Rachel is 18 months old!

Friends

Our little turbo-toddler is a year and a half old, can you believe it?

Fearless, Charming, Stubborn and Clever are the words that first come to mind when thinking of Rachel. She has stunning blue eyes and an infectuous smile.

Her favorite activity has shifted from "anything Daniel is doing" to reading books. Every morning she crawls into her parents bed and wants to read books. All day long and every evening, you can be pretty sure that she'll come over to you with a book in hand and say "Book!" or "Book pease!" (please). This is followed by "uppease!" (up, please).

Her hair is getting long in the back and slowly filling in on the side. Another 4 teeth need to come in to fill out the 12 that are there already. She's stretching out and the baby belly is receding.

Rachel has amazing balance - she's just very steady and confident. Her perpetually-skinned knees seem to tell a different story, but that's just because she doesn't know her limits. She's tough, and gets up quickly after a fall.

Mere statistics aren't all of course, but for the record, she checks in at:

Weight: 24lbs 15.5oz (60th percentile)
Height: 33.5" (93rd percentile)
Head: 18 7/8" (85th percentile)

Rachel's spoken vocabulary is growing, and she whips out the occasional two- or three-syllable word, but what is really notable is that she understands absolutely everything. You can ask her to go to a different room to pick something up and be reasonably certain that she will. She's very excited about washing her hands these days and will say "Hands, hands!" until someone helps her turn on the faucet. We don't always understand her, or do what she wants though, and when she doesn't get her way she'll stomp her feel in frustration and scream. She has the makings of proper manners - she'll say "tick ooo" (thank you) when she gets something she wants....

Rachel's favorite animal these days are the bunny rabbits that roam our neighborhood. Her favorite food is - well - everything, but the more colorful the better. Her favorite person is still Daniel.

The last 18 months have been a lot of fun, and we're certain it's going to get better and better with time.

Happy 1-and-a-half Rachel.

Love,

Mama, Papa and Daniel.

Summertime in the City

Friends

We've been having too much fun this summer to slow down and write about it, so this is going to be another one of those brain-dump postings to catch up on the last 3 weeks.

A nice development over the last couple of months is to see the kids actually play together. Daniel can still be protective of his toys and dominates the play, but he can also be a really sweet big brother and honestly play with his sister. It's fun to watch - Rachel absolutely adores him, so she really feeds off his positive attention when he wants to give it.

This is the catch-up on video posting too. One reason for that is that we've been trying a new suntan lotion, and while it works well, it makes the kids look blue in virtually every picture from July.

The first video is from the children's museum, which has a lot of fun activities and is a great place to escape to when it's too hot outside. Daniel got to build a tractor, and both of the kids love the oversize legos in the construction zone.

Then there's the second video, where Daniel gets to help make dinner. Thanks to aunt Sara for the idea. He also got to fry up the mushrooms afterwards, and showed a proper level of care around the stove, so it was a great experience for him. It's not faster to have the help right now, but eventually it will be.

Video #3 is a quickie from the annual carnival/festival that our town throws. We missed it last year because of Iceland/Norway, but it was an impressive arrangement that will be fun for years to come.

















There have been a number of trips to Pirate's Cove and the beach for swimming (no pictures due to the "blue" issue mentioned above), trips to Tinytown and weekly concerts in the park. Last week Daniel had his friends Harrison, Carly and Eli at the concert and impressed everyone with his flirting skills. He regularly picks up girls that are 8-9 years old and gets them to dance with him all evening long. He has a strong preference for redheads...
















On the last post I promised a picture of Daniel in his new helmet and pads. So there you go. Stylish, isn't he? Daniel's been continuing swimming lessons with Ms. Jenny at the local pool and is making some nice progress. Now that he has swim goggles, he's not afraid of sticking his face in the water ("talking to the fish") or turning it to the side to breathe ("listening to the fish") - pretty soon we expect him to start using his arms to swim, and then he'll be off to the races.

Daniel's been showing some selective hearing lately (eg: ignoring his parents when he doesn't like what we say) that has gotten him in some timeouts. Just typical 3-year old behavior, really.

And if you're thinking - this has been a Daniel-heavy post, you're right. There's an 18-month-old who's getting a posting all to herself tomorrow.

Until next time.

A.D.R.E.

Kicking the habit....

Friends

It's been a fairly eventful couple of weeks since the last update. Lots of little things to get noted down. If you're a longtime reader of this blog (and seriously, aren't all of you? it's not like we're some sort of general-interest blog) then you have probably noted the subtle shift away from posts designed to inform and entertain you, the anonymous readers - to an online diary format. Hopefully when the kids are old enough to read, they'll enjoy having detailed notes from growing up.

The title refers to Daniel - he's been "Fa" (pacifier) free for 9 days now. He only used the "fa" when sleeping, but it was still time to get rid of it before it became a serious attachment. It wasn't pretty, but it could have been a lot worse - a couple of nights of missing it and he's over the loss.

Last Friday, Daniel got a small package delivered on the front doorstep from "Fiona the Fa Fairy" with an empty envelope and a letter. Apparently Fiona was running low on pacifiers and needed them for the new babies, so could Daniel please send her all of his? Daniel agreed that this seemed reasonable (there was also a hint of a reward), so we went around the house gathering up pacifiers. For each one he found, he popped it in his mouth, gave it a couple of sucks as if to say goodbye - and then threw it in the envelope. Envelope went on the front step, and the next morning there was a nice lego set of "Rollie", "Muck" and "Wendy" from the Bob the builder series waiting for him there. The nice thing about this approach is that giving up the pacifier was truly a voluntary action, so he wasn't ever mad about the "fa" being taken - just a little sad that it was gone. (over now).

Daniel is also weening off the anti-seizure medication that they proscribed after the last seizure, and tomorrow he gets his last dose. The doctors at children's recommended that we put Daniel on a preventative medication when we were at the ER. A couple of weeks ago we were able to get a consultation with a neurologist who basically confirmed what we suspected - that the medication might stop the next seizure, but might not, that it offered no long-term benefit, and that the seizures - while scary, are not dangerous. So there's a lot of information wrapped up in a paragraph, but the bottom line is that Daniel will probably have more seizures until he (most likely) outgrows them at age 5-6 and that medicating against it isn't necessary, so we won't.

Whew - you can already tell that this is going to be a big post, can't you?

On to Rachel, who really ought to have been the headliner here, since she turned 17 months old. The big news is really that she's in the middle of a remarkable verbal "explosion" - she's had great comprehension for a long time, but didn't really talk a lot. Now she uses words all of the time. Her favorites are predictable; "Up", "Milk" and "Mine", but she has a number of others too. As before, Daniel is her great hero, so anything he says/does gets copied more readily than anything we might say. Oh, and she knows her first brand name - she calls her "Crocs" by name.

Rachel absolutely loves the water. Between the bathtub, the small pool in the backyard and the beach, there's nothing she likes more than to splash around naked in the wet stuff. Yes, naked -our backyard is a little nudist colony these days (hurrah for high fences) and when asked to wear a swimsuit at the beach, she was noticably agitated about that.

Rachel has a daredevil streak that is stronger than her brother's. While Daniel never really took to the swing, Rachel loves it, and she'll slide and jump off of things much faster than he will.

This posting is still going on? Finally a wrapup of some recent activities. Last weekend we jumped on our bikes and rode the bikepath all the way to downtown Denver (about 14 miles) where there Daniel rode the trolley. Back up the hill was much less fun for the adults. There have also been bikerides to the local beach.

The 4th of July we celebrated with a BBQ over at our friends Doug and Meg. And Daniel is the perfect age for fireworks - he just went giddy with some of them. Then, (finally, I knew this blog had to end sometime) we went down to Colorado Springs yesterday for Harrison's third birthday at the zoo. We fed the giraffes, rode the carousel and generally enjoyed ourselves.

And as a teaser, Daniel now has a helmet, some kneeguards and his little Razor scooter that he got for his third birthday came out of storage. More on that next time.

Whew.

A.R.D.E