Fun Times with Brothers!

Part of what has made this summer so much fun is that we've not only provided Hallie and Lea with the opportunity for playing with their cousins pretty much every weekend, but we've also managed, somehow, to get the kids together with their siblings. There is, of course, the famous July 4th reunion. But our fun didn't end there.

As regular readers know, we've been lucky to have Jake and Gina in our lives. It's hard to believe that we've only known them a year (we first met at Jake's 3rd birthday party and he just turned 4 this past week) since it feels like we've been in each others' lives forever (in a good way, naturally). Anyway, we enticed the dynamic duo up to Philly on the first Sunday in August to accompany us to the Academy of Natural Sciences, which is a small, pretty user-friendly natural sciences museum on Museum Row (Ben Franklin Parkway) in Philly.

It's a taxidermists dream, too, so if you are a three year old who loves running around saying things like "tiger!" "zebra!" "bear!" and "antelope!" while your mothers have serious qualms about the life-like manner in which these specimens have been stuffed, you are in the right place. They also have a very cool butterfly exhibit where butterflies (live, not stuffed) fly around you in the tropical rain forest environment they've provided for them and where you can watch butterfly larvae and cocoons ripen and hatch. But the best feature is the third floor (which is mysteriously hard to access) which is a hands on place where children can explore the natural world. It's called Outside In and the kids thought it was pretty awesome. There are always several live animals wandering around (well, not really wandering so much as taken out of their living quarters regularly by handlers who help facilitate petting and such), skins and shells of creatures that kids can touch, rocks and stuff like that to play with, and a big giant sandbox. Oddly, no sand tools are provided but that did not prevent Hallie from innovating: she grabbed some creature teeth and shells and imported them to the sandbox and began digging away.

There are also lots of books and puzzles about the natural world in bookshelves in a nook for the kiddos to read and do.

Hallie enjoyed petting the turtle and bunny rabbit but she was particularly fond of holding the hissing cockroach. Yes, I kid you not.

All that digging, running, puzzle-completion, and cockroach petting worked up our kids' appetites and so we headed over to Jones, which is a Brady Bunch-themed comfort-food restaurant in Center City. The kids were well behaved and so the adults actually got to eat. That doesn't mean they didn't have fun, of course. Gina, ever the prepared mother who puts the two of us to shame, had barrels of monkeys and crayons and such for the kids. And the kids made their own (utterly harmless and entirely amusing fun). Here's a shot of Jake being silly (and, no, that is not his beer bottle, but it is his ice cream sundae):

And Hallie copied everything that her big brother Jake did, including feeding herself a huge amount of applesauce. She topped off a couple of pieces of her goat cheese, a bunch of fries and a lot of applesauce with a humongous portion of chocolate cake:

It might not have amounted to the most balanced meal in the universe, but we were thrilled, as I am sure any parent of a food averse not terribly enthusiastic preschooler would have been. (We were equally ecstatic that the cake, which no doubt contained a vast quantity of cow dairy and eggs, stayed down. That's happening more and more lately and, in passing, let me mention that we are now on 162 vomit free days this year and hopefully many more to come).

The kids all posed for a nice shot with Sharon and me before Gina headed off to New Jersey with brother Jakey.

The following weekend, Gina and Jake were headed right back to our neck of the woods. Rebecca was passing through Philly with brother Ben and we all met up at Franklin Square Park.
The park, which is the site of a pretty recent addition to Philadelphia's playgrounds, is one of the five original squares laid out by William Penn and features a carousel, a sand castle, miniature golf, and a bunch of other fun stuff.

The kids climbed on the climbing structures (some of which are quite awesome but a bit beyond Hallie's gross motor skills and confidence level) and swung on swings:

Jake ascended the climbing structure with aplomb:

Hallie loved the slide, of course:

But she did not quite get the tilt wheel thing (I have no idea what it's really called) that Ben adored so much:

They all rode the carousel multiple times:

Here's a shot of Ben on a rearing elephant, which was his absolute favorite creature:

But the most fun they had was during the "water event." It's not entirely clear to me why the park workers (likely volunteers) had devised elaborate games for the kids, who were mostly ages 3 to 6, but our kids had no problem whatsoever ignoring the rules they laid out for the water balloon toss and the water emptying race (which amounted to sponging up water in one bucket and emptying it into another. Fastest team wins). Instead, they decided that shattering water balloons and having them splash all over the place was a heck of a lot more fun than pummeling your brothers with them:

The trio grabbed more than their fair share of the water balloons but no one seemed to mind:

And they got a real kick out of standing and splashing in the tubs:

My sense is that the parks volunteers should have organized a game called "dump water on your siblings":

When we left the playground, all the (older) kids were wet, happy, and exhausted. That is as it should be.

In closing, it's lovely to see our extended family. Hallie gets a real kick out of seeing these pictures (she was standing over me on the chair as I wrote part of this post and kept narrating it in her one-to-three-word-construction fashion). And we hope there are many such get-togethers to come.

Tummy Time!

 

 

Lea is getting stronger and stronger each day and her head control is really getting quite remarkable. I'm not sure if it's quite time yet, but I'm tempted to try out our Ergo baby carrier pretty soon. I'd venture to say that Lea weighs around 11.5 pounds at this point and is quite sturdy. The front carriers are not all that comfortable and I really look forward to carrying the kiddo on my hip. Any Ergo users out there, please weigh in (and please note that we do not have the infant insert and are not particularly interested in investing in one since we have inherited lots of other infant carriers).

And, in case you don't think there's a family resemblance between the girls, behold this shot taken in the ball pit:

 

Lea has also been playing with toys a lot more and has found the best toy of all--her hands. I do think she may end up being a thumb sucker (which would come in handy, so to speak, in the car seat when she loses her binky):

 

On tap for this weekend, or maybe during a moment when Nadia can watch both of the kids: removing all of the 0-3 sleepers. Lea has blown right through these and is onto 3-6 month sized clothing. I suspect that we'll have a whole lot of extra size 1 diapers to give away in the not-too-distant future!

Meanwhile, Hallie's love for Lea deepens each day. Hallie loves saying hi to Baby Lea just as much as she loves saying hi to Barney and Elmo and is particularly enamored of returning Lea's "blinky" and bottle to her. And she adores cuddling with and hugging her little sister:

 

 

 

 

Life with The Girls: A Pictorial Retrospective of the Last 10 Days

There's nothing quite so lovely as seeing the girls loll about on the bed on a Saturday morning of what has turned out to be a relatively lazy weekend. For once we've stayed at home, which has provided me with some time to catch up on things like filing taxes and doing laundry (well, sort of, anyway; anybody ever notice that two kids produce far more than double the amount of laundry of one, not to mention an exponentially increased number of diapers?). It also gave me a bit of time to upload some of my pictures from the various cameras that we use and post them in draft form on blogger. So, in no real order, here's what's been going on at our house lately.

Ever since Sharon returned back to work three weeks ago, Hallie's been utterly fascinated by Sharon's motorcycle helmet. Sharon doesn't have a real cycle (thank heavens!) but a Honda Metro moped, which is a very convenient and inexpensive way of getting back and forth between our house and her office, which is about ten or so blocks away. Hallie loves to sit on the moped and eagerly awaits the return of mommy each night from the office (she hears her pull up, runs to the door, and shouts out: "Hi Mommy, Hi!"). She also loves the helmet and insists on wearing it. It's pretty heavy but Hallie has a strong neck (and a stubborn streak to boot; in Hebrew, the words "kshei oref" mean 'of strong neck' and were used by God as a fairly pejorative way of referencing those pesky Israelites who wandered through the desert during the 40 years following the Exodus from Egypt. Hallie is already quite adept at following in these tribal ancestral footsteps). Anyway, Hallie loves wearing the helmet around the house. Sadly, the only picture I could get was a bit on the blurry side, but you can see how much she is enjoying herself here:

 

All that helmet wearing is going to come in handy for when Hallie really masters trike riding. She's still a bit hesitant about riding the trike that Mark, Vanessa, and Karina gave her for her second birthday, but she had no problem pedaling away on this somewhat smaller model that she borrowed in the playground a couple of weeks ago:

 

 

And, speaking of enjoying herself, Hallie had a fabulous time hanging out with Jake and his mommy, Gina, last weekend. Gina made sure that there was lots of fun stuff to do, like decorating Easter eggs:

 

Hallie also had fun prancing about in Jake's easter bonnet:

 

When she wasn't excavating all of the toy bins (in other words, trashing the house; thank you, Gina, for being so tolerant of her curiosity!), Hallie was horsing around with Jake. Any time he was off in another room, Hallie would come looking for him, shouting, "Where's Jakey? Where'd he go?" and then, when she found him, would exclaim, "There he is!" The kids had a fabulous time playing together:

 

 

 

Hallie was also a very fine dinner companion for Jake. Or, more to the point, Jake was a total gentleman who sat beside Hallie the entire time and even put her favorite programs on for her (tolerating Sesame Street and Barney when he would have much preferred to have been watching the Disney Channel). Hallie not only ate her usual fare (hot dogs and fries) for dinner but also tried, and loved, the spaghetti we had ordered for her. She did a great job of twirling it onto her fork and actually getting some of it into her mouth. This love of spaghetti (mostly the sauce) has persisted and spaghetti eating is now an emergent skill that she has. Here she is at home enjoying some italian fare:

 

And here's a lovely picture of Gina, Jake, and Baby Lea:

 

We can't wait to hang out again with Gina and Jake next weekend!

Last Sunday, we not only attended the Regatta on the Schuylkill River, in which the girls' oldest cousin, Sarah, who is a freshman crew champion, participated but also had a lovely dinner at Ethan and Cole's granparents' home. Here Hallie, Ethan, and Karina are enjoying some quality time in a Radio Flyer wagon being furiously pulled by yours' truly:

 

Needless to say, everyone was plum tuckered out on Monday!

The rest of the week was fairly quiet (unless you count about a dozen or so assessments and therapy appointments), and, like I said at the outset, we really did enjoy recovering at home this weekend. But this did not mean we were housebound: we did manage to do a Target run that has resulted in the further progression of our living room into a sensory gym. While out shopping for various and sundry birthday presents for other people in our lives, we acquired an inflatable ball pit that the girls absolutely adore. It did take a while to blow up (even using a very noisy air compressor; we are grateful that Hallie demonstrates little in the way of auditory sensitivity) but the wait was well worthwhile:

 

Hallie's not the only one who got in on the fun:

 

 

And apparently the ball pit is useful not only as a place of frolicking, but also napping. Sharon turned her back for a minute and this is what she saw when next she glanced over at Lea:

 

Speaking of Lea, our little one is not only getting bigger by the day (and has now completely outgrown her newborn duds and some of those sized for 0-3 months) but she's also doing more stuff. She's been playing a lot more in her little gym:

 

 

And on April 8th, Lea emitted her first real squeal, much to our delight and amazement. Hallie never squealed (or cried, either; this is a direct byproduct of her vocal cord paralysis and swollen upper airway). So we were thrilled to hear little Lea's voice get so big with glee.

Lea also wore her first jeans a couple of weeks ago and looked quite fetching in them:

 

And, all in all, she is quite a beautiful little 10 week old (if I may say so myself):

 

She's quite the champion:

 

And so is her funky older sister:

 

(Speaking of which: we're now up to 60 vomit free days and Hallie had her first taste of, and seemed to enjoy, some pork breakfast sausage this morning. It would go quite nicely with the bagel she not only gnawed on but even ate a small bite out of yesterday).