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).

The Love of Siblings

I took Hallie to Pennsylvania Hospital to see Mommy and meet her sister Lea on Sunday. Even though Sharon was coming home on Monday, it seemed like an okay thing to do. Of course, we were a bit concerned that seeing Sharon in a hospital bed and obviously unable to get up and move around would upset Hallie. Hallie is not a big fan of hospitals, for all of the obvious reasons. The one time we stopped into the PETU for Sharon to be evaluated earlier this fall, Hallie was devastated. Even though the ultrasound technician wasn't doing anything to Sharon, who was still wearing mostly street clothing, Hallie had a complete meltdown. And then, this past Thursday, when Sharon came home from the same unit wearing a hospital identification band, Hallie literally recoiled in horror. She knows what these are and their very sight inspires fear. So I had a bit of trepidation when I set out with Hallie in the stroller.

Indeed, Hallie's first response to seeing Sharon was one of sorrow tinged with relief:

 

Hallie could not get close enough to Sharon and was uncharacteristically still when she draped herself on top of mommy and held her fast.

But a couple of things really helped Hallie adjust. First, there was meeting Lea:

 

But her brother Jake's presence in the room had an even great impact on Hallie's mood. Jake's mommy Gina drove up from Central New Jersey to introduce Jake to his newest and youngest sister. (She also took a grand tour of most of the hospitals in the immediate area, stopping in first at HUP and CHOP in West Philly before locating Sharon's cell phone number and getting directions back to Center City).

Here's a shot of the three siblings and Sharon:

 

And here's a lovely shot of Gina and Jake with Lea:

 

Of course, the highlight of the visit for the little ones was racing around the halls of the maternity floor chasing after the hand 'balloons' Gina had made for the kids, peering in at all the babies in the nursery, and drinking lots of water from the cooler. The kids really did have a blast:

 

I am not sure what the other folks hanging out on the floor were thinking, though, when they heard both of the preschoolers calling different women 'mama' while wearing 'Big Brother' and 'Big Sister' t-shirts. Jake and Hallie look obviously related, but the arrangement must have seemed odd, though no one said anything (Gina thought that there might be an issue when Jake called her 'mommy' in front of the check-in desk person who was signing in a little boy who was going to visit his newborn sister). As confusing as this all might be to others, we really do love our extended family relationship with Jake and Gina and are thrilled that our girls are going to get to grow up with an older brother with whom to play (and, at least, in Hallie's case, adore and admire).

On Monday, after a bunch of paperwork; a couple of checkups for the girls (Lea lost a little weight, but not too much, and was down to 6 lbs. 2 ounces. Her right eye had goop in it and was crusted over and giving her the look of a baby pirate and her bilirubin levels were borderline; not high enough thank goodness to warrant a stay in the ICN but just high enough to demand a re-check; Sharon was in pain but nothing unexpected given the severity of her tear); and photographs (we have yet to look at these and see if there are any worthy of birth announcements), we packed up and got Lea bundled up for her trip home:

 

 

It was great to have a take home baby this time around and leaving the hospital felt very different than when we did this with Hallie in October 2006:

 

Hallie was napping when we got home, but soon woke up and joined all of us downstairs. She is taking very well to being an older sister. She is thrilled to hug, kiss, and love on Lea. She also has been doing a lot to help out. If she sees Lea's blanket sitting around on the couch or changing table, she'll return it to Lea and more than once she has tried to put Lea's hat on her head. Hallie really is a gentle and empathetic little girl and so we really do think this transition will be more or less easy. And, of course, she's thrilled to have all of us around at home right now.

 

Here's a really sweet picture of Hallie kissing Lea:

 

And I suppose that the only signs of regression that we've seen so far in terms of Hallie's behavior can be summed up by this next picture. Apparently a baby carseat makes a lovely and comfy toddler barcalounger: