Lines

I was at the park yesterday and got out the chalk. Nathan came over and engaged voluntarily in some coloring. He correctly identified all the letters (including lowercase ones) in his name, and shapes that I drew (triangle, etc). When I asked him to draw a line, he did. Can't get him to do a line going another direction yet (he does parallel if I model perpendicular) but it's a start. And as I told him, this will lead to being able to write letters.

Look at her go!

Here's miss Squeak walking. She's really starting to take off.
She also had her well baby visit today-- she's in great health other than an ear infection. Still on the bigger side, above the 50th percentile for length and 90th for weight and head circumference. No problems and seems a bit advanced in multiple areas. She did get 7 (!) shots today including her second round of flu shot. It did seem to maybe affect her later (or was that the ear infection?) but this video was taken about an hour after the shots and you can see she's not too perturbed.

Fine motor

Well, it's happening already. I'm not sure I'm ready for it! My one year old is beginning to show some fine motor skills equal to her brother's.

I knew fine motor skills to be an area of great delay for him, and of great strength for her, but I was not expecting this day to come just yet.

They show similar skill in putting plastic coins into the fisher-price piggy bank, similar skill in scribbling. And then this baby went and got the whole peel off a mandarin orange herself, and I'm not sure whether her brother can do that but he's not interested in trying.

I think that briefly this will be motivating for him and then there will be an awful lot of frustrations for him as she does things easily which come so hard to him. Poor guy. He just has to persist. And as his sister gets bigger, she will encounter things that are hard for her too, and she will also need to learn the value in working hard and persisting at a task. Hopefully that's something she can learn from her brother.

First Christmas, and first interstate travel

We made the 800 mile drive (in stages) to Bellingham WA for Cianna's first Christmas. The kids saw their aunt, uncle and cousin, 2 sets of grandparents and a great-grandma, great uncle and great aunt.
Cianna has started to take a couple of steps from one object to another. She's getting very close to walking.
She also experienced her first smoked salmon (like!), first dill pickle (like) and first lemon (less liked).
Nathan seemed a bit overwhelmed by Christmas but both kids did well overall, and I'm really glad we decided to make the trip and see family, even if it meant hours of sitting squished between two carseats entertaining a baby and emerging covered in crackers and Cheerios.

Walking!

Video of Miss Cianna taking some first steps the other day. We have not seen her take this many steps again.