Trike!

I came home from a walk today to find Nathan pedaling a trike in our driveway. This has long been a pt goal and apparently he's now getting the hang of it. His dad tells me he was pedaling on the playground at school today. He does better on a slope and does not have the hang of steering yet, but he is pedaling!

some baby fashions

Initially, Squeak wore nothing but jammies with feet. A few weeks back, I decided she'd better wear her clothes while they still fit! Just a few pics of Squeak in some of her outfits:

Kiss sister

We've been wondering if calling Cianna Squeak or Squeaky will confuse Nathan about what the heck her name actually is. He refers to her as Squeak. The other day he came home from school and I left the baby in the back room and went out to greet him. "Squeak?", he asked. I told him where she was and he accompanied me back there. He definitely expects her to be around and wants to know where she is if he doesn't see her.

This morning I conducted a little experiment. "Kiss sister." Nathan kissed his sister.
"Kiss Cianna.". Nathan kissed her again.
"Kiss Squeak." Third kiss.
"Kiss toy.". Nathan kissed his Leapfrog Count And Draw.

He seems clear on the concept of one baby, multiple names. I have explained that her name is Cianna but we call her Squeak, and he seems to get that both of those names refer to the same little person. :)

Siblings

Just a few cute pics of the siblings. Nathan has been loving on his sister. Sometimes she gets a bit scared of him, which makes sense as he is bigger and faster. He's generally pretty sweet and gentle with her, though.

Hoppy Easter

Easter is not a super-significant holiday in our family. This year, I did get Nathan interested in coloring some eggs with me. He was interested in putting them back in the dye again and again, "swimming!". The red ones got to go swimming in the blue dye too, so we made purple. All this after I finally convinced him that the Paas coloring kit box does not "turn on" and does not work with our Tag Reader. Sorry, kiddo, not everything is electronic!

I dressed Squeak in her uncle Kai's old bunny suit. It's 22 years old, and comes complete with a drawstring hood, a big safety hazard these days, but apparently one that her uncle survived okay.

The Easter bunny brought Nathan a basket. I told him his chocolate bunny was candy and he said "candy, mmm" but then ignored it to play with the puffy frog that also came in the basket.

And that's about it for Easter around here.

Letters and numbers

Nathan has taken an interest in his old baby toys, which I've gotten out for the baby. He was looking at one of those soft letter blocks with a picture and a letter on each side.
Me "what is that?". It was a unicorn and I figured he'd say horse.
Nathan: "U".
Me: "oh, yes, it's the letter u. U for unicorn."
Nathan: "umbrella."
Uh-huh. And also for umbrella.

Then we were reading a favorite book. Nathan points to the number 6. "six". Yup, that's a 6.

Mr. Nathan has got a lot of assessments of his skills and abilities coming up as we prepare for his transition to kindergarten. I hope he's in the mood to let his assessors know that he recognizes all of his letters and his numbers up to 10. If not, I suppose that is what parent input is for!

Squeak is no pipsqueak

I just registered Nathan for Kindergarten, which blows me away. He's getting big!

Somebody else around here is getting big too, and quickly! She has doubled in weight to 14 pounds.


Don't get between a Squeak and her milk!

Squeak cheeks!

Milk belly!



Cianna is getting to be more fun and is smiling more, and we've been trying to capture that elusive smile, but it's tricky. Here's one:

She is also enjoying looking at her world, and being carried around facing out. She very much enjoys walks this way, and today a trip to Target (many Target shoppers enjoyed her, too). She seems to enjoy songs and showed quite a bit of interest in a rhyming book I was reading to her brother this morning. She shows considerably less interest in those play mats on the floor that are designed for babies. If she could talk, she'd say "pick me up and carry me around!". Even without words, she does register her displeasure for being put down. Yeah, my back can tell that Squeak is no pipsqueak anymore.

labelling Squeak

It seems like there was a very long time during which Nathan knew who we meant if we said somebody's name, but he did not label people. He labelled some favorite toys, foods and activities long before he labelled people. I cannot remember when he started to really talk about specific people when they weren't there. It has been quite a while that he will talk about our friend Lisa when she's not around, and he will in fact sing happy birthday to her in absentia. He will occasionally talk about peers when they are not around. If Daddy is sleeping and I've got the door closed, he will go try the door (he's not doing knobs yet, however) and say "kiss Daddy". He accepts the answer that we have to kiss daddy later, he's sleeping. The other day, his dad brought him home and then left again right away to go to the store. Nathan was confused by this and asked me "where's Daddy?" (like, hey, wasn't he right behind me?). And he definitely recognizes and labels his his sister. Nathan's dad tells me that Nathan identified himself in a picture ("Naynay") and said "Squeak" when shown a picture of his sister. On some of the rare occasions when his sister is napping peacefully in a bedroom and is not physically on my person, Nathan will ask me "Squeak?", and will accept the response that she is taking a nap and move on to something else. Sometimes if I am home alone with both kids I will nurse her on Nathan's bed while I put him down for a nap, and if I'm lucky they both go to sleep. The other day, Nathan's dad asked him if he was ready to take a nap. Nathan drifted away and came back a minute later. "Takennanap. Squeak?" Awww, Squeak is already taking a nap. You'll have to take yours without her. He does incidentally also understand her to be Cianna and will occasionally say "Cianna". I call her Squeak or Squeaky more often than I call her by her name though, and he has followed suit.