Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Green (Caroline)

Emma is obsessed with green food at the moment. Broccoli. Brussel sprouts. Avocado. Bring it on.

Last night, I cooked chicken stew and cornbread, which is one of Anna's favourite meals. I thought Emma would really enjoy it. But no - she even stuck her tongue out at my beautiful cornbread and happily munched on a piece of broccoli.

I know that in the future we will miss having a child who eats her veggies, but I must say I was a bit miffed that she didn't like my special meal.

A few other shots from the last few weeks:

Family Photo Album (Caroline and Anna)


Sunday, December 13, 2009

Odd comments (Anna)

We were at the mall today, doing some Christmas shopping. Someone came up to me and, gesturing towards Emma in her stroller, said "I can tell he's going to be really smart."

Emma was asleep at the time. I guess there was something about the incline of her neck that attested to her intelligence (not to mention her masculinity.)

Friday, December 11, 2009

Santa baby


"What do you mean, I'm too young for a bike? I want a bike!"



More stuff (Anna)

It's lovely to watch Emmy's development.

Tonight, in the bath, I started blowing funny noises into a cup. Last week, she would have giggled and watched. Tonight, she grabbed the cup and pulled it away, and then put it back up to my mouth when she wanted me to make the sound.

Her understanding of "object permanence" has arrived. We can no longer put things behind our back and hope she forgets about it. And for several months, we've been playing peekaboo with her. Now, she'll put a towel or a blanket over her own head and pull it off, hoping for us to yell in delight "Peekaboo!" (which of course we do).

She's also learnt fear. Things she has encountered pretty much every day since she was born are now scary. The phone. The toilet flushing. The garborator. And she's very reluctant now to be carried by other people, screeching and wriggling back into our arms. When we leave the room, now, more times than not, she will scream bloody murder and it's an indignant kind of scream, as in "You think you can just go to the kitchen and leave me here?" It's touching and adorable and exasperating, like most things about parenting.

And there are new sounds every day. Today's is "ing, ing, ing."

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Milestones (Anna)

Emma has one of those wire toys threaded with beads. Today, for the first time, instead of just upending it or putting it in her mouth, she sat down in front of it and started to move the beads. It's the first time she's acknowledged a toy as having a "correct" way up.

She's got a host of new sounds, including ra ra, fa fa, abala, ga-ga-da-da, Mu-ma, An-an-an-an-a and bla-bla-bla. When she puts ananana together with blah blah blah, I start to wonder if I'm talking too much ;)

I'm enjoying being "Mumma" because I can pretend that Emma is referring to me when she strings together M sounds. Caroline, on the other hand, is regretting that "Mummy" will take Emma longer to master.

She pulls herself up on everything, and has started to walk sideways while she's holding on.

She can now put herself back to sleep when she wakes up (yayy!)

Somehow - we've not sure how - she can partly undress herself when she's wearing a sleeper, leaving her feet bare.

She's enjoying feeding herself and sometimes growls at us when we try to feed her. When she's tired, she will still happily lean back in her high chair, open her mouth and deign to let us shove food in it.

She likes to unload the dishwasher. We're hoping this is a permanent feature...;)

She's learning about edges, and will now often stop when she gets to the edge of the bed or the top stair going down to the living room instead of catapualting over the edge (the big staircases are gated; we prefer small-scale experiments at this stage.)

Christmas prep (Anna)

Two years ago, we tenderly placed deeply symbolic baubles on our Christmas tree to represent our dreams of having a family.

Last year, we exchnaged baubles that represented the tiny human being growing inside the warm, cosy confines of Caroline's belly.

This year, the whole tree celebrates the fact that we now have a kid. But it's a little more pragmatic this year - there are no ornaments on the bottom metre of the tree, since certain little fingers will just try to pull them off!

In other news, a certain someone whose name begins with A locked the car keys inside the car today and had to be bailed out by a certain other someone whose name begins with C. So in addition to German Christmas cookies, there's some humble pie being consumed in our household tonight. *blush*

Lilypie Third Birthday tickers

Lilypie Third Birthday tickers