6 Months and Rollin' Into Trouble

Sweet Pea is 6 months today and she is a rollin' pollin' little lady. She rolls both ways and is starting to use that to get into all sorts of trouble. She is not always where I left her and most recently I found her stuck under the coffee table. The boys are having to be more careful where they leave their toys and we are already having to think about how to keep the little toys up where she can't get them.

She had her first few bites of oatmeal and was unimpressed. She enjoyed chewing on the spoon more than the taste of oatmeal but we will try it again in another week and see if she is a little more amenable. We learned that there is just no rush and with her 20 plus poundage, we know that she is more than thriving with just my milk.

Naps are still a point of contention with me and my little lady. She is taking two naps a day about 1 hour each with her occasionally throwing me a bone and napping for 2 hours for one of the naps. But I can't complain because she is sleeping beautifully at night, she goes to bed at 7 and sleeps through the night until 7 in the morning.

I miss her gummy smiles but I am loving her two new teeth and her ability to throw her legs straight up in the air and grab her toes. She plays peek-a-boo with us and pokes her head up to see over her crib rails to make sure someone is coming to get her when she shrieks. She is the most pleasant and low key baby these days, rarely crying or getting upset and we are just trying to soak up all of baby days as they are going faster than we would like!

Another first that is worth mentioning is that Peanut had his first corn ON the cob and loved it!!

Sweet Pea Pictures (As Promised)

The Yoga, Feet Grab

The SweetPea Pout

Followed by the Sweet Pea Smile

What Skinny Babies Can Do!

Baby yoga, gymnastics, leg grabby rolls feats of flexibility!!!

Or maybe I should say, what skinnier babies than Little Man and Peanut were can do anyway.

This morning while sitting in her bouncy seat Sweet Pea saw her foot, stuck it in the air, grabbed it and held on. Papa Bear and I were amazed and astounded. This is not anything we have seen before. I thought it was so great that later on I put her on the floor and lifted up her feet and wiggled them to get her attention and low and behold, she grabbed onto those toes and straightened those legs. Then Sweet Pea rolled to her side, grabbed onto one little foot and did a perfect rendition of a sideways arabesque (or some really awesome ballet pose) while laying on the floor.

Now don't get me wrong, we know that she isn't skinny at her whopping 20 pounds but her weight is in her thighs and adorable little bottom not her tummy like the boys. So her legs have room to go high enough for her to reach and thus we are transfixed by her adorable baby yoga/ballet, gymnastics, leg grabby rolls feats of flexibility!!

Pictures to come!

Stats and Pics:

After just a few days into Spring Break, where we don't have preschool or soccer practice or any other scheduled activities, here are our stats:

2 parks visited

1 watermelon devoured

1 chalk hopscotch played on

2 playdates

13 dandelions picked

1 rescue mission (to help hold down a friend's daughter who needed a tick removed)

1 bubble extraveganza (riding bikes through the bubble machine bubbles)

Over the next few days we hope to add:

1 museum visit

1 more park with a picnic lunch

1 visit to the zoo

1 nature walk through the woods

1 more easter egg hunt (we did one this past weekend to take advantage of the weather)

Here are a few pictures from our rather impromptu easter egg hunt in our front yard this weekend. It took Peanut a few minutes before he got the concept of why we wanted him to gather the eggs, but once he figured it out the boy was on fire. We hid and re-hid the eggs to prolong the fun but all of that ended when Peanut and Little Man figured out that there was candy in some of the eggs.

Here are my eggs:

I see one!!!

This is one of my favorites. Do you see Peanut's little bum sticking out. The boy was out to get every egg he could find even if he ended up in the bushes to get it!!!

And here is our Sweet Pea, just because she can't hunt the eggs doesn't mean she can't get in the fun!

You're Ok!

I can't count the number of times in a day I tell one of the boys "Pop up, you're ok!" or " Brush it off, you're ok!" . Sometimes I am not even sure if I am trying to convince them or myself after my quick intake of breath and my heart stops beating for that second while I look for the blood, bump, missing tooth etc. Peanut seems to be getting more and more of these reassuring statements these days as he continually tries to repeat his big brother's acrobatic stunts.

For example: Yesterday I heard Peanut crying in the other room and went to investigate. He was clinging to the wet bar with all of his strength while his little chubby legs kicked to try to find the floor that was at least a foot below him. It turns out that he has pushed his Little Tykes car over to the wet bar, climbed from the couch to the top of the car and was trying to climb up to the wet bar to get something or just to make a mess. But the car moved out from under his feet leaving him dangling there for me to find. The good news is that his occupational therapist would be delighted that he was able to accomplish all of that, me, well I just wish Little Man wouldn't teach such things to his brother!

I love that my Mama Bear kisses can treat and cure most of the mishaps that happen in this house and that my shouts of "you're ok" have turned out to be mostly true...but being a mama of 2 boys is making me gray before my time! Oh well, I'm ok!

Wordless Wednesday

What Did You Say?

Little Man asked me what we were going to do tomorrow and I told him that because of the weather we were going to have to play it by ear.

Little Man says: "We are going to play Buzz Lightyear!"

Little Man and I were discussing superheroes and he wanted to know what Green Lantern did as a hero. So we looked it up in his new superhero books from his birthday and found that Green Lantern protects the earth from things in outer space like meteors.

Little Man says: "Meat Eaters don't live in outer space?!"

I was showing Little Man the red breasted bird on our neighbors birdfeeder since we are always trying to identify new birds that we see.

Little Man: " Wow, I love that red booby bird"

If laughing truly keeps us young, then due to Little Man I might never age!

POP!

Today is brought to you by the letter P and sponsored by the word POP.

It is amazing how much our world can go from normal to extraordinary with a word.

Today that word is POP!

Such a simple three letter, consonant/vowel/consonant (cvc) word.

And yet, the cvc words ending in p have been evading Peanut's vocab and has been the target of many many speech therapy sessions and practice. Words like up, top, hop, and pop have all be pronounced "Bah".

To try and explain in the simplest terms - he has a hard time saying words that require a closed mouth/jaw closure ending. So yes, you are probably all saying "top" and realizing that when you finish saying the word your mouth is closed and thinking that you have never much paid attention to such things. Well we are all about paying attention to cvc words ending with jaw closure especially with the letter p which is the same mouth movement as b but unvoiced - all of this being something that is very difficult for Peanut.

Until NOW!

Early in the day he was cranky and not feeling well and I asked him if he wanted me to pick him up (no small feat since he weighs 39 pounds) and he raised his arms and said "Bup". Ok so I know this isn't up, but it was the first time in a crazy long time that he put the p on the end of the word. I did an inner fist pump but didn't put too much stock in it because with his motor planning issues it isn't uncommon for him to have a "pop out" word where he says something well but when you ask him to repeat it and he actually thinks about it, he can't get the motor movements to do it again. So skip forward a few hours and we are in Little Man's room with all of the kids doing our sleep wind-down routine and he handed me this little toy that Little Man got that the dentist where you push it down and it suction cups to the table and then it releases the suction and jumps up. So I pushed it down and Peanut says "Pop!" Oh it was so hard not to jump up and down. He asked me to do it again so I pushed it down and wouldn't let go until he said "pop" which usually would result in him either saying Pah or just walking away from me but he said "pop!". This continued for 5 or 6 times in a row, continually saying it properly and ending with the jaw closed P sound!!!

Ok, now I know that most of your are thinking, wow it doesn't take much to make this lady happy but I am filled with so many emotions. Relief that we are seeing this type of progress in Peanut. Pride that he is overcoming some of his challenges so readily. Pure joy in this Mama Bear at the simple sound of the word POP!