VBS and other Summer Fun.

Dear Nathan, 

You survived your first go at Vacation Bible School (VBS). You were extremely sad when I told you on Friday that it was going to be the last day of VBS until next year. Since there were so many of your MOPS friends and school friends in your group, you had lots of fun playing and interacting with others. 

 Nathan, I'm proud to say that sometime last week, going pee pee on your own terms finally clicked. It's so nice not having to worry about reminding you to go. In fact, you've even woken up a couple of mornings with a completely dry diaper.

You are asking lots of "What if" questions. I think most of the time you know the answer because you ask questions like, "What if all the cars take up all the parking spots at the library?" which while is a legitimate concern, really shows your fear of uncertainty. I feel like my job these days are simply to reassure you that you will get your turn/fair share and that everything will turn out ok.

Dear Hannah,
You've been sick with a weird virus this week. Fever and loose stools, along with a weird rash on your chin, which I am suspecting is from a cherry sensitivity. You've been extra clingy, somewhat grumpy, and demanding. You are still changing your mind a lot, which is kind of frustrating and annoying, but I've come to expect that you'll change your mind and it doesn't bother me as much as it did last week. Going outside still calms you down and you love to go to the pool.  You call it "splashy."

 Nathan continues to eat veggies dipped in salt. Here you are eating some roasted cauliflower, which is Hannah's all time favorite.

 Hannah, you are working on your chopstick skills. Whenever you see us using them, especially Nathan, you must have a pair too. You are pretty persistent about it and will use it for a whole meal.

 Hannah can spot a pair of skates and will say "skates" when you see a pair, or anything that resembles a pair of skates. You two have gotten into playing roller derby upstairs on the carpet. Both of you like to knock into each other and at first, I was getting onto you two, but when I hear both of you errupt into laughter after being pushed down, I let down a bit and let you guys play "rough." You haven't hurt yourself yet. Below, you can see Nathan being the jammer, trying to get by the blockers on our makeshift track in the playroom.

Hannah still loves swinging and has gotten more creative with swings. You now more frequently will ride the swing like this:

 Along with swinging yourself in a circle. Nathan still likes to go down the tube slide backwards.

 We go swimming almost every day. Between swim lessons on Tuesday and Thursdays, we are at the pool most afternoons. One day, as we were getting home, you guys ran for the dandelions and just had a blast, blowing the seeds all over our lawn.

On Friday, I went to get a haircut, and you both sat so nicely, eating snacks. When the snacks were gone, you guys watched me for a bit and then shared a short episode of Daniel tiger. I was a bit nervous about having both of you there, but it ended up being just fine.

Yesterday, we visited a local bakery and toured the facilities.

 You guys learned how bread is made,

 and even got a chance to decorate your own loaf of Challah bread.  

While we waited for the bread to cook, we went with our friends to play on some stone sculptures nearby.

 After lunch, we received our bread and both of you dug in as we drove home.

 This morning, we went to Austin's annual Children's art park, put on by the Symphony. Joe McDermott was playing and you both had a blast, listening to the music and dancing along.

Alright, that's it for now. Until next week,
Love,
Mommy

Trains, Blackberry Picking, Splash Pads and a Concussion

Dear Hannah and Nathan, 

This past few days have been so busy that I didn't even get a chance to make my usual Wednesday post. Well, let's go back a to almost 2 weeks ago. 

We've been consolidating bath times for the both of you and one of your favorite activities to do in the bath, besides sliding down the side of the pool and splashing water everywhere, is painting. Here, Nathan, you are painting yourself blue so you turn into Captain America. Hannah sticks to painting the sides of the tub, or Nathan. 

 On Thursday, we met up with Abigail at a nice shaded park. I really like this park because it's covered, has a really neat playground set up,

 and an amazing tree swing nearby.

 On Friday, we had our usual Chinese storytime play date. We read about scary things and made scary hats that turned out to be super cute.

On Sunday, we had a playdate with the birthing group babies kids and this is the best we could do at getting you big kids to line up for a picture. 

 But here's everyone with siblings. [Sigh] where does this time go?

 On Monday, we met up with Hannah's friend, Lucas at the Thinkery. On the way there, we all got a yummy treat, which surprisingly, you both didn't quite like enough to finish.

 Monday evening, we had a photoshoot at the park we found on Thursday. Hannah was a bit on the shy side, but I think we got some good pictures of Nathan.

Tuesday morning, we packed the car and headed for Dallas. Half way there, we stopped at Waco and visited a splash pad. You two had a lot of fun until Nathan slipped on the wet concrete and fell back, bonking your head pretty hard. You were down and crying for a long time, but by lunch time, you told me you were feeling much better and that your head only hurt when you run. Otherwise, you were your talkative and silly self. That evening, you threw up right before bed time and I became very worried that you might have a small concussion. I monitored you throughout the night, making sure you were breathing and luckily, the next day, you told me that nothing hurt anymore and you were feeling pretty good. Thank God.

So we visited another splash pad. It was super crowded with camp kids, but you guys had a blast running around, playing with various water fixtures. I wish these were around when I was a kid!

 Ama has a massage chair that I love to sit in whenever we are over. Nathan, you asked to sit on it, and while I thought you wouldn't like the pressure, but you really enjoyed it and spent quite some time sitting and enjoying the undulating movements.

That evening we drove towards UNT to duck creek farms to pick blackberries. I think this was everyone's favorite part of the trip. Nathan loved picking the berries and Hannah loved the eating part. 

We ended up picking over a gallon of blackberries and all had a nice farmer's tan afterwards because I forgot to put sunscreen on you two before we went out into the setting sun.

Thursday morning, we went to Ama's neighborhood pool to swim a bit. You two had fun playing with water guns and jumping in the shallow end of the pool. Nathan, you were particularly proud to be able to touch the 2 ft 6in side of the pool.

For lunch, we went to one of my favorite dumpling houses in richardson and had xiaolong soup dumplings.

On Friday, we rode the commuter train around town.

First we went to the interurban train museum for their storytime.

We even got to go see the inside of an old mail car that was used to deliver the mail.

Then, we rode the train downtown to a stop where they have these long escalators, and an escavator, an elevator that moved diagonally!

And then for dinner, I got a chance to meet up with one of my roomates from college and her little girl, who was born just a week before Hannah. You guys didn't hit it off well, with the snatching of crayons and chips from each other, and just played alongside one another, not really interacting. After dinner, we went to another splash pad right outside the restaurant.

Saturday morning, we went to a playground before lunch and then we headed back to Austin.

At lunch, we ordered meat dumplings for Nathan, and you had an allergic reaction. Not sure if it was from the soy sauce, or if they put peanuts in the dumplings, but I was able to calm the reaction down with some benedryl, which also knocked you out for most of the car trip home.

It was an exhausting trip for me, but I know you both had lots of fun and made some good memories with Ama and Auntie Momo.

Also, Nathan, you were able to keep your undies dry for the whole trip. When I asked if you needed to go potty, you would reply with, "I'll let you know when I need to go." and you followed through with it. Now that we are home, you are back to your old ways, leaking just a bit before you realize that you need to go. Hmm... what's going on here?

About 2 nights before we came home, both of you started to get homesick and miss Daddy. We came home just in time to spend Father's day with Daddy.

Today, we started VBS and it's Nathan's first year to be old enough to attend. I'm leading the pre-school crafts and Hannah gets to hang out in the nursery. It's exciting and I think Nathan likes it. I'll try to take some pictures.

Nathan and Hannah are also taking swim lessons twice a week for the rest of the summer. We've gone to one class and so far the teacher says that Nathan is the most advanced swimmer out of the group and Hannah is very comfortable in the water. I'm hoping that Nathan can learn some strokes and Hannah can swim by the end of the summer.

I'll probably skip the post for this week, since it will be pretty much filled with VBS and swim lessons, but I'll have another post next wednesday.

Until then,
Mommy

A Budding Sibling-ship

Dear Nathan and Hannah, 

This week I'm going to focus more about how your friendship-siblingship is starting to blossom. Gone are the days where Hannah simply watches as Nathan plays, or where Hannah just wants to destroy what Nathan is doing. Nathan is actually taking turns, helping Nathan or simply just imitating whatever big brother is doing or saying. I think it all started out with our rug delivery from last week.  You guys started attacking the rug as soon as your eyes saw those 2 giant rolls. Since Nathan has finally figured out how to play gently with Hannah and has (for the most part) a good idea that your job is to protect your little sister, I find myself being mediator less and less. 

 The days of Destruct-o Hannah are over as you are now more constructive and tend to like to clean up messes and throw things away in the garbage. In this little session of blocks, you two were building the towers together, and took turns knocking them over.

 Hannah was even super great at helping Nathan with transferring coins from the dinosaur bank to the piggy bank, again, taking turns.

 While eating meals, you guys shout funny words back and forth to each other and simply giggle. (By the way, we've been eating a lot of meals outdoors lately because the weather has been soooo nice!)

 There were a few brief downpours, though, but the temperatures have been hovering in the mid to high 80's. One day, right as we were about to go bike riding, it started to pour. To cheer up a little kid who was disappointed, we ran out in the rain for a bit.

 One day this week, we met up with a friend at the park. I had to take this picture because Hannah's hair was too cute! It was soo nice to see Nathan's best friend and I think Hannah is starting to look up to her because you were super excited to see her and even yelled out her name as you ran to the playground.

 We went to check out a new kid consignment store the other day to see if we could find some cute accessories for your upcoming photo session. We scored a bag of construction trucks and when we got home, Nathan played with them for 40 minutes.

 Yesterday, we went to storytime at the library. Hannah (in the yogaba cape) sat so nicely, listening to stories beside Nathan.

 As an extra incentive for Nathan's potty training, we've bought a bunk bed that we have yet to set up. As soon as you can keep your undies dry (during the day) for a week, we feel like you will be big enough for a bunk bed. Well, in the meantime, it's just sitting in the playroom and one day this happened...

 That pile at the bottom of the ramp represented about half of the things that you guys sent sliding down the ramp (including yourselves). You guys played together, giggling the whole time, for about 45 minutes!

This morning, we decided to go to Austin's Annual Children's Art and Music Day with some neighbors. While we were waiting for them to come pick us up, we did some exploring outside.

 Played with a rolly polly

 And after sitting through lots of traffic, we finally made it.

 Lately, Nathan, you've been coming out of your room after we say goodnight to you, too scared or "bored" to sleep. We suggested that you sleep with Hannah and you guys were giggling and talking back and forth for about 30 minutes, which at that point, we heard you tell Hannah over the monitor, "I'm going to bed and ignoring you. Don't talk to me anymore." Hannah, without success tried to heckle you a bit before laying down herself and eventually fell asleep too.

This morning at 6:58 I heard both of you giggling. I decided to give you two about 20 minutes before I barged in and you two just had a blast, giggling, squealing, and yellingik th! I think this co-sleeping will work pretty well.

It's exciting to see your relationship bloom as you grow closer to each other and learn more about each other's likes, dislikes, and preferences.

We are also kind of potty training Hannah. Hannah is now able to go #1 and #2 on the potty, and will sometimes tell us when you need to go. You are also pretty good at using "potty" as a delay mechanism, spouting it out right before I put you down in your crib, or when you are bored at the dinner table. One of these days, I'll hunker down and stay home for 3 days, but for now, I think things are good.

Well, that's about it for the week.
Love,
Mommy