2028ndgrads: June 2008

Kelsey turns 10 weeks old today. Addison and Lily will turn 2 on Saturday. Wow.

Here are some notes on what our brilliant children are doing.

Kelsey: she has had 2 nights of really lengthy sleep. One night she went 8 hours and another she went 10 hours. But alas, most nights she sleeps 6 hours straight followed by another 4 hours straight. Her schedule during the day has not gotten straightened out. We'll have a couple of days that seem like she is establishing a pattern (short nap, long nap, short nap) then we'll have a day like today...wake up, eat, stay awake for 1 hour, sleep for 45 minutes, wake up, eat, stay awake for 1 hour, sleep 45 minutes, and repeat all day long. Kelsey generally goes right to sleep for her naps, but for the past week has a hard time going to sleep at night. Well, she'll go to sleep while Mike or I are holding her, and seems asleep when we put her into her bed, but 5-20 minutes later she is back awake again.

Kelsey is starting to tolerate tummy time more. And she is getting pretty good at lifting her head about 45 degrees. She can hold her head up pretty well when she is sitting, but she's not quite ready for the bumbo chair. She's starting to find the fish and bubbles on the bouncy seat interesting and is quite good at kicking the fish to keep the music going. She LOVES being on her exercise mat and looking at the black and white stripes and polka dots.

Kelsey has been giving us big smiles for a couple of weeks now. And in the past few days we have caught her giving us a chuckle or two.

Lily continues to love singing. She's been singing the ABCs for over a month now. She also sings twinkle twinkle little star and several other favorites. Lily is starting to understand that language is a powerful thing. Just a few weeks ago if Addison would try to "trade" a toy with her and Lily didn't want to trade, Lily would just start crying. We've explained to her that she should just say "No thank you, Addison." Some of that crying has stopped, but Lily still seems to get her feelings hurt quite easily. About a month ago, Mike made a loud elephant sound. It scared Lily quite a bit and she still talks about Daddy's scary elephant sound. Mike, Jessi and I are sure that Lily's pronounciation is improving. We are hearing more intelligible D, L and S sounds.

Addison is quite the avid reader these days. And apparently all books begin "One day..." Addison is beginning to read the letters in words correctly from left to right (Lily tends to go right to left), but all words still tend to be spell Addison. Yesterday Addison introduced us to a new species of animal...the kangaloupe. Apparently a cantaloupe is really a cross between a kangaroo and an antelope. Addison is discovering a love of singing as well. But she tends to combine all songs into one. It is something like ABCD...Baby Baluga...Hello, Hello.

Addison and Lily have started really playing together. They play ring around the rosies. When they sing, it goes something like this "Ring nnnnround rosies. Ashes. Ashes. Wiff wiff down." When they finish singing they see who can push or pull the other down first. They also have created their own game. We still are not sure what it is called...something like Sackorilla. Basically each grabs a hold of the end of Lily's sleep sack and they pull one another around. Unfortunately they tend to pull each other into other objects. Lily has collided with our bed and Addison the chest at the foot of our bed.

Addison and Lily have a daily trip to see the horsies. Two different people have horses down at the end of our street, so A & L get a stroller ride to see them. They will also see an occasional deer. It is always interesting to ask what color the deer was. Red seems to be the popular choice. Lily always seems sad when she has to say that the "deer ran away".

Since Kelsey has joined our family, Addison and Lily have become quite maternal. For at least a month they have both occasionally gently rocked and/or bounced their babies. Just today they both started breastfeeding their ND tigers. They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery...

I'm also proud to say that both Lily and Addison can correctly answer the question "How old are you?" Lily will very quickly say "two". Addison is a bit slower to respond and her answer goes something like this: "How old are you, Addison?" (pause) "TWOOO-OOO". "Very good Addison" (brief pause) "THREEEE-EEE" "FOOOOURRR"

Here are a couple videos of Kelsey and Lily to show how brilliant our children are:

Kelsey "Talking"