Proud Mama

Dear Hannah and Nathan,
This week there has been lots of things that you guys have done that made me really proud to be your mommy. First of all, Hannah is almost 10 months old. 10 months! And to celebrate, you have been sleeping through the night (like the real deal) from 8 pm to 8 am. Wow, life has pretty much gotten 300% easier now that I'm getting a good night of uninterrupted sleep. Thank you.

A few days ago, we had a chance to get out to the park for a picnic with a friend your age. You guys liked swinging on the swings for the first time and was pretty interested in each others' food.

 Hannah loves to play alongside Nathan and with everything Nathan is playing with. While Nathan is a pretty good sharer, it's tough for an almost 3 year old to always have to give up his toy to his little sister, so Hannah, sometimes you will just have to find something new to play with like in this picture below.

 You've gotten pretty good at crawling and you love to tip things over. Blocks, humidifiers... we have to watch you like a hawk because you move fast, especially when we are not looking.

 There are a few things that you don't like and broccoli and carrots are not one of them. You actually don't care for avocado or egg yolks. You will spit them out. But you LOVE anything sweet or meat. We can easily tell when you really like something because you go into hamster mode and start to stuff as much food in your mouth as you can.

 On a sad note, you've had a few tough days. Your top two teeth are coming in and they've been causing you a bit of discomfort. When it gets bad, you really like chomping on frozen carrots. The day your tooth came in, you didn't not want to nap or be put down. You just wanted to hold on to the carrot while sitting in my lap.

 I had Nathan take a few pictures of us, but then he started to take a few selfies.

 After your teeth emerged, you were a completely different baby. You were back to your happy self and you guys even played with this large piece of packing paper for a long time.

 Nathan did a pretty good job of taking this picture...

 Every night before bed, we read a few stories. This book is your ultimate favorite. It's a look and feel book. You squeal with delight when you see the cute puppy dog on the cover and you try to flip the pages as we read. With each new page, you stop and you feel the new texture that is being presented on the page. This book seems to hold your attention longer than the other books that we have.

Hannah is experimenting with more sounds. B - D-, but no M yet. 

Nathan is talking a lot and asking lots of questions. There is seldom a quiet moment in our house and to think that a year ago, we were worried about his speech. His favorite phrases are "No, I do it.!" "[Where]that come from?" (which can also mean, what is that?) "I'm just practicing" when we catch him doing something he's not really supposed to be doing.

Nathan is also starting to be more expressive of his opinions and thoughts. We were in the car on the way to somewhere when he told me that he wanted his dinosaur shirt. I looked back to ask him why and he responded with "Cause it has [pretended to pull his sleeve] and I can do this [wipes his nose with pretend sleeve]" While I was completely disgusted by this concept, I was also very proud of his thought process. 

Since Hannah was sick the past week, we pretty much stayed at home for the first few days. I forgot how fun it is to include you in helping out with chores. I loved hearing the pitter patter of feet as you ran back and forth to hang up the clean laundry. 

 You even offered to put the dirty clothes in the hamper.We've actually started to give you coins after you do a really great job with helping. We deposit the coins in your dinosaur bank and one day you can get something really cool with the coins that you save up. You are too young to understand coin value, so we just have a big pile and you pick one after your chore...I don't know why, but you never have picked up a penny.

 Apparently you like carrots if they've been boiled. I cooked some the other day and you took one, tried it and carried it around like a bunny.

 When I asked you to share a bite with me, this was the response.

 Something annoying that you like to do at meal times is line up your food into "trains." This all started when some of your frozen peas or corn would stick together. Oh well, this is not a battle worth fighting right now.

 By the way, those broccoli florets are just for show. Nathan is still not eating broccoli. We are going to try this thing someone online suggested: step 1: have kid put food in mouth for a brief time and then spit it out. step 2: have kid chew it and spit it out. step 3: have kid chew it and swallow. Progress from one step to another over the a long course of time and maybe Nathan will get over the weird texture of vegetables.

Hannah is now able to cruise along furniture. This makes Nathan's life much tougher because there is nothing that she can't get to anymore. There's been a lot of tantrums thrown over Hannah touching Nathan's stuff, but Nathan, you are just going to have to learn to live with it.

 Yesterday, our neighborhood had a father's day happy hour at a nearby restaurant. They had the most amazing balloon guy there. He made crazy elaborate balloon animals that put Daddy's skills to shame. Nathan, you was brave enough to go up by yourself and ask the guy for a dinosaur.

 You were so entertained by the dinosaur that we were able to kick back, relax, and enjoy a few beers with some neighbors.

 We are still going to story time and Nathan loves listening to the different stories, doing the crafts, and checking out his own library books to take home to read. During home story time, sometimes Nathan will read to us. You flip through each page, describing what is happening and you even sometimes explain why something is happening. Sometimes you follow what is written on the page, sometimes you say things that are completely different. But it's really neat how you are able to just sit down and read through a book by yourself.

With potty training, I think I've given up on trying to have you announce when you have to go number 1 on your own. I'm just going to continue taking you every hour to hour and a half and hope that one day you will figure out this sensation on your own. You usually don't realize that you have to go until you just cause your undies to be a little damp, damp enough to change and then you are able to hold it until you make it to the potty. I'm thinking your brain is just not there yet. It's ok.

Well, that is about it for now. Until next week!
Love,
Mommy