Poor second child....Cole is almost 7 months old and I'm just posting his 6 month update now...whoops! (Please conveniently forget that I used to make elaborately edited video montages of Addie at this age...thank you)
He was a whopping 19 lbs at his 6 month appointment! Biiiiig boy. He's still just a happy happy happy kiddo! Cole is pretty independent. You give him something he's interested in and even if you want to engage him, he's quite focused on his toy or task. You know, like helping fold laundry. He loves playing with Addie. Heck, he loves ANYTHING to do with Addie. He wants to be with her, look at her, and do whatever she's doing. She laughs and he laughs along. Actually, if ANYone laughs, he laughs. He always wants to be in on the joke :) He's also a bit of a clown. His recent thing is to scrunch up his nose and sniff realllly hard. We laugh because it's silly and cute and he loves making US laugh, so he does it a lot. Snnnniiiiffffff. We're teaching him games like "high-five" and he totally gets it! We say "high five!" and he laughs (of course) then touches our outstretched hand. Here's "How big is Coley?"
SOOOO Big.
Speaking of big, he's now rocking the shopping cart! No, he's not SO old that he's a cigarette-smoking morose teenager, but doesn't this shot make it seem that way? That's a green pepper he's smoking, by the way. Nicotine free thankyouverymuch ;)
in conclusion....6 month (er...almost 7 month) old Cole is a delight. The irony? I wrote this post last week and forgot to send it and he already IS 7 months as of yesterday, but of course....I don't have the 7 month update ready...enjoy for now!
Our kids have never been the type to want to sleep in our beds. And the few times that I've had to sleep with Addie out of town...let's just say not much sleep happens and neither of us are happy. On weekend mornings we'll often bring the kids into bed for an extra snuggle and they (okay, mostly Addie) are just not into it.
But this past Sunday morning it was chilly and we were SO happy that the kiddos obliged our request. It was a reallllly good morning :)
Addie LOVES to dance. She's been a dancer since a very young age and as many of you know, we have a dance party every night after dinner and she dances a lot through the day as well. This summer she did a short Saturday morning dance class at a nearby elementary school and she LOVED it. I mean...LOVED IT. So we decided to sign her up for an official ballet class because she shows signs of way more grace than either of her parents (sorry Stevo, it's true, better accept it now). We're not trying to early-breed a career ballerina, to be honest I'm hesitant to even start her on this path because it's a discipline that is very dependent on body structure and I don't want Addie to ever feel pressure in that sense. But, she loves to dance, and a tot class can't hurt--she'll also do soccer and tennis and other fun stuff and she can choose for herself what to pursue in the future!
It's through our county and takes place at a community center, nothing fancy, right? But the community registration book said leotard, tights, and ballet slippers REQUIRED. OOh la la. So we bought the appropriate gear and one afternoon while I was putting Cole up for a nap, Steve got Addie all dressed up and I came down the stairs and saw her dressed up like this and tears sprang to my eyes immediately. She looks so grown up!!!
She asked Steve to be the ballet teacher so he took her through some of the moves that HE learned in her dance class Look how serious she is! And yesterday was the first day of the official class! We got there on the early side and Addie and another little girl thought the mirror was really cool. Addie does this hilarious dance she called "ballerina bear" Steve has a video on his phone that I'm going to try and plug at the end of this blog post, but in the meanwhile, he's a still version of ballerina bear Her teacher is from Haiti so is a native French speaker and told us that by the end of the 8-weeks, she won't speak to them in English, only French and she switched back and forth the whole time! How cool is that? We were allowed in the first class, but not again until the end and she told us we could take pictures, so I started snapping away during stretches. Here the teacher is telling Addie to point her toes Look how she keeps them pointed! Such a dancer already ;) Wow, I can see how moms get way too involved in their kids' activities...it's addictive! Here Ms. Sabine was saying "pretend to sleep" and Addie has her eyes shut tight. Here Ms. Sabine said "lean down to kiss the floor" and a second later realized that Addie took her seriously and told the kids "wait, don't actually KISS the floor" :) Waiting her turn to be put into position My mom always told me that I was way more interested in what other kids were doing than my own work in school. Addie definitely has a bit of that--she was always watching the other kids before she watched the teacher Addie LOVED the pirouettes I love how her toe is pointed here. So graceful! Ms Sabine moved me out of my corner and told the girls to come one at a time out of the corner doing sashay's (or whatever the french version is called) But all the girls ran out at pretty much the same time :) All in all it was a great class. The teacher and three of the parents complimented Addie on how well she listened. AND the teacher asked me if we speak french at home when Addie responded to her "au revoir" with an au revoir and I proudly said "nope, but I hope she learns!"
We went to the playground afterward and Addie pushed Cole on the swing, which he loved. When did this girl grow up??? She's almost 3!! So we'll see how next Monday goes when I wont be there in class. Addie had her 3rd day of pre-school yesterday and she had a drop-off meltdown for the first time and they called us after she didn't stop crying after an hour :( Tomorrow is another class, so cross your fingers that yesterday was a fluke!!
Cole grabbed a wipe this morning and started sucking the life out of it. I took it away from him and he was just sooooo sad. How DARE I do that to him? Such a mean mom. Actually, I think it was meaner that I thought it was so adorable that I snapped a picture instead of comforting him.
And this was Addie when she was about 8 months old :) Is it bad that these pictures crack us up?
Addie started pre-school last week! She's one of 12 students in Miss Bea's Tuesday/Thursday Pandas class. If you know Addie, you know that she has been the queen of separation anxiety since...birth? Oh and she freaks out in large crowds of children. Large crowds of children...sounds like school to me! Yikes! But we really wanted to get her started in a school situation sooner than later so she could work through some anxieties and gain even more of the independence that she has developed since Cole was born. Needless to say, I was very very nervous about how this would go over.
We prepared her for a long time, getting her excited about school, attending a playground meet-up with her teacher and a tour of the classroom. Yaya had the wonderful book "The Kissing Hand" at her bookstore so we read it every morning during the week leading up to the first day. My friend Megan gave me the good idea of preparing Addie for what the first day of school would be like, so every day for a week I would say "So we'll walk into your school and put your backpack on your hook, I will show your cubby with your name on it, and then I'll say "Bye Addie, I love you" and you'll say (and she'd chime in with) "bye Mommy, I love you."
The first day arrived and she was very excited and very ready. We rushed around getting things ready to go and we arrived there a little early. You aren't allowed in the classroom early, so we hung out with the other parents in the "riding room." Addie stuck close to me and looked nervous. I tried to be more cheerful on the outside than I was on the inside.
Finally it was time to go to her class room. We walked in and hung up her backpack, and found her cubby. One of the moms working (it's a co-op, which means that there are two moms in the class room each day, so Steve or I will have to work 1-2 times a month) asked Addie if she wanted to do playdough. Addie said yes and sat down. At the orientation, Miss Bea said "don't linger, just say goodbye and leave" but looking around--the other parents were lingering!! Addie looked up at ME and said "Good-bye Mommy, I love you!" Are you KIDDING ME? So I kissed her and left. There was a meeting at the nursery (where Cole will hang out when I am working my co-op shift) and when it let out 25 minutes later I couldn't help but peek in the window of the door to her class room.
There, calm as can be, was Addie, sitting alone at a table coloring. And I swear she had a very "I'm important" look on her face. Wow. I mean, wow. I went home and put Cole down for a nap. They didn't call me to come and get her as I had imagined they would have to do. When I pulled into the parking lot to pick her up, I noticed her class was outside on the playground. And Addie was happy! I went up and she immediately announced that indeed she HAD cried when she had to wash her hands for snack and Miss Bea confirmed that she had cried for about 10 minutes. "Because, you didn't COME, mommy" "Well I'm here now, right?" "Yeah" :)
The second day of school went very much the same--we did our little routine, I left her without a single tear. Cole had napped before we left this time so he and I rushed to Trader Joe's for a shopping trip. As I drove home I realized I had about 20 minutes to get the groceries in the house and get back to school--plenty of time. But I have to pass the school in order to get home and I glanced at the playground and noticed that Addie was in one of the moms arms. I considered trucking on with my plan, but instead I turned around--not to rescue Addie 20 minutes early, but to rescue the mom. Addie is a craver of vertical elevation--she likes nothing more than to be carried, and if I could guess right, this mom could have been holding her for awhile to avoid her tears. I was right. Addie was fine if she was in this lovely lady's arms. So...she does great at drop-off. She gets upset at transition time, but is fine after some tears and some TLC. Verdict? Better than I could ever imagine it would be...times a gazillion.
But poor Addie, I will be asking the moms on the next shift to not hold her...I'll let you know how it goes... :)
I can't believe my little girl is in school. Did I cry? Not a drop--I'm just so thrilled that it's going so well!
So from the beach we headed to visit Yaya, Poppy, Doug, Alli and Julie. We left the beach around nap time in hopes that the kids would go down. Riiiight.. After quite a bit of fussing on Cole's behalf we stopped at a rest stop, Steve and Addie went in for drinks, and I fed Cole till he fell asleep and put him carefully in the carseat. We instructed Addie to be very very quiet so as to not wake him up and if she needed to talk, she had to whisper. Well, whisper she did. For the entire 1.5 hours left of the trip. No nap for Addie that day...and a lot of whispered stories and songs later....we arrived! Cole and Julie got straight to re-acquainting. Not sure why I can't turn this one, but I love it because they're holding hands again...awwww....remember when they did that back in May? Coley loves hearing Poppy whisper secrets into his ear.....pssst. Dinner time! Lots of yummy food to be had this weekend.... What....you've never seen pureed carrots before? They can be just as tasty as pizza. Ayum! Julie is a smiley bug! That bow was Addie's when she was a baby--featured in this old school blog post. Doesn't Julie look a bit like Addie did? Addie loves to "hold" Cole like she did when he was little, but now he's so big, she has to settle for just hugging him from behind. Couch photoshoot. BIG Smile :) Sweetness. Cousins! We took a trip to Halo Pub for some ice cream. Yum! The babies had to settle for chilling in their carseats. Because this is what happens when Cole gets out...
Addie's first chocolate chip cookie dough...big fan! Douggo and Cole relaxing
Addie and Yaya laughing... ....and giggling... ...and cuddling :) It was Poppy's birthday the day after we left, so we celebrated early with some birthday eclairs. Some more kisses and cuddles... Some family pictures...
And it was time to go home :( The trip went too fast! So we left home around naptime on Tuesday in hopes they would go to sleep....riiiight. But wait! They did! I fed Cole until he was asleep at the house and put him in the carseat and Addie was--once again--instructed to be quiet. She was and...miracle of miracles, she fell asleep!! We were relaxing, feeling a bit smug actually because we got our kids both down at the same time when...what's that smell? Oh look, Cole's awake but happy. And yes, what IS that smell? Oh...he pooped. So we pull into the parking lot of a Burger King and I set to a 20 minute clean-up because he pooped all over the carseat, all over his outfit (in the trash!) and all over him. Addie woke up halfway through the cleanup and because it was only after 20 minutes of napping...understandably cranky. We whipped out the emergency portable DVD player and she was happy and Cole was happy for the rest of the 2 hour trip...seriously!
