Things we never thought we'd say

"Juniper, please don't roll the meatball on your face."

"Because it's gross."

Point A (book) to Point B (grown up who will read to me)

Amazing how quickly she went from this...



...to this.



You may notice that the skin on Hazel's face looks odd in the crawling video. She's had a rough winter: multiple ear infections, a rash that was maybe a reaction to amoxicillin or maybe roseola, a strep infection of the skin (rash #2), and a third rash that settled debate on the first one by confirming that Hazel really is allergic to amoxicillin. You can see a bit of the strep rash in the crawling video. Thankfully she is a cheerful child and has stayed generally happy despite her maladies.

Sleeping

Aaron recently uploaded a bunch of photos from his camera and was surprised to discover this one. "When did you take this?" I'm not sure why he sounded so surprised. We have a large and growing collection of sleeping Juniper pictures; like her father, she could probably sleep through a marching band. Before Christmas, Aaron went in one night and took Juniper's chest measurements for her superhero costumes; we had no qualms that she would be disturbed by someone lifting her up and wrapping a measuring tape around her. Juniper wins the award for heaviest sleeper, but Aaron takes the prizes for being the quickest to fall asleep. He'll often lie down with Juniper "for just a few minutes" and wind up taking a nap himself.



Hazel, on the other hand, is the light sleeper in a family of logs. We go to great lengths to avoid disturbing her when she is asleep. When we do have to enter the room where she is sleeping, she typically pops out of bed as soon as we open the door. On those very rare occasions when we catch her asleep, Aaron and I will huddle next to the bed in hushed wonder at the sight of our sleeping child.

Shangri-La

Aaron and I feel like we have made it to the promised land. This photo was taken one morning right after Hazel woke up--in the room that she and Juniper now share. (Juniper, our heavy sleeper, is still conked out in her bed.) The girls are sleeping well together, and we have our room back to ourselves.

We've known all along that the girls would one day share a room, and Hazel was clearly ready to move out of our bedroom. However, we were concerned that the transition would be difficult because Hazel is such a light sleeper. We hemmed and hawed and discussed solutions for imagined problems. We debated and dithered about the optimal strategy for how to manage the girls' shared bedtime. And then, about a week ago, we stopped dithering, gave up on optimizing, and decided to wing it and see what happened. Our final strategy was to set up the pack and play and put Hazel in it and let the bedtime routine work itself out.

There is much to be said for parenting the path of least resistance and trusting that if you get out of your kids' way, everything will be just fine. There have been a few days when one (or both) of them was sobbing when we left the room, but they've settled down quickly and seem to take some genuine comfort from the other's presence in the room. There have been a few days when one of them was up a little bit later than ideal because the other wasn't ready for bed on time, but no one was the worse for it. There have even been a few perfect days when everyone was ready for bed on time and no one cried.

Ladybug Girl, Jr.

Walking - for real!

Hazel took her first steps on MLK day and then spent the next few weeks showing basically no interest in walking. She would occasionally take a step or two when coaxed, tricked, or distracted, but she definitely was not using walking as a productive means of getting anywhere. Two weeks later when Aaron left for a trip to Virginia, he still hadn't seen her take any steps. While Aaron was gone (Saturday Feb. 4, to be exact), Hazel flipped some internal on switch and decided that walking is the way to go. And now she walks.

Apologies for the noise on the video; it was a very windy day. I believe there's actually a spot in the video where Hazel tries to tell the wind "all done."

Early reader

Hazel has loved hearing stories and flipping the pages of board books for months. Recently, her enjoyment of books has expanded. She will point to pictures in the books, sometimes pointing out an object she recognizes, sometimes with an inquisitive "einh?" When she sees an animal that she recognizes, she'll often make the sound for that animal. (Her sheep's "baa" is exemplary; her cows have no vowels and simply say "mmmm.")

This evening before bed, we read the delightful Is Your Mama a Llama? When she turned to the page with a seal mama, Hazel got a giant smile on her face and began excitedly clapping. (Sometimes she manages the clap+bark for what a seal says, but it's usually just the clap.) She was completely unwilling to turn the page, so we spent a few minutes clapping and barking and pointing out the seal. Finally, I was ready to move along with the story and put her to bed, so I took over her regular job and turned the page. She spent the rest of the book trying to flip backwards and had no interest in turning the pages the way I wanted her to. (She was still happy to point out the various animals on the different pages.) When we finished the story, I gave Hazel the book. She started and the beginning and deliberately turned page by page until she found what she wanted - the seal!

4 year wait

Janet has a funny track record of giving Juniper socks that are way too big. She got these socks when Juniper was less than two weeks old. At the time, Aaron and I could hardly imagine that our baby's tiny feet would ever be big enough to wear such monstrously giant socks. Almost four years later, they're finally wearable, if still big (note the heel).

Superhero training

Objective: Become Batman when I grow up.

Step 1: Wear Batmany colors (black, gray, navy, purple, etc.) - check
Step 2: Acquire utility belt and fill with gadgets - check
Step 3: Learn to be an acrobat - in process

Juniper recently began taking gymnastics at the Y. She's enjoying it and is very excited about learning some useful superhero skills. (We considered signing her up for karate or some other martial art, but the starting age at most places seems to be 4. Also, we're not sure that Juniper is quite able to make the distinction between kicking people for sport/pretend and really kicking. When Aaron tried to explain the idea behind martial arts, she was horrified and just kept telling him that "kicking people is bad.")


If Aaron were here, he would tie me up to stop me from posting such terrible quality photos to our blog. However, he is in Virginia on a work trip, and all blame for these shoddy iPhone photos rests with me.