Two Weeks

The kids and I were away from home for a full two weeks. Let me say there was a lot of packing involved! First I had to pack everything up here in PA in preparation for driving down to MD on 5/9. Then we did more packing once Paul arrived in MD on 5/13 in preparation for our flight to FL on 5/14. We were packing again on 5/21 in preparation to fly back to MD, and packing one last time on 5/22 to leave for PA. We got most of the unpacking done yesterday. My mom helped out by doing 3 loads of laundry on Friday night. I only had one small load to do yesterday once we got home. The clothes don't know what hit them as my mom also did some ironing on Friday night. I'd guess that my mom does more ironing in one week than I probably do in about four years.

Since kids change so quickly at these ages, here are some developments over the past two weeks. Ian gained almost 2 lbs while we were away. He weighed 14lb 1oz yesterday. The sudden weight change has been hard on my back. When we left Ian would occasionally bat at a toy when he was in the gym or his bouncer. Now he very purposefully grabs them and plays with them vigorously. He had a blast in his bouncer yesterday. Nadia never had so much fun with it when she was this age. He also will hold various toys and pass them back and forth between his hands - also something he wasn't doing 2 weeks ago. He lost a lot more hair. The new hair is blond. I doubt it will be permanent (since Paul and I were both blonde when we were young), but for a while I am going to have two blonde haired, blue eyed children. I am not keen on the hair falling out stage that babies go through, but at least it's only temporary. Ian laughs a lot more these days. It was so funny to watch when my dad would "scare" him on vacation. Ian would jump when he was startled and then burst into laughter. It was adorable! He learned how to roll over in the last two weeks, and yesterday learned to sleep in his crib on his back. Bye bye, Nap Nanny! The new skills I hope he learns in the very near future are to sleep more at night (he's been getting up every 2 hours or less lately) and how to eat solid foods.

Nadia's growth hasn't been as dramatic over the past two weeks. She learned how to use a straw. She learned new words and is using sentences more often. She really cracks us up sometimes! Yesterday when she was about to go play with Daddy's shoes (put them on her feet and walk around with them) she said "Okay I'm coming, shoes." Wasn't that nice of her to give Daddy's shoes an advanced warning or her impending arrival, LOL? Once in the swimming pool she said to a bird that was on the edge of the pool, "Hi birdie, how are you?" Her friendliness is not limited to her interactions with people. :-) The biggest change in Nadia over the past 2 weeks has been with her singing. She now sings some of the lyrics to quite a few songs including Twinkle, Twinkle (she sings "how I wonder what you are" very clearly for example), the alphabet song, the VeggieTale theme song, and her current favorite, BINGO. We sing many variations on BINGO, and one of those includes her name. She says "DIA" when we're spelling out her name. I think in the near future she'll be able to spell her name! I felt better about her VeggieTale addiction when I overheard her singing the words "love your neighbor" while she was watching a DVD in Florida.