My first post of 2011….one of the many New Year’s resolutions/projects that I set for myself this year was to update (or in Sophia’s case START!) the kids’ baby books. I had done a pretty good job with Evan’s up until he was two years old. Actually, I had been keeping a fairly lengthy journal on Evan for the first two years of his life – when I had
3-4 hour nap periods to myself. Then I started back to work at UMS when Ev turned two and those journal entries just disappeared! Never mind Sophia….I have filled out about 3 pages of her baby book from the hospital stay, but that is it! I guess that is typical of 2nd children. As I went back to fill some things in for Sophia’s book last night, I realized I had the idea to go back to my blog postings and figure out when her first smile was, when she got her first tooth – and I realized just how important these blog postings are – I actually have started printing out the blog so I have a hard copy to just put in her book (save me some time too from copying everything over!!) So my goal is to try to post at least one long, newsy post per month so that I can look back in the future and remind myself of what life was like that month with the kids – and of course for all the relatives/friends who are interested to see what the kids are up to as well! Here goes….
2011 is off to a busy start - We had a wonderful Christmas this year, and feel very blessed for all that 2010 brought us. We began the New Year with a wonderful visit from Mom and Dad Pelletier. They were very brave to make the drive to visit us this time of year, but actually the weather was seasonably warm while they were here – even reaching 60 degrees a couple of times – with no snow fall while they were here! The kids loved having them here (as did Jeff and I) but the kids really had fun playing games, digging for dinosaur bones, wrestling with Pepere, and nightly stories with Grandma. We mostly stayed close to home, playing with all the new Christmas gifts, but we did venture out one afternoon to do some sledding and we also spent New Year’s Day at Edaville Railroad for the Festival of Lights. We all enjoyed that trip – it was in the 40’s, maybe even 50’s for a bit that afternoon so it made it bearable to be outdoors for several hours, and we left right after dark before it got too cold.
Since Grandma and Pepere’s departure we have been busy with the normal daily activities like school, and some new ones as well. Ev started the winter session of swim class at the “Y” last week and is loving it – surprise surprise! I love seeing that huge grin on his face that he gets when he’s in the water…such a fish. He’s learning the crawl stroke and they are swimming the entire length of the pool in the lap lanes with kickboards. He’s doing great! Ev also started indoor tee-ball at the “Y” and he says he like it. He’s only had one class so far, as the second class was cancelled due to yet ANOTHER snow storm! Up until we got hit with the stomach bug last week, we had been going to the kids’ gym at the “Y” almost daily – we got a family membership this year and the kids have had a ball in the kids gym – which is complete with a bouncy house and lots of other fun things for the cold winter days. It’s been a great way for us to expend our pent-up energy.
Evan also lost his first three teeth recently – in December – his bottom three center teeth. Two news ones are already almost completely in place too! And lastly, I have begun to fill out the 20-page Kindergarten registration form for Ev that needs to be submitted. I honestly cannot believe that my baby boy is going to be starting kindergarten next year. It has been an emotional couple of nights this week, as I have been pouring over the paperwork, trying to picture Ev going off on the school bus and off to school on his own. I am glad I have another 7 months to get used to the idea!
And now for Sophia……she seems to do something new every day! I think the biggest thing with Sophia these days is her growing vocabulary. She is trying so many new words – in fact, she’ll try anything – her favorites seem to be three syllable words like ladybug, basketball, bumblebee….this morning she repeated every color crayon in the box for me – and is trying to say please and thank you. She is starting to make many of the animal sounds like moooo, baaaaa if you ask her which sounds different animals make. She’s climbing now – up on the couch, up her mini-slide, and is going up and down the cellar stairs on her own, either on her bum, or on her knees. She also walked up the stairs the other day just holding onto the railing. There’s no stopping her!
She is sleeping great – we had gone through a stretch where she was waking VERY early – like the entire fall/early winter it seemed she was up between 5:30-6:30 (which as you know for me is very early!) She was also waking at night for a bit, but we think it was because she had a couple colds. However, knock on wood, she has been sleeping straight through the night with no crying, and waking around 7am for the last couple of weeks. She has also been transitioning from two naps to one nap for the last month or so. Of course her nap schedule has been wishy/washy on school days anyways since September since pick-up is smack dab in the middle of when she would normally be having a morning nap, so on those days she rarely got two good naps anyways. But for the last two weeks I have been keeping her up all morning and putting her down around noontime (non school days) and around 1:30/2:00 on school days and she has been sleeping for a good 2.5-3 hours. This seems to be working out well for her and for me. We can now go off in the mornings to the “Y” or for a playdate and then spend the afternoons home, resting. The other big news with Sophia is that she has completely given up her bottles. She now just drinks milk in her sippy cups, mostly just with meals. As it was with Evan, it was a much easier transition than I thought it would be. She honestly didn’t even seem to notice that I stopped giving them to her! I think that is about all that is new with Sophia right now. She generally continues to be a good-natured, sweet, snuggly and very well-behaved little girl, with a bit of rascal in her – as Grampy said last night, “she’s full of vinegar!” We have been very lucky. Let’s hope the good times continue!!!
And for the parents in the family, Jeff and I are doing well too. Jeff’s been very busy at work and his travel schedule is heating up again now that the holidays are behind us. I have been working lots too – project work from home for UMS….putting in as many hours as I can during any spare time I have. Between the kids and work there’s really not much time for much else with us parents these days – I know, we’re pretty boring! Such is life with small kids right now!
