Week 34: Life's Never a Bore.

Dear Children, 

I can truly say that there is never a dull moment in the Havlir household as long as you guys are awake. Between Nathan's constant stream of questions and Hannah's bursts of cuteness, I find that our days seem to go by faster and faster. 

Even though we have been spending most of our time indoors, due to my oak allergy, we've come up with lots of things to pass the time. A new activity that we've started to do is beading with cheerios. The first time we did this activity, Nathan was occupied for at least 30 minutes. He was able to make 3 necklaces, one for himself and one each for mommy and daddy. 

 It was definitely a fine and gross motor skill exercise because while he was carefully threading the cereal pieces, he also had to make sure he kept the bunch of cereal away from Teddy, who pretty much has learned to stalk both of you anytime food is involved.

We finally remembered to break out the paint for bath time. Nathan likes to take his bath in different colored water.

 Nathan has become a bit more independent lately. I can be doing something on a different floor and he is usually ok with playing on his own for a little while. One day I was changing Hannah's diaper upstairs and when I came down, I found Nathan doing this...

 He wanted to try to get milk out. The funnel shaped thing he's holding is a breast pump piece...just in case you didn't know. I tried to explain to him that milk only comes out of mommies but convinced him that he could get ice cream out of his belly button. So he placed the breast pump on his belly and started to squeeze. Then he unscrewed the bottle and pretended to eat the ice cream. I actually thought it was pretty cool that he knew that I was joking and he played along so nonchalantly.

Afterwards he started coming up with more ridiculous things that we could get out of his belly. It was really cute.

Nathan has also become really interested in playing with legos, like real big boy legos. For awhile he was "building" things and we always just nodded our heads and kept encouraging him to create more buildings, towers, and sometimes even cats. Just recently he started building recognizable things like houses, and cars, or trains. He made this one all by himself and was really proud of it. We are proud of Nathan too!

Another thing Nathan has been playing with is this ball that's attached to a bracelet. You throw the ball and it comes back to you. It was really neat seeing him throw the ball towards different things (like down the stairs, or at the diaper pail) to see what would happen.

 Nathan exercises his independence more and more these days. This morning I took him to the bathroom and proceeded to help him take off his jammies. He quickly said, "No, mommy, you stand over there, I do it." (Sometimes he's not so nice and will actually say, "You go away.") So sure enough, he took off his jammies,

 and then his diaper...

 and then climbed onto the toilet by himself. Sniff... my little boy is growing up too fast!

Quick update on the drooling situation. After seeing the ENT, we now know that there is nothing structurally wrong with his sinuses. I am about 80% sure that he is allergic/sensitive to dairy. We've been giving him flax milk instead of cows milk and it seems to help a lot. But after he eats yogurt or cheese, which is at practically every meal, the drool starts to flow.

When we go to Taiwan, we will try eliminating dairy from his diet. It should be pretty easy to do so because dairy is just not as big a part of the Taiwanese diet as it is here.  We will try to go 2 weeks without dairy and if his drooling improves, we will then try introducing dairy back slowly to see if the drooling starts again.  According to the ENT, allergies like this usually go away by the time the kid turns 5, so if it turns out that he is allergic to dairy, it will just be a temporary inconvenience.

And then there's this little girl...

 Who is growing up so fast and eating so much food. We usually feed her the most solids around dinner time. Gone are the days of pureeing food. Hannah pretty much eats what we are eating and she loves it.

Hannah has tried meatloaf, chicken, beets, taro, salmon, tuna, bread, pancakes, mangos, and apples this week. She loves everything and she definitely will let you know if she wants some more. That is really the only time she fusses, when she sees food and wants to eat it.

 Hannah has gotten to be less afraid of other people holding her. Today we went to a baby shower and she pretty much let all the ladies who wanted to hold her do so. I even saw a few smiles. Sometimes she likes to sing and talk to herself and babbles different sounds. I love hearing her voice. She started blowing raspberries a lot recently as well.  If I'm holding her she will just start "p-l-p-p-p" out of nowhere. It's actually really cute.

Oh, also I think Hannah is starting to understand what we are saying. For example, if I put Hannah on the exersaucer and prompt her to jump (in chinese, of course), she will start bouncing up and down. And when I ask if she wants milk, if she is hungry, she will lean towards me and start grunting. Feedback, I like this.

Aah, in a week we will be getting ready to go to Taiwan! I think we will keep up with the updates, although I'm not quite sure how the timing will work. So much to prepare. Until next week!

Love,
Mommy