example he gave described our problems with Violet perfectly. Apparently she had some less than ideal sleep associations we needed to break, like being held by her momma in order to get to sleep. So we are working on teaching her to fall asleep on her own. The first night, she cried for 25 minutes before going to sleep. The second night, she only cried for 7 minutes. Some nights she'll go to sleep without crying at all. One of the other associations we had to break was how she liked to hold my hair while she fell asleep. We found her a small doll with yarn hair to replace me and now she sleeps holding Dora's hair. And when she wakes up in the night, we just give her Dora, pull her blanket back up, and she generally goes back to sleep on her own. I was amazed at how quickly her sleep improved, which makes life easier for all the rest of us, too.

Seven Months Old

Today, Violet is seven months old!

She has started eating more baby food (probably because I am making it a point to remember to give it to her). She loves bananas, pears, peaches, and sweet potatoes. She is not too keen on the cereal, though. I had to start buying the baby food that already has a grain mixed in. We even gave her formula for the first time the other day, just to see how she handled it. She drank it just fine, which makes me less anxious about leaving her for longer periods of time in the future.

Violet's personality gets funnier every day. She has started making the occasional fishy face. Sometimes she will bust up laughing about nothing at all. She loves most other kids and loves to watch Eddie and the neighbor kids play outside. She loves to be outside, so in the evenings when she is tired and fussy, but we're not ready for her to go to bed, we go out on the lawn for a while.

One of Violet's favorite things is my hair. She loves to hold it and pull it and run her fingers through it while she's falling asleep. She likes when I have pigtails because it gives her a big chunk of hair on one side to hold while I carry her around.

Violet still has no teeth and hasn't started crawling, but we imagine both those things could change any day. She still does not sleep through the night and I have big plans to start sleep training as soon as I know we'll be home for at least a solid week to establish a routine. I am setting myself up for the worst case scenario: that she will scream for 2+ hours each night before falling asleep and keep that up for at least 2 weeks. Then if it works faster, we'll be pleasantly surprised.


As far as I can tell, Violet's growth hasn't leveled off yet. I keep waiting for it to, but I'm afraid to buy any clothes for the future because she might be wearing toddler sizes before too long. Right now she fits in 12-18 month sizes and I've started buying 24 month stuff for fall and winter. Hopefully as soon as she starts moving, she'll stop growing so much for a little while.

Riding in Style

As you may recall, we gave Eddie a tricycle for his second birthday. We tried to teach him how to ride it, but no matter how much we tried, he didn't seem to get it before the winter came. I was starting to wonder if he was a little too uncoordinated. Then when I took him in for his three year well-check this year, the doctor told me that he should now be developmentally ready to learn to pedal. I wish I'd known that a year ago.

So Eddie spent this summer actually learning to ride his trike, despite looking like he could barely fit on it any more. Once he got the hang of the pedaling and could ride it without one of us behind him to push him every three feet, I got thinking about upgrading him to a real bike. Lucky for us, our friends Steve & Melissa just upgraded their son to the next size of bike, so they let us have his old 12-inch one (thanks guys). They brought it over last week, much to Eddie's delight.

After a couple of trips outside to practice, Eddie has gotten really good at riding. His biggest problems are his shoes having no traction on the bottom (so his feet slide off the pedals), the back tire having no traction (completely expected in a three year old's bike with pedal brakes), and learning to pedal without engaging the brakes. Dave patiently walked around and around the courtyard with Eddie as he learned to pedal and showed his "brand newer than yours" bike off to all the other kids. Every time he'd accidentally pedal backward and hit the brakes, Eddie would angrily say, "Hey! Who did do that?"

Now we've gotten him some new shoes and a new back tire, so he should be able to ride with ease. And we bought him a stylish new Batman helmet and bell that match his bike beautifully. He really is riding in style.

Lagoon

Last week, we went with some friends to Lagoon. It had been almost two years since the last time we went and we had high hopes that Eddie would be more adventurous this time around. He was and it was fun to see him go on rides by himself. He said they were fun, but it was difficult to judge based on his facial expressions, which looked like a mixture of fear and concentration.

He told us later that Bulgy the Whale was his favorite.

Luckily, he had some friends to ride with. Here he is with Lucy on Moonraker.

Violet spent the time lounging in the stroller looking hot and sleepy.

A First

Today Violet experienced a first: being stung by a wasp. She was stung twice on her hand and it took me a few minutes to realize that she was shrieking with good reason. At first, her whole hand turned red and swelled up, but after about an hour, the redness and swelling started to go away. I take this to mean that she is not allergic.

Motor Mouth

These days, Eddie asks a lot of questions. And I mean A LOT of questions. This makes watching a movie with him a little ridiculous -- even movies he has seen 800 times already. To let you experience this first-hand, I decided to make a list of everything Eddie said during the first ten minutes of his first viewing of Despicable Me.

"What happened?"
"Dere he is."
"There he is."
"What's wrong wif her?"
"What happened?"
"Where is he driving?"
"Where is he driving?"
"Where is he in?"
"What was he in?"
"His giant car!"
"What's in his house?"
"What's wrong with him?"
"What is he doin'?"
"Where is he going?"
"Where is he going?"
"What are those kids doin'?"
"What are they going to do in this movie?"
"Where they at?"
"What is he doin'?"
"They're at the movie theater."
"Where's he going?"
"He's gonna steal the moon!"

By my calculations, Eddie said something every 27.2 seconds. Now I understand why parents learn selective listening.

Swimming Lessons

Eddie completed his first level of swimming lessons last week. He did a great job and is now much more comfortable in the water than he was when he started. Since we were leaving town immediately following swimming lessons on Friday, Dave came with us and got some photos of Ed in the pool.

One of Eddie's biggest problems when it comes to swimming lessons is his inability to remember what he is NOT supposed to be doing. The class sits on the steps and the teacher takes one kid at a time to swim them around. Almost every time the teacher's back was turned, Eddie would start doing something ridiculous. This time, however, he just took the opportunity to practice his kicks.

Then it was Ed's turn to swim on his back. Look at those graceful kicks... Eddie's other big problem with swimming lessons: he doesn't remember to keep his legs straight when he kicks.

Eddie got his form pretty good on floating, though he still isn't confident enough to float on his own. Maybe next summer he'll get that down.

Eddie is sad that swimming lessons are over, but I am not. Watching Eddie during swimming lessons filled me with anxiety bad enough to make my stomach ache. Because of this, I decided not to sign him up again this summer, but to wait until next year. Hopefully by then, he'll be better about remembering the rules.

Six Months Old

Saturday was Violet's 6 month mark! Eddie and I took her in to see the pediatrician today. She now weighs 18 pounds, 1 ounce (86th percentile) and is 27 inches long (88th percentile). And she has her very first ear infection.

Violet continues to be a joy for us. She is a very happy girl (when she's not sick) and she puts up with a lot of "love" from her brother. She is extremely active and I often check on her in the night and find one or more of her limbs poking out between the crib slats because she rolls around so much. Here are some new things she does:

Kisses

She has started giving kisses, sort of. Eddie thinks it is hilarious to put his face right in front of her so she'll lean forward and suck on his nose or his cheek or his hair.

Dancing

When music starts playing, she gets this look of concentration on her face and starts swaying forward and back. It is pretty darn cute.

Sitting

Violet is suddenly a very stable sitter. Her biggest problem comes when she bends completely in half to reach something and ends up falling on her face instead. Usually she doesn't mind. She just rolls out of it and rolls around the room.

And here are some of her new favorite things:

Eddie's Toys

Luckily, we haven't run into too many conflicts about toys yet, but I'm sure it is coming. Violet has baby toys that she plays with if that is what is available, but if she has her choice, she always goes for action figures and matchbox cars. She especially likes Man (made famous here) and Eddie's blue Batman. She also enjoyed playing with Ken at Grammy's house last weekend. Her current favorite of Eddie's toys seems to be My Pal Scout, a talking, singing dog. When Scout starts to sing, Violet stops crying and starts to dance!

Baths/Swimming

Violet loves to splash. The two times she has been in the pool, she has loved it. She tries to swim away and is not afraid to put her face in the water. In Grammy's pool on Saturday, she sat in the baby float and kicked herself all around the pool.