7 Months

I guess all of my begging and pleading for time to slow down has not worked. bummer. My little chunk hit the 7 month mark this past Monday and apparently it has urged her to be mobile. Well, she's not really mobile yet, but she's thinking about it and practicing daily. If you put her on the rug with her toys, she'll be in the middle of the room on the hardwood floor within a few minutes. And that poor little nose has had some unfortunate meetings with the wood lately. I bet that I could become a millionaire if I produced and sold baby helmets - there are certainly enough nervous nilly's out there that would buy one. Kind of like really mini bike helmets.

At 7 months, we're experimenting with food. I use "experimenting" as opposed to "eating" because I'm not confident that much of the food makes it into her mouth as "eating" would suggest. Some days she likes food and other days she most certainly does not and she'll let you know with a very disgusted look on her face. So far, the fruits are not much of a hit but luckily the vegetables seem to go over better. Her favorite food by far is avocado followed closely by squash. And we'll through in Mangos as the 3rd most popular. Adrienne is still a huge fan of nursing so she gets most of her nutrition through milk still.

It seems that with each passing month, Adrienne gains new nicknames. Most recently, I've been calling her a gremlin because she's been making these low guttural noises - they are very funny but different than grunts. If she is in fact a gremlin, she's way cuter than Gizmo.

Here she is folks - sorry, no sign this month:

Christmas 2010

Whew! I'm only now writing this post on January 10th because it has taken me this long to recover from Christmas. Let's just say that I've been putting away Christmas gifts for days and I am still not done. As predicted, Luke and Adrienne received an astronomical amount of gifts. Everyone was unbelievably generous to them. One might think opening gifts with a 3.5 year old would take about 5 nanoseconds but with Luke, it takes hours. He was very distracted by each toy he opened and he wanted to sit down and play with it right then and there - forget the rest of the gifts. At least he fully appreciates each gift even if it takes a little longer. As for Adri, she enjoyed the wrapping paper as if it were one of the best things she's ever discovered - and maybe it is. She has an entirely, and I mean entirely, NEW wardrobe. Our games of dress up have been super fun - well, for me but I think she's getting a wee bit tired of it. She receive a "plumpy" baby doll and we all got a chuckle out of that. We actually had 2 Christmases because we celebrate with both the Hajjar and Zappia sides of the family. And boy does Luke enjoy doing it twice! It's good to be the first and second grandchildren on both sides :)

We took our tree down which was a little emotionally difficult for Luke. He thinks we should keep the tree up "the whole time." This is his new phrase. Quite frankly, the tree had to go asap because I was tired of the cat launching himself at it and Luke using our dainty glass icicle ornaments as drum sticks.

So the tree is down, the cookies have been devoured and the kids are back at school. 2010 was quite a busy year for us with a new baby a move half way across the country, a new job for Matt, preschool for Luke and so many other milestones. Thanks to everyone who helped us have a successful year and welcome 2011!

Adrienne is 6 months old!

My little (big) princess is 6 months old - breakout the half birthday kazoos! She's doing very well and is right on track developmentally. Size-wise, she's an overachiever. She's tipping the scales at 19 lbs and is 27.5 inches which puts her in the 95%ile for height and weight. I wonder if she'll even out or if she just takes after Matt? We've started solid foods and so far she has had AND likes: avocados, sweet potatoes, bananas and oatmeal. She really likes food - go figure. Today, I sent squash with her to daycare so I'm anxious to find out what she thought of it. I've been making all of her food in the magic bullet which is fantastic for making purees. The pediatrician wants her to be on meats at about 7 months which I think is a way to get her extra iron.

Luke is Adrienne's favorite entertainer - she laughs the most when Luke is playing with her. He's very good to her and even calls her "sweetie." The other day we were leaving G-ma and G-pa's house and G-pa was holding Adrienne when we were ready to go...Luke informed him "G-pa, we need Adrienne!"

We're getting ready for Christmas which is no small feat. We've enjoyed all of the holiday decorations that have come home from preschool and daycare. Yes, even Adrienne made an ornament this year - an angel, made out of a picture of her face, her foot print and hand print as part of the body and wings. Luke came home with a graham cracker house and a snowman tile ornament.



We are so excited to watch Luke open his presents this year as we know he will be extremely excited. I'm sure Adrienne will be equally excited to chew on some wrapping paper. We've got our reindeer food ready to put out and I'm sure Santa would enjoy some cookies and eggnog (his favorite!).

Wish us luck in our final week of Christmas prep - the most wonderful time of the year!

Lots of things

The 2010 holiday season is in full swing and Amazon is my new best friend. I'm a pretty social person by nature and I love shopping but I hate holidayshopping crowds. I went to the mall yesterday and it confirmed my love for Amazon. Matt gave me the green light yesterday to spend the whole day shopping *by myself* while he took both kids to Luke's gymnastics class and to his parents house. Of course (and I knew this would happen), while at gymnastics, he wore Adrienne in a baby carrier and all the other moms talked his ear off. I can only imagine what they were thinking when they saw giant Matt with a baby strapped to his body and handling a crazy toddler at the same time.

Lukey and Adri are going to get some pretty cool toys this year as if they don't already have enough. I now know how hard Santa worked all these years! Actually, today we got all of Luke's baby toys out of storage for Adrienne and it already seems like we've had Christmas! I'd forgotten about all the itty bitty baby toys and it makes me so happy to hear the little songs they sing again. Ah, they bring back such fond memories. So far Adrienne is most interested in the chew toys and the laugh n' learn table. Those darn teeth are giving Adrienne such hard time. I have a feeling they are about to start giving me a hard time as soon as they pop through!

I'm happy to report that Luke is still enjoying pre-school. This morning he woke up at 5:45 am and his first question was "Is Lukey going to go school today?" I told him that we all stay home on Sundays and his second question was "why?" And we are definitely in the "why?" stage. One of his teachers at school told me he asks the most questions - go figure! I can tell he's learning all kinds of things and he's also mimicking his teachers. He was playing Picasso the other day and I suggested he paint me a lake and he said, "That's a great idea!" Another school phrase he repeats often is "Why don't we try..." Anyway, we are really thrilled with his school and think that the Montessori philosophy is suiting him well.

Well, we are looking forward to Christmas and I'm sure it will sneak up very fast. There are sure to be many stories from Christmas morning from my little comedian, Luke! I'll try to sneak a post in before that though :)

Fridays

Upon my return from maternity leave, I started a reduced schedule at work. I work Monday - Thursday and have my Fridays off. I LOVE this schedule and the one day off makes such a significant difference in my work/life balance. In fact, I'm a little miffed at the over achiever who, way back in the day, decided we all needed to work 5 days a week. Because I've only been back to work for about 8 Fridays or so and because I've traveled about 5 of those Fridays, I don't have a real "plan" for how I'm going to handle my day off on a regular basis. And I should make the point now that while it is a day off from my career, it is not a day off from "work" because I "work" harder on Fridays than I do M-Th combined!

Hurry! Both kids are sleeping at the same time! Hurry!

Earlier in the day, I thought to myself that I'd surely take a nap if I won the sleep lottery and both kids napped at the same time. Well, here I sit, updating my blog because instead of a nap, the line above beginning with "Hurry!" crept into my mind and took over my nap time! All the to-do's need to magically get checked off the list and I have to do this in a ridiculously silent fashion. I feel like a muted tazmanian devil swirling about my house.

Whew, I am tired with a capital T! My day started off at 6:00 AM and with Luke around, there is no ramp up time. We've been go, go, going since the Luke alarm wrang and my feet hit the floor. I think it was around 8:30 AM when I thought it must be getting close to lunch time only to be in disbelief when I saw the clock. Today's lineup: match box car carwash (2x), wooden puzzles (x3), guitar and drums, hide and go seek, haircut, Wegman's, browning making, cleaning and nap. And that was all just for Luke, throw in taking care of Adrienne and that's a partial description of my day. Ah, I wouldn't trade it for the world!

We've got a great weekend ahead of us and we're looking forward to all of it happening in one city, Canandaigua! Last weekend we were in Richmond, VA for my cousin, Anna-Suzanne's Bat Mitzvah. We had a great time and the kids were angelic the whole weekend, included both 8 hour car rides. Luke had a blast at the dance parth, aka, the reception. He was leading a pack of about 6 older boys running circles around the reception with helium balloons in tow. About every 5 minutes, the Luke "commet" ran in and out of the main room like a flash.

One last little note...big girl is now rolling both ways :)

First Parent-Teacher Conference

I never realized that parent-teacher conferences were as much about the parents as they are about the child. Well, maybe this is more specific to pre-school but none the less, I kind of felt like we were being evaluated in addition to Luke. If you're wondering, we passed with flying colors, phew!

Luke's conference needed to get it's own post in the blog because there were so many things his teacher said that I'd love to relay to Luke in the future. Luke's teacher, Mrs. Robinson is clearly in love with Luke and it is also clear, that Luke only uses his best behavior at school (he saves some other behaviors just for us at home). Here's what she said:

-Luke has such a sweet personality and is always very caring toward other students
-socially, he's very outgoing, everyone enjoys him
-he's very intelligent (woot woot!)
-He acknowledges every adult when they come in a room with a greeting
-he's very curious - asks the most questions out of the kids in the class
-he's very persistent

Somethings to work on:
-pulling up his pants before he comes out of the bathroom (I was about to pee my pants when she said this)
-working independently ( he likes to do what the next kid is doing)

We talked a lot about Luke's behavior/personality as it relates to our parenting style. Mrs. Robinson and I talked a lot about Luke's curiosity and the way he expects to have an answer for everything. I told her that we let Luke be included in everything we do at home and that we don't "dumb" things down for him because he's a child. She said that because we are always giving him reasons for things, he expects to be given correct answers to his questions - which is a good thing. We also talked about his unwavering persistence. I told her that we have a very child-directed household - she giggled. Hey, some might call us crazy (or pushovers), but I think we are fostering the development of his leadership skills :)

All in all, Luke is doing very well at school which is a relief to me given all the transitions in his life in the past 4 months.

4 months

Well, my little princessa is 4 months old now and I feel like we are in a 'honeymoon" period. She's so sweet, well behaved, and 16 round pounds of pure heaven. She could improve on her sleep patterns but other than that, she's pretty much perfect, if I do say so myself.

In honor of her four month milestone, I've composed a haiku:

Her ways are so sweet
Her face I cannot resist
oh sleep, I miss you

As mentioned above, Adri is little bit of a porker and I mean that in the most endearing way. She's still topping the charts for height and weight. Her new pediatrician, having never met Matt, looked at me with strange curiousity and asked, "well, how big is her dad?" I told him, and he said "well, that explains it." I still have a feeling she might end up more on the other end of the spectrum like her mama.

Oh, the best thing happened today - my girl laughed! I was lifting her high in the sky, think Dirty Dancing lift, and when I brought her back to my lap she let out her first real giggle. The look on her face said "Again, again!" And because I wanted to hear more laughter, I probably made her dizzy with the amount of times she flew back into the sky.

And her she is:

3 Months Young

As you can see, Adrienne was a little upset about turning 3 months old. Or maybe it was just that she needed a new diaper!

You'll notice that she's rockin the retro style in these pictures. That little number last saw action about 30 years ago when her *clears throat*style idol wore it.

No surprise here, but Adrienne continues to host parties in the middle of the night. Sometimes, she even invites Luke. Otherwise, she's very easy going. She loves to cuddle and coo and smile - she has such a sweet pesonality. As I end this post, she's waking up from a brief snooze :)

1st Day of Preschool

My baby goes to school - ack! This officially makes me old - ack! I know I'm ridiculously smart and all but I thought that Luke might be able to learn a thing or two from other people as well. Little bucky is off to Montessori preschool 3 days a week and in a class with 7 other little buckies. As this is Luke's first time in a structured environment (and, um, he's not a very structured kid), I (Matt was in on it too) thought that the Montessori philosophy and style would be a good match for him. As usual, I was right! I guess it's a good sign that he wants to keep going back to school, otherwise I'd have to hide him under my desk at work and let him color on my shins.

In a Montessori classroom, the children get to decide what they want to work on instead of being directed towards a specific curriculum. So far, Luke has continued to choose the "life skills," activities such as pouring, squeezing, cleaning, etc. I'm grateful they don't have any automobile driving activities in the life skills section or Luke would never learn anything else. As it is, he has advanced skills in that category:

Me: Luke, are you excited to go to school tomorrow?

Luke: yes!

Me: Mommy and Daddy are going to drive you there and drop you off, ok?

Luke: Can I drive myself there?

Me: No, Daddy's going to drive the car

Luke: I don't want Daddy to drive the car, can I just drive my blue truck? (his power wheels)

Me: Uh, no. You've got at least 13 more years of waiting buddy.

So you might be wondering where Adrienne's been spending her time while Matt and I are at work and Luke's in school...she has started at a germ center, oops, I mean daycare center. Little sweetpea was there for 2 days before she came home with a cold :( So far, she enjoys hanging out with her baby friends, eating and sleeping. All of the teachers at the center have stopped in her room to see "the baby with a lot of hair."

Here she is on her first day:

2 months

Whoa, where have I been the last 2 months? Oh, that's right, I've been constantly feeding one child and constantly entertaining the other.

Today is Adrienne's 2 month birthday and we celebrated by getting her 3 shots! I give awesome gifts. Poor thing, she didn't mind the first one, disliked the 2nd one, and outright hated the 3rd one. Lip quivering crying is never pleasant. Nor is the crying where you are waiting for the sound to come out but it hasn't yet because she's crying so hard. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...WAHHHHHHHH!

We've been calling her "big girl" ironically, since she was born because she was on the smaller side of birth weights. Well, now big girl is not longer an ironic nickname because she is, just that. Strange that I could have produced a child who at any point in their lifetime would be in the 95th percentile for weight (12 lbs, 12 oz) and 90th percentile for length (23 and 1/4 inches). I mean, when I look at her, she looks big to me but that isn't based on anything other than the fact that she's working on a 3rd chin...now the medical community says she's big based on the charts too. I guess all of that feeding hasn't gone to nothing! Now if she could only share some of her appetite with her brother who eats like a bird.

My cutie is also sporting a faux hawk these days...