At daycare, Xander taught himself how to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” all by himself. Our daycare provider swears she did not teach him this song and that he started playing it on his own. When he got home, sure enough, he repeated his feat. Not only is it impressive that he was able to go from C to G, but he also maintained the timing of the song. As a three-year-old, he continues to impress me every day (for example, today, he counted to 110)!
It seems that within the past month or so, Linden has changed from a baby into a toddler with a distinct personality. It seems to have started right after she started walking. Soon after, her vocabulary started to grow. It started with the word “Mo” for more, and has grown to over 10 words (mama, dada, papa, hi, bye, yes, no, please, thank you, good girl, boo, ouch)! She is very busy and persistent, but still a happy kid. She tends to get crabby at night if she wakes up and wants the bottle that she does not receive. She also loves music and has started singing; she won’t say words, but is definitely singing something. She also loves to dance. I am just happy that she is starting to grow up so we do not have two babies that we have to tend to once our latest one comes in late August!
Sweetie Linden, the Toddler
Xander (while listening to music this morning): Sgt. Pepper? Is that green, red, or orange?
Linden has been walking more and more, yet I am still not able to capture this on film. She also hasn’t taken to walking like Xander did. He decided one day that he was just going to walk exclusively and off he went. Linden seems to discriminate more and prefers to crawl as fast as she can. She has also taken to crawling up the stairs at will. She is certainly fearless (unless a camera is in front of her)!
Our Belated Birthday party
This past weekend was certainly action packed. On Saturday, we left for the mall early in the morning to get Linden’s first-year pictures taken at Penney’s at 9 AM. On the way there, a conversion with Laura turned into an Abbott and Costello skit with Xander. Me (to Laura): Look, Kohl’s is open. Xander: Yeah, close and open. Me: No, Kohl’s the store is already open. Xander: YES! Close. Open. I gave up trying to explain things and kept on driving. We got to Penney’s and Xander immediately wanted a “shake” from Orange Julius. I had to explain to him that it was too early in the morning for the store to be open, but he wasn’t having it. So, I had to physically take him there to show him the store was closed. He cried only once on the way there since we passed an escalator and he wanted to ride it. However, he was fine with the closed store. On the way back however, the Apple store was open, so I got my first chance to play with the iPad. It was heavier than I anticipated and warm, which was understandable. However, I was in love. Xander acted like he had owned one since the day he was born the way he was switching through apps and doing things intuitively. We eventually had to leave and he started to whine. I said we could come back later and he responded, “I want to come back later now!”
We got back to Penney’s and Linden apparently did not have a good experience. She did not smile and sucked on her lips mainly. Laura blamed the photographer. The pictures were not hot, even though we have had great success there in the past. So, we scheduled a reshoot for this Thursday.
Saturday afternoon was spent at Target Field, which I talked about here. Xander complained about the noise and covered his ears whenever people cheered loudly. However, he did not want any ear plugs. He had acted like this before, so we did not think this was anything new. But, he started complaining that his ear was hurting. By Saturday evening, he was in massive pain and bawled and bawled. We suspected that he had an ear infection. On a Saturday night, you cannot really do much for an ear infection, so Laura gave him ear drops and comforted him the best she could.
Sunday was more of the same with Xander not feeling well and complaining about his ear. He was pretty yin/yang where he would be mopey and needy and then suddenly be “normal” again. Despite all of this, the highlight of the day was to celebrate Linden’s belated birthday. We had a party for Xander a few weeks prior to Linden’s birthday, so we decided to hold off a week to give us a little time to breathe (we are not party people). The affair was small; my Mom made a nice cake, and fun was had. Linden had no clue what was going on and Xander was ailing still, so his mood was not the best. But, it was nice to see family!
Today, Laura took Xander to the hospital and indeed, he has an ear infection. We got some drops that might help, otherwise, we will have to give him amoxacillin for seven days. This is his forth ear infection, so this is not our first rodeo!
Taken by Xander with his Fisher Price camera
The entire family went to the our first regular-season Twins game at Target Field today against the KC Royals. Here are a few observations from the day.
Xander had his third birthday February 24th. To celebrate the day we went the Chuck E. Cheese. It was a fun time!
We spent 2 1/2 hours eating pizza and playing game and it was a great birthday! He also had a party at daycare so he was the special birthday boy all day long. This year was fun because he knew exactly what was going on and he was very excited. We also had a family party for him last weekend and I will post some pictures of that soon. Xander has grown up so much this past year. Every day he says something that makes us smile. He has so much personality.
As for Linden, she is 11 months old now and is on the move. She is not walking yet but she gets around crawling and walking around holding onto furniture.
She wants to play with everything her big brother plays with and is very busy. Her personality is a lot different from Xander’s. She is not as sensitive as he is. She is determined to get what she wants and doesn’t get her feelings hurt easily. I think Linden will be our handful, but she is such a happy, smiley baby you just can’t get mad at her.
Linden has also been doing a great job eating on her own. She didn’t eat baby food very long. She likes to feed herself and wants to eat table food. Last week we let her try ice cream and it was a big hit!
The kids are growing up so fast and we are having fun watching them develop. I will make sure to post more very soon!
This late afternoon, Xander saw a commercial for pizza. So, the power of persuasion said that he should have pizza for dinner instead of the fish sticks were were going to eat. Laura then took Xander to our freezer and dug out some Totino Party Pizzas for him to choose from (personally, I would have made him eat the Lean Cuisine pizza versus the fatty Totino’s pizza, but he could use the fat). So, they come out of the room where our freezer is located and he yells to me, “Daddy, pizza party!” I asked him what kind of pizza did he choose, and he said, “Sausage party!” For those who do not know, a “sausage party” is slang for a party where guys significantly outnumber the women at a party. It is a fairly standard euphemism that anyone my age or younger knows. Laura and I both laughed.
Look who’s 7 months old!!!
Linden is now 7 months old. She has grown up so much in just the past month. She can now sit up by herself and play. She also got her first 2 teeth when she turned 6 months old! At her six month checkup she weighed in at 18 lbs 3 oz. and is 26 1/2 inches long. She has definitely gotten bigger since then.
We have had a tough last month. The day after Linden turned 6 months old, she came down with a cough and a fever that turned into H1N1 like symptoms. I came down with it two days later and Xander got it a day after me. This is what our house looked like for over a week.
After a few weeks we were all feeling better and then right before Halloween, Linden had some fussy nights and we found out that she had an ear infection. Two days after she started antibiotics for her ear infection, she came down with croup. She was really fussy for a few nights and had a raspy voice. Her cough didn’t get too bad, but she did have one night where she sounded like a barking seal. She caught it from another baby at daycare who’s parents brought him even though he was sick because they didn’t want to miss work. We were not very happy about that. Thankfully, everyone was feeling well enough on Halloween to go trick or treating and we had fun! Here are some pictures of our little animals.
Xander didn’t know what to think at first but after the second house he was having a great time. He wanted to ring the doorbell and would say trick or treat, then after he got his candy he would say “thank you, next house!” He loved going through his candy when we got home and of course, is still enjoying eating it!
On the Monday following Halloween, I picked Xander up from daycare and he had cried most of the day. When we got home he cried all evening and was up all night long crying. I had to stay home with him the next day and took him to the clinic. He caught the virus that caused Linden’s croup, which is Parainfluenzae. He was crying because his throat and mouth hurt really bad. He was sick for the next week with a sore throat, cough, slight fever, and chills. Xander was absolutely miserable. The only good thing that came out of his sickness was that his mouth hurt too bad to have a pacifier so we were finally able to get rid of his Nuk!
As of now, we are all healthy and very thankful for that! Linden still refuses to roll over. I think she’ll be crawling before she rolls. Xander has been very busy building with his Legos. He has quite the imagination. Here’s a picture of him with one of his castles he built.
And here’s a recent picture of our little smiling girl now that she is feeling better!
Now that we are all healthy, I will try to be better about keeping up with this blog!
Xander is growing up so fast! We are amazed at how his vocabulary has exploded. He is now telling us that he needs to do his work. He has lots of work to do so we need to be quiet!
His work is actually playing games on the computer. I think he says he has to do work because he wants to be like his daddy and work on the computer. Xander also has spent a lot of time playing with his train set that he got for Christmas last year. He loves making new paths for his train.
Yesterday we went to the clinic for Xander to get his seasonal flu shot. I explained to him what was going to happen and he was so brave! He didn’t cry until he was actually getting the shot and for a while after obviously. He got M&M’s for a treat for being such a good boy. Here is a picture of his smiling chocolate face!
As you can see, he survived quite well.
AS for Linden, she is growing up too. I dug out the jumping play seat and she loves it!
She has been enjoying trying new foods also. Yesterday we found that her and carrots do not agree. She threw up carrot puree all night long. Now I have lots of clothes to get carrot stains out of. Any suggestions how?!?
